#whether that be a triangle

[awkwardarmadildo]

eight and a half minutes into the reigate squire part one and i love them all i love them all so much so so so much theyre so silly and goofy and i want to chew on them who let them all be so fucking perfect whoever it was deserves a raise and a bonus and paid time off but maybe not time off because i desperately need more of them all being silly and goofy and strange and lovely like genuinely sherlock panicking and ordering without thinking and then giving it to john to try is something i do all the time i love them so much i dont even have the words to articulate how much i thoroughly enjoy the simple domesticity and off time like the adventures and cases are incredible obviously but i LIVE for the simple moments like that or at the beginning when mariana and sherlock were teasing him for his atrocious handwriting like thats so cute so throuple to me bro

sorry for the absolutely Shit readability, this is an attempt at a thought purge to try and be normal for the rest of the day lmao

[warningsine]

Love seeing the new generation find out how, well, gay "Wicked" is.

Closeted high femme dressed as the lesbian flag not getting on her rebellious activist bestie's broom and regretting it for the rest of her conformist life.

[krysmcscience]

BILLDUMP TIME (with transparency, because I can). Don't mind me, I'm just yeeting my goofy art at some way more talented individuals out of nowhere and then hauling ass back to the security of being a weird silent lurker ahaha

@tesscourtes and @beccadrawsstuff, respectively! These two Bills make a little prism of sorts together because of their recent crossovers on Patreon~ :3c Speaking of which, I highly recommend supporting both these artists! They do fantastic work! (TessCourtes and Beccup)

@qoolk on the left, and @monobmp on the right! I am such a sucker for these outfits~ OuO Go and check these two out, their art is phenomenal!!! >u<

@1spooky2me The most difficult Bill of the lot for me to draw, ahaha... Their art is so incredibly consistent and dynamic, I am, a little envious <:,) A little envious, but mostly impressed, so go look at their amazing art, what are you waiting for

And finally, @ckret2, whose writing is sublimely in-character and just a delight to read - they're a great artist, as well! I simply Could Not resist drawing their Bill in this ridiculous incredible and very fashionable pink feather dress, even though he only briefly wears it in their fic, so I also did a little bonus doodle of him in his standard hoodie to make up for it. XD (Also, as far as I'm concerned, Bill and Mabel were both correct in that lime green accessories make the dress Much Better.)

This is just a small selection of the human Bill designs I enjoy. I may draw and post more later on, who knows! Feel free to reblog with some neat Bill designs, either your own or by other folks - if any of the designs particularly call to me, I'll add them to the little list I've got going~ :D (Alternatively, if you really like my stuff and want me to draw something specific, you could...mmm...perhaps, commission me...? OuO)

Also I'm tagging Billford because uhhhh yeah, sorry not sorry, every single one of these Bills is getting shipped with Ford by the artists in some way or another, lmao

[shapesenthusiastz]

Quick Pyramid Steve doodle b4 i die again

[thepringlesofblood]

[tswwwit]

Here's a stupid meet-the-sibling thing from Portal AU!

Dipper checks his watch for the third time in two minutes, foot tapping nervously against the pavement. Mabel’s usually one to run late, but not this late. 

Twenty minutes have passed since they were supposed to meet up at this coffee shop, and between the fact that his twin’s always eager to see him, and the odd magical blips on his radar in the last hour, he’s starting to wonder if she’s gotten herself in trouble. Again. 

Driven by worry, he checks his phone again - the regular one. No texts, no missed calls. A second check shows nothing on his other phone either, which is arguably just as worrying but for different reasons.

Dipper slumps back in his seat, rubbing at his eyes. 

Great. Exactly what he needed. As if this whole conversation wasn’t going to be weird enough, now he’s got more to stress about. A sister in trouble, maybe, and a magical incident, probably. Not to mention who would obviously get involved with one of those, just to add the cherry on top of a messed up situation.

He’s just about decided to get up and start investigating when he hears the shout.

“Dipper!” 

Jerking up from his seat, Dipper turns towards his sister’s voice. 

Mabel runs down the sidewalk, arms raised and waving wildly, sending her bracelets banging against each other as her earrings bounce along with her steps. She doesn’t slow down as she approaches, instead throwing herself forward until Dipper has to catch her hug with an ‘oof’ of effort. 

