Hello :D
I have been following you for the last year or so (a few days after I got my Tumblr lmao) and I absolutely love your art!
I have been wanting to study your art style for a while but don't really know where to start,,,
Could you please show me a small portion of your art process, if it isn't too much trouble of course. Thank you and have a nice day!
hello. oh my god. this took forever to find.
im sorry it took 2 WHOLE FUCKING MONTHS for me to respond to this but i wanted to put it off until i felt happy with my art process again, so here it is
my fall 2024 rendering tutorial!
(this will be very very long)
FLATS AND WHATEVER YOU WANNA DO WITH LINES GIRL. then make sure to recolor the lineart to better match your base. trust me it helps, bold dark lines are Not your best friend when rendering. wait for that post-rendering
i start off with a doodle or a sketch, and then filling it in with flats and other details such as blush
FIGURE OUT YOUR LIGHT SOURCE. FIGURE IT OUT GIRL YOU CAN DO IT you can make it as simple as possible, make it as big as possible, dont even THINK about the details.........just make it really fucking big so you at least know where the shadows and the light goes THEN add smaller shading details LISTEN TO ME. LISTEN TO ME OKAY!!!!!!!!
my key point with this is for you to learn lighting fundamentals.
it's SOOO ANNOYING but alas......they are all correct. it helps a lot.
one thing i also really want to point out is that i like creating a big shadow shape first before fixing up the little details (such as folds and whatever) because it helps me focus on the way the lighting actually works instead of tunnel vision-ing into making the shading make sense on the clothing.
contact shadows (i dont remember if thats what theyre called okay) theyre fucking ugly because im not actually thinking sorry 💔
okay so basically:
contact shadows (if that's what they're called) are the spots in shading and lighting where light will NEVER hit.
shadows are still influenced by the colors and lights around it (it's why a blue shadow and a yellow shadow feel completely different, despite both being shadows) so it's not always COMPLETELY dark.
BUT! there are small points in shadows where light never hits, and they're almost always super dark or pitch black.
it's hard to explain shadow and light so briefly for a tutorial, but you'll notice it when watching fundamental studies and when trying it out for yourself
YES i unclipped the multiply layer YES its ugly and terrifying but it makes coloring the multiply layer easier okay
the colors merged w multiply so now it looks cool and has depth
overlaying colors that actually make sense
so basically what i did was color the multiply layer that i used to shade the overall drawing
adding a band of red/orange/yellow around where the light hits, and blue where the shadows get big and wide, gives it a fake ambient occlusion effect in the way that a person would get if they stood under the sun with a clear blue sky
the colors don't have to make sense, especially because i never draw backgrounds, but coloring the shadows really help it give a sense of depth and extra subtle detail and effect that just helps make the painting look nicer
around the end, i also put in colors (in an overlay layer with a low opacity brush) that actually make sense in context of the drawing, which is the lit cigarette and the yellow eyelights
mostly because none of the colors were making sense and i needed to actually make use of the lighting that DOES exist in the drawing lol
adding a muddy golden yellow pin light layer (opacity turned down to like 40-50%) to make the light colors less ugly lol
i SWEAR by the fucking pin light layer style. it's so useful and so so underrated.
i used an almost brown-ish gold color on stop of all the layers, and with the pin light layer, it helped make the bright (almost blue-ish) white colors more warm and more yellow. it just helps make things more warm (something i prefer)
i could probably show what it looks like without adjusting the layer opacity to truly show off what i mean (like in the coming section) but i sadly forgot to do that lol
make a layer on top of your drawing with this color in these ranges YES the drawing is fully merged NO don't be afraid, the base was fucking ugly anyway 💔
make this layer into an exclude/exclusion layer style TRUST
turn down your exclusion layer opacity from a range of 10% to 40% literally until you're happy with the contrast and the way the color over the drawing. use your eyeballs. i know you can do it im so proud of you
this is pretty self-explanatory instruction-wise, so i'll go into why i do this instead
i really like art that seems like it has low contrast, with almost mid-gray shading and lines. i don't personally use dark and bold lines and shading, unless i find it necessary for the tone of the piece, so using this method helps lower the contrast of the art and make it look "pleasantly muddy" in the way that it's easier and softer on the eyes.
