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cleverangelwasteland · 3 years

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The story of X and social media

X loved to draw since they were a child . X bought pencils , coloring books when they were young and they did everything they can to draw everyday. X was happy . Also X was proud and showed people their work .

X’s work was far from good but still they were content . Then in 2012 a platform called amino was created. X was sharing their work and getting feedback . X was still happy. Later on that year an app called Instagram launched .X was skeptical but at the same time excited to use this new platform . X posted everyday , and even though they started with 10-15 likes they were improving . Fast forward to the end 2015, X is no longer very young and have a message they want to convey in art .X started to get criticism about anatomy which they took well and asked for help in anatomy . X and X’s sensei ( the helper they met online ) had body drawing lessons daily for the entirety of 2016 and 2017 . X drew poses , shapes , studied the anatomy of the body , the muscles , read books and watched many many videos . X even posed for the drawings to see if the pose works . X was happy they were learning something . Also X would repeat the same pose many times and would split the body to shapes and boxes and would practice along late hours along with schoolwork so basically X’s day was full with little time to sleep. X also memorized the muscles and read many anatomy books like the anatomy for sculptors . They also learned loomis method for faces and these 2 years were just practice to the point that x drew 300 drawings in a month between poses and copied work so X can get a better learning perspective.

Opposite to X’ s sensei’s opinion , X decided to recheck on their Instagram which they haven’t done in 2 years . Not even once. X drew something and posted it while being proud of their improvement but they got way less engagement than what they had before .X was still not discouraged and decided to try again so they did a drawing that shows everything they learned , using a full body pose with an angle and shading . basically everything they could do and spend a long time working on what they thought was their masterpiece .

X uploaded and got a comment , which they hastily checked . The comment said the following : “ You suck , I’ll go away to clean my eyes , your drawings should be used as memes .”

X was heartbroken , ofc they were sad and they discussed it with sensei who said that is why they were against reopening X’s instagram account . But X is so used to not getting their way in life , that they decided to go on with it . X posted a few things and some comments were “ your anatomy sucks , study anatomy .”X felt like someone punched them and said to themselves “ But this is what I have been doing for the past 2 years .” X thought : “ I quit here , I quit what I already had just to study anatomy and that is the result?!” Still one of X’s work was featured by a big page and got 1K likes.

Nonetheless X still got back to drawing . Sensei suggested that X draws more real life drawings so X started drawing from a show that was starting called “ game of thrones “ X drew women , men , creatures , objects , perspective and would still repeat it until it looks right and would ask their old art circle to fix-doodle on their work . X felt like they have a huge bag of knowledge and a 3D camera in their head . If X focuses and closed their eyes they could see the human body from different angle realistically . Sometimes that sumo wrestler X drew to broaden their knowledge on body types would haunt them in their nightmares.

X stayed like this till 2019 . Forgot to say X was bullied ( back in 2014 )at school , made fun of and always alone. X wasn’t liked and that is where X’s habit of pleasing everybody triggered . X did whatever everyone else wanted eventhough they weren’t included in their activities and was a cast out.

X cleaned the gym area. X picked up stray balls in sports class . X made sure to please the teachers . X signed up to everything just to feel a sense of achievement . X was unhappy and no longer had the time to draw. X then bought a digital drawing tablet as they can no longer carry their art supplies around when they were in college .

X drew everywhere . In the breaks , lunch break , just name it and they’ll be drawing. X even met someone who took a course in the art department and offered to do their art homework as the other party was struggling. The other party got a 96/100 and came back thanking X . X felt a bit of validation like maybe their work is worth something debunking X’s thought about maybe being delusional . X suddenly grew quicker on social media , Not so big but since 2012 to 2018 they only had 400 followers so less than a follower a week . X suddenly jumped to 600 affirmating to them that at least they are doing something right . Previously X joined a drawing circle in their local community . And they were treated as non existent so the notion of building an audience was something new to X . They never had friends or any kind of support and they didn;t believe someone would take the time to comment on their work . Still X was still getting more and more comments about anatomy making X wonder where did they go wrong , so they decided to go back to square one and have a new anatomy study month .X went to youtube , discord servers and reddit s well as more anatomy tutorials by established artists and more books .

X would get a skeleton and lower its opacity then draw above it all the muscles shapes ( not their name really ) from memory . X compared it with the scientific schematic and found it very similar . Later on that year and after 7 years +of actively drawing , X got their first commission , at first they refused to be paid as if they weren’t open for commissions but the commissioner insisted . later on X did a few commissioned work and a customer was so happy they paid extra . This kind of boosted X’s self esteem as they were having a hard time . Forward to 2020 X did many commissions but it is the year where everyone keeps commenting on X’s work “ Go study anatomy , you lack in the basics , you look like you just started “ . X felt a big stab in the back as during those 8 years they have been active in , X studied anatomy solely for a total of 2 years and a year in short term practices . X went back and forth to the basics so many times and didn’t skip a day of practice.

X’s mental health and self esteem quickly deteriorated as they would leave social media then realize they need it to make money and come back to it . X haven’t had a commission in a while which is another blow to their self esteem.

Also X refused a job offer to draw for an animation which will be broadcasted due to the blow to their self esteem.

Also X saw online many artists making so much money by selling art where there are clear anatomical flaws and they get all the love and positive comments unlike X . X started doubting their eyes , thinking “ maybe I am really delusional “ ... Some of those artists have edgy scribbled lines in their lineart , really high eyes leaving no space for the cranium , drawing side views without thinking of the thickness of the body and drawing ears way below the ear zone . sometimes far eyes so the eyes reach the “ forbidden ear zone” necks starting from after or before the ears , people not taking into consideration the the deltoid muscle is like a “ cap “ above the biceps and so on . But these people were more popular than X and made more money/ were very successful .

X didn’t understand why they were getting the anatomy comments and why these other people were not. X felt that they cannot use their knowledge anywhere but still felt that they know a lot .X feels like their knowledge deserves more and that all the pride they felt knowing this much doesn’t deserve this . X changed their style and anatomy 20 times this year and experimented with everything but they couldn’t please everyone and more and more people tell X their improvement looks a day old not years old when they post redraws.

X lost pride in their work and the joy in drawing because of how social media and the unfairness of its algorithms affect them , instead of making really good artists popular it made a message that you need to have luck and not really the basic skills and that you could get away by tracing or copying.

Now X sent this to this account as they are asking for help , they deactivated everything and are sitting there just with knowledge and 8 years of efficient hard work betraying them .X lost their friends , their family and all support they could have . X asked the mod to share their story so others are aware how social media functions for artists and how many people are quitting because of it . Send us your story so we could feature yours too for awareness.

#art #artist #art struggles #artstruggles #popular #story #confession #instagram #algorithm

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steve0discusses · 5 years

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Yugioh S3 Ep 43: Tea Can Just Knock Over Joey Wheeler With Her Index Finger

Guys guys guys, my favorite Character is back. That’s right--the storyboarder!

So this episode looked helllla nice for a Yugioh episode (again, this is Yugioh, it will win no awards.) It wasn’t as nice and fluid as the episode where they temporarily killed off Joey Wheeler, but I give it a good 2nd place.

You can tell we’re getting to the climax of the season because they’re throwing down their most entertaining art people onto the screen, giving us about 5 zillion dutch angle fashion close-ups of Marik’s cabbage face, and a whole lot of zany and hard to very hard to draw fish-eye lens angles of Pharaoh.

Also, everyone wears flared bell-bottom pants now. New stylistic decision, as decided just now. Everyone in pants now has flares. Even if their pants are cargo pants. How very 00′s. (my pants were flares from like birth until 2006, it was a good trend, super comfy, bring it back.)

(read more under the cut)

First off, Evil Marik decided to rewrite Marik history a little bit with some hilarious retconning that only the most evil Marik would think is legit.

I mean I was there when Marik was introduced and was a complete asshole all of S2. I remember when Odion considered murdering the hell out of his little brother because this Marik guy was such freakin tool and his Dad was an evil cultist bastard. I...I’m gonna go on a limb and assume that calling Marik a “loyal servant” is a freakin stretch. Marik made his choices. Yes, his bad side killed his Dad, but they have made sure to indicate that yes, this is the evil inside of Marik, something that he himself caused--but most of the things that Marik has done (with the exception of killing his own Dad) is still Marik. He did that.

The fact that his evil side can’t quite connect that his good side and evil side are at all the same however, is fitting for an evil Marik to think. More and more, Marik and Marik are becoming 2 different people, and this game is the deciding factor to finally give this guy full autonomy of his other half.

We’ve seen this type of contrast before with Bakura and Ryou--where Ryou and Bakura don’t really get along but have always been clearly different people, so the culpability of what they do tends to fall on Bakura. (which is a pretty GRAND assumption, I still think Ryou is a precious but absolutely still shady little bastard) So, it’s a little different that Marik considers himself two completely different people when it’s just...not the same. Marik’s alter ego is just an ego. More like how Yami was in Season Zero but a little bit more evil. Both Marik’s have the same upbringing and the same source.

It’s been kind of an interesting progression now I can look back on it, where slowly the two have been clashing to the point that they are in fact different, disparate people now. The fact that Marik points out how his situation similar to Yugi and Pharaoh being a host is almost like “well yeah, it would have been nice to see how the whole Season Zero Yami evolved into more of a separate person over time, I’m glad you inferred that, and I’ll never get to see it, thanks” But again, all that is inferred. Whether Yami Yugi eventually became Pharaoh over time or whether Pharaoh is a big retcon of Yami Yugi for the new series in order to keep the culpability for what he does off of Yugi Muto was never directly spoken in the show so it’ll be left to your fanfictions.

Meanwhile, Yugi has decided that they’re going to try and purify the Marik situation and save the good side. This is sort of the Yugioh thing, to dispel the bad forces from people and leave behind hollow husks, so yeah...it tracks. I mean...there’s very little Marik left to save, but it’s better than a husk, amiright? Better than what happened to freakin PaniK, RIP. I’m sure erasing over half of your identity will go over real well for Marik and be absolutely painless.

And then we had a lovely scene that, for those people doing scene redraws from anime, as has been a popular trend on art blogs lately--this is your episode for Yugioh. This episode’s got moody lighting, we’ve subdued all our weird ass colors into one concrete palate (remember how green the carpet used to be?) we got interesting elements of Marik being here despite being chopped into pieces. We got so many ellipses drawn in perspective (y’all I could write an entire posts just about ellipses but I’ll spare you). It’s like Yugioh gave itself a redraw.

I can’t believe this shot came out of freakin Yugioh.

Also, this guy was an ASSHOLE for the past 2 seasons but the show was like “time to make him likeable” and so they dropped some good ass cinematography and sung that sad backstory tune on the trumpet and you know what? It works.

+++++++++++++++RANT ABOUT REDEMPTION ARCS FEEL FREE TO SKIP THIS MASSIVE WALL OF TEXT++++++++++++++++++++++++

Now I think the arc of Marik is pretty simple and people are pretty chill with it. But, I’m gonna talk about villain redemption arcs just in general--gonna sidetrack a little from Yugioh for a moment. Partly because I watched 6 seasons of Once Upon a Time, which is basically Villain Redemption Arc Controversy: The Show.

It bothers a hell ton of people when TV shows have to make a villain redeemable, but there’s only one episode left so they put their hands up and say “but I swear the good side of him was always good” But, does that mean Marik’s going to make up for all the murder and sending people to the shadow realm? No. He never will. Even if Marik was completely his bad half the whole time, it still wouldn’t make up for the damage done. Dead people are...DEAD.

Marik can’t actually make any choices right now to redeem his character. All he’s doing is accepting he will never be a full person ever again. Hence why he is in slices and pieces, and in several shots is trapped either in an empty glass or a window. The choice to redeem him is entirely on other people.

