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feyspeaker · 2 months

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Hi! I made an account just so I could follow your work. Your art is brilliant and honestly and inspiration to where I want to be. I’m an older artist who has all the anxiety when it comes to improving my process. I’m trying to get into digital portraits and I have so many ideas in my head, but it’s frustrating because I’m not where I want to be to make this happen. What are some tricks that help you/software do you use? Of course, you don’t have to share anything that makes you uncomfortable. I currently have procreate and an iPad, but I feel a little lost. Wondering if I need a different writing tablet and photoshop. Not sure. I just eventually want to find that 3D, but also artistic look you are able to achieve.

hey there! thank you so much!!

ultimately, I will sound like a broken record but I always recommend you sign up for local figure drawing or painting classes. have people pose for you at home and sketch with charcoal and paper. go to the zoo and sit down in front on an exhibit for an hour and try to draw the animals in front of you as fast as you can and fill a couple of pages, move on to a new exhibit and do it again!

nothing is more powerful of a tool to learn than whatever writing utensil you have in your purse and the back of a napkin when you see something you'd like to capture. I've spent quite frankly my entire rememberable life doing this. I used to spend every single day in middle school/high school/my brief failed stint in community college with a pack of cheap sharpies and a beat up binder full of old worksheets and homework to draw on the backs of.

drawing/painting from life will teach you better than anything.

I use a very outdated version of Photoshop, and only got a "nice" tablet in the past 7 months.

Also, a huge tip to you and anyone else reading this: do NOT get too focused on a "style" that you want. Obsessing over that just ruined me for years and years. I wanted so, so, so badly to be the next Matsuri Hino when I was a kid. I copied her work religiously and it NEVER looked right. Frustrated me to no end. And you know why my stuff never looked like hers? Because I'm not her! You can't force your art to come out any way that isn't natural, and the sooner you can accept the art your hand wants to create, the happier you'll be and the easier art will get for you.

The past couple of years before I started diving into this more realism based work, I was just shoving myself through trying to make what art I envied of others. Very stylized/textured watercolor comic book style stuff. And I just was NOT getting any better at it. I have always been more inclined toward realism work, but I've hated it and yearned for stylized work. Yoshitaka Amano? God, I just drooled over that artstyle and beat myself up for never being able to capture it in studies or otherwise.

I finally essentially restructured my entire career around making the art that makes me happy instead of what I "wanted" it to look like. I was extremely depressed, my life was falling apart, and I still needed to make art to survive but I couldn't "art" if I was depressed and hated doing it, so I just had to step back and stop worrying so much about what I thought I wanted to make, and started making what felt most natural.

there's no easy way, and art can be a soul destroying path at times, truly. your software and hardware should come very last place compared to practicing from life (it doesn't matter if you want to paint cartoony stuff of realistic stuff, always start from life). naturally you will find what makes your heart sing the most.

I get a lot of messages from people telling me similar stuff "oh your art is EXACTLY what I want to do!" but I promise you that kind of thought process is chasing a dragon that is likely to harm or drag your creative process down. art style is such a deeply personal thing, so of COURSE it's important to find inspiration, but the second looking at someone else's artwork stops inspiring you and starts frustrating you, put it away.

There are some artists who I love, that I do not check up on often because their artwork ignites, like, serious bitter jealousy in me. It's the truth. I get so mad at myself for not being more like them, and it's such a poison. I think more artists should be transparent about this feeling because I KNOW the art community has a lot of jealousy and ugliness in it.

A fact of being an artist is that you will never be completely happy with a piece you make. You are always going to see the flaws, and that doesn't change whether you'd been drawing for 2 months or 20 years. Occasionally, you will get one piece that you are like "how did I make that???" and then get frustrated that you can't recreate it lol! It's a tough beast.

It's just really important to step back and work on yourself and where you are at, because at the end of the day, the way your soul wants to express artwork might be WILDLY different from what your brain wants, and it can be really detrimental to let those two go to war.

I hope this helps. I'm very passionate about this, and when I started out I ALWAYS ignored the artists who gave the same exact tips as above. I thought they were so annoying and unhelpful, but now I /get it/.

#ask

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ilgaksu · 2 months

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i will now be referring to this situation as weimargate, because i must laugh or i will dissolve into the void.

aka i have had a VERY weird experience of it in fandom lately, and it has escalated to memes in lieu of interpretative dance*, but also i want to talk about it because i think, in more general terms, it's relevant for discussion about how fandom is evolving.

(*as illustrated by @difeisheng because i am personally intimidated by photoshop. interpretative dance would've only had me to blame.)

so. hi! if you don't know me, i am an ao3 writer who goes by the pen name ilgaksu. i have 179 fics on my ao3 account, and of those, 46 of these are for DMBJ or grave robber's chronicles. i've been writing in this fandom for roughly three years, which means according to the laws of mathematics and my own inability to stop posting about my favourite blorbos, that's a new fic every 3.39 weeks. i have not counted chapter updates in this count, but given several have multiple chapters, i think we can see there's....a lot. one ongoing series is currently sitting at about 200k, word-count wise. i like to write, overall, about disability, reclamation, legacy and memory. i also overuse semi-colons.

i am also a very private person at this point in my fandom career. this will be the first post i've made in a while talking about myself where i have allowed there to be reblogs on it. this isn't intended as an affront to anyone else in fandom. my ask box is open, sans anon, and in the last few years, i chose to reply to every comment i could to make sure i still get to engage about the characters i love without compromising my own desire for privacy about my personal life. i choose to work under an explicit persona - because we all do on the internet but i have made mine obvious and enunciated and almost a brand - because i think there is something freeing about allowing myself that experience. it's allowed me to write work that i relate to deeply without having to divulge my life to be analysed by strangers on the internet. generally, i like to post my silly little stories, talk to people about them, and then go about my day offline.

anyway, so this week, i seriously considered walking away wholesale from my current fandom, and i'd actually like to talk about why, and talk about me as a person as opposed to the narrative of persona that i've crafted.

because the reality of a persona is that a real, living person is required to animate it. if i am the person who is small and human and anxious to even speak about this, then i am also the reason the operation is running. it's a one-man show. as much as i want my work to speak for itself without my need to justify its meaning or worth, without my experiences, research and choices about my time, the work would not exist. that's just fact. it's fact for every writer and artist and podficcer and person who labours out of love you see. i also deliberately consider myself a writer as opposed to a content creator, because i believe that label mimics a wider culture i have no interest in - that of someone creating a consumable, ownable object. my fanfiction is a hobby. it cannot be owned by other people. unlike my original work, where it can be bought, there is no formal, explicit contract between me and the reader. there is, however, in fandom, an implicit social contract of equality and collaboration, where we are all equals. i am fundamentally no better than someone who never writes fic and never wants to and never will. i reject the idea of superiority among fans because i do not engage in subculture to mimic the dominant culture, the one that tells me stories are something only certain people are allowed to see themselves in, or even tell to others; that production is the only means of social capital and intrinsic worth.

