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#i draw out a rough image of all my ideas first so i can get an idea of wjat i want and not go offtrack
mxaether · 3 months
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You ever spell your whole ass email wrong and have to repost the whole commission post entirely??? Just me?????? Okay let’s do this again
Hey darlings!! I am officially opening up some digital commissions!!!! This is a limited time kinda deal - I don’t offer digital commissions or via online very often. I’m not sure how many slots I’ll be opening, it depends a little on the demand as we go. The All Star Game is the first Saturday of FEBRUARY, so commissions are only going to be open from now to sometime in January, depending on how long it takes to get the scratch together!!
Why this is important to me: well, if you’re here - you know how far down the hockey hole I’ve gone. And the all star event is here, in MY TOWN!!! This year! My wife is a lifelong leafs fan, and the original instigator for me paying any attention to hockey after potvin left. My besties are planning to go, and I’d really love to get my wife and I there as well. I’m not looking to fund something ringside, we’re dead ass looking at nosebleeds so anything and everything helps.
How this works!: it’s pretty easy!! You decide what you wanna see me draw, in my style. Then, decide what kind of commission flavour you’d like - there will be examples at the end of this post!! Email me!!!! If you have photos, even better!! Especially with the blorbo squares! Even if you don’t have an exact photo of what you want, that’s totally fine! Send me anything you think is relevant! I’ll respond, say YEAH!!!! Payment happens, via PayPal! Then, you’ll get a rough version of your commission to approve. If you want to make changes, this is when you do it!! It’s the easiest point in my process. Once you say, YEAH!!!! I finish up the image and deliver to you, via email, high res images and .psds with the layers intact. Easy!
Examples:
Here’s an idea of what you’ll get. All commissions are drawn in procreate, at 8.5” x 11”, 300 dpi - perfect to get prints made for personal use, if you’d like. Blorbo squares are unique in that I do an 8” x 8” square, that I export as a transparent png. Great to make stickers out of!! Again - for - personal use! Uploadable to discord as stickers, with some compression! (This is something I can do for you, if you’d like, and a small compressed png will be provided as well.)
Follow me under the cut!!!! Snip snip snip snip
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blueskittlesart · 5 months
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hi :] this isnt really a reqest cuz it'll prob be a longer answer but im rlly curious abt ur comic process
i love all ur comics and somehow they always manage to gutpunch me- and ur composition and the way they read is always so beautiful and adds so much to the message youre trying to get across
yeah lol let's get into it! Ive spent maybe 5 or so years refining this process to the point it's at now so it's pretty much my standard procedure now. I'm going to use Now that you're gone as my primary example here since i still have most of the planning stages associated with it (my laptop does not have a whole lot of storage left so i usually delete my planning once the comic is finished lol) but i'll try to throw in some other examples too!
I almost always start with a written script. (the exception for this is longform oc comics which i find easier to write in the moment, but for my shorter character studies I almost always write first.) I use discord to write because it's convenient, but before i had a dedicated discord server for my stuff i was using txt files on my laptop which i do NOT recommend. anyway, this is what the written script for ntyg looked like:
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note that some small elements changed in production, like the amount of time that had passed since link's death. the lines "I look at her and i am only afraid. i remember all the ways in which i hurt you. She's almost as old now as you were then. I cannot stand the thought of outliving her, too" were also added during the rough stage because i felt like there wasn't quite enough emphasis on aryll in the initial script, and since this was a major change that necessitated a whole extra page in the comic I went back and edited those lines into the script so I wouldn't forget them. (both these changes were made during the rough stage. i'll almost never make major script adjustments after the roughs are finished.)
more examples of my scripts; specifically the original script for totk: failure and two versions of oot: adulthood (one before some major refining and one after.) with comics like these, where i have a very clear idea in my head of the imagery i want to go along with the words, i'll sometimes include it interspersed in the script, either spolier-marked or denoted with brackets.
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with ntyg and some of my other more. canon divergent? i guess? comics, there's sort of a mini phase in between scripting and roughs where I do some minor character studies to get designs nailed down in the early stages. with ntyg I already had a clear image in my mind for aryll, but the central character was link's dad, whose design wasn't quite so solid in my head. I really wanted to make sure that his design was well thought-out and consistent throughout everything, so i did a few mini sketches and studies to ensure I had his design memorized and could execute it consistently:
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these are sans hair and accessories because nailing down consistent facial features was my main focus with them, and both these sketches ended up getting used as references for certain panels later on. This isn't a step I ALWAYS take with my comics, but if there's a central character that i'm not super used to drawing i find it helpful to get some practice in before jumping into the real thing!
after the scripting and design phases i move on to roughs, which I consider to be the most important stage in my process. roughs are very very quick approximations of what I want the final pages to look like. they usually don't take me more than a few minutes per page to create, and their sole purpose is to help me visualize the flow of the page and the placement of major elements like panels, characters, and dialog. this is what the 1st page rough for ntyg looked like compared to the final page:
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as you can see, all i have laid out is the major text and visual elements, but it really helps me to visualize how the finished comic is going to flow. i do the roughs for every page before i start on the finals so that i have an idea of what the entire comic is going to look like before I really start finalizing it. it's important that these roughs are FAST--i almost never draw fully-fledged characters unless the pose or expression is particularly important to the scene, and that's because the goal is to allow everything to flow quickly and easily from panel to panel and page to page, and getting too caught up on one panel or element often breaks that flow. Nowadays, i have a pretty good idea of how much room my writing takes up so i don't write out the entire script in my roughs, but back when i was a little less experienced i took the time to write everything out in this stage to ensure that my dialog would fit into the space it was given without getting cramped or cutting off other important elements. doing that really helped me build awareness of how much dialog and panel placement matters and how i could use it, so this rough stage is non-negotiable for me even now!
after the roughs i go straight into finalization. I never enjoyed lineart back when i was learning to draw digitally so i basically built my art style to be understandable and visually appealing after one sketch phase, meaning there's legitimately no in-between stage between that rough and that final page, i just sort of. go for it. this is what works for me, but i think most normal people would probably find a second sketch phase helpful LMAO i'm just crazy and i need everything done as fast as possible. the finalization stage usually doesn't contain any major adjustments of script, composition, etc; i make it a general rule to keep most of the major adjustments confined to the earlier stages, for my own sanity. One thing that DOES occasionally change in this stage is my plans for color--ntyg in particular was originally planned to be completely black-and-white with no grays added, but when looking at my completed pages i found them sort of empty and unengaging without the gray, so i added it. usually if my color plans DO change it's something small like that--I'll almost never switch between full-color and grayscale on a whim because the way that i sketch for those two versions differs significantly so it isn't an easy switch to make.
anyways i hope this is what you were looking for! I'm very passionate about making comics and this process is a result of years of experimentation & finding what works for me, but i hope it's of some use to you as well!
