#that also means theres a lot of tutorials out there

[juni-ravenhall]

im thinking a lot about "what i want to do with my art" lately and i also have many years of figuring shit out already as an adult so i will post some general advice stuff that might help ppl

art should be fun. if you hate doing lineart then stop doing lineart. if you hate rendering and shading then stop doing it. if you hate anatomy then stop doing it and just draw funky shapes. if you love one color then use that color. if you love doing complicated detailed patterns then start doing those more. if you love drawing circles then make art with lots of circles. do what is fun to you, with the only exception being someone giving you good money to do something not fun, if you need the money.

u dont have to have 1 art style, consistent art is only relevant for commissions/jobs where u are supposed to deliver a specific style/quality/etc that u were paid for. if ur not getting paid or making a portfolio for a specific type of job, then draw however the fuck you want and dont care about anything. have 500 different styles and techniques, or just have 1 if thats how you work. it doesnt matter and everyone is different

the way to develop and evolve quickly is to draw as crazy as possible. push yourself as far as possible and dont care about anything dont worry about anything. fear holds you back. actively choose to draw crazy and push things far. no cringe no limit no rules no anatomy no perspective no color theory fuck everything and go crazy.

dont think "i dont know how to draw a ball room full of dancing people with fancy clothes" "i dont know how to draw a gallopping horse" just start drawing it and see what happens. when you get stuck you look up reference and tutorials. this is how you find out what parts you struggle with so you can then get specific help.

try to draw as bad as possible half the time. think, im going to draw this really fucking bad and ugly. im going to make the worst fucking horrible drawing. do it on purpose. fuck the concept of beauty and quality and perfectionism. draw bad on purpose. draw crazy on purpose. it will help you find freedom.

when looking at other ppls art for inspiration, separate between "i like this thing" vs "i want to draw more like this thing". all art that you like doesnt have to be relevant to how you draw stuff yourself, you can appreciate x type of art without your art being anything like that at all. this is especially important about things like clean lineart, rendering, amount of detail, """correct""" anatomy or perspective or shading, etc. just bc you like some art with beautiful shading doesnt mean you have to want to do beautiful shading. or maybe you do want that! thats why you figure out which ones are aspirational to you and which ones are just amazing and cool but not what you enjoy doing with your art.

the "2 cakes" concept - it doesnt matter whatsoever if someone else drew the same thing as you "but better" (in your eyes). your thing is still unique and has value existing because only you are you and your art is your art. ppl are happy theres now 2 cakes instead of just 1.

i already said this but Just Try. Just Go For It. some of my favourite comics are actually "badly drawn" from a generic perspective. but theyre unique and interesting bc every human is unique and interesting. you can draw stick figure drawings, comics or animations. you can draw simple or complex, good or bad, or go back and forth between styles and techniques, draw good one day and bad the other, make a comic where every page is a surprise in quality and style, nothing matters, do whatever you want forever.

the things you think are "bad" or "boring" or "cringe" or whatever other negative word might not be that to other people. someone might see your "ugly doodle" and love it so much they want it printed out on their wall. and even if some ppl dont like something, other people will like it. the ppl who like it are the ones that matter. not everyone has the same taste and thats how it should be.

draw for yourself. or draw for other people if that makes you happy, but do things that make you happy. draw your favourite things and your obsessions and express your feelings and draw your favourite characters and use your favourite colours or brushes. draw things that your friends like and send it to them. do things that make you smile. draw things that youre thirsty about for that matter. happy pride month. cringe is dead

if you have a hard time picking up the pen dont start thinking "i cant draw". youre probably suffering from some stress, mental illness or ND symptoms or something. try to find out how to solve problems in your life that are making you stressed and overwhelmed and not able to have fun making art. get help, talk to a counsellor, talk to a doc. and make sure you aren't pushing yourself to make art that isnt fun for you, bc that in itself will make you unhappy.

if you feel stuck, aside from looking up references and tutorials, try different techniques and materials. try a new software. try drawing on paper or on a tablet or paint on a canvas or try new pens and papers. make a collage. do papercrafts. sculpt. do something different than what you usually do

CLEAN YOUR ART AREA whether its a desk for your tablet or a table for your paper or stand for a canvas. make it EASY to pick up the pen / brush / whatever and start drawing. dont put objects on top of your tablet / papers / easel / whatever. make space for your art and keep it organised. it should take 1 second to start drawing without having to clean anything first.

if you feel like youre just bad at drawing, like i said, draw bad on purpose. draw crazy on purpose. fuck all the rules and perfectionisms and what you "should do". dont worry about anything just draw the worst and craziest you can. you can do this. i love your art. you exist. youre unique. you are you

[ctommy-chileno]

My experience in impulse buying game development software has given me great knowledge

[aether-friskets]

The sudden urge to bleach my hair even though I've never done it on my own and could very easily mess it up horrifically

[acuar-io]

Advice on how to achieve aesthetically pleasing gameplay photos!

