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#im trying to practice different shading techniques for stuff too so
tosye · 2 years
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For the artist ask game: #15
Also my own little question, what program and brush do you use to create?
I love you and your art tremendously. You're so incredibly talented💜💕
(PART 2) Edit on my last ask, I just realised you do use procreate too, lol sorry. But what brush do you use for colouring? Your shading and light effects are so soft I'm obsessed
hiii hun!! tysm for the ask ❤️
15. Biggest artist pet peeve?
some people might get mad at me for this but it’s tracing 💀💀 don’t get me wrong - i love tracing FOR PRACTICE AND PERSONAL USE ONLY, I also do that when trying to figure out faces which you can see below!! what i do is i trace to kinda get the feel of the features (on the left) and then draw it from scratch (on the right)
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like it’s totally cool and dandy if you’re trying to improve on anatomy or kinda figure out another artists style BUT i really REALLY don’t like it when peeps do tracing and post stuff it just gives me the ick sorry besties
about the brushes - a lil display below
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the nadiaxel ones i use for both sketching/line and rendering with differing opacity, round and damp brush and trifection are for rendering too, the jingsketch and fine tip I’ve only just started using so im kinda trying to figure them out!! the last one from sinix I use for the occasional smudge!! I think that the softness is just an illusion since i very much leave the brush strokes visible but the difference in color and hue is just so subtle that it looks smooth lmao but it also depends on what technique im doing - ie more painterly (my recent cobb) or more highly-rendered-american-comic-cover style (pancakes, the dincobb with the pink spotlight etc). also a lot of the softness you’re talking about might be the use of layers - i often do a flat color and then a multiply layer of a warmer grayish color and the work on the lighter and darker parts on that kinda like below (1. flats, 2. what the multiply layer looks like in normal, 3. actual multiply mode, 4. w/ the light)
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for stronger light sources like these below i tend to use either add or screen blend modes with additional light sources airbrushed over the bg in the same blend mode most of the time
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sorry i went off on quite the tangent lmao but I’m absolutely loving these asks keep them coming guys!! don’t have to be from the ask game im happy to talk abt whatever!!
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elliek599 · 4 years
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Trying to see what I can do with the Copics I have
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s-fellows-art · 3 years
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Simplified tips on how to improve your art.
.putting under cut because its long but thats cause i explain these and not just list stuff. 
1)  Flip/mirror  your canvas when working. - it allows you see anatomy and other errors you may overlook. 
2) before uploading look at the image on a different screen or the next day. - this give you time away from it, and as tempting as it is to upload as soon as your done, if you wait  you will see stuff you can improve on and be able to look at it with “ fresh” eyes. 
3) Stop shading with black or grey scale colors- shading with inly these colors make the imAge look muddy, if you shade with a color that is a darker hue of the same color your adding shading to it one in the same tempters ( warm= R Y O cool = B G I V  on the Rainbow ) you get more vibrant art and you don’t muddy what your working on. 
4) Learn to grey scale BEFORE coloring as a draft p2- learning how to shade in black and white can help you identify lighting points and details. When digital painting simplifying something out to a grey scale can help you keep track of what your doing. 
5) Use the tools you have access too- References to learn anatomy , taking time to learn amniotomy will help you a lot in the long term, but doing everything off the top of your head your bond to get something wrong early on, or even later on in art.  Use the sharpen tool around highlights if your program offers it. It saves time. Also play with your filters and line art colors. These will ad detail to your work and takes less time. If you mess around with the brushes in your program and stuff before starting it will help you later on. Its not cheating professionals use it all the time. 
6) practice drawing random stuff- it teaches you the shapes and trains your hand ti make the strokes/motions needed for basically everything. Art studies can be very helpful. Even if it feels stupid drawing 500 eyes on a note pad, it helps. 
7) Simple is good, complex is chaos- over complex art is hard to look at because your not sure what to focus on so the areas you want the eye to go to is where you should focus your details rather then make every single little thing detailed. Another way to do this is to brighten the colors where you want the eye to go at first glance in an image, but make the other areas muted in color, or blurred slightly.  
8) Don’t be afraid to look up tutorials and take breaks if you get stuck - I personally only learned how to shade faces from watching makeup tutorials. And there is nothing shameful in not knowing how to do something and needing to look it up or ask, its how you learn you can just power you way through it all the time, and somethings your wasting your time if you do for something not worth it in the end run. Also the act if stepping back and away to go do something else is sometimes all you need, sometimes looking at the same file over and over again can be mentally exhausting. Take a break. Drink some water. Stretch your wrists. Look away from it for a while then come back. 
9) Stretch your wrists before working- save your self years if pain trust me. I regret not doing this. Also draw from your shoulder not your wrist unless detailing, less stress on your arm and more precision. 
10) Use different line thicknesses - i find using thicker lines for areas that touch the outer parts of your drawing or more important areas, and using thinner for detailing adds a bit of detail and quality to your work even if the line art isn’t clean. Inner face  parts (other then the top bracket of the eyes), lines between fingers, lines marking clothing folds, and things like that should be done in thinner lines then eyebrows and what not. 
Next two some will role your eyes at but honestly makes a huge difference, even if you got to force it at first. Its hard to break a bad habit.
11) don’t look for flaws in your work, look for what you like about it,- if your constantly pointing out what is wring with what you are doing your not gonna go any where, bare minimum go “ okay im not too happy about this, lets see how we can improve it” instead if “ this looks like garbage I hate it”. If you stay in the mentality of I don’t like this , your never gonna be happy with what your making or improve because subconsciously your telling you self you can’t. This slight change in mind set of trying to find at least one thing you like will make a big difference in the long run because slowly you will be moving towards finding a style your comfortable with and going from there, you will be finding things you
12) don’t compare you self to other artist- its one thing to want to take influence in your fave artist, its another to constantly out yourself down because your not like them. Everyone art started as shit. Everyone. We all were that crappy 1 year old can barely hold a pen person at one point. like learning how to read and write or ride a bike....  No one starts as a perfect artists, its something you learn, so comparing your self to people around you is not gonna help you improve and putting yourself down just because your not perfect yet. Even if its something as little as “im happy I finally finished this” is better then “I wish i was like _”. You are slowly moving towards a goal, some people just move quicker then others because they learn different techniques, instead if putting energy into hating everything you do why not try to learn how the people you like the art of got there by learning some techniques your self? 
13) Ignore the notes enjoy the journey-  Regardless , you making art is amazing in itself . Its something only you have made. There may be other things like it but its not like how you did. Your unique and honestly ignore the notes, if your constantly pushing yourself based off of numbers, your gonna burn your self out and give your self impossible expectations to try to complete. Everyone has different tasted and are not always gonna like what you do the same way, if at all, there is nothing wrong with what you made you simply just can’ please everyone and its not your job to. The notes are a bonus, not a goal, you don’t have to try to compete for them the only person you have to create for for is you. Do what ever the hell you want and if people like it, great, if they don’, then they like a different cup of tea then yours, don’s make it bad tea.  Edit 1 as i thought of more : also the reason your sketch looks better then your line art is because your line art is too neet. If you use difrent thicknesses in lines (thicker for outter areas and important areas) and thinner for areas with more movment (bottom crese of eyes or outline of area around puple inner part of mouth clothing inner parts or what ever u feelis needed) it will look better because it will show your brush strokes which is what makes your sketch look good. -You can also add a 3d effect woth the red and blue outlines on areas that are not the central focus of the peice. Blurring has the same sort of effect to where it forces the eye onto the clearer area if the photo and makes it more visually intresting. Having this effect everywhere however can make stuff hard to focus on and diffcult to look at so only keep it on non focus points (most common focus point is the face so wouldnt put it there) .
Idk how helpful these will be but they made a big diff in my progress over the past year. The last bunch made a significant difference for me, though it was really hard to force myself into that mentality. And i still skip doing some of these in occasion ill admit but i hope this helps none the less. 
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neechees · 3 years
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hi!! i was legit just wondering how long you’ve been doing digital art. i’ve been doing digital art for ~1.5yrs now but the longer i’ve worked at it the more frustrated i’ve become. i mainly do painting so i’ve been TRYING to translate that into my digital art but i just. cannot. did you have any similar frustrations by chance, or just any in general w digital art, and how did you get past them? im finally trying to dedicate some time to practicing over the summer. v frustrating tho 😔
Oh god, I got my first actual drawing tablet back in high school, I thiiiink in grade 10 or 11? So that would've been 2012-2013ish. But i had attempted (very badly) to do digital art on MS paint and Deviantart since Junior High. I was pretty new to the internet and most of my time was spent searching up digital art and printing them out to hang in my room, and I remember wanting to, but feeling like I'd never be as good as the digital artists I saw. But even when I got my first drawing tablet it took me a long time to even get used to! I know the feeling you're talking about. Its taken me multiple attempts at different things to realize what I like in digital art before I got better at it.