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polarisjisung · 5 months
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cherry flavoured
07—WORD ON THE STREET
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SYNOPSIS | y/n, the campuses notorious heartbreaker, had never been one to settle down, running from the word commitment since the concept had first been introduced to her, but one smile and a little cherry coke seems to do just the trick when she runs into captain of the dance team, park jisung
PAIRING | dancer!jisung x fem!reader
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you're on your way to the library to grab a seat while you wait for jisung when you walk past the dance studio, your favourite song blaring from the speakers, a tall figure moving to the beat with a large zip up black hoodie thrown over his body— you haven't seen much of him but you'd recognise him anywhere, jisung repeating the same series of moves over and over again, each time with increased fluidity
he's in a trance, too focused on critiquing himself to notice your presence on the other side of the glass door, which is why he doesn't seem to hear the loud knock you give before entering
his moves seem to falter when he notices your cherry red hair in the mirror and the male finds himself biting at his cheeks to suppress the smile threatening to spread across his lips
"I hope you don't mind me coming here, I tried to knock but I don't think you heard me" you offer him a smile, still not realising just how difficult you'd find it to talk to him in person, beautiful brown eyes staring down at you, without any alcohol in your system
"not at all, I was just finishing up anyways" his voice reverberates through the studio, you swear you can feel it in your bones, but you can tell jisung was still working on his routine
"go ahead and do your thing, I think it'd actually help me get an idea of my drawing style if I saw you dance, if you don't mind that is"
you stop yourself from rambling some sort of artistic jargon his way, looking up at him as you take a few steps closer with those eager eyes again, the ones jisung can't seem to say no to
"it's okay if you're not comfortable, I can go until you're done" you mistake his silence as discomfort but the blue haired dancer is quick to stop you
"no, I'm just not used to it is all"
"don't you preform though" you ask, a genuine tone creeping through your voice and jisung can't help but notice the way you show so much interest in what he has to say
"sorta, when I'm practising it's not really the same, it's part of the process instead of the final product" you nod understandingly, "I've never had anyone see that before"
"I'd love to see it, if you'd let me" you take a seat, watching as he loses himself in the music again, body swaying in ways you didn't even know were possible, his cheeks puffing every time he made a mistake, some you didn't even take notice of and all you could see was sheer passion radiating through his every movement
your hands seen to start to itch, and you can't help yourself from reaching for your sketchbook, soft strokes of your pencil laid onto the paper as your eyes flicker between jisung and the white of the page.
it doesn't take long for a rough sketch to form, small details creeping their way into the paper as you watch him move, concentrated on doing his best
it's when he spins that you can't keep your awe contained, a soft gasp escaping your lips as he twirls so effortlessly, you find yourself flipping the page, taking on a more challenging sketch of what you just saw, eyes glued to the page with the image of his grace clear in your mind
this time it's you who doesn't realise the pair of eyes on you, jisung's movements halted as he watches you rush to swipe different toned pencils across the page, afraid that the mental image would be cleared from your brain before you could get it down
its only when he takes a seat beside you, sipping on an open bottle of water with his messy hair falling over his eyes that you realise he'd stopped dancing
"you're good, like really good" you say, hoping your words don't betray you like they usually did when talking to him, coming out in a completely different order than you'd hope, a problem you'd never known until you ran into jisung
"as in you're crazy good, professional level good" you specify again and jisung let's his head drop, a small smile coming over his features, muttering out a small thank you
his eyes seem to land on the book in your lap next, widening at the precision of the two sketches you'd perfected in a matter of minutes
he wants to say something, anything to let you know just how talented he thinks you are, but he can't find the words to express what he thinks, the now decreased proximity between the two of you causing him to freeze entirely
after that, you only work on a few more sketches, from pre recorded dance practises that jisung had loaded up on his laptop, pointing out signature moves he wanted to incorporate into his project, but each time he did you found yourself lighting up at the passionate glint in his eye
"when did you start dancing"
jisung doesn't expect the question, halfway through one of the dance practise videos, pressing the pause button on his laptop
"1st grade I think" if he's honest jisung doesn't remember a time where he wasn't a dancer, it had been that long, "my teacher suggested it as a way to break out of my shell and it just became my thing"
you nod, it was something anyone with any sort of passion could resonate with, the same way you did with basketball— the start of finding your passions was special, you always thought it was the best way to get to know someone
"what about you, when did you start playing basketball?"
"I think I was about 5, I had this silly little crush on one of my brothers friends, he was on the school basketball team and so I practically begged my parents to let me join a basketball club," you smile fondly at the memory, bringing your knees forwards into your chest as you shuffle to face jisung, "I guess it grew from there"
jisung nods, tired eyes staring blankly your way, making the best attempt to actually process your words, although not too successfully
"I'm starving, lets grab dinner?" you rise to your feet, and jisung follows, the buzzing of the ac fading as you exit the dance studio
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prev | masterlist | next
NOTES: ignoring the fact that the message on jisungs twitter is in fact a yn pov 💀 + I wanna post a Halloween chapter but that's not gonna be until a little later into the week so...
TAGLIST (open): @jenobubbles @justalildumpling @jising-jisang-jisung @nanawrlds @222brainrot @chichiuu @dinonuguaegi @ishireads @yyy90210 @hibernatinghamster @stqrrian @makiswrld @everywonuu @marizhua @luumiinaa @asteriaskingdom @jeongintwt @90s-belladonna @000rpheus @jammingjaem @yayloona @neozon3nha
(bold cannot be tagged)
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constantcrisis19 · 10 months
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Bleeding Out - Part 2
Simon "Ghost" Riley x GN S/O
AN: I’m so stoked that the first part got so much positive attention and I can’t thank you guys enough for all the support! Hope you enjoy the fic!
Main Page
Warnings: Blood and injury
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Ghost kept his breathing even and his footsteps light as he kept a lookout for the gas station since the last thing he wanted was to attract any attention to himself and alert nearby enemies to his presence, though his focus shifted gears from his stealth mission when his radio clicked, familiar static coming through the line.
"Ghost? Stay frosty, I hear voices nearby." You cautioned, whispering quietly into the radio in order to avoid gaining any unwanted attention.
“Copy.” Ghost replied curtly before thinking better of his tone since the last thing that you needed in an already shitty situation was additional stress, so when he continued, he tried to soften his voice as much as he was able to. “I’m closing in on your position now.” 
His grip on his rifle flexed restlessly, hoping that the statement portrayed everything that he couldn’t make himself say out loud. I’m on my way, just hold on a little bit longer.
There was a moment of absolute silence where Ghost could pick up on the sound of muted voices that you had warned him about over the crackle of fire before gunfire began to ring out from close by, the sound akin to the relentless tick of a doomsday clock, every shot reminding Ghost that you both were running out of time.
He stayed on the lookout for any noises or movement, his finger resting against the trigger as he came up on a building that had been messily blown in half, the substantial amount of damage exposing the interior to the elements. 
Ghost’s tac gear scraped against the rough brick when he pressed his back up against one of the remaining exterior walls of the house and he paused at the corner, leaning forward in order to peer out around the edge.
His eyes immediately locked onto a bright red, oval sign that was upside down and half-buried in the rubble, the bold white lettering that was visible cuing Ghost into the fact that it was for a gas station. He forced himself to remain neutral as he scanned over his surroundings until he spotted a structure that had a huge gap running right down the middle of it and red accents that were in the same shade as the sign.
He checked the coordinates that you’d given him one last time, confirming what he had already suspected, before turning his attention back to the building that you were hiding out in. He cautiously looked around to make sure that there were no hostiles lying in wait, he wanted to be ready just in case you were being used as bait for a trap.
“I have eyes on the gas station.” Ghost’s voice was quiet and low, his grip tightening on his rifle while his finger moved to hover over the trigger in preparation of a firefight. The whole time his gaze darted from the station to his surroundings and back again almost obsessively, making sure he didn’t miss anything,
"Shit. I don't see you. I think that you're a little too good at blending into the environment. Can you confirm your exact position somehow? I’m injured and can’t afford to waste time trying to find you.” You were quick to reply at the prospect of being close to getting out of the mess that you’d found yourself in.
"Copy." Ghost replied and then thought for a short moment before an idea came to mind, he reached into his pocket and pulled out one of his throwing knives. “Look for a bright reflection.” He instructed before angling the polished blade so that the golden evening sun reflected off of the shiny metal, creating a bright flash that you could easily locate.
There was the sound of shifting fabric and a low hiss from over the line before you went quiet, the silence drawing on for long enough that Ghost to begin to feel a growing sense of dread, his mind conjuring up the image of Death’s icy fingers drawing closer to you, reaching for the back of your neck-
Ghost used his free hand to activate his radio, his voice deceptively steady as he spoke. “Do you see the signal, Karma? Or should I try another method?” 
