#and test some photoshop stuff out with it

[ovenproofowl]

i can't stop, it's too late it pours out, it's my fate my legacy in black

HISTORY IN BLACK by Priest

#supergirl #brainiac 5 #brainy #querl dox #my gifs #this song's been stuck in my head for weeks so i thought i'd put it to good use #and test some photoshop stuff out with it #and i haven't giffed brainy in like YEARS (??) has it been years?? #time is an illusion and i wanted to make this gifset #flashing tw #lex luthor #jesse rath #jon cryer

[earlymorningmassacre]

#i suddenly remembered i had photoshop #mha #bnha #shigaraki tomura #manga #manga edits #shigaraki edit #mva #testing out some photoshop stuff #banners? #backgrounds? #wallapaper

[nvrsaidiwasinurcloset]

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMMAb4KUo/

Smut w biker Ethan Landry ?!

Hi💕 I hope you like it! I got out of the hang of writing over the last few days so I might go back and make a few changes once i re-read over this at some point lmao

Roll Up - Ethan Landry x Fem!Reader

This Contains SMUT - Minors DNI

Summary: Your boyfriend's new hobby scares you, but he shows you it isn't that bad.

Contains: Oral(f receiving), p in v, rough-ish sex.

A/N: We're going to pretend that this isn't based off of the photoshopped pics of Jack lmao. If this sucks, don't let me know. I'm sensitive👉👈

When your boyfriend mentioned getting his motorcycle license, you thought he was crazy. You even created a power point presentation, showing him how dumb of an idea it was. He just rolled his eyes every time you made a good point, because he knew it was what he was going to do regardless.

“You aren’t going to break up with me if I get a bike, are you?” he asked, putting on his shoes as he got ready to go take the driving test. “I think it’d be a lot of fun to have one.”

“It’d take a lot more for me to break up with you…but what if something happens to you? I’d just be worried the whole time you were out,” you sighed, getting a little anxious.

You heard a knock on the door, as Ethan walked away from you to answer it. You took a deep breath when Chad walked in, carrying his extra helmet for Ethan.

“Why’d you have to corrupt my sweet boyfriend?” you asked, as Chad smiled at you.

“I think you’ll like it…Tara does,” he said, smirking at Ethan as he handed him the helmet.

“Yeah, what if I get one and you can’t keep your hands off me?” Ethan asked, cocking his eyebrow as he looked at you. “I like the sound of that.”

“Yeah, and I’d not like to hear the sound of your eulogy being spoken,” you said, as Ethan scoffed.

“You’re so overdramatic,” he said, walking over to kiss you. He placed a kiss to the tip of your nose, your lips, and your forehead before he pulled away. “I love you, baby. Wish me luck.”

“I love you, too,” you said, as both boys walked to the door. Ethan stood in the doorway for a minute, waiting for you to hear the other thing he needed you to say. “Fuck it, fine. Good luck. Please, just be careful.”

“I will, babe,” he said, chuckling as he walked out.

One thing about Ethan was that the second he got an idea in his head, you knew he was going to stop at nothing to get what he wanted. This was by far the scariest thing he’d ever wanted to do, and you’d done nothing but panic whenever you thought about it.

It all started when Chad brought Ethan to his friend’s garage, and they were talking about Chad getting his license. At first you laughed it off, thinking it was about Ethan wanting to have more in common with his best friend, but once you saw him browsing for bikes online, you realized how serious he was about it.

Once he got his learners, he started to spend more time with Chad and his friend. He’d lay in bed with you until you fell asleep, then sneak out of the bed once he’d get the text from Chad that he was outside. You hated it when you’d roll over and he wasn’t beside you, but you wanted him to practice when there were a lot less cars on the road.

He was always in the best mood when he’d come back home, still feeling the adrenaline. He tried to be quiet when he snuck back in, but you always woke up. You’d jump out of bed once you heard the shower cut on, strip off your clothes, and join him in the steamy bathroom. He’d tell you all the things he did and new stuff he learned as you sleepily listened, but it always ended in the hottest shower sex you’d ever had.

You kept checking the time on your phone, wondering what was taking Ethan so long to get back home. It’d been a few hours, and you were trying to prepare yourself. As worried as you were for him to get his license, you knew you’d be excited for him. But the possibility of him not getting it worried you more than if he did. You knew how much he wanted it, and you knew he’d be upset if he didn’t get it.

Once you saw Ethan’s name and picture flash across your phone screen, you quickly answered the call.

“Hey, babe,” you said, “How’d it go?”

You heard traffic passing him and sirens off in the distance.

“Come outside, I want to show you something.” You could hear the happiness in his voice, and you kind of had a hunch about what your boyfriend had done. Once you made your way down the stairs of your apartment complex and saw him standing there, a helmet under his arm and the matte black bike behind him, you didn’t know how to feel.

“I guess you passed,” you said, your eyes squinting as the early afternoon sunlight hit them just right. “I’m proud of you, baby.”

“I can still tell you’re mad,” he teased, as he leaned down to kiss you. “but thank you.”

“This is yours, isn’t it?” you asked, as he tried to fight off the excited smile.

“Yeah, I hope you don’t hate me because I didn’t talk to you about it first,” he said, reaching around and grabbing the extra helmet off the bike seat. “I want you to go on a ride with me.”

“Absolutely not,” you said, his smile dropping at your words. “Not right now, can we go out later tonight? I’m a little scared and I’d feel better if I didn’t feel like we were going to get hit.”

“Of course,” he said, his smile appearing on his lips again. “I think you’ll love it.”

“Whatever you say,” you said, as he grabbed your hand and led you inside.

As it got darker outside, Ethan got more excited. He knew how close he was to taking you out to see what made him almost as happy as you do. As much as you were freaking out, you knew he’d never put you in danger, and you really wanted to know what the big deal was.

“Okay,” Ethan said, as you slipped your hoodie over your head. “Just a few quick things…I know it’s a little scary, but you need to lean into any turns we take. Don’t ever let go of me and sit as close to me as you can.”

“If we lean, won’t you lose control?” you questioned, as he shook his head.

“We’re not doing anything crazy so don’t think I’m going to take you on any super curvy roads…but if you stay upright when we need to lean, that could cause me to lose control.”

“Okay,” you sighed, as he handed you the helmet.

He looked you over to make sure nothing on you was loose fitting and made sure your helmet was good before he slung his leg over the bike.

“You coming?” he asked, his hand reaching out to help you on.

“There’s not a lot of room back here,” you said, as he slid his helmet over his head.

“I already told you, just hold on to me, and stay as close as you can. I won’t let anything happen to you,” he said, his words a little muffled. “You ready?”

“Yeah,” you said, as he started the bike. Your arms tightly wrapped around him, his hand rubbing against your thigh to let you know he had you before he pulled off.

