sagemoderocklee

[sagemoderocklee]

i know i still need to make the official post but i have been absolutely inundated on instagram with messages and i work during the week so i will make the post either tomorrow or saturday

i kno i haven’t been active in a minute but curious if anyone would be interested in gaalee fics in exchange for donating directly to Palestinians’ GFMs. i have a massive spreadsheet of people i have been trying to help spread but my IG following is not great and i thought this might help

the fics would have to be a reasonable length for me to write (i don’t expect to get many of these but still) so between 3k and 5k words probably and nothing NSFW. the minimum donation would be like $5 and the length would not change based on donation amount, but you could donate to multiple funds and get different fics or combine into a longer fic (baring in mind longer works will take me more time)

i don’t feel well rn but if ppl show an interest i’ll make a formal post with more details

#thinking i might try two models #kel wanting to get an update gave me an idea for something but i dont feel like im popular enough for that idea #we’ll see

[sagemoderocklee]

i think it’s funny when those “who would sasuke be friends with?” from other mangas and people often pick the same introvert/gloomy rival type. or even when people say if sasuke were to make other friends in canon it could be like neji or gaara due their personalities because. yeah sasuke does keep to himself and all but canonically speaking that’s not the kind of friends he goes for? like if you take a look sasuke surrounds himself from really Really loud people. naruto, the main example of course. but there’s also suigetsu and karin who literally never shut up and suigetsu is always trying to get in his nerves. even if you look at adult sasuke him taking naruto’s son as his only student is hilarous, once again he’s stuck with someone who has 10x times his energy. the most chill people he keeps you could say are itachi and juugo but again they don’t have that gloominess, they are pretty nice (focusing in itachi pre massacre here okay. don’t @ me) and amiable.

so like. even if sasuke himself talks about being in the darkness and acts all aloof, when it comes to the company he keeps around, he goes from the total opposite of himself. he likes vibrant personalities that challenge him, not passiveness static people

#agree but i do think specifically gaara and sasuke would be not exactly friends but #something akin to it #like a deep respect for each other because they do have so many similarities in terms of like being traumatized and how they reacted to it #but also the aftermath of like what healing looks like #i think they ar both similar but very different and wouldnt be close but def respect each other #i don’t think sasuke necessarily woulda sought it out but gaara is rlly empathetic and i think it lile just happens one day and its mostly #a relationship based in writing letters and very occasional visits #and they mostly talk politics and social issues anyways because i think both are or at least SHOULD be motivated #to make a better world than the one they grew up in #naruto #uchiha sasuke #gaara #neji is obviously also similar but i think he and sasuke are just not in the same wavelength regardless of their similarities

[sagemoderocklee]

didn’t expect to get much attention on this and i’d say 9 notes is at least enough of a positive response that i’ll make a post today about this

i kno i haven’t been active in a minute but curious if anyone would be interested in gaalee fics in exchange for donating directly to Palestinians’ GFMs. i have a massive spreadsheet of people i have been trying to help spread but my IG following is not great and i thought this might help

the fics would have to be a reasonable length for me to write (i don’t expect to get many of these but still) so between 3k and 5k words probably and nothing NSFW. the minimum donation would be like $5 and the length would not change based on donation amount, but you could donate to multiple funds and get different fics or combine into a longer fic (baring in mind longer works will take me more time)

i don’t feel well rn but if ppl show an interest i’ll make a formal post with more details

[sagemoderocklee]

i kno i haven’t been active in a minute but curious if anyone would be interested in gaalee fics in exchange for donating directly to Palestinians’ GFMs. i have a massive spreadsheet of people i have been trying to help spread but my IG following is not great and i thought this might help

the fics would have to be a reasonable length for me to write (i don’t expect to get many of these but still) so between 3k and 5k words probably and nothing NSFW. the minimum donation would be like $5 and the length would not change based on donation amount, but you could donate to multiple funds and get different fics or combine into a longer fic (baring in mind longer works will take me more time)

i don’t feel well rn but if ppl show an interest i’ll make a formal post with more details

#naruto #funds for gaza #gaalee

[sagemoderocklee]

forgot that @shukakumoodboard tagged me in this:

Please share your last sentence; or, if you don't have one, share a plot bunny or idea!

From Secrets of the Daimyo: Sigilism

this is technically not the last line i wrote but the last line was like four words of dialogue and i just don’t think “that’ll be all, Mina” is that compelling lol

anyways no tags cause i imagine everyone i would tag has done this, but if you wanna do it again or do it and no one ever tagged you feel free to pretend i tagged you ✌🏼

#naruto #my fanfiction #yes this is from that trilogy kel spawned #and no i don’t need to start a new trilogy but here we are #also sorry kel for not giving you something fresh to read #gaara #gaalee

[sagemoderocklee]

Critique is literally the life blood of art for the love of god, listen to me!!!!!

