#it's so hard painting with the medium size marker | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mcrmadness · 3 months

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4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 20, 29 and 30 for the artist ask 👀

Thanks!!! That is so many (and I am delighted!) /gen

Also get some snacks or something because this is going to be a long, LONG post :D You know how much I love talking about arts!

4. Fav character/subject that’s a bitch to draw HORSES. They make no sense, the anatomy is fucked up, and they are impossible to draw well!!! I drew them sometimes as a kid, then I started actually practicing drawing them after the age of 11 thanks to the DreamWorks film Spirit: the Stallion of the Cimarron. (Or whatever the fuck it is how the name is written, I never remember the articles correctly!)

It took me years to draw them using references and I think I did reach a point where I could draw the legs semi-well without references, but honestly, I still don't understand the legs. AND I AM A HORSE GROOM. I have been STUDYING horse anatomy for school, I had to study and learn and be able to name the bones and tendons in horses' legs, and I have stared at images and photos of both horse skeletons as well as alive horses, and also photos of horses with a skeleton painted on their fur, and I have been looking at and handling real horses' legs from up close many many times - and I still cannot grasp how on earth the bones between the knee and hoof go when drawing. I don't know what is it, the second I see the skin and fur and hoof there (since there is no muscles from the horse's knee down, only skin and bones and tendons), my brain starts adding there bones and joints that are not there.

Here's my so far newest horse drawings, after over 20 years of practice:

And they are drawn without any references and I'm pretty proud of the legs even tho they're not exactly correct. But I guess I still have it even when I don't draw them that often anymore!

7. A medium of art you don’t work in but appreciate Oil paint and acrylic paint, or painting in general. I have never ever been a painter, but more of liked to work with pencils and markers and just anything that is capable of precise tiny details. As a kid all my drawings used to be so so detailed and tiny that it took me one water colour lesson in middle school to understand that hey, I possibly cannot finish this painting ever if the paper is A3 and I draw there objects that are less than 1cmx1cm in size, and I especially cannot colour them properly with water colour because it's not made for small details at all. I have always struggled with bigger sized artworks, my comics etc. are always quite small, but photorealism is usually on papers sized A4 cos there I then again suck at drawing e.g. faces that are smalled than a hand.

But yeah. Painting, it looks awesome and the paint (especially oil and acrylic, but also guache and in some cases water colour) blend in ways that pencils and markers are not capable of. They are great for landscapes for example, cos abstract brush patterns work great as leaves etc. for trees, but that is something that is difficult to achieve with my tools of choice that work with detailed images better. I did lots of acrylic painting in school and art school, and I never ever liked it because it's so messy and I was probably too young to understand how to work with them properly. I probably should give them a try again one day, because I have slowly been trying out water colours again after learning to hate them at school due to wrong supplies (too thin paper, or a rubbish brush for example), and it's not as bad as I remembered it. Maybe I could view acrylic paint differently too as an adult, and while having the power to choose my topics.

10. Favorite piece of clothing to draw Hmmmm. I'm not a fan of drawing clothes, all the loose fabric is very hard to imagine, but I also don't want to draw characters naked so I'm just gonna draw them clothes XD Back in the day I would have said: shoes. But my current drawings have very boring shoes - except for that one time when I drew Rod with his New Rock flame boots which were so much fun to draw as a New Rock shoes fan! :D It was this one:

But I think my actual favourite to draw is the blue 80s jackets Bela and Farin often wore, they are SO MUCH FUN to draw with markers! And this is why:

Okay in general anything coloured with this blue marker works - but I just LOVE IT how it reacts to the blender marker (lifts off colour very efficiently!) and how you get this texture that actually makes the colour look like the jacket was 3D! (This one is taken from my Richy Guitar comic from 2022.) I don't know why it doesn't work this well with other colours tho.

13. A creator who you admire but whose work isn’t your thing There is this one Japanese... manga? artist whose works I sometimes see on my dash or in videos about art. They are often in black&white, made with ink or something. I really like the technique in those and in a way it resembles it how I sometimes make my b&w marker drawings. All the art I have seen from him looks really neat and the topics are interesting, but it's just that manga/anime style that is not my cup of tea and what causes it that I haven't gotten into his works. I can't even remember his name but it's possible that someone might recognize whom I am talking about if someone else is reading this, that's how popular he is also among the western world.

16. Something you are good at but don’t really have fun doing I am gonna say: photorealistic portraits of people. I have many of them because every time there's been a while since the previous, I start to think about how I wanna draw another one but I have always forgotten about how the drawing process is actually not that enjoyable. It's so restricted. I have to draw a grid or my brain and eye will fuck up the proportions. My brain has temper tantrums even when following the grid because it claims I'm doing it wrong, but in the end the grid was always correct and I just can't SEE the proportions right. I can't improvise pretty much at all because then I will fuck up the proportions again. I need the faces to look like who they are supposed to be, or I will hate myself and feel like I disrespected the person I'm trying to draw. So it's stressful. It's lots of redrawing and erasing until the paper it so worn out the colour is no longer lifting off and there's nothing I can do about it.

The succesful end result always looks neat, but oh so boring. I can recreate a photo with a pencil, so what? It can't get any more boring than that. It's just boasting with "hey look I can copy an image with my hand!" but there's nothing else to it. There is no soul to the drawing. There was no learning going on, unless it was something for the tools or techniques, but no learning about how to draw something specific. It's just redrawing until it looks close enough and lots of blood and tears. People online really like photorealistic drawings because many non-artist people don't understand how it's done, but for me photorealistic drawings and paintings have become really boring to look at, and progress videos are boring because I know how that is done and I know how it's gonna end up looking like. There is no surprise to me, because I understand the key elements of drawing: shadows, midtones and highlights.

I really want to have a semi-realistic style that would look neater and less confusing with my shippy drawings, but I just suck at drawing proportions and faces so I'm unable to draw them so that they would look like my targets. That's why photorealism is not fun, because it just reminds me of how I can't draw human faces even without a grid.

20. Something everyone else finds hard to draw but you enjoy People often hate drawings hands and avoid doing that because they find it difficult to do, but I actually enjoy it. They're still difficult, but that's why I often use my own hands as a reference. And if I can't see my hands in a posture I want from my own POV, then I will just take a photo with my phone and use that. The easiest way of getting references ever, no need to google for the exact specific posture when I can just grab my phone and there I have it. This has also allowed me to memorize stuff in the muscle memory and especially with my comics I need the references less and less, which is nice. I think my style in drawing hands is evolving and I'm enjoying the results more and more. (Fun fact: people in my comics always have 5 fingers instead of 4!)

This is from one of my newest drawings:

I like so much how this turned out! Tho the cost was that the 3 other hands did not turn out that well - but at least this one did and I really like it :D (And also how it reminds me of my own favourite comics from when I was growing up - aka the French and Belgian comics such as Asterix or Lucky Luke!)

It's from this drawing which I have posted on Tumblr as its own post before:

29. Media you love, but doesn’t inspire you artistically Oh there are so many medias I enjoy but don't do any kind of fanart of, if this is what it's asking. My fandom behaviour is so weird cos usually I channel my artistic tendencies on just one media or hyperfixation at a time, and the others don't make me want to draw a single thing about them.

And then what comes to medias created through visual arts... such as cartoons, animations or comics. Well usually I am drawn to the visual side of them too. That is one big reason why I don't watch anime and don't real manga, because the art style is not my cup of tea at all, so I would find it hard to focus on the stories either. The same goes for most modern-day cartoons, I just hate the art style majority of them uses, and I'm so visual person myself that I just can't even think about trying them out cos I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to get used to them even if the story would be somewhat funny or interesting.

You can see lots of influence in my art from the comics and cartoons I grew up reading and watching, occasionally I feel like you can even see the Dream Works (or Pixar) animations in my art because I, also, grew up watching some of those films. That is what I do, when a media is artistically appealing to me, as a tribute I will take inspiration and pieces of it to my own art but make sure to not base it fully on anything. My art really is a collection of all the art styles I like, and I feel like if lookng at them closely, you can see "cameos" of art styles from everything from Asterix comics to, say, Tim Burton characters.

30. What piece of yours do you think is underrated Everything? :DDDDDDD No but, every single piece that makes me go "OMG THIS IS PROBABLY THE BEST THING I'VE EVER DRAWN" and which always gets the most quiet response ever. Those I feel are the most underrated pieces. Often the ones that get the most feedback or notes/likes are the ones that make me ask "but why this? what's so special about this? " and I never get any answers.

Anyway, as of today, I still think this is the most underrated piece what I have drawn. I'm still so proud of this, the puns(?), and how much there is going on, and how no one can tell what my original idea was. Even I can't tell, because I'm not sure. It can be interpreted in so many ways, and I like each of them.

THANK YOU SO MUCH it was so much fun to answer to these!!! /gen I hope you also have fun reading these :D

#fichtfoxfuchs #ask games #mcrmadness draws

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this-is-not-a-slow-burn · 3 months

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"I neeed to creaaaate". But first I must gather.

One of the biggest hurdles to creating things with my hands is the process of gathering supplies. It saps me of the motivation to actually do the thing the supplies are for.

The reasons behind this are probably ADHD and dopamine related, but that's for another post.

But yesterday I had a revelation.

looong post with images under the cut!

TL;DR Make baskets or boxes that have all the supplies you will need for a single type of project, so they can just be picked up and used.

So we all know that being organized can make things easier. But when the ADHD strikes, no amount of organizing can solve the issue completely.

Case in point. All of my art supplies are organized by type. All of the alcohol markers, felt tip markers, fine liners, colored pencils, regular pencils, brush tip pens, pastels, etc are mostly on one shelf (frequently used are in a desktop carousel), all of the paper is organized by type: card stock, (further organized by plain, textured, or patterned, and all are color sorted, etc) blank printer paper, origami paper, velum. Below that are the notebook/pad style art papers, watercolor, sketch, bristol, plus canvases, and sheets of watercolor paper. All adhesives are in one drawer. There is a "idk where the fuck this belongs" drawer with those odds and ends that are important but solo in their class. There are magzine holders full of journals and sketchbooks, reference books

blahblahblah

(those totes in the left cube are not transparent. the table reflection makes them look that way though)

Great! Yay! Hooray! You can find what you need pretty quickly!

Yes. But.

Art making and crafting isn't a mono medium. You see posts that say things like "all you need is a pencil and paper!" and sure yes, that's technically true. However my brain fills in with ....and an eraser, and you need a flat surface, and the paper has to be the right kind, the right size, what kind of sketch is this? what hardness of pencil do you need? Is there enough light in the room? Do you need references?