He felt like he was about to vibrate out of his skin. He wanted to be stupid, he wanted to forget all of his years of intense training and careful planning. He wanted to be selfish, he wanted to throw caution into the wind and rush in. He wanted to kill every person who had ever had even an inkling of ill intent towards you.
You made him want things he had no desire for previous to meeting you.
And, over the entire duration of his military career, the only person who ever managed to garner this loss of control from him was you. His grip absentmindedly flexed around the blade he was holding, but he wouldn’t allow his hands to shake, waiting with as much patience as he could muster for your response.
Though, even if you didn’t -or couldn’t- respond, Ghost would just have to come to you.
"Yeah, no, you're good. I see you now." You finally replied, your pained yet determined voice like balm to Ghost’s frayed nerves. He sheathed his throwing knife, listening intently as you stubbornly pushed to your feet with a muted groan.
It didn’t take him long to find you stumbling among the rubble, Ghost doing one last scan of the area before leaving cover in order to meet you halfway. His steady jog sped up into a full sprint when he saw you lose your footing and collapse against what remained of a charred gas pump, reaching you just in time to keep you from falling when your leg gave out.
Your hands were stained crimson where they were pressed up against the severe gash in your left thigh, blood leaking through your fingers and leaving a trail of red behind you. 
Ghost let his rifle hang from the strap thrown over his shoulder once you were upright, wasting no time dropping to his knees before you. He yanked his beige neck gaiter off, ripping a sizable patch off and pulling your hands away from the nasty wound before pressing the folded cloth against the raw, bloody mess.
Your reaction was instant, your shoulder hunching up around your ears as you lurched forward, curling up above Ghost’s head as you dug your teeth into the meat of one of your gloved hands in order to muffle the scream that was forced out by the firm pressure. 
Your other hand darted down to Ghost’s shoulder, your leg jerking in an instinctual attempt to get away from what was causing the pain, digging your nails in and holding on so hard that there was no doubt in Ghost’s mind that your nails left vivid bruises on his pale skin.
Ghost waited -keeping a careful eye on his surroundings all the while- until your breathing had evened back out and your jaw unclenched before tying the remainder of his neck gaiter around your thigh in order to keep the scrap of clothing that he was using as makeshift gauze in place.
He then turned around so that you were facing his back before reaching out behind him in order to grab onto your forearm and your uninjured thigh, maneuvering you onto his back. He made absolutely certain that you were settled and wouldn’t be slipping off of him if you lost consciousness along the way before taking his rifle in hand.
If he accidentally jostled your injury in the process, you gave no sign of any discomfort, the quick bandage on top of the blood loss most likely draining what little energy you had left.
“How’s the pain?” Ghost asked as he began the arduous journey back to base camp, where you would receive more advanced treatment for your numerous wounds, readjusting his grip on your left thigh when his hand began to slip.
"Nothing I can't handle, Lieutenant." You reassured weakly as you leaned heavily against his back, your entire body trembling from a combination of the adrenaline crash and the intense pain as your forehead dropped down to rest against the juncture of Ghost’s shoulder and neck, your breaths a little too even to be natural as they fanned out across his shoulder blade.  
“That’s good.” He replied as gently as he could even though he highly doubted that your pain level was as manageable as you were making it out to be, but he also knew that you were a stubborn son of a bitch and always went into every mission like you had something to prove, so it wasn’t really surprising that you were reluctant about being truthful when it came to your injuries.
As if you were worried that Ghost would be disappointed.
As if Ghost could ever feel disappointed in you.
You were his closest friend and it wasn’t a title he gave to just anyone. He trusted you, he trusted you enough to hand you a knife and turn away, knowing that you wouldn’t stick it into his vulnerable back. He trusted you with his story, his scars, his pain. He trusted you even when half-dead on his feet from several days of being on the run with little to no sleep. 
He trusted you to know what to do when he felt less human and more like a incorporeal phantom, invisible and unmoored, surrounded by the thick scent of petrichor and rot in a wooden prison.
So no. Ghost could never feel anything other than pride and warmth when he looked at you.
“Is your vision foggy at all?” He asked, shaking himself out of his thoughts when his hold on your thigh slipped again. “Any nausea, dizziness, confusion?” He added before you could answer, giving you the opportunity to be open about how you were feeling.
"My vision is still good enough for me to shoot if needs must, but I'll let you know if that changes." You replied softly after a moment of loaded silence, one of your hands coming up to squeeze his unoccupied shoulder for a few seconds before letting go. 
Though, the only thing Ghost could focus on through the entire interaction was the fact that you’d stopped shaking, and there was no way that he could convince himself that the development was a good thing.
Ghost just gave a noncommittal hum for lack of anything to say, his gaze darting around as he moved toward the edge of the city where it was quieter. Ghost mentally calculated the distance and figured that the camp wasn’t too far away now, though it would still be another seven or so minutes until he reached it.
The next couple of minutes were spent in a tense silence, only being broken by your soft voice, just loud enough for Ghost to hear you. "Thank you." 
And in that moment, he had never hated hearing those words more. It sounded like giving up. 
It sounded like goodbye.
“Hang on. We’re close.” Ghost forced out through gritted teeth, pushing his burning legs to go faster despite the fatigue he could feel weighing down his limbs. 
He revisited his initial image of Death standing before you and saw himself stepping between you and its cold, spindly hand. He imagined staring into the black void of its eyes and denying it the satisfaction of taking you.
You were not dying today.
"Good… tha's good." You said sleepily, your words slurring together as you began to lose focus. Ghost wondered if you feel the wound on your thigh anymore because, as nice as you not having to be in constant pain was, he knew from experience that the numbness was much worse.
“Stay awake.” Ghost demanded, his voice coming out angrier than he’d meant it too. “That’s an order, Karma. Keep your eyes open.” 
"But I'm tired." You complained, your voice dropping into a soft whisper, and Ghost felt something in his chest tighten at how exhausted you sounded. He was horribly tempted to tell you to close your eyes and let go, if only to give you a moment of respite, but he knew that he would lose you if he did.
"You can rest once we get to the med tent." He promised, his own voice just as quiet as yours. "Just a little bit further, just hold on. Please." Ghost repeated quietly, breaking out into a sprint as the edge of the camp’s perimeter came into view, the motion sensors going off as he passed them, racing toward the med tent.
There was no response from you as you went completely limp in his hold, arms dangling over his shoulders like dead weight.
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@sselinaa, @frazie99, @mildlyhopeless, @dotcie, @lost-xim
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brambletakato · 25 days
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ok i havent drawn a lot so ill do a big artdump of some stuff i abandoned or at the very least wont finish for a long while (id in alt and story/thoughts below the image)
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In a server that I'm in, we briefly talked about Descole hypothetically returning in NWOS and somebody mentioned he should bring Keats along. Inspiration struck and I drew this. I was hoping I could use Blender to make the buildings and whatnot, but I was intimidated by the task and ultimately ended up dropping the entire thing.
The building that Keats and Descole are on is… Meant to be a rough placeholder, I didn't mind redoing the entire thing but I wanted to at least have a vague idea before the entire draft slipped from my mind.
(More images in cut that are either old or kinda detached. also theres crossover stuff in there. be warned)
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HAHA YOU CLICKED READ MORE NOW I CAN SHOW MY INSANITY. MWHAHAHA. MWHAHHAHAHAHAHA. ok so errm this is campaign des that i mentioned a few times and yes that is The Mario from The Paper Mario. I think about them so much and its a bit pathetic bc its like "you're overthinking a kid's mascot" ITS SO SILLY YOU DONT GET IT...
