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mysecretlittlelibrary · 1 year

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A Little Goes A Long Way

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Word Count: 2.4k

Warnings: not any real

Genre: fluff

Summary: You accidentally find out that Steve has a praise kink and take full advantage of it.

***

When you first joined the Avengers and moved into the compound you'd say you befriended most of the team pretty quickly, some you were closer to than others of course but still, you'd say they were mostly your friends. Now when it comes to the boys club consisting of two supersoldiers and a mechanically winged man, your friendships with them are surprisingly variable.

Sam, is the friendliest and therefore was the quickest for you to connect to. Bucky was one tough nut to crack but you'd say you've successfully done so. Which leaves Super soldier 2. Steve Rogers. He has this... commitment to professionalism. Not just with you, it's with pretty much everyone on the team besides Bucky which makes sense given their history, and Sam who could probably befriend a brick if he wanted to. It's not something that bothers you really, just something you've observed especially in comparison to your friendship with Sam and Bucky. He's nice and you get along as well as necessary.

You can't prove it yet, but you're sure Sam and Bucky, mostly Sam actually, are making moves to get him to open up around you. For example yesterday, kind of out of nowhere, Steve asked you if you knew how to cook because he was trying to learn and thought you'd be able to help. Why? Because Sam and Bucky 'rave about your cooking'. You've cooked for them like twice and you know Sam can throw down in the kitchen so why wouldn't he offer to help Steve? Instead, he sent him to you, and now you're helping Steve make breakfast.

"Breakfast feels like a very simplistic place to start." Steve says.

"It is simplistic. Consider it a litmus test. We're just gonna do pancakes and eggs and from that, I will figure out where to start with dinner meals and such." You say.

"What do you mean figure out where to start?"

"Well if you can't fry eggs I'm not gonna try and teach you beef wellington or pho in the next 24 hours."

"What's pho?"

"It's a Vietnamese soup, but do you get what I mean?"

"Yes! But I can fry eggs and make pancakes." Steve says with a nod.

"Then show me Stevie." You cross your arms.

"Okay, where's the pancake mix?" Steve looks around the counter.

"We don't have any. You're gonna have to do it from scratch." You smile.

"I've never done that before."

"That's okay. Here's a bowl. I'll walk you through it." You tell him. Flour, eggs, sugar, butter, milk, salt, and baking powder in appropriate proportions are mixed into the bowl with your instruction. You're not really a recipe user which, stresses Steve out just a bit, but you know what you're doing obviously and the batter turns out perfect. One at a time Steve cooks the pancakes, they're all pretty misshapen and a couple are a little burnt but overall they turn out alright. "Okay, time to scramble some eggs." You tell him grabbing another bowl. Steve cracks several eggs into the bowl with salt, pepper, and butter and pours the mixture into the frying pan.

"This I've done before."

"Good, don't burn them." You say with a pat on his arm before you start to clean up the island. A few minutes later, the eggs are done and everything is put away or in the sink to be washed.

"See? Eggs I can do."

"I gotta taste it first Rogers. I've learned not to assume that watching the process can prepare you for the final result." You say putting pancakes and eggs on a plate for yourself.

"I followed your instructions. How bad can it be?" He shrugs. You take a bite of the eggs first and they're as good as they should be.

"The eggs are good." You tell him.

"I smell breakfast!" Sam announces strutting in from the hallway with Bucky trailing behind him.

"Morning boys. Help yourself, there's enough to go around." You say.

"Morning y/n." Bucky says.

"Good morning Miss Thing." Sam winks. "Who made these pancakes they are mad wonky." Sam laughs as he grabs some.

"I did." Steve frowns.

"They might look a little funny but they taste good so I'd say you did a wonderful job Stevie." You say. You miss the way his cheeks tinge pink and the way Sam and Bucky exchange a look.

"Thanks." Steve mutters after clearing his throat. "So, you'll help teach me to cook better?" He asks.

"If you take instruction this well all the time, absolutely." You shrug. "You should eat, the spoils of your labor and all." You tell him and he's quick to make himself a plate.

And so, for weeks, you teach Steve to cook. He makes dinner almost every day to learn new things. Some days it's meals that he can do in under 20 minutes, others you pick more complicated recipes that take a couple of hours and he probably won't make them again unless he's asked to. He does better with some meals than others but he follows your directions. Honestly, better than you expected since he's so used to giving orders and not taking them. For Steve, it's about the reaction. He does like cooking with you definitely but the best part of your teaching is how you praise him every time he does something well. Apparently, your little cheers of 'good job Stevie' and 'you did so well' and whatnot are extremely good motivators.

