kindartsy

[kindartsy]

have two mini mini mini animation tutorials

#animation #tutorial #you think i did a waving animation SIKE i just rotated the arms two pixels counterclockwise and your brain thought i spent time on it

[kindartsy]

I know you don't do requests (your reasoning in your FAQ is very understandable), but would asking for a tutorial on how to draw facial expressions like in your comics annoy you? It's not "HEY CAN YOU DRAW [character] DOING [thing] PLEASE," like you denote in your FAQ, but it's still technically a request? You're an amazing artist that I look up to and respect, so I really don't want to upset you, but I also do want to know how to draw/express emotions like you do.

no problem dude that’s fine!!! tutorials don’t count as requests haha

anyways i’ll… try to explain… my go-to expression shortcuts… its really messy but whatever you understand yes yes you understand

(note: this is not a tutorial this is just how i do things)

INTRODUCING

LASTLY, THE MOST IMPORTANT PIECE OF ADVICE I CAN GIVE

thats it bye

#tutorial #also google for references!!! #real life refs and anime refs and cartoon refs #because those last two KNOW about how to show and exaggerate emotions yfeel me

[kindartsy]

more action movies should have a subplot where the hero is just trying to sit down and finish the last chapter of a book

[kindartsy]

The tumblr q&a is over, but I was curious! I love all the different phrases the characters in isat/sasasa:p use--If it's something you can say, where did inspiration for "gems alive" and other phrases come from?

THANK YOU FOR ASKING BECAUSE I GET TO TALK ABOUT WORLDBUILDING AND SWEAR WORDS AND BRANDON SANDERSON

long post ahead

ok so when I was figuring out the world, I found this lecture on worldbuilding by Brandon Sanderson (go watch it, and also go read his books), and (im gonna paraphrase heavily here) one thing he mentioned is that, to make a memorable world, one thing you can do is pick a couple areas of culture, and go real deep with it. So like, pick fashion, and architecture, and interior design, and develop those a bunch, and bam! you convinced people you have a whole dang world, even though you only developed 3 areas of this world. hollow iceberg everyone thinks is a real iceberg.

he also mentioned the idea of like... getting weird with it? and develop based on a weird detail? for example, in his book The Stormlight Archives, one detail is that women have to hide their left hand at all times. ok, so what does that mean, whats taboo about a left hand? is the left hand shameful, or lewd somehow, the same way ankles were for us? what about fashion, what does women's fashion look like? and how do you live your every day life, knowing you can't show this hand, can you carry things the same way? etc

SO, for me, one of the Big Worldbuilding pillars i picked was, uh, swear words lol. or language and common expressions, more generally. i went on a whole journey where i was like... ok swear words in a LOT of languages (including french and english, both languages i speak fluently) are either sexual, or about gross bodily discharges. you know what words i mean!!!!!

and, well, i also didnt want the game to be full of those words, mostly because i think its a tightrope to use those words without seeming cringe, and also because i have a Core Memory of showing a comic to a colleague and she said "well i wouldve liked to show it to my kids, but you said fuck 12 times in there" and i didnt show my face to her for a week. family friendly family friendly family friendly

so what swear words should my characters use, that arent the same ones we use? and could those swear words actually tell us something about the world they live in? could i actually use those swear words... to show the characters come from different cultures???

and what COULD swear words be like, if theyre not about sex or body stuff? well irl they're usually about religions or belief. "oh god", "goddamnit", etc. as a sidenote, stuff like "oh my god" or "geez" arent used, because jesus christ is not canon to the ISAT universe. alright

i decided very early on i wouldnt have those in the game either, but i COULD have them be about the religions specific to this world. and for insults, i could have them be about stuff those beliefs would see as lesser.

anyway instead of talking about "gems alive" lets talk about "crab"

isabeau+mirabelle+bonnie use "crab" as a swear word because they follow a religion all around change, bettering yourself, evolving, and, the crab meme,

for those who dont get the joke, its about carcinisation, and about how a bunch of non-crab-like forms somehow evolved to a crab-like form. which would be horrible, for a religion all based around change!!! you mean we change and evolve, but theres a chance we might all become crabs??? CRAB!!!!!!!

anyway having "crab" kinda reads as 1. swear word 2. thats funny and weird (sets the tone) 3. tells you they know what crabs are (world not that different from ours, AND means they live close-ish to the coast, aka not land locked) and 4. crabs are somehow hated/feared, even if as the player you dont get why, it shows this country has its own culture (even if you dont get the crabs joke, which uuuh apparently doesnt work as well in countries that dont have this specific meme. WHATEVER!!!!)