I still sometimes have doubts I'm even improving digitally now, but believe me when I say that even if it doesn't feel like it, you're always improving! I think for me, learning to draw better digitally can be improved by a number of things, namely by your tablet, the program you use, the brushes you use, the techniques you use to draw digitally, and then working at it to find what best works for you & keep working towards improving. My first tablet was a $50 one from amazon & I drew using FireAlpaca, and now I use a 5 year old Wacom tablet on Photoshop 2018. For your tablet, I think you just gotta get comfortable with the works of how to sit with it, hold it, finetune it, etc and it should be good! A more expensive tablet doesn't necessarily mean it'll perform better. Even my coloring/drawing style is different! I found that the way I do it now is better and easier for me, whereas before my art would take DAYS and HOURS for some unfinished, simple looking pieces, whereas now I can do much more detailed stuff more quickly. So I guess here's a few tips of what I personally did that made things easier for me:
Watch other digital artists do speedpaints, look at different tutorials, and try copy their process. You might find something that unexpectedly works for you, makes things less frustrating, and speeds things up while simultaneously making you a better artist! And experimenting with different techniques is just always a good idea
Find different brushes you like, download them, and experiment with them. You might find a brush that's supposed to be used one way, and is useful for another. Additionally, testing the brushes with lowered opacity or flow & different things could help! I used to take FOREVER shading things, lowering the opacity, etc, and then I started trying different brushes. Instead of using the hard round brush with lowered opacity, now I use a cloud brush, a pencil brush, a charcoal brush, a chalk brush, and the soft round brush for blending and shading almost seamlessly. I discovered they work well together by testing them out and watching how OTHER artists used them. There's actually some brush packs that are meant to mimic oil/watercolor/acrylic/etc painting strokes/brushes or palette knives, maybe trying these out could help!
Try different art programs if you can, watch youtube speedpaints of artists using them, watch tutorials on how to navigate said programs, and then try it out yourself. There's links hanging around to get photoshop & other programs for f/r/ee, or you can do the free trials, but there's also always free art programs available too! One artist who greatly influenced my art style uses Paint Tool Sai, but I found that this program just wasn't for me when I tried the techniques she employed on the program she used, and discovered photoshop was most to my liking once I knew how to use it
Set up your digital art workspace the way YOU like it. Usually on most programs there's the ability to switch around or resize or even temporarily switch off/disable the different windows of your workspace within the program, so if you don't like something somewhere, change it! I actually don't like having the color palette window visible in photoshop, so instead I shut it off and just use the HUD color picker & color selection tool when needed. Doing this gives you a more cozy space to work in, think of it as setting up your painting area and adjusting your easel to your liking
So once you've been kinda testing the waters with some or maybe all these things, you start to get more comfortable with digital art, and you'll see yourself getting faster, better, and generally just improving. Also, and I know you know this already & its pretty obvious (otherwise you wouldn't be here lol) that digital art is MUCH different than irl painting. I have a hard time thinking of which is harder or takes longer for me because they both come with benefits and downsides! However, if you WANT to try emulating irl painting with brushes and how you use your layers, you can try that too. Experiment!! A lot of improvement and getting comfortable with digital art is testing different things, seeing what you think works for you, and then keeping at it. But also remember you can switch things up at any time, you might need to do things a few times before you realize you're actually pretty good at it or that you like it, and that you don't need to test all these things at once! Things'll get less frustrating and translate from your imagination better once you've set up a space digitally that you can navigate freely, and become more comfortable with how to use the tools & techniques available
And never give up, I promise you're always improving. I hope this is helpful!
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ot3 · 4 years
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My approach to flat colors + limited palette drawings
This is a follow up to this post  i made about how i go about figuring out a color palette for my limited palette drawings. an anon asked me about my actual technique of finishing them so this is gonna be an explanation of how I work in a limited palette with flat colors. I ended up with these thumbnails for a sketch last time so we’re gonna work from here and I’m gonna sort of walk through how i got to the finished version
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first things first: every part of this process is just developed as a result of me messing around. take my advice with a grain of salt and if you think you know a way to do something better/that makes you more comfortable. go with that over what I say.
I’m honestly a little surprised when people express confusion about how i draw like this because it’s SUPER simple - literally all you’re doing is just stacking solid color blocks of shape. its very imprecise despite how sharp everything ends up looking. 
First things first is that you want to decide how you will be handling your edges throughout the duration. Do you want your shapes to be ultra-sharp and precise, or do you want a little bit of a wobblier, grainier edge? Both can look good but it’s VERY much a matter of situational basis. i’ve been favoring looser and grainier shapes so that’s how i’m going to be working on this. 
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on the left here, you can see the shapes made with precise rectangular selections and an untextured pen, on the right, freehand drawn shapes and a grittier pen. There’s something immediately pretty different feeling about them. So play around with that first - its not something that’s fun to change halfway through! But lets step back a minute. It helps to work large to small. The two biggest shapes here are these orange chunks and everything gets stacked on top of them so i’m gonna do that first. 
Now, a key feature of what i do: clipping masks. almost all digital art programs have them. What a clipping mask does is it constrains the pixels of a layer to the transparency of the layer below it. Here I have the light orange layer, and then on top of it the buildings and billboard are clipped to the orange. Most of you probably already know this and I’m overexplaining a bit, but there was a time when i didnt know how clipping layers worked and someone had to explain it to me.
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now you’ll notice the shapes of the buildings are rough, and sloppy. here’s the fun part: since this is all about stacking shapes, only your exterior edges matter. this all gets filled in. be as sloppy as you want when you’re making your shapes. in fact, the outside edges get trimmed out a bunch to when i do this - i go in and erase them clean. Don’t be too finnicky about drawing perfect and precise! its a waste of time. As long as the silhouette is what you want, the interior can be a nightmare.
Working this way, it’s important to keep your layers stacked in a way you can make sense of. Right now there are four layers here: the background dark orange, the two main orange rectangle shapes, and then the buildings on one layer and a billboard on the other. I rack up a LOT of layers doing this and it makes it annoying in some aspects, but being able to freely recolor any one chunk without losing my detail is a key aspect of this.
So, I block those out
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Next, I do the same for the smaller chunks that are still main shapes. There are once again, a lot of layers here. The top layer is the hair - you can see the head showing through it. The head and arm underneath the hair, same layer. Then the cup. Then the light green pieces of paper. Then the dark green ones.
The cup is technically farther forward than the head and arm so you would think it’d go on top, but the point isnt to recreate the foreground and background hierarchy with layers so much as it is to group things in a way i can work with. The cup goes underneath so it can be grouped with all the other objects on the table. 
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now, i just go and fill in all the shapes. i forgot to do the blinds but i get them later. you might notice a lot of these shapes are pretty rough, which was harder to notice before they were filled in. Now that I can see better, I go in with an eraser and clean up the edges until they’re the shape I want 
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sometimes erasing leaves little bits of ‘noise’ around objects like on this napkin here. i like to keep a little bit of this noise for texture, but if you dont like it make sure to get rid of it! if you’re working very crisp this will stand out a LOT
Next up is to add some detail onto the objects
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I flipped the canvas here because the head shape was wrong - the ears were uneven and i wanted to fix it. I want to go about adding detail onto the billboard and buildings. i do all detail with clipping masks - but the objects are clipped to another layer and so nothing can be clipped to them. instead, i unclip them and just erase by selection for the same effect
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all of the text on the papers is clipped to the papers below it. the buttons are clipped to the phone. the yellow photos and card are actually another independent layer on top, in case i want to recolor them separately. im indecisive and end up recoloring things a lot. For the most part these objects are starting to become recognizable as more than just shapes
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i go in an add the details on the background and character now. theres some more stuff on the table. the lines of the face and ears are on one layer, and the flats of the eyes below that. Here’s what each group of layers is, and what they look like on their own
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The background/bottom chunk. Just the table, window, and shirt.
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The middle bit. All the stuff on the table and the blinds.
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Finally, the top, which is just his head and arm. 
now this stage is the bare bones of the drawing. you can more or less tell everything that’s happening. it reads. but its very much lacking in something - it doesnt have a ton of depth or interest. and adding that additional detailing, the dept and interest, is where stuff starts getting REALLY tricky and subjective. 
im gonna take you to a much simpler scenario to show the sort of options i go through at this stage
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ahh its our dear friend, sphere casting shadow. this is, more or less, the kind of image we have. you can tell whats happening but it’s lackluster. there are TONSSS of ways frm here that you can go add interior detail to a shape once it has been established. here are some quick and SUPER rough examples
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from top left to bottom right: flat cel shading, softer airbrushed/gradient shading, halftone, and a textured brush. Each of these has their strengths and weaknesses. They can also be combined.
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for example, here’s the solid cel shading being used to contain a gradient/airbrushed detail. This image - probably the single oldest piece of my art i still willingly show people - is entirely colored with gradients being contained in cel-shaded chunks. It has a sort of soft, luminous quality but without losing its crispness.
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here’s a super quick bust with some variations of stuff going on. obviously this is no masterpiece but you see how different types of detailing can interact with each other and be used to distinguish materials too. 
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With the mob psycho comic I did, the detailing that wasnt line was done using a variety of halftones of different shapes layered on top of each other
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by contrast parts of my ace attorney comic use a textured brush and have a sort of blended, papery feel
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any of them can work for pretty much anything as long as you are using it with intent. practice around. mix styles of finishing together. find a comfort zone. the more you do it the more intuitive it becomes and at the heart of it this process is a very intuitive way of drawing because of how far removed it is from realism.
Now here is the trick - light and shadow.
Everything up to this point has been very flat and adding detail helps but there’s only so much that can accomplish. To get HEAVY light and shadow you need to think about things differently. I think if there’s any part of this process that’s complicated, its this one. 