And that’s the thing about redemption arcs that I want to bring up--how much of a character’s redemption relies on what the villains do to “Make up for what they did”, and how much relies on everyone else to redeem them. I think the tendency is for people to assume that the villains should be doing 90-100% of the redeeming, but unless they have a time machine--they can’t do any. Even if they freakin die to sacrifice themselves it’s still like “that character was basically little Stalin, right?

I’ve seen like a million ways to write a redemption arc, but none of them, not a single one that I can think of, can ever truly make up for the things the villian has done. There’s no way that Darth Vadar was suddenly going to become a good Dad, no matter how many Palpatines he can toss into a...whatever that was at the end of that movie. That’s the riddle behind what makes redemption arcs so engaging--By all cultural standards these villains should always be tagged a “bad guy” but, we, the audience, are being challenged to ignore those standards.

And I know a lot of people see redemption arcs as a quasi-religious sort of adventure into atonement, where we’re supposed to see ourselves as the villain searching for some type of forgiveness from a higher, most-likely-a-reference-to-Jesus-power, but I don’t really see them that way. Maybe it’s because, I dunno, I haven’t killed anyone recently or possessed other people’s minds or strung them up to anchors and dropped them into the ocean. But if you see yourself as a Marik, then go for it, I won’t stop you.

But, to me, a redemption arc is more of a question posed for us as viewers. Since it is impossible for the writers to ever fully redeem a character, the only ones doing the redeeming are the people watching it, who’s reaction will differ wildly from person to person, and that’s what makes it fascinating.

And like, that’s my thesis here at the very last paragraph of this long meandering rant. Redemption arcs aren’t about “hey is this person good enough to be redeemed (because that will never happen)” it’s “are you too good to redeem that person?” It’s a large scale experiment on the viewers watching and that’s why it makes people so freakin pissed and uncomfortable. Every redemption arc calls them out directly, and for some people it’s just like--the world ends or something. I have seen actual internet mobs develop over...a villain redemption arc. Which is weird.

And so I’ll leave it with my other spicy take that...you don’t have to redeem every villain when the question is asked. I mean these aren’t real people. The questions of “would you redeem this person” is asked entirely hypothetically. And that’s what makes up stories, not just the interaction of the people inside the stories, but when it affects the moral structure of the readers directly, and seeing how for some people, that can be a very intense and deep reflection. (which usually leads to a hell ton of either retconning fanfiction or a hell ton of really, really angry posts)

bro’s just told me that Yugioh is just a redemption arc for season 0 Yami Yugi. Bro and his spicy headcanons. This one holds some water though, lol.

++++++++++++END OF A SUPER LONG RANT ABOUT VILLAINS THAT I HELD IN FOR THE ENTIRE 6 SEASONS OF ONCE UPON A TIME, WOW A LOT OF PEOPLE HAD OPINIONS ABOUT CERTAIN CHARACTERS THAT THEY JUST EXPECTED EVERYONE ELSE TO HAVE, AMIRIGHT????+++++++++++

Anyway, back to jokes.

Again, Storyboarder just...nailing these weird ass shoes that are somewhere between a dress shoe and a boot. Shoes are hard to draw, y’all. This storyboarder. And they even made sure that the shoes looked very small and precious the way Yugi shoes would be. Little Cinderella size 5 Yugi shoes.

Oh finally.

So it was only a matter of time before the people who actually care about being possessed noticed this situation, it just took like...a season longer than I thought it would. I’ll be honest it was quite cathartic for them to actually address for the first time in what feels like a long time “SHOOT, GHOSTS!?!?”

Although it was kind of funny that the biggest reaction to all of this came straight from Joey. Yugi still doesn’t care, Tristan’s decided to just accept this, and Duke is just slowly backing away. But Joey’s going to try and do the work that Yugi should have done last episode.

HOT DAMN.

So, lets go over the Yugioh power chart here. Tristan can punch out Bakura. Tristan can also defeat Seto Kaiba with a broomstick. Joey can kick Tristan, even when Tristan is armed with a broomstick, so hard that Tristan flew through a metal door and bent it completely over backwards. Tea, however, can knock Joey completely over with one single index finger.

How has this girl ever been abducted? Was she just bored?

Bro wants to bring up that she once incapacitated a man with her butt. Just falling on top of a guy and hitting him with her butt of steel. Was she even in danger from the shipping container when she could just bat it away? She once choked out Season 0 Yugi Muto. She was always fine.

Credit to Joey, he keeps trying, and it gives us, for the first time, a sneak peek into what it must be like for Yugi and Joey to hang out on the offtimes that Yugi switches over and Pharaoh hasn’t quite gotten the memo.

This is in fact, the second time that she’s done this.

(meanwhile, sitting next to Odion, is one single cargo pocket floating in the air, gently smoking a purple haze like incense)

Welcome back Odion! I only now just realized how freakin jacked your neck is.

Like y’all his neck is wider than his head, hot damn.

Anyway, this show is secretly all about the power of big brothers, so I assume he’s going to start the mile long crawl to the top of the tower and then just...walk in...just walk right into a shadow game...?

...no one thought to stay with Odion? Like not even Serenity? Or at least leave him a weelchair? what the hell?

Odion always gets the worst wrap, this poor guy.

Anyway if you just got here, this is a link to read these recaps in chrono order from the beginning and watch my progression of knowing nothing about Yugioh to knowing a lot about random facts about Yugioh but still knowing absolutely nothing at all just like Socrates.

And here’s that shot of Marik for y’alls anime scene redraws, knock yourself out.

#Yugioh #ygo #episode recap #photo recap #S3 ep 43 #Yugi Muto #Marik Ishtar #Tea is possessed again #Tea Gardner #Odion ishtar #Ishizu Ishtar #Joey Wheeler #Duke Devlin #Tristan Taylor #Seto Kaiba #man alive why do I list all the characters all the time there are so many characters #guest appearance by this wonderful storyboarder

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littlemisssquiggles · 5 years

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Hey squiggle meister. What're your thoughts on the flood of people on YouTube who are constantly ranting about the series. And how it's dead after Monty died, and how it's so much worst than before. Etc etc

Tobe honest with you Key, I really don't want to answer this question.I mean it's alright that you asked and I'm going to answer you however I'mgetting a strange sense of deja vu here. Wasn't it not too long ago that youasked me to give my opinion on a similar condition that was happening pre-V6?

Thiswas the issue back then and yet here we are again. You may wanna grab yourselfa snack and settle in because this is going to be one long response post. Let’s just say,this squiggle meister had a lot to let off her chest regarding this particulartopic in the FNDM:

Ihave actually had a small listen to some of these critiques on YouTube and toput it bluntly, I couldn't bring myself to finish most of them. I am a RWBY fan whoalways advocates respecting each other’s opinions regardless of whether or notwe share the same sentiments about the series. I am also a RWBY fan whounderstands that the series is not a flawless show and has suffered more than its fairshare of shortcomings throughout its last arc trilogy.

Nevertheless, in spiteof this, I’ve also acknowledged some noteworthy improvements in the quality of the show that honestly deserves more praise.As someone who has been with this series since its humble beginnings, I have beenthere for each transformation the show has undergone and in doing so, I haveseen RWBY evolve.

Whilesome of the show’s changes haven’t entirely been welcomed by its fandom (withits main change being something completely out of the showrunners’ control) I’dbe lying if I said these changes didn’t contribute to the show’s success insome shape or form.

Speakingfor myself, initially RWBY earned my attention because, like most RWBY stans, Iwas a fan of Monty Oum before and when I discovered that he had his own seriesproduced by RoosterTeeth, I was interested. I didn’t care what the story wasabout or what it looked like. All that mattered to be me back then was that itwas something from the creative mind of Monty Oum so I expected somethingepically action-packed.

At the start, I joinedthe RWBY fandom becauseof Monty however as the seriesprogressed, my reasoning for sticking with it and staying loyal to the showtranscended my past loyalty to the franchise as a by-product of anartist/animator I admired so much.

Thisbrings me to my main point. You want my honest thoughts onthe YouTube RWBY Rants, Key? To be frank, I’m tired of it. It is exhausting listeningto the tirades of these proclaimed RWBY YouTube reviewers who do nothing butgripe and express their disdain for everything the show does wrong according totheir standards. I am so fed up of seeing this happen time and time again.

Andwhat’s sad is that I don’t think part of this is even due to the show or theCRWBY’s fault. Do you know you are more likely to find a video shitting on RWBYas opposed to one that genuinely outlines its positive elements or at leastpresents a fair and just constructive argument of the good and bad of the show?Do you know how many RWBY hate videos the YouTube algorithm has recommended to mesince V6 concluded? It’s ridiculous.

ButI also know I can’t do anything to stop it. So long as RWBY exists, there willalways be these so-called ---I guess we can call them the ‘hate parade’ type of fans who wait like vultures to a carcass to pick apartthe show whenever a new season comes out.

Anddo you know what the sadder part about watching these videos is?

Thesevideos try to give the allusion thatthey are coming from a practical standpoint---as if the things they’repointing out in their reviews are genuine problems with theshow and that their personal advice to the showrunners are valid enough torectify these problems they indicated about RWBY.

Herein, lies my personal peeve with these types of reviews. The best kind of criticto me is one who can point out a flaw in something, justify why they believesaid thing is a clear flaw and then use their own understanding to outlinetheir concept for a possible solution to that flaw that they respectfully leaveopen to the creators of said property to take their advice or not.

However,this is not the case with these YouTube RWBY Rants; at least from the few I’veviewed. I’ll admit, there are some genuinely good RWBY Reviewers on YouTube. Ofthe top of my head, Thatkaitodan, MurderofBirds are two and believeit or not, I actually like some of EruptionFang’s reviews from time to time. Imay not always agree 100% with everything he says in his breakdowns but in myopinion, I can’t get too mad at the things he says in his reviews/video essaysbecause he’s able to justify it in a manner that I’m able to see where he’scoming from. Even if that justification comes from a place of unbridled rage.Referring to EF, I know he’s been receiving flak from FNDM members regardinghis recent views on Adam’s conclusion and Bumblebee; however if I’m beingcompletely honest here, I feel some of that bashing is unwarranted.

Inall fairness to EF, at least I’m able stomach his opinions a lot better than thatof other RWBY Youtubers. As I said, EF is able to properly defend his pointswell enough for me to grasp the validity of his statements which is the least Ican say for some of the others I’ve listened to.

Oftenat times, on the adverse side of RWBY YouTube, I find myself listening toYoutubers who spend more time outright bashing everypersonal gripe they have with the show as opposed to presenting a good argumentthan gives hindsight to why these problems are such an issue to them.

Theworst kind are the ones where this Youtubers point out flaws in the show andtry to give solutions to what the showrunners can do to fix these problems. Butmost of the time it’s done so rudely that it comes off more obnoxious thanhelpful. As if these Youtubers are proclaiming to know and understand moreabout the animation production process than the actual people running the showwho have the qualifications and past industry experience

I’llgive you two examples. Not naming names but I recently watched two videos fromtwo RWBY Youtubers---one critiquing the shows character designs while anotherwas a Youtuber’s final video explaining why they were quitting the RWBY FNDMfor good.

Inthe characterdesign critique, the individualexpressed their disappointment in the recent designs for the RWBY girls and thevillains as of the Mistral Arc. They then proceeded to offer their own tips for how the show could have helped to spruce up someof these designs. However rather than attempting to make their own alternatedesigns to the character outfits, this Youtuber just slapped some rather poorlylaid out flat base colours on top of screenshots of the characters in question.Which from a digital art perspective is…admittedly…lazy.