He hugs her back in response and gets squeezed so hard it nearly takes the breath out of him, including a brief moment where he’s worried that her earrings will catch on his clothes. 

After a moment he pushes her back, smiling. How long has it been since he’s seen her in person? Four months? Five? From the occasional phone call he knew she was doing well, but it’s good to see her looking so happy in person.

“It’s good to see you.” He gives her a big pat on the back, and gets a ‘bwomp bwomp’ in return. 

“You too, bro-bro.” Mabel steps away, then blinks in surprise. “You look great! Is that a new look?” She gives him a once over, then beams, patting her cheeks. “Oh my gosh, that’s perfect timing!”

“Well, I-” Dipper plucks at his shirt - it’s not that different from his usual, just better fitted. 

So, he may or may not have gotten a lecture on fashion. A very long one. Followed by several insistent recommendations about his outfits, including having a literal pile of clothes dumped on him out of nowhere. He didn’t think it made that big a difference. But maybe it does?

“Okay, okay, I know you had something important you wanted to talk about, but listen.” Mabel rushes to speak, bubbling over with enthusiasm. Dipper lets her take his hands and clasp them tight as she bounces in place. “I just met. The hottest guy.”

“Ugh,” Dipper groans, shoulders slumping. Not another shitty crush. He thought she was over those by now. Still, if it puts his own thing off… “What kind of jerk is it this time?”

“Okay, one? Not a jerk! And two: He’s not for me, you dork!” 

“Wait, what?” Dipper holds her at arm’s length, staring. 

“So like I said,” Mabel continues, giving him a Look. “I met this guy, and we got to talking, and he’s, like, super fun - but clearly into dudes. So I sorta mentioned a certain brother, and guess what! He likes magic, and monsters, and he even says he has a thing for nerds!” She lowers her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “It’s perfect. You’ll love him.” 

With another groan, Dipper drags a palm down his face. 

Damn it. He knows that she worries about him finding someone since he’s always on the move. Between trying to keep up with the jobs, and tracking monsters, and everything else in his life, he rarely has time for a break. Mabel playing matchmaker isn’t new. Only her choice of candidate, which sounds strangely.. On point?

Hell, a while ago - less than two months, at that - he might have welcomed an intro to this guy, whoever it is. It wasn’t like he was meeting a lot of people himself. 

But oh god. The timing.

“Look, I’m glad you thought of me, but-” Dipper starts, holding up his hands in defense.

“Oh no. Nope! No more of this ‘too busy’, or ‘probably not my type’ stuf. I vetted him Dipper,” Mabel insists, lower lip pouting out - oh god, the puppy eyes, he has to turn away -  “You’re on the road all the time and all alone all the time. So if you aren’t gonna try and meet someone, I gotta have your back.”

Dipper tilts his head back, shuts his eyes, and prays deep down for strength. 

He didn’t want to open with this information. It’s a pretty long story, one with a lot of twists and turns, even some bits that she’s going to feel very ‘I knew it!!’ about. But a little sisterly smugness is way, way better than getting dragged into a date with some guy. 

Even if Dipper turns it down first thing, it could end… Pretty badly. 

He opens his mouth to say so, and gets interrupted by hands clapping on his face, forcing him to meet her eyes.

“Oh my god, don’t look now.” She whispers, turning him back to look at her when his head instinctively swivels. “But he’s right here. I didn’t think he’d show up this soon!”

“Why shouldn’t I look at the guy you’re trying to hook me up with.” He says, flat. It comes out a bit garbled from the pressure on his cheeks.

“Because you’ll freak out thinking he’s out of your league! And he’s not!” Mabel insists, shaking him urgently. “Just be cool for once, okay?”

Dipper has never, ever been cool for a single instant in his life. He doesn’t know why his twin thinks he’s even capable of it. Add on the multiple reasons he can’t exactly flirt with some random dude that Mabel met on the street, and it’s a recipe for infinite awkwardness. 

Before he can explain why this is a bad idea, on so many levels, Mabel straightens up. 

“Hey, glad you made it” She beams at a point over Dipper’s shoulder. “Let me introduce you to-”

A cheerful laugh interrupts her, high and bright. It lingers longer than it should, seconds past the point where it’d be appropriate - then two firm hands clap onto Dipper’s shoulders, squeezing tight. 