Oh right the doodle uhh so I was thinking about them and just drew a hypothetical scene for funsies, it didn't happen in roleplay (and also because I wanted to draw paper mario without a reference and see where that went). It's an ex-villain and struggling hero dynamic and i love it sm
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Segments of a comic I drew for a friend in a super silly AU with dante from the limbus company hand on hip . Id get super embarrassed if i shared the details of the au because we kinda said "fuck it we ball" and made up stuff that shouldn't work at all lol. It's also why there's no text in the speech bubbles.
But the general gist of why I drew this is because we kept discussing a scenario where Descole has to fix up something in Dante's clockhead (vaguely inspired by that april fools episode) and i had a strong vision ab the comic. Also I had to make their head in blender because i was struggling with the perspective and wanted a flexible reference. First time drawing something not made out of flesh fur or fabric!! had a blast rendering the fire and the shine though. SUPER fun super recommend
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I just like this little doodle,,, the expression vaguely reminds me of a ghibli villain and it scratches my brain. im expecting him to move on twos at 24 fps very subtly at any moment now.
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And finally... um... yeah. "draw a character in this pose" sort of beat. sometimes I alternate using the sketchbook and marker pens in firealpaca and this is one of my rare marker doodles. Also this is pretty old afaik but i still think about it sometimes
happy sycamore sunday (even though hes not anywhere to be seen in these doodles)
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38sr · 4 months
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Hi! I love MAWS it’s so good!! It’s literally changed my mind on Superman as character bc he was never one of my favorite DC characters until now!
I have a story boarding question if you don’t mind!
What’s your process for starting to board a scene? Do you thumbnail out first? Do you look at reference?
I want to be a storyboard artist but it‘s daunting to start the actual boarding process because I don’t really know how to start? #industryQs
Hello hello!!! Aw, thank you so much for enjoying the show! Hopefully you and fans will also love the second season once it comes out~ Oh, my process for storyboarding. Well for reference, I've only worked on script-driven shows which means there are writers who write the scripts as opposed to board-driven shows where board artists are writing dialogue on top of doing the storyboards. So when I'm first given a script I (obviously) read it and ask a lot questions to my director (if possible the writer) for things that are for sure needed to be there. Usually this can be like "Hey, throughout the section a character is feeling this emotion" or "Make sure the screen direction is this because of this other element". For me, these are like tentpoles I place down and work within so that I'm giving what my director wants. But once I ask the questions and read the script way too many times, I make very bad thumbnail drawings on post-it notes haha. Normally if I get a good script, I can clearly see the images in my head and quickly put it down on paper (and it's not very good haha, it's more like this is the composition I want). Sometimes I don't see certain parts as clearly and I'll ask my director for feedback/advice and we work together to put it all on paper. Sometimes I do look at references if I'm stuck on a section or I really liked how a show did a shot and I wanna dissect that further. It's all very dependent on the episode in how much I look at references and how many questions I'll ask, but that's pretty much how I start. Even if it's for personal stuff that I'm not writing a script for I still just get the ideas down on paper first and ask my friends to roast me haha. It doesn't really matter if I make the most perfect drawings because if it doesn't work, if it doesn't flow well, if the visual storytelling isn't solid, then doing all that embellishment I did is wasted. That's why I always tell myself it doesn't need to be perfect, it just needs to work. After that, I go into doing actual roughs in Storyboard Pro and might change shots to enhance the shot flow or start adding character acting. But again, it's not clean or very good drawings. I draw mannequins and make sure the heights/proportions are right for composition reasons and get everything down so my director can edit my work and provide feedback. But yeah, a lot of my process in the beginning is getting the ideas down on paper first and making sure it works before embellishing it. It can be very easy to wanna make one beautiful shot and not distribute that energy equally across a whole sequence. I want the whole sequence to be good, not just that one shot. Once that's all said and done (meaning I've gotten my director's feedback and such), that's when I clean up and make the boards more presentable for the final pitch. For me, storyboarding is a marathon and matter of making a good shot flow rather than flashy boards. Get it down on paper, edit out what does and doesn't work (asking for feedback helps with this step), embellish once I have the foundation down. Not every board artist does this but this is pretty much my process haha. I hope that answered your question!
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pigswithwings · 5 months
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since art has been brought up what is your process and brushes you use?
the gist of it is: i use my phone, my index finger, and the app IbisPaintX to draw! also my brushes are the Digital Pen and the Fade Watercolor (Opaque). my general process is making sketches and focusing on the energy of a piece, then sticking to that
long stuff and more detailed stuff under the cut... i put a bunch of images in there for reference
overall its not very fancy!! mostly i make art when i feel very inspired by something (which is to say, not super often). i usually start with a very rough sketch which helps me figure out how i want the art to feel. so for example this piece
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was originally this sketch
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basically the purpose of the super messy sketch is to outline ideas and stuff. i say "i think this would be cool, it looks cool in my head. this is what the finished product should emulate" and then i roll with that. also usually i have multiple sketches based on the same idea, but more often than not there will only be one sketch that i want to work with.
i tend to pick colours based on the feeling of the piece! so for me, the idea of plants gets the colour green, the "i have no mouth and i must scream" art gets a lot of red and orange. it's basically colour associations.
although very simple, my backgrounds tend to be developed around either the concept or the sketch. for the plant one above, i tried to use more flowing shapes in the background to emulate leaves, hills, and vines. for my first few "factory pomo" style pieces i wanted to get a sense of contrast, so i designed the background to be almost split into two colours/two parts, etc.
other examples
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you're probably noticing how similar my sketches are to my final pieces. it's basically because i treat sketches like lineart. i pick a sketch and enlarge it so that it takes up most of the frame. then, i set it to a low opacity and draw on the layers underneath it. oftentimes i turn the layers on and off to get a sense of how the whole thing looks, and the finished product will not include the original sketch layer. but a work in progress for me usually looks something like this
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it's a whole lot of going back and forth! zooming and out, erasing and redrawing and turning off layers and zooming out again. it can be messy sometimes but i stick to it and enjoy it a lot. i am not always faithful to the sketch, either; i usually add whatever i think looks cool. for the piece above i did Not originally intend to have glitching effects on my sona's body. but then i thought it would be cool to add some!! so i did :]
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as for Brushes i work in IbisPaintX and i use this bad boy the Digital Pen (set to various thickness depending on whether i want very small and fine lines or just want to cover a Big Area). its basically just pixels so thats how i usually get very crisp lines!! also you can turn it all the way down to just 1 pixel if you want to be really precise. eraser tool and ruler tool are my best friends. also the Fade Watercolor (Opaque) that is right underneath the Digital Pen is what i use to sketch sometimes.
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um hope this helps or satisfies your curiousity!! yeah. not a formal tutorial to my art or anything, this is just how i do it. which is in a silly way
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psychopomp-enthusiast · 3 months
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Life is getting busy for me again, so I think it'll be a while before anything gets an update :(
In the meantime, @cupcakesmoothie and @quiincu drew the cutest art, and so I want to share some of my own for TMTL!! I'm the luckiest internet user ever.
Also tagging the rest of the TMTL list in case you're interested?
@greenbeansinamug , @dreaming-aster , @hydrachea
Images + Blurbs below the read more⤵️
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1) Here's a little snapshot that one of Silver Wolf's AIs got when Blade and MC came back from their first script together in ch3!! They're a little roughed up, but in good spirits. You can see Blade’s 'actually laughing without murdering somebody' smile here, in it's rare form. I would say this is the first time that Blade shows genuine fondness for MC, but who really knows what's going on inside his head these days...
Pls forgive the degree of scuff on this, it's been a while since I've drawn anything with the intention to post. You also get to see why I stick to typing my stories lol.