the inverted blue color also helps makes things warmer!
the exclusion layer style is still a bit of a mystery to me but i really like the effect it gives, even if i don't completely get how it works lol
if you want an alternative method to this, and if you have access to it (because i primarily use sai and sai only),
i absolutely encourage you to play around and experiment with gradient maps.
there are so many out there you can make yourself or even get from others that just give the painting an extra amount of depth and color variation. they're SO fun.
personally, if sai2 gets a gradient map update, it's over for y'all it will literally be so over no one will be able to stop me
then i merged everything and actually adjusted the contrast back up because it was looking too muddy for me 💔 but the color adjustments are still there so all hope is not lost
here's a comparison of the adjusted contrast in black and white
(adjusted on the left) (newly merged layer without adjusting the contrast on the right)
as you can see, i actually turned the contrast back up (despite talking all about how i liked things with less contrast lol)
i wanted to demonstrate that doing adjustments should be done in moderation, and is why i adjust layer opacity often when making color effects
you are free to play around with colors to help your style, but don't lose your initial idea and colors along the way.
you still need to trust your own colors and intuition!
along with that, i just want to say that it's completely okay to change your mind mid-painting, and it's okay to make somewhat drastic changes.
don't be afraid to change things you don't like or change your mind about certain aspects way later on
that's basically the whole thing of this!!! don't be scared!!!
now im gonna hold your hand when i say this..........but you need to learn how to render by yourself. it seems like i can teach you but i literally can't, because rendering is different on every piece and depending on how clean your base is. i have to render A LOT because of how fucking ugly my sketches are LMAO
to simplify it, think of it as obsessively cleaning up every detail you can see, but with a color picker and a clean, hard edged brush. if you have shit lineart, you don't have to redraw it cleanly over and over, just paint over it. that's basically what rendering is
THIS especially is where you need to be brave and stop being scared.
like i said, i can't teach you how to render, and it's something you have to discover yourself because rendering is something that will always be personal to every single piece you make. the way you render on every piece is different.
on one piece, you will barely need to render, and on another, rendering is more than half of your ENTIRE process.
don't be afraid to paint over your old art.
rendering is a process that's both very perfectionist yet also very careless.
find your balance and just go for it.
and then that's it……..u did it………..now yuo know how to paint and render. it's literally just layering shading and lighting knowledge until you think it makes sense and looks okay lol
additional note: since i render in only one layer (you don't HAVE to do this, but it'll be harder for you…), i also made slight adjustments with the transform (and liquify, if you have it) tool to make things more proportionate. (i drew the head too big lol)
if you compare the finished piece to the final unrendered base, you can see that a LOT changed, including a bit of subtle proportion adjustment.
particularly, the sleeves changed A LOT (because i really didn't like them)
but it's also over all cleaner and more coherent, instead of having haphazard colors and shading just thrown about.
rendering is when you finally use all 100% of your brain to finalize and figure out where the shading should go, where to clean up your lines, where to ERASE or ADD BACK in lines, and make sure all your colors look coherent.
it's not as intimidating as it seems, i only use a hard edged brush with a little bit of color mixing and my color picker.
it's like dragging and dropping colors to cover up mistakes, it's really quite fun when you get used to it
i wish i could explain it clearer but it's hard to describe without visuals!
i hope this helped, and i hope all my yapping isn't annoying (art as a special interest beloved)
have fun studying and trying to render in my art style!
123 notes
·
View notes
you ever think about well.. better than the alternative being a wade song? like,, guy who thinks he's broken wanting to be a good father and someone who can be loved.. like it's him isn't it?
First. This is my 1001th post, and Im up to 506 followers! Thank you, everyone, for everything!