i am aware, also, that by being private the way i am, i end up sacrificing some experiences that i could have by being more accessible, but i want to reiterate that i have never gone out of my way to conceal my tumblr, nor ignored people who contacted me directly to talk about my fic. in fact, if you show up to talk about my fic, i will probably be so thrilled i'll never let you leave - especially since, when it comes to a majority of it - i spend a lot of time on research, something i enjoy, and deliberately cite my research in the notes because i want to share it as part of the experience of my writing. clearly, i want ideas i have come up with to be enjoyed and loved and shared, because otherwise why would i take the risk of putting them out online, where i then cannot control how they're received or transformed?

however, since about a year ago, i've maintained a policy of works based on my own that i've had outlined clearly in my profile on ao3 here:

as someone who is playing in someone else's sandbox for free myself, my only request is if when you use an idea, usually a headcanon, which is one i created, which you can as much and in whatever way you want because that is the nature of collaborative fandom and the reason i love it so much, you cite that i was the originator of the idea. and secondly, that you let me know. this is a personal request based on how writing can be a very lonely project, even in fandom. you put your work out into the world, with no sense of who it will reach and if it will mean anything to them, and you have to work on the faith that even if it doesn't, the work itself was worthwhile. but you hope it will, because everyone hopes it will.

all of this is outlining so it's understandable to people that read this how i was completely off my face bewildered when i found out a headcanon of mine had reached the level of fanon popularity where it's been mistaken for canon, and has been for over a year at the very least, and i had literally no idea this had happened.

which, frankly, was both hilarious, in a very bizarre way, and completely, deeply sucked.

i know this is my idea because of how distinctive it is, and how much it contravenes canon - namely, that a character, hei xiazi, was a medical student in berlin during the weimar republic. i know it's mine because the timeline with the canon we're told by the actual writer of the source material doesn't match up, which i was aware of and chose to retcon. it was designed and fitted to a personal interpretation of canon material i had been working on for years, and involved a lot of time and research and intense love for the era, the character, and the ways a story about being alone in a foreign country had intertwined with my own personal life. ever since i wrote it, i assumed that the one or two people who had used it with credit were the only ones who had, and because they had honoured my request i was honestly completely thrilled. i still am that those fics exist. that's because it was collaborative.

i want to be clear: nothing about the situation as it stands has been collaborative. a writer being the last to know about the commonality of their own idea in a small fandom is not collaborative. and while it might not bother everyone, it's bothered me to the point i've had serious consideration for several days about whether i should walk away from the fandom.

but ilgaksu, surely you should be flattered that people liked the idea so much?

yes. this was never about the use of the idea. it's about the way this idea has been isolated and used with an assumption that i would have no interest in knowing, or that i would even need to know. i'm not sure what has caused this - whether the persona element of my work has led people to believe i would not have any emotions about finding this out, but i am not, actually, a persona. i am the person who uses it. and as the person who uses it, this is how it felt to find this out. it felt, and still feels uncomfortable, hurtful and isolating to find out your idea has been so beloved but that nobody considered whether you would like to know. it feels like the collaborative element of fandom has been severed from you, specifically, and that your fanwork has been treated as entirely other from you as a fan. i hope nobody else making work feels like this, and i've been told this situation is so strange as to ensure that's hopefully not the case, but i think this is an ongoing issue more widely - the idea that writers are separate from fan culture, and their works are products as opposed to the shared results of a hobby.

do i think this was deliberate? not at all. do i think this was intended to be hurtful? not even in the slightest. but i want to be clear how personal this feels.

i don't have an answer for this situation. the cat is out of the bag, ilgaksu knows about the fanon, and hei xiazi is, despite all canon, going to medical school in 1920s germany. expressing my discomfort with how this has gone down feels important to me anyway, and it's also important to me that i do it in this very detailed way so that people who were unaware do not feel personally at fault, or feel like by me expressing this i am taking this idea back from them. i always wanted this idea to be loved and to be shared.

i also always hoped this idea would find people who wanted and needed a story about someone a long way from home following an ambition, and how much fear and hope and desire goes into the decision to do something like that, and what it means to be a disabled person in a foreign country, and what it means to be queer in a foreign country, and overall what it means to be a stranger in a strange land. i want to be clear that while i wrote this for me, i also wrote it for everyone who has also lived that. i want my work to feel like someone is holding your hand, not that they're at a distance and disregarding you, the reader, and the relationship we have together during the time you read my work.

i hope in future that if you use my headcanons and are aware of that being the case, you let me know. i don't have to read the work itself if you find that intimidating. i will not go out of my way to find it. whatever you've done with the idea, i will fundamentally see it as a compliment and evidence of an exchange between us as a fandom. but i want to know because otherwise, all i see is you taking something i loved and wanted to share and enjoying it with a door firmly shut between us. i am too old to care if i'm not invited to a party, but if the party is themed around a concept i put so much thought and love - for the source material, the people who were going to read it and myself - i can't help but care. it's hard to feel like a vending machine, even if the process of making the fic is so joyful for me that i won't stop until the joy is gone. it hasn't gone yet, but this week it's been dented a bit.

anyway - if you got to the end of this, thank you. please be considerate of how much this has taken for me to express, regardless of your own feelings on it, and how unusual it is for me to make a post that is able to be shared. if you use the idea in future, you do so with my blessing, which was always there. if you want primary sources, places to start, or anything like that - fashion, language, visuals - i want to be clear you can ask me and i will be beyond thrilled to help. i always have been and i'm concerned that because of this that hasn't been clear. but i also feel like if i don't state this experience in this way at this time, and how it was experienced by me, odds are i will now forever look over my shoulder and wonder if this will happen again, and i love writing for this fandom so much that i will not allow something like that to dim that love. i know you love these characters so much too - it's why you're here. i actually used to make a lot more meta posts like this, about fan culture, and i've been considering if i will again - just less personal and less anxiety-inducing to post next time. until and beyond then, i just hope we can all consider things like this in future - that i can treat you with the same grace - and understand the pressures and anxieties of writers in fandom at this point in time especially. a lot of us have hearts far more made of glass about the things we love, like our work, than can be immediately apparent.

anyway, i'm going back into hiding now.

your friendly local cryptid fanwriter,

ao3 user ilgaksu <3

#personal #fandom #okay to reblog

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kirain · 2 months

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I've been on this site for over ten years and I've never had to do this, but sadly the time has come where I feel forced to make a call out post, if only for the safety of my blog.

Please do not harass this person. PLEASE DO NOT HARASS THEM! That is not my goal here. That said, I do suggest you avoid them at all costs, for your own safety and sanity.

A few days ago, I made a post responding to some anonymous hate I received regarding Gale Dekarios, a character from BG3. An account named Turtwg, who has now changed her name to Shdowheart, took issue with the content and tone of my post. Instead of simply blocking me, she attacked me and several other people in the notes, and accused me of sending the anon to myself.