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2) This is a scene that I didn't bother to include in ch4, but while Blade was Having A Moment(tm) in the bathroom, MC was striking poses with Silver Wolf as their paparazzi. Work was always a priority for them (for... many reasons) back on the Luofu, so they're super excited at the idea of celebrations and parties now, they refuse to miss an opportunity to have fun without personal consequences. This is where Silver Wolf tells them to bring back something nice for her, the primary purpose for the raiding of the dessert table at that poor venue that they all hijacked. If Kafka were there with them, you better believe they would have had their Met-Gala Bathroom Selfie moment. Silver Wolf likes action but not dressing up, so she wasn't feeling too offended by being placed off-field this time around (Kafka would have dressed her up like a model just for the picture).
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3) this is... actually a secret for now. Please take this offering of a hint at a future update's plot as I return back to my hole of academic suffering😭😖. Kafka may finally be able to spread her love of fashion and being a general icon to the rest of the squad (with the exception of Blade, he cannot be helped and refuses to wear new things unless absolutely necessary). MC movie star arc? Mayhap.
Also worth noting: these pictures will come up again later in the story. Be on the look-out!
And last but not least... this is just how I draw MC, it's not canon, and apart from having horns, skin, and hair, there's no concrete description of them (to the best of my abilities) in my fic, so please don't feel beholden to imagining them as I've drawn them. I'm really trying to work on not using limiting language when I'm describing them in the story, alas drawing them is a different battle. Thank you to everyone who has been reading, liking, commenting, screaming with me in the tags, you've all made me so happy to keep writing this.
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kudouusagi · 2 years
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Hasegawa Langa (Skaters backstage)
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Hasegawa Langa S Name: Snow Sign: Aquarius Birthday: February 8th Height 178cm (5'10) Weight: 64kg (141lbs) Blood type: AB
A second year high school student. He's a returnee from Canada to his mother's hometown of Okinawa, Japan. He’s kind of spacey but he can also be really stubborn. When his father died he distanced himself from snowboarding, but when he met Reki he started to learn the fun of skating.
I see. Skating... is fun!
A Former Snowboarder He snowboarded with his father since he was 2. He can use that experience to show off a distinctive skating style. His high jumps and his ability to gain air are just like snowboarding. They started to call him Snow at “S” before he even know it.
He goes straight for his interests He doesn’t show interest in many things, but he’s interested in what’s in Reki’s bentou, and from the way his eyes shone at the beach, he just goes straight for his interests. In BEEFs we see him get immersed in the tingling excitement of skating and so it can be dangerous too.
A Big Eater For lunch he had a big bag with a large bread and a liter of milk, and at the burger shop he eats a pile of burgers, so contrary to his appearance, he’s a big eater. Even at the ramen shop, if you look closely on the counter in front of him there’s multiple empty bowls that he’d finished piled up.
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Director Utsumi Comment When we decided he’d be a former snowboarder, we decided his hair color and his personality not long after. Since he was designed as a set with Reki the balance was important, since Reki is a rough and tumble type, Langa is the pretty boy. I think he was probably the most difficult for the art staff to draw. If you’re off even by a little bit he doesn’t look like Langa, and so he gained the top ranking for the character with the  most revisions in the series (lol). Since he’s half Canadian, his bone structure is a bit thicker. Because he's a former athlete he's got quite a bit of muscle, so actually while he looks thin, he's tightly packed so he's heavy! It’s all thanks to the way that Chiba-san designed him and I’m so grateful! The other characters have more flashy clothing, so actually his simple clothing makes him stand out.
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Character Designer Chiba Michinori Comment He’s the most delicate to draw because the smallest movement of hair changes his whole feel completely. That’s why at the beginning I would present my rough draft first and then clean it up but I remember getting told “something’s off”... Since his clothes are so simple there’s really no room for error and he really put my drawing skills to the test. While he just wears a simple shirt, you have to feel the quality of it and make it seem like it’s been ironed. If it looks wrinkled it’s out. By the way, director Utsumi said that “Langa can’t show skin” and so he wears long sleves. His eyes are blue with one highlight and and 1 layer of shadow, but in close ups Director Utsumi would add another color according to her own whims.
Colorist Gotou Yukari Comment His whole blue and while image being like snow was all Director Utsumi’s idea. I tried making his hair silver with a slight bluish tint but I had to think about how he would balance with Reki and so that’s how he ended up this color, and his skin Director Utsumi was really insistent on being surprisingly white. I was worried that when you glanced at him at him you’d think he looked sick, so I added a little bit of red in the shadows to make him look healthy. Since his eyes would be covered by his bangs I made them a turquoise blue so they would stand out between the gaps, and I really was focused on making his eyes pretty. Since Langa’s casual clothes are monotone, I had a hard time finding the right mix of white, blue grey, blue, navy blue and black every time. His “S” costume is also a simple a light grey shirt and a bright blue denim jean. The other character’s costumes are so unique and flashy so it was easy to differentiate them, and I think that his snow image is really emphasized against ADAM’s red color.
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storytellering · 1 month
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if it's okay, would you mind sharing your art process? your style is SO gorgeous dude. keep it up spardacest nation!!!
Thank you so much anon, and of course! I kinda posted about it on twitter a while ago, but for anyone not also on there, here's a paraphrasing of what I said there! (under a cut bc it's gonna get a bit long)
(speedpaint video from procreate mostly bc like I also said in that post, it's one of the few pieces I've done entirely on procreate and thus entirely recorded kdfjhdk I usually don't do the sketching + painting parts on there but every now and then I get lazy and want to get it all done quick in one program lol! It's not as good as it would look if I were using krita to render (which is what I normally use) but it gets the idea across decently of what it is that I do)
The short version of my process is: sketch, clean up sketch for lineart, then flat colors, then paint over the flats (i make the flats my shadows and paint on the light), then a multiply layer for skin details (like lips, eyebags, etc), then an overlay layer for skin transparency details (red over the ears/nose/fingertips etc), then i do hair over the lineart, then a multiply layer with the contact shadows in a light beige/grey/neutral tone on top of everything else, and then i unify layers, paint over the details, and color correct the HELL out of it The longer version is: SO, first of all, I will say, my entire process for a finished/fully redered piece is pretty scattered and uses a lot of different apps, because after many years of trying out different drawing apps I found that I just worked better when I could incorporate the parts I liked best from each individual one rather than having to adapt to another app entirely! In total, what I use is: autodesk sketchbook and procreate for the first half I do on my ipad, then krita and photoshop on my computer when I'm actually rendering (but any photo editing app instead of ps will do, I'm just used to photoshop bc that's what I learned as my first drawing app WAAAY back in the day lol), and then meitu on my phone for color filters (also any phone editing app with filters in it will do), AND also optional just for references: blender and daz3d on computer + magicposer on my phone The actual step by step of what I do: First of all, if I want to do a detailed, well rendered piece I will start by getting my references ready. That means either just grabbing a screenshot from the game if it's like, a simple portrait, or a photo reference, taking a picture of myself in the right pose/lighting, and if it's something more complex I will recreate the scene in Daz3D to simulate a realistic lighting, OR even just blender (i have the game models for the dmc characters downloaded, so I can just pop them in, pose them and change the lighting to get a realistic idea of what shadows their faces will cast in that specific angle/lighting.) Note: references are pretty essential to me, and there's nothing to be ashamed about for using them! Personally I don't struggle a lot with the drawing/sketching part of art, but my tiny little pea brain cannot fathom how to make an object 3D in my mind, and how to visualize shadows realistically... thus the reliance on 3D programs to do that for me, and then all I have to do is draw what I'm seeing lol. My art improved significantly ever since I started making 3D refs so I could get /exactly/ what I needed - there's still a lot of leeway you need to learn though, because as realistic as the lighting will be in a rendering program, you'll never really get a fully natural looking image, as far as stuff like the body stretching/squishing/pulling when it's in movement, facial expressions, folds in clothing/fabric, etc... so really it's more a guide than something meant to be followed 1:1.
