#we all start somewhere

[hayleyolivia]

Head Advice #1: Everybody’s head is the same size.

Okay, not really, but basically. There’s a reason you don’t have to know your head circumference to find a sunhat. We all have pretty similar head sizes, especially from the visual distance we usually draw characters.

The only exception to this is babies or children under 10. Those guys definitely have smaller heads! (But did you know our skulls are already over 90% their full adult size by the age of 5?)

Different style choices demand different proportions, but in general, it’s good advice to pick a head size, and stick with it!

Head Advice #2: You can use head size to indicate a character’s size.

Big characters don’t look like average sized people scaled up. And you can’t just scale down to get a small person!

You can make a character look very big and tall or very very small — even if they are standing alone in a vast white nothingness — just by how how they are proportioned! The most important proportion (in my humble opinion) is their head size. Look me in the eyes and tell me you can’t tell which of these characters are big and which are small.

Head Advice #3: Don’t go shrinking anyone’s head.

The most common head sins I see happen when an artist is trying to indicate (body) size difference in a couple, and use their heads to do it. The result is an image that looks something like this:

If you don’t want your lovers to look like they belong in different animated tv shows, don’t go shrinking anyone’s head! Use their bodies (hands and feet and bellies and muscles) to show off their size differences.

Anyway, that’s all. Having fun giving head. I mean doing head. I mean drawing heads.

[spaciebabie]

its crazy how i went from spending almost 24/7 working on school stuff and now i have nothing. absolutely nothing but free time. and it feels so wrong

[live-laugh-love-the-archivists]

Everyone making archivists ocs that actual treat the collector fairly well

Mean while the canon archivists

They dipped and then came back just to kill all his friend's + the other titans

(In fact, it was not a butterfly)

(Don't mind my horrible handwriting and drawing. i don't know how to do both, lol.)

[lydia-too-late]

I am slowly, gently, gradually learning digital art. Very much novice level, but I finally produced a drawing that's not too terribly far from the image that lives in my head.

Tula, y'all. Lasombra neonate. Diablerista. Tired monstergirl eyes and big red hair. Mediocre bartender. Come say hello.

[queer-ragnelle]

maybe you are "consuming media." i am experiencing a story.

[tophats-tea]

niche fangans my beloved

fanart for @danganronpa-abandoned-hope!!

[kindredcodes1]

I guess I really just wanted to start this side blog as a place to post about my coding journey and small little life things. I'm learning to code through multiple different sources and am currently focusing on HTML, CSS and Javascript...the main big three for frontend web development. I know there are lots more to look through, especially when I want to progress to backend...but for now, I need to focus on one thing at a time.

This isn't going to be an overnight thing, I know that for sure. It's a long journey I have ahead of me and I'm only a couple of weeks in, but I hope someday, I can look back and think 'Look at how far I've come on my coding journey'.

[infamoussparks]

NEW BLOG, LET'S GO

Alright! Hi, hello! Going to get this Tumblr thing all sorted and start posting my InFAMOUS fan fiction: InFAMOUS Sparks! This was a code name but the more I dive into writing it, the better it fits. This takes place about 7 years after the good karma/canon ending of InFAMOUS Second Son. Likes and Reblogs appreciated. Enjoy!

[doneffect64]

When you finally muster up the courage to go back and read your own webcomic from the beginning—but the art/pacing/etc. is wayy worse than what you remember

[aurosoulart]

damn ur art is gOOD <3

AAAA thank you!! in the spirit of inspiring others, here are some Sickly Bigheaded Anime Boys I drew when I was a beginner at drawing people!

you will notice that I drew one (1) hand and then was so traumatized that there is not a single other one visible

[n-v-ous]

trying to teach it math

gotta start small! that's how learning works, right?

..ah

not quite-

side note, happy valentines day! i don't celebrate much myself, but i hope all of you have a great day \o/

[trickstarbrave]

more tes lore ppl just need to have a firm grasp on the occult. yall cannot keep fucking up basic gnostism like this. kirkbride is a self described gnostic thats what most of his lore stuff is abt

[inkingquills]

Planning on writing a little drabble about my favorite idea: Porchay playing bass.

[girlboyzone]

currently giving a lecture on how to use tumblr to a friend of mine . they figured out how to turn on post notifs ! so thats a start !

[sweetestofchaos]

Omg let me tell you something I don’t like reading fics on Wattpad because people who write there are like 15 year olds their fics are all over the place with a lot of POV’s it’s annoying.

I don’t recommend. -100/10

Eh, that's okay bestie. You don't have to read anything on Wattpad if you don't want to. I have a Wattpad (same username) and I post on it every once in a while when I remember to. I honestly feel that Wattpad is a great site to get your toes wet with writing. The people on their are a bit nicer and there is more engagement from what I've seen.

You'll find fics like that on every site, honestly. But just stop reading and keep it pushing, bestie. There have been a few stories that I had to stop reading because the plot was just up and down. It happens but that's okay. I hope you're able to find fics that you like on here and Ao3!

Chaos

[aohendo]

Greetings! Thanks for being around. Question for you: what was the first thing you ever wrote? Could you share a snippet and how much progress you've made since then?

Thanks for being around, too! This was a trip straight down memory lane, so it does get kinda long under the cut, heads up.

The first thing I ever wrote for fun was in elementary school, but everything from then died with .wps formats (likewise, the computer). I know I've got something from middle school saved somewhere, but I can't find it, so we're gonna go with freshman year of high school for excerpts and comparisons (2013).

I'll do this for more dialogue heavy sections. If y'all want to see the description or action scene improvements I'd be happy to find some comparisons of those, too--some of them are hilariously bad, but that's okay.

Snippets and comparisons under the cut.

The first longer thing I ever wrote topped out at 75,646 words, and was a Phantom of the Opera modern AU ff. Roommate freshman year of high school was complaining about having to write 10k in November for English, so I promised I would do it with her. Thanks, freshman year roommate. Excerpt:

I looked back at the girl. She was crying hard enough that, had I not known who she was crying for, she could have been crying for her own child. I shook my head. She needed to get back to her life and out of this dank dungeon. I rested my hand lightly upon her shoulder. "Christine, we need to go. You must get back to your vicomte."

"But... but... Erik..."

"Is dead now Christine. Look at me, my girl." She turned her head towards me, but her wet eyes did not seem to focus. "He is gone. And you made him the happiest he had ever been when he died. But that was his life. This is yours. Say goodbye to him."

She threw herself back onto his body, as though she could squeeze life back into his corpse. I barely made out the words she said before she kissed him on his cheek and turned to me slowly.

End excerpt.

Which, looking back? Not as terrible as it could have been. Good? No. But a starting point. Notice, mostly, the repeated "Person Verbed" sentences ("I looked... she turned... she threw..."). These are actually something I still struggle with in early drafts.

The chief reason it isn't as horrible as it could have been is because I managed to find a really good beta reader off ff.net and I absolutely, 100%, to this day credit them with teaching me my writing basics.

2015/2016 came NaNo season, and I did the zero draft (so to speak) of Attenuate/Reverberate (then known as Holding Space). Excerpt:

“There is never time, Cal.”

“I’m not so sure about that.” Cal at last came up alongside of her and began jogging sideways, casting her solidly in his shadow. “It’s all relative, if you know what I mean. Someone always has time—there’s a basic Morphic thing involved I think. Not sure about the parti—“

“Shut up.” Cal pouted, then pursed his lips.

“You know, you look a little green. Still having issues with that Ferry?” They ducked down a corridor, Madison nearly losing her partner at her suddenness. He recovered quickly. The cruiser lurched again. “I mean, even your bun looks a little… sick.” Madison seemed to ignore him. “Hey, didn’t you say that you were going to cut it off or something? Like, a month ago?”

“There has not been time, Cal.” He smiled slightly. Her voice sounded evidently annoyed.

End excerpt.

Looking back, this one is pretty bad. Madison's language was all sorts of stilted because I was so intent on making her speech clearly different from Cal's. The plot is a complete disaster (but at least it had a plot, unlike the 2013 ff), but it was complete at 172,349 words (not including about 40k which was moved to the deleted folder). Also, the descriptions are a steaming trash pile.

The two key issues with this snippet are: telling in an irritating way ("seemed to ignore him... sounded evidently annoyed") and the paragraph divisions (they're clumped around the dialogue, rather than divided by actor--happy to do a longer explanation for anyone curious). However, notice the progression from "Person Verbed" type sentences to more variety in type and length.

I wrote fairly steadily from then on, although nothing much longer than about 50k until I finally got around to rewriting Attenuate/Reverberate. Technically, this snippet is from last year, but it's sitting pretty for how I usually write now. This is the same scene as the 2015/16 version. Excerpt:

Madison pushed herself off the wall and staggered in the direction of their quarters.

Cal tagged along next to her. “Gotta say, Mad, you look even shittier than usual.” He tapped his pager, opening a copy of the Augustus’ blueprints he’d stolen off an unsuspecting Guardsman. “You want a bathroom? This isn’t gonna be the nice kind of dive you’re used to.”

“How much farther?” she asked. Another dive alarm whooped, loud and obnoxious. A light glowed white on the speaker itself, this one Velcroed above an office door.

“Probably too far. Left here.” He pointed at a passageway so tight Madison’s shoulders were scraping either wall and Cal was forced sideways. The narrowness was comforting, a balm to her nausea, but the deck still curved up and out of sight. Why did it have to be a Kontos class cruiser? No one even used Kontoses anymore. Just because this war was being compared to last century’s Second Sector War didn’t mean they had to use the same technology.

End excerpt.

Overall, a little smoother, no more funky perspective whatever the hell was going on before, and the descriptions are better incorporated. I finally got comfortable in my happy super-close third-limited perspective, stopped head-hopping, and (not shown) figured out fight scenes and the like. The dialogue itself hasn't changed much since 2013--it's always been my one stronger area--but clarity has IMO vastly improved. Also, it's not annoying to read anymore, so I'll take the win.

Thanks again for the ask! I haven't combed through some of those older pieces in... a while, so it was fun to see how they actually are vs how I had them in my memory.