Secondly- Congrats. You made me cry. I litsened to this and thought about it very deeply. Its something thats always resonated with me becuse I KNOW the voices in his head are constantly having anxiety on whether or not Ellie is going to get herititary cancer or not and itll he all his fault. If she'll get herititary mental illness. He worries if HIS own mental illness is going to prevent him from being a father. He spirals in so much worry that shes going to end up thinking hes ugly or gross. That she won't want him as a father, that she would be better off as someone elses kid. But BY GOD if ANYONE tries to take this little girl from his custody theyre going to have to pry her from his cold dead, collared hands.
I actually had a sad idea of Logan helping Wade get his daughter back because they claimed he was a danger to her and that the place they live is unsafe for her. It makes Wade insane. Like actually nuts. It's like he just.. breaks. There's no sympathy, no joking around, constantly crying in pain, no warnings, just plain, quick, silent murder. In this fic I actually had the idea of them getting married "Just to get ellie back" because Logan (as a room mate) can't stand the sight of him absolutely loosing his last purpose of living. So he adopts Ellie legally and shares custody of her, so now hes also her legal guardian and caretaker. "Supervises Wade with his daughter" kind of position and yet he doesn't. Theres no point. He knows Ellie is extremely safe and yes they need to move to a better home, Wade at least wants to live again now that he has Ellie..
The guy holds her so tight every night and plays with her all the spare time he has. Even when hes exhasuted and bloody from work, he still makes time for her. Sure, hes falling asleep at tea parties but at least hes present.
At the time Logan was a single dad of Laura and Gabby too so when they got court house hitched, they didn't tell the girls since yk "Its not like that"
But eventually it DOES become like that and they both have a happy little family of 3 crazy little girls, their crazy dad, and their even crazier papa. Oh and their puppy puppins.
I wont be writing this but if anyone does, tag me!
21 notes
·
View notes
Hi I love your writing!! I wish I had that talent. I was wondering if you have any thoughts of what happened next after Omega Daniel and Baby Alpha Max mated
anon you are very sweet! for you, i hope you like it
When Daniel woke up in his Singapore hotel room, every inch of him was throbbing. His head, his thighs, his fucking hole. His neck. He'd wanted to get up, to tugs the curtains the rest of the way closed so the the evil sliver of sunlight bathing his face would disapear, but he couldn't. Half lying on top of him, Max's hands were covering his skin possessively, one on his tit and one low on his stomach, fingers splayed wide.
This is still nice, a treterous part of Daniel's brain had told him.
Then, Max had looked up at him to smile, letting Daniel see the dried blood at the corner of his mouth, and he'd realised how fucked they both were.
---
"You are angry at me," Max says for the sixth time since they boarded the plane. Max's plane, his new and flashy private charter that Daniel had teased him for being a poor attempt of an omega magnet.
God.
He'd pushed Max off him in the bed earlier, shoved his clothes towards him a little harder than necessary with shaking hands and told him to go and wash his face. Standing behind him in the mirror, Daniel had inspected his own neck, and yes- They were fucked.
Fucked, fucked, fucked.
Now, he supresses a sigh, and like, the urge to jump out of the emergency exit.
"I'm not angry," he promises, also for the sixth time, not looking up from where he's organising his intently Spotify playlists. "I'm just focusing. You know I have TuPac and Lana Del Ray in the same playlist right now? A tradegy."
He wishes he could actually listen to the music, but his stupid headphones are stuffed into his bag, out of battery.
"I do not know who either of those people are." Max says, and Daniel can hear the scowl on his face without having to see it, but now he can like, smell it. Max's annoyance, the way his scent gets all sour.
Right, he let Red Bulls golden boy mate him. Christian is going to murder him, and then Helmut is going to dance on his grave.
Still, Max's statement is ridiculous enough to have him momentarily distracted from his bouncing leg, and the impending sense of doom.
"Come on Maxy," he says, looking up in dismay. TuPac is a little before Max's time, but he can't be mated to someone who doesn't know who Lana Del Ray is. It's just- No.