It took even longer for you to pick up on his desire for compliments but once you did you had every intention of using it to your utmost advantage. Even outside of the kitchen, you start to slip in little approval comments where you see fit just to watch him blush and freeze up. Like tonight, during game night. The whole team is playing charades on two teams, you, Wanda, Vision, Peter, Clint, and Bucky on one while Tony, Natasha, Bruce, Thor, Steve, and Sam make up the other. The other team is up, with Bruce acting out something and everyone is shouting out answers. Eventually, Steve gets the answer, the first one he's gotten right.

"You got it! Well done Stevie!" You say leaning over the coffee table that separates you to ruffle his hair. It's an action that you've found usually results in a seemingly involuntary catlike nudging with his head.

"I'm calling a timeout!" Sam stands up. "You, come with me." Sam says to you.

"What? Why?" You ask but instead of answering Sam grabs your arm, forcing you off the floor and pulling you down the hall. "Hey! Sammy! Use your words!" You snatch your arm away from him.

"You are doing this on purpose!" He points at you with a glare.

"Doing what?" You blink at him.

"You know what I'm talking about." Sam's face scrunches up.

"It's easier to stay on the same page if you're direct." You tell him. Oh what an actor you are.

"You're distracting him!"

"Distracting who?"

"Don't play dumb with me y/n."

"Don't mince words with me Sammy." You say with a smirk. This rapid-fire back and forth is pretty common for you and Sam so you know he's not seriously angry with you over a game of charades.

"Look I don't know what you did to Steve but he cannot focus with you around! You speak and he's redder than a tomato and ten seconds from giggling like an elementary schooler dealing with his first crush and you are taking advantage of that! Stop taking advantage of it he already sucks at charades."

"I didn't do anything." You shrug.

"I'm not buying it. You know I'm not buying it, right?"

"I'm not selling anything babe." You smile.

"I hate you."

"You don't. But we should get back to the game. Everyone's waiting on us." You turn and head back to join the rest of the team. And you'd better believe you spend the rest of the night taking full advantage of Steve's newly found little weakness.

~*~*~

"So what's the deal with you and Steve?" Natasha asks. You're hanging out in your room and she's tossing grapes into her mouth.

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the fact that you talk to him like he's your pet. Are you into him or what?"

"I don't treat him like a pet!"

"I don't mean it in the literal sense y/n. But! Not a day goes by that you aren't going 'good job Stevie' or 'that's wonderful' or 'you did so well' or something like that. Why do you do that?"

"Because his reactions are adorable." You shrug.

"Okaaay but- do you like him? Like is there something there? Does he like you?"

"I have no idea if he likes me." You tell her.

"You have no idea? You haven't asked? He blushes whenever you walk into a room." Natasha scoffs.

"I think he just likes the praise."

"Let's test it!"

"Test it how?"

"Well, right now Steve and Bucky are probably in the training room. Let's go down there, and I'll find a way to throw a 'good boy' at him and see how he reacts."

"That one in particular might be a little difficult to throw out casually. Even I rarely do that one. You can probably get away with a good job or well done." You say.

"I'll see what I can do. Let's go." Nat gets up with her bowl of grapes in hand and the two of you head to the training gym to find Bucky and Steve sparring just like Natasha said they'd be.

"Geez don't you two ever take a break?" You scoff and they both stop to greet you.

"Oh hey, guys. What brings you by?" Bucky asks grabbing a towel.

"Steve catch." Natasha says throwing a grape his way. His head snaps out to catch the grape in his mouth with ease.

"Nice one Stevie. Good job." Natasha says.

"Why did you do that?" Steve asks with confusion on his face. No blush, no stuttering.

"Told ya." Natasha looks at you.

"Told ya what?" Bucky chuckles.

"Bucky your turn. Catch." Natasha tosses a grape at him. Bucky catches the grape in his hand and fixes you both with a look. "Why are you tossing fruit at us like dog treats?"

"Testing reflexes based off of a conversation we were having. Thank you for your contribution, now if you'll excuse us, we have others to test." Natasha grabs your hand and pulls you out of the training room. She waits until you're back in your room to say I told you so. "I told you so! Has less to do with the praise and more to do with you. So what're you gonna do about it?"

"We work together Nat." You say.

"So did Tony and Pepper before getting married."

"That was- kind of predatory of him actually."

"Bad example. Wanda and Vision." She offers.

"Vision's basically a sentient computer."

"My point is; working together shouldn't stop you from being happy. Do you like him?"

"Do you think he'll make a move?"

"Absolutely not. You'll have to play the first card. Do you like him?"

"Well, I'm not doing that." You shake your head.