UPDATED: 4/22/2024

I made this post earlier today and people were interested in the comments! Which made me more excited to make this post~

this is just some advice from me! this isnt a tutorial or anything of that sort, but I will be linking some things that could be helpful for editing gameplay! :D

First things first, I want to say that I use a graphics overhaul, lighting mods check my resources page for what reshade i use if ur interested.

I use these lighting mods & graphics override specifically:

sunblind

graphics overhaul

Lotharihoe's ootd* curseforge download :)

Northern siberia winds in-game better lighting mod (bright base)

these are some other lighting mods you can try out as well!

Luumia's NoBlu & NoGlo

these are some other lighting mods like sunblind

how to install lighting mod

I just wanted to add these things in since we're talking screenshots + I wanted to share for the no reshade ppl <3

Now we can move on to the advice!

I love the simple style of gameplay editing so much, but for me I love creating an ambience with my posts and put the audience inside of my gameplay. I also enjoy storytelling with gameplay more than just the "usual" gameplay post (when it comes to me). I am currently playing the globetrotter challenge with my sim Daichi. I really went all out with the editing for that gameplay. For this one its very much a virtual collage of my sim doing things. Trying new things and getting inspired by others is always fun and cool! Remember when u do take inspo: link to the inspiration and @ the simmer that inspired u!!

In my other save (my cozy save) I also take creative liberties there.

its more of a cozy vibe & silent story-telling (storytelling w/o the dialogue). for my cozy save i take inspiration from @/stellarfalls. er gameplay really helped me find my niche thing in the way i play the game tbh!

Angles/Screenshots

When you're taking your screenshots, angles are important. Depending on the shot, you're putting emphasis on a specific thing. This post is very helpful and talks about different types of angles/shots and what they mean. Check it out especially if you want to play around with the way you take screenshots!

Here’s some editing tips from @stellarfalls !!

simmingstars editing tips

Reshade

If I want to create a moody or dreamy ambience I can use reshade. Looking for a reshade that will fit the overall vibe is a must or you can make your own~

i know not everyone is able to use reshade because they're not on windows. I highly recommend using photoshop actions to create that ambience you're looking for.

*These can be used in photopea, but it cant read topaz clean. If you want to achieve topaz clean in photopea, check this post out! just something i'd like to add in case people are new to all of this + dont use photoshop. Lastly, I want to say if you decide to edit photos on photopea, it does tend to crash if you upload a big number of photos and slows down. I usually upload like 6 or 8 and then save and repeat the process. Its kinda annoying, but ive been using photopea for a while now so im used to it. My mac users, use early-grapes butter action if you want things to look cleaner and less harsh!! + the other ps actions down below. I used these a lot when I was a mac user. Of course, that comes with extra steps, but I feel its worth it in the end.

I like these photoshop action packs bc theres tons of stuff in here that can help create a reshade like look:

intramoon's ps action dump

wooldawn's ps acton dump

smubuh's photoshop actions

early-grape's butter action

hazelminesims's ps actions

Templates!

I loveeeeeee templates so much!! theres so many out there to use for gameplay. It really adds more to gameplay posts! This can be dust/dirt, film burn, that cute camera template etc etc. templates are really fun to use and play around with~

I usually go on deviantart to find templates to use! if you want to check out my deviantart account you can find it here! I favorite a lot of things I can use for gameplay screenies.

Gifs

making gifs is cool because it brings the gameplay "to life" ~

EZgif is a free website that converts videos to gifs. You'll need a recording program like OBS (which is also free).

i like making gifs when i want to capture a (cute) moment (kisses, hugs, cooking etc etc). Its also cool to capture the weather in game like when its snowing or raining.

Little details

Some people really go all out on editing gameplay posts like adding hair strands and adding more details to sims faces (catchlights, tears, blushing, etc). You dont really have to do this, but I want to mention it anyways! I want to try doing this at some point because I enjoy editing my gameplay posts/photos in general and adding tiny details is fun to me lol. It adds realism to posts, but it isnt necessary!

Procreate is a really good program that you can get if you have an ipad. its 10$ and thats, that. You dont have to make any payments. You can also animate on procreate too if you're down for that!

Find inspiration in other simmers!

the sims community on tumblr is filled with such talented people! Theres lots of gameplay simmers who dont do your typical gameplay posts that you can check out and learn from!!! Ive always struggled with getting the right angles when taking screenies. I looked at other simmers and how they take screenshots & it was really helpful for me since I noticed I would take too many over the shoulder photos on my sims lol.

I think thats all the advice I have! I hope this was helpful and if you have any questions please send me an ask or dm! :D

[borzoilover69]

Tips and Tricks for krita (part two electric boogaloo)

Ok so this one is going to be a doozy because im going to include a lot of examples and tips for how to use filters (AKA YOUR NEW BEST FRIEND)

Link to part one.

Ok so filters in krita can be a doozy so ill cover the ones i use in my art the most, these will be adjust, artistic, and enhance dropdowns. I will be using my art pieces to show how i modify my art- colourwise!