To truly get the most out of your palette, you need to pick chunks of an image to be in higher/lower light and then either ‘step up’ or ‘step down’ the colors in that chunk. here’s what I mean.
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Here’s our ball with a beam of light on it. Everything Within the beam of light is one step in our limited palette lighter than anything outside of it. Here’s how I go about doing this: the shape of the beam of light is below everything else. Then, once I have the shape blocked out, i select it. With that selection in place, i go to EVERY SINGLE LAYER that’s effected, lock the opacity, and recolor that chunk. So what’s going on here is that there is only one more layer - the beam of light, below everything but the background, and the rest of this effect is just caused by every layer above it now being two-toned following the exact same silhouette. THIS is why it’s so important to keep your layers separate - if the shadow and highlight had been painted onto the base directly, i would not be able to do this without significant effort. 
This works with all of the finishing techniques I talked about above
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A combination of cel shading and half toning, all stepped up to give the appearance of heavier light on one area.This is also how I go about rendering transparency in this style. All of my layers are fully opaque and I allow the colors to do the work of conveying transparent material
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Here’s our ball with the patterned/textured brush  shading, being viewed partially through a window
it’s obviously not a very representational way of working, but as long as your audience UNDERSTANDS what you’re trying to convey, then you’re executing it successfully.
So with that, now we’re gonna go and finish this drawing.
For this one, I decide a big central shadow is necessary. In the original thumbnail, he was backlit, which I still plan on doing, and that wouldn’t make sense without casting a shadow.
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I’ve had to change the colors of some objects entirely in order to get this to work right. This is what I mean when I call this an intuitive process - some stuff felt weird, so I changed it. This also involves a bit of problem solving. The newspaper is now unable to be separated from his hand. Sometimes changing the color of an object makes that object look better, but ruins its relationship with the objects around it. It’s up to you to learn how to adjust and finagle things until you get it where you want.The paper he has and the napkin underneath it also all blend together now.
The next few parts of this process are REALLY just trial and error, where I toss a bunch of spaghetti at it until it works. It’s hard to decide what to screenshot, because I don’t know what will or will not be part of the finished drawing. To that end, you can watch the recording of this drawing here. This video isn’t edited at all so it contains a couple of minutes of really shitty sketching, and then all of the color thumbnailing work i did in the last post. Actually getting started on these final colors begins around the two minute mark. It is also sideways, I am sorry I don’t know why. 
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Now, here you can see where I’ve more or less worked things out. His hand’s not on the cup anymore because my friend pointed out it didnt have an arm attached to it. I added some halftoning to make a gradiating effect in the sky and on the table to give the impression of a sunrise. His eyes are different but as of posting this, I don’t like them and am probably about to go back and change them again. The Cup now has a shadow and some rim lighting. His hand is in shadow. The stain on the napkin is big enough to define the edge of the paper on top of it.
Little things like that. 
The more you draw like this the more the way you need to think about your space becomes natural. I hope this helps and I wish you all the best of luck!
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bodytoflame-ao3 · 4 years
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born for this // three
new friends, and old friends
read from the beginning // AO3 Link
xvi //
“Come sit, we have to talk to you.” Annabeth sits her down at the dinner table, hating the way the panic sets into her face.
“Is this about the wall because I swear I can explain.”
“No,” she laughs, thoughts drifting to the foot-shaped hole behind the dresser in her room, “that’s okay. We just have something really important to talk to you about.”
“Are you two splitting up?” It’s the first thing that pops into her mind, even though as the words leave her lips, she knows they’re ridiculous.
“No.” Annabeth takes a deep breath. “Remember how we told you about the prophecies?”
Lyra nods. She’s heard every story they offered to tell over the years.
Annabeth sighs. Percy picks up; “There’s another we’ve known about for a while.” Almost ten years, keeping the secret from her, he feels awfully guilty.
“You’re not… leaving… right?” Lyra’s voice quivers, trying not to think too hard of what she’s heard from them about prophecies and what they entail; the quests and danger they bring.
“No… it’s—” Annabeth can’t finish her thought when all her mind wants to focus on is how much she sees herself in her daughter. It hurts to see her worry, in light of the fact she devoted herself to making sure Lyra would never experience the same things she did as a kid. And now, this .
“We think it might be about you.”
Her father’s words take a minute to sink in. “Oh.”
“And—” Annabeth adds, “—another legacy.”
Percy continues, trying to disperse some of the tension. “We don’t know what’s going to happen. All we know is that bad things happen if we interfere. So this is all you — and I know how scary that is — but we’ve got your back as much as we possibly can.”
Lyra is silent for a while. “You should’ve told me.” She doesn’t seem angry. It’s a statement of fact from her perspective.
“I know,” Annabeth sighs, taking her hand. “And I’m sorry.”
Percy rests his hand on Annabeth’s back, reassuring her. “We just wanted you to be safe.”
“I know.” She knows the stories. The prophecies, the quests, the battles. She doesn’t want to live like this — but she’ll do it if it means keeping her family intact. “Do I know them? The other demigod?”
“You were four the last time you saw her.”
“It was for your own safety,” Percy adds.
Lyra looks up at her father. “They’ve been coming a lot lately.”
“That’s why we’re telling you,” he says. “We’re taking you to Camp. You’ll be safe there.”
“What about school? There’s still two weeks left and I haven’t taken my finals.”
Annabeth has to try hard not to laugh; it’s another way she sees herself in her. “I called. You know, family emergencies happen. They were more than willing to accommodate. Whatever your grades were yesterday is where they’ll stay. You don’t have to worry about that.”
It’s only a little bit of relief among something so scary. She doesn’t sleep much that night.
xvii //
She’s been to Camp with her parents before, but it’s never felt like this. This feels more than temporary. They pack their bags too, and settle into a staff cabin, promising to be there for her if she needs them. Even if they can’t intervene directly, Annabeth is prepared to exploit every possible loophole, with Percy at her side. They won’t leave her.
Lyra settles into the Hermes cabin with relative ease, though sleep doesn’t come easily. It’s not as quiet as she would prefer, but it’s better than the deafening silence of the Poseidon cabin, or living with her mother’s side of the family — from family gatherings, she knows they’re a lot sometimes. And she doesn’t quite feel like a part of either of them. So this will have to do. In a way, she thinks, it’s almost poetic, and quite fitting: not quite human, not quite demigod, left to her own devices to forge an identity as something new. Or some bullshit like that.
When she finally feels the exhaustion drift over her, it’s overwhelming; like the entire weight of the day’s been dropped on her at once. In a way, it has. She’s here now, this is real. Not just the stories her parents told to her, or vague bursts of imagination from brief visits.
As hard as she tries, she can’t shake the feeling of anger in the pit of her stomach — exactly for what, she’s not sure. And she still can’t sleep.
xviii //
“Shit, I’m sorry.”
There’s not much Lyra can make out in the pale blue glow of the moon, other than the girl’s vague shade of olive skin, and light-colored wavy hair. “It’s okay,” she shrugs, ”Plenty of room aboard the pity train. Or, tree, I guess.”
“I didn’t think anyone else was here.”
“No, I mean, I’d be surprised too if I climbed a tree at—” she glances at her watch, “—two AM and actually saw another person. Let alone… in the same tree.” The other girl doesn’t respond. “Can’t sleep?” Lyra offers.
“Jet-lag,” she answers, simple enough. “Got in from California earlier. You?”
”Thinking about how I just ditched the last month of freshman year and all my new friends, pretty much cementing my status as a loner for the next few years, all for something that might not even be true,” she sighs, finally putting it into words (She could hope that it might not be true; even if she knows the prophecies never lie). “Spilling my guts to a girl whose name I don’t even know. The usual, I guess.”
That gets a chuckle out of the girl, extending her hand. “Calliope — Callie. My name,” she clarifies. “I’m missing graduation, if it makes you feel any better.”
Lyra shakes her hand. “Lyra.”
And two AM turns into three, then four.
xix //
Lyra spots her sitting on a bench after finally dragging herself out of bed at half past noon. Callie’s watching two girls practicing sparring with swords in the clearing; with many of the same techniques Lyra recognizes from her own training. “Did they teach you how to fight?” she asks, curious, sitting down next to her.
“Yeah. I trained with my brother, Homer. You?”
She nods. “I don’t have any siblings. Just Mom and Dad.”
Callie chuckles, “Yeah, but your parents are, like, legendary! Like... superheroes !” Her eyes widen. “What can you do ?”
“Um…” She takes a second to think. “I’m really good with patterns. Like, memory and stuff. Not words though.”
“None of us are. Dyslexia, right?”
“Right,” she laughs. It’s good to be around someone else who understands. “I’m pretty good with a sword, and I inherited my Dad’s water powers too, I guess.”
“Really? You leave the coolest one as an afterthought ?”
“It’s… I’m not that good at it!” She’s nowhere near as good as her father, and it isn’t like she’s ever known any different. It’s been a part of her life as far back as she can remember, splashing water out of the bathtub as a mischievous little kid.
“Still cool!”
“Alright, what can you do?” she asks, curious to know what kinds of powers she inherited, if her own are any signal.
“I can do a little bit with the weather — my dad taught me that — and electricity, like my brother… and I’ve always had my mom’s charmspeak.”
“What else can your brother do?”
“Well, I mean… he’s really good at fixing things, but not much. He knows how to work with electronics, but his actual powers aren’t like mine.”
“Oh. That sucks.”
“Nah, I don’t think it really bothers him. He thinks turning on lightbulbs is a cool enough party trick, and honestly? I don’t blame him. It sure would be easier.” She notices something behind Lyra, and points. “That’s him over there. Curly hair.”
Lyra’s mind sticks on her earlier revelation. “Charmspeak?”
“You’re not ready for this,” she grins, “It’s like, hypnotism. I’ve always been able to do it, even before I knew about it. I used to get my dad to give me extra dessert. Until my mom found out. She was pretty mad, but she told me how to control it. And like, she told me not to use it unless it was completely necessary, but I see her tell the landlord every once in a while that they’ve already paid, so I don’t think it hurts to ‘borrow’ a candy bar or two.”
Lyra laughs, “You’re kind of a badass.”
“ Someone has to be in this family, and it sure isn’t my brother.” She folds her arms, “Look at him. He’s like a puppy.”
He’s pretty short, relatively speaking, just a little bit taller than Lyra, even though he looks older. He reminds her a little bit of herself with his curly brown hair — although his is much neater, carefully sculpted and shaved at the sides, while her curls frame the side of her face around her ears without any real shape or definition. His skin is a light brown, slightly darker than his sister’s olive complexion, but she immediately sees the resemblance, next to Callie’s dirty blonde waves, and her eyes, the same warm amber color as his, but also speckled with flecks of hazel and green. He doesn’t look intimidating, as many of the other campers have; with a tennis racket in hand, he bounces a ball up and down without much ceremony, sitting peacefully on a bench.
“He seems nice,” Lyra determines, shrugging.
“Exactly! I’ve heard so many stories about how like, cool our parents were, and I… I wanna do that. Be someone important.”
“It’s going to be dangerous.”
“That’s exciting!”
“You don’t get it!” Lyra bites back the harsher words that threaten to come tumbling from her lips. You’re immature, and arrogant, and self-centered, and— They’re fleeting thoughts, and she’s not in the business of ruining the first new friendship she’s had since age 11. But the outrage still comes. “Our parents watched their friends die and couldn’t do anything about it!” Because it’s true — and she doesn’t want it to happen to her. 
That shuts Callie up pretty quickly.
xx //
“It’s been… almost a year,” Piper says.
“I know.” It was hard for either of them to get away too often, let alone find a time where their schedules lined up. That, combined with the fact that they lived on opposite sides of the country, meant she frequently went long periods of time without seeing her best friend. They talked, often enough, via IM, but it wasn’t the same.
“I missed you, babes,” she sighs, hugging Annabeth for all the times she’s wanted to in the past year. “How’s she doing?”
She knows Lyra isn’t okay. Not in the slightest. Annabeth can read that kid like a book, no matter how much she tries to cover it up. “Angry. But hiding it well — nothing I can’t see through. Yours?”
“Homer’s fine. Actually, I think he’s glad to be skipping school. Callie is… okay, I think.”
“That’s good.” It almost feels like they’re kids again, gossiping cross-legged in their bunk beds. Even so, it’s different, and they both know it.
“They’re talking like friends already.”
The tension returns — in the form of silence — until Annabeth breaks it: “They were.” And she regrets saying it the second the words tumble out of her mouth. They were, as much as toddlers could be, but that’s a sore subject, for both of them.
Piper glares at her, whether it’s anger or sadness is anyone’s guess.
“I know. I just wonder what… if they’d grown up together?”
“Me too.” It’s far behind them now, but she does — wonders what their lives might look like today if they grew up that close. She wonders if it would’ve made a difference; would’ve mattered.
xxi //
Lyra would recognize his shaggy hair anywhere. “Zeph?”
“Lyra. Hi.” He wraps her in a hug, so tight that she’s surprised she can still breathe.
But that doesn’t explain why he’s here, of all places, instead of on a farm in the middle of nowhere, Mississippi like he should be. “What are you—”
He smiles, shaking his head like it’s obvious, “Son of Demeter. You didn’t think I just really liked plants, did you?”
Guilty as charged. “I… I guess so,” she chuckles, head tilting as the gears turn in her mind. He immediately makes ten times more sense, not the enigma she always took him for. But also, nothing makes sense — because this is Zeph, her best friend since the sixth grade, and shouldn’t she have known? Better yet: “Wait— did you know?” It’s hard to imagine him like this, so connected to a life she thought was only hers through stories.
He raises an eyebrow, “Jackson-Chase? Yeah, I knew.” He sounds a little amused, but more than anything, relieved.
Lyra, not so much. It’s the second time today she’s been reminded of her parents’ legacies, and it’s starting to weigh on her. “Why did you never tell me?”
Zeph shrugs. “I didn’t know how much they wanted you to know. Wasn’t too keen on angering the literal heroes of Olympus.” He pauses, letting the words settle. “I’m sorry.”
She shakes her head. “I’ve been hearing that a lot lately.” And I don’t want to hear it any more.
xxii //
“There is no way I’m letting you do this alone,” Homer says, entirely firm in his decision.
“I won’t be alone. She’s coming too.” Callie points to Lyra, who looks like a giant compared to the boy she’s talking to.
“ She ’s a kid.” He’s not fooled, despite her height — There’s no way he’s letting his little sister and some lanky teenage girl off into the world, let alone in such dangerous circumstances, alone. She can’t be more than a year older than her, and certainly no more mature. And she looks so innocent, with her mousy brown curls and folded arms — not strong enough to protect the both of them. Not alone .
Callie crosses her arms. “So are you. What’s the difference?”
He has to admit, she’s kind of right. But he’s older, damnit, and he’s not being a good big brother if he isn’t protecting her. “I’m coming with you, Callie. I can’t just sit here and do nothing!”
It’s not often that he yells; Callie knows that. “Mom and Dad won’t let you,” she says, quiet.
Homer sighs. “They already did.”
xxiii //
“Not gonna lie, I’m shit at archery.” Zeph shuffles, hands in the pockets of his cargo shorts, “But Astrid’s the best.”
“You say that like it’s surprising ,” Lyra laughs, “I know you have the hand-eye coordination of a toddler.”
“Okay. Unfair,” he points at her, looking immeasurably amused. “So who’s the girl you were talking to earlier?”
“That’s Callie. Her brother’s over there in the striped shirt.”
“The Grace kids?” he asks, almost a whisper.
“Yeah.” He raises an eyebrow, and Lyra rolls her eyes. “Oh, don’t look at me like that!”
“Sorry, sorry ,” he sighs, “They’re just… they’re big too.”
It’s not that Lyra didn’t know her parents, and even Callie and Homer’s, were a big deal — but to see her best friend lose his mind over them just seemed so wrong. (And hell, even Callie had seemed shocked.) At this point, she’s surprised he didn’t short circuit the first time her Dad picked her up at his apartment. How did he survive that, anyways?
A tall blonde, hair pulled into a sleeked-back bun approaches them, pulling her out of her thoughts. “Ready to get started?”
xxiv //
“Hey.” Percy can feel Annabeth shaking. “She’s okay. She’s gonna be just fine.” He reassures her, though there’s still a thread of worry running through his mind that asks, What if I’m wrong?
“I know she’ll be okay. She’s your daughter,” Annabeth says, pulling herself close to him, and wrapping her legs around his; entwined.
“She’s yours too.”
“I know that.” She’s ours. And she’s got the same natural survival instincts. “But I’m worried about how this is going to affect her. You know how bad it got.” They still don’t talk about it all that often, and the memories rarely haunt them anymore. When they do, it’s the same as it’s always been, holding each other close until the dread and fear dissipates. But this, this is an entirely different can’t-sleep feeling.
Percy holds her hand loosely, running his thumb over her fingers, twisting the wedding band on her ring finger. “We turned out okay, didn’t we?”
She remembers the day he proposed to her in vivid color. It was the most normal of days, spent in her dorm room, sitting between his legs, furiously wrapping up her last final paper with minutes until the deadline. Percy watched silently, as he had been for hours, as she submitted it, relaxing into his arms, knowing she could finally breathe; that she’d made it through her first semester of college. 
“You didn’t have to stay, you know.”
Percy shrugged. “I like watching you work.”
For all the stress, for all the nights she wondered if she really was cut out for this, she had something to show for it. If she’s honest, those kinds of nights were the ones she lived for, because for once she wasn’t worrying about if she’d be alive tomorrow. So she sighed, relieved, the mess of emotions settling into her bones, only for him to stir them right back up.
“You know,” he echoed, laughing, hands wrapping around her body, “This might be really stupid, but I want to marry you.”
“Percy,” she sighed, turning her head to face him, and fully expecting it to be an off-handed comment, “I don’t think that’s stupid, but you better have something to show for it.” She expected him to laugh, a ‘maybe someday’ sitting on his lips.
But Percy had instead reached into the pocket of his jeans, fumbling with the silver moonstone ring he’d been carrying around with him for six weeks, and held it out to her. He’d never looked more serious. “I mean it.”
Annabeth shook her head, blinking her eyes to stop the tears from coming, and kissed him without a word. For all the “normal” things she craved, this was something better done their own way. She kissed him until she couldn’t breathe, until he was laughing, scooping her into his lap, hands tangled in her curls. “That’s a yes, by the way.”
If someone had told Annabeth a few years ago that she’d be engaged, let alone alive and happy at eighteen, she would’ve laughed in their face. Even if she managed to live that long, the possibility of someone loving her enough to want to spend the rest of their lives together seemed foreign.
The ceremony was small; they could count the number of guests on their hands. Their parents, friends, and Chiron, on the lake of Camp Half Blood, which just felt right to both of them. After she kissed Percy for the first time as a married couple, Annabeth looked towards Piper, seven months pregnant and bawling her eyes out in happiness, and started to wonder if her life might turn out as good as hers did. And she supposes, it did. They did.
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dda-unit8 · 5 years
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Overview / Discussion / Final Evaluation
My animation is a nice head bopping, entertaining that ends in a realistic possibility. My main objective that I had from the beginning of the project was to have the character being looped in the city ( or should i say just being looped constantly / technically a GIF ). I was able to stick to that idea to the very end ( If someone plays the video on repeat.  Video start off with black intro is Immediately about smoking which fades into the character driving. At the end it fades back into black and could smoothly transition back into the beginning. The beginning of the animation shows a very quick bright yellow text about smoking. Because  it appears so fast I hope for the viewer to either replay the video or try and keep what the text said in their mind. Later on the character gets in an accident. I wanted the animation to not only be a interesting animation with a guy driving a car but also trying to portray a tiny story. It could be portray and shown on the BBC website for smoking and health for kids. It can also be an ad on you tube that can be shown. Because you tube is one of the top mainstream company's that kids, teens and young adults use, The ad could be seen more. 
When it comes to “ If I understood the specialist are of design my project was centered on “ I would say that I had a pretty big understanding on how Parallax animation worked. Before I even new what the name was for the type of animation, I had known what it was and how it worked. Because I showed interest in animation and how different types of animation works when I was younger, I feel like that has given me an advantage. For future referencing though, I would make sure that even the most unnecessary things that I might not think needs to be in a separate layer, go in a layer. 
When It had come to research, I figured I didn't do a bad job. I didn't just go on YouTube and look for ideas or stuff that Inspired me. I ended up taking my time and relaxing at home. Enjoying what i love, which is watching different animations. All different styles of animations. I even used myself when it came to how I wanted my character to be placed in the car. When it came to the sources that I used for references, I don think I used to much. In fact I would say I used a moderate amount of varied sources. With what I had researched I made sure that I could get the maximum output of it. For example, There was a lot of simple and short tutorials on you tube that would give me an easy way to do a smoke fx or a quick and easy explaining video of parallax animation. I didn't want that . I wanted to get as much knowledge and do the best I can do. I think next time I will actually go and travel to a different place like Birmingham or lecister to see and get better references. I will branch out more, use more fx, tools and create something even better.  
As far as problems, I came across actually deleting half of my progress when I started. I was pretty upset but I could not go back and change the past so all I could do was continue and work harder. I also had the problem of time management and not sleeping. That has always been a big problem for me and Im honestly trying to change that as each day goes past. I would tend to stay up from 24 - 48 hours. If i have learned anything it would be to take breaks a lot more.
What I was also shocked about is how I was keeping a steady pace in my work and not stressing to much over time. Until I had to go to work I was using my schedule and I never lost sight of the due date. I had always kept in my mind when it was due. I even had alerts on my phone to keep me updated. I tried to stay as focused as possible. Even when my idea slightly changed towards the middle / end I didn't want to panic and overthink. I had to focus and relax for a second. For this specific animation, there are indeed things I wish I could have added in if I had not had to start half way over. I would have loved to add ambient sound of highway traffic ( cars going past ) and the song thats playing in the background to sound like its from the radio. I would have also loved to add a night street light that passes every so often ( with starts and a moon in the sky ). But because I didn't add those things, does not mean that I cant create something better or add them later on. This summer I can practice not only my drawings but my animation. I could practice practice practice
I used more than what I had learned in class. 
When it came to the animation, I had to draw everything as a draft as what I envision and how I see it in my head. I had to then make the lines more fine. Add more detail. Add color. Sort out all the layers. Make sure the layers are stacked correctly. That was all in Photoshop. I had to add all the detail in Photoshop and that takes time. I then had to transfer what I made into after affects to ANIMATE it. That takes time. I could have done a simple animation like I had made before but I wanted to exceed that. I wanted to try and add different effects that I have not used before. I wanted to branch out myself and look at different techniques I can use and learn myself. I have attained new techniques and skills because of this animation. I can improve on the new skills and techniques i have learned by practicing this summer. Try and create fun projects, films, animations.
So yeah ... Looking at my animation now. I can see what more I wanted to add. I am proud ( comparing the previous animation I did ) of the animation that I have made. I am still learning but that is why practice makes perfect. I want to learn more effects in after effects and see all the possible effects I can use in animation or even film. I will branch out this summer and practice using the software myself, Practice more drawings on perspective, foreshortening, mecca, human anatomy and even simple shapes. One thing that I noticed was different about my drawing this time, is that i tried to draw less anime / manga related. I tried to focus on a realistic anatomy, head shape and where the eyes, ear, hairline etc would be. Doing so I also took the time in shading.
To ensure that I have a lower chance of making the same mistake again , I will make sure ( If possible ) not work so many days when I have a week of from college. I will try and priorities my time more.
looking at my blog from when I first started Unit 8 ( how well its structured ) it looks organised and labeled pretty decently. I made sure that the topics where relatable to what was being said. I made sure important things where in bold. I will be honest and say that I was lacking a little in screenshots of my progress in the animating side but I tried to remember each time. That doesn’t mean that my idea, experiments and creative process cant be explained and presented in a clear way. I specifically made sure that each section flows to the next and shows what was to come, what I did and how the week was. I do appreciate all the help that the teachers gave me and opinions that they had on my work.
One thing that I think would be cool is to do a collaboration and create something super cool. Yeah you have animators that do animations by themselves but  I can imagine what cool things I can make by doing collaborations and sharing ideas and skills with another person. In doing so Im sure I can create some interesting work. I could do short and narrated stories. I have already done a voice over for my first animation so it wouldn't be to difficult. Because I have gotten used to the software a little more than before, I feel more comfortable in creating different things. 
The cool thing about possibly doing a collaboration is the endless possibility of what we can create. If we wanted too, we could create a music video, short story, fight scene anything. With the skill that I have learned, I can also reach out to different company's and see if they would like to do a collaboration. This would then get me work experience. 
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How did you find your style? I want to ask for a bit more advice if you don't mind. Your a very cool person and your just so nice that I wanted to ask for more advice. I'm currently practicing too. If I practice an hour a day does that sound like a good start to practice?
styles come naturally, and id say, dont worry about finding a style. its not important in the learning stages of developing drawing technique. my “style” is just me focusing on line art while trying to capture an expressive reality.
i feel like my dad gave me some good advice a long time ago: practice doesnt always make perfect. but perfect practice makes perfect. i take this not as “you cant fail ever even in practice” but as a “make sure youre getting the right type of practice in”
of course doing an hour of drawing and practicing will help you, thats one hour more experience than you had before and its a good goal to set. but depending on what you want to draw and what level you want to get to, youll want to study different sorts of techniques. anatomy, technical shading (cross hatching, smudging, value control, pencil pressure), perspective, portraiture, still life, gesture, contour, its all things you should decide on what you want to work on.
getting practice in on these elements will help you draw what you want to with more ease. i think this is where a lot of kids say “my art teacher hates anime and punishes me for drawing it” and while i dont doubt there are shitty teachers that are dicks ripping up work n stuff, i have to agree that when you want to learn how to draw, its important to take a step back from any sort of art style in general and focus on learning technique and studying from life.
i was self taught for the longest time, drawing from manga and cartoons, but it was only when i put myself in an art class and started to learn art classically that i started to improve exponentially and my art began to look more life like. from there, i let myself go lax on the rules i learned. then, taking what i learned from my studies, and other artists i take inspiration from, and what i imagine, im able to create something that people call “art style.” and in a year, my art style will change. and every year after that for the rest of my life. art styles are always changing. you as an artist should always be trying to learn from others and your own mistakes.
id suggest if you havent, to look up beginner basic drawing classes on youtube. artists will teach you in depth on the things you might want to study, and its always good to draw while learning, practicing the things they teach, and working on the techniques for that hour youre practicing. this ended up really long winded and a bit side tracky, but i hope it helps any!
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extradan · 6 years
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Hey I like your art a ton and I was wondering just how long you have been drawing and working to improve as an artist.
Oh my gosh haha thank you so much for liking my art!
I have been drawing for the longest time, I think ever since kindergarten, well at least the artistic dedication! 
I used to draw my when i was in middle school, starting from fourth grade i have been drawing more and more frequently until fifth grade in which I was drawing on a daily base, back then I would also be sitting and making animations on flash, which unfortunately I dont have backups of
but from middle school, up to high school 2012, my art never improved, it was just all the same all the time, I was back then on ritalin and I decided to start my first pony blog, while updating my blog, I couldnt consider yet Tumblr being part of the effective social websites that I go on as nobody was following me and I had no one to intreact with back, tumblr would be the thing i would check once every few days, it was nothing to me but a mere another google plus, until i was sponsored by catfood-mcfly back when he was running the Herpy Derpy blog, and thats where I got recognized and I was determined to continue my activity on tumblr as an ask blog, and I have gotten to become more interactive with people, being inspired by the many of the art I have been seeing from following other people, I would adopt and experiment with what I saw mostly shines through their art, and 2012 was the year I have made the biggest change in my art throughout the months, whitin 6-8 months I have improved by a ton!  tumblr was a very resourceful to the evolution of my art! and I also made so many friends and I have as well learned to become a better person! I am a better person of who I used to be in the past, and i am still improving! there are still a lot of things I need to work about myself as a person!
Also stepping out of drawing in flash and starting doing my stuff in sai was revolutionary to my art, flash back then wasnt recognized fully as an animators program by macromedia and neither by adobe, as they saw it an all purpose program for making goptimized ames and ads, only until all browsers and webpages grew out of flash and flash officially was blocked by all browsers since you could have implanted malicious codes into flash files, only then flash recognized as an art and animation tool for creators.
So moving to sai allowed me to build sketches and bodies easily and paint and yadda yadda and it was all great and helped boosting my art upwards
Flash limited my improvement as I wasnt drawing sketches on flash since you couldnt just lower the opacity of the layer you drew the sketch on, you would have to go through several actions to achieve that, but you would be lowering the opacity of your selected drawing and not the layer, I couldnt also paint on flash and flash ever since the stone age had those horrible vector tools that SUCKED DICK unless you do stretching and smoothing and fixing, in my opinion at least, they did improve the vector system a bit BUT IT STILL SUCKS, i prefer bitmap brushes more, which why I prefer Toon Boom harmony as a program for animators.
If you have been back in the days, you could have watched me go through a several phases! like drawing like atryl, raikissu’s shading and coloring styles, florecentmoo’s shading techniques and eye pupil style, and I uhh.. dont remember the rest, but theres have been a lot of artists out there whom I adopted artistic traits like:
theflyingtacoz, kittentoots(drunk fluttershy), w300, Santi, belaboy, dr idiot, inzergue (big impact on my current style), David (the guy who now works on mighty magiswords along with kyle), fungasm, colorlesscupcake (known as caek now), ahappypichu (a pretty powerful current impact on how i paint my art today), uhh, also “pinkie in private” which, to this day, drawing the way the draw the cheek for their characters, and some other artists I that I couldnt come up in my mind but I did adapt a trait or two from.
My current big inspirations are artists who work on OK KO and as fake as it might sound, my own fiance! yes!! they have been an inspiration for me for quite a while even back at 2012, but to how I viewed it, I never really dared to adopt anything from them because I was so out of their league, and my art was still shaping and i already had ideas that I wouldnt think would work if i mixed some of their’s, but now that my art have been developed and has a solid state of how it looks, they inspire me so much!!
Drawing ponies was probably the best practice I have ever had that thanks to that I have pushed so far in the art that I do, ponies are so simplified!! and easy to draw! it allowed me to produce more and that means that it allowed me to experience differently with each time! 
It helped me improve with a lot of stuff like gesture, facial and painting and other other minor stuff! drawing ponies was such a booster seat for me!
But unfortunately, from drawing ponies alot you wont learn how to draw humans, which understanding muscle, action line, figure and bones is so crucial for drawing, anything really! understanding how the body works is extremely fundamental and its there for you to know how to manipulate the drawings your making, of any specie, its not there to just teach you how to draw the anatomy of the human body, that will only serve as a plus.
I have learned a lot from ponies but how bodies work and draw clothes lmafo, to this day I cant draw clothes for days
in 2014 I ordered a really good book and I have polished my anatomy and human drawing skills, I yet dont know some stuff because i stopped practicing because of varios reason like relationship, access and physical health.
In the begging of the year I acquired a cintiq and it been nothing but dreadful to me, but im using it because i spent.. so much money on it.. and i have been so concerned about bringing it to my home country as well.. but it has the adventage of a screen so... 
its just, I dont have a low enough desktop or high enough chair to draw on it, its always above my shoulder no matter the angle and it puts so much weight on my shoulders, the thing is heavy too so its not something you could lean on your legs while you draw, neither it is portable, it made work much more harder and difficult and I wasnt drawing as frequesnt because my time wasnt so so enjoyable, my 2015 as well become a dreadful year to me and I was feeling guilty and shitty everyday, and it was my fault because it was all my doing and i let myself feel that way, and I had barely the stamina to work on my art ever over the year, I also lost my passion and motivation to draw and basically it dragged also to 2016, I drew a few commissions but I didnt produce much art neither, then I flew over the united states and I didnt have acess to drawing for 4 months as i was away from my equipment, my fiance had the equipment, but that means that I would have to use their computer for all the dedicated hours I use to work on my art and they would have nothing but a mere phone to entertain themselves, also our time togehter was really precious and every minute counted, so we rathered having fun other than doing work work work
2017 came and I still had the sense of drawing lost in me, I would draw whenever i would have a piece of paper available to me since I find fun in that, since im comfortable and cozy and i dont have to concentrate the entirety of my body weight on my hand and arm as i draw, but I would never draw on the cintiq unless its a miracle or if had a crazy comic idea in mind that i had and MUST HAD executed, i almost didnt draw anything in 2017, and neither in this year but the ok ko drawing i have recently created, but I found a new comfortable focus and its doing 3d, I am using my mouse to do everything and i dont have to feel my horrible chair scraping againt my butt like sandpaper, and I dont to feel like my shoulders are about to give up, I did try Tam’s 13hd and it was so much more comfortable and nice to draw on as i could put it on the bed or on my legs, but I cant afford another expensive piece of equipment, especially not in this generation of technology, wacom fucking sucks but no other brand is willing to be their competitive because tablet is not the purchase the average person would make.
Another reason why I have been so held on drawing and using the cintiq, which was probably the most major thing was it’s total, hot flaming shitty garbage diarrhea poopy stank abysmal horrible disgusting nasty dumbass smelly drivers which made every chance i had to draw a miss because i would battle myself from 30 minutes to over a hour fixing my tablet to draw a single thing, and its been like that every time i would turn my cintiq on! the situation was severe and everytime i would find a solution, it would be later suppressed, it was so harsh that i had a few months in which nothing I would do would make the drivers function, i was basically tabletless, so many, and a lot of opportunities for me to create a piece of drawing was flushed in the toilet with the rest, and so it was a deeper burden on my passion, determination and motivation to draw.
But yeah, now im doing 3d and it feels like a fresh hobby to me since I felt that im not going anywhere in and with my art (even though I yet have to learn how to draw bodies better, let alone drawing limbs, feet and CLOTHES!!)
and now the future has yet to be revealed!
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bma-2020 · 6 years
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W/ONDERLAN/U/NDERLAND DIVERGENCY
            Now much of this divergency stems from varying factors, the main being: A: while the first movie had a good storyline, it didn’t delve as deep as it could have. B: obviously, certain actors have done some things so for my editing capabilities, i had to change his fc. C: I’m someone who very much likes to take a base and work beyond what i know the company would ever give, which is why i take the base of burtonverse and the game, as well as companion guide, and move beyond that. D: My blog is very much based in a verse where a spell happened and all the animals are no longer animals, which screws with people. and E: because ttlg was a hot mess on the major scale and as someone who half finished her own sequel to the first movie, barely acknowledge ttlg’s existence beyond regular whining.
            So in the essence of the changes i’ve taken, both for my blogs purpose to keep the b/urtonverse name… possible, but also for my own safety since i’ve dealt with people coming at me for something that isnt my fault, isn’t related, or otherwise just shows that theres a lot of uneducated adolescents on this website that actually believe telling people to kill themselves either for differing opinions or lack of knowledge on a topic or person, i’m severely trying to avoid dealing with those people. So this is a wild mesh of thoughts not put together anywhere nearly as well as it could be, but im doing my best with my limited amount of free time and non chemical thought process as i am capable.
            now nobody cares abt that stuff so lets get into the changes, rewrites, and divergency, shall we?
            Now in my Underland (Which I know is different from Wo/nderland, but i do still think having it not be called w/onderland was a stupid idea therefore my calling it wonderland is both shade and because i type it quicker) its been several years since Alice’s visit (probably a lot less for her, if even a year, Gina had this cool time post for s/yfy alice that i keep alive every few months by regularly reblogging it so I’ll probably go find that and bring it back again later. ) and there’s been a magical outbreak– things creeping up which had long been deceased, spells cast to make nearly all the animals humanoid (the horses werent lucky enough, and it didn’t effect ches/hire because chesh already had a human form, and the capability to transform into whatever he pleased to a point), and it screws with a lot of minds for awhile, but something about being humanoid felt familiar to Mally.
            Now, something which they never fully explained was how everyone knew each other. The game hints at them all knowing each other for awhile, many factors hint at St/ayne being a heavy influencer in the game, and likely having done something to the Queens relationship ( which, of course, was all dropped in the sequel because god forbid they give crispin more money), and i refuse to believe what ttlg gave us was anything close to what it actually was (especially with the lack of stay/ne, who played such a major role in the first movie that it makes no sense for him not to be in their past)
            this is gonna be long, and be depth for a lot of characters. A good deal of Stay/ne by my opinions and headcanons can be read on my sta/yne sideblog (illosovic) in his about, and that blog is mostly just me whining abt ttlg but whatever. Most else can be read here, but i will touch on st/ayne some here, too.
TEA TRIO
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            Obviously the part most people care about, and with the face i actually chose for S/tayne, Sebby is not only one of the better actors to play a hatter imo (i legitimately only watched ouat for him ngl) even though he has done it before, i do feel like in the version i adapted from b/urtons and the hatter we had from b/urton anyways, seb could pull off the personality fluctuations as well as the insanity best. I was honestly torn on the alternate for a long time because i didnt want to use someone who’s played a hatter before, but all in all, who better to play a hatter than someone who has played a hatter and absolutely killed it.
            anyways, the actual important part of this is, Everything ttlg had regarding mally in the past, that shiz aint real here. M/allymkun was born shortly before the R/ed Queen took over W/onderland, after her biological father was framed as a war criminal, her mother turned her into a mouse, and abandoned her in a clearing the forest by Witzend, and after the King and Queen already died, and Mi/rana was set to take over. I actually see it as Mirana hadn’t been Queen for that long before I/racebeth took the crown, because the longer M/irana was Queen, the less sense the story makes in my opinion, which I will get into.
            Thackery is actually who found Mally, and that was after the H/ightopp residence had been burned down. Mally never learned about Hatter’s former name, at least not until C/heshire told her, because she never knew him as anything but Hatter.
            Whilst out looking for something that could be of help to them (Years before the Oraculum was found), Thackery came across a tiny thing left alone beneath a large leaf. She was extremely tiny, frail, didn’t seem like she’d survive long. Neither of them were sure of her species yet, but Hatter took to taking care of her. She was raised by the Hatter and the Hare, and much of who she is comes from the two of them.
            As with the fact she didn’t know either Queen, nor Sta/yne prior to Irace/beth’s takeover, Mallymkun never really came to know what the real personality of any of them was. She knew Ira/cebeth was evil, St/ayne was her lapdog, and M/irana was the truest good, because that is what Hatter told her. Hatter raised her, Hatter trained her, and the main reason Mally knew Miran/a could have the potential of acting just as bad as her sister was because she saw a moment in which Mira/na went dark. But she believed Mir/ana had to be the better ruler, because Hatter said so!
            Each held their own capabilities, T/hackery with his minor Telekinesis (often used only with teacups, but occasionally bolders as well.), Hatter with his ability to conjoin objects in his mind, as long as they were able to fit together (worked brilliantly with creating delicacies in food, something both he and Th/ackery could do) but Mally wasn’t like that. She had none of the gifts they possessed, which led to Hatter teaching her much more fighting techniques, Thackery as well, until she had to start teaching herself the rest. Her physical capabilities go far beyond that of most of those in Won/derland, in spite of her small size. (only grew stronger when she got bigger.
           Mally had once gone undercover in the Red Kingdom, which she doesn’t entirely remember. An accidental mishap caused her to turn humanoid then, and St/ayne quickly figured out who she was– hard not to when she looked so much like her mother. He’d taken to manipulating her, which she fell for for a time, even developing a slight crush on St/ayne himself, though she saw his true nature not long after, and more of a fear grew from that.
C/HESHIRE CAT
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There actually aren’t many changes to the C/heshire Cat, or many additions I’ve made personally (my friends who write him do a far more beautiful job of that.) I do include the reference in the book, however, where The Du/chess views the Che/shire Cat as her pet. Whilst C/hesh doesn’t see himself as her pet, he does take advantage of her spoiling of him. C/heshire also wasn’t exactly effected by the spell, since he already could transform into a humanoid form, as well as copy others. 
THE RE/D KNAVE 
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Il/osovic S/tayne, has the most changes I’ve made next to mally. Mostly due to the fact that his character, in my opinion, was extremely underused. With all the hints and inferences made for his character, they didn’t really deliver. He could easily have been the real main villain, much of what happened could easily have been caused by him, much of which I have here, though I do have to make edits to that. 
Mainly, I view Sta/yne as the whistleblower. he purposely ensured the rift already forming between the siblings grew worse, he set them up against each other, he was behind every bit of the plot, or encouraged it forward, just to ensure he had a shot at whichever queen became superior. He lost with M/irana, he wasn’t going to lose with Irace/beth. He couldn’t stand being around Ir/acebeth, but like hell was he gonna let her know that. He’d flirt, he’d manipulate, and he’d slyly degrade her until she felt like she needed him. He emotionally manipulated her to the point he was in control, and he wasn’t planning on letting that control slide.
He was also, at one point, friends with Hatter. St/ayne was a poor boy growing up, but Ta/rrant hardly judged him, but as St/ayne grew bigger, jealousy over how his sister was treated with love, whilst his mother harmed him, his brother was popular and he was ignored, and his growing desire to gain so much power, nobody could hurt him again, that forged a rift in their friendship. By the time they were adults, and Sta/yne already hurt M/irana, he encouraged the destruction of Hatter’s village and family, shattering whatever bond they formed as kids, as well as ensuring Hatter knew what pain was. Something, he felt, he did not know.
WHI/TE RABBIT
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Whi/te Rabbit, by contrast, is starkly different. M/cTwisp is an agent of Time, fulfilling his role as the guide to Alice, and M/cTwisp is likely older than most others– though, in some situations, he hardly realizes it himself. His only responsibility is to guide Alice to her destiny, each time the clock turns. Sometimes, when a new Alice is born, he forgets himself, practically reborn in the moment. He’s a stopwatch given to him by Time itself, allowing M/cTwisp to temporarily freeze Time in a moment to accomplish a task, and the time traversement of Wonderland’s portals through other realms (many of which transfere through M/cTwisps own halls), Time never passes for M/cTwisp. Not in the sense it does for others. Whilst months would pass for a normal creature who left Wonderland and returned a week later, hardly a day would pass for M/cTwisp. Time always occurs as a constant for him, no matter how it occurs for others. He is also capable of traversing to exact points in Upperland’s time should he need to. 
MOCK TURTLE
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    An extremely apathetic man, the Mock Turtle was never entirely a turtle, and never entirely anything else. He longed for the days he was in the sea, until he was cursed to live between lands. A ‘teacher’ in a way, though his version of school far different than others are accustomed to. He ‘taught’ the Queens, but eventually was sent off back to the sea by the King for disrespecting M/irana during a lecture, mostly for stating she hadn’t the heart to be a Queen, she barely had the heart to swim in the sea. He had been particularly kind to Ira/cebeth, however.
THE CATERPILLAR
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A//bsolem, the wise. Many view him as the all knowing in Wonderland, yet many still only hear him talk in riddles and puzzles. Mallymkun really hates the way he talks, tbh. She hates how he makes a point to make it so you have to figure something out on your own. But, she likes how his words can be taken wrong and prove her point, even if her point is actually wrong. 
DODO BIRD
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Uilleam held full belief in Alice, and, after narrowly escaping the Jub Jub bird, would later return to his post as a mentor in the W/hite Queen’s court. A nobleman, he’s seen as wise, often kind, though he holds the mentality that nobody should have to lose for one to win– something that kept him from fighting in the war at the start. He is extremely good with kids, but many adults tend to dislike him, except when he takes their side. In certain situations, however, he will state that there needs to be a winner, which is what led to him finally taking part in the resistance, and helping to take the R/ed Queen down. 
BAYARD
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The most loyal of beings, Ba/yard was forced to serve the R/ed Queen for a great deal of time, but only so he could protect his wife and pups. M/allymkun used him as a sort of horse due to her size at the time, and he hadn’t minded. Often, he comes over to Mally, acting much like a father figure to her, as he does on occasion with Alice. Ba/yard cares far more for people than he likely should, but would risk anyone else for the safety of his kids and wife, whom he holds in the highest of regards. 
THE QUEENS
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The tart thing was the stupidest thing i’ve ever seen, i’m just pointing that out right now. I believe there was a rift long before any incident. I/racebeth’s accident wasn’t M/irana’s fault, and M/irana never meant to be malicious to her sister. Ira/cebeth was spoiled when she was young, but when M/irana was born, most of her parents attention went to her– and I/racebeth was left mostly to her tutors, trying to raise her to being a good queen. 
S/tayne was initially attracted to M/irana, though he played nice with both princesses. When they were younger, S/tayne had started courting M/irana– though, it was kept private, the lowly stable boy (though, eventually gaining a promotion to a knight, with the held of M/irana) being considered too lowly for a princess. Though, S/tayne often had a wandering eye, and betrayed M/irana– which led to her lashing out on him, and causing his loss of an eye.
He kept his position, having glamored his way into the hearts of the princesses parents (a gift which ran in his family– he could bewitch and charm others into falling in a form of love with him, trick them into adoring him, manipulate to new bounds.) M/irana never trusted him again. The eye was ruled as an accident on assignment, and the rumors of Mi/rana’s mistreatment of a man she wasn’t officially with (S/tayne, spreading the rumor that a woman flirted with him, and whilst he hadn’t responded, the disastardly princess was so filled with jealously over not getting her way for once, she harmed him for it. ) grew, and he ensured I/racebeth would learn his version. 
I/racebeth, already feeling emotional distraught from her parents, became an easier target for S/tayne. When their parents died ,and M/irana was labeled next in line, S/tayne took it as a chance to send Ir/acebeth into a fit of rage, and have her J/abberwocky attack the H/ightopp clan, taking the crown and becoming the Queen. He also whispered the rumors of infidelity of I/racebeth’s husband to her people, ensuring Ir/acebeth would hear of the faults. The Red K/ing’s demise being an aftereffect of St/ayne ensuring Ira/cebeth thought he cheated on her with M/irana, an ultimate crime, and S/tayne made sure he was there to pick up the pieces. His adoring of her keeping his place held high, and ensured he got his way.