“Well, well, well, well, well!” The voice behind him oozes smug pleasure. The grip on his shoulders tightens briefly, then slides down to his biceps in a slow, appreciative stroke. “So this is the famous Dipper Pines, huh?”

The voice, the touch. The smug, amused tone of someone pulling off an amazing joke that nobody’s caught onto yet-

Yeah, that all tracks. 

Dipper doesn’t resist when the man whips him around, frowning up into the beaming face of Bill goddamn Cipher. 

“Boy, you weren’t kidding! He is cute!” Bill exclaims, expression perfectly surprised and delighted. Like he’s never seen this face before in his life. He turns towards Mabel. “And you say this guy’s single?”

“Yep!” She gives a big double-thumbs up. Another person might mistake the way her eye’s moving as a twitch, but it’s just a million winks at Dipper, packed into too small a space. 

Bill lets out a low whistle. “Dang, that’s a shame.” The grins creeps up another fraction. “A smart guy woulda snagged him up the moment they saw him in person!”

Dipper lets out a strangled sound from his throat. Despite the… everything, his face feels hot, turning pink with embarrassment.

He glares at this smug, double-talking jackass. Bill beams back at him with unashamed delight.

From the side, Mabel hisses in annoyance at his reaction. She gestures towards Bill insistently, waving over his body, his arms. She points at his face twice, eyes wide like Dipper hasn’t seen it yet.

But there’s no point in her pointing. Dipper’s well acquainted with every part of his boyfriend. 

Including his tendency to not mention important facts.

So there’s the reason she was late. The reasons for the magic pulses - of course his stupid demon wouldn’t give him any heads up that he was already planetside. And the reason why the guy she met was oh-so-conveniently into nerds, especially ones related to Mabel friggin’ Pines. 

Why did Dipper think mentioning his family was a good idea? It’s only given Bill more chances for chaos. 

Or in this case, a really stupid prank.

“Now let’s see,” Bill says, more contemplative now. His eye roves over Dipper, head to toe. “What else you got going, kid?”

But. Okay, the attention’s nice. It’s never not been nice, even when it’s been creepy and strange and inhuman. 

Maybe playing along a little couldn’t hurt?

“I-” Dipper starts rubbing the back of his neck. If he looks his boyfriend in the eye while lying like a rug, he’ll never pull this off. “Well, I-”

“Oh! Like I said, he’s really into magic. Like you!” Mabel interrupts, bouncing in place. Her voice lowers, as if sharing a secret. “He does freelance work, y’know?”

“Is that so!” Bill’s mouth forms a perfect ‘o’ of surprise. Dipper half expects him to clap a hand to his cheek in astonishment. “Why, I never! A monster hunter? Right in front of me?”

“You betcha!” Proudly, Mabel sets fists on her hips. All too eager to hype man her brother before he’s said anything himself. “On the track of a dangerous criminal and everything!”

“Wow!” Bill, looking suitably impressed, somehow avoids having his pants set aflame from the sheer force of lying. “I bet he’s a nasty customer, too! A real devilish fellow!”

God, the puns hurt. Dipper can’t help but make a face, which gets another disappointed look from his sister, and a sinister gleam starts building up in Bill’s eye - 

Alright, that’s enough. 

Lying to Mabel would have been bad enough - but between their discussion and Dipper not getting a word in, Bill’s getting so full of himself that he might just explode. And that needs nipping in the bud, immediately.

Dipper shoves Bill back a pace, brushing off his shirt. He gives this asshole the full narrow-eyed glare and, ignoring the aghast look from his sister, flips his asshole boyfriend off. 

“Hey!” Affronted, Mabel takes a step in, taking his arm. “What the heck, Dipper?”

“Mabel, listen,” Dipper starts, only to get shushed by his sister and turned to face Bill by said asshole.

“And you’re feisty as well? Jackpot!” Bill beams, taking his head in his hands. “Now, let’s see about the rest of ya.”

Before Dipper can guess what that means  - or even ask - Bill tugs his shirt up. The only reason it doesn’t come completely off is because Dipper recognizes the motion and jerks his arms down in time. 

“Hey!” He struggles with Bill’s grip on his shirt, planting a palm on Bill’s face as he leans in for closer inspection. “What the hell, man?”