He bursts into an over dramatic crooning of Video Games, just to punish him a little for his ignorance.
"Daniel," Max says, and then with his serious face finally melting into softness as he starts giggling, he scootches closer to Daniel on the seat. "Daniel, I am of course trying to be serious. I did not mean to."
That has Daniel's song fading into silence.
There's a moment where Daniel realises how he could play this and probably get away without so much as one bad word from Christian, but- Even though it would be easy, it's not fair, to Max. To lay the entirety of this shit sandwich at his doorstop.
"I know," he says honestly, keeping his eyes fixed now on where he's flipping his phone over and over in his hand. "It- Look, it's not like I stopped you. It's not- It's not like I didn't want it too, maybe."
For a moment, Max says nothing as the recycled air in cabin starts to get sweeter.
"Yeah?"
When he speaks, his voice sounds tentatively hopeful, and it tugs at something in Daniel's chest.
"Yeah," he promises, and on a whim, he lifts his arm for Max to curl underneath.
---
Max follows Daniel to his apartment.
Daniel opens his mouth to ask Max if he's lost, to remind him his apartment is two floors up but-
"What movie should we watch?" Max asks, already toeing his shoes off at the door like a good boy. "Martin told me about this very funny one and I thought you would like it. I will get him to text me the name. What do you want for dinner, also?"
Daniel closes his mouth, hand coming up to rub through the curls sitting at the nape of his neck. He needs a haircut.
"You're, ah- You're staying?" He eventually asks, following Max to where he's sat himself down on the sofa and started fluffing up the pillows next to him- presumably the ones he wants Daniel to sit on.
"Of course," Max says, looking up from his handy work, pleased. Then, "on the plane, Daniel, you said you wanted this too. And you are my omega now, so of course, I want to be here with you."
Daniel nods. "Right."
Max gets up from the sofa when Daniel doesn't move any closer, comes to stand in front of Daniel, and takes both of his hands in his.
"I know I am young," he says, so earnest, and Jos Verstappen's horrified face flashes in Daniel's mind for a split second before disappearing. "Probably you think I will be bad, but I- I want to try. To be good. A good mate."
He leans in then and kisses Daniel. It's nothing like the eager, clumsy kisses of the night before, it's just- Soft. The way you'd kiss somebody if you loved them.
"I wanted you for a really long time," Max admits, like a secret against Daniel's lips when he pulls back, and Daniel supposes Max thought it was. He probably didn't realise he had a crush that could be seen from outer space, if he couldn't see Daniel had one right back.
---
"Me too, Maxy," he says and kisses him again, because this close to Max it's impossible not to. It shouldn't feel this good, shouldn't make something tight in Daniel's chest uncoil, but it does. "Alright. Alright, fuck it, lets- Let's do it."
They made their bed, it might be nice to try lying in it.
"I am coming up."
They're sat in Daniel's car, the one he drives when he's in England, parked in front of the Red Bull Factory. Typical to British weather, it's raining, big fat dropplets of water spalttering against the windshield, falling from a grey sky.
"Max, it's okay," Daniel says, leaning across the gear shift to touch his knee. "I can tell him on my own."
Daniel is the one who should have known better and told Christian no in the first place. Except-
Since Singapore, since them, they've not spent a night apart. It's been some of the best sex of Daniel's life, followed by the best nights of sleep he's had all season. Like something inside him knows he's safe. This isn't what they planned, but no matter what Christian says, neither of them are giving it up.
Lifting his other hand, Max touches proudly at the mark on Daniel's neck. He has a matching one now, on his tit because Daniel is who he is, and because Max had shyly asked for it 'over my heart.'
"I am coming with you," Max says again, firmer. He takes Daniel's hand and it makes him shiver. "Daniel, you are not on your own, not anymore."
"Alright," Daniel relents, nodding. He's still getting used to it too, having an alpha, but also just having someone who wants to take care of him. "But you can't let him chew me out, okay?"