Then, once I'm confident I know exactly what I'm gonna draw/have the idea in my head, I start sketching it in sketchbook. Not really getting very in depth, just blocking out rough shapes - I like sketchbook and to be on my ipad for that because it feels very reminiscent of traditional sketching on paper to me, which while I'm not super confident on my traditional art abilities, I do get the most natural/fluid/non-stiff figures out that way. Then when I think I have the general idea ready, I export the sketch layer as a png and import it into procreate - which is where I kinda start picking at the sketch and polishing it like i'm carving it out haha. Lots of liquify tool, flipping the canvas to check if it's even, blending out some of the lineart to help out with the rendering later, and then polishing up what was once the sketch into serviceable lineart. I usually reimport it back into sketchbook at this stage - while I like procreate for drawing I don't love the brushes I can use for lineart there, and so I usually only draw the "base" naked figure in there - when I'm in sketchbook I use a hard pencil to refine the details, then on a separate layer add all the things "on top" like hair, clothing, etc - usually I can get it pretty easily in one go, and once I'm satisfied I erase the naked body under the clothes and unify the lineart layers. Then I will just do the flats with a hard brush, turning the lineart layer into an overlay layer and coloring things in with the shadow colors. At this point, I export the file as a psd and import it on my computer - I give it a once over in photoshop first to see if there needs to be any adjusting (like whether any layer that has an effect needs to have a different effect, if all the colors look right since the ipad screen isn't the most faithful, if i wanna change the background color, etc), and once I think it's ready enough, I open it up in krita, where I do the actual bulk of the painting/rendering (as to why specifically krita: it's because I've gotten very comfortable with the brush/painting brush dynamics there and cannot seem to get as good results anywhere else, it's just the goldilocks spot of a brush for me haha.) If anyone's curious, here's the brushes I usually use for painting:
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The one in the middle is my go to painting brush, left one for tinier/more refined details, right one for blending out soft shadows (though I learned the hard way to not overuse it, or it will look like I went ham with an airbrush tool lol). (I don't change any of the settings on these brushes, so if you wanna try out the exact ones I use! Just fresh off how they come out the app haha) I paint on the lights on top of the shadows, and just focus on that for the time being - once I'm done with the basic painting, I'll make a separate multiply layer for details like lip color, eye waterlines, makeup if there is any, eyebags, etc, and then adjust the opacity until it feels right - then I'll make an overlay layer with skin translucency details (like, when you hold your hands in front of a light and see the tips of your fingers become bright orange - many parts of your body are always a bit translucent to the blood underneath, specifically parts where the skin is thin like noses, cheeks, joints, knuckles, etc, and I found it makes the character look a lot more alive to add that subtle coloring in) - then usually I do hair on a separate layer on top of the lineart (because that way I can add small flyaways, more details, etc, and just use the lineart as a guide) After that, I'll usually make a multiply layer on top of everything where I'll add contact shadows in a neutral color (usually pretty pale, it'll be darker anyway since it's multiply), and once I feel like I've rendered everything out properly, I save the psd and re-open it on photoshop.
In photoshop, I'll mess around with the layers a little bit more (changing hue/saturation, opacity, etc), fuck around with the background to make it look pleasing, and once I'm happy with it, I'll unify the layers and start color correcting - usually by duplicating the unified layer and messing with the curve/hsl of the image and then changing the opacity of that edited layer until it's as strong or muted as I want it to be - then I also edit the RGB curves individually and adjust the opacity of that also (because I just really like how it ends up looking if I give a bit of a red/warm tint to the shadows lol), and at that point often I will reimport the finished image into procreate for some finalizing touches! Like, blending out shadows that came out too harshly, painting over anything that came out not the way I wanted it, redefining the lineart if it got messy during painting, and adding any extra small detail that might have gotten lost like catchlights, hair shines, hair flyaways, tears, etc. I also do one last round of flipping the canvas and liquify if needed! At this point, I export the finished image both to my computer and my phone - on my phone I open it up on the photo editing app, and add a bunch of different color filters - I don't hesitate from going completely balls to the walls here, and just kinda applying as many filters as will make an image look pleasing to my eye. Once I think it looks good, I'll export the edited image to my computer - and then open both the version without filters and the one with them on photoshop, and use the filtered version as an opacity layer, and adjust it until it doesn't look as crazy anymore lol. One last step I recently started incorporating was also changing the image to grayscale after I'm done, and doing one last round of curves in greyscale to make sure the values look right, and nothing is getting too lost because the values are too similar (because i know i get a bit swept up in getting repulsed by harsh contrasting lighting and can end up washing out all of rendering if I don't check myself kjdfgk) AND that's it! Yes it's a pretty long and chaotic process, but it's coming from years of trial and error and realizing I can just let myself fo whatever makes me happier with the results, and I don't have to stay constrained to one program if I don't like every tool it has to offer/don't have to accept the final image fresh off the painting app as the "finished" image with no adjustments allowed after, lol. I don't find it takes a lot more time than if I didn't do it this way, but YMMV. Hope this was helpful and sorry for taking so long to explain! I just wanted to give a thorough explanation dfhdkhkx
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itwoodbeprefect · 6 months
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Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love 🤍
thank you!! ❤ sooo @actingcamplibrarian also sent me this one, and i'm going to take this opportunity to cheat (shamelessly!) and just. give another five fics. because there are more than ten of them on ao3, and because i can.
so again (mhuahaha), from five different fandoms, in no particular order:
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Silly wrong but vivid right [sga, john/rodney]
i adore this now, but i went through a weird thing while writing it where i really loved the first half, and then i had to end it somehow and i came up with something that i didn't like very much, and i ended up posting it anyway because i still liked the first half a lot and felt it deserved to see the light of day. which is interesting to me because when i reread it now it doesn't feel wildly out of balance at all, and it all fits just fine, and i just still really really like the idea of 1) gay john getting some freedom and actually taking it, 2) rodney on the sidelines having Weird Feelings about it and drawing a very wrong conclusion, and 3) both of them still being idiots, at the end of the day.
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Tell me the sky is falling now [starsky/hutch]
i like the way i opened this! and the way it ended too, and nearly all of what's in the middle. most of all though i like starsky Finding Out and being confused and maybe trying to freak out but hutch is right there, and he loves hutch, and he doesn't want to freak hutch out, and then he comes to some other conclusions, because it's hutch, and he's starsky, and that's the important part. this is one of those fics that i keep sort of almost rewriting in the sense that i have very similar ideas for a story and then have to try to figure out how to bend that new idea into a shape that's at least slightly unique so i don't actually end up writing a pale imitation of this one.
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Cause if we’re all gonna die (Now’s the time to be alive) [h50, steve/danny]
in terms of my h50 fic this is definitely on the older side, but i still firmly stand by the headcanon behind this, i like that it has a good dosis of team banter, and it has some lines that i think of fondly from time to time, like this: He tumbles until he’s kissing Danny, awkwardly boxing Danny and his soft heat in against the cold and rough wall, not quite sure yet if this big bang is a creation myth or a mass extinction event. and, of course, taking the sappiness a step further still: Everything that comes after this point in time will forever be witnessed by eyes that have to send images off to be processed in a brain that also stores the memory of this kiss, which logically and inescapably prevents anything from ever being experienced the same as before.
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Coming Up Aces [911, eddie/buck]
i don't know if i'd call this one a favorite writing-wise (at least overall - there are definitely parts that i do really like), but it does rank on a list of favorite fics i've written in the sense that, just. the way people connect with fic like this means something to me. and one of the things it means is that there should be more ace rep in (mainstream) media so people don't have to have these huge epiphany-like moments only while reading fic, but another is just feelings, big and warm and human.
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Abandon your sad history (and meet me in the fire) [top gun, iceman/maverick]
top gun is A Movie, for sure, and i'd been trying to write some fic for it for a while when this finally came together. i loved playing with identities here, and the extended metaphors pretty much wrote themselves (iceman!), and every time i reread it and come to the line that mentions iceman is drinking an old fashioned while trying to fend off maverick's very queer advances i give myself a little pat on the back for subtle jokes.