(a few people came to me saying "heh, i get it, because crab and crap are very similar words" and um actually i did not think about that. crab is just a funny word on its own, and also i am a comedy genius without even trying)

anyway tldr: swear words as a worldbuilding tool. soon in theaters

#in stars and time #worldbuilding #writing stuff

[kindartsy]

fantasy characters: “Geez”

me: who the fuck spread Christianity there

[kindartsy]

fervently assuring that my devotion to another woman is purely platonic while my associates just keep pulling out polaroids of the two of us where we have the utena rose overlay to my increasing dismay

[kindartsy]

Favourite things to say before doing something incredibly stupid:

Hey everybody watch this

I'm God's favourite

I'm always right and I'm never gonna die

(Person nearby) gets my crap if I beef it

I'm way too sexy to fuck this up

It's okay I've done this a hundred times

This is gonna to be on purpose

Hello you're watching Jackass

Check out this cool magic trick

If I die I want you to tell people it looked really cool

Wanna see a trick I learned in prison

It's okay, I saw this on TikTok

This is only illegal in Massetchuschessetts

My dad used to do this all the time before the divorce

If you're a cop you have to tell me or it's entrapment*

I'm doing this as a prank

Could a mentally ill person do THIS

Out of two thousand possible futures this is the only way we live

I have to. (Stupid thing I'm doing) killed my mom

The government doesn't want you to know this is even an option

I'm about to become so powerful you have no idea

[kindartsy]

Anybody else got that Evergiven sized writers block

#writing stuff

[kindartsy]

🎮 HEY I WANNA MAKE A GAME! 🎮

Yeah I getcha. I was once like you. Pure and naive. Great news. I AM STILL PURE AND NAIVE, GAME DEV IS FUN! But where to start?

To start, here are a couple of entry level softwares you can use! source: I just made a game called In Stars and Time and people are asking me how to start making vidy gaems. Now, without further ado:

SOFTWARES AND ENGINES FOR PEOPLE WHO DON'T KNOW HOW TO CODE!!!

Ren'py (and also a link to it if you click here do it): THE visual novel software. Comic artists, look no further ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It has great documentation! It has a bunch of plugins and UI stuff and assets for you to buy! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! (You'll just need to read the doc a bunch) You can also port your game to a BUNCH of consoles! ✨Cons: None really <3 Some games to look at: Doki Doki Literature Club, Bad End Theater, Butterfly Soup

Twine: Great for text-based games! GREAT FOR WRITERS WHO DONT WANNA DRAW!!!!!!!!! (but you can draw if you want) ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It's versatile! It has great documentation! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! (You'll just need to read the doc a bunch) ✨Cons: You can add pictures, but it's a pain. Some games to look at: The Uncle Who Works For Nintendo, Queers In love At The End of The World, Escape Velocity

Bitsy: Little topdown games! ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It's (somewhat) intuitive! It has great documentation! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! You can make everything in it, from text to sprites to code! Those games sure are small! ✨Cons: Those games sure are small. This is to make THE simplest game. Barely any animation for your sprites, can barely fit a line of text in there. But honestly, the restrictions are refreshing! Some games to look at: honestly I haven't played that many bitsy games because i am a fake gamer. The picture above is from Under A Star Called Sun though and that looks so pretty

RPGMaker: To make RPGs! LIKE ME!!!!! NOTE: I recommend getting the latest version if you can, but all have their pros and cons. You can get a better idea by looking at this post. ✨Pros: Literally everything you need to make an RPG. Has a tutorial inside the software itself that will teach you the basics. Pretty simple to understand, even if you have no coding experience! Also I made a post helping you out with RPGMaker right here! ✨Cons: Some stuff can be hard to figure out. Also, the latest version is expensive. Get it on sale! Some games to look at: Yume Nikki, Hylics, In Stars and Time (hehe. I made it)

engine.lol: collage worlds! it is relatively new so I don't know much about it, but it seems fascinating. picture is from Garden! NOTE: There's a bunch of smaller engines to find out there. Just yesterday I found out there's an Idle Game Maker made by the Cookie Clicker creator. Isn't life wonderful?