Iunderstand that not everyone in the world is a designer, much less is a characterdesigner or at least knows how to draw. However…if that is the case then whyare you, as the individual who clearly doesn’t appear to have the design skills,commenting on the work of a studio with a full production team of artists whodo have those required skills and experience and can probably rationalize theirreasons for going with the final designs presented in the show. You get whatI’m saying?

Ifone is going to critique the show’s overall character design then the least youcan do is make the effort to back up your claims. Illustrate your own designsfor RWBY character outfits. Create a mock-up 2D/3D screenshot illustration withproper lighting and atmosphere to see how your design ideas holds up againstthose elements of a scene and then compare that to the actual show’s productionwork. This reviewer didn’t even bother to attempt to maketheir own original designs or even redraw the current designs in their ownstyle and test out their suggested colourpalettes to see if it would fit with the overall design aesthetic of thecharacter.

Youmight be asking now: But Squiggles are you saying I need to know how to draw tocomment about RWBY?

To which I say: No.Being an artist is not a requirement that you as a fan need to really have inorder to comment about something you love. HOWEVER, if you are the type of individualwho has the massive chops to try and dictate a production studio with a team ofeducated and/or industry seasoned artists on how they should handle designingtheir characters without you yourself having the design knowledge to supportyour critiques then… you wonder why the CRWBY often get upset with these typesof fans and don’t take their comments seriously?

Contraryto what others might say, I am not a believer that RWBY is dictated by thedesires of its fandom community. That’s a comment I’ve been hearing buzzingabout since V6 ironically in the face of the recent hate crowd to gather fromwhat transpired with the Bumblebee pairing in the recent season.

Iunderstand that there are fans making the argument that the showrunners onlymade this pairing canon because its popular with its shipping community. Thesame can be said about Neo’s return to become Cinder’s protégé.

Admittedlywhile I might find the CRWBY’s decisions to be questionable at times, this still doesn’t prove that they are run by theirFNDM. If something happens in the show, it’s because it’s something theshowrunners and has wanted to do for some time and picked that current volumeto do so. The mere fact that that thing just so happened to correlate withsomething the fans wanted to see is just a matter of coincidence.

Thatbeing said, I will admit that I’ve noticed one or two members of the CRWBY castwho are guilty of encouraging certain ideas without the show itself officially confirming it in its narrative as yet.

In light of that, Iwill admit this. Regardless of whether or not you as a member of the CRWBY teamsupport a particular ship with all your heart, if other fandoms have taught meanything is that as a cast member you should NEVER encourage anything within yourown fan community. It never ends well and I’m seeing this repeated in RWBY. Butthis is not what I’m here to talk about right now. Moving on.

Inrespect to the video from the individual who was leaving the FNDM, I actually didn’tfinish watching their video because the instant they mentioned Monty Oum and their disdain for the CRWBY not living up to hislegacy and all that stuff, I couldn’t.

Ahyes, the classic ‘RWBY Animation hasn’t been the best since Monty passed away and the RWBYAnimation team are terrible because they can’t replicate Monty’s animation’ debate.How many times is this dead horse going to be beaten? According to this RWBY Youtuber, ‘replicatingMonty’s style of animation is easy andit is appalling the RWBY Animation Team can’t replicate Monty’s style afterfour seasons’.

Thiscomment not only annoyed me as a fan but also as someone who has studiedanimation before. Again, how many times will this poor dead horse be dug up tobe bludgeoned? Will these fans everallow Monty’s name to rest peacefully without bringing it up to tarnish theefforts made by the CRWBY to finish the story he started with them?

Iget it. MontyOum was a good animator.He wasn’t the best animator. He wasn’t some genius animation prodigy. He was a creative mind who had his own way of thinking and doing things andfrom that, he established a style about hisanimation that shined through his work. If you were to show me an animatedpiece done by Monty and the same piece animated by another person, I caninstantly tell you which one is Monty’s because Monty had his own style.

That’sthe appeal of Monty’s work, on my opinion. That’s what he became known for by hisfans. However, even though Monty was great at animating fight scenes, his way---hisstyle is NOT the only wayto animate a fight.

Recently,I took the time to go back and count the number of fights that happened overthe volumes. I did this because as of V6, I couldn’t help but feel as if theCRWBY might be shying away including moments where the characters areactually engaged in combat. I omitted the character shorts because onemandatory element of the Character Shorts is a fight scene. I just wanted tohighlight the individual seasons alone.

Someof this numbers might be a little iffy depending on what I counted as a fight,but here’s what I gathered.

THE VALE TRILOGY

RWBY V1C1:2C2:0C3:0C4:0C5:0C6:3C7:0C8:2C9:0C10:1C11:1C12:0C13:0C14:1C15:0C16:2

Totalfights = 12 Fights

RWBY V2:C1:1C2:0C3:0C4:1C5:3C6:0C7:1C8:0C9:4C10:0C11:4C12:4

TotalFights= 18 Fights

RWBY V3:C1:1C2:2C3:1C4:1C5:2C6:1C7:1C8:0C9:1C10:2C11:2C12:2

TotalFights = 16 Fights

THE MISTRALTRILOGY

RWBY V4:C1:1C2:0C3:1C4:0C5:0C6:1C7:1C8:0C9:2C10:0C11:0C12:1

TotalFights = 7 Fights

RWBY V5C1:0C2:1C3:0C4:2C5:0C6:0C7:0C8:0C9:1C10:3C11:5C12:1C13:1C14:0

TotalFights = 14 Fights

RWBY V6:C1:3C2:0C3:0C4:0C5:1C6:0C7:1C8:0C9:0C10:1C11:3C12:1C13:0

TotalFights = 10 Fights

Why I bring this upis throughout V4 and V6’s runtime I’ve seen one or two all-stars inthe new CRWBY animation team. While not all the fight scenes from the MistralArc were the best, there were definitely some good ones that I stood out to me.

OneV4 fight that keeps being overly praised is the Tyrian vs. Qrow dual. Many fanstend to vouch that fight as the best fight of V4. The only reason that fight isso popular is because it was one of the more important fights of thatrespective season.

However,I’m being completely honest, the Qrow vs. Tyrian one on one was good but itwasn’t the only good fight of V4.

PersonallyI took enjoyment in the small sparring match between Yang and Tai Yang.Believe it or not, I felt like that moment, though small, was well animated andI’d actually give props to the animator behind that small scene. There was a nicesense of rhythm to that small fight that I quite liked.

Notmany folks will agree with little ole me regarding that scene but this just goesto show, we all have our own personal preferences with what we consider to be agood fight sequence vs a not so good one.

Often at times, Ifeel really sorry for the series animators cherry picked to handle the combatmoments for the current seasons because I feel like those animators suffer the most pressure and scrutiny in the eyes of the FNDM. I feel like some FNDM members are sofocused on nagging atthe current CRWBY to capture Monty’s old style of animating fights that they aren’t really giving these new animatorswith their own styles a fair chance toshine outside of Monty’s shadow.

Again.I get it. RWBY was Monty’s brainchild. He’s the creator andno matter how far the current CRWBY takes the series, he will always becredited as its creator.

HoweverRWBY has come a long way since Monty’s days. The show haschanged.The overall look and visual style of the series has changed.Even the production pipeline and the software used to animate the series has changed.The CRWBY hasgrown allowing a greater mix of artistslending their talents to breathe life into the series.

Butwhat seems to kind of still be stuck in the past are some members of the FNDMcommunity. The ones who only watch the show because they are waiting to see thecurrent RWBY recapture that essence of Monty thatthey claimed the show lost after he died.

RWBY is dead after Monty passed away? In some ways, this isboth true and false. The truth is that RWBY did die. The old style that the show was being produced on was laid to restafter its creator unfortunately passed. The false is that RWBY didn’t end withMonty because it’s being continued in its current new style by the people whohelped bring it to life in the first place alongside Monty. The same people whoare diligently carrying on Monty’s project in his place. RWBY isn’t dead. It’sstill breathing. Still going. Because a story still needs to be told.

Ratherthan being judged for how well they can interpret a good fight sequence, theseanimators are judged for how well they can replicate Monty’s style. And when theseanimators don’t live up to that expectation, that’s when the shit storm begins.I myself have been found guilty of comparing the past animation to the present.However now I realized that I was wrong in doing that.

Ithink it’s high time some of these fans let go of the past and accept that theaction fight scenes of RWBY are never going to reflect Monty’s style anymore.

Montyis unfortunately not around to guide the current team with this. And they are doingtheir best to find their own style. To some extent, they found it in V6 becausethe fights in this last season were a tremendous improvement from V4 and V5.

Ifeel like there are some genuinely talented animators workingnow on RWBY who know how to create and sell a great fight and if left to theirown devices, they could really dazzle the audience with their own way of doingthings. I feel like since V4, the CRWBY have been experimenting with how they craftout their fights especially in the new Maya pipeline but it wasn’t until V6where I feel they finally found their footing again.

I think most fanscould agree that the fights in V6 were much better compared to theirpredecessors. One of the best one on one fights was the Neo vs Cinder clash. Whoever was the animator responsible for thatscene should honestly be given more opportunities like thatwhere their work can shine through because that fight was well done. Thesame can be said for the Maria vs. Tok oneon one fight despite how short it was. But the thing is, none of those fightsfelt like Monty’s style to me. It didn’t feel like someone was trying to copyMonty but rather it was someone who probably took a little inspiration Monty’soriginal work and the rest was them bringing their own unique spin to it.

Ifthe CRWBY have been trying to replicatethat Monty style in their fights for the past arc then I’m starting to thinkthat that is what’s been holding them back ratherthan aiding them to move forward.

Thisis why I find the whole point about replicating Monty’s style being easy to be ludicrous. Replicating someone else’s style,depending on the medium is not something you can just do on a fly. It’s noteven something you can perfect in a matter of years. It’s something that takes adeep understanding of the art form you’re using (in this case being animation),time, strict discipline and most importantly of all, guidance and critique from theperson who’s style your copying or someone else who is a master of said style and/orhas a great understanding of it themselves.

That’swhy sometimes you might hear behind the scenes tales about animation studiostaking sometime during their production pipeline to train theiranimators on the style or quality of animation they are trying to emulate in acurrent project. DidMonty do that with the CRWBY? Did Montyget the chance to pass his knowledge and technique onto otheranimators? Did Monty even get to see his story grow to what it is now?

Sadly,no. Monty was a creator who didn’t evenlive long enough to see his own idea flourish for the six seasons it’s beenrunning; now moving onto its seventh season. As far as I know, Monty passedaway as early as V2. Most people don’t even get the chance to see their ideascome to life but Monty was among those fortunate few who was given the shot tomake his idea a reality.

RoosterTeethgave Monty that chance after he worked with them on some of their otherprojects like RvB. He had made himself a household name within their companyand among that, he had made friends and had formed an in-house family with thecolleagues he worked with both on RvB and RWBY.

Saywhat you will about RoosterTeeth and the CRWBY. The original CRWBY who workedwith Monty between V1 and V2 were the people who knew Montythe most. They were his friends. His family. This is all the more reason why itdoesn’t give us, as fans looking in from the outside, the right to use Monty’sname to disrespect the people who knew him better.

Imay not always like what the CRWBY Writers do with the story but I respect themboth as writers. I respect Miles and Kerry because they are the showrunners. RWBY’s plotstarted with Monty, Miles and Kerry.

TheRWBY hate parade need to stop acting as if RWBY was made by Monty alone.Monty did not make RWBY by himself. Shit, he didn’t even create the plot byhimself.

Montyis credited as its creator because RWBY was his brain child and he will foreverbe remembered as the man who conceptualized this idea. But Monty did not writethe story of RWBY himself. He wrote this story with Miles and Kerry.

Whatfolks seems to be misunderstanding or downrightneglecting is that Miles and Kerryhave been with RWBY since its start. They are the two people who worked withMonty in developing the story of RWBY

Itis depressing that Monty only got to live long enough to see two seasons of hisbrainchild come to life.