I responded, arguing against her accusations and a few other remarks she made. Just typical fandom discourse. Or so I thought.

I regret it now (only because I've lost some evidence), but I deleted many of her and my messages. They were clogging up my post and veering extremely off topic, but eventually she admitted I didn't send the anon to myself. When I asked her how she knew that, she said she traced the anon to a Gale-centric account. You see, she believed the anon wasn't sent by an Astarion fan, but by a Gale fan trying to create discourse. In a normal situation, I'd say that's a fair assumption for anyone to make, but something seemed off.

First of all, despite several people telling her it's not possible to track down blogs through their anonymous messages, she insisted she found the user responsible—which honestly made me wonder if she sent the anon herself, hoping to create drama. If she did, then mission accomplished, I guess. We messaged back and forth in the notes for a while, with me commenting on both the impossibility and morality of tracking down an anonymous user. During that time, her responses to me were lightning fast. Constant. Remember that for later.

Second, she soon told me she had the anon's IP address, which she said she'd "happily send me". I told her an IP address doesn't prove anything because it can be photoshopped and a lot of people use VPNs. I also pointed out how utterly insane it is to dox/cyberstalk someone over a post about a video game. It's really not that serious. But out of sheer curiosity, I told her to give me the blog name. Not because I believed her, but because I was curious to see if she'd accuse a popular blog or someone who could defend themselves. The moment I asked, she went silent for nearly an hour. 🤔

When she came back, she gave me the name of an account called Dekariosbf. She told me to message the account, so I did, though I made no accusations against them yet. As I waited for a reply, I accused Turtwg of making the account herself, as it was barren with no activity whatsoever. No likes, no posts, nothing. She easily could've created the account during that hour of peace. Moreover, after she gave me the account name and I accused her of creating it, her responses were once again lightning fast. 🤔

As we argued, I sent my brother-in-law and a friend of mine a link to my blog and had them read through the discourse. They don't have Tumblr accounts, but they're both computer nerds and my brother-in-law literally works with computers/programs for a living. I asked them if anything Turtwg said was valid, and they (along with someone else in the notes who claimed to work in UI/UX) confirmed that no, absolutely nothing she said was valid. Tumblr pays for a service that protects their users, and the only way to trace anons is by using extremely unsavory and illegal methods ... and even then it's extremely unlikely to work.

Speaking of, my brother-in-law eventually messaged me and told me he found the actual account that sent the anon. I stupidly believed him and jumped the gun on that, because it turns out he was just being a shit disturber. That said, I used this information to call Turtwg out on her lies. In response, Dekariosbf miraculously (and in a rather timely fashion) responded to me. Unfortunately I don't have any screenshots of this interaction, but I'll explain why in a moment.

Dekariosbf was chatty and cordial at first. I asked them for their main account name, but they refused to give it, saying they only use it for poetry; which, as you can see from the screenshot, directly contradicts their bio, but I digress. I was suspicious, but also kept in mind the possibility that this might've been an innocent person Turtwg accused. For a while we shot the shit, talking back and forth about BG3, reading, teaching—but I did this for a reason. I wanted to get a feel for their writing style. Sure enough, they wrote exactly like Turtwg. Same spelling mistakes, same pattern of punctuation, same use of lower case letters instead of capital letters, same abbreviations, etc.

Finally, when I was sure it was her, I dropped the bomb. I very gently told "Dekariosbf" that someone named Turtwg accused them of sending me a hateful Gale anon, but that I didn't believe it. Low and behold, they did a complete 180.

"Yes, it was me. It was totally me. I just LOVE your blog and RESPECT you so much. I LOVE Gale and I wanted to know what you'd say if I sent that anon. It wasn't meant to be hateful. Please don't write a call out post about me. Please don't tell your followers. I mean, I understand if you do, but please don't. Turtwg messaged me and threatened to dox me and sent me a photo of my IP address. She's so smart, I don't think you should mess with her. Oh and my mom can't speak English. If we get doxxed, I think it would kill her."

Right...

I said I didn't believe them and accused them of being Turtwg on a sock account. They kept insisting they weren't, begged me to believe they sent the anon (and I mean they were desperate for me to believe it), and very strangly didn't express any anger or confusion over the situation. When I brought up the accusation, they completely changed their tone from friendly to "oh yeah, that was me". I kept saying I didn't believe them, particularly because of what my brother-in-law said, but promised not to call any attention to them. I was happy to simply let the matter rest. Suddenly, mid conversation, they deleted their entire blog. Poof. It's gone now, along with all our messages.

I thought that would be the end of it, but not even five minutes after Dekariosbf flung themselves into the void, Turtwg herself DMed me out of nowhere and accused me of trying to hack her account, presumably because I told "Dekariosbf" that my brother-in-law is computer savvy. Keep in mind that before this moment, our entire conversation took place in the notes of my post. I never DMed her, nor did I have any intention of doing so. I also had absolutely no idea what she was talking about, I just knew she was lying to me. Now it looks as though she's ramping up to lie to the Tumblr admins in order to get my account deleted.

And all because my post about a video game made her angry.

I really hate drawing attention to this. You can see in my other posts that I always censor people's usernames, but as I said at the beginning ... I don't feel like I have a choice this time. I want this up so the Tumblr admins or whoever can see it.

Turtwg has attacked other people for posting their opinions as well. For example, she attacked this person just because they expressed their opinon on wyllsterion. She went so far as to call them racist when Wyll is literally one of their favourite characters. She just got mad because they don't think Wyll and Astarion make sense together; a perfectly valid opinion. And I only know about this because I received messages warning me about interacting with Turtwg/Shdowheart from someone who recognised them in the notes of my post.

I guess I should've blocked her from the start, but I've said many times in the past that I enjoy a good debate. Plus I was genuinely curious to see how far she was willing to take her lie. Unfortunately, I underestimated just how unhinged she truly is. On her own blog, she's even admitted that she's had to make a new account seven times, likely due to other drama she started.

I was very hesitant to put this in the BG3 tags, but since that seems to be the fandom she interacts with the most, I figured it would be a fair warning to anyone else she might harass. She's particularly active in the Astarion/Wyll/Wyllsterion tags. Stay safe, everyone. I think I'll sign off for a while. I'm tired, and this has somehow become the most toxic fandom I've ever dared to be a part of.

Please do not harass this person. PLEASE DO NOT HARASS THEM! That is not my goal here. That said, I do suggest you avoid them at all costs, for your own safety and sanity.

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #astarion #wyll ravengard #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep

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ghostflowerhotpotch · 9 months

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I just saw the Spiderverse Twitter account, and they posted a Happy Birthday post for Miles today. It made me think of your birthday theory, so I guess we finally have an anwser that his official birthday is August 3?

Aaand I got to this late, because the day it was sent I got too busy, and then because it was outside the date I just keep pushing it.