He took you on a few of the streets he first learned how to drive on, not wanting to freak you out too much. Once you came to a stop light, he started to yell over the hum of the bike.

“You okay?” he asked, his hand moving to rub against your thigh again.

“Yeah, you aren’t going very fast, though,” you yelled back, as he started to laugh to himself.

“You want me to go faster?” he asked, “I just didn’t want to scare you.”

“You can go faster, just don’t kill us,” you said, as the light turned green.

He revved the engine before he sped off, going significantly faster than he did before. You didn’t feel scared though, you were…turned on? You weren’t sure if it was the vibrations coming from the bike, or how hot your boyfriend was at that moment, but you knew you were going to jump him as soon as the two of you got back home.

He started to drive out of the city, taking you to one of the back roads he’d always pull off at with his friends. He stopped in the gravel area and helped you off the bike before he got off.

“Was that too much?” he asked, pulling the helmet off of his head. You quickly pulled yours off, mumbling a “No” as you stood on your tippy toes to kiss him. Your hands went up to his curls as his tongue brushed against your bottom lip to deepen the kiss. You stood there making out, the only light coming from the full moon and the glow of the headlights.

“We need to go home soon,” you said against his lips, “I understand why you always want sex after your late-night rides.”

“We’ll head home soon babe,” he said, his hand reaching down to squeeze your ass as he pulled you closer. “Or…we could do it right here.”

“I know this is a back road, but someone could still see us,” you said, glancing at the road for any other cars off in the distance.

“So what?” he asked, as his lips moved to your neck.

He pulled away once he heard the familiar loud hum heading up the road, slowing down a little once it got closer to where you and Ethan were.

“Is that Chad?” you asked, as Ethan nodded.

“Tara’s with him,” he said, noticing her tiny frame tightly clinging to him. “Good think I didn’t get you naked yet,” he laughed a little, thinking about how awkward that would’ve been.

“You know how I am when I want sex and I don’t get it,” you said, giving him a warning look. “Please don’t get caught up in talking for too long.”

“I won’t, babe,” he said, as Chad pulled in and took his helmet off.

“She didn’t kill you!” Chad yelled, as you rolled your eyes.

Ethan walked up to him as you walked over to Tara. She had the biggest smile on her face when she saw you standing there.

“Ahh! We can go on late night rides together, now!” she said, pulling you into a hug. “Isn’t this fun?”

“Yeah, I thought it was going to be scary,” you said, glancing over to Ethan to see him smiling at you. “Now I just have to convince him to take me home soon.”

“I get it, I feel the same way,” she said, picking up on your suggestiveness.

When Ethan walked around to you, he looked a little nervous as Chad motioned for Tara to get back on the bike.

“I hope you don’t mind, but Chad wants to ride around for a little bit. There’s this straight, flat road near here that we like to go way faster than we should, but if you’d rather go home, we can.”

“As long as we go home soon, I’m fine with it,” you said, as Ethan started to smile.

“Put your helmet back on,” he said, walking you back over to his bike.

He slid his over his head and helped you get on the back before he started it again and took off. You got a little confused once you hit a certain point in the road. Chad and Ethan both came to a stop on opposite sides, as you felt his hand grip your thigh.

“Do you trust me?” he asked, the question making you nervous as Chad gave him a thumbs up.

“Yeah,” you yelled, as he said, “Hold on tight.”

He revved the engine again before taking off, going way faster than he’d gone before, at least while you were on the back. The way you were rested against Ethan made it easy for you to see that Chad was keeping pace with him before he dropped a gear and flew past Ethan. Ethan did the same, your grip on him getting even tighter as you felt the adrenaline coursing through your veins. He quickly caught back up to Chad and passed him before he started to slow down a little.

“You okay, baby?” he asked, once he came to a stop and your grip on him relaxed.

“If you don’t take me home and fuck me, I’m not going to be okay,” you said, as Chad pulled up beside you and pulled his helmet off.

“Fuck, that thing’s fast,” he said, as Ethan pulled his helmet off.

“Yeah, I didn’t expect it. We were going over a hundred,” Ethan said, your eyes going wide as you listened to him speak. “I’m going to take her home.”

“You coming back out later?” Chad asked, as Ethan shook his head.

“No, I have other plans,” he said, as Chad nodded.

“You guys have fun. Don’t be an idiot,” Chad said, putting his helmet back on before speeding off.

“Over a hundred?!” you yelled, as Ethan started to laugh.

“Yeah, and I wasn’t going as fast as I could’ve,” he said, putting his helmet back on. “Let’s get you home.”

As soon as he got you home, you both were so needy. Various clothing items were scattered across your apartment, from the front door to the bedroom you shared with Ethan. He wasted no time, burying his head in between your thighs as soon as he pushed you back on your bed. Your fingers ran through his curls as soft moans slipped past your lips. His hands were kneading at your thighs as his tongue swirled around your sensitive clit.

“Use your fingers, babe,” you gasped out, as he suckled on your clit. He did what you said, sliding two of his fingers into your soaked, dripping pussy with ease. “Fuck, just like that.”

“Did being on the back of my bike turn you on that much?” he asked, his eyes boring into yours as he curved his fingers to brush against that spongy spot inside of you. “Yes,” you said, letting out a low moan. “You were just so fucking hot.”

His mouth went back to your clit as you tugged at his curls, the sounds of him fucking you with his fingers and your moans filling the room. His free hand was roaming your body, from your thighs up to your breasts. Once he started to pinch one of your nipples, you felt that familiar feeling starting to build inside of you.

Ethan knew you were close. Your legs were starting to shake as his fingers moved against your g-spot faster. He sucked your clit into his mouth, hard. Your back arched up off the bed as you pulled his hair so hard that it hurt. He didn’t let up though.

You let out a whimper as the feeling washed over you, your pussy fluttering around his fingers. He gently lapped at your clit until you started to come down from your high.

The grip you had on his hair relaxed as he sat up to look at you, his mouth coated in your arousal.

“Do I still have hair?” he asked, running his fingers through his curls. His scalp was so sensitive that he winced when he touched it.

“I’m sorry, baby,” you mumbled, as your breathing started to get a little more regular.

“It’s worth it if I made you cum that hard,” he said, smiling at you. “I loved having you on the back of my bike. It’s like you weren’t scared at all.”

“I wasn’t. I trust you.”

As much as Ethan loved watching your face when he fucked you, he wanted to be as deep as he could inside your warm, wet pussy. He positioned you so your ass was sticking up in the air for him as the side of your face rested against the cool comforter.

“So fucking perfect,” he said, rubbing the tip of his cock over your wet folds. “You ready, baby?”