“Yep, that’s a fighter alright! Real nice view!” Bill says, after lingering too long ogling unwillingly exposed flesh. He lets the shirt drop - Dipper spends a second straightening it out - only to grab onto his butt next in a full-palm fondle. “Aha! Now that’s where it’s at!”

It’s so like Bill to start flinging compliments while completely breaking every polite convention known to man. He can never do anything straightforward. Possibly he’s allergic. With a swear, Dipper grapples with his jackass boyfriend again, trying to retain some semblance of dignity. 

Mabel stands off to the side, mouth agape. Silently staring between the two of them, too stunned to react. 

Clearly she wasn’t expecting this kind of crap. And honestly? Dipper can’t blame her. Bill’s pretty good at covering his asshole tendencies when he wants. 

Dipper can handle it, though. He’s already halfway pried the groping grasp off his butt when Bill’s other hand rotates to the front, taking hold with alarming swiftness. The high-pitched yelp he lets out is, thankfully, only from surprise.

“Hey!” And that gesture must have finally shaken Mabel from her shock, because now she looks offended. “Bill! What are you doing?”

“Cute, smart, decent body - he’s just like you said! The whole package!” Bill gives his handful a friendly jiggle, looking thrilled to have found a part to grab where he can’t get smacked away lest there be collateral damage. He turns towards Mabel with a grin. “How’s twenty bucks sound?”

The alarmed “What the hell!” from her comes out at the same time as Dipper’s offended, “Only twenty?”

“Oh, no no no,” Mabel waves her hands rapidly, the sleeves of her sweater nearly covering them in the rush.  “He’s not for sale, what the heck!”

“Oh, of course!” Bill releases Dipper’s crotch to smack himself dramatically on the forehead, shaking his head. “Because he’s his own person! With his own life decisions and everything!” His expression turns serious, nodding as if he actually cared about that fact. “No problem, Shooting Star! I’ll just kidnap him instead.”

A sudden swipe behind Dipper’s knees sends him into a swearing fall. One that’s quickly interrupted as he’s scooped up into Bill’s arms, startled and staring into an excited smile. 

Bill gives Mabel a perfunctory half-bow, bounces Dipper in his arms once - then starts sprinting down the street. 

To Mabel’s credit, there’s only a half-second pause before she follows.

“Help! Brother-napping in progress! Stop, you creep!” Mabel shouts, almost louder than Bill can manage. With some effort, Dipper peeks over his shoulder to see a flail of color trailing behind after them, one sweater-clad arm shaking in fury. “You better let him go, or you’ll regret this!”

Bill cackles louder, chest shaking - and one thing about being a demon is that he can really book it when he needs to. 

Dipper finds himself clinging to his ‘kidnapper’ tight, just to feel more comfortable about not being dropped. Not that he needs to worry about that. Even sprinting full-out and laughing, Bill’s not even breathing hard as he flees the wrath of righteousness. 

Dipper thunks his head against his awful, stupid boyfriend’s shoulder, and rolls his eyes. 

Welp. He’s not sure what else he expected. 

Bill’s always going to be Bill, after all. An evil, bored, antagonising force, bent on finding the funniest thing to do and jerking people around by it at every turn. And a vengeful, chaotic asshole. 

It’s hardly surprising that he and he took offense at someone arranging dates with his boyfriend. Whether or not Mabel knew their situation doesn’t matter in his view. It’s the principle of the thing - and, of course, a chance to be a total dick. 

But all things considered, it’s hardly the worst case scenario. 

Bill could have laid on the charm, gaslighting her into thinking he was a different kind of guy. Something that would make their introduction easier - and have her totally ignoring Dipper’s warnings about what kind of guy he is. 

But freaking her out was too funny, and that showed his true colors. And thank fuck for that. The last thing Dipper needs is another handsome guy charming her into a series of Bad Ideas.

As they round a street corner, Dipper uses the momentum to kick a leg free, planting heel against pavement. Bill slows as he tries to both stop him from falling and continue dragging him along. 

“Aw, c’mon,” Bill chides, making a valiant attempt to pick Dipper up again. “Let’s ditch the sibling and get moving! As far as she knows, I’m gonna do all kinds of dastardly things to ya. Terrible ones!” His eye glimmers, briefly unfocused - and Dipper takes the moment of distraction to get both feet on the ground. “Aww, hey!”