So, now we have Miles' birthday as August 3 (No idea if this was original for the comics or what,) so, just for funzies, let me throw out the other things I collected related to the timeline.

Which I had just given up because there is no fixing on this one.

Let's start with what we have in ITSV.

So I needed to use some photoshop magic to try to make it more visible, but I would not blame anyone for not believing me, but I am pretty sure it says November in this newspaper.

(Smaller for comparison because it is somehow more legible.)

What we can see clearly, is that it was indeed in 2018.

And once you try to piece things with Across the Spiderverse, is when you need to just go with your personal headcanons and concepts because the only one to make this match would be having Miles's universe work with numbers and months in a totally different way (Which is plausible all things considered.)

Here is the only piece of information you actually need to remember because is the only one that is important.

That matters, because aside from being actually spoken about (unlike the dates which could be anything and wouldn't make that much of a difference.) This carries weight in the sense of how Miles has developed as spiderman, as well as more context as to why he is missing everybody else more and more.

Now here is the date we see on ATSV at the beginning of the movie.

July 11 of 2023.

As you can imagine, a year and four months from November 2018 doesn't make July 11 of 2023, heck even only 3 months wouldn't make it go from November to July.

This means if you absolutely want everything to fit, you would need to reorganize Miles' calendar, and how his universe uses numbers (or at least for dates;) which honestly? Could be a rad idea for someone looking for a challenge in worldbuilding, I think trying to create parallel societies where small things are wildly different is fascinating.

Not something I can pull off.

So in my case, I will probably move around any dates for my stories depending on what I need to do; may or may not come up with my own timeline if I need to, but that's it.

I am guessing this may annoy some people, and if I am honest my opinion is: meh.

While details like this normally bother me because I can't justify my way out of this one with headcanons; I am extremely bad myself about establishing timelines; so I feel I can't say much. In all honesty this feels like a minor flaw because those dates aren't even important to the story, they are blink and you miss it details which is why this information wasn't conveyed to the next movie; they weren't meant to be important.

But not gonna lie, I also can't be bothered about this because I had seen, so, SO much worse, than this in comparison feels like a blip in the radar.

What to know what is pain on a timeline? Rick Riordan books.

#atsv #across the spiderverse #miles morales #spiderman #into the spiderverse #itsv #I may regret dropping the name of that guy #to be honest it has been impressive it took me this long to mention it #basically any flaw this movie or the previous may have will probably not bother me because #this man has trained me through pain and suffering

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rainingskeletons · 1 year

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Hi I hope you're having a good day. (⁠ ⁠╹⁠▽⁠╹⁠ ⁠)

I've been working on an OC for a while now and, I was wondering... How did you decide what design you wanted for slumber-sans? Was there a process?

I've been struggling with mine for a few months, so...

I feel like I'm in a hole, and I was hoping for some advice??

Heya, that's so exciting, it's fun to make OCs but I know it can be frustrating when you hit a wall!

I'll attempt to explain my process! Slumber-Sans changed a lot over the years and I think that's an important part of the development of an oc. Let them evolve over time!

To start, I designed slumber Sans way back in 2017 and it was a combination of things! At the time I had a pintrest board filled with clothes with like celestial/star patterns that I loved.

I also had a different original story I was working on at the time, that followed a hero who fights in the world of dreams. So combined with my love of Undertale I got inspired to draw this AU Sans :p

When approaching design, I want to reflect the character's personality! Emphasise his sleepy personality with a sleeping robe and sweat pants. I left him shirtless so you could see the space patterns in his robe more and tried to use a photoshop brush to make a pattern that would be easy to replicate. I was also playing with the idea that Sans' magic is tied to the "third eye", so I gave him one very literally (which I chose to change later)

Here's how I first drew him! (the Lilakrain watermark is the account I posted it to at the time)

Back then his style was really based on the game sprites. I drew him really square, I remember at the time I was trying to give him some kind of shape language that was cool and angular but still friendly. That changes over time as I saw how other artists drew him and was inspired by other shapes that I liked. For a few years I had to leave the design but when I started thumbnailing the comic and made the blog, I chose to update his design. My style had really simplified and streamlined over time, so I played around with an interpretation of that design with my new style. and thumbnailing the same character over and over shows you how you like to simplify them.

I like to mix soft curves and sharp angles to create contrast and to give energy/personality. And then finally when I wanted to draw the comic for real, I took a little more time to perfect a reference sheet for myself (but even this is just a suggestion! Some small details of the design have naturally evolved even now)

So tldr:

-Don't be too hung up on the final design, It's ok to let your OCs evolve naturally over time! -Ask yourself what kind of personality traits you like about your character and explore them (in my case with doodles)

-Combine the things/artists that inspire you! Mix and match as many things as you like and have fun✨

#awesome ask!#slumbertale asks #sans #oc art #oc design #how to design a character

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taetheists · 2 years

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1 year gif making celebration - taehyung and purple

bonus:

i can't believe it has been a year since i started gif making. to be specific though i started having an interest in gifing by june 7th, but didn't start actually making anything until the day after, june 8th. when i started i had no idea about coloring. i started out using giphy and imgur to make my frames before i came across photopea and gifski to take a video and make frames. if you can't use photoshop i highly suggest photopea. it was mostly me getting a grip on how to gif as in make the gif frames until i really started learning how to color. it wasn't until i started using photopea that i started to color for real.

photopea was a great start to my gif making days. i ended up even purchasing it without ads thinking i'll be using it for months, but nope! when there was a chance for me to start using photoshop i did switch over. i've been using photoshop since september 2021. it was definitely a change since photopea didn't have timeline, but it had a lot of the same features. i do remember asking for help on how to use photoshop, but then i ended up playing around and learning by myself. photoshop is probably the real program where i fell in love with my coloring and improved on my sharpness. i even tried using vapoursynth, but couldn't figure it out so i only kept up with photoshop. who knows maybe i'll try it again someday.

gif making started out as a new hobby for me after i graduated from college last year. then it became bigger than a hobby. it became an interest that meant a lot to me and it brought me joy. i always loved my laptop let's be real, i live on it lmao but gif making brought a new meaning. it was a place for me to express my own creativity and to also spend days working on gifs of my favorite group and one of my hyperfixations. there may have been times when i had trouble with my coloring or something else wasn't right, but in the end i always made sure i posted my best work. i came to be proud of my work and learned something new everyday. i still love my coloring, especially the use of selective color as well as camera raw filter. i suggest those to use if you also are a gif maker. then add more to that, there's my new love, high pass. when you take my three main loves with color overlay, i really do think my gifs are unstoppable and it makes me so proud of myself. always go out and do what you love. i made sure that gif making didn't become a chore for me as if it was a job. which is why i only worked on one gif set a day so i don't burn myself out.

i couldn't be here today without the use of photoshop, bts, and of course my mutuals and the people that reblog my content. i purple you all!

down below are people i love, see in my notifications, or just help me grow my account and support my work.