“Yes,” you said, as he started to inch himself inside of you. The slight burning feeling as he stretched you out made you gasp, his hand roaming over your lower back as his hip bones met the curve of your ass.

He started out with slow thrusts, still giving you time to adjust. Once you whined out to let him know you wanted more, he moved faster. You heard the soft slapping of his skin against yours as the head of his cock hit that special spot inside of you. You glanced back to see him watching his cock disappear inside your pussy, slide himself out, head and all, before he started to pound into you.

“Fuck,” you whimpered, your eyes still on him as your hands grabbed at the sheets.

He looked up to watch your body as you started to roll your hips back, meeting his thrusts. His cheeks were red as his mouth hung open, a few of his curls sticking to his forehead. One of his hands tightly held your hip as his other hand reached around brushing against your lower stomach. You soon felt two of his fingers strumming against your clit, your moans getting louder by the second.

“Harder,” you whimpered, a smirk playing on his lips as he started to mercilessly pound into your pussy.  

 “That’s it, baby. You take it so fucking well,” he said, some of his words getting broken by the random grunts slipping past his lips.

Once he put the right amount of pressure on your clit and started to roll his fingers in circles, you felt your body start to tense up, your orgasm sneaking up on you. You were a whimpering mess as the slapping sounds got louder, echoing off the walls. He was getting close, but he was trying so hard to fight it.

He watched your fists ball up in the fitted sheet, pulling it lose as you cried out. Your pussy was squeezing him so tight that his thrusts started to falter.

“Where do you want it?” he rushed out, but you couldn’t form words, completely fucked out.

He slid out of you, releasing his hot cum all over your ass and lower back. His hand ran through his sweaty hair before he flopped down on the bed beside you. Your hips started to relax as you eased the lower half of your body to lay flat across the bed.

“Jesus,” he sighed, catching his breath. “That was amazing.”

“Was it as good as the shower sex?” you asked, smiling as you turned your head to face him.

“Well, we do still need to shower…”

#ethan landry #ethan landry x reader #scream smut #ethan landry smut #smut

[canonicallysoulmates]

I was reading an interview from a couple months back that the SFX makeup artist for IWTV, Howard Berger, did and it's such an insightful and fascinating read. I'm gonna include some excerpts of things that stood out to me but if you're interested in the special effects makeup of this show I highly reccomend giving the full interview a read, I'll link it at the bottom of this post.

Like y'all, they developed individual lenses for each character that changed with their moods that's 🤯

"Berger: One thing Rolin wanted was to go back to the source material regarding the color of their eyes because Anne Rice says what their eyes look like. At first, I was designing other things and I wanted all the vampires to have individual eyes. I didn’t want them all to be yellow eyes or red eyes. So we went back to the source material and did designs on the actors via Photoshop that were more accurate to what she had written. Once that was approved by Rolin, I had this idea to show their emotions, be it hunger or passion — or just ravenous killers. Their eyes would change — not the color, but the sizes, so their pupils dilate and their pupils constrict. Also in the hunger phase, we had lenses for Sam that were also super bloodshot. He’s just drinking the blood and his eyes are filling up. So I really wanted to play with that. With the help of Ted Rae, who was our VFX Supervisor, we were able to design everything so we could actually see the eyes dilate or constrict, and that just made it more animalistic, because animals obviously do that."

And for the blood they made the human blood look different from the vampire blood, and for the big drinking scenes the actors weren't actually drinking any of that blood which makes sense but at the same time it looks so legit:

"There are different bloods in this show. We have human blood and then we had vampire blood, and it actually is a little bit darker and has, like, a pearlescence to it. When they’re drinking the stuff, like in the Dubai sequence, Props had [created] an edible blood that wouldn’t affect them. If they had actually drank the blood we made, it’d be like drinking maple syrup. It would be horrible. We were really careful in the way we designed it because we wanted the blood to stand out and be different. We [also] have dressing blood. That’s [the] blood that just goes on clothing or on the floor. That, you don’t ingest, and we could use pearlescent powders. We did a lot of different blood tests [of] blood spraying out. For the edible blood, we ended up finding metallic cake frosting powder that was edible, so we mixed that in. It’s all these crazy things and you mix that in and then they were able to have that in their mouth and not be sick. [For] any of the big drinking stuff, we faked it, or [else] they would have stomach problems the whole show. They’re such good actors that they look like they’re drinking blood, but they’re not!"

And the way that Rolin describes vampires burning in this series is carbonization so that's how they came up with what Louis burning in the sun would look like.

"That was something Rolin came up with and we kept trying to figure out, like, “how is a vampire gonna burn?” Rolin used a word that made all the sense to me. He said “carbonization.”"

Oscar-Winning SFX Makeup Artist Howard Berger on Creating Blood, Bite Marks, and Beautiful Nails for Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire

#iwtv #interview with the vampire #iwtv bts #non spn #mine

[sirfrogsworth]

Mental Health Sushi

My brain was a bag full of cats today and I really needed to get out of the house. I was also craving sushi.

Or maybe I was craving sushi because of the brain cats?

I don't get paid until Saturday so my friend told me he would buy me dinner to help me calm the cats.

I still don't have my new lens. They said it would be in stock by "end of week" so hopefully that means tomorrow. But my brain cats were also desiring photography.

Some demanding-ass cranial felines to be sure.

I headed across the river to Nice Sam's and I challenged myself to take some photos as I acquired sushi.

Sam's is a challenging place to get cool photos so I thought I would do something experimental to make things more interesting. I love panoramic photos but most people look at stuff on their phones and horizontal panos always look like a tiny sliver. So I wondered if it would be cool if I did vertical panoramas.

I started looking straight down and took 5 photos gradually raising my camera upward.

To all of the grade school bullies who made fun of my belly... I can totally see my feet.

I found the sushi and they had some interesting things. I tried doing a giant sushi panorama but my lens had way too much barrel distortion and the way I shot it caused... issues.

All of those vertical lines didn't help the situation.

If you use a wide angle lens it is best practice to rotate the camera around a nodal point.

This helps eliminate parallax artifacts and helps Photoshop get a better stitch. It can sort of unwrap and flatten your photos like the label on a soda bottle. But when I took a photo, I moved to the left, took a photo, moved to the left, took a photo. That's a better technique when you have a more tele lens with less distortion on the edges.

In any case, I grabbed some spicy tuna roll, a "dynamite" roll (which I had never tried before), and a variety pack.

Once I got my sushi I tried a few more vertical panoramas in the parking lot.

These two are kinda neat when you switch back and forth rapidly. My belly and feet line up. And I totally planned that. Definitely not a coincidence.

Hey PandaKhan! Put your cart back in the corral!

I was trying to look cool and roll my cart so it buttsex'd into the next one... but that just inched it forward. So I had to buttsex them the less cool way.