Insteadof honouring Monty’s legacy by showing support to the people who worked with himto make RWBY happen, folks instead use Monty’s name to slander the CRWBY.

Tothe people who are guilty of this, how can you call yourself a fan? Howcan you call yourself decent human beings witha legit conscience by using a dead man’s name to disrespect the people who werehis colleagues and friends just because you were displeased with something theychose for the show? How is mouthing off the CRWBY and claiming that Montywouldn’t have consented to the direction they’re taking RWBY in a definition ofyour loyalty to Monty?

Howwould you know what Monty would have consented to? How would you know whatMonty would have wanted in general?

Didyou know him personally? I doubt any of you did. So why claim that in yourhateful comments?

RWBYis not the Monty Oum show. I've mentioned this before and I will say it again. RWBY is acollaborative effort. Monty may have conceived RWBY on his own buthe birthed this series through cooperation with RoosterTeeth and the talentedpeople who formed the creative team that made this show with him.

Andit’s those same people who are busting their asses volume after volume to keepthe show going. The CRWBY could have easily cancelled RWBYafter V2. It’s not the first time RoosterTeeth has cancelled a series undertheir name. They could have hung up the towel after V2 and called it quits. Butthey didn’t because they wanted tocontinue the show. They wanted to keep moving forward and finish the story theymade together with their friend Monty.

RWBY’sproduction takes time,thought, passion and effort. If the RWBY YouTube Critics community wishto be the type of people who want to tell the showrunners how to properlyhandle their IP, then at least back up your points with the same level of time,thought, passion and effort that is put into the show.

Andbefore anyone jumps at me and is all like, Squiggles, do you know how long it takes to makea YouTube video essay on my own time? To which I answer with, do you know howlong it takes to produce a full season of an animated production on a studiobudget and a strict deadline within a studio that is juggling multiple IPs?

Anyone can point out a flaw insomething or rather what they perceive to be a flaw in something. But it takes morework to point out that flaw, justify why it’s a flaw by your standards and thentake the time to suggest how it could be improved while throwing in your own workto help boast your claims. But no RWBY Youtuber Critics, at least from the onesI’ve seen, wants to do that. They just want to run their mouths and what’sunfortunate is that they will gather an audience of individuals who do the samewhen it comes to the series.

It’salright if you give your opinion but where it crosses a line is when a fantries to tell the showrunners how they should run their show. It’s even worsewhen they try to do it WITHOUT backing up their claims. You want to downplaythe effort and thought that someone else made without producing your own toargue against theirs?

You want totell the CRWBY how they should write the show? Where are your own retellingsof the show? Where are your own plot breakdowns? Your own scripts possibly accompaniedby storyboards and/or animatics to give others a taste of how your ideas wouldplay out?

You want totell the CRWBY that their character designs are terrible and need rework? Where your own conceptsheets containing dozens about dozens of drafts of redesigns that could betaken?

You want totell the CRWBY that their animation is terrible, that animating like Monty iseasy and the animation of CRWBY would look 100x better if they did x, y, z and123?

WellSkippy, why don’t you prove it? Where is your rendered animation that youpersonally modelled, rigged, textured and animated in your own spare time to backup your proclaimed assessments.

Youmight be telling yourselves, Squiggles why do all of that? That sounds like a whole lotof extra work just to prove points for a critique where I’m trying to tell theCRWBY what to do?

Towhich my response will be, EXACTLY.

Ifthe RWBY Hate Parade wish to make a mockery of the extra efforts the CRWBYmembers put into RWBY, then where is their extra effort? If they at least dothat then maybe I can respect them a little more as people who know whatthey’re talking about because they have the skills and knowledge to back uptheir arguments.

But how am I as the outsider listening in on some of theseYouTube rants supposed to take any of these people seriously when all they’redoing is making lengthy diatribes slandering the work of others and trying topass off as someone who knows more about animation and how it’s done thansomeone who does.

Dothese fans believe that makes them seem witty?It doesn’t. It makes them seem very disrespectful.

Idon’t understand the fans that are like this and I’m not sure if I want tounderstand. I don’t even wish to discuss them furthermore because at the end ofthe day, I can’t speak for these fans. I can only speak for myself and I knowwhere I stand as a fan of RWBY. If there is one advice I can give to my fellow FNDMfam is that weneed to stop drawing attention to the hate parade. Too often do Ihear more about the negative side of the RWBY community and their opinions ofthe series than the actual good that show and its FNDM has spawned.

Weas the people who still love RWBY and are willing to accept and stand by it andits showrunners, flaws and all, need to become more vocal aboutshedding light on the positives of RWBY

Eitherthat or just ignorethe haters. Seriously, we need to stop giving these guys anaudience. Similar to how the RWBY Hate Parade spend their time mostly pointingout the negative in the show, we the FNDM often at times draw too much attentionto these folks.

Ina sad way, we’re kind of sending traffic over to them. Giving them moreattention that they don’t deserve.

Thesetypes of fans can talk but we don’t need to listen to them. Because for all theflak they give the series and its showrunners, the RWBY train is still moving;strong and unaffected.

Why?Because I’d like to believe the CRWBY don’t pay attention to the hate paradebut more focus on what they wish to do with the series while looking out to thesmiling fans who help spread good word about their show. And really, isn’t thegood still that’s very much there all that really matters?

Soto conclude finally, this answer took me way too long to write. Sorry to haveyou wait so long Key. This answer took me some time to put together. Apologiesif it’s a very long-winded answer. I really don’t like discussing any negativestuff in the FNDM.

I acknowledge that it exists and it’s pretty much alwaysgoing to be there but that doesn’t mean I should give it any attention. But forwhat it’s worth, I hope I said enough to make my full peace with this topic.Cheerios!

~LittleMissSquiggles(2019)

#squiggles answers: rwby #rwby #oscar pine #ruby rose #weiss schnee #blake belladonna #yang xiao long #monty oum #crwby #roosterteeth #keyenuta

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finsterhund · 4 years

Text

Package from Fishy!

I was very surprised when my friend knocked on my door and was like "package" and I'm like??? And then I see the Heart of Darkness quotes on the paper and KNEW it was from Fishy because that's his trademark. I keep all the wrapping from his gifts because that makes me happy.

Then, Fishy has gotten me a windbreaker! I have always wanted a lighter jacket but living in the Vancouver area finding something that's comfy and not 100s of dollars was tricky. Fishy has succeeded in ensuring that I can wear a coat he gave me all year round. It is so comfy and fits both my arms AND my shoulders. Just like the green coat. I guess American sizes really are better fitting than what we have here.

Omg so first of all Fishy has sent me more of that amazing iced tea I like. I tried finding it at our grocery stores: Walmart, thifty's superstore, etc to no avail. It's so great to have this treat again.

I love this coat so much. It reminds me of the winter coat I drew Andy in back in like 2016 for new year's. Makes me want to try redrawing that one. I remember being so proud of it.

Thank you so much for more wonderful gifts. Hopefully the shirt making process goes smoothly with the supplier so I can send yours over soon.

Well, Tumblr ended up eating this post but never fear. I have saved it to upload for real this time. And I've been waiting for something to post it.

After thanking Fishy he was like "oh no I hope the other package arrives. It's got treats in it" and i was like!!!!! But i reassured him that Canada Post is weird and if you ship two packages at the same time one will take 1-2 weeks longer because package trolls or something. I have no idea.

So I waited to remake this post until the candy cane. And oh boy!

So for those who don't remember Fishy sent me candy before and got me addicted to macadamia nut chocolate. The coconut balls are also a favourite and he's included some new mango gummy candy that I have already gotten my grubby little paws into and have been enjoying.

Thank you so much!!!

#text post #long post #image post

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hydrus · 4 years

Text

Version 377

youtube

windows

zip

exe

macOS

app

linux

tar.gz

source

tar.gz

I had a good week. I mostly caught up with my smaller jobs queue, just pushing on work that had piled up.

Thank you for the continuing Qt bug reports. I fixed a variety of typo-broken buttons this week, mostly buried in less-used UI, and if you have set a browser launch path override in the options, hyperlinks across the program should obey that again. I also believe I fixed the annoying issue where media viewer hover windows that needed to shrink (because of switching to a new media that had fewer info lines or known urls) would linger too tall for one frame. EDIT: I'm still having slight hover window resize flicker in my IRL client when I keep my mouse over the top-right hover, I'll give it another go next week.

Furthermore, all non-menubar menus across the program now open on right-click release instead of press. This sounds trivial, but there was a mix of down/up click handling here, now unified, and some things like thumbnail and tag selection are handled more naturally in the initial click down. This also fixes an issue where users who had menu styles with no significant border were sometimes accidentally activating the first menu item on a slow click (the click down would show the menu, the click up would activate it).

Last week's support for styles and stylesheets for Qt seems to have gone well. There is more to do here, but this week brings better error handling for unusual situations, better 'we already have this set, no need to waste CPU re-applying it' detection, and fewer hacky colour overrides, so custom stylesheets should be able to colour regular panels without lots of unintended grey or white boxes.

the rest

The shortcut system should now be able to support any text key. This includes extended characters like ø or æ. If you need to apply a modifier to get these keys (e.g. ctrl+alt+e), these modifiers are likely to show up spuriously in the shortcut's label (e.g. ctrl+alt+æ), but everything should nonetheless line up in the program correctly. Let me know if you discover any new bugs here!

There are also some new shortcut commands this week, for the 'media viewer' set. They are 'pan_top/bottom/left/right_edge' and 'pan_horizonal/vertical_center'. They move the whole image around to edges, or center it again, and should be helpful if you often look at tall or wide comics at 100% zoom. There will be more to come here in coming weeks.

The work on making the UI smoother is also continuing. Session saving and a variety of 'media refresh' events that occur on file import or maintenance are now significantly faster and do the bulk of that work in the background. Users with very large sessions should experience less juddery behaviour during both idle and heavy work periods.

full list

qt:

all non-menubar menus across the program now launch on click release. some previously launched on click press. a variety of related click event behaviour is cleaned up, particularly with thumbnail/tag selection on the click down. this also fixes some users' menus immediately activating the first entry on slow clicks in some ui styles

I think I fixed the annoying single-frame delayed size-down resize on media viewer hover frames when changing media!