(yes I even torment myself with the "well akshully" stuff)

The art I make is rife with "parts", like painting (paints, palette, water, brushes, paper towels, surface to be painted on, apron) collage (base medium/substrate, image sources, adhesives for different types of paper, scissors, craft blade) sewing (fabric, shears, needles, thread, buttons, elastic, zippers, velcro, hook and eyes, snaps, ribbon, lace...) , etc.

(I do have most of the printmaking stuff in one container so that's a start...)

what's that saying about how a messy desk is the sign of a creative person?

The process of "shopping" my shelves for what is needed seems to derail any motivation. It feels like maybe my brain is happy with the idea of creating, and that's good enough. Like gathering the stuff is the goal, and having satisfied that, my brain dumps dopamine all over. Which is way less than ideal. (I am very guilty of the "I thought about doing it and am just as satisfied as if I had done it." thing. It's awful.)

SO. Then yesterday, while looking for something else, I came across a wire basket full of the supplies I had gathered to do a sewing project in bed, and I thought, that was so smart. how handy.

And I realized that I could do that with ALL of my supplies! Or at least, make up some project baskets with everything one would need to do that thing, all ready to go. So when an idea comes to mind I can just grab the basket and sit down for some art time, instead of chipping away at the urge one shelf at a time.

I sort of did this with a tackle box style of art tote, and a bunch of collage images, pens, and stickers, but it's not quite there.

(pictured: a halfassed unintentional attempt at this idea. plus a bunch of scraps that were pissing me off and got tossed in "rage")

It will be great for those times when the urge to make something comes up, but not a specific thing, just that "I neeed to creaaaate" blinking neon sign that can be so fleeting. Grab a basket and satisfy the need without distracting faffing about.

Obviously I'm not the first one to ever do this, and pre-school teachers are probably giggling at me for only just now thinking of this, but hey. We all learn at different speeds :p

(Oh, and I promise the fabric and desk will be at least a little bit less messy this weekend :3 )

#Beating the ADHD motivation sapper #Make craft project baskets!#Art #Art supplies #Motivation #Creative #Creativity #Create #Headspace for creating #ADHD #Paint #sewing #collage

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vt-scribbles · 7 months

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Y'know I know ask games are for people to, y'know, send in asks. But I don't see people often just. Fill it all out themselves. Fuck it I'll help out the shy people.

SO ASK GAME BELOW 'READMORE' LET'S GO

1. Art programs you have but don't use: MS Paint, Blender, I used to have WAY more like this one painting [like actual paint] program.

2. Is it easier to draw someone facing left or right (or forward even): Left is easiest, Right is in the middle, and forward is the hardest of those three for me.

3. What ideas come from when you were little: I was fascinated by G/T from like. 3 years old. I blame Super Mario Land 2 LMAO

4. Fav character/subject that's a bitch to draw: Handheld, perspective, monsters/creatures, and massive scale

5. Estimate of how much of your art you post online vs. the art you keep for yourself: Uhhh probably about 50/50? A lot of things I draw are spoilers, shitposts, and other study art I don't bother sharing.

6. Anything that might inspire you subconsciously (i.e. this horse wasn't supposed to look like the Last Unicorn but I see it): Not that I can think of? My art doesn't get analyzed super often. I think people think I study anime more than I do.

7. A medium of art you don't work in but appreciate: Charcoal, watercolors, sculpture, oil pastels, acrylic, copic markers

8. What's an old project idea that you've lost interest in: Originally I was going to make an AMV with my two characters, Nonny and Felicia, to the song 'shut up and dance with me'. These two aren't active OCs anymore, and the project was WAY too ambitious for my skill level 9 years ago lmao.

9. What are your file name conventions: 1: Name of song I listened to on loop while drawing. 2: An inside joke. 3: Literal rep of what's on the canvas like 'Hema doodles Aug 2023'.

10. Favorite piece of clothing to draw: Body suits, capes, scarves

11. Do you listen to anything while drawing? If so, what: TONS. My fave lyrical music, videogame soundtracks, sometimes just ambiance if I'm overwhelmed. Usually tho it's the same song on loop till I get the inspired piece out of my system.

12. Easiest part of body to draw: Eyes!

13. A creator who you admire but whose work isn't your thing: A lot of NSFW artists who I won't list here LMAO. I don't go to that school, but their art skills are top-notch.

14. Any favorite motifs: Mirrors, doppelgangers, leaving 1 eye absent for emotional effect, feathers/wings, falling, sinking into water, eyes, dark palettes with bright accents/light sources, glowing eyes, flowing hair, size difference/scale, fucked up version of self vs real version

15. *Where* do you draw (don't drop your ip address this just means do you doodle at a park or smth): Starbucks, home, parks if I'm feelin spicy, anywhere I take my tablet for the day.

16. Something you are good at but don't really have fun doing: A lot of my niche/kink stuff tends to get pretty dredge-y for me. I may be good at it, but it's not where my passion lies. That's in animation, fantasy, dramatic stuff, storytelling, etc.

17. Do you eat/drink when drawing? if so, what: Water or Snapple for the drink, milk if it's bedtime so I can settle down, and then usually the snacks are just whatever my lunch is for the day since we don't have a table.

18. An estimate of how much art supplies you've broken: Not many! Less than $100 I'd say. I'm very careful with my supplies, and I don't believe I've ever broken a tablet. The worst I've done was I busted 1 or 2 cheap tablet pens with stupidity.

19. Favorite inanimate objects to draw (food, nature, etc.): Definitely nature. Tree trunks and swirls therein, flowers, grass.

20. Something everyone else finds hard to draw but you enjoy: Humans! Not that it's an 'everyone' thing, I just run in some furry circles where human artists are a rarity. Eyes, too. Some people find expressions rly hard.

21. Art styles nothing like your own but you like anyways: Uhhh man damn, I don't follow a lot of art styles that aren't something I took inspo from? But I guess Wolf Walkers is my biggest one.

22. What physical exercises do you do before drawing, if any: Sooometimes I stretch, but I don't do it nearly often enough.

23. Do you use different layer modes: Yep! My most common ones are Multiply, Glow Dodge, Add, Add Glow, Overlay, Pin Light, and Color.

24. Do your references include stock images: Absolutely! Reference is important.

25. Something your art has been compared to that you were NOT inspired by: Not much! Most of my inspirations are pretty clear-cut and strong. Avatar, SU, Disney, Dreamworks, FMA, some Warner Brothers' movies, etc.

26. What's a piece that got a wildly different interpretation from what you intended: God, so, the G/T gif of mine that makes the rounds a lot? The one where VT finds someone small and it's their POV and he helps them and puts them in his shirt pocket??? Most people were completely normal about that post. But then there's one chuckle-head who was calling it pocket-vore, and I wanted to scream. I even chastised them like 'hey uh, no. That's not what this is.' and they argued back with 'well it's up to the eye of the beholder more than your opinion.' and I was like 'UH NO. I MADE THIS. MY OPINION IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOUR WEIRD ONE???' I've also RAAARELY had people call my characters underaged when they're all well over 21, so those are always gross/wild LMAO.

27. Do you warm up before getting to the good stuff? If so, what is it you draw to warm up with: Sometimes! I usually do an anatomy study, brush stroke warm-ups, or just doodle something personal first.

28. Any art events you have participated in the past (like zines): I think Multi Animator Projects [MAPS] would count here! I was part of Starclan's Chosen, Change Your Mind [Brambleclaw], Levitating, Family of Me [fallenleaves], Goosebumps Warriors MAP, Pay No Mind MEP, LA Devotee [never finished], White Rabbit, and Fear Garden! Among others :>

29. Media you love, but doesn't inspire you artistically: Not much! Pretty much everything I love inspires me artistically. I guess some anime styles?

30. What piece of yours do you think is underrated: Pretty much any of my animations. But I only feel that way cuz they take THE MOST dedication and work time. Also kiiiinda my writing? But a lot of people have trouble getting people to respond to literature, so.

#Long Post #VT Text #Ask Games

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jacretza · 4 years

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another try on the posca markers on a 4x4 canvas

#league of legends #akali #posca markers #it's so hard painting with the medium size marker #but wanted to try #i have a smaller canvas but I won't use that lol #i have some 8x8 canvas which i wanna do more stuff #i feel very sick but i just wanna get distracted by drawing and painting #and maybe play a little bit #no one gonna read all these tags

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eringurumi · 3 years

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Dusa Pattern

I got a request for a crochet pattern for my amigurumi plushie Dusa, so here it is! She is actually pretty straightforward when it comes to the crochet bits, and the hard parts are embroidering the face and shaping the hair! As always, if you use this pattern, please link back to my page, and tag me here on tumblr or @erin.gurumi on instagram! I love to see what people make!

Technical stuff:

I used a 3mm hook and these yarns:

Red Heart Super Saver in Minty (head)

Loops and Threads Impeccable in Green Lagoon (hair)

Cream (scrap yarn from a stash, similar to Red Heart Super Saver)

Red (scrap yarn from a stash, similar to Red Heart Super Saver)

Red Heart Super Saver in Medium Purple

^ Head

As I mentioned, the crochet part is pretty straight forward. The head is just one big sphere, but the part I find the most challenging is doing the embroidery

6 sc in a magic circle

inc 6x to make 12 stitches

(1 sc, inc) 6x to make 18 stitches

(2 sc, inc) 6x to make 24 stitches

(3 sc, inc) 6x to make 30 stitches

(4 sc, inc) 6x to make 36 stitches

(5 sc, inc) 6x to make 42 stitches

(6sc, inc) 6x to make 48 stitches

7 rows of 48 stitches

(6 sc, dec) 6x to make 42 stitches

(5 sc, dec) 6c to make 36 stitches

(4sc, dec) 6x to make 30 stitches

(3sc, dec) 6x to make 24 stitches

(ADD EYES/STUFFING AND START EMBROIDERY- see below!)

(2sc, dec) 6x to make 18 stitches

(sc, dec) 6x to make 12 stitches

dec, until closed, finish stuffing and finish off

^ After you are nearly done with the sphere (for me, I like to start when I am at the 30 or 24 stitch row), I used some yarn to embroider her eye liner (it ended up looking a bit too thick, but I was really struggling with making it look even.. I even ended up cheating a bit and using some marker... which I bet would have turned out nicer had I just used that!). Then I also added her nose and mouth - I didn’t have black embroidery thread, so I used yarn and a bit of unraveled yarn... This is probably not recommended, so if you have a better strategy please go for it!! I think this turned out a bit more skeletal than snakelike, but I did my best!

^ Hair Snakes

Making the actual tubes was very straightforward, it was the attaching them to the head which took some thinking! For simplicity’s sake, I made four tubes, one slightly thicker than the other, and all the same length. But, I imagine it’s really easy to make them a bit longer, or maybe add one more to fill in the back of the head!