“Not a chance.” Dipper says, less annoyed than he’d like. He dodges another grab by stepping neatly to the side. “You’ve had your fun. Now at least try to behave for like, five seconds.”

One look at Bill’s face says that he’s not done with the fun, or at least thoroughly annoyed at its interruption - which means Dipper has to sweeten the pot. 

“I’m sure she’s panicking as we speak,” He adds, rolling his eyes at Bill’s look of pride. “And it was kinda funny. But at least try to good impression, jackass.” Resting a palm on Bill’s arm, he offers a shy smile. “Please?”

“Hmmm.” Bill hums thoughtfully. A second later, he shrugs. “Eh, sure! Probably wasn’t gonna get much mileage outta dragging it out anyway.”

Yep. Another win for Dipper Pines. He’s getting good at this demon-wrangling stuff. 

“Hey!” Mabel rounds the corner, steps clearly flagging. She leans against he building, then glares at Bill. “You can’t just-” 

Then she leans over, bracing herself on her knees as she tries to catch her breath. Dipper’s surprised she caught up this fast, but it wasn’t without effort - he thinks one of her bracelets is missing, and her hair is a mess. 

Dipper offers her a hand, but she waves it off. There’s a thoughtful sound behind him, then arms circle his waist and drag him back into Bill’s grasp. 

“So. I see you’ve met Bill.” Dipper says, finally. He glares a bit over his shoulder as Billtugs him closer to settle in, chin tucked on his shoulder. Probably wearing the very smuggest smile he owns.

“Dipper, I’m sorry,” Mabel blurts. She’s still catching her breath, face red as she flails her sleeves in inarticulate protest. “I didn’t know-”

“That he was an asshole? A jerk? A totally weird creep?” Dipper holds up his hands before she can apologize again. “No, it’s fine. I already knew that. He’s… actually what I wanted to talk to you about.”

She pauses, taking in their position. How Dipper’s not struggling, or swearing, or hexing the shit out of his ‘kidnapper’. The worried frown turns more… contemplative. The lightbulb flickers. 

Dipper takes a steadying breath. 

Here goes.

“Mabel, this is… Bill Cipher.” He gestures at Bill, then shoves his head away from his neck before he can leave a hickey. “He’s my boyfriend.”

Mabel boggles at him. There’s no other word for it. Eyes wide, mind clearly racing as she ties in what just happened with how Bill looks and what she thought everything was like just five minutes ago. 

She takes a second, before finally landing on, “What?”

Yeah, that’s a reasonable reaction. 

But if they got along earlier, they’ll… probably get along okay, right? Now that Bill’s got the initial bullshit out of his system, they might even have stuff in common. 

Thank hell for that. Romance is kind of her thing, of course she’s interested. Good thing too. Compared to the rest of his family, Mabel is easy mode. 

Only a second later she claps her hands to her cheeks, gasping hugely. Dipper can almost see the questions about to burst out.

“Let’s go back, get some coffee, and I’ll tell you everything.” Dipper smiles, but speaks before she can start interrogating them on the street. He shrugs Bill off, getting his hand seized in the process. He squeezes it back.  “Trust me, it’s a long story.”

[triangular-static]

irregular

just read flatland and i am 10x less normal about bill cipher now. it's so interesting to think about passages of this book with him in mind

(and also as its own book it's very interesting to read as an examination of dimensions and as a satire of victorian society, i very much enjoyed it)

but one of the first things that i noticed when my friend was looking at website codes at the same time i was reading the first half of the book was:

the code for bill cipher's mugshots is irregular. having read flatland this being the code seems like a reference to how shapes with irregular sides are labelled as criminals and morality is very heavily judged on whether your angles are equal or not. the term REALLY sticks out to me having read the book, given it carries. a lot of weight there.