Which is a reminder to all you buttsexing folks to use a quality lubricant.

Oh, and I was also test driving my new jacket. I haven't needed to outstretch my arms like Superman as of yet, so the sizing might be okay after all.

Though, do those shoulders look a bit bunchy to you? I'm getting linebacker vibes from this photo. I dunno. I'm going to take better pictures later so I can evaluate the fit a little better. It's hard to tell from the mirror shots.

When I got home I started with the Dynamite Roll.

The crunchy onions on top were very tasty.

I don't know if my brain cats are any better but at least I'm not hungry anymore.

[bludermaus]

Sometimes a happy family can be a controlling manipulative illithid, their small eager loyal disciple and their cuddly brain-kitten!

A LOT of thought has been put behind this and I hope everyone likes the end result <3 It was a bit of an experiment so it might not look AS good as it could be, but I was just testing some stuff out~

///////////////////////////////////////////

💎 To see the HD version, get your hands on the Photoshop file or just support me: https://www.patreon.com/bludermaus 💎

#bludermaus #bg3 fanart #fanart #baldurs gate 3 #baldurs gate fanart #baldur's gate 3 #baldur's gate iii #bg3 spoilers #baldur's gate spoilers #tavflayer #mind flayer #illithid #the emperor #bg3 the emperor #bg3 tav #gothic aesthetic #intellect devourer #bg3 us #family portrait #bludermaus art

[cy-cyborg]

Ok so the saga with my old PC continues and is only fueling my desire to get back into fanfiction lol because I found all of the files from my attempt at making a legend of spyro fan-game! I honestly thought they were lost, I'm so excited to see all this stuff again! This was the "logo" for the game (I know its nearly unreadable lol, so it says "The Legend of Cynder, Shadows of The Past". 14/15 year old me didn't seem to care much for readability, I think I'd just discovered photoshop's layer effects lol)

Here's a bunch of random stuff I found.

I'm defiantly going to do a redraw of that last one at some point. That was like, THE thing I remember being super proud of when I first did it. I think it was going to be part of the trailer my now-partner was putting together for the game lol.

Actually, a lot of these were actually just frames from animations, but either the files are either just corrupted, or high school me didn't know how to set fps and resolution properly in the output so I got a headache trying to watch them lol. It's probably the second one honestly. Also I remember my old laptop wasn't able to play back the animation because it would lag so much, so I just had to kind of...guess at timing, and that went about as well as you'd expect. It didn't help that blender used to have this bug where your audio would move around your timeline so it really was just random guessing. I'm amazed anything got done at all, let alone how far we actually got (that is to say, not far at all but we had something playable at least).

I also found the demo files and footage of the "game" running (running at 12fps but running)! I'm curious if they still work, I'll have to download an older version of blender to test them out!

There's actually a lot more but actually finding it is proving to be quite a challenge since this laptop seems to be the digital equivalent of an ADHD "doom box" - meaning nothing is sorted into folders that make even a remote lick of sense to me, it's all just kind of thrown in together lmao.

I wanted to post these though because even though I don't really do 3D stuff anymore, It still made me really happy to see how much progress I've made over the years and how far I've come. Also a few folks who worked on this project with me back on Deviantart have started finding me lol, so in case there's anyone else out there, hello! I'm not dead, I'm still around, I'm just a lot more (openly) queer now lmao.

Image descriptions:

[ID 1: A game title that reads "The Legend of Cynder, Shadows of the Past". The two lines, "the legend of" and "shadows of the past" are written in dark purple text. The purple material is supposed to look like liquid, but instead just looks hard to read. "Cynder" is writen in black, 3D text with red outlines, with the exception of the C. The "c" is modeled as a black tube instead of in a blocky style like the rest of the letters. The inside of the C has a red underbelly, and the bottom of the C ends in a tail, resembling Cynder's from the Legend of Spyro Series. There are 3 white spikes at the top of the C. /end ID]

[ID 2: a 3d render of 4 dragons around a christmas tree. A black dragon at the front, Cynder, is using her tail to hang tinsel, a pruple dragon, Spyro, on the left is reaching up into the branches of the tree. A blue dragon, Ignitus, is hovering behind the tree, his paws outstretched, implying he is placing the glowing star at the top. On his head is a silver dragon, Zerali, balancing on his horns. behind them is a series of floating islands. /End ID]

[ID 3: A render of Cynder with a darker colour pallet than the previous image and glowing yellow eyes, snarling at the camera, guarding a black gem. The sky in the background is blood red and the terrain is flat and barren. /End ID]

[ID 4: A render of an incomplete model of Terrador, a green dragon with brown horns and rocky shoulder decorations. He has no underbelly or wings. /end ID]

[ID 5: A render of a fan character named ekkosel, a blue, anthropomorphic dragonfly with an unsettling, uncanny face and green wings, T-posing. Her green wings are a blur /End ID]

[ID 6: two sketches of a anthropomorphic cheetah heads. One has long ears like a lynx and is labeled DotD design, the other has small, rounded ears like a cheetah usually has, labled TLoC design. /end ID]

[ID 7: A render of Zerali, the silver dragon from the second image, and ekkosel, from the 5th, playing together. In this image, we can see Zerali has a pinky-purple underbelly and shiny gold horns.]

[ID 8: A rendered scene showing a close up of blue ignitus with his eyes closed. He appears to be talking to Cynder, who is in the background, but blurry. The game's logo is visible in the bottom left of the image. /end ID]

#nostalgia #old art #image descriptions #Spyro #The Legend of Spyro #tlos #cynder #spyro the dragon #spyro fanart #cynder fanart #queer artist #old projects #Blender #Blender Game Engine #I had no idea what I was doing but I had a blast! #tlos spyro #spyro oc #legend of spyro #old ocs

[feyspeaker]

Hii me again. I'm not sure if I sent the ask I'm talking about on anon, so maybe that's why you didn't see it? It partially got answered with a recent ask you got anyway so no worries. I was just wondering if you use 3d in your process and if so, how? I've seen other illustrators use it to varying degrees and it seems like a really helpful tool to push your work.

Oh that's so weird! No I periodically go through my asks in chunks and I didn't see anything like that. I've had a few people in the past few months send me asks that looked like the second half of something else with no context, so maybe it's Tumblr fuckery. Sorry!!

I recommend learning Blender so you can help sculpt shapes and render lighting onto them in order to get the weirder/more complex shadows right. You can also apply colors onto the things you sculpt in order to see how the colors act in different lighting. It's pretty much an invaluable tool to me as it keeps me from having to problem-solve too much. I did a lot of digging around in my house to build references to photograph but it was just impractical to achieve the things I want to a lot of the time. I still do that, and you would not believe how many goofy photos I have of my husband in the poses you've seen me paint Astarion in lmao...