the vast majority of old wx panel background colour hacks are removed, so custom stylesheets should now cover much more of the UI

improved the new custom style and stylesheet setting, resetting, and error handling code, particularly for not re-applying the same style or stylesheet twice, and for handling un-re-settable styles (seems to be defaults initialised by third-party OS-wide Qt style) gracefully

fixed hyperlinks not using the custom web browser launch path as set in the options

fixed the 'migrate entire db' and 'set thumb location' buttons in the migrate database dialog

fixed a typo bug when launching the url selection tree after adding an ipfs directory to download

fixed two typo bugs when editing regex favourites and simple downloader formulae

fixed an issue where custom shortcut sets could not be deleted

fixed a typo in the edit account type panel

fixed sorting the login listctrl when there are session logins mixed with non-session logins

removed some old media viewer hover window display/raise hacks

retired the 'always show hover windows' debug mode

the media viewer will no longer perform any drag calculations on anything but left-click drag

misc Qt code refactoring/cleanup

url searching:

the database now stores 'known url' domain information more efficiently. it will take a few moments/minutes to reshape the db when updating

system:known url's exact url search now runs extremely fast. this will only affect new predicates of this type, not those in existing sessions

system:known url's domain search now runs much faster and matches subdomains of the given domain. this will only affect new predicates of this type, not those in existing sessions

system:known url's url class search now runs much faster. this will only affect new predicates of this type, not those in existing sessions

when entering a regex system:known url predicate, the dialog will now not OK (throwing up an error dialog) if the regex is invalid

the rest:

the shortcut system now allows all text characters. if it has text, it should work, but it is the wild west in terms of modifier labelling. anything unusual on your keyboard like ctrl+alt+e to make æ will _display_ as ctrl+alt+æ, but the same key combination will match up in the program all correct

added shortcut actions 'pan_top_edge', 'pan_bottom_edge', 'pan_left_edge', 'pan_right_edge' to the media viewer shortcut set that will move the current image so the respective edge is aligned with the larger canvas's

added shortcut actions 'pan_horizontal_center' and 'pan_vertical_center' to do as above but center on that axis

session save now hangs the UI significantly less, whether triggered by user command or auto-saving 'last session'

saving of last/exit sessions on client close is a little faster

the call to refresh thumbnail file info (and redraw if needed) when a file is imported or has metadata-regenererating file maintenance done will now only call for files that are actually loaded, run faster per file, run faster when the client has large collections in its session, and not hang the ui thread when waiting for the new media info to arrive

like regular popups, modal popups (like those created when big vacuum/analyze jobs jump in) will now only appear if the main gui or an on-parent child has OS focus

the main gui/on-parent child OS focus test now includes misc child windows like the autocomplete results hover window

network jobs that fail for one reason or another will now be more reliably cleaned up, and their connections returned to the connection pool. this may fix the 'too many open file handles' errors some users were seeing after long term unreliable network traffic

fixed an issue where some thumbnails that were trashed or physically deleted were being removed from 'all known files' and file repository views when it was not appropriate

connection and downloader retry time options now have a wider min/max range when in advanced mode, with an accompanying warning label for the connection panel

checker options times now have a wider min/max range when in advanced mode, with an accompanying warning label

cleaned up some shutdown reporting text

misc debug improvements

next week

The holidays are coming up. As 379 would normally be due on Christmas Day, I will postpone that to New Year, which means next week's 378, on the 18th, will be the last release of the year. I am due for a 'cleanup' week, which will also make for a nice 'safe' release before the break. So I will clean up code, do some more Qt neatening, and otherwise catch up on smaller jobs like I did this week.

I never strictly marked down the day when I started working on hydrus, but December 14th, 2011, the date of the first non-experimental beta, has emerged as a decent birthday. This week marks eight years. It has been a lot of work and a lot of fun. There are a couple thousand things I would still like to do, so if I can, I would like to keep going as I have into the 2020s. I deeply appreciate all the feedback, help, and support over the years. Thank you!

If you would like to further support my work and are in a position to do so, my simple no-reward Patreon is here: https://www.patreon.com/hydrus_dev

#release

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warninggraphiccontent · 3 years

Text

30 April 2021

Open season

Do you think the UK government should be more transparent, accountable and participatory?

Are you interested in health, the environment, justice, data ethics and algorithmic accountability, open contracting, misinformation, freedom of information, democracy building and standards in public life?

Would you like to help shape policy pledges on those issues (and maybe others) that government will commit to?

Then sign up to take part in the development of the latest Open Government National Action Plan - the process kicks off next week. With perfect timing, really. (Full disclosure: I'm on the civil society steering group. Some more info on the whole thing here.)

Please do express your interest, and share as widely as possible - it would be great to have as much of UK civil society and the public involved as possible.

Other bits and pieces:

One of those thematic groups will be on freedom of information. Plenty of links on that this week below, including mySociety's (excellent) new report on the topic. (And something something government making an exhibition of itself.)

Remember we have another great Data Bites for you next week - sign up here, catch up on the previous events here.

And IfG have an event today with the new senior digital figures in the UK government - hopefully we'll hear more than we have so far about the new Central Digital and Data Office, and its relationship with the Government Digital Service.

Trying to find basic information is more complicated than you might think, part whatever we're on now.

My list of data series - newsletters, podcasts, events - is so very nearly at 100 entries, so do add any that we've missed. And thanks to all who've contributed so far. One of those listed is Politico's Digital Bridge, which has a good run down of the G7 digital and technology track this week.

The Alan Turing Institute and the Royal Statistical Society have been working with the Joint Biosecurity Centre on various statistics and machine learning projects during the pandemic. You can hear about some of them at an event this afternoon.

RIP astronaut Michael Collins. This extract from his autobiography is quite a piece of writing.

Have a great weekend

Gavin

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India’s catastrophic second covid wave shows no sign of slowing* (The Economist)

COVID-19: The crisis in one of India's worst-hit cities, where someone dies every five minutes (Sky News)

NHS app will be used as Covid ‘vaccine passport’ for foreign travel (The Guardian)

Vax populi

See How the Vaccine Rollout Is Going in Your County and State* (New York Times)

Vaccine diplomacy boosts Russia’s and China’s global standing* (The Economist)

40m Pfizer jabs bought as Covid booster shots* (The Sunday Times)

After a blistering start, Biden’s vaccine rollout faces new hurdles* (FT)

Vaccine uptake rises among England’s ethnic minorities* (FT)

What the ONS can tell you about the COVID-19 Vaccine programme (ONS)

Side effects

How has lockdown changed our relationship with nature? (ONS)

In need of support? Lessons from the Covid-19 crisis for our social security system (Resolution Foundation)

After shocks: Financial resilience before and during the Covid-19 crisis (Resolution Foundation)

‘We are drowning in insecurity’: young people and life after the pandemic* (FT)

More Americans Are Leaving Cities, But Don’t Call It an Urban Exodus* (Bloomberg)

Joe 90 (+10)

Joe Biden’s first 100 days: by the numbers* (FT)

What America thinks* (The Economist)

After 100 days, Joe Biden is polling better than Donald Trump did* (The Economist)

At the 100-day mark, has Biden kept his campaign promises?* (Washington Post)

Prolific yet quiet: Joe Biden’s first 100 days in numbers* (New Statesman)

17 Metrics to Watch in the Biden Era* (Bloomberg)

Taking leave of their...

2020 Census shows U.S. population grew at slowest pace since the 1930s* (Washington Post)

Which States Will Gain or Lose Seats in the Next Congress* (New York Times)

Once-A-Decade Census Numbers to Redraw U.S. Political Landscape* (Bloomberg)

Which States Won — And Lost — Seats In The 2020 Census? (FiveThirtyEight)

US politics

Biden’s $4 Trillion Economic Plan, in One Chart* (The Upshot)

By the numbers: States weighing voting changes (Axios)

Advantage, GOP (FiveThirtyEight)

Americans From Both Parties Want Weed To Be Legal. Why Doesn’t The Federal Government Agree? (FiveThirtyEight)

Derek Chauvin was found guilty – how typical is that of US police who kill? (The Guardian)

Science and nature

Visualised: glaciers then and now (The Guardian)

Siberian fires not an isolated event, EU earth observatory shows* (FT)

The U.S. Will Need a Lot of Land for a Zero-Carbon Economy* (Bloomberg)

The Hidden Science Making Batteries Better, Cheaper and Everywhere* (Bloomberg)

Our Earth in context with other worlds (Axios)

The intricate life of the International Space Station (via Chris Hadfield)

UK politics and government

Will Greensill be a Barnard Castle-sized issue for the Tories? (UK in a Changing Europe)

Boris Johnson’s £200k refurbishment of 11 Downing Street could buy you a whole house in much of the UK* (New Statesman)

Labour’s lost heartlands. Can it win them back?* (FT)

Green gains in red-brick England* (New Statesman - though I'd have put Labour at the base of the bars)

Procuring inequality: Understanding the gender pay gap in government contracting (Spend Network - and summary)

Devolved public services: The NHS, schools, and social care in the four nations (IfG)

Let's get fiscal, fiscal

The fiscal position of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (IfG)

The national balance sheet and capital stocks, preliminary estimates, UK: 2021 (ONS)

Putting a value on the UK – faster than ever before (ONS)

Nominal spending figures understate China’s military might* (The Economist)

Everything else

Inheritances and inequality over the life cycle: what will they mean for younger generations? (IFS)

Exploring the State Papers with Word Embeddings (Networking Archives)

Nomadland, Disney and the drive for Oscars dominance in 2021* (FT)

Survival curves (Max Roser)

Meta data

Open for the best

Registration: Open Government Thematic Groups (UK Open Government Network)

Civil society urged to join groups on government transparency. (UK Open Government Network)

Statement on the UK’s New Global Anti-Corruption Sanctions (UK Anti-Corruption Coalition)

Relight my FOIA

New policy paper: Reforming Freedom of Information (mySociety)

Reforming Freedom of Information: mySociety policy paper launch event (mySociety)

Public information request monitor (mySociety)

Freedom of Information in danger of ‘sliding into obsolescence’, new report finds (openDemocracy)

We are going to court to force the government to release full details about its controversial FOI ‘Clearing House’ – a secretive unit inside the Cabinet Office (openDemocracy)

Press freedom: how governments are using COVID as an excuse to crack down on the public’s right to know (Media@LSE)

A transparent FOI system is vital for good government* (The Times)

Thread (George Greenwood)

Government obfuscation has become 'art form' - MPs and journalists say Freedom of Information not working (Press Gazette)

Viral content

NHS app set to feature vaccine passport (Public Technology)

COVID-19 Update (UK Government)

AI got 'rithm

Ensuring trustworthy algorithmic decision-making (CDEI for OECD.AI)

Error-riddled data sets are warping our sense of how good AI really is* (MIT Technology Review)

Artificial Intelligence in Local Government (Oxford Commission on AI & Good Governance)

Now is the time for a transatlantic dialog on the risk of AI (VentureBeat)

AI at work isn’t always intelligent* (FT)

Artificial Intelligence Is Misreading Human Emotion* (Kate Crawford, The Atlantic)

The Challenges of Animal Translation* (The New Yorker)

We need more bias in artificial intelligence (Bruegel)

Stop talking about AI ethics. It’s time to talk about power.* (MIT Technology Review)

Working for an Algorithm: Shadow Bans, Dopamine Hits, and Viral Videos, All in the Life of TikTok Creators (The Markup)

Home Office algorithm to detect sham marriages may contain built-in discrimination (TBIJ)

Missing data

What's missing? Evaluating social sector data gaps (Commission on Civil Society)

ONS to publish suicide data by ethnicity from June as charities say ‘no excuse’ for gaps in data (The Independent)

///so.very.predictable

App used by emergency services under scrutiny (BBC News)

Why What3Words is not suitable for safety critical applications (Cybergibbons)

*All* English ambulance services use #What3Words, according to health minister (Owen Boswarva)

Government

Proud to be the Government Analysis Function (Government Analysis Function)

ADR UK three years in: Harnessing the power of administrative data three years in (ADR UK)

Supercomputing leap in weather and climate forecasting (Met Office)

Transforming Government: Six key recommendations (Foundry4)

Help us set a new data standard for vulnerable people services (Data in government)

Government gives Verify a stay of execution (UKAuthority)

Texting times

Boris Johnson’s tax texts show perils of government by WhatsApp (Politico)

Lobbying row: Why ministers have two mobile phones (BBC News)

Big tech, trade and competition

UK digital competition - it’s about your data, stupid (diginomica)

UK lobbying questions raised by Big Tech cash for MP interest groups (Politico)

Facebook v Apple: The ad tracking row heats up (BBC News)

The Counterbalance – The European System of Monopoly (Brave New Europe)

Twitter censored tweets critical of India’s handling of the pandemic at its government’s request (The Verge)

Technology wars are becoming the new trade wars* (FT)

Data

techUK on the Future of Data Governance for the UK (techUK)

Ireland stress-tests Europe’s data protection law* (FT)

Data Brokers Are a Threat to Democracy* (Wired)

An airline glitch reveals the dangers of discriminatory data (Tech Monitor)

For public review: The GDB research handbook (Global Data Barometer)

Fact and fiction

The Anti-Vaccine Influencers Who Are Merely Asking Questions* (The Atlantic)

Facts are Pieces of a Puzzle, not the Puzzle Itself (Zeynep)

Everything else

Justice Lost In The Post: How the Post Office wrecked the lives of its own workers (Private Eye)

Unified UK measures of rurality and deprivation (mySociety)

What is going on here? (Hilary Cottam)

Shaping the future of digital technology in health and social care (King's Fund)

Should Tech Make Us Optimistic About Climate Change? (Tony Blair Institute for Global Change)

Scottish Elections 2021: WE’RE TRACKING WHERE THE PARTIES STAND (Open Rights Group Scotland)

Opportunities

EVENT: Turing-RSS Lab webinar #3: using algorithms and AI in the response to COVID-19 (The Alan Turing Institute, Royal Statistical Society)

EVENT: What is the Future of Free Speech on the Internet? Jillian C York (Bristol Festival of Ideas)

EVENT: Rethinking how we regulate Big Tech (Bennett Institute)

JOB: Editor in Chief (openDemocracy - more)

JOBS (Full Fact)

JOB: Data Investigations Advisor (Global Witness)

JOB: Director, Technology and Human Rights (Human Rights Watch)

JOB: Data Scientist - NHS Test & Trace (Grade-G7) (DHSC)

JOB: Head of Digital ID (Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, via Jukesie)

JOB: Lead Data Scientist - Datalab (BBC, via Jukesie)

JOB: Service Manager, WhatDoTheyKnow (mySociety)

JOB: We're hiring - could you be our new Data Analyst? (Data Orchard)

JOBS (Information Commissioner's Office)

TENDER: Evaluating the data assurance market (ODI)

And finally...