"Why not?"

"Why bother? Things are fine, you don't mess with things that don't need messing with."

"Chicken." Natasha says.

"Worry about your own love life Romanoff." You roll your eyes.

Unfortunately for you, Natasha was not the only person interested in meddling in your affairs, and the other party happens to be much more hands-on than Natasha was. So much so that a couple of weeks after Natasha tried to push for you to make a move, you find yourself all but barricaded in your room with one super soldier.

The incessant knocking at your bedroom door had pulled you, reluctantly, from the book you were reading, thinking there was an emergency only to find Bucky holding Steve hostage behind a smiling Sam.

"I don't think I want to know what the hell is going on here but you did interrupt my reading so you'd better have a good reason." You'd crossed your arms, waiting for someone to speak.

"You two need to talk. I'm sick of watching you dance around it. We all are." Sam told you and Bucky shoved Steve into your room, forcing you out of the doorway for fear of being knocked over.

"Excuse you?!"

"We aren't letting you out until you talk it all out so everyone can stop watching this weird flirting game you've got going." With that, they pulled your door shut, and sure enough, you couldn't open it. You sat in silence with Steve for a few minutes, contemplating your options.

"I'm sorry." He eventually offers awkwardly.

"For what? You didn't lock us in here." You say.

"Not technically but it is my fault we're in this mess."

"How do you figure?" You tilt your head at him curiously.

"I get so- awkward around you. It's to the point where everyone can tell and I'm an adult there's no reason I shouldn't be able to behave normally around you."

"And what constitutes normal? Sam and I bicker, Tony and I throw insults back and forth- we're basically frenemies, Bucky likes to just sit in the same space together, Nat and I mostly gossip, Thor is always just about to crush me, I babysit for Clint, and Peter turns 15-minute stories into 90-minute retellings because his brain is in a million places at once at all times. Maybe your normal with me is blushing whenever I speak."

"You noticed." Steve grimaces.

"I didn't at first but uh- you are not exactly very subtle."

"Well- now what?" He asks.

"Now what indeed." You hum. "What is it, Stevie? Why do you feel so awkward around me? Is it because I do things like ruffle your hair or say good job? Are you just, affection starved?"

"No." He pouts.

"Don't just pout at me use your words."

"I like you." He says.

"There was that so hard? What are you gonna do about it?" You ask.

"What?" He blinks at you.

"You like me. What are you going to do about that?"

"Depends." He frowns.

"On?" You ask.

"If you like me back."

"And if I do?"

"Then, I want to kiss you." Steve says, albeit a little hesitant.

"Kiss me."

"You like me?"

"Just kiss me." You say. Steve pulls you forward and kisses you. It's soft but there's something intense about it as you drape your arms over his shoulders. Eventually, he pulls away with a content sigh. "Well done Stevie."

"Stop doing that." He groans.

"Doing what?" You step back to look at him.

"Complimenting me like that. It drives me crazy."

"I know, that's why I do it." You say and Steve fixes you with a look as he plots his next move.

"I'm- going to take you to dinner tonight." He says.

"Okay." You nod. It's then that your door swings open and Sam waltzes in.

"See how much nicer it is to just talk about things." He sighs as if he's just stepped into the sun after several hours inside.

"I'll see you at seven." Steve says. "You two are... the absolute worst together. I can't believe you." He practically drags Sam out of the room and then down the hall with Bucky in tow and you chuckle at the trio who you can hear for several minutes down the hallway. Who would've thought things could get here from a couple of compliments in the kitchen.

***

#marvel fanfiction #marvel #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers fluff #captain america fanfiction #captain america

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devilbeez · 4 months

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Let me take you through the journey of me speed running my portfolio, smile

Mostly because I need somewhere to write this and word doc wouldn’t give me feed backs

Note that this will be very wonky because I have not thought of anything but the concept— I have 1 out of 6 characters figured out so imma color code them and call them by alphabet

Concept and inspiration:

What I wrote for my portfolio: Artist’s emotion and upbringing always had been reflected in their art. So what would happen if in a world where that part is intensified for the viewer to see

What actually started this: I want sport anime type of story but with Artists. Also this scene from Ouran host club that inspired Aster don’t question why just take it.

Story:

I’m still debating on what I want to use as the final story, they both are essentially revolve around the relationship of college kids’ relationships from friends to lovers to found family and they’re all in an art club and have specialized methods and styles; graphite portraits/landscape, Abstract expressionism, animation, graphic design, Dada-esque sculpture and then there’s the one guy that can’t draw cause every art clubs always have that one member that only join to not do anything.