@itsallaboutzayn @usertae @userhobi @jinzayn @kimtaegis @jung-koook @honsool @taeyungie @btsgoldnetwork @purplearmynet @dailybts @dailybangtan @jimimn @marvelousbangtan @thornedswan @anpanmann @proofofjin @sugajimin @maknaelinegifs @jeonqquk @vantaenet @bisexualrapline @minieggukie @kithtaehyung @jimines @jeonjcngkook @minzbins @ohoshi @myungho @scoupsy @wonublr @pinkrasberry7 @sannie-hannie @angeldynxmite @jimilter @serotaejin @jungkooksource @yoonkookclub @clubjimin @pjmdaily @adventuresinwonderlust @lovejimin @namchyoon

there may be tons more people, but it's late and i'm tired so if you do happen to see this just know i love you so much and thank you!!

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c-rowlesdraws · 10 months

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Ooh these are some interesting questions!

1. Art programs you have but don't use? and/or 11. Do you listen to anything while drawing? If so, what

I'll answer both! (But for the sake of my stamina + pathetic attention span I'd encourage people to ask just 1 question at a time)

1. ohhhhh I've got a few lol. I tend to be very bad about trying out new art programs, and really only shift from one to another when the one I was using stops being supported or I'm otherwise forced to change my workflow. The first digital art program I used for a very long time was Corel Painter, and then I switched to Photoshop, which I still use (I know, I know) despite friends trying to turn me on to Clip Studio. I have Clip Studio! It is by all accounts a wonderful program. I just can't bring myself to invest the time into learning all the quirks of a new program when Photoshop is still right here. Call me again when I finally get fed up with giving Adobe my money. I also have Autodesk Maya still sitting in my taskbar, from way back when I had a subscription... but I prefer Modo for 3D modeling and haven't touched Maya since the last time I had to animate something. So now the icon is just there for... decoration, I guess? Like a mantlepiece knick-knack for my computer. 11. Sometimes if I'm getting very frustrated or just need a break from Sounds, I will pause or turn off the stuff I'm listening to while drawing, but that's the exception rather than the normal state of things. I love listening to music, sometimes music that matches the mood or aesthetic of what I'm drawing (listening to Talisk when painting a nature scene, for example), but usually just my Spotify library on shuffle, or Radiooooo. "Good drawing music", to me, tends to be music with a good but not too repetitive beat, and either all instrumental or with lyrics that don't tell so specific a narrative that I'll get distracted. Lyrics in a language I don't understand also work well. Sometimes I'll go out of my way to listen to music that "fits" a particular character that I'm drawing.

When I'm not listening to music, I listen to podcasts, or put YouTube video essays on and try to not give in to the urge to look at them instead of the canvas. My favorite podcasts right now include Well There's Your Problem (a podcast about engineering disasters, with slides), "How Did This Get Made" (about bad movies), and "Maintenance Phase" (about diet and wellness industry trends, controversies, and influencers). My go-to YouTube video essayists used to be the holy trinity of hbomberguy, Jenny Nicholson, and Lindsay Ellis (who has been making new content exclusively on Nebula for a while now), but other favorites are Big Joel, Jacob Geller, Dan Olson (Folding Ideas), Caitlin Doughty (Ask A Mortician), and Defunctland.

Sometimes I listen to/"watch" Let's Plays and video game streams while drawing, too! My current favorite streamers are supergreatfriend (also @supergreatfrien right here on tumblr!), Helloween4545, and my friends Kristi and Liana at Vodka Auntie Cabaret.

#ask meme #ask game #catie talks #art #ask

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kenthenugget · 1 year

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How Batching Comics Saved My Life

Jesus its been...quite a while since I last posted onto any of my tumblr accounts. Its not that I didn't forget that I had an account here, its just that I've been busy with school and my drawing Crescent Blue. Meaning any free time I have is limited which results in me neglecting like half of my socials. Comics and college has made doing social media difficult. That and I wasn't sure how to handle 2 out of the 3 tumblr blogs I have. But I've thought that I had use this specific blog for text blog posts, along with drawings I'm working on and stuff like that. Most of it will be a lot of writing type stuff like this so this should be fun. Anyways, onto the topic I wanted to talk about.

I've been drawing Crescent Blue for coming on 4 years now. And those 4 years were spent drawing its first Chapter. Its overly long chapter. I have realized the mistake I made back when I was prepping to draw it back in 2019, where 16 year old me who had never drawn a comic at this scale decided to go out adapting the opening chapter draft which was written to be the length of a double length tv show pilot (because that's how wrote scripts back in the day) without realizing the implications of how many pages I would have to draw, and that maybe I should've done more prep work to make sure I wouldn't be working on it well into college. Because I probably would've gotten burnt out with it after being stuck on it for so long. And that would end up happening when 2021 rolled around. Thanks to mental health struggles I faced through out 2020, which lowered my tolerance to drawing comics which I didn't enjoy, I had drawn a total of 28 pages by going into the new year. Feeling ashamed of that pace, I managed to motivate myself and make it a new years goal to devote more time to my comic and get faster in order to complete my first chapter. This manifested in a couple of ways, from illustrating backgrounds in graphite as to avoid inking them and potentially screwing them up, to manning up and move to drawing it digitally as opposed to traditionally (I did not have access to photoshop or a good drawing tablet when I had started so I did what I had always done and use paper, pencils and inking pens/brushes. However, I would get my XP Pen Artist 12 for my 17th birthday 2 months later, and I would be able to use photoshop at home by early 2020). But what I mostly did was focus on drawing pages more, moving onto the next one after finishing the last one without taking a break. Basically muscling my way through with the expectation that I would eventually get faster. This did not work, and here's why.

This one by one approach isnt bad on paper, and there are plenty of artists out there that drawing comics this way and don't have any issues. For me, the issue I found with this process was that it didnt lend itself very well to spend. Not all pages are created equal, taking longer or shorter to complete depending on the complexity of the drawing. In my experience, there were pages that took only a couple of hours to complete, and others that took days to get done, and this isn't factoring in stuff like school. This aspect brings up the problem with me muscling through pages. There are times where I dont want to work on my comic, and often times after I would finish a page, I wouldn't have enough motivation to get to the next one. But in my attempt to not spend years drawing my first chapter, I would force myself to draw pages even when I didn't want to. This results in numerous cases of burnout and art block, which can cripple you and slow you down, defeating the point of muscling through it all. One notable instance of this I can remember happened in February last year.

By July of 2022, I would've been drawing Chapter 1 for 3 years and as my new years resolution, I wanted to get it done by that time. I had made great progress in 2021, catching up to page 75 by the time of new years, and I felt confident in my ability to get it done that year. That hope was shattered when I did what I had done with one of my pages and complete a future page ahead of time. Said page was the last post I made on this blog which I've actually completed a few weeks ago. The numbering for that page is 148 (was probably lower last year as I did end up adding pages during that time thanks to rewrites). And at that time, I had just passed the 80th page mark. It was then that I realized the implications of what I needed to do in order to get Chapter 1 done that year. I would've had to draw more than double the amount of pages I had drawn in 2021, and given the way I was drawing comic pages at the time, I knew deep down that wouldn't be possible. But not wanting to admit it, I tried muscling through the pages I was working on, hoping that if I pushed myself beyond my limit I would miraculously become faster and more efficient. But that didn't happen. The stress caused by my realization and the refusal to accept it caused me to become more and more agitated, which caused me to make errors and not draw as well as I would've wanted. Said agitation also clouded my thoughts and made drawing more and more difficult as soon as I knew it. I had burned myself out.

I think I've done a good job at laying out why this method didn't work for me, and if I was still drawing comics this way, I would not be finishing my first Chapter this year. And at this point, I would like to take a moment to shout out @the-underground-beauty. If it hadn't been for her, I not have found out about batching and I wouldn't have been even close to ending this long ass chapter. I was in a discord call with them and other art friends I knew, and I talking about ways of becoming faster at completing pages. They explained that they batched multiple pages instead of drawing them one by one like I had. Like, you would do the layouts for one page, then you would do the layouts for the next page, same goes for sketching and inking. This makes it so that instead of dumping all of your energy into one page, you're spreading that work into multiple pages and thus, become more efficient. Now you might be wondering how this would be better than my old method. Wouldn't working on multiple pages at the same time instead of going one by one be worse? In my experience, it's the complete opposite.

Along with the upsides I've mentioned above, its also very flexible in regards to inking/coloring. In the past, I found myself getting board with pages and wanting to move onto the next one but couldn't because I had to finish the one I was working on. I don't need to worry about that with batching. I can go in chronological order or skip pages to come back to them latter. This can be very handy when it comes to complex pages that would take a lot of time to complete. If Im not feeling up for it at that moment, I can just skip that one and come back later once I feel ready. It also points out the most time consuming part of drawing comics, sketching. Inking is one thing, but when you're doing a lot more work when doing the sketches. And depending on what the storyboards call for, the sketching process for a given page can take a pretty long time and a lot of energy. But with the batching process, the energy I would've spent finishing said page with inking and shading/coloring can be better spent on other pages. This means that I would need to worry a whole lot when inking as most of the hard work was done prior.

Batching also helps with putting what you're working on into perspective. Throughout most of my time drawing my comic, I found it difficult to view the pages I'm working on as being apart of a much larger story, rather than on a page by page basis. I would spend so much time on them that I would view the page I was working on as being its own separate thing, unrelated to the pages that came before or after. Batching, in a way, solved this issue, because now that Im working on a part all at once instead of going page by page, it helped me view what I'm working on as being pieces of a story, rather than being their own thing. I felt that the pages I was batching had more unity to them than the ones before it. Its difficult for me to describe this feelings, because I would always get it when finishing a part and rereading it. Pages that would take weeks to complete took more a couple of minutes to read, despite the specific pages taking so much time to finish. I haven't had that feeling after adopting batching as my new method of drawing comics, since every page all at once.

But how has it worked in practice? Well to see if batching was effective or not, I decided to batch the remaining six pages of what would by episode 7 on CB's tapas page. I got those done in a week. And 2 months later in May, I began work on pages 95 through 105 and this was the true test to to see if batching could really be effective for an entire part. I got it done with in a month. The after that wasn't as successful, but I mostly contribute it to external factors that had nothing to do with batching. At the start of this year, I decided to ditch the part by part method and go at the remaining 67 pages of Chapter 1 all at once. At the time of writing this, I'm still not finished with this Chapter yet but I don't expect it to be for quite long. I anticipate on wrapping it all up around June of this year. So with all this being said, I think I can conclude that batching comics has been way more effective in terms of speed. Over a 100 pages over the course of one year, way more than I had in the past with the old method. If I hadn't switched up the way I had been drawing comics back in March of last year, I don't think I would've come this far! Now I am aware that batching might not work for other artists, and that's fine. But if you are in a place like I was and want to get pages done quicker, I suggest giving it a try and see if it works for you or not :)

#comics #webcomics #art #artists on tumblr #art tips #artist rant

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wheneclipsefalls · 6 months

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Also, it's so sweet to hear that you want to hear from me not just about series. Truly, I am often tempted to share random thoughts on here and more about myself but I don't want to come off as oversharing. I'm very talkative in person and that quality tends to transfer over here at times (probably why my stories are so long too).

Do it, i am too, do it, if you don't do it i cry.

I want to know the frog you thinking about bro, like receving the notification of your account always makes me smile like crazy, so even if you want to share with us if you eating pasta or meat, I will love to hear it.

Love your Smeriglio.

haha you're so sweet<3

Well here is a thought, I am currently putting all of my work onto Wattpad too even though I haven't touched that site in like 6 years. This requires going through and completely revamping my old account I had during middle school and high school. I have honestly had a hard time keeping in the tears from how hard I've been laughing. I used to be a huge Directioner, I can not emphasis this enough. The account had a couple of my old One Direction fanfics and they are so cringey I can barely look at them, especially the 'gorgeous' cover I made during middle school with no experience using photoshop. The inexperience shows, trust me. What really gets me is that there were a few people that actually followed that messy story I wrote. I'm glad I've come a lot farther since then, but it's kind of fun to read the old stuff. It feels like talking to my middle school self. She was something else!

Should I be studying for my Molecular Biology midterm right now? Yes. Definitely yes, but here I am cringe laughing at my old Wattpad stuff instead.

I love pasta and meat btw haha<3

#my Smeriglio<3

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audreyhalessaviour · 4 months