Max's eyes narrow, his expression turning dark.
"Like he would dare," he mutters but it just makes Daniel laugh, scrubbing a hand through Max's hair roughly.
"Easy tiger," he says, because this thing is something they're both still learning but- Together. They can do it together. "I need me, my alpha and my boss all in one piece if that's alright by you."
The clouds from Max's expression cleared, a sunshine smile taking over his face.
"Your alpha?" He repeated, smugly.
"Yeah, yeah," Daniel said, opening the car door but unable to hold back his own grin. "Get in the building Verstappen, before I kick your ass up the stairs myself."
191 notes
·
View notes
Hi hello I watched all of carmilla in a weekend when I was 17 because a student teacher who in retrospect I had a bit of a crush on mentioned that she knew one of the actresses. also I am pretty invested in all your recent vampire stuff because I watched iwtv in 2 days last week because your edit intrigued me
oh hiiii 🫶 thank you for indulging me. thats so cool that you watched iwtv! did it live up to the expectation?
i also watched carmilla at 17! or like, 17-19. i found it when s2 had just started and followed it to the end. did something permanent to my brain but i think it was a good thing. on rewatch now im like, i was right to like this. like it's a solid show, it's good. it has its flaws obviously but it's well written, the emotional moments still get me, i can see why i liked it and i still like it now even when it's not anymore, you know, meeting every need that baby gay me didnt even know they had
what it doesnt reaallyy do though - i dont remember if i posted abt this or if i left it in my drafts but - is explore vampirism as a concept. their subject matter is more lesbianism than vampirism. which is great! thats what they wanted to do and they did it and it's very good. but reading interview with the vampire the book rn im realising how much potential vampires have to be metaphors for like so many things and i started wondering like 'wait, did carmilla just not really engage with it or did it all go over my head'. but it just didnt really engage with it all that much. which again is fine bc that wasnt what they were doing. im glad they were more about the lesbianism than the vampirism
but there's this interesting difference in framing, because in iwtv they keep calling armand 'ancient' right? and emphasising how old he is. and he's like 500? and i was like 'wait isnt carmilla like 400?'. she isnt, shes 340, but still, thats getting there, you know? and we know quite a lot about her history, but kind of just the Big Events. when she was turned, the events of the novella, coffin of blood, silas. thats sort of what we know. but none of the long lonely slog of history day to day you know? with armand i feel like we can really feel how much time everything takes. how every one of those years is made up of single days. with carmilla i dont feel that as much. i keep kind of thinking about daniel, when louis calls him a boy in the first episode, saying "im an old man, with all the triggers that come with it"
because carmilla might look 18 (or mid twenties at this point) but she has lived all that time. shes also seen her native land be claimed by like a succession of ruling powers, right? like armand. shes been buried alive, like louis. when lestat is born, shes already 80 years old, shes lived a whole human lifetime, and the entire adult part of it shes been a vampire. shes lived through 1680-1870 being a lure. i compared her to abigail hobbs in some tags on a post, i dont know if youre familiar with hannibal the tv show, but i do also kinda keep thinking about that comparison
if youre not familiar, in the first episode of hannibal the murderer of the week is this guy garrett jacob hobbs who kills and cannibalises girls who resemble his daughter. and later on it turns out she was made to be his lure. like they'd go places and he'd sent her to the victims to make friends and maybe get them back to their home or smth. not sure if they specified all the details. but that's what carmilla did for mother. and in s2 we hear from mattie that while every couple of decades carmilla had to lure victims for the fish god, she also seemed to just enjoy humans between those times, right? like the doctor, gets lonely, gets a new companion. but we've only sort of got mattie's mocking word for it ("dont eat him, hes a poet! or her, shes got such a wonderful voice. or that one, shes just too pretty to ruin"), we don't know exactly from carmilla's point of view what she was doing or why. if mattie's talking about stuff that happened after the blood coffin, 1950-now, then i think it's a fair assumption based on what carmilla says in the s1 sock puppet show that after she'd figured out what the real situation was and what her role in it was, when she'd started trying to save girls from being sacrificed, that she mightve been doing the same trying to save people from becoming mattie's victims. it's probably more likely that she was just trying to find excuses to stop mattie from sucking someone dry rather than actually having like an aesthetic based morality. but it might be a bit of both. im still trying to figure out what her philosophy actually is, like i dont know what existentialism actually means ghkfjghkj but i will