Obviously, start off with opening the filter menu up. Color balance brings you to this menu, where you can play around with the colour of your shadows, your midtones, and higlights. Its a lot of trial and error, just messing around to see what fits, and its how i got to this point. through just pushing the dials up and down. Honestly, a lot of this part of the tutorial is going to be me telling you to hit those dials and levers like you dont know nobody.

Even just small modifications as you can see can play so much of a difference. For here, i upped the cool tones for john, and upped the warm ones for dave. Colour theory without colour theorising i suppose you could say.

Crosschannel adjustment curves can help with contrast and colour intensity. Usually i have one point which i use to move up and down per my whims to control how bright my work is, and it can really help with really bringing out those colours so it doesnt all fall into one hue. Colour adjustment curves works similiarly, play around with them to get the desired effect.

Krita also has HSV adjustment, but i usually use just the hue and saturation. Theyre pretty self explanatory, and can switch up your palette in pretty fun ways.

Now we move on to the ARTISTIC part. Again, i recommend you play around with them yourself, but i find index colours works really well for making really pretty art really fast! You just put in a few colours with descending lightest to darkest and you get an awesome art piece! Id say this is useful for pixel artists, but also useful for other parties. I might just start using this more myself. Its so easy wtf.

AND FINALLY THE MOST IMPORTANT THING.

HOW MY ART IS SO CRUNCHY.

If youve been following me for a while you probably noticed theres a slight crunch to my art. It gives it a slight bit of texture and makes it noticable. How do i do it?

You're welcome.

insert image of face on 90% opacity and comedic text for purpose.

Alternatively, if youre looking for a sbahj level of crunchiness, smack that "mean removal"for some fun.

Thats all! Happy drawing.

[archie-sunshine]

How do you draw so well and if you can can you do a tutorial?

well if you wanna see me drawing in action i stream on picarto every tuesday and thursday at 7:45pm eastern time

but if you wanna get good at drawing, practice every day that youre able!!

I also used the 'trial by fire' method pioneered by ME where when im out away from my tablet i draw with only highlighters and inking pens, meaning i have to make every stroke of the pen count and theres no takesies backsies. It can help make you more confident in your pen strokes.

ALSO use reference!! use lots and lots of references when youre practicing, specifically from real photography, I try not to reference other peoples art too much. Drawing from reference is like a game of telephone and the further away from the source material you get the more muddled it can be (hence why i always tell people not to use my art as a reference, i drop a lot of details for my particular artstyle)

i won't do a tutorial on how i draw so well because literally most of my art is fucking around. i barely use construction lines anymore and that is NOT a helpful place to start for new artists it gives them the wrong idea, i promise its better to just draw what feels right to you.

ALSO! keep in mind i've been drawing for a full decade now, so i have a lot of time drawing under my belt that others dont, and the only way i got to be this good at art is by practicing constantly.

I very rarely go a full day without drawing if i can help it. but that style doesnt work for everyone and can often lead to burnout, so BE GENTLE WITH YOURSELF!! give yourself grace and remind yourself that you are still learning just like everyone else.

Idk if this was helpful, but thats my advice.

[foileadeux]

im obsessed with your art and animatics... do you have any tutorials or process posts about some techniques you use? like how you move characters separate of the backgrounds (is it just some clever tweening in vegas??) ty in advance... ;; v ;;

sure! umm this is gonna be messy sorry if anythings incoherent. ill walk u thru this segment of the pkradi hollow fight bc theres a lotta layers. heres the shot for reference

aaand heres a breakdown of the layers (called tracks in sony vegas but im just gonna keep calling them layers) from top to bottom

heres the foreground! where i wanna place shit that goes in front of the characters and background

heres where the characters will be placed! sandwiched between the foreground and background, they get more frames (as shown by the smaller segmented images on the timeline) opposed to set pieces which is usually just 1 image, which means we gotta approach tweening w the characters differently since there are a lot more images! ill explain that after this initial breakdown

and heeeres all the background shenanigans. not much to add here. those sure are background frames

RIGHT now to the tweening. when tweening 1 image/frame whateva you're gonna wanna use pan/crop (located on the image, that lil box with a crop around it icon), use this for stuff that only really needs 1 image, like a background. because its easier. like you could use track motion for everything i guess but pan/crops nice and easy and doesnt give me a headache she treats me nice and good

but uh yea so youll start with a little keyframe at the beginning, drag the pan/crop timeline to the end and click the little + sign to create a keyframe! then from there move the pan/crop box (the one with an F on it lmao) around and kablammo. Movement. usually with backgrounds its just a simple panning to the left or right, like how i did it for this shot! but you can do lots more like zoom and angle it etc

aand when you wanna tween across multiple images in a layer/track you're gonna head on over to your layer/track and hit that funny little track motion button aand youll be greeted with a pan/crop lookin thing except its like. for the whole layer/track instead. so the timeline is waaay bigger since it covers the whole thing. but umm yes same principle as pan/crop basically, except youll now need to insert "hold" keyframes right after your final keyframe, copy and paste a keyframe with all the positions defaulted (im gonna assume youre using 1920 x 1080 since its the standard)

like so and then right click a grey keyframe and choose "hold". this stops everything from fucking up and flying between each keyframe basically LMAOO the Hold is it waiting for your next keyframe that is Not a hold. if that makes sense. anyways yea only worry about that for track motion JUST because it works with the entire track/layer, with pan/crop you can ignore this