Make one of:

6sc in a magic circle

sc 6x until you have a tube 12 inches (30 cm) long (stuff lightly as you go)

Make three of :

5sc in a magic circle

5sc until you have a tube 12 inches (30 cm) long (no stuffing in these ones, probably could do very light stuffing if you want)

* FOR TWO of these I added a metal armature - the stuff I had around is probably not right for making dolls, it looks like 1.2mm aluminum?

^ Ok, for the first two hair pieces, I used the empty (no metal) 5sc tube and the stuffed 6sc tube. I bent the 5sc tube into a sort of omega shape, looping around the crown of the head, touching points at the forehead, and coming down to make the bangs. The 6sc tube went behind the 5sc loop, coming down towards the cheeks and then curling back to make the front of her cute little bob! Use tons of pins and then sew in place, either with the tail of the yarn or a separate length of thread/yarn!

^ For the second two hair pieces, I used the two 5sc tubes with the metal armature in them. for the back, I sewed it behind the 6sc tube and bent the two ends to look like the snake head and tail that come from behind her head. For the second tube, I bent it into her cute snake on the top, with the bottom curled tightly to fit into the space left by the bangs-tube, and sewed it on there. I used some fabric paint to make little dots for the snake eyes!

^ Medallion, Wraps and Duster

Super simple, these were just chains that I made until they were the right length to wrap - you can mostly improvise... I think I could have made the head wraps longer, you can see they are kinda faked in the back! (Also, I experimented with a slightly larger medallion size, but ended up preferring the smaller one.)

2 small Side Wraps:

chain ~6, leaving a tail

2 long Forehead Wraps:

chain ~15, leaving a long tail

Medallion:

8 sc in magic circle, use yarn to embroider the Hades insignia

I used a candle to VERY CAREFULLY burn the fuzz off the medallion, so it would be a bit shinier. If you want to do this, please be cautious, mindful of the type of fiber your yarn is made of, and if you are little, have an adult help!

Hot glue the crisscrossed wraps and medallion together, tie all the wraps in their various places, then pull the ends inside a tube or head!

Duster: cut purple yarn into small strands, tie them tightly at one end, then hot glue the duster head to a toothpick... I’m sure there are nicer ways to make one of these, but I liked the look of the yarn!

^ The last thing I did was add her fangs and pink cheeks using a bit of felt and glue - I did this last because I figured the more I handled her with all the sewing, the more they might get messed up.

Here you can see from the back a bit better... I definitely think it could be improved by making the wraps longer and adding an extra hair tube, but overall I am happy with how she turned out!

And that is it!! She is all ready to keep Hades clean and beautiful! If you have questions please feel free to ask me! Again, if you make her, tag me here or instagram @erin.gurumi - Good luck and happy crocheting! ^_^

#amigurumi #crochet #dusa #hades #pattern #freepattern #crochetpattern #freecrochetpattern #dusahades #dusa hades #hades game #zagreus #medusa #plush #plushie #stuffie #supergiant games #supergiant hades

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20dollarlolita · 3 years

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Changing Shoes, part 2

Drastic, permanent changes with paint.

Part 1 is here, polishing shoes to other colors.

(despite what Madison said in her crazed instagram rant last year, this stiletto heel style of shoe is not actually lolita-acceptable, but it WAS shiny pleather and $5 at the thrift store, so it’s what I painted)

Finding lolita shoes can be a bitch. If your feet are in an uncommon size, or you need specific kinds of shoes for health reasons, or you just don’t like buying shoes online, you’re going to find that your shoe options are pretty limited. You can usually find some round-toe mary jane shoes, but they come in black, brown, and if you’re lucky, white or red.

(behold: another 3-minute photoshop job)

But wouldn’t it be cool if you could make them purple? Even a plainer style of shoe does a better job supporting a coordinate, if it’s a coordinating color.

In part 2 of the shoe transformation series, we’re going to paint some shoes with permanent paint to make them a totally different color.

The problem with painting shoes is that your shoes go through a lot of dirt and a very large amount of repeated stress. Any paint that is not suitably flexible enough will crack and flake off.

Before anyone drops, “well, theaters paint shoes with regular spray paint all the time,” yes, theaters do. It’s a long-standing tradition. Do you know what else theaters do? They employ wardrobe staff, like me, whose job is to (among other things) repaint the shoes after every single show. Unless you want to repaint your lolita shoes after every wear, it’s not an option.

As you might guess from someone whose blog tag line is “Budget, Offbrand, DIY”, I’m generally not a hardcore follower of any specific brand. However, shoe paint is a different story.

This is Angelus leather paint, and I seriously do not use any other brush-on paint on shoes, ever. I’ve never found a paint that works as well as Angelus. It doesn’t flake or crack. The colors can be mixed. It comes in plain colors, metallic, pearlescent, glitter, and neon. They offer a complete system, with products to clean and prep the shoes prior to application, thinner, empty markers to be filled with paint, hard and soft mediums, finishers, a mattifyer, and several other products. I’m not sponsored by them but I’d definitely be open to it.

Angelus offering all those products cuts down on how many questionable DIY hacks you have to use to get the paint how you want it. This is important, because shoes have to be durable and can’t have anything weakening the finish.

If you know of a better shoe paint than (or even a comparable shoe paint to) Angelus, please let me know. I would love to have multiple brands to recommend. (Also, because I get this question, if you’re a company that makes shoe paint and would like me to test and review it on this blog, contact me at pink at pinkandthekeytarcat.com to get my PO box to send me some samples.)

So let’s get to painting.

So, you have your shoes that are a lolita-acceptable shape, but aren’t a color that matches

First of all, shoe prep.

Part 1, clean the shoe. If these shoes have been worn outside, even a couple of times, you’re going to want to clean the heck out of them. If you paint over dirt, the dirt might fall off at a later date and take the paint with it. I’ve found that a stiff brush and a melamine sponge, plus a little bit of dish soap, can clean most shoes pretty well.

The second step is to wipe the shoe down with acetone. Shoes have a protective coat on them to stop dirt from adhering directly to the fabric or leather. We want the paint to adhere to the fabric, so we need to take the protective coat off.

Angelus offers a surface prep medium, but as far as I can tell it’s just plain acetone.

The third step is to grab some 500 or 800 grit sand paper and sand the shoe.

Sanding the shoe is especially important for patent (or other shiny) shoes, like the ones we have here. The paint doesn’t want to adhere to something too smooth, so roughing the surface up gives it more grip.

Many people say you only need to sand shiny shoes, but I sand all of them anyway. I’ve never found that it hurts and I have found that it helps, so sand away.

Once you’ve sanded your shoes, give them another wipe down with the acetone.

Acetone-sand-acetone later, and you have your shoe almost prepped.

Shoe painting rule #1: how professional your shoe paint job looks is directly connected to how much paint you don’t get on the sole.

Seriously, take your time with this part. Redo it until it’s right. I like to put a piece of tape along the edge of the sole, and then use a razor knife to cut away the excess.

Shoe painting rule #2: It’s easier to make a light shoe dark than to make a dark shoe a light color or a bright color.

If you can get the same shoe model in multiple colors, get the lightest color you can. However, that’s not always possible.

For example, these shoes have great shape, but they’re a dark brown. One of them is also pretty badly damaged. One of the great things about painting shoes is that you can cover up quite a bit of damage and save some shoes that would otherwise not be wearable.

So, we have a couple of problems here. First, the shoes aren’t going to be the same porosity all over. The parts of the shoe that have the fake leather finish torn off will absorb more paint than the parts with the finish intact. Second, the dark brown color will show up through the purple color and make it very visibly streaky.

We sort of have two options: we can apply a lot of coats of the purple paint, until the color is even, or we can prime the shoe with white paint and then add the purple.

Shoe painting rule #3: do both shoes at the same time.

Paint a layer on each shoe, let it dry, do the second layer on each shoe, etc. Don’t do all the steps on one shoe and then go back for the second; they will never be even unless you do both at once.

I opted to do a base coat of white, and then use the purple as a top coat. It’s cheaper per oz to buy a large bottle of paint than to buy a small one, so if I put several coats of white paint as an underlayer and then top it with the more expensive paint, it comes out cheaper in the long run. I also like having white paint on hand, because I paint a lot of shoes. If this is the only pair of shoes you think you will ever paint, you can probably just do many purple layers, but if you’re going to paint more than one pair of shoes, white primer layer is the way to go.

Ideally, I would have used Angelus’ flat white instead of the regular white, but I accidentally bought the wrong bottle. Colors adhere better to flat surfaces than semi-gloss, so flat white is a better primer layer.

NOTE: Like with all primers, if you’re covering up an are that is multiple colors, you want to use a medium gray instead of a white. Gray colors cover multi-color more evenly than white. It’s more important to have a primer layer that masks all colors than it is to have a primer layer that’s close to your finished color.

Quick note: it’s easier to get an even layer with a larger brush. I used a 1″ synthetic chip brush for almost all of the shoes I painted, with a 1/4″ synthetic brush for details. Bigger brush means fewer streaks and better coverage.

It’s easier to see when the porosity is evened out on a white paint. I can paint on layers until the paint absorbs evenly into the shoe. With darker or more saturated colors, it’s harder to tell if you have coverage and it’s harder to see if the surface is evened. Once your primer layer looks good, it’s time to put on the purple.

Shoe painting rule #4: Be patient, do thin coats, and let it dry between coats.

I hate being patient, but you really have to.

Once that primer layer is done, it’s time to add your main color. Now, Angelus isn’t a one-coat-and-done paint. You will need to do a few coats of your top coat. You can see the white streaks through the purple coat in this picture. If you can imagine the original brown color showing through instead of the white, you can see why the priming layer really makes it look better.

Just keep patiently adding layers until you’re satisfied with the coverage.

You might notice that I didn’t mask off the soles on this. Instead, I used a tiny brush and painted them a dark navy blue to cover up the paint on them. This was a pain in the butt, but I needed to do it to make the edge of the soles blend with the purple. Just mask it off if at all possible. You can’t have the paint scratch off the sides of the soles if there’s no paint there.

Also, though it should be obvious, paint on the the actual rubber bottoms of the shoes that contacts the ground will come off in two seconds, and could be a slip hazard. You’re stuck with the color the bottoms came with there, sorry.

Shoe painting rule #5: Glitter covers up many sins.

Here’s one of my poor, abused first tea party shoes. You can see the damage on the un-glittered side much less.

If you’re having a problem where the shoes just look streaky, uneven, and you’re just unable to get them to look like proper shoes, get yourself some of the Angelus Glitterlites and slap glitter onto the top. The glitter layer scatters the light, which covers up the unevenness that our eyes are trained to spot.