When you label a plot the wrong way and suddenly discover a new graph type (João Martins)

How High Airplanes have been Able to Go from INTERNATIONAL PICTURE LANGUAGE by Otto Neurath, 1936 (RJ Andrews)

For the last six years I’ve kept a spreadsheet listing every parking spot I’ve used at the local supermarket in a bid to park in them all (Gareth Wild, via Alice)

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luwucas04 · 3 years

Text

About 4000 (I am so sorry) Words Concerning Films that Helped Define My Existence

Ah, movies. So much in one package. Story, music, visuals, what’s not to love? Today I shall be elaborating on the most noteworthy films in the thrilling ever-changing saga that continues to be my life. Screenplay alongside a screenplay, if you will (please take this statement as modestly as you can).

The first ever thing in my entire life that I remember being an avid and enthusiastic fan about was the original Star Wars saga, written and directed by George Lucas, spanning May 1977 (A New Hope) – May 2005 (Revenge of the Sith).

As mentioned in the podcast and as you may be able to tell from said podcast, I can’t really pinpoint an exact point in my life where I was introduced to it as it was kinda integrated into my upbringing from the get-go—and due to this it’s a very near and dear franchise to me. And oh boy fun fact my first ever childhood crush was Luke Skywalker (I vividly recall my uncle asking why I had his page bookmarked haha). I remember it was something that I would always watch with my dad and or grandpa, and then when I couldn’t find the VCR set that we had for it, I officially commenced my illicit streaming career (not really though, I didn’t get very far. Only crappy 20-minute clips on YouTube). Star Wars for me was the first thing that I actively sought out stuff for or showed genuine interest in pursuing if that makes sense. Like, you’d watch whatever movies or shows were thrown at you and you never thought much of them. Ohoho not Star Wars, though, that one lasted years. My cousin and I would always bring our little action figures to play with whenever we visited—or we’d find long-ish sticks in the backyard and have lightsaber fights, I got the video games, posters, Lego sets of ships (X-wing and Y-wing to be exact), an entire encyclopedia that I still own to this day (I just checked and there’s a date written inside, April 9th 2010 (which is my 7th birthday)), and of course inspiration for my own art and such. I remember I made this magazine that was essentially just me redrawing pages from the guidebook I had. I still have it, too! Sitting at the bottom of a drawer right now. Also, later on for some reason I absolutely loved drawing Ashoka Tano. Over and over again man. I drew her taking up my cousin’s entire driveway in chalk once.

Not only are the Star Wars films a nostalgic and comforting series, but it held onto its marvel throughout the. Wow well over 10 whole years, I’m getting old. Additionally, because at the time we didn’t have as much access to the things we can achieve with modern technology, I was basically all on my own with it. I fueled my own fascination. And shockingly, not a lot of people in my elementary school (up until maybe grade 6-7) showed much interest in it either. So it was pretty much just me myself and I, and occasionally my cousin whenever he visited, and I think that made it all the more special to me. Also, at the time I think it was geared way more toward kids. There weren’t series like The Mandalorian or active internet communities that were obsessed with the series as far as I was aware, so there wasn’t the same quantity of content nor overall enthusiasm around it. Nonetheless, it was and still is a very personal series due to how engrained it is into basically every aspect of my childhood. I’ll try not to be too repetitive with what I said in the podcast, but ultimately the clear nature of the franchise (attractive character designs, colours, setting in general (it’s an action-packed space adventure what’s not to love)) is what really made me latch onto it, and it kickstarted my interest in the very essence of media and understanding the film medium and what it has to offer. I remember asking how they got Jar Jar to exist on screen and he told me they made him out of CGI, and I interpreted that as they somehow made a real-life computer model out of him and that they were actually interacting with like a physical, solid hologram. Anyway, revisiting the franchise and diving into more of its intricacies now (like the production diaries) is like an absolute goldmine. There are so many aspects of it that 100% contributed to and nurtured my goals, passions, and ultimately who I am as a person. Here is some of my very recent art for good measure:

Up next up we got Lord of the Rings (dir. Peter Jackson, December 2001 – December 2003) or I guess a better way to put it would be those plus The Hobbit (December 2012 – December 2014) trilogy. I think it was earlier than the Marvel phase (which follows this section) because like Star Wars I can’t really remember my first viewing of it, but I definitely watched it all. It might’ve been around grade 3 so 2011-ish? Quick anecdote, one time I had a sleepover I was really excited for, and as we all know when you’re excited for something as a kid and it’s later on in the day, time doesn’t actually pass at all, and so my genius ass decided to flip on The Fellowship of the Ring and boom it was 5 pm and time to leave. Also my grandparents from my mom’s side of the family (they’re German so we call them oma and opa) were visiting once and my opa (grandpa equivalent) wanted to watch something so I was like “omg Lord of the Rings is perfect there are so many characters he can feel empowered by (Gandalf and Saruman because they’re old)”. Phenomenal logic—now thinking back it was probably much too violent for his tastes but yknow.

I love Lord of the Rings so much because it’s the true embodiment of an ideal fantasy story; there’s such pure character dynamics and personalities and Tolkien created such an incredibly solid world in which these stories take place. Man knew his stuff, and in turn provided a charming and utterly wonderful scape for young minds to roam free within. I was going to talk about this if I did my other culminating idea regarding masculinity within the media, but I have the perfect opportunity to do so here: something so great about said world is how sincere and genuine a lot of the male characters are (yknow minus people like Denethor and Alfred). Namely the fellowship, they all openly care for and are affectionate towards one another, something we rarely see between men both in modern media and in real life. Aragorn is a perfect example of someone owning and being comfortable in his masculinity. He is kind to and uplifts others, and communicates openly with them. He isn’t afraid of being intimate and vulnerable towards them, either. We see this in Boromir’s death scene. Aragorn doesn’t patronize him for trying to take the Ring, he consoles Boromir in his last moments and they treat each other with the utmost tenderness and respect—not callously or stiffly. Right after decapitating an orc, Aragorn is still able to run to his side, hold him, and kiss him on the forehead following his passing. Aragorn also isn’t afraid to share fame or glory, in fact he never seeks it out in the first place despite his lineage. It was at the battle of Helm’s Deep that he embraced that destine to be king, not out of lust for power, but because these people needed guidance and leadership and he could provide it for them. He elevates others in an incredibly positive and empowering way, especially Frodo and Éowyn, and is content with the fact that the story is not about him. Even at his own coronation, he directs every single person’s attention to the literal earth-saving feat that the hobbits have achieved in light of his own massive accomplishment. He is such a great role model to have been able to look up and aspire to be like, and I wish there were more characters and people like him.

I was a fan of those original films at an earlier point in my life, but the thing that brought that interest back a little stronger was undoubtedly the release of the Hobbit prequels. Like the Star Wars prequels, everyone can say what they want but they are very gorgeous to me. I skipped out on seeing Frozen with my class to go see The Desolation of Smaug with my dad and that was SUCH a good decision. Although, I’m rewatching them all now and Battle of the Five Armies kinda sucks at the beginning. They kill Smaug in like the first five minutes and like it wasn’t bad but it was very anticlimactic. I also don’t like how they shoved Legolas in there, his personality is really jaded and he’s kind of a big prick in those films. But it’s fine I love Martin Freeman and Richard Armitage and the rest of the dwarves the most. They were obviously the most significant and I like them a lot, and there are three movies as opposed to the one book so there’s even more content!

WHEW sorry about that anyway The Hobbit really was the revival/rekindling of that past love for Tolkien’s world. I also had a good close friend who was also along for the ride as well—being able to be into these things alongside someone is always fun and I’m grateful she was there and shared my same energy. She had the Lego game for that one, very similar free-roam concept as my Marvel one (coming up next), so we had lots of fun with that too. To reiterate, I am rewatching these movies again now as an older person with like an actual conscience, and my takeaway from them is vastly different on more of like… a philosophical level, I suppose. I appreciate the process of things more and the backstory behind Tolkien’s lore and the timeless characters and deeper meanings that he’s conceived. But that wouldn’t be very chronological of me to go into it here so moving on.

Proceeding next, around grade four at the most (so just after it came out), I watched The Avengers (dir. Joss Whedon, 2012). Not only did this single-handedly make my art convictions explode (in a good way), it also instigated my love for soundtracks (and also the entire Marvel universe but we’ll obviously be covering that very soon).

The Avengers was like an epiphany for me. Literally ground-breaking and earth-shattering. Changed my entire 10-year-old life. It was all that I ever wanted and more, and since it was around 2012-13 that I became aware of its existence, the internet community was blossoming with possibilities and content. That same friend liked it as well! My Avengers/Marvel phase definitely rivals my Star Wars phase; I think I watched The Avengers first, and then my dad was like “yeah ok you need to watch everything else now” and so henceforth Captain America and Iron Man and Thor. Those were very good times, and I actually remember experiencing all of them for the first time ever. The Christmas of 2013 was absolutely wild. I only got Marvel related gifts which was incredible at the time. My first ever ‘art of’ book was for the Avengers film, too! I also got an arc reactor shirt that actually lit up and I thought that was the absolute coolest thing ever, and then I remember I cut my tongue on this candy I was eating and my mouth bled profusely for a while. However the most iconic gift of all was my copy of Lego Marvel Superheroes for the PS3. I finished it in about 2 days, and it’s the only Lego game that I’ve gotten 100% completed progress on. I love that game dearly and still play it sometimes. The thing that I love specifically about it was the ability to free-roam the entirety of New York City as any character you wanted, me and that friend would do that exclusively for hours on end and make up our own stories with all the characters. Here is Galactus perusing the streets

Speaking of characters, this was the first thing that really got me making up and drawing a shit ton (apologies for lack of a better phrase) of original characters. I’d make superhero characters for me and my friend (ok I guess I should give her a name huh), Mackenzie, and even for random people in my class cause we needed to fill in some blanks in the stories we’d make. I’d create comics, write little stories, make variation after variation of these people we came up with, and of course like normal children me and Mackenzie would go to the park near my old house and pretend we were said characters. Man it was so fun. Then we’d do all those personality quizzes to find out which member you were most like. Mackenzie and I would do these quizzes on none other than our state-of-the-art BlackBerry playbooks. For me it was usually either Iron Man or Thor, and Mackenzie had this weird curse where she’d only ever get Loki as a result for anything at all which was very hilarious to me. Circling back to soundtracks, The Avengers OST was one of my first full album purchases. The main theme was my favourite track out of all of them for obvious reasons, but I still paid respects to all of them and listened to it often. Since I bought it with my dad’s Apple ID, it’d show up on the communal iPad that we used for music in the kitchen and I have full recollection of my grandpa playing it on blast in the morning to wake us up one time. I was aggravated at first but then when I realized what it was I was like ah yes of course. After the Avengers soundtrack, I got the Wolverine (2013) OST and that was fun but I didn’t like all the tracks in the same way, but THEN I got the Days of Future Past soundtrack. THAT is a good soundtrack AND a phenomenal film.