BUT YEAH thats my silly little sony vegas tweening guide i hope that helps!! umm i have another tutorial also so u can check that out too if youd like :D

[ssseriema]

hi!!i super love your art and how u draw poses its so dynamic and so full of life!!! so i was wonderin if u could show us ur art process or something like that regarding how u draw poses/anatomy /nf

aahhh T_T this is one of those questions ive always had trouble answering but ill do my best, thank you for your kind comments!!!

so. the reason why i have trouble explaining my process is that i just kind of wing most things and if they look wrong to me ill correct them. however thats not very helpful. so these are the things i keep in mind while doing that

a) line of action

the reason why sometimes my drawings of a character just standing there look stilted is that theres no defined or fluid line of action. you can pull it as tight or as slight as you want, but as long as you can see some sort of flow in the character's pose it helps a little with giving them personality and dynamic. theres lots of ways to give a line of action meaning, so if youre having trouble with a sketch, try drawing a line over it and see if theres any way you can make its movement more natural

b) anatomy time

heres where i struggled for a long time T_T anatomy's hard bro, sometimes its still tough to grasp T_T but what helped me out a ton was gesture drawing exercises! during the pandemic this studio called croquis cafe made its library of gesture drawing exercises public (heres an example, warning for blurred out nudity ig?). unfortunately its not out there anymore, but the idea was looking at a nude model and trying to draw them in 30 second, 1 minute, or 5 minute lapses per pose. this essentially helped me get a grasp of anatomy, proportions, and gesture all at once. theres a lot of cool tutorials on it, and a lot of stock reference photos you could use with a timer, but also pls remember this is a method that worked for me and it may not be the best way for everyone else!

what ill use as guides in my initial sketches are more like rectangles and blobs rather than a skeleton just cuz i find those more helpful for the fluidity of the drawing overall, but feel free to sketch out and use whatever. no worries if you have to change the pose and start over if you dont like what youre seeing, and looking at art and cartoons can help you figuring it out too

keep in mind proportions cuz those can be tricky. like ill generally try to keep the joint of the arm at the level of the waist, and also if you ever have doubts, look at a reference image, trace over it if necessary, hell you can make yourself the reference image if you cant find what youre looking for. its so helpful and its saved me so many times ;w;w;w;

sorry for the long rant, i know this advice isnt super unique but its how ive managed so far. if you have any more questions feel free to leave them in my inbox or message me :)

[crowcryptid]

A bad tutorial on how to rip the models + animations from ultrakill and put them in blender

Note: Im using a blender addon to import the models, this is because fbx import is kinda broken by default in blender. The addon Im using is called better fbx importer and exporter. Its paid, but there are other ways to get it. Try without the addon first. If it doesnt work, DM me for a link.

This is NOT a blender tutorial. k? pls dont ask me blender questions.

You will need: Blender (free), AssetStudio (free), and if you want to make gifs, some sort of program like photoshop. I'm not explaining how to render things or make gifs.

ok. Begin.

Go to your install of ultrakill and copy the file path.

Open asset studio and click LOAD FOLDER. Not any of the other ones. Paste the path to your ultrakill FOLDER. Not any of the folders inside that folder, just use the whole thing. Then. Wait. If you dont have enough ram, this wont work. If your pc isnt great this will probably freeze up. If that happens, sorry not much I can do.

Once its all loaded, go to "asset list", then under filter type select "animator" and "animationclip". Search for what model you want. In this case, theres a lot. I dont remember which one i used but most of them should work. Some may have extra stuff attached, like swords.

right click the animator and click "go to scene hierarchy"

Select it. Again, this isn't a blender tut so the model you grab may be incomplete, for ex: sisyphus and minos have separate parts for their hearts/veins and sisyphus has a unique head made of 3 parts. Im sorry I wont be explaining all that :p This is just a basic guide. Experiment and you'll get it eventually.

BTW you can grab his weapon models but I havent figured out how to include them with the animations yet. If its even possible, idk.

Now for the annoying part. Finding the animation. If you just search for gabriel, you'll notice only 3 come up. I suggest sorting only by "animationclip" (do not use the search bar) and trying to find one. If you grab an animation for someone else, it wont work. This is just trial and error. For ease, I will be using the one called ZweiCombo (not ZweiDash despite the pic, i fucked up lol), I know this one belongs to gabe cause he is the only one with swords, well besides swordsmachine but you get what I mean..

Ok, now create a folder somewhere and name it.

Under model, use "export selected objects (merge) + selected animationclips" and export it all to the folder you made.