[sagemoderocklee]

instead of continuously over-donating to ao3 when those running the site are racist zionist sympathisers who shut down support of palestine from its volunteers 1 / 2 (among myriad other issues that u should NOT be funding) please direct your attention to these incomplete fundraisers for people in gaza and various tangible operations doing work. this is a call that if u have donated even a cent to ao3 to a) match that in your donations to palestinians/causes and b) stop donating so uncritically and unconditionally to ao3, pressure them. id like to direct u to @end-otw-racism

fundraiser masterpost by @el-shab-hussein

mona

care for gaza

help gaza's children

operation olive branch

the palestinian children's relief fund

unrwa

the palestinian red crescent society

buy an e-sim / donate for mass buying

[sagemoderocklee]

Donation Commissions

If you've been here a while you know I did this before. For health reasons I couldn't start again before now.

Here are links to donate, collected by a Palestinian person. Please consider donating even if you aren't telling me and getting art for it. Even 1$ from each of us can accumulate.

Art I made for this before:

These are sketches, flat colors, around 5$ for each character in the drawing, or just in general smaller donations.

For larger donations I can offer things like this:

And there's plenty of space in between, feel free to message me.

Your money doesn't need to pass through me, just show me proof you donated it.

#if you haven’t donated yet or arent donating consistently pls do so #there are so many families who need help #no matter how small you think a donation is it adds up #even if it’s $1

[sagemoderocklee]

Lesson 4: "Do Black People Blush?" Bringing brown complexions to life

Inspired by this ask

So, do Black people blush?

We are human beans 🤣! Blood rushes through our veins! This isn't just a nonblack misconception either; I know plenty of Black people who think we don't blush. Stop saying that shit. It's not true! If you thought this at any point, I'm glad you learned, TAKE THIS L IN SILENCE! I am sparing you the indignity of saying this out loud, ever! 🙏🏾

Jokes aside, the actual issue usually lies with the depiction or description. Depending on our skin tone, most of us aren’t going to turn ‘bright pink’ with a blush (if you write that in your y/n or roleplaying fics, that’s an easy way to negate a good amount of your potential Black audience). Think of a cherry coke- how you still see the tint of red in it, but it’s still brown? Like that.

One way to dodge this in writing is to say “flushed”, or “ears/cheeks became hot”. This is describing the physical action of blushing, without having to describe the color of someone’s face. If you’re really nervous about not writing us correctly via blushing… there you go!

Colorism

Okay. So this is something I’ll likely do its own lesson on, because there’s no way I could encapsulate it into one little blurb and I’m not going to try! After asking the internet an admittedly confusing question 😅, one thing I was able to reaffirm is that people have different opinions on what ‘dark’/’darker’ skin tones mean. People recognize that different cultural upbringings and contexts will change what that means! And that’s good- that an important part of the larger conversation!

However, I want everyone to understand that you don’t have to be Black to be dark/’darker’ skinned- you can be Black and very pale! We discussed that in the last lesson! There’s no ‘singular point of brown-ness’ that designates a Black person as ‘Black’- there’s an entire sociological conversation behind that!

My point is, this isn’t a ‘oh Black people OVERALL aren’t depicted blushing properly’- because there are ‘lighter’ skinned Black people that wouldn’t suffer as much from this particular issue.

Blushes and Undertones

Three Links for Tips on Medium to Deep Skintones

Different complexions are going to require different colors, there's not a 'one fits all' option. However! What we want to do for deeper brown complexions is to focus on BOLDER, not lighter! Putting light pink or a white person’s ‘nude’ on our skin will often make us look ashy and undercolored. And we don’t like looking ashy.

"It looks like they're ashy!"

What do we mean when we say this about a piece? Well, worse case scenario, it looks like this:

This was NOT one of KD’s better days, and he was thoroughly mocked for this. He got more than enough money for lotion! Anyway, when we say that your art looks ‘ashy’, it means that it feels like the skin of your Black character is gray, or dead. Like a corpse. We don’t look like that unless things are dire.

In fan and professional art, you can sometimes find people user a grey undertone for deeper shades of brown on Black people: NO! We are NOT grey! We are not pitch! Many skin shades of brown can be found based in the oranges and the reds. Based on lighting and depth of complexion, you might even have to go into the blues and purple to capture the brown you’re seeking.

I’m begging us to stop desaturating the browns we use. We can see the difference. It’s usually one of those ‘White Man Painted Brown’ techniques I discussed before; an attempt to ‘make a character Black’ without really committing to it because the brown skin tone ‘doesn’t look good’ to the artist. Brown is beautiful! Commit to brown! Commit to the full design!

Put in the work to create the brown you need!

While this is a traditional art piece (follow Ellie Mandy Art, a Black creator), I want you to notice how she incorporated many colors to create the deep brown for her piece.

-8:05 for the list of paints

-8:05-17:29 for the process

She used black, yes, but it was nowhere near the base color. She incorporated blues and reds and other browns to capture that depth. It wasn’t ‘toss in a bunch of black or grey to get the brown darker’. (SKIP TO THE END TO SEE HOW GOOD THIS PIECE IS, BTW. I felt like I was in the presence of a master watching her do this, fr. We gotta pay artists more.)

I want to use this model as an example to show that while we might get very dark, we're still not 'pitch black'. You can see the flat of the black of their clothes versus their deep complexion. They're not the same!

Even if your character's complexion is very deep brown into black, you still need to incorporate ‘life’ into them (if that makes sense). And you know what? Even if you want to describe your characters as having ‘black’ skin, that’s fine, but there are still other ways to do it- obsidian, the night sky, velvet. Find a way to romanticize our skin (there’s an entire conversation about how ‘black’ is used in a negative connotation in language and storytelling, and we’re ALSO going to have that conversation later!)

A Real Simple Way (i.e. how I do it)

I tried, but I cannot find my skin tones palette link anymore. I’m sorry! But, it’s been essential to my character design. If you don’t ever buy anything else, I would HIGHLY suggest investing in a skin tones palette for your art program.

Everyone say hello to Philia, my OC! I’m used to drawing her, so I’m going to use her as an example. Now remember, I am still an amateur! But this is how I do it!

Admittedly, I do the one on the left when I'm feeling lazy, but more often I'll take the time to do the one on the right. Now here’s the thing- I’m not actually blending the red into the brown. This is on a whole different layer. What I’m actually doing is adding to and fading the color until it’s at a color that I feel is natural. There's definitely an easier, smarter way to do this, but that’s what I like to do- I like to see the stages slowly until I’m comfortable.

You have to mess around and practice; see what looks good and what doesn't. Go into the reds, the oranges, the pinks and observe how it looks- I may go through multiple before I settle on one. It’s really just a matter of getting used to drawing Black skin tones and how they look in different lighting. This one's not perfect for sure.

Resources

Here are some really good posts and Youtube videos on how both to paint skin, and to add blush tones. And remember, as per my usual, the best way to learn how the draw and paint Black people is to follow and learn from Black artists! Another good idea might be looking into Black makeup and Black SFX makeup artists. As people that work with skin on a regular basis, they would be a good place to study what colors can and should be used on different skin colors as a whole.

ami0amii

Likelihood Art

Tiara Anderson

Proko

Sinix

Ross Draws

In summary, focus on bolder colors, be willing to test until you get what you need, and practice! All you can do to get better is to practice! And as always: it’s the thought that counts, but the action that delivers!

[sagemoderocklee]

#rock lee #naruto #uzumaki naruto #haruno sakura #truly the best panel lile why lee look like that!!! #his lil strut!!!

[sagemoderocklee]

and now im on twtr as rau_aln for leegaa rndm-art-shit_psting

s o

#naruto #gaalee #rock lee #shippuden #gaara #THE KLIMT!!!

[sagemoderocklee]

do you have any other ships you like besides kakagai?

Yes :)

(The moss sold me on it, I love you, The Moss)

#gaalee #gaara #rock lee #naruto #😂😂😂

[sagemoderocklee]

i was tagged by @nightingaleflow so it is Time. For Some Worms

Please share your last sentence; or, if you don't have one, share a plot bunny or idea!

Grief, he's learned, is the final act of love.

lmaooooooo figure this one out suckers

yes-pressure tags (show me ur sentences or Else): @ghoste-catte @sagemoderocklee @dontmindme-imjustfangirlin

#frothing at the mouth this is so good #i dunno what the last line id have written would be so i’ll probably just share an idea

[sagemoderocklee]

Not to be a whiner but it fucking hurts that AO3 has nearly triple their donation goal already... while I'm struggling to raise funds for my family's necessities to live.

Like full offence to everyone who donated after they already surpassed $50,000, there are a hell of a lot of people who could use your money way more right now, and I don't even mean just me. Go do something actually meaningful with your donation funds and buy an eSim for Gaza or something!

[sagemoderocklee]

instead of continuously over-donating to ao3 when those running the site are racist zionist sympathisers who shut down support of palestine from its volunteers 1 / 2 (among myriad other issues that u should NOT be funding) please direct your attention to these incomplete fundraisers for people in gaza and various tangible operations doing work. this is a call that if u have donated even a cent to ao3 to a) match that in your donations to palestinians/causes and b) stop donating so uncritically and unconditionally to ao3, pressure them. id like to direct u to @end-otw-racism

fundraiser masterpost by @el-shab-hussein

mona

care for gaza

help gaza's children

operation olive branch

the palestinian children's relief fund

unrwa

the palestinian red crescent society

buy an e-sim / donate for mass buying

#yall make me sick donating to this site with multiple genocides happening #never once stopping to question how this site needs to hold bi annual fundraisers yet consistently makes triple their goal #ppl are fucking dying their children are starving to #and this site has literally silenced pro-palestine volunteers like… shameful each and every one of you who donated to this #and everyone who continues to be so uncritical of ao3 too #this money could have save so many families #one family that reached out to me needs to make $72k #another needs $25k #someone else needs $10k #but no you fuckin sent that money to a fanfiction website that does nasty racist shit and #consistently makes money hand over fucking fist

[sagemoderocklee]

‘don’t you want your favourite character to be happy???’ no? i want my favourite character to be interesting. i want me to be happy. which sometimes involves my favourite character being in exquisite agony

#happiness CAN be interesting but if it’s just like one note??? #nah im good

[sagemoderocklee]

#screaming and crying this is amazing #naruto #gaalee #rock lee #gaara #shippuden