(trust me, there were many excerpts i could have chosen from. even the narrator is very biased against irregular shapes. like. from the way it's used it pretty much reads as a flatland slur)

yeah. i don't know if the unfair link between morality and irregularity existed in euclydia, but with this as a code? it's not impossible. euclydia is not identical to flatland from what we know, but there are still places where they match other than just the base concept.

bill being implied equilateral by the axolotl makes this interesting. while he could definitely be labelled irregular in other ways (his eye), being equilateral would mean he doesn't fit the main flatland definition. but that doesn't mean they wouldn't use it as an insult anyway.

his exact angles could have shifted, which is possible in flatland (and he shapeshifts to forms that look far less equilateral in the show, so i don't think he's really that confined in shape at least currently), but i think him being equilateral yet being the one to destroy euclydia could also be interesting as a subversion of the flatland bias. though him being irregular by a small amount would also align with themes he already has. i think both could work.

but, if irregularity IS as heavily punished in euclydia as it is in flatland, one of his parents being named scalene (a term that is notably quite absent from the book! instead they use phrases like "irregular isosceles", from what i could see. i love when things are made significant by omission), is very interesting as well, if it's more than just a name.

given scalene seems? to be able to lead what seems a fairly normal life from the bare snippets we have? i think if there is discrimination of this nature in euclydia, it could be less extreme, and may be one of the cases where the worlds are different.

but irregular being used in relation to bill as a criminal makes it seem like something in his universe, at least. or maybe it got picked up from a different 2d world and applied to bill later?

at the very least, it adds a layer to his aversion to answering this question in the ama:

TL;DR: the website code "irregular" leading to the color version of the mugshots is likely a reference to flatland connecting it with criminality. which is interesting if that means being irregular is a notable thing in euclydia as well, but even if it's not, it's an interesting reference!

[isdalinarhot]

still kind of losing my mind at renarin liking ya novels as a kid... like im thinking very fondly about renarin drowning out the awful that is dalinar going through it post evi death 20/5 by holing up with a servant and getting the roshar hunger games books read to him back to back. like if my dad isn't there for me at least katnah everdar's got me amen

[sadcabbages]

[tinkrtailrsldrspy]

So... we're all writing/drawing/crafting/etc. Mpreg!Ford stuff, right?

Should we... should we like... make this a challenge or something?

[mothric]

you ever get a beam of morbid curiosity and search something on ao3 just to see if it exists? well imagine my shock and surprise to find out that in the 25 years the smash bros franchise has existed, it appears nobody in the universe has sexualized the master hand even once. are the freaks of the world ok???

[wardingshout]

Hi!! I just wanted to say that the way you draw characters/use colors in your art is an absolute dream, I've never seen anything prettier. Do you have a specific way you pick/use colors, or any advice for coloring? You inspire my art so much, and I'd love to learn how to color like you someday :)

@braventheninth gonna reply to both of you here hope that's cool!

aaaah thank you so much I'm really honoured to hear you both like it and that it inspires you anon !! ;v; I don't actually know much about art theory-wise, aside from very basic colour theory that I always forget so most of my choices are pretty instinctual and based on my own preferences!

i can do my best to explain my thought process though! uuh it is. lots of text though just as a warning.

one thing I tend to do with almost everything is pick what kind of colour mood I'm going for! usually, since I love orange and also warm feelings, I'll aim for some kind of warm tone and when doing that I try to slide every colour I pick towards the warm end of the colour wheel. Blacks and whites are especially good for this! As a general thing I almost fully avoid picking any colours along those edges of the colour picker

instead I'll move all my colour choices a nudge into the square for the colours towards the tone I want (in this case warm) (the white is there be warm too I just forgor to type it).

and since I wanted warm colours for this drawing I desaturated the blue of Brain's pants so it would fit in better. I once heard someone say you should always pick one main colour and saturate fully and the further away from it on the colour wheel you got, the more desaturated your colours should be. I don't really do that bc I like my colours to stay bright but I do keep it in mind to mess around with sometimes.

I'm not always great at keeping this consistent, but I think it usually makes for pretty decent results... Other things I keep in mind are that when I pick the colour for my shadows I always make a little slide on the colour wheel towards the opposite tone of what I based my main colours on. oh and picking the right base colours ?? no clue tbh I always put every colour on it's own layer and then I spend a couple minutes adjusting them all seperately until I feel like they go well enough together. I usually avoid the bottom to right section of the square fully, bc I find they often get oversaturated and muddy, but that's just a personal preference I guess.

also since I enjoy the way coloured lineart works for my stuff I tend to mess around with layer settings for my lineart! usually the end results will look something like this:

where the clipped layer is clipped on to my colours folder. lineart is the only place where I just use plain black since I'm gonna change it with these layer settings later. it often still shows up as black for darker colours (and especially blues?) but it keeps a slightly coloured edge that I enjoy. if the blacks of the end result don't look good, messing around with the layer opacity usually changes stuff up. sometimes I'll also erase part of the lineart from one of the layers as a way to adjust.