Plot option 1: Anne Certayn is a college kid who doesn’t know themself. They know what they’re good at— well good enough to graduate and make money, but there’s no passion in it. Anne were hoping to float through the rest of their school year so to avoid all invitations to join a club they join an art club, what they assumed to be a club they can just sleep though. Sadly, Anne new clubmates’s energy are too much for them.

Note about this plot:

Each character’s relationship with their art, e.g. Aster’s desire to be perfect and uphold his family’s legacy and all of it being reflect in his art. His art had always be something that lean heavily toward realistic in every way, dull color, proportion, reflecting how his passion and desire are tugged away for something more refined. Meanwhile his boyfriend, Carter is someone who contempt with his life and where he is, he have more abstract and colorful art reflecting how he’s putting his true self out for everyone to see, both perfect and imperfect.

Anne’s journey to find their passion for art again after a lifetime of being discouraged from being interested in art by people who told Anne to dial down any of their passion for things they don’t care for.

This is honestly a very slice of life, fluff, maybe comedy story that doesn’t have heavy lore. It just friends being pals

Plot option 2: A love story between members of a college art club.

The couples:

One of the leader (Carter) x his friend (Aster) since high school. They had been dating since first year of college but Aster had always held himself back because his family’s legacy. Their story is going to be revolving around Aster’s struggling to choose between Carter and his family because Carter’s family is not exactly on the same level as Aster’s family

Shezaraya x D no idea what will be their plot yet but D is an animator and concept art who occasionally fight with Anne because she doesn’t like how they joined without any sort of passion for art. She also sometimes fight with E who keeps riling her up by saying “digital art is not real art” without meaning it. Shezaraya is an graphic designer She’s more chill than D but she will still shit talk with her

Debating on giving E a lover(s) or not because she’s very much the agent of chaos. You ask about her love life and it would be like “oh yeah my ex almost framed me for fraud so I ended it” and if you ask her “isn’t your ex the barista down the street?” She’d go “oh not her, the other one— not the one that crashed my car because I broke up with him, the other other one”

Characters:

I have one character designed but I’m write as much as I have. Note that these are like— barely coherent concepts of the characters

Carter Wassily

- He’s the leader of the art club.

- His specialty is abstract art, specifically abstract expressionism.

- He major in marketing, minor in communications in his 3rd year.

- His design is inspired by abstract art in history; Constructivism and De Stijl

- He’s fun loving, enthusiastic about anything and everything he love. He does not afraid to put himself out there and be his truest self. He do have tendencies to get too invested in his art to the point he forgets all time and necessity he need.

- He’s dating Aster since first year of college but they know each other since high school

- He somehow didn’t know Aster is rich until last year of high school

Aster Richman (edited)

- He’s the vice president of the art club

- He’s majoring in law in his 3rd year.

- He specialized in Realism painting

- His name will be revolved around stars because I want it to come back to Carter’s tattoo

- He also have a red ring, matching Carter’s other tattoo since his family frown on tattoos

- He’s more serious than Carter. He try to be more stoic and calm though he do have his moments where Carter make him flustered or someone make him irritated. He pride himself on being good academically.

- His family is rich. Yes his name is a pun, I’m trying make all of their name a pun

- His designed was inspired by Victorian aesthetic but the palette came from realism period of art where the color is more dull then later he have an Isabella moment where his palette become lighter and less monochrome.

- He also wear glasses after his development because we really need the reverse “took off glasses and become beautiful” trope cause we had that in Cloudy with a chance of meatball and we need more of that

Shezaraya Sunshine

- She major in Music in second year.

- She specializes in Graphic Design with the style similar to Art Nouveau

- She’s dating/going to date D

- She’s the most passionate in her work after Carter

- She dream to make music and create her own album covers

- She’s similar to Carter but she’s a bit of a perfectionist when it come to her work. Other than that she’s one of the most chaotic person in the club

- She’s also very kind and optimistic

Anne Certayn

- They major in Engineer in first year.

- They have 0 artistic skill

- They lost their passion for things they like because when they was younger people tend to dismiss them or make them feel bad for being excited about things they enjoyed

- Weirdly they’re close with E the most

- She major in Communication in second year,

- She also have a few Communication classes with Carter

- She specializes in Animation with soft color and visual, reminiscing of Impressionism movement

- She’s passionate, a bit snarky, very spiteful to the people who deserve it

- She was raised to be more like Aster but she rejected that lifestyle

- Funny enough despite having the same world view of “anything can be art” as E they butt head a lot, mostly because E just like messing with her

- She absolutely hate Anne at first because how they joined the club but they bond after a while and she learn to tolerate them

- She major in Literature in third year

- She specializes in unconventional take on art, aka Dada. She mostly do mixed media and collage

- She is an agent of chaos. Little gremlin that just here to stir the plot and yet somehow she’s one of the chillest people in this club.

- She believes that anything can be art and that art have no rule but will absolutely throw that away for the sake of chaotic debate with D

- She have ex lovers….no one know how many but she have exes

#probably will fill this out later #original story #original character #concept art #concept story #devilg04

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mysticsparklewings · 4 years

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Ziggy Crossing

Still not quite sure I'm 100% back into the swing of things (posting regularly and being more present) yet, but time will tell. For now I'm testing the waters. Anyway. In the time I've been away, I ended up talking to some friends about (to the surprise of absolutely no one) Animal Crossing, and in that conversation, the idea of drawing my cat, Ziggy, as an Animal Crossing villager came up. I'd toyed with it before after seeing some other people draw their pets as villagers, and that conversation more or less sealed the deal for me to at least try it, even if my attempt didn't pan out and see the light of day. Obviously, things went pretty well because here I am posting this. The first step, as it is 90% of the time for me, was to come up with a sketch and go from there. I primarily used Olivia and Lolly [pre-existing Animal Crossing cat villagers] as my references--Olivia for the pose and eyes, Lolly for the stripes and some details regarding the ears and face--but I also checked certain things across the various cat villager models so that details could be consistent where they needed to be. I think if I missed the mark anywhere, it's probably in the proportions. Namely the size of the head and length of the body. But I think it's close enough that unless you compare it directly to Olivia's model that I referenced for the pose, the proportions aren't so off that it's distracting or off-putting. I did originally have trouble figuring out what pattern to put on her shirt though because the real Ziggy doesn't really have anything I could pull a pattern from. These days she does wear a white and silver collar, but that's not a whole lot to work with. So I left that alone while I pondered how I wanted to go about coloring the whole thing. My plan at the beginning was to use this sketch as a test piece for some acrylic paint markers I recently acquired (which you will be seeing me talk about in the future), but once the sketch was finished and I went back to check the colors I had (you know me; gotta have a swatch chart for everything), it was pretty obvious that if I want this to be my dear Ziggy and not just a random tabby cat, I needed to figure out a different coloring method. I could have just done regular acrylic paint, but that sounded like a chore and thus I was not interested. Same with gouache. Colored pencils were on the table, but the main problem I have with those is that they can be pretty slow and personally I think their texture really lends them better to replicating the 3DS/Animal Crossing: New Leaf style, as opposed to the look of New Horizons, and that's not what I was going for here. That left me with two main options: Watercolor, which was a hard pass for this kind of art (at least for Ziggy herself), and alcohol markers, which I did use quite a bit on the last Animal Crossing artwork I made, and they had worked out fairly well. Alcohol markers it was! Of course, even after that decision was made, there was the issue of how to handle the lines of the drawing. When I was planning on using the paint pens/acrylic markers/whatever, that seemed a lot simpler because, in theory, I could just use the same pen I wanted to color with to do the outlines and then fill them in. And because that would be using mostly opaque paint, if I needed to I could just cover up any overlap with relative ease. Alcohol markers don't play by the same rules though, so I had to re-think all that. In the end, I pulled out a pale warm gray Polychromos pencil close to the main color of alcohol marker that I had picked out that I figured would also be light enough to blend in everywhere else. That way I could have the defining lines that I needed without having to worry too much about them being visible in the final product. [For clarification: I picked a Polychromos because once sharpened they tend to hold a point longer and better than the other colored pencils at my disposal and I really needed to keep a sharp point as long as possible to do the lines here.] In retrospect, I do think it might have been to my benefit to pick out a pink for doing the inner ear lines, but the end result there isn't so awful that it single-handedly (paw-ed-ly?) ruins the drawing for me. It's just something to take note of for next time if there is a "next time." Once I had my lines (including doing the eyelashes and mouth with one of my usual black fineliners), the next challenge was the actual coloring. Mostly because I had to be very careful around the edges so that the marker ink didn't feather out too far (as alcohol markers do on any paper that isn't marketed as "bleed proof" because that's what bleed proof in paper actually means--not that it won't bleed through to the other side, though that is less common with that kind of paper, but that it won't "bleed" across the page), and I also had to be a little careful and choosy about how I did any blending or shading. Again, my blending and shading plan was going to be different had I used the acrylic markers. The main thing I ended up doing here was trying to find areas that needed to be layered so that the one-color shading could act as a line/barrier between sections. Best example: Where the ears meet the head, I shaded the bottom portion of the ears. You can also see this a little bit where Ziggy's tail meets her body and where the legs intersect at a few different points. By no means did this turn out perfectly, considering that I really wanted to stick to use as few colors as possible (which means pretty much all the shading is just layers of one color to darken it) which means there isn't as much distinction or variation as there could be. And I feel it necessary to note here that I was worried when I first finished the lines that the eyes looked wonky, but after coloring pretty much everything else in that concern dissolved because 1. It's harder to tell and 2. Even if they aren't exactly the same, it makes visual sense because it looks like her head is slightly turned, meaning the eyes wouldn't be identical anyway. Never underestimate the power of coloring your work in! Speaking of which, you might be wondering about her shirt by now. Well, after toying around with some ideas I got it in my head that a good way to tackle that