Now open blender and import the fbx file. If you press spacebar you should see something move. If it doesnt work then um.. you either grabbed the wrong animation, wrong model, or the fbx import got fucked. Trial and error. The textures also may be missing but again, this is not a blender tutorial. You can search that up, but to find textures if they didnt export at all, use filter type "texture2d" and search the character, you should be able to find all their textures. Some exceptions tho. For ex: gabes wings are named like "t_wings.png"

done :]

There are other ways to grab the model, by grabbing the "mesh" not the "animator". I think works both ways, as far as I can tell?

EDIT: Forgot to mention that, as far as I know, you can only have 1 animation attached to the model you exported. This is why we made a folder. So if you want 5 animations from the same character, create 5 folders and export the model 5 times with a different animation selected each time. If an animation doesn’t work, I recommend just deleting everything you exported and starting again.

[a-whispering-echo]

Heya!! Feel free to not answer or not consent to it, but I was wondering if I could use your Heathers!Dust AU for a big ol' story I'm working on? (The Dustverse)

And if yes, may I know about your Heathers!Dust AU? ( In the form of links or just random little tidbits of info )

. . . and also Pestilence!Dust if that's all goods

Obviously feel free to say no! Hope you have a wonderful week regardless :]

of course you can use them! i'd be flattered!

My heathers au is based on the musical - Heathers, where the mtt play the heathers, and Cross is Veronica; Dust plays Heather Chandler's role here.

basically, theyre just the mucical cast but they the utmv guys

In my head, its also an actor au, but you can totally ignore that for plot purposes ;)

Heather Chandler actually dies about halfway through the musical, murdered accidentally by Veronica and JD - or Cross and Nightmare here - so if you wanted Dust to be a ghost or alive, totally up to you!

Chandler's bossy, the leader of the Heathers, manipulative and unappolagetic - mean for the sake of being mean, really

His scarf takes the place of heathers scrunchie here, and when he died, Killer (H.Duke) takes it and wears it in to ‘take control’ if you will. Dust does Not Like That (™) 

This makes Horror (H.Mcnamara) really sad 

i have a *cough* Slime tutorial here if you were interested hehe

Im gonna go through and tag all my heathers au now with 'Rues Heathers AU' so you should be able to find stuff ive done in the past from them, and stuff i will continue to make ;)

He or she pronouns are fine for Dust here, cus i couldnt really decide if i wanted to genderbend everyone to match the genders of the characters or not, so up to you really, both, one or the other, whatever lol

Pestilence is a bit more complicated; from my Four Horsemen Au - where Nightmare, Dust, Killer and Horror take the roles of the four horsemen, who are said to appear at the end of the humanity, and bring about the apocalypse and all that, from christian texts

Pestilance actually has a redesign since i made him, because hes one of my older things, so:

The first horseman, with a bow and crown, rides a white horse - Dust - Pestilence/Conquest

His crown is made of thorns and branches, jesus style, with melting candles dripping wax slowly; its said when the candles fully melt and the flames burn out, humanity is no more.

The actual 'crown' part of his crown are pitch black metal, and are shaped like arrows

The white sheet covers his face, the way you do to dead people - you do not want to end up seeing his face, because you wont see anything after it if you do ;)

he is constantly in a state of dusting - never fully committing to it,

His hands and body are covered and stained in monster dust and human blood, stains that can never be washed out

he is in a perpetual state of dusting, never really committing either way, just..constantly decaying

He constantly has this green illness liquid dripping from his eyes and mouth - its poison.

His arrows are all poison tipped as well

His bow and fletch are summonable, and attach to his belt easily - he can summon and de-summon them at will.

His horse - which i didnt draw because fuck that - is activly rotting and decaying, bones and rotting flesh making up its body. its a white horse, obviously, with voidless black eyes

both he and the horse trail dust everywhere, disease laying in the powder

the illness that he causes can be physical sickness, and it can be mental sickness, basically anything you count as ' being unwell' he can cause

hes a bit kooky really, he screams and cries and laughs a lot more than he actually talks but he is capable of it, hes just quiet and ominous really, and theres this lingering presence of illness and threat around him. like his space, which is ironic, because illness festers in crowded spaces, its where he thrives.

"i will cough on you if you do not leave me alone."

[sungsuho]

so far throughout the story there hasnt been all that much focus on the mystery of the tower and whether the creator of the tower is malicious or not (say as compared to like. the tower in player who cant level up or solo levelings system) but the hints we have gotten are very interesting... there was clearly some great war that happened outside the tower right before it was created which was what drew in a lot of people to join, and the goddess' message before entering the 21st floor is talking abiut how they coukd have stayed in the tutorial of the tower forever since the tower was created as a safe heaven. which is very interesting.... normally by now id havw a pretty good idea on whether the tower is Good or not but fir this one its hard because it definitely seems good but the way tye sword emperor talked about the 99th floor is also very interesting... what do you mean the wall between the 99th and 100th floor is insurmountable and theres no boss monster? its very interesting. especially with the existence of the constellation killer as well.... and the story (gonja) tellinh uou how the constellation killer may think that killing the constellations is a good thing but it fucks over the people in the worlds thar no longer have constellations.... its just very interesting