I think what might be more relevant though, is the way I've been picking my colours for most of my recent posts though, which is. very differently. and also quite dependant on the fact I've been drawing on Tegaki! Tegaki has a limited colour palette that looks like this

only the 6 colour slots next to the bottom greyscale can be replaced by your own colours. As shown here I only bothered to add something to half of them; mainly the beige-ish colour I like to use for whites, a brown that I never use bc it's ugly with everything else here and a purple? that I only Think I added. both the brown and purple suffer from being too desaturated for the rest of the palette, which makes them stand out in a pretty bad way when used tbh.

I have. absolutely no idea what I'm doing with colours on this site though ngl. I think it just automatically pushes you to be a little more chaotic with the choices? a simple example is the green I picked for Link's tunic here doesn't really have any good, easy choice for shading imo. most of the "darker" green tones just feel more saturated, and it sticks out pretty bad as a shading colour for the more muted green I picked for the tunic. Removing those, the choice was either a mossy green or a blue.

and while the mossy green is still green, it feels far too dark a shading colour compared to what I picked as shading for the rest of the drawing. The blue has the added bonus of being closer to the purple I used for the black-ish parts.

I think my point is that it's really easy to push yourself to make some fun new choices when the tools you're using limit you a bit in a way? Looking at it now, I'm also seeing that the hands were lined with very different colours. I remember just thinking that I couldn't be bothered to find the exact same purple I used for the first hand so I just went with the first thing I landed on, that being a pink. But now I think it works pretty well since the one hand is lifted a bit more into the light and that goes well for a bright colour like pink. happy accidents and all that right ?

I am fully just yapping at this point 🧍 but the point still goes for most things drawn on this site.

like there was no reason to add the blues or reds or pinks to the heather here but I only had so many purple shades to work with. it might be less realistic but I don't think it would've come out as well if I had stuck to only the purple shades from my reference photo.

This ended up way way too long and I have no idea if any of it made sense or was helpful at all, but it was surprisingly fun to reflect on my own choices a bit more! especially since I often just do whatever I feel like I think it's helpful to sit back and consider what instinct actually tells me it's the right thing to do.

in an attempt to do something actually helpful uuh I recommend messing around with 2 specific things and switching around with them a bit; namely limited colour palettes (like 1 or 2 main tones imo) and then just going absolutely ham and just using whatever colour for everything (make them orange! put some blue and purple on the bark! leaves can be blue if they want to! (go more ham than I did tbh))

I think just messing around does so much for making some kind of sense of colours even without Knowing how they work. it's easy to say we should all study, but personally I'm pretty bad at it and it's more fun to just trial and error it... errors do happen a lot though omg do they happen, but that's helpful for figuring stuff out too!

[star--seraph]

Astro Boy more like Astral Unpaid Intern 😭😭😭

[michelle-jwhssp2719]

Bill V3 Electric Boogaloo

[wetcatspellcaster]

Hi, thank you so much for your incredible work Cooler Than Me! Totally understand if you can’t answer this, but now that we are in the friends camp for Astarion and Rose, should we be anticipating any love triangle tropes? Specifically, does our girl Rose start seeing a cutie that Astarion must compete with to acknowledge feelings? Or is this work going to be a slow burn pining sans love triangles? Asking for my fragile autistic heart to properly prepare for the angst to come (but totally understand if you don’t want to answer due to spoilers).

lmao i wonder if you're psychic, based on where i'm at in my draft :)

anyway, we all know my feelings on Rolan x

[fisheito]

Hi i love how you draw Eddie and his Big Boots. Stompstompstomp what’s that sound?? Its a beautiful knight approaching. And hes here to call you a whore

*points at him* TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE!!! HAH [promptly stepped on by Big Boots] i will now take this opportunity to explore a silly little thing that happens when i draw eddie (and yaku+oli).

when eddie's alone, i'll default to some curvaceous b(oot)eauty like

vs. when yakumo's alone: i try to at least keep his broad shoulders from in-game

but if i put them together ? a chemical reaction happens and they start to morph

when you add OLIVINE, they morph even MORE

if i leave them together long enough, they eventually become: