#pinterest. show me smoking drawing reference

[boyquiet]

one must imagine solid snake as a butch

#pinterest. show me smoking drawing reference #mgs #metal gear solid #solid snake #meryl silverburgh #sneryl #meryl mgs #mgs fanart #metal gear #metal gear fanart #mgs art #metal gear solid fanart #mgs1 #girl help what’s the snake x meryl ship name does anyone actually ship them #I just think theyre cute

[daswarschonkaputt]

so a few select people know that i've been working on these bad boys for a few weeks now. this collection started because @mortimerlatrice had the audacity to try and tell me that fem!kinn wouldn't wear skirts and dresses and i pretty much broke my tablet pen in the rush to prove her wrong. also i felt like redesigning my fem!kinn and fem!porsche ideas. beneath the cut are my thoughts on these outfits plus the fashion collections they're inspired by/referencing.

fem!kinn businesswear looks

fem!kinn i feel like is the type of person who weaponises her gender expression. every part of how she presents herself is a carefully cultivated power play. she smokes cigars and drinks scotch and can talk at length about stocks and cryptocurrency, but she wears high heels even though she had to teach herself how to run in them, has long hair even though styling it is a nightmare, and is never seen without make-up, because every part of her must straddle a line of being masculine enough to be respected without being dismissed as butch, or a transgressor of gender norms. so: power suits and heels.

most of these are just riffs on the show's suits, so no real reference images, though hilarious @elnotwoods and i managed to parallel brain the exact same corset + suit look bc we are bloggers of TASTE.

fem!kinn occasionwear looks

the product launch -- upon rewatching clips from this episode i realised that the product launch apparently has a roaring 20s theme? which be wildin'. i spent so long looking at pictures of 20s style dresses until i found eliza jane howell who is a tiny british designer who has an entire collection of 20s inspired gowns. the inspo for kinn's dress was the miranda dress from her eveningwear collection.

the diamond auction -- i've drawn fem!kinn in this dress before, and i stand by it. this is a dress from ralph and russo's fall 2015 couture collection, specifically look 12. i first saw this dress months ago when i was looking for clothes for a project i was working on and it's lived in my brain rent free since.

date night i and date night ii -- both of these dresses i saw on pinterest somewhere and forget to save the link bc when i do art i usually have abt 50 billion tabs open. (i make firefox weep each time i open a new one.)

looks that almost made it in: michael cors rtw fall 2022 look 24; and schiaparelli couture spring 2022 look 24.

fem!kinn misc looks

okay so the theme for this one was actually "iconic kinn looks" and you know what? the towel was iconic. there i said it.

the sleepwear look -- *cries in detail work* yes all that lace is hand-drawn YES MY WRIST ACHED SO BAD AFTER FINISHING IT, this one is just conjured out of my head, no inspo look

the suspenders -- real ones know which kinn look this one is based off. just google kinn in suspenders or something i guess because we were ROBBED that it wasn't in the show. ROBBED.

the towel -- since drawing it multiple ppl have told me that they think fem!kinn would just wear the towel on her hips, tits out, no shame, and they are all so valid.

family portrait -- when i was drawing this, i got sent a look by siv that i initially discounted because it was a skirt suit and fem!kinn all about those power suits. and then i was looking for thai designers and i saw the same look and i was like, "okay but she'd only wear this in a family portrait," and then i was like hhrrrrnngngn family portrait outfits for all of them, so now it's a category. this is a recoloured version of poem bangkok's fall 2022 rtw collection look 19.

fem!porsche "pre-kinn" looks

okay so my thoughts on fem!porsche are as someone for whom gender is almost an afterthought, whose main friends are all guys, who drinks bear and kicks ass and cuts her own hair whenever it gets too annoying, who buys male toilettries because they're cheaper, who's made a career out of being rich girl's experimental whirl into lesbianism, and who can get them off real easy but isn't so good at getting herself off. she's hooked up with her fair share of guys, and considers herself more of a male-leaning bisexual. like, girls are fun and all, but she tends to have a better time when she hooks up with guys. (kinn's gonna blow that out of the water, hahaha.)

the fighter outfit -- originally this was going to be just a sports bra + jeans, but then i saw a pic of a cropped hoodie and my brain just sort of blanked out and when i was done the art was finished. porsche's abs are very important to me. as are her arms. and her thighs. she's an itty bitty titty committee member tho and i stand by that.

the bartender outfit -- i've drawn this one before, but yes! all the buttons undone! cheapest black shirt and slacks! converse!!! YESS

the casual outfit -- bike shorts, big t, big shirt? yes. fem!porsche sits somewhere between jock and gonna-fix-your-appliances on a fashion basis and i am here for it.

fem-porsche "kinn era" looks

one of the big ideas i had going into this project was the idea that porsche feels divorced from her femininity in a way that she's not altogether satisfied with and that kinn helps her reconnect with it. because, like, let's be real: porsche has no major feminine influences in her life growing up, and she's literally always got bigger concerns. she defo plays up the idea that she's above it all, whilst also completely lost as to how to get to there. kinn is probably both an object of envy and attraction for her.

(also i have in my head that the sauna conversation goes something like: porsche: do you have a boyfriend, then? kinn: i've never once found a man that truly wants a powerful woman. porsche: huh, that's weird. i've had no trouble finding guys who want me to hold the up against a wall.)

anyway it's important to me that kinn makes porsche feel dainty and feminine.

the bodyguard look -- hrrrrngngng waist. that is all.

clubbing with tankhun -- you know how i said somewhere between jock and owns a monkey wrench? meet porsche out clubbing. love it for her.

first public date with kinn -- so the background i had imagined for this outfit was that porsche and kinn are going public, and kinn sends her a box with a dress to wear plus heels, only porsche can literally not stand for more than two seconds in the heels and hates them, so she wears her converse instead. this is almost a direct copy of look 12 from monse's spring 2021 rtw collection.

black tie date with kinn -- obvs this is a dress that kinn picked out for her, so i thought long and hard about what kinn would choose. in the end, i figured kinn would probably want her to look regal. i looked at so many dresses for this one, esp bc there was a secret requirement where i wanted the skirt to be loose enough that kinn could eat her out in it. look, i just think it would be gender if kinn dressed porsche up in this dress and porsche felt all pretty and feminine and then kinn ate her out in the bathroom at the event or something. you know. girl things. this dress is look 6 from valdrin sahiti's spring 2022 bridal collection and i had to download a pdf to get a reference picture, so appreciate my work. also shoutout literally the only time porsche is wearing heels. kinn had to give her like three hours of walking lessons.

fem!porsche minor family head looks

michael kors collection saved my bacon here. i really struggled to figure out what fem!porsche's overall aesthetic would be for her minor family head position. i wanted something distinct from kinn, but didn't think she'd go full androgyny. in the end i settled on a well-tailored suits with a military flare in their cut.

first business look -- this one is based on look 19 from michael kors collection's fall 2022 rtw collection. dem arms.

second business look -- same song, different verse. same collection, but look 7. the thigh-high boots were added by me, though. i wasn't drawing lesbian kinnporsche without putting one of them in thigh-high boots.

visiting mum -- a couple of things. this one is based on this photo i found on pinterest, because i just really liked the neckline. details you might miss: this is arguably porsche's most femme outfit here, but she doesn't have the perfectly styled hair that she has when she's on mafia business, and she's still wearing her ratty beat-up converse. she's feminine, but trying to be authentic. it's a specific kind of messaging she's trying to get across to her mum. she probably agonised for hours over what to wear. kinn definitely really likes her in it.

family portrait -- again, plucked from my own imagination. the original inspiration for this look was look 9 from altuzarra pre-fall 2020 but if you click that link you'll probably be able to tell i went completely off-script. the more i drew it, basically, the more the altuzarra look looked too japanese, which is understandable, because that collection's whole thing was about blending modern and traditional japanese fashion. in the end, i pivoted, and brought it more in line with kinn's look, because i really did want them to have similar vibes. (couples outfits? couples outfits!!)

near misses -- these ones almost ended up involved: altuzarra pre-fall 2020 look 6 for the family portrait; michael kors fall 2020 look 60 also for the family portrait; michael kors fall 2020 look 30 for minor family mafia business; look 17 from alexander mcqueen's 2011 pre-fall collection also for mafia business; this look from pinterest for mafia business that got discounted bc i was going in a different direction; and this dress from rouba.g's spring 2019 rtw collection for the black tie dress which literally only avoided inclusion here because i couldn't make the sheer fabric look right.

anyway the takeaway here is don't get into an argument with me because i will bring receipts. mort learned their lesson, don't worry.

also @yeetlegay i gave you adequate warning. you knew it was coming.

#kaputt suffers in art #kinnporsche #kinnporsche art #fem!kinnporsche art #look i was good i drew only men for like literal months #so i think i deserve some pretty women for my hard work #also this set almost got derailed bc i started drawing fem!zhou zishu from woh #and zzs's face is so fucking hard wtf #oh and before people ask #yes i do have a plan to do fem!kim and fem!chay and also fem!vegas and fem!pete #select people have been let in on some thumbnails #but in the case of kimchay i have very few ideas #feel free to send me ur fem!kimchay fashion hcs #currently all i have for chay is just ''dungarees?????'' written in a discord chat somewhere #i don't tend to post my art but i figured you guys deserved this one #it's all just flat colour bc shading would take too long #anyway i'm going to bed now

[industryrelatedlearningrhianna]

Creative Art Studio - 21st Jan 2023

Tiger Project - 7 Hours

For this project they gave me the choice to choose between a tiger as a reference, or a dragon. Seeing as these as the most common animals due to their mystical meanings. From here, I was to draw them in 3 different styles; Cartoon, Tribal and Oriental/Traditional. First sketching with a pencil to get the rough shape, tidying it up and drawing in the main lines with the pen. The first photo is of my set up, they suggested I use Pinterest for reference material, as this is the best way to find aesthetic media. I had an hour to complete each style.

First I made two cartoon tigers, I kept these strict to the reference and did not add any flare of my own. They felt I had capture the facial expressions really well, especially on the left one. The proportions were good, I had little critique on these, other than the shading, which they recommended was not needed for a stencil but was fine to include for a sketch. Though there are specific shading methods, which they said I would learn more if I enrolled into an illustration class.

I then attempted the tribal, where I combined the head of a tiger and the 'body' as the tribal pattern. This was a little underdone due to me taking too long to find a reference I was happy with, so this was a good lesson to focus less on finding some perfect, and trying to improvise more.

The last one was their favourite, I used more references and combined them to create something more intricate. I combined a tiger head, tiger paws, a skull, maple leaves and smoke. Some details were not finished due to me running out of time, but this time it was because of the depth I went into. They loved this piece and said they did not expect me to create something this intricate, so this was a huge boost in confidence. Within and under the skull, you can see some shading, this is where the artist was showing me how they shade, which replicated their tattooing techniques with the machine. Another day full of advice and practice that will help me build a portfolio.

Digital Introduction

For this part of the day we looked into digital drawing, as apps like procreate have been adopted by the industry to help bring together their compositions. The first image is from one of their books, where it shows the flow of the body, which is vital in making sure that the tattoo works well with the body, rather than looking random and incomplete. Second is the reference of an arm that the artist was using, she airdropped it to me so I may create some designs and practice wrapping it around an arm. On the right are designs I came up with, placing them onto the arm and playing around with their dimensions to really get an idea for placement. This is a huge help in the creation of a stencil, as before it would be drawn by hand, printed and stuck on the body, then redrawn adjusting to the clients preference. This was obviously time consuming and wasted materials, compared to now where you can draw it and adjust it digitally. It still takes the same level of skill and practice, but is definitely a boost for them.

This was my last day in their shop, they allowed me to watch them 'set down' which is putting everything away, preparing for the next day and shutting down the shop. They highlighted the importance of setting down, what is reusable (such as the tattoo machine) and what is not (like the gloves, the needles, the paper, the ink). How they dispose of them, using their biohazard bin. They sterilised the area, mopped the floors and brought down the blinds of the shop, once outside they bulled down the barriers to prevent break ins.

I am overly grateful for the time, experience and knowledge given to me here. I will be able to take this information forward in order to go along the journey towards my preferred job.

Notes Taken

These are the notes from this day, including the task points, plans for the day, and tips from the artists.

[niamhdonlan]

Do you think she knows? and Through My Eyes Page

Since I made the Riot Grrrl inspired page that in the end I scrapped, I knew that I really wanted to follow up on that idea and make a more developed version and ended up making my favourite page of the whole zine. It started if with a photograph I found on pinterest.

I really liked the colours and the photoshoot style, and thought it could look really cool as the background of the page. My aim was to create a mock up Riot Grrrl zines cover page, and a lot of this page was experimentation on pro create just like the Subhumans album page.

As I mentioned before this page was a lot of experimentation, with testing out the colours on the gradient map, and I really liked this purple outcome, I the made the photo a little smaller so it had a border which I thought quite front cover like. I wanted a lot of this to be handwriting and hand drawn sketches, so is didn't want to add too much on photoshop because of this, so found a little skull sketch on photoshop and I liked the look of it so I decided to add it, and when I put It on and used the magnetic lasso took to get rid of the background, it looked more like a sticker which I thought really fit the theme I was going for. I then found a zine cover and found two girls on the front, really showing key parts of punk clothing such as the leather studded jackets, and the badges. However after adding these I wanted to move on and add it to procreate.

With the top photo I want to show the creation process of of experimental it was, showing that in the end I had 32 layers of different pieces of writing and scribbles over the page, and the bottom photo being the final outcome. The first drawing I did was the drips coming from scissors, as I imagined blood coming from then but because the skull was pink I thought it would look fun if made them the same pink by using the eyedropper tool tog et the exact colour I wanted.

My next idea was to draw some poison bottles, I got this by thinking about past Riot Grrrl zines, and I remembered the zine Poison girls, I then researched a bit about the zine finding Blanca Garcia Paja write about this zine for LCC Zine Collection 'The impossible dream. Poison Girls magazine was the zine edited by Lance D’Boyle, drummer of the archo-punk band Poison Girls. It run for 4 issues between 1980 and 1986, and combined striking photo-collages with the lyrics and writings on the topics the band was interested about like militarism, sexual politics and the degeneration of capitalist culture and politics.' Referencing old zines and bands even if it was in a subtle way felt really important to me so while I was looking at the page to figure out where it could fit in I saw the skull, which reminded of the the toxic symbol is something was toxic or poisoners, then decided I could draw poison bottles to looks as if they were coming from the girls hand. I got inspiration for the drawing from the Alice in Wonderland drink me bottles, that Alice drinks to make her shrink, and used this as reference to draw them. I made one of the the same pink as the top skill to stay in the pink theme, but for the rest of them I kept them plain with duplicated versions of each other. I did this because I wanted the page to have a big of an unrealistic feel and almost like a cartoon, and you get that from the cartoon like smoke inside a lot of the bottles. Following this cartoon theme, I thought giving some speech bubbles for the two women at the bottom, I wanted to link it to the fact that other women was holding the poison bottles, finding humour in it writing 'do you think she knows?' and 'Oh fuck', I further developed th idea of adding devil horns to one of the women making her look the the perpetrator who poisoned her, and then the other woman the Gael just witnessing what was happening. I loved how this looked so far as it was a lot of ideas that were just coming off the top of my head, bringing in my own style of work and getting inspiration from past zines to make it look like a Riot Grrrl zine cover.

I still however felt like it was unfinished and wanted to add text to make it look more full, on the side I used some information about Vivienne Westwood store throughout he years and the different names, and if you look closely you can see, but I really wanted to give it a layered effect with different colours of a green layer and black n top of the green. I wanted this as more of a visual effect but I did actually want some writing that you could understand therefore I referred back to Fanzines by Teal Triggs to look at some riot girl zines I could get text from, and here I found a zine called Leeds and Bradford Riot Grrrl made in 1993, 'gave a localized spin on the movement; the interior spread below is a manifesto for activism.'

I included a few bits such as 'Ripping down sexist posters, gives great satisfaction. I did this with some friends in Sheffield cos the Roxy were advertising strip night with posters of girls with their tits and arses hangin out.' I decided to make this writing yellow as I was looking through colours that would stand out most on purple and thought yellow worked out quite well. Lastly I was toying with a few names in my head for the zine already, and thought of Sex Appeal to link to Vivienne Westwood sex. Also I wanted to use it as a way to take back sex appeal as that is thrown around about women a lot, with the media deciding which women have sex appeal and which ones don't and I think we should be able to take that back and decide when and how we want to exude Sex Appeal, and this is why I chose this name and wanted to include it on this page, to connect to the zines a whole and make it look even more like a mock up Riot Grrrl zine front cover.

Again this is one of my favourite pages as I feel like encapsulates my style as a whole, as I really like cartoon looking things and being able to scribble and use my own words on my work. On top of this I feel like it really shows my improvements with using photoshop and procreate, just from the editing that went into it. However as I was making the page I had there idea to add a barcode at the bottom, to really show what I was trying to demonstrate with creating a Riot Grrrl zine front cover, but i'd decided against it because I thought the page may look too crowded, looking back now I feel like it might of looked quite cool and showed my narrative better.

Through My Eyes page

The pages I was making so far were mainly photo based, even if they had a little bit of writing on them, the main attraction was the photos and the drawings. However for a first page I thinking can be quite confusing to jump right into a narrative without any wording, so i wanted it to have a little bit of explanation like a blurb. While I was trying to come up with what I wanted to write I knew I didn't want to say too much, or it be really wordy at the very start. I remembered that many times while doing this project or making the pages I kept explaining it as through my eyes, as I was trying to show the punk scene through my eyes and how I perceive it, and though this could look really cool.

The first step was to create a photoshop the double page spread on photoshop, for the background I crumpled some white paper and tried to scan it into a printer, however it came out too exposed so I had to take a photo instead then airdrop it to my laptop to copy onto the spread. I then just like the Do You Think She Knows page, I used the gradient map tool to give it a purple hue, as it goes with the other page and I do also really like purple. Secondly a took a photo taken by Cr0ssPxtch at a gig we went to and decided to place it in the middle, I didn't want to do too much editing to it as I wanted through your eye to be what your eyes are drawn to, therefore I just added the crumpled white paper over the top of it and changed the transparency to give the page a paper effect.

I then took this the pro create;

To write this I decided to use a pencil effect for the pen and stuck to the cartoon type writing that I had done throughout the zine so far, for this font I thought of cartoon lightning bolts and tried to imitate this in the font. I felt like I was able to achieve this, especially after making it bubble writing, I also drew round it again with a black to give it more dimension.

After adding some final touches by adding a drawn back border around the photo, and white stars in the corner. I kept it this way and took it to photo shop, here I added the crumpled paper layer over the op of the writing as well, and was really pleased with my final outcome. Unfortunately after planning out the amount of pages in my zine, I knew I would be printing it on the website Mixam, where to do it properly with a front and back page the number of pages had to be dividable by 4, but with this extra page because of the double page spread I had 25, meaning I had to sacrifice 1 A4 page. This was a really difficult decision as I really liked this double page spread and through it looked really cool together, but I knew that my other pages were more impotent. Luckily as I made my Do You Think She Knows page purple as well, I knew that would look good beside it as well.

This was the final outcome, and after a while of looking at it and feedback from friends I really started to like the two together, and so did my the people who saw it. Nevertheless it was still upset to have to get rid of a page and in future I knew that I should plan out the amount of pages, and which ones would be double page spreads and single pages before I did them, therefore I would be able to avoid this issue. This is the point I solidified the idea that I was going to make an A4 page layout for my zine, as it would be easier to print and help me keep more of my work instead of have to get rid of any.

[bangtae-sohotddaeng]

we’ll be counting stars | k.th. | 1

(^ gif cred: ON THE VOYAGE | pinterest)

pairing: idol!Taehyung x publisher!Reader

rating: nc-17 (for language and themes)

summary: You’d sworn off love and relationships forever. You were here to do your job - work with the biggest boyband of the world. Not forge friendships and...and whatever it was that you and Taehyung were building up with these sneaky glances. It was, to be very fair, your Chief Editor’s fault that you’d landed in this mess. Maybe you should quit your job? Maybe you should quit life -

Oh, he was staring again, and did he freaking lick his lips?

warnings: swearing (reader’s got a potty mouth) + this is set like 5 years in the future + reader has emotional issues, she's a relationship phobe + mentions of weed

genre: so much ANGST ugh + fluff + comedy + some crack

words: 2.1 k

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series masterlist

gimme feedback, much much appreciated!

SIX MONTHS AGO

“Wait a second, really?” You blinked up at the Chief Editor, your boss, in wonder. “Heading this?” 

The chocolate skinned, tall woman smiled at you. “Yes, heading this. I’d been looking to hand you something from a really long time, to be honest. This is just the right fit."

You grinned at her, hugging the contract file to your chest. In your thirteen months of employment at the publishing company, through the departmental transfer from HR to Editorial and then the promotion to the Associate Editor position, this was the best thing to happen to you, so far. You finally had a project you were gonna head. You would finally, finally get to handle things on your own—curate your own team, work on an individual project where you made all the decisions.

You breathed out, happily. “I’ll read this thoroughly and report back within an hour, boss. With my sign on it, in all likelihood.”

“I’m counting on it.” Your boss smiled at you.

You looked down at the file. You were going to work with a K-pop group on their auto-biography. You were gonna fly to fucking Korea, for six full months. This was huge. This was awesome. This was what you fucking needed, right now. Your best friend that you had been rooming with for a year was starting to get too comfortable. You were so not up for that kinda shit again.

You looked at the bottom of the front page. Athena had drawn up this contract. Your eyebrows arched. It was no secret that she was your boss’s favourite Acquisition Editor. Some even suspected they were having an affair, despite the gleaming diamond you could see—even right now—on the woman’s finger. 

This project had to mean a lot to your boss. And she’d picked you to head it.

“This sounds big, boss,” you mumbled, leafing through the hefty files. You were gonna need a couple hours, maybe, to go through this properly. “And looks big, too.”

“It is big, Y/N. In all the ways. This idea had been brewing in my head for a really long time. I had Athena make the proposal to this K-pop group’s management company, a few months back, and they said yes. She and I had been brainstorming how to approach this. Those guys are pretty tight about their privacy and, um, well. Fraternising policies. It’s all in there, you’ll see.” She pointed a finger at the file in your hands. “We were finally able to draw up the contract with the company’s CEO and Manager. And you were the only one I had in mind when we thought up of building a team and having someone head it so that we don’t have to leave.”

You gave a small, delighted giggle. “Thank you so much, boss. I won’t disappoint you.”

“I know you won’t.”

You got back to your desk and flipped to the first page of the file.

BTS

Your eyes bulged. You had been a busy—and irritable because of all the stupid shit that just constantly kept on happening in your personal life—woman during the past couple of years and really uninvested in anything and everything that had to do with entertainment. This past year had been especially rough ever since your move to the States. You freaking smoked pot when you needed to unwind, what could be worse than that.

But. But—before, when you were a normal, happy woman with a soul, BTS had been kind of a really humongous deal. Did that somehow change in the past couple of years? You strongly doubted it, recalling how huge they’d been growing worldwide, the last time you kept a check. Which you did like crazy.

You momentarily wondered if your boss would still have you as the first consideration if she knew about your crazy ARMY days…

You blinked, coming back from the mental journey, and turned the page. BigHit’s owner was still the same, obviously, but the group members now apparently had individual managers. You blinked, uncomfortable at the knowledge. Reading further, you found something that disturbed you even more.

All the BTS members were done with their Military Service, with Jungkook, Jimin and Namjoon having returned from it just this year.

You swallowed, thickly. A lot had changed in the world outside of the one you’d been living in, too, apparently.

You read through the terms and conditions and your duties, thoroughly. Few points were pretty obvious and things you’d been expecting, but some of them made you frown.

You brought one such issue to your boss’s acknowledgement when you were done reading the entire booklet of a contract, nearly two hours later. You were ready to sign the thing, otherwise.

“And? What about it?” Your boss blinked at you, unfazed.

You sighed, and lifted your left hand up, pointing at your empty ring finger. “No ring, no fiance, boss. They want the team members to be at least engaged. I’m as single as it gets.”

She chuckled at that. “Tell me honestly, are you unprofessional enough to fraternise on your job? Such a high profile one, at that?”

You worried your bottom lip between your teeth. “I don’t think they’d care about what I think, boss, or that they’d even ask.”

Your boss gave an exasperated sigh. “Okay, let me put it in a different way.” You tilted your head to show your interest. “What’s your opinion on relationships, in general?”

You grimaced, unable to help your knee-jerk response. But then you shrugged, trying not to scowl while you said the words you’d started to believe in since the past couple of years. “Well, as I’d informed you through my quite less-than-professional letter at the time of my joining, boss, I think relationships are pointless. Humans keeping relationships beyond professionalism with each other is pointless, actually, because with a personal attachment comes a buckload of expectations, and then it’s just a rabbit hole down the middle of the earth. At the end of which, we burn.”

Your boss seemed to be suppressing laughter. Did the moral of your life amuse her? “You actually quoted the letter word by word, there, Y/N.”

You sighed. “That wasn’t something I’d thought through when I mailed it, boss. The voice input tool turned my rants into a letter. And my frustration over your concerns about fraternising in the office made me mail it.”

Your boss nodded. “Well, I talked to BigHit’s manager over the phone. The company’s not the group’s,” she added when you frowned in confusion at the singular term. “I explained to him about where you stood—taking references from this letter—and explained to him why I needed my most valuable Associate on the team.”

Your cheeks heated up, both due to the huge praise and embarrassment over the exposure of your letter. “Oh, um. Thank you. I guess?”

“Ugh, sign the damn piece of paper and start collecting the damn team, Y/N!”

You’d resorted to staying back at the office till late hours just to avoid your roommate.

When you’d moved to the country, thirteen months back, and decided to share your decade old friend’s flat—feeling lucky as shit that he worked in the same city as you—you and him had been on the same page. You’d both been fed up with the concepts of relationships and entanglements, even the strictly-physical ones, and wanted to just burn away your youth on the grind and pot-smoking weekends.

But then, gradually, you noticed the shift in him. He was trying to get into your pants. It could not end well.

It wasn’t to say you weren’t attracted to him. You’d jump the gorgeous guy’s bones in a heartbeat, in an alternate universe. But in this one, you’d had a first hand experience of ruining multiple friendships, and you so did not wanna risk another.

That idiot didn’t get it, though.

Hence why you were brainstorming your project’s team at ten oclock of the night in your nearly empty office building.

“Any luck?” Your okay-ish colleague—the least clingy out of the lot—peered at your spreadsheet over your shoulder.

“Why the heck are you so against it, Sana?” you groaned into your palm, frustrated.

“Because I’m ARMY!” she said in an aghast tone.

“So? Dude, that’s nearly 70% of the earth’s population, at this point, I’m guessing.”

“Um, maybe, but. I don’t trust myself to be professional, Y/N,” she morosely mumbled, dropping into an empty chair on the table next to you.

You looked at her from above your glasses. “Why the heck not?”

She ducked her head, her honey blonde hair covering almost all of her face. But you still spotted the red that bloomed across her face. “Because I have a crush on Yoongi, the size of freaking America, Y/N!”

“What? What? That’s your reason?" You covered your mouth with a hand to hold back your laughter. "Lame fucking reason, Sana!” You glared at her when she nervously looked back at you. “Get your shit together, and pack your bags. And give me your husband’s number, I wanna tell him something.”

You hadn’t imagined that picking out five people from a group of thirty would be this hard. You had spent an entire week literally running after these people to convince them. They were all married or engaged save for one, who had plans of proposing to his boyfriend a few months later, during Valentine’s before you convinced him to do it now so that he’d be able to join the team.

You’d come up with a total of four women and two men, including Sana, that were all fluent in Korean. That was kinda one of the biggest prerequisites, other than being in a committed relationship. You’d briefed the lot of them about what was to be done on this trip, who you were dealing with, and how long you’d be off for. They were all on board, now, and the only thing required was your boss’ approval.

And now you were all standing in the Chief Editor’s cabin, waiting for her to finish reviewing the team members’ profiles you’d collected and presented to her.

Your brain was nearly short circuited, at this point. If she said she wasn’t happy with any of your selections you were prepared to tell her to make the new selection herself, because there were only three more married people in this office, and none of them spoke Korean. There were only two more Korean speakers, but they were both female interns who’d be the worst nightmares to put on this project.

You looked at the six people standing next to you, all looking a varied degree of nervous.

But your boss looked impressed as she perused the file. She beamed at all of you, and then nodded. “Prepare for a six months’ stay, people, and prepare to do your best there. The only two real rules to remember are to keep it all a secret until the BigHit people are ready to disclose the news, and not fall in love.”

You all grunted in barely concealed annoyance at the last part, excluding Sana who bit her lip. You rolled your eyes. “It’d be a bigger concern for their partners than it would be to you, if that happens, boss. Don’t worry. We’re all a bunch of professionals, here.” You reassured your boss, shooting a glare at a fidgety Sana. 

“I have complete faith in y’all. Now, off you go. Brush up your Korean, spend time with your partners.” She looked at you. “Or just, you know, catch up on lost sleep. You fly to Seoul this Friday.”

Three days from now, oh God.

You all trickled out of your boss’ cabin with furrowed foreheads. You had the most workload out of them all, though, because in addition to preparing to spend six months in a foreign land, you also were to prepare a formal itinerary for said six months. You, of course, were clear on the details because they were mentioned in the contract, but writing them out for your team would definitely take a lot of time.

You briefly wondered if you should employ Sana’s help, before quickly deciding against it. It wouldn’t do you any good to do anything to sway your professional relationship by asking for personal favours.

“Hey, Y/N, all okay?” Simon, the guy that was proposing to his boyfriend early because of you, asked you when you dropped into your office chair with a huge thump.

You turned to scowl at him. “You guys have got to stop asking me that all the time! When have you ever gotten a good answer?”

Simon’s eyes widened, and he quickly shook his head. “My bad.”

You kept squinting at his retreating figure. Another member of your team met your eye, before quickly scrambling away.

You hummed in thought. Did they all think you were a bitch? Maybe you were.

Good. It’d do you some good in Korea.

gimme feedback, much much appreciated!

next >

series masterlist

Tags: @tangledsparkles​

#taehyung angst #bts angst #taehyung fluff #bts fluff #bts imagine #bts au #reposting bc it wasn't showing up in the tags #*mine #f: wbcs

[tipsycad147]

Lilac in Magic and Medicine

Spring tends to be a favorite time of year for a lot of people. You walk out the front door and the birds are chirping, the weather is nice and there are flowers everywhere! As a Garden/Green Witch, I love plants and finding out ways to use them. One of my favorite plants, even though they are only around for a short amount of time, are the Lilacs. We have several Lilacs on our property that were planted by my great grandparents that still bloom every year. Lilacs are edible, have some medicinal uses and of course, contain magical properties as well. Keep reading to learn more!

Lilacs in the Garden

Lilacs, or Syringa Vulgaris, are a short term blooming shrub. It’s most commonly found in Planting Zones 3-9 here in the U.S. Most lilacs only bloom for about 2-3 weeks; but early and late blooming varieties can be staggered to increase your bloom time to a total of 6 weeks. Lilacs are available in 5 colors ranging from white, to magenta, to the traditional lilac purple.

Lilacs grow on old wood, so pruning after the spring is vital. A hardy specimen, lilacs can be transplanted by cuttings very easily to add more to your garden. Our lilacs draw bees, birds and butterflies with it’s tantalizing scent so we always try to keep them blooming.

Did you know Lilacs are actually part of the olive family? Native to the Balkan Peninsula in Southeastern Europe; people emigrating from Europe brought the shrub with them to grow and preserve a piece of home. Western pioneers brought lilacs with them during the 1800’s. Now you can find lilacs that grow nearly wild in abandoned lots or parks. Lilacs prefer full sun and a slightly alkaline soil to grow and bloom. The wood is a sturdy type that can be hollowed out to make a variety of tools.

These shrubs are a beautiful plant and even though they have a very short season; their vibrant green grey leaves(which are heart shaped) and the clusters of fragrant flowers make it worth having. But a commonly asked question every Spring is; “What can I do with my lilacs in that short amount of time?” Turns out there are a couple of medical, edible and magical uses for lilacs. I’m going to touch on the edible and medical real quick. Then give you some ideas of how to use lilacs in your magic as well!

Lilacs as Food and Medicine.

One thing I’ve started to learn as a witch, herbalist and homesteader is that there’s a use for practically every plant! We harvest at least a dozen or more plants from our yard every Spring and Summer; not counting what we add to the gardens, harvest from the forest or buy online!

Starting out, I was surprised how many other uses most flowers can have, besides just being pretty to look at. Given the short bloom time for Lilacs, I never really thought about using them until this year. But it turns out that 2 weeks is plenty of time to gather and dry flowers for all sorts of projects!

Lilacs in the Apothecary Cabinet

Lilacs are astringent, aromatic and a bit bitter. While most of the medicinal uses stem(see what I did there, ha) from the leaves and fruit, the flowers still have their own uses. Ingesting raw flowers leaves a dry feeling on the tongue but are bursting with flavor.

The most common use of Lilacs is as an astringent. Many common weeds and plants are astringent, including but not limited to: sunflowers, black walnut, black raspberry and stag-horn sumac. Many people are already familiar with the commercially produced astringent known as witch hazel.

Lilac flowers can infused with witch hazel or a carrier oil. That can then be used for acne, fine lines and wrinkles and other anti-aging properties

Using lilacs as an aromatic is completely different. An aromatic works by causing irritation to the place where it is applied. (Think about how sensitive the GI tract is.) Which in turn brings more blood flow and thus promotes faster healing! Gastric issues such as excessive flatulence or constipation are normally remedied very quickly by eating just a few small flowers.

Infuse lilacs in your favourite carrier oils to make salves, soaps and lotions. Lilacs are good for sunburn relief or soothing scratches, light burns and itches. As well as the previously mentioned astringent properties.

Other Uses for Lilacs

As beautiful and lovely as lilacs are, the fragrance is a fleeting memory once spring is over. Unfortunately, there’s no way to preserve the fragrance in an essential oil. Like many florals, it would take a lot of flowers and would be very expensive. There are some ways to preserve the flavor and aroma through absolutes, enfleurage and infused oils. The Experimental Homesteader has a great tutorial and more info about making your own lilac essences.Find that Here

Most commonly, lilacs are used for garnishes and flavoring for foods and drink. From sugared flowers on cake to lilac ice-cream and lemonade; there’s a number of sweet treats you can make with these cute purple flowers.

Some of my Favourite Uses for Lilac include:

Tea

Lemonade

Infused Honey

Wine

Jelly

Ice cream

Syrup

There’s a ton of tutorials for each of these on Pinterest!

If you would like to try the lilac jelly recipe its super easy! Head over to our Forsythia Jelly Recipe but switch out the flowers for lilacs instead!( Find that here)

Lilac honey is super easy, just add the flowers to honey and let sit for 2-6 weeks.

Make a simple lilac syrup by simmering the flowers in a sugar water mix on the stove. Use that syrup to flavor your lemonade or top your favorite dessert(or pancakes!) Plus it’s a gorgeous light purple color so it makes for a great gift.

Lilacs in Magic: Green Witchcraft

Using Lilacs in magic has a slew of myths and stories behind it; as well as a few ways to use it in your own personal spells.

What’s in a Name?

Lilacs have a few names depending on the area and connections. In Arabic, “Lilak” means purple. In Greece, Lebanon and Cyrus, lilacs are referred to as “paschalia” due to the fact that they bloom around Easter. (Or as they call it “Pascha”.)

Actually, the scientific name for Lilacs(syringas vulgaris) is thought to be derived from the Greek word “Syrinx” which means pipes. This is due to the wood’s hollow nature. Which brings me to the next section of Lilacs in magic: the Greek origin story.

The Legend of Syrinx

According to Greek Legend, Syrinx was a dryad (also known as tree nymph) who was a follower of Artemis, goddess of nature and chastity. Pan, as god of the forest and ruled by an bestial nature and lust, sought after her beauty. As a follower of Artemis, Syrinx was sworn to chastity and denied him. He chased her to the nearby river where Syrinx sought help from her cousins, the naiads, or river nymphs. With their help, she transformed into a Lilac bush, also commonly called a pipe tree or reed tree. Pan, frustrated that Syrinx had slipped from his grasp; cut 7 branches from the gorgeous lilac tree and tied them together into what we know as pan pipes today.

The Pipes, combined with Pan’s mournful music over his lost pursuit, holds merit in the language of flowers.These purple petaled flowers symbolize lust, love, and the fleetingness of life in general.

Lilacs Magical Properties

Blooming Lilacs show up for a short period during the Spring, typically between Beltane and Litha. (May-June). Much like honeysuckle, dandelions and forsythia, lilac contains spring energy and helps to jump start your life. Use it to give yourself a motivational boost, a mental or physical spring cleaning. Or use as an energy charge for your job or a new business venture.

Lilacs are commonly used for spells involving: exorcisms, banishing negative energy, love and lust spells. As well as protection spells and spells symbolizing the balance between life and death.

Lilac for Protection

Plant lilacs around your property to protect those inside its boundaries. Planting lilacs by your front door keeps negative energy from entering your home.

Bringing cuttings into your home is supposed to help banish negative energy and spirits. Except for some superstitions in certain parts of the UK. It was felt that white lilacs were too close to death and were very unlucky.(Unless it was a 5 petaled white flower which were considered extra lucky.) Lilacs were commonly placed inside coffins to cover the smell of death, much like gladiolas and other “funeral flowers”.

Hanging lilac branches over a newborn’s crib was said to encourage them in growth of knowledge and wisdom.(Especially in Russia)

Lilacs for Love and Beauty

When used in love and lust spells, lilacs are best for short fleeting summer romances or flings. Adding lilac oil to your wrists and behind the ears helps to draw love your way. You can also use lilacs for a spell to bring the fun and light back into a relationship.

To combine the medicinal uses mentioned earlier as well as the magical uses; Lilacs infused in witch hazel for a facial toner can be used to promote beauty, glamour and attracting love.

Celebrate Beltane by making a flower crown for yourself or your love.

Lilac Wood and Flowers

Wrap and dry lilac bundles to make your own incense smoke bundles. Combine with rose, lavender and sage for a love incense. Find out more info on wrapping and drying at Proflowers.

Use the wood from the Lilac to make wands, staves or runes. Lilac wands are good for banishing evil or negativity, raising psychic energy and vibrations, and attracting love.

Lilac Trivia

Lilacs are part of the Olive family. The Oleaceae or Olive family also includes olives(obviously), jasmine, forsythias and ash trees.

George Washington and Thomas Jefferson enjoyed the scent of Lilacs and planted them in their Gardens.

Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet were inspired by the colors and appearance of lilacs. They included the flowers in several paintings such as “Lilac Bush” (1889 Van Gogh), “Lilacs, Grey Weather”(1872 Monet) and “Lilacs in Sun”(1872 Monet).

In the Victorian Era, widows wore lilac blossoms on their lapel. This served as a reminder of their love and the shortness of life.

Lilac is considered the traditional flower for the 8th Anniversary. This means it is a suitable gift as well.

The Celtics regarded the lilac as “magical” due to their incredibly intoxicating fragrance.

In the United States, the lilac is the official state flower of New Hampshire. It represents the ‘hardy’ nature of its people

Lilac Magic Correspondences

Latin Name: Syringa Vulgaris Other Names: Pipe Tree, Reed Tree, Common Lilac Element: Water Planets: Venus Gender: Feminine Deities: Artemis, Pan, Gaea, Hades, Persephone, Hera* and Hestia* (*white flowers only) Powers: Expansion, Growth, Protection, Life and Death, Spirit World, Love, Psychic Ability Use for: Love spells, Protection Spells, Exorcisms, Aromatherapy, Beauty Magic, Body care(magical or not) Crafts/Recipes: Toner, Tea, Honey, Ice cream, Syrup, Wands, Runes, Staves, Garden/Home Boundary, Incense, Dessert Garnish

Are you in love with Lilac yet?

Even though Lilac only visits for a short amount of time; it leaves us impatient for it to come around again. Even if you missed this year’s harvest, save this info for next year so you can fill your home with yummy flowers and magic next spring. Feel free to save this info for your Book of Shadows or Grimoire pages. Also, make sure you visit our other Magical and Medicinal Plant Pages.

Will you add Lilac to your magic workings?

If you want the smell of lilacs even after the season is done; we offer a Lilac goat’s milk soap in the Store that smells exactly like this luscious plant! Made with nourishing oils and skin safe fragrance oils; its safe for sensitive skin and makes for a great Mother’s Day, Best Friend or Self Care Gift.

If you are new here make sure to check out all of our other blog posts over on the Blog Page. And don’t forget to follow us on Pinterest, Facebook and Instagram for farm photos, trivia, shop updates and more!

By  Ariana

https://greenmanmeadows.com/using-lilac-for-magic-and-medicine/

[theowlhouseheadcanons]

I´ve finished The Owl House recently and I´m just amazed by the show in all its aspects, especially the plot and the designs. Even though the very known Disney´s touch is there, it is placed so smoothly along with the story that makes the show really refreshing to watch. 

But as any cartoon trope, I bet my right hand there will be this prom episode where all the characters will get a new, formal outfit that will make the fandom go YEAH

… But this episode is not here yet, and probably will take some time to be, and since hiatus is taking so long… I took the creative liberty to illustrate some of my expectations. 

Sooo, Ta-dã ! 

It took longer than I´ve expected it to, 

Here it goes the thoughts I´ve put in every piece! 

Willow: yes, I just couldn´t resist the urge to relate her outfit with the tree that is behind her name, and c´mon, you know the creators also have this association in mind. It just fits. The little details on her dress are the flowers from the willow tree, and I wanted to resemble the “wavy strips” shape of leaves in someplace - first I thought about making her dress in this shape, but I wasn´t finding a way to make it right. So I added this detail to her earing, since making the reference more subtle felt like a better reward to give the public once they notice the design´s purpose (hope it made sense)

Gus: our gold boi is an illusionist and a human enthusiast, and I wanted to make both of those traits show off. So, which iconic human being we have that also practiced the art of illusion? If you said Houdini, you´ve read my mind. I based Gus´ suit on the one Houdini used to wear a lot *according to google* and made the little bow tie as a reminder of his coven (not that we needed a remind for that but yeah); And what about the hat? I took the liberty to make it a headcanon that, in one of Owlbert trash raids to the human world, there was this sympathetic top hat laying around and, as Luz knew how much Gus liked human stuff (and wanted him to be more assertive about stuff´s finalities), she gave it to him. And I´m sure you can imagine his enthusiasm, and how forward he was looking to properly use the “artifact” as a human would (even if it´s all beat up!) Besides, the hat was made for a head way bigger than his, so it keeps falling into him and he has to stand funny in order to keep it in place

Luz: Luz is “light” in Spanish/Portuguese, her light spell has this yellowish color so there wasn´t much stress to pick the primal color (picking the right variations in the other hand…that was sort of stressing). For her dress model, I wanted something that expressed her buoyant personality, but still “serious” enough to attend a formal event. So, I made it like a sundress and added some layers of details, as the sleeves and the semi-transparent cloth over the dress´s hem. Also, I “tamed” her hair a bit so it wouldn´t just be the same she uses every day, with this one rebellious lock of hair at the back which refuses to stay put along with the others. 

 Luz appears to me as someone who would love to wear super extra outfits for cosplay purposes, but being conscious about her clumsy self, she would rather stick with something simple enough to move freely (and fast) if the situation requires it - especially because it would be her first prom out of the human world (maybe her first prom in life?) so it would be nice to avoid any unnecessary awkward scenarios - which we all know are totally going to happen. Thus, I thought about adding some glitter to it, but I saved the sparkles for someone else...

Amity: OH I HAD SO MUCH FUN DOING THIS ONE. Amity (spoiler alert) is a big fan of Azura´s books, just like Luz, and it is pretty clear she inspires herself a lot on the character - her dyed hair, the drawing of herself wearing Azura´s clothes on her diary´s cover - SO based on that sweet info it wouldn´t be a surprise if she coded Azura´s dress in her own. I made her dress a plain white (like Azura´s)  but, to resemble Amity social status (da gurl is rich) gave it an “elegant” cut, with the purple, shining and very-expensive looking silk falling upon it to give life to the outfit (and they also translates as the shoulder parts of Azura´s dress). Her earing stands for Azura´s chest star, and I played a “half-fancy” hairstyle to complement. (I don´t like to have favorites, but this one is definitely one)

King: the king of demons claims he´s a naturalist and has concrete displeasure to wear clothes. So little cute smokes were out. But as a king, and with his obnoxious personality, he would definitely want to dress as fancy as everyone else, with the little of “dressing” as possible, get it? I know that adding a bow tie to him isn´t the most creative of looks, but the filling is in the headcanon I (once again) took the liberty to make: King wanted to feel fancy, but he wouldn´t dress a suit, and he refused to go without anything. This led everyone on the house to search for something that King could wear, which resulted in Eda finding some old holiday ornaments boxed in a dark corner of the attic; Among those, there were many red bows of different sizes from where King picked the biggest one - which was meant for Hooty, since it was a door ornament - and a smaller one for the tail, as the final detail. He also gave Hooty one of the bows, a really small one, just to say he gave the owl something. 

Eda: I must confess, Eda outfit was the trigger of this whole thing lol. I was scrolling through Pinterest and BAM this look appeared and my mind instantly associated it with the Owl Lady. I just really wanted to draw her in this look because it is so her. She´s the elegant foxy aunt of the party who put candies in her bag and sneakily takes all the table decorations home (especially the shiny ones!). She received Principal´s authorization to attend the prom with no risks of being arrested, as a treat for her good choice of enrolling Luz there, which is the only reason she´s so proudly showing off who she is (I´m talking about the necklace, if you´re wondering). Plus, her hair up was so fun to make? I´m 100% ready to see it canon

oof, this was long.

I´m thrilled at the chance to share it with you guys, and I´m more than welcome to feedback!

#the owl house #the owl house luz #the owl house fanart #the owl house king #the owl house eda #the owl house headcanons #luz noceda #amity blight #the owl house willow #the owl house gus #eda clawthorne

[spell-bound-life]

Beginner Witch Tips

WARNING: I am a sarcastic butthole and it shows through out this hot mess of a post. This is some random craft junk I have learned in my days of practicing witchcraft

Witch craft is not magic.