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Anyway, after that I was a Marvel connoisseur for a little while. Like Star Wars I got an entire character encyclopedia, a bunch of comics, posters, you name it. My parents and sister also enjoyed dabbling in stuff too; we’d watch the animated series together on Netflix and eventually ended up seeing all the new movies together when they came out in theatres (except not my mom though cause she gets motion sickness from action films). Marvel was a staple in the adolescence stage of my life before I was introduced to anime (then it was all downhill from there (I am kidding anime was a part of my life that I look back at with great fondness)). It was reason for so much of what I explored with my art and my own imagination, and was one of my first experiences in what it was like to be a part of a fandom-esque community. There were also memes ripe for the picking when it came to Marvel; as one can assume I had no access to memes in kindergarten to grade 1 in the late 2000s. It was such a lovely and warm point in my life, something that established what kind of passion I really poured into something when I really liked it. And akin to Star Wars, there’s just so much to like about it. There’s so much to offer, an array of colourful characters and storylines—and of course, creative liberty when it came to superpowers and that whole narrative. The sky was literally the limit. Here is some of my ancient 2014 portraiture that I dug up for the sake of this assignment

Ok heads up we are now veering AWAY from childhood content and touching on a film that played a more personal part, namely during a very pivotal point, in my life. I picked up The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky, 1999) at a bookstore and read it at the speed of light; I was crying in my room on my bed by the time I finished it. I love how we see Charlie’s character change over the course of the novel, not only through what he describes or how he perceives things but his style of writing in general. Anyway, I wanted to read the novel first before I watched the movie (dir. Stephen Chbosky 2012), and I was pleasantly surprised by how accurate the movie is to the book (well duh the author directed it). I read/watched this right before I started high school, so I was kind of (but not really considering the built-up childhood trauma he has yikes) in the same position as the protagonist, Charlie, as he was starting out (minus a lot of the major aspects of his character and what he went/goes through (like drugs)). A lot of the things that he learns were really important takeaways for me before heading into that new chapter of life like he did.

Contrary to the title of the (I know it started out as a novel but I’m just gonna say film) film, you need to put yourself out there and advocate for yourself in life. It’s great to be a trustworthy individual whom everyone is vaguely aware of and likes, but you need to approach things with reason and make yourself known somehow. At the time, both before and during grade 9, and even still sometimes in the present (though I do it more deliberately now), I found myself just standing on the sidelines as life happened before me and I let it sweep me away without having any feet planted on the ground. It was like I wasn’t in control of it, and in turn I might’ve struggled in some areas more than I should have. I didn’t own anything, like I wasn’t totally present. Similar to Charlie, I was a person who’d always be there for others, someone people could talk to and confide in, and ultimately someone people truly enjoyed having around—which is pretty great. But I didn’t fully know my position or what I ultimately wanted in any of those situations. Don’t get me wrong, I am incredibly grateful for my entire freshman experience and I absolutely wouldn’t have wanted it any other way considering all personal circumstances, but with that foreknowledge of the importance of making a name for yourself, especially in high school, I think I was able to branch out with ease a bit more than I would have without it. I at least was aware of what was going on in that sense. That movie is really special to me because it ended up being a pseudo-mirror of my own experiences. Charlie’s English teacher, Bill, embraced his writing abilities and urged him to participate more, share his own thoughts, and express more of his personality by giving him books for extra reading. My first ever semester of Laurier did the exact same for me as Bill did for Charlie. It fostered my interests and intellectual abilities, and you guys constantly urged me and everyone else to go above and beyond what we were used to because you knew we could do it (even though I feel like I could’ve done a lot better on some things as my marks in grade 9 are a bit lower than I’d like them to be, but hey it was a time of adjustment and I did my best and that’s what matters). As a direct result of Laurier, I’m really lucky to have been surrounded by an amazing group of passionate students, a handful of which became my closest friends throughout high school, and that my very first teachers of the day were people who uplifted me and genuinely cared not only about furthering my academic work, but about my growth as a person.

Whew let’s wade out of the sap and get into some more energetic stuff!!! To tie off this recollection of my life through film the most recent and notable movie that impacted my life was, the one and only, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (dir. Peter Ramsey, Bob Persichetti, Rodney Rothman, 2018). Similar to The Desolation of Smaug and Frozen, I went with my dad to the cinema but parted ways with him to watch this movie by my lonesome (he went to the Aquaman theatre instead smh). Again, phenomenal choice. I talked about this in my grade 11 blog, but Spider-Verse is an absolute masterpiece in every way shape and form.

At the point I watched it, I knew what I wanted to generally do with my life (be part of the art industry) and the visuals of this movie alone were enough to make me want to elope with it and never see or talk to anyone ever again. It is such a gorgeous film. The way they strayed from the yucky 3D conventions norm—and there is literally no way they could’ve done the majority of what they did in that movie effectively if they did it live action. Or, they could definitely try and make an attempt, but it’d look like garbage. For example, a lot of the action scenes in general and also when they become abstracted like with the particle collider. 40-60 fps would not do that sense of movement justice at all. Too smooth. Not enough grit and personality.

Anyway, they also pioneered new animation techniques in mixing 2D and 3D, and explored a newer superhero trope where the main character’s own mundane life struggles are equally as important as him trying to sort things out with these new powers. It’s more of a battle between what Miles wants with his own personal life—new school, the friends he won’t be able to see because of said new school, owning his own abilities and adjusting to change. Then on top of that he’s met with all these alternate-dimension people that he has to work and be on par with. Aside from the art, I thought the overall message was every special: Miles learns through trial and tribulations, unsureness—and most importantly, failure. Confidence and optimism, in regard to what he thinks he can and can’t do, is vital. Amidst everything he is faced with, he starts out as just another kid who wants to be just another kid. But we all have something special inside us that we must choose to embrace if we want to truly flourish. We see him come to terms with the fact that he really is capable of greatness if he sets his mind to it—and that’s the main message: anyone can wear the mask. And can we talk about that soundtrack??? Not only the instrumentals, but the actual songs were great too! “Sunflower” and “What’s Up Danger”? Lovely and fitting. And back to the OST, the Prowler’s theme??? Shivers.

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There is such a unique and beautiful vibe to this movie, and it’s inspired me in more ways than one. Aside from that nice motivational stuff, it also has recently played a tremendous part in developing my own art. All of the artists who worked on the film are people I immediately tried to find on social media so I could see more of their work. I purchased the art book, and even bought a 2D sequence illustration course provided by one of the art directors, Patrick O’Keefe. That course also came with the (digital) brushes he uses, and I’ve used them in pretty much every single one of my pieces since downloading them. This movie really showed me the possibilities of what could be achieved in the art industry, and it made me want to be a part of it so much more than I was before. I want to be involved in revolutionary visual achievements, and I want to develop characters and stories and worlds that are as interesting and loveable as the ones in Spider-Verse. (my stuff featured below)

So there you have it folks, 5 (five) of the most significant movies in my life relayed in a whopping just over 4000 words. I hope this has been enlightening for all you readers out there, perhaps you now have a better understanding of how I came to be personality/interest-wise, and I hope you can catch a glimpse of that same importance these pieces of media have in regard to me and my values.

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luffie · 7 years

Photo

D.va Line Art Tutorial: Basic Level

I’ve been wanting to create some art tutorial for some time and I’ve finally did it! I hope there is some wisdom you get from this Tutorial, so let’s start!

Now this is a simple tutorial, so there wouldn’t be many advanced techniques, but the good thing is, it is simple, so that almost everyone can follow through, of course in the future, I will create even better tutorials that are easier to learn and understand.

I’ve always like illustrative art, and with my passion in digital painting, sometimes I try to combine them both together, and this is one of the result. In the future, I will try to constantly create many such illustrative art.

Software Used: Photoshop CS6, Corel Painter (optional)

Dimension: Approx 3000px x 3000px

1. Drawing stage

Now this is the part that I cannot teach you here: drawing.

It really depends on your drawing skills, and for those who can;t draw so well, my strong advice is: draw on paper.

While I did this in digital out of convenience, nothing beats drawing straight on paper. Drawing digitally will hardly improve your drawing skills at all if any (my observation & exp), but drawing on paper will improve your accuracy and drawing memory much much faster and better.

Take your time drawing, if you have a good base drawing, then everything else will be nice and easy, so don’t rush it.

2. Outlining Digitally

Depending on your preferences, you can just draw any patterns, but my design here is about Peacock & Lotus design, with the Peacock symbolizing Dva’s penchant for showing off, as for the Lotus... well it’s pretty!

As you can see here, some of my outlines are pretty sleek and smooth, and that’s because I create a new clean outline on top of my previous rough drawing. This is usually quite important in terms of line drawing/painting. It makes the process easier and the whole image more clean and finished.

Painter Technique: Now, I create my drawing in my favorite app Photoshop, but Photoshop it’s not for being very bad in making smooth lines, so you have to use another program to do that.

Currently, my favorite program for creating such smooth lines is Corel Painter. You can search for “Brush Smoothing” setting, and set the “Damping” to around 80 for a good line stabilization.

While I forgot which brush I use for this, I now recommend the 2B pencil with 100% opacity (The blue lines). Make them on a different layer.

Try and create the lines with as little strokes as possible. For long curved lines like the hair, you can utilized Painter’s awesome “Paint on a path” feature, just check it on the top toolbar settings. It allows you to create a path and paint straight onto it, thus saving the frustration of redrawing again and again to get that smooth long lines.

For the red lines, “Concept Art Jitter Smooth” Under the Chalk section.

Other Software Technique: This line art technique can also be done with other software with brush stabilization feature like SAI, or Clip Paint Studio, and many others, so don’t worry if you don’t have Painter.

3. Base Colors

Now the next step is to bring the image back to Photoshop for coloring. Use the pen tool and create the basic shapes and fill them with block colors in different layers.

Now it is tempting to use the Lasso or the Paint bucket to fill, but don’t. The lasso tool has problem in creating smooth lines (which we need), and also the paint bucket (I’ll explain next time how to use it in another Tutorial).

If you have created the paths and shapes in different layers, then you can lock the layer transparency and start painting with the real desired colors.

Here I used the soft Airbrush in PS to paint it some reddish hue around her cheeks and forehead. Don’t worry about getting the colors very accurate for now, since you have separated them to different layers, it is very easy to make adjustments later on. Also, don’t forget to add a background, preferably grey or some neutral colors. It helps better to gauge the value of the colors later on, if you put white, most colors seem too dark, and of you put black, colors will seem too bright.

4. Start Painting

On a layer above the body, I painted the peacock leaves by using the Lasso tool, fill colors, and use airbrush to paint it highlights and shadow.

For the Lotus leaves, I use the Lasso, but I don’t fill it, since I want the blackness of the suit to come through. And instead of using the Airbrush, I use the PS standard round brush, with shape dynamic off and opacity pressure on, I painted with downward strokes lightly to create the leaf textures, and painted the same way again with brighter colors, and add a final highlight and the tip of most leafs.