The Glitterlites paint comes in several colors, so you can either find one that matches your paint, or do thinner coats of glitter in an accent color. I went with purple glitter on purple, but I could have done gold glitter on the purple.

I might have gone a little heavy on the glitter. This was quite a few coats, and one or two would have been successful and much more subtle. Ah, well, hindsight. One of the nice perks of lolita fashion is that glittery shoes are acceptable in a lot of substyles, so glitter is an acceptable crutch to fall back on.

My purple straps that I got for this shoe haven’t gotten here yet, so I used these yellow ribbons for the sake of getting this tutorial out today.

(my favorite shoe straps are actually these 8mm slide charm craft bracelets/necklaces. Glue a loop of ribbon into the shoe with E6000 or Super Fabric Adhesive, put a piece of fabric tape or a heel grip sticker cushion over the top, and slide the bracelet into the loop)

If you’re painting a gloss/patent finish, you’ll need notably fewer coats, as the finish won’t be absorbing the paint. This is about three coats with no primer layer.

You’ll notice that the painted shoe does not have the glossy finish that the unpainted shoe is. That’s just a side effect of painting the shoe. It takes a lot of work to get a shoe that glossy of a finish, and it’s generally just not possible.

If you look very closely at the shoe, you’ll see brushstrokes still in the paint. These really generally aren’t a problem, because no one will get that close to your shoe. They’re not visible from any reasonable distance, and anyone more than 3 feet away from your foot won’t be able to tell.

If the brushstrokes really bother you, the answer for that is to spray paint the shoes. That’s Shoe Tutorial part 3, and it’ll be done whenever my ebay order gets here.

#long post #lolita fashion #lolita shoes #lolita diy #shoe tut 2/3 #shoes #tutorial #handmade lolita #really long post #angelus leather paint #20dollarlolita quality posts

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hogwartstribune · 4 years

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The Hogwarts Houses as Artists:

Ravenclaw: makes art that makes you think, weirdly chaotic process (ie. using a hair dryer on high blast to work on a painting faster at 2am with a paintbrush in their mouth), can have hour long arguments over whether or not modern art needs to be beautiful, takes way too long to make all of their measurements precise, most likely out of all of the houses to sketch their observations casually, don’t ever copy their work because they pride themselves on their artistic creativity and composition skills and they will tear you down if you do copy their work, all of their works have complex meanings and every part of it is intentional like their color choices or even different sizes of subjects, have a habit of analyzing the proportions of people’s faces, “you have a great nose”, most likely out of all the houses to want to go to an art museum and stare dreamily at all the pieces

Hufflepuff: makes art to make themselves happier (this can either mean using it as an outlet to speak out about their darker/sad emotions or just making art that makes them smile), Van Gogh obsessed, gets a bit frustrated about how thin the pigmentation of yellow paint is because they use it all the time in their works and are too broke to buy more, will gift their art to people because even though it’s hard to part with their work it’s giving a part of themselves to another person, has the cutest biggest smile when someone complements their work, they’re the messiest out of all the houses and will usually have paint/charcoal/marker/whether medium all over themselves and their clothes, will always doodle in class, best at taking criticism (maybe? I feel like they would take it in stride to be better artists. Feel free to disagree), will always complement other artists’s work because they know how amazing that feels

Gryffindor: big bold ideas and colors, I have a feeling most Gryffindors prefer to use paint, besides the ones who go for more “outside the box” materials and try to make installations or sculptures, tend to leave projects unfinished because they start them in a flurry of excitement but then get frustrated when it doesn’t look like how they wanted it to, probably couldn’t explain to you why they created something in a certain way, “so why did you choose to do that” “I just felt like it”, their emotions drive their work and their work ethic, that being said they work in sporadic flashes of enthusiasm before losing the want to create something, your criticism will go in one ear and out the other because they’re making their art for themselves not for others, determined to make their own artistic style

Slytherin: you should feel incredibly honored if they ask you to critique their art because it’s like them baring their soul to you (and because normally Slytherins suck at taking constructive criticism especially if it’s about something so personal), deep and dark topics (even in seemingly happy art), draws a lot of their inspiration from their emotions and past experiences, gets annoyingly competitive about art even though art shouldn’t be a competitive field, never gets paint on themselves, will definitely have a muse that they love to sketch because wow that person takes their breath away, will hide their art if you try to look over their shoulder, tends to hate their art because they have unrealistically high expectations for themselves

#hogwarts houses #hogwarts #Hogwarts House Headcanons #harry potter headcanon #ravenclaw #ravenclaw headcanon #hufflepuff #hufflepuff headcanon #Gryffindor #gryffindor headcanon #slytherin #slytherin headcanon #hogwarts houses artists #can you tell I'm an arts major?#for now at least #might drop out lol #hogwartstribune

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doubletriplepowerbomb · 3 years

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Mr Lonely part 4

Word count: +2600 (its a short one... I know)

Warnings: none

Tags: @jenn0755 @zappyzoodle @disturbthepearls @lost-in-the-stories @lithesxx @racingandreigns @rocketgirl2410 @vebner37 @therianfurry46 @littlelunaticfringe @finnbalorlover21 @winged-time-criminal @mrsnegan25 @xfirespritex @wefunloveruniverse @mrsambroserollinsacklesmgk

Read part 3 here

December 1st. It’s been 3 months since the night we started officially dating. The air was frigid and the trees were bare. Snow covered the ground and the sun started setting at 4 pm. But I wasn’t as grumpy as I would have been, I had him. Things had been going really really well. We haven’t been able to keep our hands off of each other. Sheamus’ large hands hold my hips every time he walks past me and I still feel weak under his touch. When my back is turned to him, he’ll either slap my ass playfully or run a hand through my hair. When his back is turned to mine, I do the same things.

We don’t often make it through dinner. I prefer to dine at home, that way I can crawl onto his lap whenever I want. He prefers to dine out, only so he can tease me under the table and watch me suffer.

He’s been really good about the girls too, there aren’t many that try anymore but sometimes he gets the occasional text. I hate it, I trust him, but I hate it. His number is everywhere in my bar, I’ve tried my best to paint over the pen and marker marks but the carvings remain. The digits dug into my bar taunt me every time I'm working and I hate it. I want him all to myself. This isn’t the first time I’m saying this, he knows how much it bothers me to see his phone number carved into the wooden bar and stall doors. Nothing I can do can get rid of the past.

It was 2 am on Christmas Day.

Sheamus’ phone buzzed silently in his sweatpants pocket. He had worn pants to bed that night, which I found odd, and he never placed his phone on the windowsill near him like he usually did.

I remember waking up to him getting out of bed slowly, I didn’t open my eyes but I rolled towards him and placed a hand on his warm back, he was sitting up. “Go back to bed, love. Ah’m just goin’ to the bathroom.” He whispered. That was enough for me so I removed my hand from his warm skin and rolled back over.

What I didn’t know was that Sheamus was not going to the bathroom. He slipped out of my room and closed the door silently behind him. He had left his laundry folded on my couch, I noticed earlier but didn’t care much. He pulled on a long sleeve shirt and a warm flannel before rummaging through the small pile and grabbing two socks, not turning on any light to see if they matched. He then slipped on his old work boots, reminding himself to get a new pair soon, and his coat before grabbing the keys to his truck and my key to the bar.

I woke up on Christmas Day to Sheamus rolling over in my bed and snuggling up closer to me. It was 10 am. I was excited for today, the bar was not open on Christmas so Sheamus and I would spend the evening with my family. Sheamus’ family is in Ireland, he doesn’t talk much about them. All I managed to know is that he doesn’t have any siblings and he doesn’t get along with his father.

I turned in his arms so that I was facing him. He always looked so peaceful when he slept. He was snoring softly and breathing steadily. I gently ran my finger along the lines of his face, his lips turned upward when fingers brushed through his beard.

Normally, I would get up to make breakfast but I didn’t want to disturb him. He was always so intense, so charismatic, and so alive that it seemed out of character for him to be so at peace. He looked content. I’m sure the holidays weren’t the best times for him in previous years, I figure he spent them alone. Sure, there were women more than willing to spend the nights in his bed but what did he do when they were gone too? I knew he missed home, he had family at home. He definitely missed his mom. He spoke to her on the phone every day and they even sent letters back and forth-- I was at his apartment once, sitting on the couch while he took a shower after a long day of work, and I saw the most recent letter from his mom on the counter. I didn’t want to read it and I didn’t read it, but I couldn't help scanning my eyes over the page. I caught my name written in a random sentence in the middle of the page… he had mentioned me to his mother.

Sheamus woke up, his bright blue eyes met mine and snapped me from my trance. I blinked a few times and, knowing I had been caught staring, felt a blush bloom across my face. Sheamus only smirked his beautiful smirk and pulled me closer to him. He was always so warm. He pressed a kiss to the top of my head before resting his chin in the place he just kissed.

“Ya look like you've been thinkin’ love.” He mumbled. “Ah can still see the smoke common’ from yer ears from all the effort.” Sheamus laughed at his joke and squeezed me against his bare chest, allowing me to get close enough to slap it. Despite the playfulness and gentleness of my slap, my hand left an angry red mark on his skin. I always felt bad after seeing a mark on his skin, they never hurt him but the stark red against the beautiful white always made it seem like a life-threatening injury. He personally liked all the marks I left on his smooth white skin over the months, he would always admire them after sex.

I playfully pushed away after staring at the mark from the slap and sat up on the bed, “ugh, and to think I was gonna make you snowmen shaped pancakes this morning.”

Sheamus rolled dramatically onto his back, my eyes were drawn to the blanket riding low on his hips. My eyes followed the trail of soft red hair leading downwards from his belly button, teasing what was beneath the boxers he was wearing. “Oh no! Whatever will ah do without three normal shaped pancakes that ya line up on a plate and put chocolate chips on fer eyes?!”

I feigned offense to his overly dramatic comment. “Excuse me? They are cute!”

“Yer cute.” He winked and sent me a boyish grin that made my insides clench. I shut my lips and decided to tease instead. I rolled my eyes and stood up before bending over to grab his shirt. I knew he was watching. I was only wearing underwear. He didn’t move, but he was growing hard underneath the fabric of my sheets and his boxers-- he had taken the sweats off after he had gotten back around 4 am. I slipped his shirt on and headed towards the bedroom door, “I'm making you snowmen pancakes.” I said before stopping to turn around. I turned and my eyes met his, “and you better be appreciative or I will put on pants.”

It was the only threat I knew he’d take seriously.

We ate our pancakes in the comfortable silence that I have grown to love over the past couple months. “You don’t have to leave today, do you?” I asked between bites of pancake. My eyes rose from my plate to meet his eyes.