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rudycomics · 9 months
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Over the past few months I've buckled down to take The Red Muscle more seriously in a lot of ways: I've been writing upcoming chapters which made me see big holes in character development with little options to explore, but at the same time I've also been printing physical copies of the comic to sell in person and the opportunity presented itself to go back and make changes to old chapters and improve the story.
At first, I redrew chapter 1 a while ago for print because the original drawings were SO rough. When the next convention was coming up I felt like I should do the same treatment for ch2 and now I'm kind of steamrolling through and really crystallizing the ideas I wanted to explore with Red Muscle. It's also really rewarding to see just how much I've learned about making good comic pages when I get to redraw old ones I wasn't satisfied with. Above is the first page of the new Chapter 2 (first image) compared to the the original page from 2017, as an example.
I mostly wanted to make this post to talk about my plans for the comic going forward. I don't plan on redrawing ALL the chapters (We're going to stop at ch5 I believe), but want you to think of this as a sort of Director's Cut or like a soft restart of the comic. I think enough will change in these first 5 chapters that will make it a much more competent and compelling story, as I lean in more on Scarlet and Edgar's relationship and their little slice of life moments. I think I want to restart the tapas drip feed with the updated pages starting from chapter 2, so hopefully I can get people excited about it again since it's been so long since I last had NEW chapters (I will be working on fixing the tapas feed all day, it might take a while and pardon any changes that happen while you're reading it on there). I will keep the old PDFs up on itch.io for posterity, you'll get them as a bonus when you buy the new PDFs.
I say all of this basically because I want to talk about chapters 3 and 4 which I'm working on right now and I'm so excited for the ways the story has improved and I REALLY WANT YOU ALL TO READ MY COMIC!!! I think I'm doing something really fun, cute, and emotionally developed and I hope I can convince you to check out my comic because it's been meaning more and more to me over the years.
PDFs are available for purchase on itch.io and you can read it for FREE webcomic style on tapas.io, thanks!
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bosstoaster · 9 months
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How do you write long stories? Like, 20k+ ? I always have these grand ideas of how I'd like to write a fic that carries grander themes, like a plot against someone that's investigated or a slow burn romance literally anything that feels like it needs to be long to match the content? Like a 5k murder mystery would be over so quickly it'd lose impact? But I can never find the words or inspiration for what should happen in all the "in-between" moments. I can think of things for the beginning and end and a couple of scenes in the middle and it all comes out to about 8-10k. And I can never think of what to put between those scenes. I've got so many disjointed fics I've written over the years that have remained drafts because I don't know how to elevate them from scenes into stories? The pieces don't fit well enough together to turn it into something more epic. It remains a small fic :/ Any advice at all on this? I remember you saying a rough word count of all your fics combined over the past couple years and being flabbergasted by the number. Extraordinary. I'd love to be able to write long fics 🙏 sorry for the ramble!
(Current total AO3 word count is just over 2.75 million words, which doesn't count the 350k-ish in drafts, or fics on account accounts. But anyhow.) I had the same problem for a really long time, actually! Like, genuinely a decade of fic writing through middle and high school. The answer might be different for different people, but one thing really changed the game for me.
Outlines. Outlines are essential for longer stories, by my book.
What I do is I have an idea for a fic, usually a scene or like, an image of a ~vibe.~ From there I ask myself the first question. What do I want from this? Is it a cute romcom situation? Is it a sexy horror story about taming a monster? Is it a surrealist horror story? What do I want someone else to feel when reading this?
When I have that answer, I can answer the next questions: is this an AU or a canon fic? An AU means that your first chapter is probably going to be setting up the differences from canon. Canon means you have to tell your readers when we are in canon and set up how we got to the Situation (or jump into it, if you're feeling spicy.)
With that answer, we have an approximate starting location. It's fic, so we know where your audience is. How do we get from there to what you want to write about? What needs to happen for your fic to occur? For example, in my vampire fic, step one was turning/killing Dave. Okay, so you have your fic in a state where you're ready to run wild with your premise. Here's the actual meat of your questions.
How do I determine what goes in between the start and the scenes I want to write?
Usually one of a few ways
What needs to occur to get to the scenes I want to write? What makes the characters act in a way I want them to, but isn't out of character? Do they need to be hurt? Emotionally compromised? Worn down? How does THAT happen?
What makes logical, in character sense for the characters to do? Given any of the scenes and conflicts you have planned, what would be their next move/concern?
What SLAPS? What scenes add to the feeling I want the audience to have? For example, if this is a rom com, what scenes would make it clear they should get together, or would work well emotionally? If it's a cozy mystery, what clever things does the main character notice that tell you more about the weird cast of suspects? If it's a horror, what makes the situation more tense?
The point of an outline is literally to fill in these gaps. And there's no stress! You can change stuff or ignore it down the line. You're just drawing a basic map for yourself to know the directions you need to go. Just put down ideas, and if they don't work, erase it and try again.
Many vary a lot in length depending on how much detail I already have in my head, how long the fic is, and how complex the story will be. The Vampire sequel outline is six pages long (very long), while most of them are a page or so.
Here's the vampire sequel outline, speaking of. For that, what I had at the start was a) the boys testing what it means to be a vampire and b) Vamp kidnapping Dave. That's all. The rest I made up during the outline.
Without outlines, I would have no idea where I'm going in a fic, so I'd get through what I had then stall out and get writers block and dither and run in circles and eventually give up.
Respect the power of the outline.
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juney-blues · 8 months
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How's the comic going along? have anything fancy or little secrets planned? Looking forward to more :D
ps I like the sketch style pps what art thing do you use ppps smorestuck -> 🍞🍫⚪🍞 🏠
ghfdjkgdfgjkhg didn't get any work done last week as i was busy with commission stuff~
come monday i'm gonna get back to work on it (and try to balance it with the remaining comms as best i can, so update mightttt be the week after that? art hard </3)
also eheehehehe you have NO idea how many secrets i got planned >:)
the art thing i use is krita!! i like the way that program works + it has good animation tools which helps with some stuff~
i use a modified version of krita's pixel brush, (i hit f5 to open the brush editor and set the shape to square instead of circle)
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my process is mostly trying to get as much done as i can in as few layers as possible?
a LOT of my panels are just first draft rough sketches (this is to help me get pages out at something resembling a reasonable rate, because i have the constitution of a poor victorian orphan chimney sweep)
i generally just have a colour/value layer, a rough sketch layer, and then another layer for dialogue/text/what have you. (though i'll often end up using more if it's just convenient for other stuff to have it's own layer, or if i'm having trouble drawing something specific and just wanna keep trying at it without effecting the stuff around it)
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oh and i do huge swathes of the comic in just one file because i'm insane
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(though for pages with animation i tend to just copy and paste the page's layer group into it's own new file and do the animation there because i severely doubt krita can handle BOTH animation, AND like a hundred fucking layers at the same time)
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OH and i do all my typesetting in GIMP because krita doesn't let me do non-antialiased text for some reason
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for this i just type it out in gimp, 14pt courier new as our god homestuck intended
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(and depending on what i'm using it for i'll probably scale it up an integer amount)
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and then i paste it into my image and usually rotate or transform it a bit (with nearest neighbour scaling <3)
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small peak into my artistic process, this doesn't cover dissonance logs and such but that's like a whole different thing, messy messy spaghetti code and html~
i realise you didn't ask for most of this but i felt like sharing anyway lmao
also om nom smore stuck
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aerypear · 9 months
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Hi hello? I heard you were the resident expert on Ratatosk :>
Any ideas/hcs on how he'd look in his true form squirrel coughhh anyway I am back to the DotNW fandom after 10 years and taking a swing at a fan design.