problem might be with washi tape, as I've used it in this manner before and worked out pretty nicely. Even though it wasn't a lot to work with, I did like the idea of the base color for her top being white like the real Ziggy's collar, and that narrowed down my tape options considerably. Of the options I had that I thought would be suitable, I ended up having a choice between one with small rainbow-colored polka dots and the decidedly less vibrant small triangles that you see here. The polka dots seemed a little too peppy for Ziggy, so I went with the triangles. And this, I must say, is one of those artistic decisions that I feel even better about the longer that I see the end product. The main issue I have with using washi tape, and thus why I don't use it in this way that often, is because cutting the washi tape to fit a specific shape is a process that doesn't get much easier even with practice. And even if it did, that wouldn't eliminate the very real possibility of cutting or indenting the paper underneath while you're cutting the tape. Of which, I have not yet figured out how to totally avoid short of forming the washi tape on a separate piece of paper, cutting it there, and then moving it to the final piece. But that method comes with its own problems too, so... Still, I made the decision to go through with it here and just accept the rough edges/lack of precision and all that. Before I put the tape down though, I did do a little shading with some light gray markers that I was counting on showing through the tape to give it a little more dimension. Seeing it now, I do think I could've stood to go a little darker, but again this isn't something that totally ruins the end result for me. Just something worth noting. After all of the above, I was left with one lingering problem: The background. Which I've noticed seems to normally be a "problem" area for me in that I don't always have a solid idea for what to do with it. I did consider what exactly I wanted to do earlier on in the process, before I started on Ziggy on the final paper, even. Briefly, I thought I might cut her out and put her on a separate background as is sort of a go-to background method for me. Something just didn't feel right about doing that here though and it feels like I've done that a lot lately (you know, when I've not been drowning in mandalas for NaPoWriMo...). So it was at this early stage that I locked in the idea of adding in the background in later, probably doing something kind of loose to give a general idea that hopefully wouldn't take too much time or effort. We've already established that I wasn't super keen on the idea of using acrylic paints or gouache for this drawing, and that remained true for the background too. Although, I don't really like using alcohol markers for backgrounds either because it can be tricky to keep things smooth and consistent. That left me with colored pencils and watercolor. Colored pencils are usually hard pass for backgrounds for me for a number of reasons. So! Watercolor, hmm... I drew Ziggy here on my darling Strathmore 400 series mixed media paper because I love how it handles markers and it has enough weight and texture to it that it handles a lot of my other go-to options with little fuss. Watercolor is really the only thing I have trouble using on it, the main problem being that sometimes (not always) the paint doesn't like to blend out super smoothly and certain watercolor techniques don't work the same on it. This doesn't mean it's useless for watercolor (at least not for me), that just means I have to be more careful about how I choose to work with watercolor on it. In this case, the blending issues lined up with the idea I had of letting the background have more texture since Ziggy came out a lot smoother by the very nature of alcohol markers. Somewhere in all this, the idea struck me to use my Gelatos to leave behind some crayon-like texture. That idea seemed fitting to me since Animal Crossing is a fairly light-hearted and child-friendly game, themes that crayons go along with. The gelatos are water-soluble but not every color dissolves completely when activated with water. This should be pretty evident here because I didn't try to hide it. I wanted quick and easy, and without a doubt just letting the texture do whatever it wants is the quick n' easiest method to use with the gelatos. Once I'd done a bit of back and forth with two greens and two blues to give me the solid suggestions of a sky and ground, it still felt like it was missing something. Ultimately, it seemed like a good idea to me to try and mimic the triangle pattern/texture that New Horizons features. (In past games you could get squares or circles for a grass pattern at random.) And while I as per usual I had to think on how to go about this, in the end, the best solution I could come up with turned out to be drawing the triangles in with alcohol markers. Truly, I'm surprised to be reporting this because I fully expected the creamy nature of the gelatos to make using alcohol markers on top feel disguising and unproductive. But not so! At least not with the limited gelato use here. The creamier areas do soften the color of the marker, but I think that worked to my advantage. Although, I did end up using a little bit of my yellow Moonlight gel pen because I felt like I needed some yellow triangles for balance and I knew transparent yellow markers wouldn't do what I wanted. But that brings us to the final product. I'm happy with it. And I do really like how the grass ties in with Ziggy's green eyes. It's just a nice little touch of visual cohesion in my book. As I always say, I'm sure it's not perfect and there are some missteps here and there or things that could be improved. Nevertheless, it was a fun experiment and serves as good encouragement for me to continue playing with the lineless look, among other things. I do have to note though that it feels super weird to just leave the eyes like this with no indication of shine on them! I made the choice not to since it's not a common trait with the official character models (at least not for eyes in this same style) but part of me still feels like it's incomplete. As I've said before recently and I'll probably say again, I can't promise I'll be getting back to a regular upload schedule now, but it's on my mind. I want to get to that point soon. I do have the acrylic markers I mentioned to talk about and another supply in the mail, and some other art in my backlog. So if you can be patient with me a while longer, there will be more from me to look forward to. In the meantime, please be kind to yourself and others. ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