I don’t care what you have heard. Witchcraft is not magic. It can not turn your eyes different colors. It can not make you into a animal. You will not be able to control the weather or summon wind with your fingers. Ghosts will not do as you say. This is not Harry Potter. Case closed

Intent over tools

Do you think it’s gonna matter if you use a butter knife as an athame? Or you have to sub a white candle for another color because you don’t have the funds to buy that color? Or you had to leave out an ingredient because you don’t have it or you’re allergic? No, it’s not. Witchcraft (to me) is about mind over matter. If you are making an effort for your God/god/goddess/deity/elf/fae/etc it isn’t gonna matter what or how you got there, but the intent you had getting there

Cursing and hexing is up to you and your beliefs

Totally up to you if you believe that this is okay or not. However, if you don’t like this, do not go and tell someone else it’s wrong. If they ask you how you feel you can tell them it’s not your thing. If you do like this, do not go and tell someone else it’s fine and try to get them to accept it. If they ask you about it, you can tell them that you are into it

You do not have to have an alter

It’s up to you and your practice. And if you can where you are etc. If you want one and can not have one, draw one or, my favorite, Set up a pinterest board for your god/goddess/fae/elf/deity etc. and save things that you thing relate to them.

It’s not about fancy stuff

This goes back to intent over tools, as long as you are comfortable with what you are doing and using, do it and use it. I use salsa and yogurt containers, coffee filters taped together, M&M tubes, and envelopes to keep crap in. I use a 99¢ Wal-Mart bandanna to do spells on that I got from Girl Scout camp and it has rainbow peace signs all over it. Do I care? Nope. Does anyone else care or will they judge you? Nope. we are all in the same boat here.

Hand making things is way too underrated  

I LOVE hand making things. Whether you are good or bad at it, it is a good way to save money, and personalize it just for you. Example: I made tarot cards out of printer paper that I cut out and wrote the card name, and definition of what it means (to me) and I love them. Pencil wand? Yas queen. DIY cauldron out of play-dough? Frick me u p daddy.

DONT EAT/SMOKE/DRINK SOMETHING YOU HAVE NO CLUE ABOUT

You’d think I would have to include this bUT Some things are okay to consume. Sometimes if taking a certain medicine you can’t consume that. Sometimes you are allergic to one thing, and in turn you will be allergic to that thing too. Sometimes you are pregnant and it’S HIGHLY DANGEROUS TO CONSUME THINGS WITHOUT KNOWING WHAT IT DOES

Never ignore professional medical advice and help in favor of witchcraft methods.

Case c l o s e d

Spirit workers

Not nice spirits can attach to people who have depression and anxiety more so than people who don’t

There are good and bad spirits. if one makes you feel comfomy, do not feel bad for asking it to leave/getting rid of it

Don’t ask your tarot cards every time you have a question

This happens a lot. Especially when you get a new deck and it’s so new and shiny and you can’t w a i t to get your grubby little hands on it and do crap >:D but you don’t want to get into the habbit of “ohgoshgollybatman I have to go to the store, okay let’s see if I’ll get hit by a car... oh and do I really need the applejuice..”  or “do I REALLY need this plant..” bc the answer to that is always yes duh

Divination is not for predicting the future

Now stay with me, it is for guiding you in the future. It can not tell you what day you are going to die, who you are going to marry, etc 

The future is not written in stone

Let’s sayyyyy you do a simple past, present, and future reading with tarot, and you get a bad reading for the future, it doesn’t matter. That is how it is going right now, now you can see what you need to change etc 

You dont need a fancy journal for a grimore or book of shawdows

Heckadoodle I use a binder and notebook paper so I can move stuff around. I just write with a pencil and pen, and color with dollar store crayons or collered pencils.  Now, you may be thinking, “Oh but, it’s a nice binder right?” Lemme stop you right there. It is falling apart, needs to be ducktaped, has a picture of my doggo inside and I’ve used it for school for abouutt.. 7 years? Summin’ it up: It don’t gotta be fancy

If you forget to blow out candles set a timer on your phone

I do this all the freaking time and I’ll leave a candle out, and then here comes mother. Closet underage witches know the struggle. Trying to explain why you have a burning candle left in your room. Or if you are adult and have to adult after a spell or whatever and leave the house and come back to the candle just sittin’ there. Burning away. (my mom did this once and it caught her table on fire) Timer. Yep.

You don’t have to know a certain language 

This is more focused to me bc i am nerd but okie dokie I know Latin from school, therefore I mix it into my spells (like some on @witchy-recipes-and-things) and provide a translation. I don’t want anyone to think you have to have a certain language for your craft.

How to Ouija

Tbh this is too long already so if you want another post on it tell me and I’ll make one and link it

Sigils can be drawn everywhere

In your phone case, in your wallet, in a shoe, under fingernail polish, under seats, wherever whatever-I can also elaborate more on this

TAROT IS PRONOUNCED “TARO”

CONSENT IS KEY

When doing love spells, consent from the other person is a must. 

You can be a christian, athiest, pagan, whatever, and still do witchcraft

It is about the craft, not religion 

Witchcraft is not a religion, Wicca is

And you do not have to be Wiccan to partake in Witchcraft

Sage doesn’t have to be in cone shape to burn it

I put rubbed sage meant for cooking on a metal plate and torch the sucker Shane Dawson style but with one of the long lighters, then run around my house in my underware screaming “MAY THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPEL YOU BITCH” in Latin

When cleansing 

OPEN.THE.WINDOWS.WHEN.DEALING.WITH.SMOKE Trust your witch mother who is allergic to everything and is an asthmatic, open the windows and doors. Also, as the smoke leaves you room through the windows or whatever, the spirits/bad vibes/etc leave with it

You don’t have to believe everything you read

Witchcraft is how YOU feel about things. No matter how other people feel about things

You can have your own corresponces for things

Like I think cinnamon is hot, deals with the sun, direction south, used for healing love etc., but it can be totally different for you

Divination doers do not have to be witches and witches do not have to be divination doers

S T U D Y

Can not stress this enough. This is the best thing to do even if you can not practice your craft where you are atm. knowledge is power.

So here is a list I’ve complied :D (yes I’ve made all of these, I was too bored to ask people’s permission to add things, sue me) (All of the spells are all religion inclusive)

Learn you star sign with detail Edible Flower List Witch Tools Tarot Meanings Cheat Sheet

Good First Spell-Calming Tea Spell DIY Charcoal Pencil Get Shit Done Bottle Spell to Sleep Sea in a Bottle Protection and Calm Bottle Find a Item You Lot

Referring to “When cleansing”, Line two, words 3-4, I am now your witch mother and if you ever have any questions feel free to ask! This list was requested from a witchling and if you have any requests feel free to ask :3

#witches #witch #wicca #wiccan #witchcraft #christian witch #spell #spells #spellwork #spellcraft #witchblr #witchling #new witch #pagan #craft #witch craft

[socialfairytale]

Evaluation

My project has changed a lot throughout the course- my final outcome has differed greatly from what I set out to make at the beginning, mainly due to the fact that I was trying a lot of new things and they didn’t all work as expected. But i’m glad that my project evolved. 

The social issue I decided to choose for this project is the Environment and Climate Change- I wanted to make a game concept that would encourage people to fix the planet before it’s too late. There are many issues that are affecting and changing our planet currently, most of which are direct result of human activity. We are responsible (directly or at least for the majority of) for the Earth’s changing in climate- we release too many greenhouse gases through various means such as transport, factory farming and deforestation. 

One of the things that has remained consistent in this project is that the social issue being a key part of the game - I haven’t diverged much. The character design and game themes definitely incorporate some fantasy themes (such as the main character) but the underlying issue about the world being uninhabitable and ruined is still a very obvious feature. I would have created a project that more subtly related to climate change, but it’s something i’m very interested in so I thought it would be a good idea.  I was aware that a game based very obviously on a social issue may not attract a lot of attention as people tend to avoid things that are ‘politcal’ but I think it works - I tried to make the character design and magical elements very visually appealing so the game so that it would appear more interesting and attractive to play upon a first glance. 

The work I have created - Echo - is for a game concept. I created some concept art for the character and landscape, made some pixel animations to show how the game could potentially look, and made a model of the main character’s head. The model was created so I could get a better idea of how the character could look from all angles, thus making it easier to draw. I am also very interested in modelling so I thought making a model would be a lot more interesting than just two dimensional artwork.