in most tower climbing manhwas the tower is at best a neutral-evil leaning entity i feel but i dont thinj its necessarily the case for this one... theres a lot of talk durinh fhe hingry demon arc on why the tower let players like the flame emperor exist if they also create players like kim gongja and its like. hmmm... i feel like the hungry demon arc in general reveals a lot about the tower as well. because it had a set story that it wanted to pkay out in floors 11-20 but when gongja decided to abandon that story it completely supported him. not to mention the presumed master od the tower being the deciding vote about the hundred demon army skill and basically asking gongja to speak from his heart on ehat he wanted.... its just very interesting. there are many things we dont know about tye tower yet that im having fun piecing together...

[carehounds]

Hey, can I ask what your process was for that valentine's animation with cardinal and blue? I keep coming back to it it's really nice

Oh yeah ofc! that makes me glad uaaua Although. Im not at all in any way an experienced animator i dont animate often so my workflow may differ and change due time! none of it is has a rigid structure and i usually just do whatever feels right. I also would love to show you what i did for the valentines animation, but the file is very disorganized and slow on my end </3 so ill be using diffrent clips from in the meantime.

to start off ! keep in mind that i use Clip Studio Paint, which has a diffrent workspace from other programs and I only use 5-8 frames per second on an animation canvas with extra space. its just so i can write notes or extra details id like to add whenever im animating! keeps my brain less messy while working. heres a little visual :^) (literally just my normal workspace witb the timeline and autoaction that i can just hide wenevar i wnt)

the actual process can be summed up to Keyframe > secondary action > "inbetweens" or just little adjustments which is just duplicating still frames and moving and transforming some parts to add a little bit of bounce, > lineart and color.

I dont neccesarily follow that step by step though ! i usually just do frame by frame while going back to fix little errors I may have missed. I also tend to animate other parts of the body first (arms heads eyes) instead of drawing the entire thing one by one so itll be more digestible, especially for things like hair and face in some cases. those usually have their own dedicated folder depending on how complicated they are. Coloring is a whole nother can of worms but theres a lot of clip studio brushes that make the process easier.

again ! im not at all anywhere experienced in animating. ive only animated a few times in years and alot of what i know is just me relaying information from people more experienced. so definitely having some knowledge beforehand even passively helps alot too! Ive heard some act out scenes before putting it onto paper and i did that too. for the backround painting I dont actually do anything too fancy. all I did is paint each individual parts that i want moving, and moved it slightly around using the keyframe feature to make it look a little lively. Its sorta like a capcut transition feature more than what keyframes traditionally means. I definitely recommend derrek's tutorial on the prgram for a more clearer explanation on it!

and thats about it!!! I listen to music sometimes but other than that my process isnt really that complicated! i really just do watever when it comes to animation and experiment! its a weird learning curve but the payoff is good n swell.

[mejomonster]

Now that I have given Sherlock Holmes Chapter One more time to unfold. I really love the writing. Like just cannot get over it tbh. I want to wrap myself in it. I'm having euphoria after the pains of (what moffat did once upon a time) and my villaineve girlies (and the ending after so much solid stuff beforehand).

It feels 1 like i real Sherlock Holmes story (as in written well, flawed growing characters, respectful to source material AND respectful to us the audience) while also feeling fresh (its a prequel so a lot of freedom to show a new young sherlock with flaws turning into someone more recognizable as he heals and grows, cases i dont know the answer of, and a pretty damn grounded childhood trauma emotional pains fucking relatable heart thread through a wilder more dramatic murder cases arc). The only game i can think ti compare it to is the Ryu Ga Gotoku games, specifically Judgement if you took just the detective gameplay. Like? While I think Judgements gameplay is a bit funner, I think Sherlock Holmes Chapter One has more in depth side cases so if you're a mystery lover it balances out (now Judgement's main case appears more in depth a bit, but its a huge fucking game so its to be expected). What I think they both do Right, is make u feel like ur the detective

In SHCO case the moral dillema of how well or sucky u solve a case and the consequences and the fact u CAN be wrong and arrest an innocent party make the stakes feel very high, the fact most suspects are guilty of Some cruel stuff but not always the murder means ur also debating morally what u think is gonna be the best thing to do out of multiple imperfect options even if u feel sure you know who the killer is... i am truly IMPRESSED with how well SHCO handles morally grey suspects and the choices u make about the outcomes, i havent seen it in many games and its made me question myself in Even Less games. The opening tutorial case is a basic example of whats to come: if u dont collect all evidence, u may not be totally sure who killed the victim, and can justify accusing either suspect. Then once u accuse them, u have to justify to Yourself if u are going to advocate they be punished severely or given some leniency. The rest of the cases play with this but go deeper.

Also like Judgement (and all yakuza games), it just does a very good job of building a realistic world (as much as budget allows anyway). Judgement is in Tokyo, so theres OLD people! Kids! Americans! Koreans! Countryside people! Rich, poor, middle class etc. Criminals, police, civilians, politicians, celebrities! illegal immigrants. There's east asian people, white people, black people, south asian people, there's people with mixed heritage, there's people that speak or don't speak various languages. Basically Judgement feels more like how you'd actually expect interacting in a city to feel, compared to a significant chunk of games (especially if u go older) where there is just no thought put into immigration or class or the myriad of real complexities of life for the variety of people that exist in the real world. There's some game simplifications like repeated npc lines, and then side quests and main stories flesh out various characters more (and SHCO uses case notes and info to flesh out in the way RGG game side story cutscenes and mini game plots do). Those are budget and time constraints. But like. SHCO has this grounded sort of game feel where you run across a city that feels like a realistic city of various people, and the social issues affecting people in it, where the characters in cases are a more fleshed out reflection of the people in the city, and where the social situations impacting everyone play out in more detailed ways as part of the case stories. Like fuck, I'm in the case with the painting now and. Its both got a lot to say about 1880s british empire and effects on a myriad of fucking people (and systematic abuses and damaging power structures), and as with much of history its got a lot to say about now. From the way power and social position influences ability to abuse and lack of remorse, immigration, international trade, colonization, racism, patriarchy, the extreme differences in personal background in how everyone involved acts and reacts and considers whats going on. Or the elephant case, where sherlock both in some ways reflects the society he exists in (sexism wise) and is also growing from that (self aware that the daughter is a person with as much decision power or more than him, unlike her own father's view of her, respecting Paul's situation while navigating a society where they both know the norm in comparison, recognizing that he's driven by his own desire to understand his Mom as a person when for so long he's had her on a pedestal and convinced himself of lies to himself about meek/strong Mothers and how it clouded his actual understanding of Violet as a person possibly struggling mentally in many similar ways to how he is). Like the elephant case is so simple in a lot of ways... but how many storiea have i seen where women just wouldnt have been written as equal, or as fleshed out characters, where Violet wouldnt be considered this in depth? Not just set in this time period but any time period tbh (it wasnt until the last maybe 10 years that movies and shows, sometimes, got a lot better with this to the point i could find it easier to avoid media that wrote women like lamps). I remember reading Fingersmith by Sarah Waters and how THRILLED i was to see realistic women in that time setting for a story (phenomenal novel btw). So like, starting SHCO i didnt know how fair the story would be to all inhabitants in it, and so far its wonderfully gone for a realistic grounded approach with characters that feel thoughtful in a world that is fleshed out and feels solid.

[hollyhomburg]

theres a lot of interesting bits in this ch so I have a lot of questions if you could please answer them all lol. thank you if you do. Was mc trying to be strong in front of hobi bc she thought he hated her? im confused. What will happen with hobi and mc? Is it a break bc hobi needs more time to process tae being trans and the mating mark? was lil tae chasing her future self in the dream? what does it mean?? what is the ikea item?? a pretty bookshelf for tae? how much $ does jimin have/use?

okay i'll go one by one through your questions since i think they're important.

Was mc trying to be strong in front of hobi bc she thought he hated her? yes and no, she was trying to be strong infront of hobi because she needed comfort and didn't think she would get it from him. she assumes that he's gonna hate her just like he did after the events of their fight. hobi's also just having lots of complex emotions at the time however so it's a bit of a mixed bag.

Is it a break bc hobi needs more time to process tae being trans and the mating mark? it's a break because both of them need time to figure out their spot in the pack again. every time something happens with the pack hierarchy changing hobi starts to feel very anxious because of his trauma. he's especially sensitive to moments when those above him change their hierarchy or need to reafirm their dominance boundaries. the thing he was mostly feeding off of was jin and jimin. they're going to realize that they don't really need a break however, because once tae starts to kinda just live as a girl and jin calms down and everything goes back to normal with relitivly few changes hobi feels more settled. it litterally only takes a handful of days.

Was lil tae chasing her future self in the dream? if we're leaning into the more fantastical aspects of bily, i actually think that was Aphrodite <3 but you can think it was anyone you want it too! i just had the idea and wanted to include it!

what is the ikea item? a makeup vanity and some drawrs for her collection- i picture jimin watching a makeup tutorial and seeing them in the back and going on a deep dive. he probably got the largest size and maybe 2 of them knowing that he's gonna spoil tae rotten when it comes to makeup and skincare stuff.

how much $ does jimin have/use? jimin makes around 50k per hit for the mob and then has a salary of 80k per year working as a bodyguard. A reminder that while a good portion of his body guard salary goes into the packs main funds so do jin's and namjoon's who make the most. jungkook, hobi, and tae all don't make as much as namjoon even combined, so being the pack alpha that he is they just kinda vibe. especially jk with his seizures like... nj's gonna provide for them as a pack alpha.

before the pack's move to the house they had it split up that namjoon handled rent, jimin paid for a portion of utilities, and jin handled food along with jungkookie. they don't have to worry about money, especially not the m/c and yoongi who between the min family fortune/various properties that the m/c inherited from geumjae and a life insurance policy. they probably have around 20-35 million dollars between the two of them. it's cannonical that the m/c inherited a brownstone in manhattan from geumjae too so that alone is like 15m...on the conservative side.

that being said, jimin easily spent anywhere from 30-50k in a single evening, although most of that was eaten up in designer things. it's about the price of one hit for the mafia... not that he's counting.