ALICE
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breathes in, breathes out, M/ALLYMKUN DOESNT HATE ALICE!!!! NOT IN THE JEALOUSY SENSE!!! In fact, Mally’s distaste for Alice goes far beyond the stupid jealousy people think it’s about. Because, don’t forget, when Hatter said Alice was the right Alice, her treatment of Alice instantly changed– she was nice to her, she answered her questions, it was when Hatter’s life was put at risk because of Alice that Mally treated her badly again.
In the sense of my blog (and, when Mally first unlocks her powers, mostly) Alice had finally come back. Hatter missed her, and she left without a second thought. Mally didn’t like how Hatter perked up at Alice’s return, she hated how he suddenly started caring more for her than his friends, in her sights. 
She wasn’t jealous, Mally might have been in love with Tare, but she didn’t care if he didn’t fall in love with her. For flips sake, she stated directly that she thought he had a thing for M/irana, and seemed all dreamy about the idea.  You know she was shipping whitehats. 
But, Alice was just a child when Mally first saw her. Mally was training all her life to be a hero, she wanted to be the one to save Wonderland, then they found the o/raculum– and Alice was the labeled hero. Alice, upon returning, didn’t want to be the hero, and Mally hated that fact.
Mally was afraid, but she jumped at the chance to take Alice’s place as the hero. But she wasn’t allowed, she couldn’t save the world, that was Alice’s responsibility. 
And Alice only killed one creature.
And she was the hero.
Mally trained all her life for that, and she was pushed aside for Alice. Mally had been with Hatter through her entire life, she’d seen him at his lowest (including a time he couldn’t control his own actions anymore, an older headcanon of mine where he had accidentally hurt her because of his swings, which is what caused him to become so guilt ridden, he started being able to more easily be pulled from that state of mind– he didn’t want to hurt his friends ever again.) M/allymkun loved Hatter through everything, she never left him, she never left her friends, she stayed with them and she did everything she could to save them. 
But Alice was he hero.
And when Alice comes back again years later, and they’re faced against S/tayne again, Mally’s put in mortal danger.
But Hatter goes to Alice first.
not because he thinks she’s more important, Hatter weighed in the options, he thought Mally would be able to pull herself out of trouble, but Alice might not be able to. He went to Alice because he didn’t think she could save herself like Mally could. But that caused Mally to fall, and disappear for weeks while people thought she was dead. This is what broke the spell her mother placed on her, blocking her powers from being used, and keeping the rest of her family from being able to find her, but she was left abandoned, alone, and in pain, because Alice came first.
And Alice, thinking with her worlds point of view instead of theirs, thought Mally couldn’t have survived the fall. There wasn’t a way she could have lived from where she fell, and no way she could have gotten out of the water.
Mally thought they didn’t bother to look, but their search efforts were pointless.
She came back, she found out Alice said something, and she thinks her pain is Alice’s fault. If Alice wasn’t around, they could have found another way to defeat I/racebeth, they could have wom another way. Any Mally wouldn’t have had to experience pain.
Then there was the fact the marks of her father’s bloodline started appearing on her skin, marks remembered belonging to a clan that tried to destroy the royalty. Up until her father (whom nobody knows was her father), who fought for the King, was his greatest warrior, and was set to marry either M/irana or I/racebeth. He hadn’t, and her mother framed him to have killed the King and Queen. He disappeared, and the family was forever seen to be a collection of traitors.
Mally didn’t know any of that, she can’t even read to learn about further history beyond I/racebeth’s betrayal. 
People treated her differently, and she could only hold Alice responsible for that. 
Mally doesn’t hate Alice because she’s jealous of her and Hatter, she’s pissed off that Alice was (accidentally) the cause of her pain, and thinks that if Alice weren’t around, she wouldn’t have had to suffer at all.
Though, certain things started the second Mally became a humanoid– her eyes were different, but the resemblance to her mother was too strong to be ignored. It was pretty clear she was Feina’s daughter, especially to M/irana and I/racebeth– they had to see it, because they grew up with Feina, and spent a fair bit of time under her care. 
THE D/UCHESS
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The D/uchess was a childhood friend of the Princesses, thought she wasn’t a royal at the time. Her mother was the former Duchess, and her father had died at a young age, shortly after her younger brother, I/losovic was born. Their mother treated her and her brother with great care, but I/losovic was treated with terrors– often beaten, no matter what he did. This was due to the work their mother took up to keep them in position, even if they no longer were wealthy as they were. Allergies were formed which led to a great deal of violence on their mothers part, and I/losovic held the closest range to her. 
Upon becoming a Duchess herself, she was always kind and well treated. C/heshire being a dear friend of hers, whom she considered her dear pet. Often she’d treat him to the greatest of delights. 
However, her friendship with the Queens had shattered overtime, due to I/losovic ensuring she held some form of hardship– he tricked the siblings into believing her horrid and evil, trying to tear the titles from their hands and steal their father from their mother. The D/uchess was banished, once the R/ed Queen took control, though she never took full stride in it. The only one who knows her whereabouts is C/heshire. 
MALLYS EXTENDED FAMILY
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Her biological father, Vas Moraj. He is Gethris younger half brother, and is known to be the strongest, and most strange member of their family. The Moraj line was long known to be filled with traitors to the court, but Vas wanted to protect the royalty. He was the child of Fate, and though not exactly a deity himself, did possess far stronger powers than the rest of his family. He’d fallen in love with Feina in his youth, and had an affair with her,which led to Miseris and Mallymkun. He also raised her elder children, Seracien and Torielle, as his own. He wasn’t around when Mally and Mason were born, though, as Feina had trapped him in a pocket universe, to keep him out of her way. 
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Feina Laquer Morae, an extremely powerful sorceress. She was only around 20 or so years older than the Queens, and being Wonderlands slowed aging, appeared around their age most of her life. She trained Mirana briefly in magic arts, and always tried to encourage Iracebeth not to let go of her title, that she could be the greatest queen of all, so long as she didn’t take no for an answer. A creature of chaos, and an empath, Feina held the power to force horrid memories back on a person, to force emotions on someone through touch, and held telepathy and telekinesis, among other things.  Her powers hadn’t transferred to Mallymkun nearly as much as her looks– out of all four of her children, Mallymkun held the greatest resemblance to her. 
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Miseris, or Mason, for short, was raised by his uncle (whom he believed to be his father), Gethris. He was raised with the impression that his cousins, Jynx and Hayze, were his sisters, but over time, as his powers over the mind increased, he came to learn the truth. Especially when he met his elder half siblings (half cousins), and Seracien told him the truth. The rest, Mason worked out for himself, and he knew two things for sure– he was going to be one of the strongest members of his family, and when Mallymkun grew her powers, their powers combined could make them deities. 
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Gethris horribly mistreated his own children, manipulating them into his own persnoal servants, and he hadn’t done much better with Miseris. Gethris partnered with Feina to destroy Vas, which feina agreed once she learned Vas was intending on denying the King’s wishes, so he could marry Feina instead of the princess. Gethris only got his hands on one of the twins, however, as Feina betrayed her half of the deal before he betrayed her. A spell was placed on Mallymkun, which kept her powers hidden away, her appearance altered into a mouse-like form, and her overall existence from Gethris knowledge or ability to find. As Gethris lost his powers centuries before, he planned on using Vas children to fulfill the prophecy– for their family to ascend– only he intended on taking Miseris and Mallymkun’s powers for himself, and destroy the rest of Wonderland.
When Gethris had gotten ahold of Mally, he tortured her in attempts to unlock all of her power. Miseris eventually let her out, and she ran off, Though, Gethris is always searching, and didn’t plan to stop.
TIME, SPACE, FATE (not pictured)
each their own being. Fate defines the future, Time controls itself, and Space alters and holds between each realm. Fate chose to enhance the Moraj family through leaving a piece of themself in Vas, and create the prophecy regarding Mallymkun and Miseris. 
Time is seen more as a neutral character, caring about securing itself through the world, and keeping fate’s reign.
space is above itself, but fate decides the ultimate. 
I do have a lot of other characters and info, but that can be saved for a …shorter post…
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fishsticxz-art · 7 years
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jfkfkgk can i ask ur art advice on styles? yours is rlly cute and i want something similar bc my style is too complex now and i just kfkgkgllhlhl love your style and your art and aaaaaaaöääääääääää
developing a style you’re comfortable with can take time!
art is mostly about recycling ideas and techniques, and mixing them in your own way. that’s why the most effective way to develop your style is to look at a lot of other people’s art and copy little bits you like into your own art style, making your style a mix and match of your own ideas and ideas from other people!
don’t trace over the pictures or anything, but if you for example like how someone draws eyes or how someone shades their pieces, try to incorporate those things into your own artstyle! if asked, i could probably name a few artists ive picked up stuff from over the years.
since you feel like your style is too complex, maybe you should try a completely different approach then? try to draw very minimalistic, thinking how you could portray a specific thing in the least lines possible, or maybe try and replicate some cartoons or comics style for practice. it will still have your own look to it since you’re the one drawing it, but trying out very different styles can be an eye-opening experience!
also thank you so much !!! im glad people are digging what im doing ! good luck with finding a style you like !
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