✨more advice under the cut. this is Long ok✨

ENGINES I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT AND THEY SEEM HARD BUT ALSO GIVE IT A TRY I GUESS!!!! :

Unity and Unreal: I don't know anything about those! That looks hard to learn! But indie devs use them! It seems expensive! Follow your dreams though! Don't ask me how!

GameMaker: Wuh I just don't know anything about it either! I just know it's now free if your game is non-commercial (aka, you're not selling it), and Undertale was made on it! It seems good! You probably need some coding experience though!!!

Godot: Man I know even less about this one. Heard good things though!

BUNCHA RANDOM ADVICE!!!!

-Make something small first! Try making simple: a character is in a room, and exits the room. The character can look around, decide to take an item with them, can leave, and maybe the door is locked and you have to find the key. Figuring out how to code something like that, whether it is as a fully text-based game or as an RPGMaker map, should be a good start to figure out how your software of choice works!

-After that, if you have an idea, try first to make the simplest version of that idea. For my timeloop RPG, my simplest version was two rooms: first room you can walk in, second room with the King, where a cutscene automatically plays and the battle starts, you immediately die, and loop back to the first room, with the text from this point on reflecting this change. I think I also added a loop counter. This helped me figure out the most important thing: Can This Game Be Made? After that, the rest is just fun stuff. So if you want to make a dating sim, try and figure out how to add choices, and how to have affection points go up and down depending on your choices! If you want to make a platformer, figure out how to make your character move and jump and how to create a simple level! If you just want to make a kinetic visual novel with no choices, figure out how to add text, and how to add portraits! You'll be surprised at how powerful you'll feel after having figured even those simple things out.

-If you have a programming problem or just get confused, never underestimate the power of asking Google! You most likely won't be the only person asking this question, and you will learn some useful tips! If you are powerful enough, you can even… Ask people??? On forums??? Not me though.

-Yeah I know you probably want to make Your Big Idea RIGHT NOW but please. Make a smaller prototype first. You need to get that experience. Trust me.

-If you are not a womanthing of many skills like me, you might realize you need help. Maybe you need an artist, or a programmer. So! Game jams on itch.io are a great way to get to work and meet other game devs that have different strengths! Or ask around! Maybe your artist friend secretly always wanted to draw for a game. Ask! Collaborate! Have fun!!!

I hope that was useful! If it was. Maybe. You'd like to buy me a coffee. Or maybe you could check out my comics and games. Or just my new critically acclaimed game In Stars and Time. If you want. Ok bye

#gamedev #game dev #tutorial #this is for people who are afraid of coding. do not come at me and say 'actually godot is easy if you just--' I JUST WILL NOT. #<- me T^T #tried Godot for a jam but got overwhelmed and used GDevelop instead ^^;

[kindartsy]

Hot take: Actual literary analysis requires at least as much skill as writing itself, with less obvious measures of whether or not you’re shit at it, and nobody is allowed to do any more god damn litcrit until they learn what the terms “show, don’t tell” and “pacing” mean.

#writing stuff

[kindartsy]

in stars and time textposts but i havent finished the game part 2/???

[kindartsy]

these are all the same sort of animal. do you understand.

these are all small skittish creatures that love to bite and are found in drawers of garages and classrooms. they’re all related and in the same small biter family. weird little kids who play with them while they’re distracted and have empathy for them can tame them and become these beasts companions

[kindartsy]

While we’re on the topic of general art stuff, how do people do those shading layers where all the shadows are one color? Like, they’ll do the flat colors, shade everything in blue on one layer, press a button, and the shadows will looked finished. I think it has something to do with layers types, but I no idea which ones. I’m asking because I’ve seen several digital artists including yourself do it, want to know how to.