#animalcrossing

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sternerstufftoys · 4 years

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Son’s Streaker

Standard disclaimer: The theme of this week's reviews is the worst toys in my collection. If you enjoy these toys, great! It is not a personal attack on you or your tastes. Not everything you love has to be good, and you are not defined by the quality of the things you like. Essentially, you don't need to defend your honour on someone else's view of plastic robot men.

Oh ho, what an irony that the vainest of the Autobots ended up with the ugliest of the Combiner Wars moulds. Lad must have been fuming, I tell thee. I mean, there's a lot to like about Sunstreaker's general design. He's got those great big ear thingies, so he'll always stand out, he's got the canopy chest, he turns into a swish sports car and he's got that turbo thingy on the roof, so yeah, he's a Good Boy. Just not here.

He's also had a good turnout in fiction over the years, even though he quickly vanished into the background in the cartoon when Tracks showed up, and was one of the assumed off-screen casualties of the Movie, but both Dreamwave and especially IDW gave him plenty of page time. Sure, he definitely deserved a better finale to his relationship with Hunter O'Nion, but it's not like he vanished from the series after that, even if he generally took a more background role again.

I'm stalling, aren't I? I'm trying to avoid having to talk about the toy. I don't have anything to say about the character at all, but I'm trying to stretch it out like he's some fiction megastar like I've covered in the past. No Thunderwing he.

Alright, let's do this. The CW Breakdown mould is hands down the worst of the bunch. CW was generally a smash hit, giving fully-functional versions of (almost) all the classic combiner teams, as well as a few oddities along the way. But while the Stunticons yinned with the superb Dead End, they yanged hard with Breakdown. And then it only got worse when it was done in yellow as Sunstreaker. Because while Breakdown was lumpy and wonky, it did still look like Breakdown. Sunstreaker just... doesn't.

For starters, there's too many right angles. Almost everywhere one line meets another on this toy it takes a sharp 90 degree turn. Once or twice wouldn't be a problem, but here they're everywhere. Point of comparison, just today I had my first experience with the Prime Wheeljack mould, and it's astonishing how much better this works, and not a single right angle to be had anywhere. And if the Dead End mould could pull it off, why not this one?

Second, the proportions are off. The torso goes on for days in every direction, the chest juts out hard, the legs look piddly and stumpy by comparison, with the weedy little arms dangling down uselessly despite perfectly adequate joints. Third, the head and shoulders don't line up. It's funny how often this can cause problems with a figure, and it's not always something you notice at first.

I do like that his turbo charger thingy is made from the hand-foot-gun doodad, and it sits comfortably on his back. This is good! It looks Sunstreaky! It sticks out way too far, obviously, but it's trying. It looks even better in car mode, and definitely has the most effective way of keeping the HFG around out of any CW character (other than Brawl). His other accessory, a sort of gunblade thinger, is less successful. When did Sunny Streak ever use a swor- oh forget it. Like it even matters. After all that praise for the HFG the sword just gloms on the side of the car mode as an afterthought, which of course it is.

But here's the kicker. These issues are actually forgivable. I didn't think they were, but then I met Unite Warriors Lightspeed, who uses the slightly-altered design for CW Wheeljack, but is mostly improved by having much tougher and better quality plastic. Sunstreaker by comparison may as well have been made from the spare yellow scraps left over from all those Bayverse Bumblebees that were accumulating in factory waste bins. It's somehow too yellow, with a slight sheen of translucency that makes details just sink away into a bland mess if they're not picked out in paint. It's the same problem that affect Megatron in Titans Return and Apeface's white bits in Siege, only this time in yellow.