I do think that it needs to be used in moderation if you are a more beginner artist- I think that using 3D is DANGEROUSLY close to becoming a massive crutch for a newer artist and improper usage or over reliance on it can lead to stiffness or artificial looking colors. You need to be able to train your eye to create compelling compositions by bashing things together, and train your hand to replicate/add/subtract as needed from your references with an organic feel.

I will say this as a total committer of this crime myself in the past, it's VERY easy to tell when an artist relies too much on, for example, Clip Studio Paint posed models as bases for pieces without a good enough grasp on their fundamentals. And I also used to prickle when I saw more advanced artists warn of this, so I do think maybe it just has to run its course sometimes, because I know that using 3D for reference seems like an easy-button.

I've taken a lot of in-person classes for live figure drawing and painting, as well as just totally done drills, basically, on sketching and painting from life before relying too much on static imagery/3D/etc.

I often fret over every piece I do looking too stiff even still.

You have to do a LOT of the boring hard stuff the old fashioned way. And I regularly go back to it over and over when needed.

For example, I recently did a stupid amount of rose petal/flower studies deconstructing and painting ugly little paintings/doodles over and over because I know that I've been horribly weak at painting flowers for years (actively avoiding them). And I've been doing a lot of floral stuff lately due to that.

Whenever I start a new piece in new territory, I know it's going to mean several 3AM nighters where I have two other tabs open on Photoshop where I test out different textures or do a couple of studies. I'm working on a piece of my OC right now that has a lot of gore/medical instruments and I've been working on testing out different methods for shiny metal painting and some anatomical studies. I'll come to a snag in a painting and go "here we go" and work through it one piece at a time.

My Halsin piece, "Secret Spot" in the hot spring, was a massive undertaking with a lot of these moments. The Karlach x Dammon piece took 3 times longer than it should have due to me just having to go back and fix things knowing I could do better after doing some studies.

Ultimately I personally find art tutorials to be quite useless overall once you get to a certain point, unless they are teaching the use of a tool/software because you HAVE to figure out what works for you. And even then I use Blender like a monkey with a keyboard, I suspect, because I've just bruteforced through it, so I could probably use a tuneup from a good teacher on that haha. I hope this helps some, and sorry if I overstepped if I sound preachy.

#ask

[yorithesims]

Get to know you - Sims Style

@rstarsims3 <3 Thank you so much for the tag♡I was looking forward to writing this! Thank you for remembering me!

☆What’s your favorite Sims death? I don't know much about it because I'm avoiding the death of my simsXD ☆Alpha CC or Maxis Match? I like both! However, Alpha wins when it comes to hair😋 ☆Do you cheat your sims weight? In the pose test world, I ask my sims to lose weight because they are unknowingly gaining weight and freaking me out!

☆Do you move objects? moveobjects cheats are easy and the best♡ ☆Favorite Mod? “TS3 My Favorite Mod │ L-Sims” There are too many so I have collected them here！ ☆First Expansion/Game Pack/Stuff Pack? The Sims2: Double Deluxe ☆Do you pronounce live mode like aLIVE or LIVing? “aLIVE”

☆Who’s your favorite sim that you’ve made? Alien Girl☆Likasta Voyager

☆Have you made a simself? There are two Sim’s

☆Which is your favorite EA hair color? platinum blonde✨

☆Favorite EA hair? Pixie Hair💕

☆Favorite life stage? young adults + toddlers I'm enjoying childcare that I couldn't do in real life♪ ☆Are you a builder or are you in it for the gameplay? For gameplay! ☆Are you a CC creator? I'm a Pose-Maker.

☆Do you have any Simblr friends or a Sim Squad? I made some irreplaceable friends😸 ☆Do you have any sims merchandise? I love the necklace that reminds me of a plumbob.

☆How has your “Sims style” changed throughout your years of playing? Start playing with minimal CC to lighten the load on the game → Start using poses → You will be able to enjoy the appearance of female Sims that change in various ways with alpha hair → You will be able to create poses and belly-joint accessories It's a big change!

☆Who’s your favorite CC creator? There are too many to write about! As for Sims 3, a big hug to the creators who are still working on the CC to enjoy this old game!

☆How long have you had Simblr? It's been 6 years. ☆How do you edit your pictures? Fotor (premium) / Photoshop / Paint.NET

☆What expansion/ gamepack is your favorite? Generations,Showtime,Island Paradise,Supernatural

おしまい☆内容がTS3に偏ってもうたし、質問けっこう多めで楽しいからTS4も含めた日本語回答バージョンも投稿します♡

#sims tag #personal post #sims3 #ts3 gameplay

[lildohnut]

squishmoon gif making tips & tricks 🌙

this is a basic tips & tricks post for how I make my gifs. I am sure there are probably easier and better ways to do things, but this is how I have been doing it and I am lazy so I've basically got it down to a few clicks by setting up actions to do most of the work so if that sounds like something you might like - read on!

I use windows and photoshop cc 2022 for making my gifs. I also use caps (captured using potplayer and in jpg format) so once you have your caps ready, just import them into photoshop as normal.

RESIZING YOUR GIFS

the first thing I do when I import my caps is crop it down - and as I said, i'm lazy so I have all of my regular sizes saved so I can just select them. as you can see - they are all +2px larger than the tumblr dimensions and that is because if you ever see that weird little white border you sometimes get when making gifs? if you remove pixels off you won't get that so when cropping it's essential to add some pixels so that you have some to crop off (I hope that makes sense!)

these are my settings for scaling my images down.

MAKING YOUR GIF

as i said, i'm lazy - so once I have cropped my caps to whatever size I want, all I do is click on my action and let it do it's thing. I have it set where it sharpens and converts back to timeline with the 0.05 time delay so you don't have to reopen your gifs in photoshop again and save them.

the two windows that pop up are to allow you to adjust the settings if you wish - if you like it just click ok and it will continue on.

you can download the action pack here (you can just add more actions for resizing to suit your dimensions or do it manually by going to canvas and -2px when you are done making your gif before saving) there are two settings - one for 4k/HD and the other for HD where the sharpening is a little softer.

obviously, the higher quality the source footage, the better your gif looks. i tend to work with 1080p downloads and I rip my own blurays and save them at around 4GB per 40 minute episodes and 12-15GB for films. sometimes more depending on the length of the film.

external hard drives are your friends. if you are going to be giffing stuff often, keep them saved there. I have a ton of externals (which are in dire need of organisation) but it's so much quicker to have stuff at hand than needing to download each time you want to gif.

as for trailers - you get far higher quality using the trailers posted to the apple trailer site than youtube. so check there if you can get it. i use this site to download them and it does make a difference.

SAVING YOUR GIF

it's all down to personal preference what you like - but I use these settings when saving my gifs. you can play around with diffusion, pattern and noise etc to find what you think looks best for you. just remember that your gif must be under 10MB or else it won't upload to tumblr.

EXAMPLES

here are some examples of more gifs made using the sharpen action.

and this is the above moon knight gif, but using the slightly less sharper setting. sometimes it's best to test out both on footage you haven't used before to see which you prefer.

i hope this helped and if you have any questions my askbox is open! a like if you download the action would also be very appreciated.

#photoshop tutorial #gif tutorial #sharpen action #gif action #completeresources #allresources #photoshop help #onlyresources #mine #tutorial #action

[wasyago]

sorry to bother but i have a few questions! curious if you ever used other art programs besides sai and more about art things

- have you ever used sai 2? i think its still being refined

- whats your art program “progression” if you ever used a program before sai exactly, like ex: ibispaint -> fire alpaca -> sai

- are you a many layers artist with a seperate lineart layer and color each individual spots like skin, hair, eyes and etc in different layers? or do you combine the lineart and colors and just paint over it? or maybe you have multiple ways?

- do you use references a lot? or do you “wing” how stuff looks like? (which could honestly show te growth when it looks so right which you do always! your art is amazing?)

i still have so many questions but i dont want to bother by making this ask too long, sorry about that!

ooh this is interesting

i have sai2 downloaded, but i think i got the wrong version (the one that has a time trial thing and stops you from saving the files after a certain period of time). and i kinda just never bothered switching to it amd looking for a normal version? i know sai2 has a lot more options and textures and what not, but i like my old sai1 more for some reason.

for the art program progression, hmmmm. it's pretty much all sai1 i think! i have fire alpaca installed and still use it to make gifs and animations or to import text to sai / manage files / edit minecraft textures / etc, but it was never my main program. i drew some stuff in ibispaint as a kid before i had my computer, but i think back then i also mainly drew on paper, ibis wasn't my "main". never got into photoshop, never used any other programs.

for the layers. i do use them a lot, but like, for testing mostly? for example, when i want to change something in the sketch, i copy the layer and then compare the old and the new versions, deleting the one i don't like. i color and shade on one layer, but when i want to check how it'll look with different colors, i make a new layer and then compare them. when i want to fix something, like redraw the eye or clean up the sketch a bit or see how the character will look in a coat intstead of a vest, i make the new layer on top and just paint over everything. and eventually merge all the layers together and keep adding on top. so, i make a lot of layers, but then i also delete/merge a lot of them.

i used to use a lot of references and put all of them in the backgrounds of my drawings with low opacity to create this effect of busyness but also so i didn't haveto switch tabs constantly. but i stopped doing it for some reason. i do still use references, mostly for things that i don't have much experience drawing or want to be accurate. like armor, muscle structures, certain clothing elements, instruments, background elements, etc. and i wing things like poses, anatomy, expressions, clothing, lighting, composition, whatever else. i also recently find myself looking at a lot of art of other artists for inspiration, but not necessarily as references? like, the specific way that one artist drew hair poking out of the bandana, or the specific way that other artist drew a shadow on the glasses, or the specific way that other other artist drew a tail, its inspiring and i go "huh, i never thought of that" and i try to implement it in my art. well, i guess kind of like references.

i feel like you've answered all your questions in your ask, so this wasn't very helpful, but uhhhh...... yeah! thank you for this ask and thank you for the kind words, it was a lot of fun! and feel free to ask anything else

#yagotalk

[zwy01]

Quick OC Doodle. Downloaded some new photoshop brushes and Raegyn is here to help me test them out. The pencil effect is kinda neat I like it.

Funny stuff. As a little kid Raegyn always looked pissed because he’s just disappointed in everyone and everything lmao. At his level there’s almost nothing he finds interesting or worthy of his time. He actually only started to smile because he discovered that hey… yknow what? Smiling and acting all nice and cute gets him what he wants, so why not. All he has to do is control a few facial muscles, make them stay in position for a while, pout his lips and blink his eyes in a certain way, and maybe even tell some pretty lies, and boom just like that he can get his Clan Leader and basically anyone to give in to his every demand. He’s got this allllll figured out. Yeahhhhh. This kid’s got his acting stats all maxed out.

As for his expression here… idk. Probably Ray is not too happy about his parents putting him in the same clothes as older half-brother Kaekae, just because of “twinning” … or whatever shallow business the adults are up to. Pah, they’re not even twins! Damn, his parents must be insane. Karias is also insane. They’re all insane. Ray obviously thinks he’s better (and way cuter) than Kaekae so them dressing identically is obviously an insult to him, lol. Fortunately Ray eventually grows out of his “bow down to me” phase… orrrrrrr maybe he just got better at hiding it. Manipulating it. Or something else. Worse. Who knows. Eh. He’s cute for now, so he can be forgiven while he’s still at it. Once he loses his kiddie cuteness he’s gonna need to come up with new tactics and you can be pretty damn sure he’s gonna succeed.

Looking forward to writing about him in the future. I do have something very long planned so stay tuned!

#noblesse #manhwa #myart #oc #original character #raegyn kertia #millennium au

[lethedwarddavidsonworld-blog]

Signalis Doom - 5

Not much today either, it was mostly a mix of overcoming issues with 3d models in doom and figuring out some workflows.

3d models are still considered sprites, so to get models to display properly, it involves a degree of pointing the engine to look at invisible dummy sprites and then swapping those with the model. Odd stuff. There's better formats than this one and i'm going to look into those. That being said, i'm unsure how much i'm gonna commit to 3d, right now it's just experimentation. what I'll prob end up doing is spending a day banging out a buncha mockup sprites to approximate some chars and start mapping. Just enough to get the idea. tbh i could be doing way more mapping to establish a level language than i am, i'm kinda putting it off to play with textures and i gotta diversify.

I'm considering commissioning some artists for some spritework, either on specific characters or UI elements or such. I know i'll want something done for the opening splash. Most of my time today, and the next few days, is going to be spent reacquainting myself with a host of tools. I've been doing gamedev for years, i went to school for 3d animation, and i've spent a great deal of time in alot of art tools. However, i tend to forget how they work very easily. I realized i'm not gonna get anything done unless i take the time to remember how the following tools work; 1. Maya for core animation(could be a problem, iqm is the newest doom format and the community pipeline is best setup for blender, but we'll see how it goes) 2,. Blender for import/export/better compability with some aspects of gzdoom 3. Photoshop for photo manipulation of the existing textures and as a means of either creating new textures, or givng more nuance to ones i create elsewhere. 4. Aesperite for core pixel art. Signalis is a mix of low rez painted works and pixel art, and knowing when to deploy each is a good idea. 5. I'll need to get a proper toolkit up for the model to 2d pipeline, i have options but they need to be tested. 6. FL studio for audio manipulation. 7. and imma be real i don't know how spreadsheets work and i'm gonna need a hell of a spritesheet to organize what assets i'll need to recreate. That sounds like a lot but i've used them all before, and i'd need to more or less do the same thing for any real production anyway.

On the plus side, i think i've figured out how to do the floors. i'll just take elements of the original textures, and build a larger one out of them with built-in variation for tiles and color variation. I'll add more variation as needed in-editor.

I'm realizing i'm spending alot of time in odd spots. To be honest, i've never done a fan project like this before, much less one working with OG textures. I'm having a tough time getting my head around not only the unique nature of doom modding (releasing contnet packs taht can slot into any game) with full game production (Og maps, mechanics, story with bespoke stuff) ontop of fanworks (fanfiction, recontexualization of original assets). part of me wonders if my focus on getting og textures working is a mistake, as it's putting me in a mindset that's not the most useful for my project. But we'll see, I'll get my priorities straightned out, this ain't getting done overnight either way.

#signalis #doom #gamedev

[skaiind]

A lot of your work has really inspired me to take a shot at making comics. I know it's a lot to ask but I was wondering how to go about the process. Do you write and refine scripts before illustrating pages or do you just have a general plot in mind? Big fan of your work, your artstyle is magnificent.

first of all, that's amazing! comics are one of the best ways to learn art, because they challenge every aspect of your skill, it can be frustrating, but very very rewarding and worth it! and i am deeply moved that my work has inspired you to do so! thank you very much!!

my process has several steps, an each one sort of refines the last one as i revisit the same page over and over (which is great because i look at it with fresh eyes and manage to make it even better!!) but it turned out long, so get comfortable:

first i write a rough draft, trying to write as fast as possible with no stopping as much as i can, just so you can get the story (chapter) out. once the whole thing is finished, i edit it to make more sense! fix any mistakes, format it sort of like a script and also i try to be as descriptive as possible when explaining a scene - not just the vibes of it but i try to write out what i want the panels to look like or have, what POV or angle they're in, what details should be visible, describe the page design alltogether, etc. for the scripts i use notion.to because it was the most comfortable to organise all the chapters and notes and stuff in one place!

once the script is completed, i plan out the panels - that means i get a bunch of sketch paper (a3) and one by one as i reread the script, i draw out the panels and use little post its to shortly describe what should be in each panel (ex.: wide view of room, Michael in middle looking angrily at the clipboard). during this i also can edit the script a bit again, as with fresh eyes maybe i managed to think of something BETTER for the scene. i usually plan out about 15-20 pages in one sitting this way, because it's mostly just drawing rectangles and visualising the page in your head.

then we move on to ACTUALLY SKETCHING inside those panels, and with this i start from backgrounds first, then characters, then added details. at first i used just the red lead pencils, but then i began adding different colours like layers for the beforementioned categories. and when doing this i try to do as many pages as possible in one sitting, because the first page always comes out wonky, but then you get the flow of the story going and it gets easier (also good practice!!) and again, here i can refine the script, because maybe the post it i placed earlier doesn't make as much sense anymore and the scene might look different. so i sketch it how i think is best at the moment. i try to be as clear as possible, so the lining process later doesn't frustrate me too much.

now it's time to scan everthing and because i have a smaller scanner that means i must do it twice for each page. that's okay though because at least it comes out high quality when i photomerge them on photoshop later on. i apply autocontrast+autocolor to the picture, and the page looks more legible, and then transfer some to procreate on my ipad.

then you test out what lines/brush look best, and once you've got a chosen one - you LINE IT. Starting with defining the panels better, so they're not wiggly unless they look better that way. i again start from backgrounds because they're tedious and hard, then the characters, add some more details and then the speech bubbles. each on a separate layer so i can edit each one later if needed.

then all that's left is shading everything and exporting that bad boy out into the world!

what is common in most of these stages, is that i keep editing as i go. when i think of how i want the panels to look, i try to imagine it not just as a comic panel but like a scene in a movie (if specifically - horror movies and other times a one-camera comedy tv-shows or just a combination of both) and that really helps me visualize the panel.

another thing to keep in mind when writing a bigger/longer story is to know where it's going or at least what are you trying to show through it, but even that isn't necessary because in comics you can just keep exploring an idea or a concept without going really anywhere and it can still end up being amazing.

in the end you must remember that the comic you're making for YOU first and audience second. because when you start thinking about what other people will think, it'll become frustrating very fast and lose the fun. an creating comics is already frustrating in on itself, there's no need to bring in any more to it.

i hope you will make comics! i hope they will be fun for you and i'm very happy you want to put out more of this fantastic media into the world!

i also hope the long answer helped :))

#long post #asks

[indiemedley]

Undertale Orange Concepts

Okay, so, after binging every piece of content I could squeeze out of Undertale Yellow, I found myself inspired to write some concepts for a possible Undertale Orange game, and I sorta got carried away. Made an idea for the main character and the main antagonist, but still working on the rest. If y'all like it and wanna see more, tell me and I will continue to think really hard

My concept for a theoretical Undertale Orange named the human Jessie, which was derived from Gesture, because in the Photoshop Flowey fight, the healing attacks from Bravery was a thumbs up, a gesture of goodwill.

My concept for the main antag of Undertale Orange is named Masquerade (pronounced Masker Odd), a tall humanoid figure who wears a large tophat and an elegant black and white mask. He's a very enigmatic figure, and only appears when Jessie is alone. He's got a very vested interest in seeing them succeed and seems to be the only one who hasn't attempted to kill Jess. In fact, he was actually the one with the medical skills to patch Jessie up after their fall into the Underground, since the flowers hadn't grown in yet, so, they broke their ribs. When the player gets far into the game, they'll eventually see popular fiction books with a character who looks startlingly like Masquerade. Eventually, it's revealed Masquerade is a robot, the only successful one of many failed prototypes, of the character built by a mourning roboticist.

The roboticist's partner was the one who wrote the successful fiction book, and when they fell down, the roboticist was heartbroken and tried to replicate the characters to keep a vague legacy alive. Eventually, their lab was shut down when the Core had to expand to power the Underground, sorta taking over the lab for the Core's maintenance. Masquerade, however, was activated, and spent the first year of his life clawing his way out of the scrap heap of his clones. Upon learning the nature of his existence, he was stricken with a need to find a purpose, one he ripped pieces of from his fictional counterpart.

He was programmed to hunt humans, as that was the cause of the author's death, but he quickly grew to hate monsters as well due to his isolation and ostracization. He planned to goad the human (Jessie) into killing, thus sparking further tensions between humans and monsters, ensuring the war between the two species would never end, mutually assured destruction. So, he saved Jessie when they fell from above. If Jessie goes pacifist, he's pissed and tries to take matters into his own hands.

This leads to another character walloping him with a blast that breaks half of his mask, exposing the machinery and wiring. Then he engages them in combat, using physical attacks rather than magical ones, that way, Jessie can't just heal with some crummy food, instead inflicting serious actual attacks. Or, well, he would if he didn't get blasted into next week, damaging his body beyond repair. His wounded form inches off as the cast regroups, only for the Core to start heating exponentially. They know it's coming from the Robotics Lab that got assimilated into the Core, and pursue Masquerade there. He's plugged himself into the systems and has started to Overclock the Core. He explains that he alerted the citizens about the Human heading to the Core before he started heating it up. He aims to cause a full scale meltdown, Chernobyl level destruction, that would all be pinned on Jessie, which would cement humans as the enemies for good, at least, for whatever monsters remained.

There IS more for this concept and final confrontation stuff, but mainly just testing the waters to see if y'all like the direction it's going

#indiemedley #oc #writing #undertale #undertale orange au

[evelhak]

📚

Since some people have evidently found my books through Tumblr despite of me not being very active on the Finnish side of it, I thought: why shouldn't I post about my books? It doesn't matter they are not available in English (yet, anyway) because I would be curious enough to read about stuff my mutuals do even if I couldn't read the actual material.

So, I plan to make a post about every book I write, do cover art for, or am otherwise involved with. Best case scenario is someone finds something new to read, worst case scenario is someone is bored.

This time, I'll introduce you to my debut novel:

☁️ Unitytöt ☁️

(dream girls)

Published: 2021 by Nysalor

Genre: New Adult, Fantasy, Slice of Life, LGBT+

Certainly not the first book that I wrote but this is my first published novel and my first cover project. ✨ I wrote this book in 2017 when I was about to graduate university, trying to juggle a full-time job as a mail carrier, nearly daily ballet training and writing both my original work and fanfiction which I also started doing the same year. The schedule turned out to be too much for my autistic brain and physical conditions. Regardless, I'm so happy I wrote this book!

It's a story about a technically bodiless creature, Venna, and a human, Aiju. Venna's species lives in people's heads or musical instruments because they need music to live. Venna is an outcast, and has been living in a wind chime to avoid people and their overwhelming array of feelings, which Venna's kind experiences directly in the human brain they are living in. Circumstances force Venna to move into the head of a young woman, Aiju, who is starting her studies at a temple (=a magic university). Unlike Venna's previous humans, Aiju can hear and feel Venna and is curious for, rather than scared of a new friend in her head. Aiju is also able to control and create elaborate dreamworlds where she and Venna can meet in their own separate forms. The two begin to live their life together, studying, enjoying music, maybe even falling in love when an older student is intrigued by Aiju's peculiar behaviour. It's a story about sharing a body and partially a mind, about merging, sense of self, neurodiversity and particularly sensitivity, and also abuse and healing. It's a slow love story, a fantastical exploration of the subconscious, a fantasy focused on characters and dreams that also touches on the larger context of the universe and existence.

I wrote this book because I had read many body sharing stories and was dissatisfied with the lack of portrayal of the ordinary every day experiences that would come with it, as well as I was with the ease with which body shifting creatures always seem to adapt to their new circumstances. I wanted to see more of the reality. I wrote this book because I had briefly introduced and later edited out a music eating demon in another fantasy story of mine, who possessed a girl and made her dance in a tavern until she fainted. I was curious what a story about a similar but gentle creature would be like. I wrote this book because themes of merging and separating your sense of self were relevant to me and I wanted to explore them through a fantastical world but also reality based concepts.

I was so much more nervous about the cover project than I was about actually publishing the story. I had zero experience apart from my personal cover doodles, no graphic design studies, and had only recently started learning Photoshop. Thankfully I'm still pretty happy with the cover, although there are technical details I would do differently. The most glaringly obvious one is the ginormous bar code. It was hard to tell how big it would actually look and my publisher had warned me not to make it too small, so I overdid it. My publisher is small so there are no resources to make test copies of the books, and it's due to the smallness of my publisher that I even had the opportunity to design the cover myself despite having no experience, just some visual skills.

I still like the cover art itself, the only problem which I did suspect back then too, is that in an attempt to make the cover dreamlike, it turned out a bit like children's literature. I was the only one who was worried about it, but in some libraries people have clearly thought this is aimed at 12-year-olds. I'm sure some of them would enjoy this, but it's a bit off. A lot of people have told me not to underestimate children, but it's not that I'm doing that, I'm simply aware that this book is not written in a way nor does it contain themes or life events that are relevant to very young people. It's a very psychological story and its issues are the most relevant to people in their late teens and early twenties. It's not that there's anything in this book that a 12-year-old couldn't handle, it's just going to be boring for most of them because it would be a lot to ask from a child's attention span to be interested in stuff they can't relate to for 400 pages. Even if many 12-year-olds still like to read about characters older than them, characters they can look up to, this book is written with people in mind who can relate to 20-year-olds. Of course there are exceptions. I probably would have loved this book as a 12-year-old. But I'm sure 90% of my peers would not have cared enough to finish it.

The cover seems to have done some of its job well too, because I know some people (adults) bought this book because they thought the cover was pretty, so that's good at least. Most of the feedback I've received has been really positive, the book seems to have found some of the readers it was clearly meant for. Some relevant criticism has also come my way and I believe I've learned some things since writing this book. The only really negative review I came across so far contained so many factual errors that it seemed the reviewer had been too busy to actually process the book. From that perspective it seems like the cover has also worked well enough to draw mostly the intended people towards the book.

The most memorable experience in its publication process was probably how it was chosen for an interview at the biggest national book fair by high school presentation/communication students who hold interviews on one of the stages there every year. It was such a good interview because the two students interviewing me clearly loved the book, related to it, and were excited to talk about it with me, and asked really thoughtful questions. I couldn't imagine a better first interview as an author. It was also the day the book officially came out. It was also my first time at that book fair (I don't often visit the capital) and I was the first author from my publisher to land an interview there, so I was really very nervous at first. I was unfortunately a COVID debut author so this was the only place I was able to present my book physically that year, which obviously affected its already marginal distribution. But it was such a lovely event for me that it is the more memorable for it.

I wish this book would find more readers who love dreamy, character driven and fairytale-esque fantasy. It's not without plot, mystery, or danger, but it's definitely not the best pick for someone who needs an epic, fast paced and world-shaking chain of events from their reading experience. This is for the other sensitive dreamers out there who just love to drown in characters, experiences and subtle magic, and would rather stop to contemplate it than to rush forward at all times.

#eve's books #cover art #unitytöt #finnish books #nysalor #author life