The Character Design/Concept

I wanted to create a concept for the game’s main character. At the start of the project I envisioned them to be a cute & brightly coloured animal - to try and contrast with the bleak reality in which the game is set. I made a pinterest board to try and establish the kind of look I wanted it to have, and came up with some concepts. At the time I was also really inspired by Kitsune & their magical connotations in Japan so I wanted it to look somewhat fox like. 

I jumped straight into the character design without really considering the rest of the work I wanted to do which would involve it - which is where I started to make some questionable choices. I decided to give Echo four ears to make them look very unique and otherworldly - but didn’t really consider the practicality of having these, nor did I think ahead to when i’d actually have to make them later. I also have a tendency to design the character’s appearance first before coming up with their personality - which also meant that the second set of ears didn’t really have a purpose of being there. Alongside this I also gave them an enormous mane and extravagant tail to help them stand out - this was also annoying to animate. However, despite the impracticality of their design, I really like how the final appearance turned out - it definitely looks aesthetically appealing and different compared to something you’d expect to find on Earth.

Another problem I had when drawing the character was trying to establish their anatomy and keep it consistent when creating the concept sketches for them. I wanted to make Echo walk on two legs yet still have an animalistic appearance so I made them anthropomorphic with shorter digitigrade legs than those of a human - this made a lot of poses quite difficult to draw as his body proportions were very different than the references I used - so in some sketches his legs are far too long. 

I created several pieces of game art featuring Echo although I’m not totally happy with any of them- this is due to my experimentation with new programs and different techniques. All four of the artworks were created outside of my comfort zone - 3 of which were created using Procreate and a shading style which I am not as proficient in - and the final one was created in Paint Tool Sai with a wacom intuos (which was a vastly more complicated task than using my Cintiq). I felt that some of the work just didn’t have atmosphere I was trying to create- some of the pieces looked flat, and using the iPad to paint meant that I didn’t have access to my usual tools for painting. To improve next time, I will practice more both with procreate and the Intuos tablet, but also try and create some artwork that i’m actually happy with by spending a lot of time on it rather than giving up after 2 hours - which was very common with a lot of my work in this project as I felt like the deadline was approaching too fast. 

I really like Echo’s overall character design but I think that it could have been developed a lot better if I had spent more time on it, and used more realistic animals as reference material. My favourite parts about their design are the glowing colourful ears and tail, as well as the mask, which I think gives them a very mysterious and ethereal appearance (which I think it suitable considering they’re meant to be a space deity). If I could design them again I would have also created a wider range of concepts before creating the final design so fast, as I ended up having some really cool ideas later on. I would have also reduced the number of ears and made the tail/mane smaller to try and make this character actually easily reproducible. 

I did also design Radio and Pix, the other two main characters, but these were done very quickly near the end of the project so they are also not as developed as i’d like them to be. I think my target for next time would definitely be to not try and rush my projects as much and actually put thought and consideration into them. It would have also been nice to do more environment design as this was something I was really keen to explore at the start of the project but didn’t have enough time to explore - I would have rather put more time into this than trying to create finished artwork of Echo. 

Pixel Art/Animation

For this aspect of my project I aimed to design some animations and sprites/environments to show what the actual game would look like if it was made. This was one of my first experiences with pixel animation and sprite artwork which made it quite a challenge for me, especially in the beginning.

Animating in pixel art is a really different experience, as I found that almost every pixel had to be placed perfectly to make the movement look smooth - quite often I found that just by changing a few pixels on one frame completely changed the shape of the head in another - but this paid off as I got used to it. Overall, i’m really happy with the way my weapon summoning animation turned out - I think the movement looks really fluid and even though it’s small and pixelated, you can still make out the individual parts of the character.

Some parts I should have done differently were definitely the smoke animation and effect - I made the smoke and staff Glow using an overlay layer on Photoshop - which messed up the transparencies of the finished sprite. When I tried to export it as a gif with no background, there were white pixels surrounding the body due to the partially filled in pixels from the glow layer, which the PNG could not interpret properly. To fix this, I added a grey background to the animation when exporting it so that it would display correctly on my blog - but this was only a temporary fix, as It would have had to be transparent to import into Unity, for example. I think that the glow could have worked if it was added afterwards once imported into the games engine rather than as part of the animation, but it worked to show my ideas.

Another problem I had was with the animation cycle itself - this was another project which I rushed into a bit - as I ended up not being able to loop it due to Echo taking a step forward midway through, so ending up in a different location to where they started off. I should have also made the overall pixel sprite smaller I think and maybe tried a lineless style - as the 120ish pixel height of the character meant that it took a while to replicate for each frame.

In term of success though i’m happy with the actual artwork of the pixels - I also really like how the icon of Echo and the dialogue box turned out, as they fit together well and match the aesthetic of the game. As well as this, the text animation I created also looks really cool I think - there isn’t anything I would change about that. The pixel art backgrounds I created also turned out pretty well, but I think it would have been nice to create a more refined and clean, lined background rather than the sketchy lineless style it ended up having. 

Model/Mask Attempt

This was the project I had the most difficulty with out of all three I attempted. I started off wanting to make a super sculpey model of Echo, which soon changed into a wearable mask of his head, and then finally changed into a small model.

The first thing I tried was making the mask in Blender - which I have no experience with - which may have been the cause of some of the difficulties I had. I first sculpted the shape of the mask and decided to try and print it out as a pepakura file - which didn’t work initially due to the high number of polygons. if I was to make another pepakura mask I would instead work with a very low number of polygons instead to start with rather than trying to retopologise the model later which was also rather tedious. 

After retopologising the model, the option to 3D print it was available - unfortunately since I hadn’t planned this from the start my model also was not suitable for this. I think that all of these attempts didn’t work properly since I hadn’t researched them enough and built them with these results in mind - I had to strongly rework my model again to get it to work in a 3D printer. Despite this difficult stage though I do really love the look and anatomy of the model I made - it actually looks how I intended it to and has the perfect cartoony/realistic mix I was going for. The 3D print had to be split up into sections and then printed one at a time. This process had some flaws which I would execute differently if I had more time - I didn’t realise how difficult it would be to make the 3D model look presentable (sanding and filling etc) so I should have printed it in a higher resolution to start with, as it was too low res to make a smooth model out of. On top of this, there were some scaling issues which meant that several pieces were very slightly different sizes to each other. To fix this, I should have kept each piece on the same document and scaled them all up together rather than each one individually. That being said, the mask I did 3D print did end up fitting my face which I consider a definite win, as I measured it all beforehand in the hopes that it would not be too small or big for my head. I should have done a lot more research into 3D printing before rushing into it. 

Unfortunately due to the quality and mishaps with the 3D print (the hollow surface meant it could not be properly sanded, and one corner was missing due to the supports collapsing during the printing process - causing it to droop down and break off), I had to move to a different method. My main regret during this stage was my time management - I tried out 3 different techniques during 3 days and none of them worked to my standard so I scrapped all of them. The first was the EVA foam patterned model. I really like how all of the edges are crisp and fit together really well but unfortunately the pattern was not able to capture the exact head shape, which ended up looking a bit weird. I think this could have been remedied if i’d kept working on it and made manual adjustments. The foam I used was also far too thin (5mm) which caused the model to be very weak as it kept squashing and changing shape. It would have worked a lot better if i’d used 10mm foam I think. 

The two upholstery foam attempts were actually probably fixable, again if i’d spent more time on them. The carved block head especially, I think it would have worked a lot better if my electric knife had been sharpened. I like the way which they started to turn out but I got a little too ambitious and removed too much material too fast. These two attempts were another case of me not doing enough prior research into them beforehand, and could have turned out a lot better if I watched more than one tutorial for each.

The last thing I resorted to was a super sculpey model, which has turned into one of my final outcomes. While it is unfinished, I am really really pleased with how it looks for the most part. I used my original 3D sculpt as a reference to model the head out of super sculpey, then sealed and painted it with acrylics. I’m really happy that I used sculpey as the material as it keeps its shape well and was very smooth - although I think it could have been smoother if I had used some sculpting tools or turpentine to help even out the surface.