You want the "Multiply" layer combine mode!

The underlying color flats look like this:

Set to "normal", my shading layer looks like this:

When set to "multiply", it layers on top of the color flats to produce this:

#art stuff #art tutorial

[kindartsy]

It’s Webcomic Day!

Webcomics are awesome! They are an excellent way to read comics with ace representation. There are hundreds of webcomics with ace characters to choose from, across every genre.

To get you started, here are 60 webcomics with ace spectrum leads!

1. StarHammer by J.N. Monk and Harry Bogosian @sketchbot9000

2. Lost in Translation by Jjolee @jjolees, Eunice, and Valeri

3. The Unlucky Ones and the Edge of Nowhere by Nicky Rodriguez

4. Novae by Kaiju @kaixju

5. Shaderunners by Alex Assan @alexassanart and Lin Darrow

6. Sombulus by Christina Major @delphina2k

7. SEIS by Puik

8. BUUZA!! by Shazleen Khan @shazleen

9. THIS IS NOT FICTION by Nicole Mannino @nicoima

10. Sarota Springs by Joanne Kwan @joannekwan

11. The Last Dimension by Leaglem @oneeyedleaf, Schooph, Hunie, and Spencer Gooding

12. Earth Angel by Raysdrawlings @raysdrawlings and Aquaarter

13. Crash and Burn by Finn Lucullan, Kate Larking, and Hannah Bradshaw Lozier

14. Aurora by Red @comicaurora

15. Soul to Call by Rommie @rommie

16. Supernormal Step by M. Lee Lunsford @mleelunsford

17. Song for Cantalagua by Maria Izquierdo @vinzul, Antar Castro, Paulo Esparza, Alex Velázquez, Gerardo Blas, and Marisol Diz

18. [un]Divine by Ayme Sotuyo

19. Charity Case by Malacandrax @malacandrax

20. The Ink Witch by Izzi Ward @izzi-illustrates

21. Skull & Pyro by AuthorOfDragons @authorofdragons

22. Husk by Al Acevedo @huskcomic

23. Dom & Mor by DyeMeLikeASunset @dyemelikeasunset

24. Beneath the Woods by Mason Stark @ursachaotic

25. Skyvein by sen holiday @senholiday

26. Tamberlane by Caytlin Vilbrandt @justcaytlin, Ari Noble, Jonas, Elle Pierre, Isabel "Izzy" Pereira, Nakata “Knack” Whittle, and Koda "Puddle" Star

27. I’m Mortal by J. Lovelace

28. KAI by Queenue @rsqueenue

29. Ignition Zero by Cedar Wren McCloud

30. Cirque Royale by Brittany G. @atomicbritt

31. Kiss it Goodbye by Ticcytx @ticcytx

32. City of Blank by 66 @66sharkteeth, yayu_sensai, Ethan LeBlanc, and Spencer Gooding

33. Slice of Life by SallyVinter @celepom

34. Monster’s Garden by Ash G. @kilomonster

35. Brimstone and Roses by Speremint @speremint, Lumiscuro, Basia Dajewski, and Eunice Baik

36. Peripety by Mushki @mushki-art

37. Heroes of Thantopolis by Strontium @strontiumsun

38. Wondrous by Sarah Frederiksen @acolorfulreader

39. Cosmic Fish by Eliana Falcón

40. California Magic by Del Barrio @delshark and Britters @moodypuglet

41. Teleport by R.P. Ruffatti, Moomie Swan, and Xan Larson

42. Jade Kingdoms by Surenlicious @surenlicious

43. Jamie by Bre Indigo and Tami Babikian

44. A Week In Warrigilla by Teloka Berry and Priscilla “Pi” Wu @picayunearts

45. Finding Home by Hari Conner @haridraws and Claire Napier

46. The World In Deeper Inspection by Reimena Yee @reimenaashelyee

47. Four Leaf by Lumaga @lumaga and Hito

48. Castoff by Star Prichard @thestarfishface

49. Aces by Taqi

50. Covenant by explodikid @explodikid, bekkomi, Venacyr, Breanna Boswell, and Nico Hy

51. ELLIS by Marta Selusi @ratonpersona

52. Pathways: Chronicles of Tuvana by Elaine Tipping @triaelf9

53. Dirge for Broken men by JoshuaBeeking @joshua-beeking

54. My Sweet Archenemy by Rosanna Duong

55. LnR by Carossmo

56. Friends with Benefits by nezkovsou

57. Crowned Vessel by Dreadstrive @dreadstrive

58. Namesake by Megan Lavey-Heaton and Isabelle Melançon @secondlina

59. Those Who Sleep by Yokani

60. Kidd Commander by Aria Bell @shinesurge

Each webcomic listed has at least 1 asexual, demisexual, or graysexual leading character, with many having multiple. The majority of the comics listed are also made by acespec creators. This is not an exhaustive list.

Hope you found some new comics to dig into! Happy Webcomic Day!

[kindartsy]

You’ve finally done it. You’ve proven the existence of magic; discovered how an ordinary human cast spells to control that immense arcane power. There’s just one problem making you hesitate about publishing your findings: spellcasting looks so very… STUPID…

[kindartsy]

(this ask is based on the, I'm not sure if unfounded, assumption that at least 1/6(?) main crew members has some sort of non-ace/aro attraction): How do you write allo characters as an aro person? I'm one of those annoying allos who's *hyper-romantic* and working on hypersexuality for my own health, so I color most of my writing with that and struggle to write ace people. I know a lot of writers can distance themselves more. I guess I'm just curious how you inspire your characters to act socially outside of the way that you interact, specifically in terms of romanti/sexual relationships. I'm pretty good at getting my characters to engage with the world outside of my way of doing it until it comes to romance.

It's… tough, and I'm working on it. I still need to remind myself that a lot of people legitimately do experience sexual attraction and thus find certain other people in certain situations extremely physically appealing, in contrast to my own platonic attraction (the people I like, I typically like the same amount no matter what they're doing or how they look) or aesthetic attraction (when I like how someone looks in a specific situation, it is still in an extremely hands-off "I'd like to draw that" way).

I can work my way through the logic of romance, I think. I've been told that it doesn't feel the same as friendship, and that it places another person in a somewhat uniquely structural role for one's life. I've heard it described as being someone's "everything-team" - the person they want by their side at any endeavor - which is the only thing I've ever heard about romance that I don't think applies to a good percentage of my IRL friendships.

Romantic attraction is definitely the more confusing one, because everyone I know in a romantic relationship insists it's different than their platonic ones, but can't really explain why or how, only that it is. The thing is, this makes me believe them more. I know how hard it is to explain a unique inner experience to someone who has a completely different one. Their partner is their best friend, or at least top three (understandable) and also in a unique position in their life (confusion??) I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything, and I think I love my friends as much as I'm capable of, and there are people I'm friends with who I could see as a theoretical partner - except that it would change absolutely nothing about our current relationship. This is why I don't identify with the label of "aromantic" where I definitely do with "asexual", because I think I experience what people are talking about, I just feel it kinda everywhere instead of nowhere.

So the hack I think I can make work to do this in my writing is:

Sexual attraction is like aesthetic attraction, but with a hands-on component. Replace "I want to draw that" with "I want to get my hands on that" and go from there.

Romantic attraction is evidently its own beast, but it contains concepts like "I trust this person implicitly," "I care about them and want them to be happy," "I would be happy coming home to this person," "I want to protect them," "I like that they care about me," and "this person helps me see the world in a different way" which are all individual sentiments I understand, even if I personally feel them about a large number of people rather than a single Special Someone. Point them at a single Someone and have the two characters involved act accordingly, and I can probably pull a romance out of it.

Like all writing-an-alien-situation stuff, it mostly pays to identify the specific details that correlate to things you DO understand and then extrapolate from there. Or you can fake it and black-box their motivations and be like "here's where I'd put their sexual attraction to each other if I had one"

#writing stuff #if i had one

[kindartsy]

i'm waiting for spring. here's alinua from @comicaurora

#alinua #aurora #fanart