Lightspeed wears this mould reasonably well. G2 Breakdown is also just about acceptable, though this is mostly due to his ludicrous shell suit deco. But other than that, this is an ugly mould that just doesn't work as a Transformer toy. There's decent odds for Sunny Delight here to make a comeback in Earthrise, though this is only an educated guess, nothing more. But if he does, I'll be ready to upgrade. I don't often say that either.

#transformers #macaddam #toy review #sunstreaker #combiner wars #the absolute worst

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mattyunf · 3 years

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Crit #1: Wire Project (3D Design) Football Helmet - Matthew Williams

Hello! My name is Matthew Williams and I have made a football helmet out of wire for a project in my 3D Design class. First we have to do research on different things made out of wire. It was interesting to see what exactly you could make out of wire and it inspired me to make something like it. (here are some examples I found before I started)

The Examples were really neat to look at. It’s interesting to see how an individual wire can create a unique shape. Though it isn’t the most realistic looking I really enjoy looking at the dress example. Using a wire hanger is a really nice addition to the whole piece and I love how it flows.

As a student who has never used Wire in my life, I was wondering exactly how hard it could be to even make something out of wire. We started with a simple cube. And wow I did horrible I didn’t even use the correct wire which made things even more complicated. But the fact I struggled with a cube meant that making my proposed Helmet would be nearly impossible.

Well the Cube was horrible. And we didn’t have too much time in between to really keep practicing, it was simply time to start on the Helmet. I had no idea where to begin with it but I began trying to make the facemask and then eventually connecting it to the rest of the helmet. I put nearly 2 full days into it all and it looked horrible. So bad that I got a 50% on my progress check.

(I used a Florida Gator Helmet because I didn’t care if it got ruined #GoDawgs) Not great, honestly laughable at how bad it looks. I didn’t even use the right wire again, I spent like $40 on the wrong wire and I was too stubborn to use the correct wire for some reason. I was supposed to use double twisted wire and and use pliers to tie down the knots. I don’t think I used Pliers to tie down anything, honestly I have no idea what or why I did that. But after going into the shop for some help I felt like I started to understand how to do it. I actually made measurements and figured out exactly how much wire I needed. Some of my classmates gave me advice as well and I began to start on version 2 of the first helmet.

I started with the face mask again and I was pretty happy with it. I think using the measurements was a massive help and the double twisted wire was a lot more stable. I think my only problem with the twisted wire was cutting it. I think I might’ve been using terrible wire cutters but eventually I got it to cut. I also had a little bit of an issue with tying the wire down on some areas. But, eventually I started on the rest of the helmet. I think I spent around another 2 whole days trying to put it all together for another progress check, which was for around 90% completion (I was pretty far behind since I had to restart). But, I soon finished up and submitted whatever I had so far:

The knots weren’t great and the proportions were pretty bad but it was a bit rough for me for some reason trying to meet the 18″ requirement. I think since it’s a much larger size than a regular sized helmet it’s always gonna look a bit off. I tried my best with the Georgia log but I ended up running out of wire so I just turned in whatever I had. Overall I think it was pretty on par with the rest of the class and that’s all I could’ve hoped for.

And there it is! After way too many hours of using pliers and wire I felt like I was finally finished. I think the proportions are still wonky but I was mainly focused on the knots and wow are they annoying. I think this is the first and last wire related project I ever want to be a part of, it was way too time consuming, the material sucks to work with and I just get annoyed looking at it honestly. I think I tried my best and that’s all I can really hope for. I know i’m being a bit down on myself but this just was a very very frustrating process.

Answer These Questions:

(What struggles did you have with the work?) - I really had a hard time with just simply wanting to do the project, It was frustrating and I felt like I just wasn’t getting it right and I hope to never do something like this again.

(What successes did you have with the work?) - I think the only success I had was basically finishing it, I think the only positive is that it looks like a football helmet and you can tell what it is supposed to be.

(What did you learn from this project - new skills, new techniques, new ways of thinking, time management, how to scale up an object, etc.) - I think I just needed to be less stubborn throughout the whole process, it was not enjoyable and I feel like the only cool thing I learned was twisting the wire, I think that’s about it to be honest. I tried to get this done but with work and 4 other classes this was just wayyyy too much for me. I honestly feel so relieved to be done with it.

I know I sound like i’m whining the whole time doing it but I really struggled with it and I’m just trying to show that I really tried hard on it. I am proud of it, I just think I could’ve done better.

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