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All I want to do for now is make an easy to use resource of Audrey content for any future researchers to use. Just a huge repository of Audrey pictures, videos and of course writings but I don't know how to do it and there isn't much on her out there in the public hands. Maybe I just need to ease off worrying and just let things take it's course. I have thought about writing a book about my love for her to make people going through this sort of thing not feel so alone and to give them advice. I really wish I could find something out there significant but I feel if there really is something like that out there it will be discovered naturally like Adam Lanzas YouTube account. It's frustrating because I know the amount of worrying I do to find something is a little disproportionate. I often look at AHM and TSB and what they have done and then look at my little blog and feel like a fuckup because I'm not as successful as them. I know interests in Audrey have waned a bit but I'm holding out for the anniversary because I know then there will be some elevated interests then but nothing compared to other mass shooters. Look at Tumblr and how filled it is with other blogs for almost every criminal out there with little exception. I feel as if I need to see the manifesto ddeeepp in my soul because I need to know what the hell happened and I know everyone else needs to know too. I can make little shitty photoshops all day and night if I want to but that doesn't change what has happened and will happen. I'm just a little man who walks back and forth while thinking of Audrey, thinking about where she is not and hoping she is safe, thinking about what I can do to help, thinking of what I could have done to help and thinking about my realistic abilities too. I think the best thing for me is to evolve past this little blog and do a little something as an occupation to achieve a similar goal to those things. I have a handful of ideas in my head but I know many of them I can't flat out do because I'm too stupid to and what I can do will take me a few years to get set up at doing. I just don't want to give up on Audrey because she deserved so much better in life that what happened. I want everyone to know the mistakes made so another evil Audrey never comes around again and maybe the best way to do that is to allow for those opportunities to just come to me. However that being said I also feel like I'm a spoiled brat that just expects things to come to him because I admit AHM and TSB have put a lot more effort into their works than I have. When I started this blog I felt really accepted by the people here and I still do because a few people have stayed but many people have moved on. Not to go too deep into my personal life but this blog and the communities around it really helped me ease my depression and that is part of the reason it's so sad to see it falling apart. The other of course is the help it would give to Audrey, even if that help is WAY too late it still matters. I often feel like a fuckup seeing more mass murders happen as I have vast knowledge on the subject from years of research but never really put it to good use and I often wonder if there was something I could have done to prevent them but the simple fact is that I can't get rid of them all but I can make the changes that I can make in the world no matter how small. I'm working on getting into a position in life to where I can actually do that but I'm not there yet. I just really need to start bringing myself up over what I can do rather than beating myself up over what I can't. I'm in a constant loop of depression due to this and when that depression was eased off due to this blog so I feel like it was just a first step into getting out. Thinking about Audrey always saddens me but it's a great motivator.

#audrey hale #mental health #grief #love #mass murder #depression #depressing shit #life goals #goals

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aukanemin · 1 year

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Hi! I was wondering if you ever make tutorial/speedpaint videos of your work. I'd love to see your process! Additionally, can I ask what program you use? Do you have any specific brushes? I just really love your style and would love to know more about your process!

Hiii!<зз Thank you so much for your message!

Oh, I actually used to - but not anymore, I fret o/////o There is still my account on youtube (Aukane Min?) yet there is just three speedpaints that was made two years ago and outdated to the brim (a portraits for Alucard, Astarion and Julian?). At this moment I generally, too, don't think there is a correct way for me to create speedpaints or tutorials with my current state of workflow and style - it's so chaotic and usually includes constant switching both for techniques and programs and lots of them are really strange and uncomfortable to show for the most parts o/////o

But I always worked with Adobe Photoshop mostly! My blending and painting techniques usually terrible there, but it is always best for composition, setting, tone and coloring and all post-processing for me personally? At the current moment, since I put more pressure into painting element rather than clear line/flat coating, I also switch onto Clip Studio a lot - it's not comfortable for me in terms of coloring and composition, yet it has such good textures for work and brushes? o////o First time when I started working with it it felt like new world opened (my current header was fully painted in Clip Studio and redacted in PS after, and it meant so much for me<зз) and I learn a lot about it at the current time, too, so my style heavily changes from time to tame, specifically depending on time I can put into work and how much I can experiment on it<зз

At this moment I could describe my workflow as:

Gather references and in Photoshop create composition. Make a rough line of basic shapes, create a basic palette to use later. There is no shadows or coloring, only simplest part of design o////o

Switch to Clip Studio to create a clearer line. I like to use it's original rough oil brush for it, too, but it depends on how clear and gathered work should be o////o Usually there is several layers of line, too - one is more transparent for general shape, second one is layered over to create deeper crevices and accents?

Into Photoshop - to fill painting planes? I try to make them as clear as they could be, and separated folders for each plane of working - for example, one for face, different for body/hands, several for different clothing details, for hair, too, for background elements? I cannot physically put myself into painting everything in one place at all - even shadows of one object may contain different layers that are on top of another? o/////o Generally I do not work with textures at that moments, just create as many different layers I might need and redact them as much as I can to create consistent tones of all elements for that moment?

Clip Studio! To create texture and taste of those tone differences, lights and shadows - I like the way how it can be blended and how oil/watercolor effects can be applied? From one side it is very technical process that does not expect huge differences, but I also can feel comfortable at this moment to just create nice depth to shapes, basic textures that was in mind, make all edges more smooth and blended in environment and work over details in general - over hair strands, eyes, crevices in cloth, tone differences over skin and it's personal details and textures? Somewhere lines are lost, too, and painted shapes overcome in the project, too.

In Photoshop! o/////o I tend to merge layers for each plane and redact all tones using combined metods - like color replacement, gradient maps, filters, curves and levels? I also tend to apply additional textures when they are needed, combine photorealistic elements sometimes, or elements and decigions from previous works. Sometimes I add then sharpness to tone differences using contour sharpening (inside planes, yet not on the edges?), and blur other elements or planes, too (not by blur itself but by using oil painting effect with more voluminous brush size setting?).

Then I combine all layers together and start do post-processing? I add more lighting, merge, then copy and blur them several times to create different blur effects, clear them, deepen them, and together with those changes I edit tones of painting again o/////o This time I use curves and levels and gradient maps (like in blending mode to previous version of painting) on whole work rather than different layers, and I add new filters like film grain and grain and deepen sometimes effect by sharpening contour again but with extended radius? Sometimes I use color range to isolate shadows, neutrals, accents and lights and edit them separately? Sometimes I use color filters, too, to simplify their tones into one general? o/////o

o//////o Things differ a lot from how much of time I can put into painting (it's so complicated sometimes! Sometimes when things rushed I try to simplify them to make less mistakes? But also when I work too long over one painting everything just blurs in eyes and there is so difficult to create sharp, artistic and sudden decigions and all is very technical?), and whether it is my own project and for someone (Then there is such specific combination where at the same time I try to do something new and expressive cause for such paintings I can put a lot more effort and time than for usual but at the same time they need to reflect something that person that this painting is for saw in my previous works and expected in their own? o//////o)

Especially since the sketching stage is completely different (it should be extended a lot and personate whole painting in general like it will be in the end, without unexpected decisionds and changes, while for myself I can create them in such way how they can be out of limits? For commissions sketch is always tries to impersonate final stages but in significantly simplified way, but in my own projects it's just a design that can be changed in so many ways anytime and reworked as much as it requires? o/////o).

It's.. Oh, a mess o//////o It makes me so happy, though! I just don't think that any of that can be showed and tutored? Art comes from heart, it's meant to be chaotic and non-recreational, it's not about design of reality but rather of it's interpretation!<ззз

#ask #artist on tumblr #blog

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lacomandante · 10 months

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🧶 — any non-writing hobbies/interests?

munday asks!

Yes! I have quite a few, actually. I like to think I'm a jack of all trades. I do historical sewing, and atm I'm currently working on a pair of regency stays. It's a little annoying because I've been working on multiple dresses, only to have to stop because I don't have the correct undergarments to accurately measure if the dress fits or not. So I had to stop what I was doing and make these mockups...I'll get there eventually lol. I also make dolls! Which I never posted photos of when complete, I'll need to do that. Unfortunately I'm very easily fatigued, and sewing is easily one of the most exhausting hobbies I have physically and mentally, which means a lot of these projects take months or years.

