I love your RW art month tiles. What art program do you use and how do you get those really clean textures and shapes?
I use PaintToolSai, both 1 and 2- but most of the drawing gets done in SAI1 since I couldn't get my brushes to import right for 2. Its an extremely bare bones program all things considered (Sai2 less so, it has a bit more tool-wise, but I only draw in it if i *have* too or for minor stuff) so its nothing really fancy being employed, everything geometric I do just by using a self made grid to measure out shapes like you would a piece of paper.
Literally its just a measured out grid of like... 50 by 50 px squares with cross sections? I just paste it as needed and draw the lines around it and since the measurements are consistent it just works.
my default pen is already "crunchy" so being perfectly matched isnt a huge deal, and you can general paste and rotate to make it look a little cleaner. Honestly I've used this same grid for forever (and it was off by like one pixel at one point lol) its just really useful for quick matching things for a program that doesn't have stuff built in for lining things up
As for the textures, those are all default to SAI (I think?). The brush I use lightly uses of fabri (which mostly just makes the edges of the brush grainier) and then I usually also put some various level of a layer texture overlay thats just one of SAI's default 'watercolor' textures. It mostly just adds a little bit of a noise/grain effect. Heres that on max
For ArtMonth itself I just draw out a tile canvas using the grid with all the layers broken up- then I just reuse it over and over as needed. There's probably smarter ways to do it, but eh it works
And yeah, theres just two borders. One for the bottom and one for the top, makes it easy to make something that goes 'in and out' of the tiles without having to think to much. Just snip as needed
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It's incredibly tough because we no longer have social media that's suitable for fandom interactions the way livejournal was. Individual journals + interest communities which could be easily locked/unlocked as you wanted. People had to search out what they wanted etc. Twitter and tumblr just can't do it (and let's not even mention tiktok)
ITS KIND OF SAD......... i was never really on livejournal when i was younger bc i was like 10 and did not know what the internet was capable of offering but even just being on deviantart in the early 2010s gave me a strong sense of community and support...... just a bunch of hobbyists doing their own little things and joining those groups deviantart had was alot of fun for lil kid me!
the best substitute we've got for livejournal these days is like. discord. but thats so annoying especially when theyre specifically locking content behind a discord invite since many of us may not even know if we vibe there!! and its intimidating to be thrown into a group chat with people who already have established bonds ONTOP of not even knowing if youll get along😭
while i think tumblr is relatively good for fandom posting and such i definitely wouldnt call it the best place to make friends with similar interests...... since its hard to really like. have actual conversations with people on here since the ask feature is pretty one-sided, tags arent meant to be responded to a majority of the time, the comments feature barely gets used and the dms system is wonky as hell. and twitter is just a cesspool of reactionary people who dont think before they tweet and are just waiting to make their next callout post, but god is it a good place to hold a conversation and bond with people................ you just cant win these days huh
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I've always really wanted to make music (almost all of the 250 notes on my phone are lyrics I've been compiling for months and there were hundreds more on my other phones that are lost forever now) but I've been so scared and idk why. I should just do it because I think I'll regret not doing it but there's so many things I'm scared of.
I feel overwhelmed when people talk about making music and it sounds so hard and like their process is so intense and requires so much knowledge and equipment and and *insert x thing they need here* and I'm over here, recording a bit of audio on my phone and trying my best with pre-made instrument loopers on a free app. Idk, it's like somehow people convinced it can't be easy or I'm doing it wrong and I honestly still don't know if they were right or not
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people say the home is where the heart is. brad knows it's bullshit, though.
home is where you feel safe.
and the only place brad can feel truly safe is his car. whether it's his old beat up silver 2006 toyota corolla or his shiny new white 2020 audi rs 3, he spends more time in his car than his apartment.
well, when he's not sick, at least.
brad bought his corolla new back in 2006. it was his first car, and he still affectionately refers to it as "ol reliable" even though it's pushing 410k miles. the car's nearly undrivable now - there's something wrong with the transmission and the car rattles suspiciously when he drives faster than 60mph in it, but he keeps it anyway because it's the only non-living thing he's ever been attached to. that old car got him away from his father and zack, after all. he saved for years to buy it.
because the thing is - cars are safe. which is ironic, because people die in their cars far more than they die in their homes. but they aren't murdered in their cars. well, not frequently, at least. brad knows that zack knows his address. no matter how often brad moves, zack has always known his new address in a matter of weeks. brad's given up on constantly uprooting his life to hide from the inevitable.
but there isn't a paper trail to follow when brad is in his car. he can drive as long and as far as he wants, and no one can follow him or stop him. that was part of his reason for getting his current car - he knows zack can't afford a faster car than he has, so theres zero chance of zack stalking and hurting him when he's driving. not to mention the fact that brad doesnt have any neighbors when he's driving around, so he can blast his music as loud as he wants and scream when he's pissed off and no one will ever hear or know. it's a great release.
brad isnt a car guy. he's only owned two cars throughout his entire life. but he would rather die than be carless. thats another reason he kept his corolla when he got his audi - one day, his audi may be in need of repair or something that requires it to be taken into a shop, and brad doesnt feel comfortable without an escape plan. better safe than sorry, after all.
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i think its a little weird and unreasonable to act like people not only have to do the right thing of being kind, patient, understanding etc but also consistently feel good about those things. like … i can be kind to and play with my niece and nephew and support them even when they’re annoying me, because they’re kids and it’s my responsibility as an adult to be kind to them & i can recognise that my annoyance is my problem and not theirs. i can be annoyed at my adhd friend for forgetting or being late to our plans while still understanding that those actions don’t come from a place of malice, and work out those issues out together calmly & respectfully while still being kinda pissed about it, because i’m an adult capable of having an emotional response and then choosing not to act on it. what i’m not capable of doing is forcing myself to be happy about situations that inconvenience me or are objectively exhausting or frustrating. i as a human being am obligated to act a certain way and to treat ppl with kindness and respect even if i don’t want to. and i do and will continue to do so! but you can’t force people to feel things they don’t naturally feel lol and it’s childish to act like you can or like somebody’s a bad person for feeling an emotion they can’t control
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