i also found it pretty striking in the movie when shes turning back into a vampire she says like "this was supposed to be done, you know? the blood lust, the self-loathing, the sleeping tied to a chair in my own bedroom". thats what defines her vampirism, wanting blood and hating yourself for it (the third part is a joke/reference to s1 but also i think meaningful for how she sees her relationship with laura when she IS a vampire. little bit of that 'she will reject me for my monstrousness' shining through). and thats what defines vampirism for lots of vampires across the genre obviously, but i dont know, it struck me. we dont get a lot from carmilla's pov, we know a fair amount about her, but the story is always told through laura. we get laura's diaries, but just snippets here and there from carmilla, what shes thinking, how shes feeling
and i love that shes a philosopher. i love that thats how she seems to try and find something to hold onto, in a world that kind of moves around her, having been murdered, kidnapped, turned and groomed to be a lure on the cusp of adulthood, never having been properly loved (the relationship with her father wasnt good she says in s3, and her mortal mother i dont think has ever been mentioned (like laura's)). the only good relationship she seems to have had for the better part of 3 centuries seems to have been mattie, and mattie seems to love being a vampire. i can imagine carmilla just sort of going along with anything mattie wants to do just because shes so desperate for that friendship. not like, against her will necessarily really. but more like, she hasnt even had the space to develop her own will, you know? and philosophy lets you do that. philosophy gives you frameworks to understand the world and to develop your own opinions on it. and by the 21st century she seems to have developed those opinions, she has a sense of her own values, but shes also still stuck in that same situation. shes jaded and cynical in the face of laura's optimism and strong moral code a lot of the time in s1 because she feels probably pretty powerless. like she does what she can to save some girls but at the end of the day shes scared of her mother and she has nowhere else to go really, right?
i like how she grapples with that over the course of the series, in tandem with laura grappling with her black and white morality. she sort of jumps ship from her mother to laura bc theyve fallen in love, but then laura still stuck in her hero thinking refuses to see her monstrous side. not literally bc i think the biological vampirism never seemed to be a problem for laura, but morally. the having murdered. carmilla needs laura to see that and love her while seeing it bc the last girl she loved rejected her for being a vampire.
but you see her kind of swing back and forth in s2. she softens first with laura but then they break up and she leans back hard into the sarcastic cynic defense mechanisms, leans hard into "im a monster, dont expect heroism from me". but thats like, it's sort of learned helplessness i think. it's powerlessness, resignation. bc morally shes not a monster. maybe she doesnt have as strong a drive to help other people as laura does and is a little more selfishly hedonistic in that she just wants to enjoy her/their life, but she doesnt hurt people for fun, she never has. she just sort of didnt have another option for a Really long time. so she pretends she doesnt care. "im a vampire, this is what i do, this is who i am". but clearly from the way she talks about it when she turns back into one, she doesnt enjoy it
and i like how she goes even further in s3, where she starts swinging even more to the heroic side, bc she sees hope. shes like "wow if we kill my mother, i'd be free". theres hope and she becomes like a lot more active. and shes like that at the start of the movie too, a lot happier, a lot more relaxed, and then vampirism is back and bam depression gfhgkjh like shes immediately more gloomy, ashamed of her past and her self, retreats into herself
sorry i just took this as an opportunity to dump all the carmilla thoughts floating in my head on you. you didnt ask fhkghgjh consider this an open invitation to you or anyone else to come talk to me about carmilla
17 notes
·
View notes