He finished his bite and my eyes moved to his neck as he swallowed. He took a sip of coffee before speaking. “Of course not. It’s Christmas, nobody works on Christmas.” Sheamus shot me a smirk before shoveling the final forkful of pancake in his mouth. “Yer spendin’ the whole day wit’ me, love.” He wiped his mouth and mustache with his napkin before getting up and placing his plate in the sink. “Whether ya like it or not.” I watched his bare torso and arms shamelessly as he rinsed his plate. I could feel heat shooting throughout my body as his muscles rippled with his effortless movements.

“When do you want to do gifts?” I asked, staring at his back as he placed the rinsed dish in the dishwasher.

Sheamus was silent for a moment but spoke after he closed the dishwasher and turned to me. My eyes were on his body as he turned. “We can do gifts whenever ya want. But ya should go first, ya won’t be able to follow my gift to you.”

I shot him a glare and padded to the living room, where a small Christmas tree stood in the corner by the couch. “Sit.” I pointed towards the couch, the pile of laundry from yesterday was still sitting on one of the cushions. Sheamus sat and I walked to the small coat closet that I had and began digging through the clutter. I emerged seconds later with a medium sized box wrapped in shiny green paper with a golden bow. I placed it on his lap with a kiss to his head and sat on the couch beside him.

Sheamus opened the gift with a smile on his face and a shimmer in his eyes, he looked like the little boy in the photo of him I saw for the first time months ago. The paper was peeled off and revealed a neutral box, he looked at me and raised his eyebrows. I nodded once, encouraging him to continue opening. He opened the box carefully and I smiled upon seeing a small gasp escape from his lips. He pulled the left boot out of the box and turned to me. “How’d ya know ah needed new boots? And ya got the brand and the size and everythin’!”

“Well I’m not blind, your boots are falling apart and you always beg me to rub your feet after work,” I scrunched my nose as I told him. “And you’re not the most unpredictable dresser. You wear the same thing everyday. I took one of your boots to the store downtown a few weeks ago, got the same brand, same size, same color. I have the receipt if you wanna go back and try something new.” I told him.

The Irishman smiled and brought his arm around my shoulders to pull me in. “They’re perfect. Thank you, love. Ah really needed these.” He whispered before pressing a kiss to my temple. “But, my gift is still better than yours.” He teased.

I scoffed and rolled my eyes. “Okay, where is it then?” I asked, looking around. I have to admit, I did my fair share of snooping these past couple days-- both at my apartment and his-- while he was at work and I couldn’t find a thing.

“Well, ah don’t have it here…” His voice trailed off but it picked up again before I could speak. “As much as ah hate when ya get dressed, yer gonna have to.” I rolled my eyes and dragged him into my room. I threw on a pair of joggers and a jacket over his shirt.

I turned to look at him, “Is this good? Or are you taking me somewhere public?” Sheamus chuckled and told me I was fine. I pulled my hair up into a half up half down bun before slipping on my boots and following him out to his truck.

Sheamus had started the truck before we had gotten outside so it was warming up quickly as we climbed in. The air was brisk, the wind was blowing, and snow covered the sidewalks. Christmas hits played at a low volume on the radio. Normally, I’d be singing, but I stayed quiet so I could hear Sheamus' deep accented voice sing the lyrics.

He pulled into the parking lot of the bar and I sat in the passenger’s seat, looking extremely confused. “The gift is in here.” He commented, noticing my confusion. I glared at him before climbing out of the truck and following him to the doors. He pulled the key out of his jacket pocket and opened the door, holding it for me to walk in. I clicked on the lights and looked around, nothing seemed out of the ordinary other than the faint smell of paint-- that I didn't notice at the time.

“Is my gift in here?” I teased.

“Yes, it is. Look around, but don’t touch anythin’.” I groaned, my mom always played the hot and cold game with us on Christmas and I was always so impatient. I looked around for a few minutes, finding nothing. Sheamus knew I’d be searching hopelessly, I was looking for a box. “Look on the bar, love.”

I turned to him, “On?” I wanted to make sure I heard him correctly.

He nodded, “Yes, dear, on.”

I turned back to the bar and walked closer, I saw nothing on it. “There’s nothing here.” I spoke, still looking at the blank wood.

“Exactly. There’s nothin’ there…” His voice trailed off, leaving me to solve his riddle.

It took a moment for it to click. When it did, I took off down the bar. The entire surface was smooth, untouched wood. I ran into the bathrooms, the stall doors were also smooth and untouched. I bursted from the spotless bathrooms and circled around to the tables I knew had been carved. “Sheamus!” I squealed as I ran straight towards him. He was still standing right by the door, he hadn’t moved. Once I reached him he held his arms out for me and I jumped into them-- cliché, I know. But you’d do the same thing if the former town whore, who was now your boyfriend, had removed his phone number from every wooden surface in the bar you worked at because you didn’t like it being there.

“How’d you do this?” I asked, still in his arms. “When’d you do this? I was at the bar last night. Granted we closed early but you were with me the entire time.” I was babbling. I knew I was babbling, but I couldn’t help myself.

“When I woke ya up last night and told ya ah was goin’ to the bathroom. Ah snuck out of the apartment and filled in the wood, re-stained it too.”

“Oh my god, Sheamus,” I pulled my head away from the crook of his neck to look into his blue eyes. They still had that shimmer in them, the same one from the photo, the same one he had when he would ask me to check his essays, the same one when we talked that first night in the bar, and the same one from when he opened his new boots. “Thank you.” My voice came out as only a whisper before I pressed my lips to his.

“And that was the moment I knew I was in love with your father.” I said, looking up at my daughter who was furiously typing away on her school-issued laptop. She had approached me earlier asking questions about my relationship with her father for a school project about her family.

3 Christmases after our first together, Sheamus proposed to me in the empty bar. We got married the next fall. That was 20 years ago, we have a son who is 18 and a daughter who is 16. Our son, Andrew, has my hair and my brown eyes. He got my tanner complexion too. Our daughter, Alex, on the other hand, is a carbon copy of the Irishman:" red hair, blue eyes, and beautiful pale skin.

“Wait, dad was… ‘the town whore’?” Alex stifled a laugh as she quoted my words, “How am I supposed to write that into my project?”

I laughed too, “I don’t know, honey. But don’t make fun of dad too much about it, he’ll get embarrassed.” I joked.

My daughter smiled and looked back down at her computer screen. “I’ll just say that you met in high school and met again after college. That’s good enough.”

A/N: chapter 4 was short, but I hope you enjoyed Mr. Lonely! I debated writing the proposal scene so let me know if you want it and I’ll post it as a chapter 4.5!

#sheamus #sheamus fanfiction #sheamus smut #sheamus x reader #wwe

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lamiasluck · 3 years

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An Eye for Art

Here’s my first non ego story! Set in a high end art auction, one piece differs from the rest. A classic haunted painting with a gruesome story, as well as many past buyers that returned it time and time again. It seems like a lost cause to sell, if not for a strange man with an eye for the spiritual.

@emptynarration @alvie-ashgrove @shy-marker-pliers @juju-on-that-yeet @m4delin @lildevyl @verse2wo @ferociousfangirlofmanyfandoms (sorry if you don’t wanna be tagged uwu)

The lively crowd travelled around the room with an eager attitude amongst all of them. All strangers, for the most part, but all united with the common interest of tonight’s gathering. A love for the arts. Or, more specifically, a love for buying things in an auction. Rich and pompous people throwing away their money and overindulging in fancy champagnes. Nothing more the dull hearts could need.

With numbered auction paddles in hand, the group bid on various works of art from all sorts of mediums. Many artists were getting their hefty dose of recognition from the rich connoisseurs. One spent half a decade carving a detailed statue of an angel and earned enough money to make a stone army. A painting, one of a detailed setting of cultures, was made by a man that almost missed the auction because he overslept. Truly, this was a game for anyone looking for their slice of fame.

All, but one, of the artists showed up to take credit for their hard work and revel in the praise. There was something for all walks of life on this particular night. The group setting it up got lucky with the pieces they could gather. Though, one of the pieces would be concerning to want.

As the night went on and the artworks got new owners, there was one piece left by the podium. An antique, by the looks of it, with beautiful, hand-carved framework and a setting of a valley, with women frolicking through a meadow. On the surface, it seemed lovely, however, the crowd exchanged wary glances amongst each other, like it was hideous. No artist taking credit for it, no one showing any interest. The auctioneer cleared his throat awkwardly.

“I know you must be tired of seeing this thing, folks, but it was recently donated back by the last buyer,” he explained. There was a tight smile on his face as he tried to lighten the mood. “How many does that make now? Two? Four? Maybe six, if you count the guy that could handle it for an hour…” he laughed lightly. Didn’t get many others chuckling with him.

Barely anyone wanted to look at the painting, let alone bid on it. Clearly, no one wanted it, by what the auctioneer saw. All those paddles stayed firmly to everyone’s laps. In a way, it looked like there were more statues for sale. A simple nod of the head could be interpreted as a bid, after all, if the auctioneer is that desperate. And he was.

This painting had a story. Frequent attendees knew it too well by this point. The Valley Girls had a long history of buyers, ignorant or curious alike. Many could only handle the painting for about a week. An old piece with a background of murder and vengeance hiding behind that cheery setting of flowers and sunshine. The auctioneer let out a heavy sigh, shivering even standing near the damn thing. Those valley girls had small, but piercing eyes that seemed to follow whoever looked at them.

“I’ll be easy on everyone. Can I get, say, $50?” The auctioneer scanned the crowd for anything. “Going once…” The crowd stayed silent, which wasn’t surprising. “Twice…” Maybe this painting would be better off burned. It doesn’t matter if it’s made with rare oil paints, or that the frame was carved from the finest oak. Something like this shouldn’t exist.

“Oh, I’m sorry-!” a quiet voice spoke up, followed by a raised paddle to make the last second bid, Number 4, something no one had seen this entire night.

Everyone looked to see a young man standing behind the crowd. Short in height, so it was easy to miss him, but he dressed just as proper as everyone else here, in a suit jacket and turtleneck. He fidgeted with his glasses, looking down as everyone stared at him.

“Sorry… I was thinking to myself.” This man kept his paddle raised. The only confident thing about him.

“Are you sure, sir?” the auctioneer asked.

The man nodded. “Yes, that’s in my budget.” Everyone else looked shocked. Such a kind and shy man was about to make the biggest mistake of his life.

It simply wasn’t believable. “Do you know what this is?” Screw making a sale, the auctioneer was concerned. “The history?”

Another nod. “Yes… I’ve done my research,” the man replied, confused. “I know about all that… and a couple interesting facts!” He pointed to the corner of the painting. “Those red dots there aren’t more flowers, actually. It’s the blood… from the murder… um.” He cleared his throat. “Sorry, that’s a bummer fact… ignore me.” He ducked his head again and let his fluffy, black hair hide his embarrassed face.

Well, at this point, couldn’t deny a bid. “You can put the paddle down now,” the auctioneer whispered and was met with another quiet apology. He got the crowd’s attention back to continue, albeit much quicker. “Do I hear 75? Going once, twice- sold! To the man that shares too much.”

Very hesitant applause followed. Everyone gave the man odd looks, before talking amongst themselves as they dispersed. The last piece had been sold and the night was coming to a close. Not necessarily leaving on a high note, but overall it was a fun night. The auctioneer guided people who purchased artwork to pay and find ways to carefully bring it home. The odd man stayed by the side lines to let everyone pass by. Better not draw any more attention, especially with the judgemental glances he was getting.

Once everyone paid for their things and the artists began bidding their goodbyes with their pieces, the man went over to collect his painting. That auctioneer was still around, watching over things and keeping a curious eye for the haunted painting. Such a timid man bought the damn thing. He was small, not just height wise, but he carried a demeanour that didn’t want to be seen. Hands that constantly fidgeted with his glasses, shoulders slumped to make his posture tinier, nervous expressions. God, this man was going to die by whatever demons plagued the Valley Girls.

“Can I get your name, sir?” a receptionist asked.

“Xander,” his voice was still as quiet as ever, “Collins… Xander Collins. Sorry…” He gave a shy smile. “Should I spell it out or…?” “That’s alright, mister Collins,” she reassured. “I think I got it. Enjoy your painting, if you can.”

It was cheap enough that Xander could pay for it with cash. Looked like she, and many others, were rushing the process to get it out of here as soon as possible. Still, it was packaged nicely and the perfect size for him to carry himself. Now to give everyone a peace of mind and be on his way.

“Excuse me.”

Xander flinched, looking back and seeing the auctioneer heading towards him. He gulped. “Yes…?”

“Sorry, just wanted to ask a couple questions. It’s scratching at my mind, I suppose,” he chuckled awkwardly. “I’ve never seen someone know the backstory of this thing and buy it. You one of those ghost hunters?”

Ah yes, the classic question. Xander was used to it, but he still fidgeted under the other’s gaze. “I guess I collect art like this… it’s a hobby of mine,” he explained. “I’m an exorcist.”

The auctioneer hummed in curiosity. “Oh~ So you’re gonna kill the ghost! I get it.”

“No-! Never!” Xander sputtered, before clearing his throat and looking down. “Sorry… I just- I don’t hurt the ghosts. Sorry.”

“What? Then what are you doing with them? Playing patty cake?”

Xander shook his head, frowning slightly. “I help them pass on… peacefully. They’re stuck here and helpless.” In a way, the spirits were humans still, and he certainly didn’t want to treat another human with malice. Not with how gently he held the painting against his chest.

“Oh, I see. Kinda.” The auctioneer furrowed his brows and looked at Xander with a puzzled expression. “Well, you have fun with that, then. No refunds.” He turned on his heels, walking away quickly.

Xander breathed a sigh of relief as he’s finally left alone. The trip to his car was easy after that. He placed the painting in the passenger's seat, not crazy enough to buckle it in like a person, thankfully. Though, the idea did make him giggle.

The air was tense with the painting beside him, making a shiver crawl down his spine. Still, he didn’t falter. He was as confident as ever compared to how he acted in front of the others. “I’m glad I finally found you, Mary Ann,” he hummed in content. “That place was scary…” He gripped the steering wheel tightly, before taking a deep breath.

The painting obviously didn’t speak back, but Xander didn’t expect anything. “Everything will be okay… hopefully.” With his research, it should be fine. Doubt was always a tricky problem, though. “I’ll do my best…”

Some may say Xander had a dangerous hobby. The art pieces he collected had very real stories of people getting hurt or traumatized, after all. However, he had his precautions. Be respectful. Be patient. Be helpful. No running away screaming for him, not with a job to do.

Not many would praise the strange boy hunting for ghosts to save, but it was an interesting hobby. Every time a spirit felt at ease and passed on in Xander’s presence, he took pride. Ghosts were simply unfortunate souls that got stuck in a confusing situation. So, he doesn’t mind going the extra mile for their sake, even if he could only make a dent in his effort. One art auction at a time.

#oc: xander #my writing

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yejiroh · 4 years

Text

A Helpful Guide For The Starting Artist! (Traditional art)

When first starting out, it's important to have a sketchbook (preferably mixed media so you can do many things)

Sketch pencils and regular pencils: Both can be used, but remember, different sizes and types give different values and mediums! It's great to have a vast variety, and they're usually inexpensive :D

Charcoal! It's so messy and tricky sometimes- there's blocks AND pencils, soft, medium, and hard. The softer the paper, the softer your charcoal!

Blending. Don't have a vending stick? You can use your fingers! Press a bit hard and rub the lead or charcoal- it has the same effect, and sometimes is better!

Always have a FINE POINT and ULTRA FINE pen or marker (preferably black, but any color is fine) on hand! Outlining your finished work makes it 'pop's and visually more appealing!

Pastels definitely have the potential to get messy. Try to keep them clean! Running them on a blank paper before hand can get rid of the grimy stuff on your pastels or the mixed color on it.

Color pencils. Yes, you CAN blend these! There's different ways to do so as well! Rubbing alcohol is a great solvent and blends it like paint!

Crayons are more or less tacky. They're better for texture purposes

Kneaded Erasers! God these got on my nerves for a while. These ARE NOT regular erasers. They're for adding texture, and you can't use them like a regular spreader or it will rip! They tend to be sticky, so keep them away from your supplies

Sandpaper block or Sharpener? Sandpaper block. These are better for your pencil as they don't eat it away and only sharpen the lead. Sharpeners should only be used if the lead is broken or extremely short!

Never have a long lead. It breaks easy.

When shading, don't only blend! Add variety, like hatching!

White pens are VERY useful to add highlights, but if what your trying to highlight is too dark it may come out gray.

NEVER outline your highlights. You want it to look natural.

Clean workspaces are important. I can't tell you how many times I've knocked over a cup of water while I was painting ;-;

Water colors aren't boring! There's so many different ways to paint with water colors and they're super easy to clean up!

Wear stuff you don't mind getting dirty or stained. Art can and will get messy.

Have Fun!

Hope this was helpful😊

#meena #art class #art #art guide #art tips #useful #Artists #Artist help

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caelpictor · 4 years

Text

QHAVPPFAQ

Quarantine Halloween: A Virtual Paint Party

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Who are you?

Kyle Marcus Bryant, aka @caelpictor. He/him/his/pronoun-flexible, Black, queer, 26 (and a half), Taurus, INFP, ADHD af. I’m an artist (with a degree in it, as of 2018!), a nerd, and a lover of Halloween!

What is this event?

Quarantine Halloween: A Virtual Paint Party is an art class conducted via video call in which I teach you step-by-step how to paint a Halloween masterpiece! #distancelearning

When is this taking place?

There are two classes scheduled: Friday October 30, 2020, and Saturday October 31, 2020 (AKA Halloween) from 7-9 PM EST.

Where?

It’s all happening on Zoom! Technology is amazing!

Why?

Like many of us, I lost my job to the pandemic. I am now safely quarantined away in VA with family, staring down my student loan debt, bored out of my mind, and looking for a fun way to connect with others while also offering my talents in exchange for your cold. hard. cash!

How much does it cost?

The $10 instructor fee covers one participant for one night. If you want to take both classes, make sure to get two tickets! And if two or more people will be joining the class from one location, please make sure everyone in the group is covered! Thanks 🙂

Is there a difference between the two classes?

Nope! They will be the same. I’m just offering two different dates for your convenience! Aren’t I nice?

How do I sign up?

Simply send in your payment and the best way to contact you, and let me know which day you’ll be participating (Fri 30 or Sat 31). Once I receive your payment, I’ll add you to my little list, confirm with you that you’re on it, and I’ll send you the Zoom link/meeting ID and password on the day of the event.

Where do I send my payment?

Venmo: @KyleBryant

PayPal: KyleMB13

CashApp: $KyleMarcusBryant

None of these are case-sensitive. If there’s one you prefer that’s not listed, let me know, and we’ll see what we can do!

Which is your preferred payment method?

Venmo, but any of the ones listed above are great!

Do you accept tips/donations?

Yes 🙂 always :)))

What’s the vibe?

Very casual. Drinking, Halloween costumes, and conversation are all highly encouraged! (But never forced)! I will be in costume, probably sipping wine or a cocktail and jamming out to music while I teach. It’s quite liberating, being able to drink on the job.

What’s the etiquette?

We try to stay on mute while the teacher is teaching, but otherwise, go wild. ***And please ALWAYS feel free to jump off mute if you have questions or comments!

Who can join?

Literally everyone! Spread the word! Bring your friends! The more the merrier!

I have no artistic skills! Can I join?

I said EVERYONE, didn’t I? That’s exactly what I’m here for! Just think of me as your personal Bob Ross; I may not be able to hold your hand in person, but I will break every brushstroke down for you as simply as possible, and you’ll be surprised at how well you do. Again, if you ever have questions or need my advice, feel free to chime in at any time! And remember to focus on the experience of the painting, not the product!

General advice for first-time painters?

Work in big, general shapes first, then focus on smaller details later. I also usually start with the background and build the foreground on top of that. Also, relax, experiment, and have fun with it! There are no rules!

How long is the event?

Two hours, but please allow a little extra time for people to settle in at the beginning, finish up at the end, etc.. I promise it’ll breeze right by, but don’t feel pressured to be there for the whole event. If you miss the beginning, I’m great at catching people up, and if you duck out early, I won’t mind!

What image are you teaching us to paint?

Coming soon!

What materials do I need?

Here’s a breakdown:

Essentials:

1. Acrylic paints (a nice set of 5-12 colors is plenty)

2. Palette (for holding/mixing paint; a paper plate works just as well)

3. Brushes (at least one small brush for details, and one large brush for covering large areas; preferably one medium-sized brush as well)

4. Canvas (either a stretched canvas or a flat canvas panel, any size!)

5. Water cup (a vessel to hold brushes; I’m using an old plastic gelato container)

6. Easel (to hold the painting upright and steady; not strictly necessary, as you can use a desk or table or your lap instead if you’d like)

7. Paper towels or old rag (for cleanup and drying brushes)

Other:

1. Workspace (away from things you don’t want paint on; lay down tarp or newspaper to protect walls, floors, and other surfaces if necessary)

2. Paint clothes, smock, apron, etc. (wear something you don’t mind getting paint on!)

3. Trash can, running water, acetone, etc. (for cleanup)

Bonus:

1. Hair dryer (to help paint dry faster)

2. Pencils, pens, markers, pastels, etc. (for sketching, signing your name, etc)

3. Glitter, collage materials, sponges, stamps, stencils, etc. (just for fun!)

4. Your favorite drink (for inspiration 😉)

Where can I get them?

I’ve bought literally everything on this list from Target and Michael’s (except the easel, which I bought online). I would mask up and check your local department store or arts and crafts store (Walmart, Blick, Plaza, Hobby Lobby, Jerry’s, JoAnne’s, etc.), or if you prefer to order it all online, you can do so easily from those same retailers or… 😬 Amazon. (Protip: If you’re lost on the internet, but would like to avoid buying from Amazon, you can use its search engine as a jumping-off point and go directly to the retailers they have listed 😜) Pretty much everything else is just household items.

What will it cost me?

If you’re not worried about the quality—and you shouldn’t be! I’ve found the cheaper stuff works just as well!—you can buy the essentials (paints, palettes, brushes, and canvases) for ~$20. These items are also often sold in bulk, or in sets with each other!

What colors are we using?

My current plan for the palette is black, white, yellow, purple, orange, and green, the sp00kiest of colors! If you just want to get those six, feel free. However, I always recommend having the primary colors: red, yellow, and blue, plus black and white; that way you can mix any color you want!

What size canvas should I buy?

That is entirely up to you! 8 x 10” and 16 x 20” are pretty popular sizes, though.

Are there any extra precautions I should take?

Acrylic paint comes off skin, hair, nails, and smooth non-porous surfaces fairly easily, but it does stain clothing and carpet, and is very stubborn once dried. I would recommend being careful to prevent spills in the first place, but if it does get on something precious, rinse immediately and completely with water. If already dry, try acetone or a similar cleanser to break down the plastic particles in the paint.

How do I clean up afterward?

My method: Scrub brushes along the bottom of your water cup to get all the paint off them, then rinse under running water until water runs clear. Either let the paint water sit in the cup until the paint particles have settled to the bottom, or pour it through a filter (coffee filter, cloth, etc, because acrylic paint is made of a micro-plastic that can be harmful to the environment and your plumbing in large amounts!) Leave everything else alone until it’s completely dry, and then peel or scratch dried paint off your palette if desired. Scrub your paint-covered hands and other body parts until clean, preferably with something exfoliating.

Is the paint non-toxic?

I mean, I wouldn’t drink it on purpose, but yeah, paint left on the skin or ingested (in small amounts) is harmless.

How can I contact you?

You can comment right here on this post, DM me on any of my social media, or email me! I promise to get back to you ASAP!

Social Media: @caelpictor (everywhere)

Email: [email protected]

I will update this post as questions are asked between now and the event, so please let me know if there’s a question I didn’t answer here for you!

Thanks for reading, and I’m excited to see you all there!!!

#caelpictor #quarantine #Halloween #painting class #art

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emmerrr · 4 years

Note

Ooh jordeclan & the color green? Or really any jordeclan - I’d love to see you write them!

i’m still figuring out how to write these two, but i have written them once before and you can find it here if you haven’t already seen it :)

but anyway here’s this one i hope you like it!

“If I don’t paint something right now I’m going to explode,” Jordan said after breakfast.

It was their third day of hiding out at the Barns and everyone was just a little on edge. Matthew had taken to sitting outside and bouncing a ball against the side of the house in a way that was reminiscent of Steve McQueen in The Great Escape. It was unbelievably annoying, but Declan didn’t have the heart to ask him to stop.

They had received one message from Ronan and Hennessy, which simply said safe. Their phones had been unreachable ever since, Declan had just about exhausted every other avenue of interest he could think of, and he had no idea if any of them were even still in immediate danger.

But when in doubt, he’d always assumed the worst. So self-imposed exile it was, until Ronan either came back, or he figured out a better plan of action. Whichever came first.

All in all, he couldn’t exactly blame Jordan for needing an outlet.

Ordinary paper was easy enough to track down, but Jordan wrinkled her nose at it. “It’ll do in a pinch I guess, but is there anything…bigger? Sturdier?”

“What, like a canvas and easel?”

“If you’ve got it. Come on, big place like this, lots of outside buildings, there’s bound to be an easel somewhere.”

Declan was dubious but the search was at least something to do, and also Jordan was standing there in jeans and one of his sweaters and looking utterly at home in it, as if it was something she did all the time. It was doing twisty things to his stomach, but in a good way for a change.

“Let’s see what we can find,” he said.

Inside the house they managed to scrounge up some really old kids art supplies, like completely dried up markers, colouring pencils and crayons, some pavement chalk, and unusable ancient watercolours.

They had a little more luck in the garage, where they came across some paintbrushes that were still in fairly good condition, and Jordan managed to find three medium sized canvas boards tucked away right at the back.

“I told you,” she said, triumphant. “Everyone has an artist phase, even if it doesn’t stick.”

There was no easel anywhere to be found, but that wasn’t the end of the world. Paint, oddly enough, was the hardest to track down.

Eventually they checked the barn where Declan knew Ronan (and their father) stored miscellaneous dream crap. He didn’t really want to venture too far in there, but lined up along the wall just inside the door were several tins of paint. None of them were labelled, and all of them were unopened, but when Declan went along prying the lids off, he discovered that they were all half-empty, and they were all the exact same shade of green.

“What the fuck,” Jordan said, but with humour.

Declan shrugged. “I’m gonna say a frustration dream? Anyway, I hope you like green.”

Jordan inspected the paint, then nodded. “I can make it work, I just need some water.”

Declan got her set up on the porch with the paint and brushes and water, and a big empty plant pot to prop her canvas up against.

“Are you warm enough?” he asked.

Jordan nodded without looking up, busy mixing paint with water to get the consistencies she wanted. He watched her for a moment, then found he didn’t want to go back inside. He could vaguely hear the noise from the TV, so Matthew was obviously preoccupied.

“Do you mind if I stay?”

At that, Jordan did lift her head. She smiled. “You have to stay, I’m painting you again.”

Declan hesitated, immediately thinking back to the first time Jordan had painted him. Her first original.

“I get to be your second original too?”

“You got it,” she nodded. “Sit.”

There wasn’t really anywhere to sit, so Declan opted for the porch railing, turning so he could lean his back against the wall of the house.

He watched her as she watched him, and neither spoke or moved for almost a minute.

Finally, Jordan grinned. “Act natural.”

“I am.”

“Sure you are.”

Declan sighed, shaking his head with a smile. He shifted his weight slightly, lifting one leg up onto the railing and propping his arm across his knee. He dropped his head back against the wall and let it loll to the side, automatically putting the sprawling grounds of the Barns in his eye-line.

His relationship with this place was a complicated as ever, but he supposed there was something magical and serene about it. It was just hard to be objective about it when it was the source of so much resentment for him.

He closed his eyes and let himself drift, brushstrokes on canvas a comforting sound to get lost in. At the minute, it was just him and Jordan and the breeze. With his eyes shut, they could be anywhere. Anywhere but here.

“Declan.”

He opened his eyes. He had no idea how long he’d been sitting there, but he had a crick in his neck and his foot had gone numb.

“Was I asleep?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t ask,” Jordan said. She was smiling at him, a small thing; soft, made softer by the look in her eyes.

Declan looked back out at the grounds; the light had shifted since they first set out on their quest. It was probably nearing mid-afternoon by now, a part of the day gone without him even registering it.

He slowly got to his feet and stretched. Jordan was still sitting on the ground, surrounded by her art supplies. There was a smudge of paint across the knuckles of her right hand, and another one on her cheek.

Declan knelt down in front of her and gently ran his thumb across the smudge on her cheek. He felt Jordan hold her breath, and his hand lingered. Her skin was warm and inviting.

Then he pulled it away and showed her the paint transferred to his thumb.

“You got a little something.”

“I see that,” she said softly. Then she cleared her throat. “I’m finished.”

He remembered last time, when she hadn’t shown him the finished product, so that she could paint him again.

He was the calmest he’d felt in weeks; he didn’t want this to be the last time. He wanted her to paint him again, and again, until she had so many Declan originals that he might finally feel like someone worthy of them.

“And?” he said. A simple question. Not a demand to see it.

Jordan smiled, bright and brilliant. “And you look stunning in green.”

#cdth #dreamertrilogy #jordeclan #tumblr prompts #trc fic

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toadlett · 4 years

Photo

I thought I'd string together some tips on block printing, as block prints are the backbone of my book Devilry (which is on kickstarter btw go look) and printing is really fun and pretty easy to do!

I wanna preface this by saying I'm absolutely not an expert. I learned what I know of printing in high school art class and through copious trial and error. these techniques won't get you perfect, fine art grade prints but they're how I do it at home!

1) there are a whole bunch of different ways to make block prints. I'll mainly be talking about carving into softcut or lino, but you can also cut into potato or other hard fleshed vegetables, or press into polystyrene with a blunt implement like the end of a chopstick!

2) for lino or softcut printing, you'll need a few things: lino cutters - can buy or order these from any art supply store. Most will come with a selection of blades so you can try different marks and see what works best for you.

3) you'll also need the block material, in this case lino or softcut – also available online or in art supply stores. If you’re new to block printing, get small blocks first so you aren’t stuck carving a huge complex block first off. Softcut is easier to work but harder to get fine control. Lino is tougher, but if you warm it up on a heater for a few minutes before you start it’ll be much more workable. (fun fact I did not learn this till @pppondi told me, after I’d done almost every block for the book. I told you I’m not an expert.)

4) you'll also need a cutting board – I super recommend getting (or making) one like I’ve pictured here: it’s called a table hook, and that lower lip catches on the edge of the table, while the upper one holds your block, and basically stops you from stabbing yourself more often than strictly necessary. Please don’t try to cut a block just on an unprotected surface. You will slip and hurt yourself and also gouge lumps out of the surface.

5) Printing ink – for small blocks you can try poster paint or inkpads, but for reliable results I recommend shelling out for a tube or two of printing ink. It’s thicker and stickier than most paint, adhering more evenly to the block and transferring to the paper without sliding.

6) Printing ink is fairly expensive, so if you want to introduce more colours to your prints, you could try painting the paper or card you’ll print on beforehand! Just let it dry fully before you print! here's some where I did that!

7) most of the other stuff you'll need is cheap or optional - rollers are helpful to apply ink and get an even pressing, but you can also use household sponges and just press with heavy books or your own hands. put down plenty of newspaper though, it gets messy!

8) now you can start designing your block. I find it helps to draw round the size of the block on paper so I can try a few designs before I start carving. Go for simple shapes to start, not too much fine detail, and remember that anything you print will show in reverse!

9) When you have a design you like, sketch it onto your block (I usually use a black marker pen, anything thick nib so it shows up well) then start to carve! Or you can freehand! Sometimes carving without a guide is a really fun way to work, give it a shot!

10) Take care to keep your hands out of the path of the cutter, and don’t press too hard or too deep, so you can keep control over your marks. Lighter initial cuts can help pave the way for deeper, stronger ones.

11) If you mess up, don’t worry, look at ways you can incorporate the change into the design. Block printing will always give unique variations and rough parts, it’s part of the charm of the medium, and you don’t need it to be perfect to be beautiful.

12) Once you’ve got your block carved, you’re ready to print! Put a little bit of printing ink onto a palette (or a tupperware container lid) and use a sponge or roller to spread it onto your block.

13) If you want to use multiple colours you can apply them one by one, but be careful not to overload the block with ink or it’ll lose detail and be prone to slipping. Aim for a thin, even coating of ink over the entire block.

14) Now carefully press it down onto paper! The aim is to lay it flat and press evenly down on top without wiggling it from side to side at all. You’re bound to get a few that don’t quite work out but that’s okay, try again!

#art #devilry #kickstarter #how to #printmaking #linocut #blockprinting

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jimlingss · 5 years

Note

Request for one of my favorite writers~ An apocalypse au with any member of your choice that you think would fit the best! Maybe the mc needs to make a choice to either save the person they love or an important person they hate (up to you really!). A story about the end of the world is always a great medium for angst haha

↳ The Crumbling World of You and I

1.9k words || 99% Angst, 1% Fluff || Apocalypse!AU || Park Jimin

Warning: Mention of suicide

It’s better to pretend that you’re dead.

Even if you’re not, the game of imitation is the only means of survival. Try not to not be seen by others. Try not to breathe too loudly. Try to not eat too much. Try not to make too much noise. Sometimes you’d like to think that you’d be better off being actually dead. The contemplation of ending this misery is appealing on dark nights cowering in the shadows with your stomach gurgling from starvation. But your stubbornness won’t let you. You’ve made it this far — while there’s no end in sight, all your efforts and every sacrifice would be a waste if you took a bullet to your head. Not yet, at least. You can’t die just yet. You can’t die until you see him die. “There’s no food, but I found this.” He tosses you a box that you catch instinctively. It’s torn and muddy, but you find three bandages inside that your pocket with a hum. “We might starve again tonight.” Your boots are silent against the floor and you grasp your knife tightly as you round the corner, peeking over the counter. When you find nothing there, you release your held breath. “We could head to the forest. Kill a bird.” “They’ll see the smoke from the fire. It’s too risky to go back.” You turn on your heel. “So you think staying in the city is any better, Jimin? Who’s fucking fault is it anyways that they’re looking for us?! I told you that I didn’t trust them, but you didn’t listen.” “What’s done is done.” “We could’ve died.” “Well we didn’t,” he counters. “I’m sorry to say that. So what do you want to do?” There’s a drawn silence and your teeth grits. “There’s a preschool down the street I saw on our way here. There might be something there. If not, we can camp out there. It looked relatively untouched.” Jimin follows closely behind you. “Nothing’s untouched.” “Yeah, well it’s our fucking best bet, so shut your mouth.” The two of you leave through the backdoor of the pharmacy, quiet and slinking down behind fences and bushes. You’re not afraid of the dead as you are of the living. Those that pillage and steal, who serve their self-interest and would happily hold a gun to your skull and enjoy hearing your screams as they’d rip your limbs from your sockets and cook them for you to eat. There’s a lot of sick fucks left in this world. Those that were sane have turned crazy. That includes you. After so many years of chaos and destruction, your thoughts have turned to dark places. Especially when you have to look at Jimin. And those places have taken permanent residences in your mind. You’re huddled down, about to run over to the next car to shield yourself from the light, but Jimin extends his arm. He holds you back. “What the hell do you think—” “Shush.” He puts a finger to his mouth. Jimin grabs a pebble by his foot and chucks it in the opposite direction. A zombie you didn’t see cranes his neck around and begins to lurch towards the noise. The boy nods to you, and you swallow hard, continuing. It’s not difficult to get down the block, and you take a moment to look at the graffiti on the walls, the last messages of people begging for help. Cars have been abandoned, windows broken, ivy and moss beginning to grow all over the walls. The city is decaying, but it’s not a new sight to you. The pink walls of the preschool have turned into a muddy shade, playground abandoned and filled with the ghost of children. You don’t dwell, easily prying open the barricaded door. The hallway is dark, but with the little light coming in, you’re able to notice the school pictures framed in a row on the wall. They’re of kids gathered together in front of the school before the war, three to five year olds with pink, cherub cheeks and mischievous smiles, grinning and unaware. They’re probably all dead. Jimin notices that you’re staring at the photographs and hesitates. “Are you okay?” “I’m fine,” you answer sharply, turning away. He nods. “I’ll check the staff room then.” You enter a classroom nearby, making sure to throw another pebble that you have in your pocket to the center of the room. When nothing comes crawling out, you take a sigh of relief. The windows are covered with planks, desks fallen over, papers sprawled all over the ground. Contrastingly, the white board has scribbles of flowers and happy faces. The drawings are sloppy to show the inexperience of holding markers. You walk to the teacher’s desk as you slot your knife onto your belt, shifting to open the drawers. They’re empty, except for a small pair of scissors that you keep in your hands. But as you open the bottom drawer, you find a wooden frame. It’s another picture. This time of a woman and her child — a four year old that reminds you of someone. Someone with rounded eyes and lopsided lips, that held your hand with their small fingers. It’s been a year, but it still hurts like a bitch. You release a staggering exhale, feeling your eyes sting before you put the photo face down where it belongs and close the drawer as if noting happened. There’s the sound of footsteps that follow, but it doesn’t put you on alert. It’s familiar and constant. Jimin appears with a can in his hand. “It’s beans. Past the expiration, but still looks good.” It remains quiet and he reads the expression on your face. “What’s wrong?” “There’s a lot of fucking shit wrong.” You brush past him, but he grabs your wrist. “Well then tell me. We’re a team.” As if his touch burns, you shove his hands off of you. “Let me make this perfectly clear with you, we’re not a fucking team.” “Then what are we?” “I don’t fucking know. It doesn’t even fucking matter, alright? We just so happen to be together.” You step closer to him. “But believe me, the chance I get, I’ll leave you behind. Don’t think for a second that I have your back and that I’ll protect you, Jimin. You’re on your own.” “Is this because of your sister?” Your blood runs cold. “Don’t fucking talk about her.” “You know I didn’t mean to.” He moves to face you again. “I didn’t mean…” “I told you not to fucking talk about it! What don’t you understand?!” You grab the collar of his jacket, shaking him with your trembling fists. Jimin puts his hands over yours, searching your expression desperately and he whispers— “I’m sorry, Y/N.” “Well sorry doesn’t bring her back, does it?!” you scream until blood curdles at the back of your throat. You punch his chest hard with your fists, like beating a dead horse. “You let her die. You left my sister to die. A fucking four year old. I told you to watch her and you knew she couldn’t run with her fucked leg and you left her behind! You cold — hearted — bastard.” You’re hyperventilating, jaw clenched, knuckles turned white. The fucked world didn’t harden you. It taught you how to savour your anger and sadness, and use it to find the will to live. “You killed her.” There’s thumping. Growling. Broken feet sprinting. You let Jimin go, stumbling back. One of them comes through the door, maggots on its face, eyes bulging, thrashing at him. Jimin turns around and with his body weight, stabs his knife through its skull. But he’s unable to pull the dull blade back out. It’s stuck in the crevices and he’s shoved down as its arms try to maul his own face. Jimin kicks it back. “Y/N!” You cup your ears, close your eyes, curl up in the corner. Please. If there’s a god out there — you pray for the first time in a long time — let him die. Jimin grabs a ruler on the ground, right in fingertips’ reach and he slams it at the zombie’s skull, hard enough that it’s stick through. The creature shrieks horrifically, and he takes the chance to tackle it down, getting a grip on the handle of his knife again. He pulls out and stabs once more, blood splattering all over his clothes like it’s just paint. But another creature follows the noise and comes through the door — the size of a small child sprinting in bloodlust. Jimin’s still on the ground, vulnerable as he finishes off the other. And he’s brought the floor again by the child turned dead, his knife once again stuck in the other one’s brain. He scrambles, tries to push it off as it crawls up his body. But the zombie’s nails have sunk itself into his jacket. “Y/N!” Jimin screams. And then it’s silent. The zombie stops shrieking. Blood sprays across his cheeks. His eyes are blinded, catching the sunlight that bleeds through the wooden planks of the window and reflects against the scissor’s blades. With both hands, you stab through the back of the child’s skull, again and again. It rolls off of him and you continue to spear the small scissors at its head. Ramming it until your arms are aching. Until the blade feels dull. Piercing until the bones and brain tissue feels like minced meat. “Where’s mom and dad?” — “I want to go home.” — “Y/N, I’m scared. I don’t want to die.” It was your fault. It was your fault. It was your fault. She was only four years old. She only had you. She was your own family left. And yet, you left her behind — you dared to entrust her to a stranger. She thought you were going to save her and she waited. She waited for you to come back, but you didn’t. You were the one to leave her behind. Jimin gets up, watching sobs break through your frame. You can hear the child’s shrieks, your sister’s, and you try to kill it. Try to get it to be quiet. Try to make it return to its grave. “Stop. Y/N.” You scream through gritted teeth, only shocked out of it when you feel arms wrap around your body. The bloodied scissors are taken from your grasp and you collapse next to the corpse. Jimin quickly embraces you, something he usually wouldn’t have the audacity to do, but he’s still a warm body that feels nice against your dirty skin. “Why can’t you just die?” The real question is why you can’t let Jimin die. “I’m sorry,” Jimin murmurs. The two of you are bloody and disgusting, but you’ve gotten used to the iron scent. It’s comforting. It means that you killed it, and that you’ve lived. “I hate you,” you tell him, having never felt hatred so deep in your stomach before. “So much.” “I know,” he tries to comfort you and it’s a futile attempt. “When the time comes, I’ll let you kill me.” But despite his promise, you know you wouldn’t feel better even after his death. Maybe Jimin knows that too. No amount of retribution can make you feel better, can make it easier to sleep at night. You can’t let him die. You only have each other now.

#Requests 2019 #bts fanfic #bts scenario #jimin fanfic #jimin scenario #BTS Zombie AU #jimin angst #peachdragonrecs #the second of twelve requests!!#i've never tried my hands at a zombie apocalypse AU before #so this was fun

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