Your art is very beautiful 💜
Welcome to the Ginnungagap, how may I take your order? /lh
Your art is very beautiful 💜
Thankyou!
Any ideas/hcs on how he'd look in his true form squirrel coughhh anyway I am back to the DotNW fandom after 10 years and taking a swing at a fan design.
In the course of typing this out, this got very long, so it's under a read more for other's Dashboards sanity
I've drawn various versions in the past... oh god I'm old, this game needs to stop aging- 15 years. Imagined him in all sorts of ways. My favorite is personally the squirrel design another Artist made (I unfortunately don't have their username and nothing comes back when I reverse image search it so someone feel free to supplement that info if they know)
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But we do know that on some level of Canon (Thanks to the manga), Ratatosk has a humanoid figure with a physique similar to Regal and Origin.
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Isn't he sexy? /jk 🤣🤣
We also know, thanks to the manga, that the Sword Emil uses is not the same style blade Ratatosk is demonstrated as owning in the comics.
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(Png Rendering I made ages ago for Cosplay referencing) Which leads to reason that Emil and Ratatosk developed a new fighting style over the course of the story and the only hints that the style Ratatosk knew are in Ain Soph Aur.
Emil likes to use the sword like an extra long fencing style sword, where Ratatosk winds up for the Ain Soph Aur attack like he's wielding a Back Handed Blade aka Reverse Grip sword. (which is just a sword with the grip handle that allows for it to be held backwards. You can see this technique in many Rogue type characters, and even in Naruto when they hold their knives backwards along their forearm) **Note that you can use backhanded blades forward like normal blades**
Richter mentioned (more like aqua but who's paying attention) that Ratatosk was very strong in whatever fighting technique he knew and that he had been injured going toe to toe with Ratatosk. And Before I go into my dissertation that Ratatosk would be an AMAZING volleyball player, I'll move on. >u>
Fortunately you won't have to labor too hard into imagining what Humanoid Summon Spirits look like as the First game gave us plenty of source material to work with.
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As you'll see across the spread is that, except for Maxwell, Clothing is optional. Origin put on Boots and called it FUCKING GOOD ENOUGH. I also think it's interesting that Origin and Ratatosk have very similar looking blades.
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Finally, I must Add that on the Centurions themselves (and I mean aqua and Tenebrae) you can See elements of their core on them. Color scheme, Markings bearing similar strokes etc. We also know that On Undine, Celsius, and Luna that they do have physical Markings.
We also Know what Tree Spirits look like thanks to Tales of Phantasia Narikiri dungeon.
Featuring Ratatosk's "Daughter" Norn. (She's made from the cuttings of his Tree)
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So if you wanted to run off with a completely unique Idea, Here's a bunch of info that uses Canon source materials to help you along.
As for my Head canons... Cutie with red eyes, either Red or Raven Hair (but I like to draw him with white because that's fun too). Outfits I like to do a spin off of his Knight of Ratatosk attire that only the Darkness knows because I get the Sense Tenebrae fashioned it after something Ratatosk was comfortable wearing. Something that isn't super rough around the edges because Ratatosk's dissention into a harsh personality set was triggered by the death of his tree. Mithos (in Tales of the Rays) recalled him being a very Kind Summon Spirit, Seeing a lot of who Emil is in what he recalled of Ratatosk, but still sees that Kindness in Ratatosk. (That Ratty pants totally swears he doesn't have. And Nothing gets me more than Ratatosk having enough character growth to accept what happened and forgive his old Friend for what transpired. 😭I was expecting a hoe down drag out brawl and they gave me FEELS.)
I found One of the pieces where I based him more so off Norn's design elements. Old piece is old, made back in 2019. But I'm not seeing the other versions. I'll have to see if they are stored elsewhere.
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sothasil · 1 year
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Hi! You're one of my favorite artists ever, and I would love to do some studies of your art! What are some of your favorite pieces that you've done, and how do you pick your colors? There's a lot more questions that I could ask, but figured you wouldn't appreciate an entire list of questions XD
Hello and thank you, I am honored! Feel free to send me all and any questions! I'll answer these two, starting by:
How do you pick your colors?
As I change art style with pretty much every illustration project of significance, this varies a lot. Here are, from most to least common, ways I pick my colors.
Eyeballing it. Unfortunately my most common... What I will do a lot digitally is lay down a color background, and flats of a few colors, then manually adjust each until they look good together by selecting by color and using adjustements. I then paint over it all.
Using a limited palette, eyeballed. Same as before, but this time I force myself to only use a few colors. It helps me, as constraints do.
Using a reference, eyeballed. This happens a lot when I mimick an art style. My medieval drawings for example, are often done by looking at images of actual medieval art to get an idea of what colors to use to look medieval.
Using an existing image, pipetted. Rarely, often as a challenge or if I'm super stuck, I'll just take a pic with colors I like and pipet from it. This website automates this if you want a good easy starting point!
These can be combined around. I'll post examples now, explaining how they use each.
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This is a sketch for a drawing I ended up doing way different. This is the first method - I used a flat layer for the characteres and three colors for the sky to test out atmosphere. This is how I plan out most full paintings, just trying to nail down a mood I have in my head. I fiddle around until I like it or, like in this case, fully give up and iterate further. Here, the composition was to be redone too as I did not like the body language. I was going for "bright hot sunny day under a weather that feels wrong".
For this comic, I combined a very limited palette and a photo ref to pipet from. I was looking for the stark cold/warm contrast of a mid-season bright night by a fireside. I took a google image photo of a campfire at night that was already edited. The photo itself looks unnatural but conveyed what I wanted. It's still on the file itself! From it, I pipetted a few colors I found "summed up" the palette and did all with them.
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While my own habits make me prefer painting as you would in traditional methods, with directly picking the right colors, I will often digitally alter with overlays and layer blending modes some colors and gradients, etc, to alter a drawing to fix it's color palette. The following is a quite egregious example, because I first drew the character in flats before putting him in a full scene. Here is a before/after summed up.
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The shadow is a layer, the bright yellow light zones also, and the orange "transitions" of light zones on the skin a third. There's also an overlay over the full character to blend him in. I do this by...making a full flat color of a layer, fucking around until a blending mode does what I want, and adjusting hue/brightness/saturation and opacity until it looks good.
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Another WIP where I was struggling with the overall palette. I was going for late 60s psychedelic. You can see in the top right the original color. I thought it looked too...new, so I added a yellow layer on top, and fiddled with it. Final choice was the following setting. I then put it with my sketch and color blockout in a folder and painted over it.
For this sort of adjustement, the "Color Balance" modifier in CSP, Photoshop, and others is also a godsend - but one I often use for fine tuning a finished piece.
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This being said, there's some rough rules to coloring which are...born from studying color theory and doing studies. I am guilty of doing very little studies...so I'll just sum up the basics of the color theory rules I use.
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For "default" shading, I use a color that is darker, more saturated and with a slight hue diff. This is my "don't shade with black".
Using a shadow that's cooler will make the light look warm.
Vice versa.
There's a bunch of stuff to remember in how colors relate to each other and pipetting images who's atmosphere you think is interesting really is the best way to learn... It's learning how to black-blue/gold-yellow dress in your own art for the lack of a better word...But the basics will be:
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Don't trust numerical values, but look at your colors in context. A same hue, brightness, saturation can look so much different. This is how Rakkan's beard looks whiteish here despite being a light very grey brown.
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All this but...colour is such a wide topic, I can't really say a lot but can also type for hours... if you have precise questions about a piece in particular I can explain :') I hope this wasn't too vague and was instructive!
Speaking of particular pieces, answering your question last under the cut:
What are some of your favorite pieces that you've done?
In no particular order, illustration only.
Including this in another poast bc staff's new post editor limits the amounts of pics I can put in response to asks. Insert colorful language here...
Frankly twas hard to pick I am rarely fond of what I draw
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