Reading, but I feel like that's a given for most people in the rpc. I feel like it's very important to read in order to grow your own ability to write. Currently rereading the Witcher series, alongside Sharpe's Gold and Company. I've also been reading a lot of English accounts of travels through Spain, detailing the landscapes, customs, manners, etc. I think since January I've read over 8 books detailing these things...probably over 2,000 pages combined? I'm endlessly fascinated with historical accounts and I honestly can't get enough of them. Currently reading Letters written during a journey in Spain, and a short residence in Portugal published in 1808. There's a huge gap in the history of Spain during this period so it's been very helpful (although biased) filling in the blanks.

I also do drawing and painting, but this hobby has kinda fallen on the wayside this year. I find myself impatient, but I need to get back into groove of things, as I do really want to improve more.

I would say I do gardening, but...this year my plants almost instantly fried in the California heat, and every time I look into my backyard I just see their decayed husks so. Maybe attempted gardener is best...I have more houseplants than anything, and I struggle to keep my pothos alive, which are pretty easy to take care of....I think I have more of a hobby of buying plants...

Oh! I also do a lot of penpal writing. I joined a Jane Austen FB group and joined a pen pal group in there. I'm more of a casual fan and not really obsessed with her works, but I do enjoy them. I've got three pen pals so far, and they're all older women in England (one I was luckily enough to find that also writes/speaks Spanish so I get to practice!). Two of them are in Kent, and one is in Yorkshire. They're all very sweet and kind and nothing makes me happier than getting their handwritten letters in the mail. I also adore making fancy designs for the envelopes and stuffing them full of stickers and pretty things. Here's a few samples of things I've made (steadily improving lmao) - two for my penpals, and one for Sam :)

I suppose archival work also falls into this? I know how to pirate, burn and rip dvds and blurays, how to convert and preserve files, and I'm currently learning how to preserve and convert VHS. It's really fascinating to me, and I've even learned a little bit of coding and programming on the side for it.

Oh! I also like to make gifsets and photo manips- 10 years of being in the rpc with photoshop skills helps a lot with this. I LOVE making manips of Teresa in other Sharpe films, or in different scenes. I actually have quite a few but haven't posted many of them. Mostly for au's and rp's/fics Sam and I have written and explored.

I also play the guitar, but I say this very lightly. More like I can read tabs, and play some songs, but honestly I'm self taught and would say I'm very much a beginner at best. I really enjoy it but haven't had much time, nor the means to learn more sadly. But I enjoy plucking and learning chords to my favorite songs.

#;letters #prvtocol #(perhaps i am not as boring as i thought...)#(oops word vomit. ty for the ask!!! <3)

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hollygl125 · 11 months

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Summer Reading / Writing / Arting Tag

Tagged by: @coping-via-clint-eastwood. (Fun! Thank you!)

1. Describe one creative WIP project you’re planning to work on over the summer.

I’m planning to submit a story for the ficwip 5k AU challenge, but I wrote that two days after it was announced (I have absolutely zero control over my mind), so now I’m just waiting for sign-ups and posting. I consider it a pre-canon divergent, canon convergent modification of a coffee-shop AU (not that I’ve ever read a coffee-shop AU). I think it’s pretty cute. But, since it’s already complete, I won’t exactly be working on that over the summer….

I will still be working on my ongoing series. It was ostensibly finished last August, but it’s grown in length by at least 50% since then (by adding to the middle—the end point is roughly the same). I currently have two unfinished sections (sections where I started adding something but need to fill in the rest).

In a dream world I would make a video to accompany the fic series, but I am an extreme perfectionist and don’t currently have the patience, so I think I would likely just drive myself crazy in the attempt.

I’d love to learn to make gifs in Photoshop, with pretty colours and layers and I don't know what…. I made a gif-set in PS once, but the end result was really big and unusable for most purposes because I didn’t really know what I was doing.

I’d also kind of like to embroider something. I bought some embroidery kits while slightly out of my mind during the height of the pandemic, and I think it would be fun to try using them and then, after learning a bit, make up something on my own. (Would it involve bees and butterflies? Probably.)

2. Rec a book!

Fiction: Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Coupland. I haven’t read this in forever, but I meant to recommend it to someone about a decade ago and never got the chance. So I’m recommending it now to y’all instead.

Non-Fiction: Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi, which is about the development of racist ideas and non-racist ideas alongside each other. I think this is one of the last books I read before I broke my brain.

3. Rec a fic (outside your character tag)!

How cute of you, question-asker, to think I read any fic outside GSR!

4. Rec music!

I’m terrible at recommending music, but I do have a Spotify playlist for my GSR series. (The Spotify playlist is only current to the stories I’ve posted so far. My private iTunes playlist has about 100 more songs. The Spotify playlist will get there eventually.)

5. Share one piece of advice!

I did my undergrad in History and English Lit, but I have no background in creative writing (aside maybe from previously running my dog’s Instagram account), so I don’t know if I’m in much of a position to give advice, but I’ll tell you how I approached my writing process (and had a lot of fun with it!), and maybe that’ll help someone.

Writing fan fiction was not something I seriously considered doing until the day before I started doing it. On the day before I started, I thought of it as something I might do quite a ways in the future, when I’d prepared more. But then the next day my brain was like, actually, no, we’re doing this now.

The reason I’d decided to write fanfic was that I had all these little romantic GSR scenarios running around my head at night (and in the morning, and in the afternoon, and in the evening…), and it was getting really tiresome having to recreate the dialogue every night.

When I started I did an outline in a Word doc with story or chapter headings, based on the different aspects of the GSR story I knew I wanted to address. After I had the outline, I didn’t fill in the story linearly, though. I first wrote whatever scenario was most pressing to get out of my head. Then I wrote the next thing, then the next, then the next, all based on what was most urgently trying to escape my head. Sometimes I added more headings when I had new ideas.

But it was never work; it was always fun. I probably looked a little goofy. I kept thinking… oh my god, I can’t believe I’m doing this. (You have to keep in mind that, until January 2022, I had not read any fic since (or before) I read fic for Josh and Donna when they were taking their own sweet time back in the mid-2000s.)

Eventually I had to write some sections that were more functional—stuff that was simply necessary to get from Point A to Point B—but that was really minimal and still relatively enjoyable. (I have a hard time even remembering what those sections were anymore, but I think the chapter explaining how they got from the year of honeymoons to the events of season 13 was definitely one of them).

So I guess my advice would be that you should just do whatever works for you. (E.g., you don’t have to start at the beginning.) I think this works well with c-v-c-e’s advice: “This is art. There ARE no rules, especially ones restricting flexibility and expression.”

And, most importantly, please remember to try to have fun!

Tagging: If you would like to participate, please consider yourself tagged!

#about me #tagged #tag game

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