[lumikore]

mistah demo main... please tell me some tips. i have like 30 hours on tf2 and i suck so royally its embarrassing when i pull up as demo with 2 kills and 12 deaths. i love playing him because i feel like i could cause sm damage but idk 😭 why do his stickies take SO long to detonate

ohhhh my god you have just opened the floodgates. i am gonna tell you so much information about playing demo its not even funny. infodump of the century incoming.

first of all don't worry if you suck!! demo is probably one of the hardest classes in the game to pick up, but also arguably the most powerful in terms of explosive damage output. you are 100% correct that you could cause some damage with demo.. to be exact a LOT of damage. but he does take time to master!

i feel like a lot of demo mains start out mostly sticky spamming, but i started out mostly using my primary, and then i stopped using stickies altogether for a while and started using the sticky jumper (still my favourite movement tool in the game tbh).

but ive started using the sticky launchers again and they are definitely a VERY powerful source of explosive damage output, pretty much like another primary weapon. also, feel like i should mention this early on.. you can charge stickies!! by holding down mouse1 instead of clicking to fire, you can make the stickies go way further and travel much quicker. a lot of really experienced demo mains even don't know this which i think is kind of crazy.. anyway..!!

if you find the stickies take too long to detonate, and your enemies have run away by the time they do, i'd suggest changing where you place your stickies. it's tempting to just aim them straight at the enemies' feet, but unless theyre standing on a control point or payload cart they generally wont make an effort to stay there lol.

instead predict where they're going to run and put stickies there.. that could be kind of convoluted but hear me out. if they're chasing you then place the stickies at your own feet. orr if they're running away put stickies ahead of them!! or place stickies around a corner so they don't see them at first.. you'd be surprised at the amount of people who will just walk into a bunch of stickies! also, you can tell when they are ready to detonate because they will flash twice, but you probably already knew that lol.

stickies are also a great area denial tool, meaning you don't even need to detonate them for them to be effective. for example, if you're on payload defense, and you place stickies on the cart while theres no one on it, that will discourage most classes from even getting near it. and if they do, well, kablooey!

if you really need to sticky spam straight at people then use the quickiebomb launcher. it only has 4 bombs per clip and does slightly less damage, but you can get them out and detonate them a lot faster. but really i think you should master the stock weapons before starting to use unlocks!!

even though stickybombs are a really powerful tool you shouldn't forget about the grenade launcher either. it is a bit harder to aim but its really useful when you run out of stickies since stickies take soooo unbearably long to reload... like what is this, reload simulator 2007.. no thanks..!!

theres no tip i can give you that will immediately make you a god at landing direct pipes unfortunately.. what i suggest for getting better with the grenade launcher is to open up a tr_walkway server with some bots (there are tutorials on youtube on how to do this) and practice blowing them up!! i seriously do this for hours on end sometimes its honestly therapeutic. AND it improves your aim. win-win!!

anyways wow.. oh my goodness i wrote a lot. this is basically just general advice that i give to everyone about playing demo but if you have any specific questions don't be afraid to ask :D i love infodumping about my favourite games lol

[cynicallyneutral]

Hi. I have watching your growth as an artist only for a short time and have seen you truly blossom and come into you own as a creator. My question is simply to ask what steps should I take to get started as an anime art creator? I have wanting to do this for some time now.

first of all, welcome and thank u so much!!! theres been a lot of doubts abt that and im glad im progressing at least!!

hmm, honestly my best advice is to find an obsession bc trust me when i say it truly helps u get that drive to just draw yanno? on my 2-3 years slump it was hard to even just sketch bc i didn’t rly have smth i was super into anymore? so yeah, now i have naruto and the drive to draw sucker punched me like, yes i want to draw bc i need to see him how i picture him in my head.

art wise i advise to do more like 80-20, 80% fun and then 20% studying, think thats a healthy amount of fun and studying so that ur not bored out of your mind JUST studying but also enough for u not to feel too…uhhh stagnant by drawing the same shit? by fun i mean like drawing silly memes, redraws, draw ur favorite characters, and study is ofc, the fundamentals (highly, strongly suggest u at least study this even a lil bit). Ofc u can change the percentages when u need to. watch a lot of tutorials on youtube but take it with a grain of salt as theres always different styles to creating. then the rest is honestly just,,,practice, keep going and you’ll eventually improve. that’s rly all there is to it.

hope it helps a lil bit, and i wish you good luck on your art journey!!! gonna be rough but it will be really rewarding!