5. More Painting

Continue painting the leafs, and the the shoulders, before moving to other parts like the gun. I’ve also added more leafs underneath the original leaf layer, since I felt it looked a bit empty. For the glow of the feathers, I simply create a layer on top of the outline layer, and set it to “color dodge”, and add some bright colors.

If the colors look weird/off, simply use Hue/Saturation to edit them till it looks right, then color pick from that section and paint the rest.

6. Finishing/Editing

As you can see, I changed the hair, since I wasn’t satisfied with the previous color. To get the bright look, you need to start with a white base. And as with the gloves, shoulders and hair, I changed their base colors to white.

Then with my texture brush, I simply painted according to the form, and leave some white shining through in the middle. This will created those “white sheen” you see here. Then for the hair, I painted darker colors near the tip/end of the hairs. I’ve also brighten the her face in the process.

For the background, I was actually a little clueless on what to paint. So I just painted some light strokes using the same textured brush and add a design element on it. Maybe next time, with better planning, I will create better backgrounds.

End Note:

So there you have it, and as you have learnt, there isn’t any complicated techniques behind this picture, and if you have prepared each stage accordingly step by step, everything later will become easier. Of course this is not the most detailed tutorial as some steps can be broken down even further to make it clearer, but that is for future tutorials!

If you like my work and would like to learn more and support me, please do consider supporting me at Patreon.com/edric . It truly helps me a lot to devote more time to create this tutorials and art, plus you will also get my custom brushes and PSD file so that you learn better, and of course, Patrons receive special tutorials. Every bit of support helps, and are truly truly appreciated!!!

Or you can buy me a coffee for late night painting too here :https://ko-fi.com/edricartist

#dva overwatch #patreon #kofi #beginners #arttutorial #paintingtutorial #luffie #digital illustration

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jessdoyletattoo · 6 years

Text

FAQ

Here’s a list of my frequently asked questions! I’ll be updating it when necessary :)

If you are looking to join the mailing list to be notified when my books are open, please go to:

http://www.ambassadortattoo.com/jessica/

*Please be aware this is not a wait list.

What does “books closed” mean?

It means I am unable to take on new tattoo projects or consultations! My schedule books out in three month increments and is currently full, but keep an eye out for posts about when they will open, or sign up for my mailing list to be notified when they do!

When will your books be open?

Sometime in October! I am booking in three month increments and do the bookings the month prior. I will be posting on Instagram and the Ambassador Website as soon as I have an exact date, so please keep an eye out! You can also subscribe to my mailing list.

***Please do not email me asking when my books are open. As soon as I know when they are open, I will post it

When your books open, how do I book in?

I’ll be posting all of the details of what to do as soon as I have an exact date in mind. I’m always trying to streamline the process to make it easier for you!

I only book 3 months at a time, and book those three months within the month before. ( Oct will be booking Nov-Jan. and then Jan will be booking Feb-Apr etc)

I emailed you a week ago, why haven’t I heard back from you?

I promise I’m not ignoring you! I receive a lot of emails everyday, and because I answer all of you personally, it may take some time for a response. Please be patient. I tattoo five days a week, draw for those five days in the mornings and evenings before work, and also need some hours in the day where I’m not working! If it’s something that needs more urgent attention, please call the shop and leave a message after you’ve emailed!

Can I book in with you?

At this time I’m not taking new projects on! I am now trying to only book in three month increments. My next bookings will be for Nov-Jan. Submissions will be taken sometime in October, so please keep an eye out on Instagram or sign up for my mailing list below

http://www.ambassadortattoo.com/jessica

The only exception to this is small tattoos (think a word or two of script, a small symbol etc) which I can sometimes accommodate at the beginning or end of a day. This does not include anything that requires a consultation. It never hurts to ask so feel free to shoot me an email! Please make sure you include every detail!

If you’re not sure if your idea is something I would take on, or you have a question that isn’t answered here, feel free to shoot me an email to ask**! Just keep in mind that it will likely be a bit before I can get back to you! Please include all the information below of what you want, it saves me a few emails asking you questions and I really appreciate it!

**If you're asking if I will take on a floral piece, the answer is 99.9% of the time yes. This is more so for if you're not sure if I can do your coverup, or fill in a gap, or you have a different idea that you aren't sure will work as a tattoo!

What:

Where (bonus points if you include a photo of the area):

What size:

Blackwork or colour:

Do you have a waitlist?

Due to how many people I deal with on a regular basis, it’s just impossible for me to keep up with a waitlist. Any openings or cancellations will be posted to Instagram!

What’s your hourly rate? How much will my tattoo cost?

Unless your tattoo is very small, its difficult to provide an estimate without a consultation. I cannot do this over email! The minimum charge is one hour, which is $180/hr at Ambassador Tattoo. If its a one shot piece I will likely quote you a flat rate. When travelling, I flat rate price my pieces for the most part.

Payment

I am all cash only! If you are coming in for your consultation and are looking to book, please be prepared to leave a min $100 deposit to secure your appointment. Anything over 2 hours requires a larger deposit of $200 or more!

Can I see my drawing before my appointment?

Although I wish I had enough time to prepare all drawings well in advance, the truth is that I just don’t! Drawings are ready for the time of your appointment. I often start one to two new drawings per day, so getting ahead of myself would just be impossible! I do not email out drawings. Small changes can be made day of, but please be aware any large redraws may result in rescheduling your appointment and require a new deposit.

Methods of payment

I am cash only for everything. The only exception being out of town clients, who may email money transfer or PayPal me a deposit.

I’m under 18, can you tattoo me with parental consent?

Sorry, but no, not even with your parents consent. We tattoo only 18+ at Ambassador. Same rules apply to me when I am travelling anywhere!

I need a touchup on my tattoo! How do I book this?

Please contact me within 6-12 weeks after your tattoo appointment if you need a touchup. It doesn’t matter if my books are closed, we will arrange a time that is suitable to you!

Free touchups apply to anything that didn’t heal properly (or healed a bit light) during the healing process and will be honoured up to six months.

If you do not follow aftercare, fade your tattoo by not wearing sunscreen, or it is simply just aging from natural processes, there will be a charge for your touchup.

Do you do coverups?

Sometimes, on a case by case basis when possible. Please keep in mind that coverups usually need to be darker, larger, and have lots of texture and detail to distract the eye from what is underneath. My dot work style shading almost never works for coverups unless its quite small. Feel free to email me a photo of your existing tattoo with a brief description of what you’d like to cover it with. From there I can let you know if its even possible, or if I would recommend a session or two of laser removal to lighten it. I’ve got referral cards at the shop that will give you a discount on laser removal at SkinPossible here in Calgary, and would be happy to set one aside for you! Remember to include the below:

What:

Where (recent photos are necessary):

What size:

Blackwork or colour:

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Deposit Policy

Please ensure that you have read and understood the following Terms and Conditions before booking a tattoo appointment.

Deposit terms and conditions

A non-refundable deposit is required to secure your tattoo appointment. Appointments are scheduled upon receipt by Jessica Doyle of the deposit. Payment of the deposit is confirmation that the client understands, accepts, and agrees to these terms and conditions.

Balance

The remaining balance of the cost of tattoo (minus deposit) is required in cashimmediately following the tattoo appointment.

In the case that multiple appointments are made, the the balance per appointment is required immediately following each tattoo session. The initial deposit is required to be carried forward throughout all the booked tattoo appointments and applied to the final session of the project.

Payments

Deposits and payments are accepted in cash only. The only exception being out of town clients, who may leave their deposit by e-mail money transfer. Confirmation of appointment is made when the deposit has been received.

Cancellations and rescheduling

All deposit are NON-REFUNDABLE. With a minimum of one weeks notice, initial design concepts may be altered, and appointments may be rescheduled to a different day or time. Appointments may be rescheduled a maximum of 2 times with notice. A third rescheduling may be subject to loss of deposit.

*Neglecting to give one week notice for rescheduling or design change will result in full loss of deposit

Drawings will be ready for the day of your appointment.

Please do not book a tattoo appointment if you do not fully understand and agree to these terms and conditions.

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Before your appointment

Please ensure you’ve sent any reference photos if necessary to me at least a week prior to your appointment. [email protected]

If there is anything you want to change/add to your idea other than what we discussed at your consultation, you must notify me via email a minimum of one week prior to your appointment.

Make sure you eat a big meal within the hour before you come! And bring some sugary snacks. It’s important to keep your blood sugars up and make sure your body feels good!

Don’t drink the night before your appointment! I always encourage you drink extra water in the week prior to hydrate your skin!

Make sure you wear something dark and comfortable, that allows easy access to the area we are tattooing. Ink usually finds its way onto your clothes, so don’t wear your favourite white silk top/bra/pants.

Bring extra things to make you comfy: a sweater in case you get cold, headphones if you want to zone out and relax etc.

I am cash only, but there are ATMs located nearby! Feel free to stop by your bank prior to your appointment

Drawings are ready for the time of your appointment. I often start one to two new drawings per day, so getting ahead of myself would just be impossible! I do not email out drawings. Small changes can be made day of, but please be aware any large redraws may result in rescheduling your appointment and require a new deposit.

If you need to reschedule, one weeks notice is required. Anything less will result in loss of deposit. (Appointments may be rescheduled a maximum of two times, the third may result in loss of deposit)

Please do not bring anyone with you to your appointment! We have a smaller studio and there’s not a lot of extra space at the station. We have music or movies going all the time, and I promise I’m good company if you get bored :)

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ourlittlebitofnothinguniverse · 7 years

Note

Hey for the ask thing, all the questions you're comfortable with answering

oh boy!!! heck yeah fun shit thanks my dude! little did u Kno…… I LOVE oversharing !!! lmao muahahahahaha i’m probably gonna answer all of them thank u for enabling it lmfao

1. Do you ever doubt the existence of others than you?

yah on Rly Bad days

2. On a scale of 1-5, how afraid of the dark are you?

like… 3.5? i like the dark but,,, ‘m Scare,,,,,

3. The person you would never want to meet?

Orange Turnip

4. What is your favorite word?

it changes tbh,, hm but i can’t think of any rn!

5. If you were a type of tree, what would you be?

i’d be….. a nice oak! thicc and full of secrets

6. When you looked in the mirror this morning what was the first thing you thought?

i didn’t lmao reflection what’s that

7. What shirt are you wearing?

i’m wearing the dress i wore to work

8. What do you label yourself as?

annoying or boring lmao but also the Goblin King and that is Good

9. Bright room or dark room?

i still don’t know if this is referring to like paint shade or like the amount of light it gets or like if i sleep in a bright room or dark room so like??? *shrug emoji*

10. What were you doing at midnight last night?

i was?? drawing i think

12. Who told you they loved you last?

i think it was @wrenn-frug 💕💖 lov u fren!

13. Your worst enemy?

dunno man probably myself but that sounds cliche so like??? the sun bc it always burns me

14. What is your current desktop picture?

a screenshot from song of the sea!!! lOVE that movie!!!! i’d post it but like?? i don’t think i have it saved anymore or if i do i don’t feel like looking but it’s that one scene where they’re walking thru the pretty field towards the trees and there’s foxes in the corner and she’s playing the shell it’s so pretty,,,,,

15. Do you like someone?

uh yah my cat

16. The last song you listened to?

Young God - Halseygood song lov it,,,,

17. You can press a button that will make any one person explode. Who would you blow up?

oraNGE TURNIP

18. Who would you really like to just punch in the face?

orange turnip my dude i Hate

19. If anyone could be your slave for a day, who would it be and what would they have to do?

uh nobody ????

20. What is your best physical attribute? (showing said attribute is optional)

my squishy thighs and my fantastic stretch marks (which have taken me YEARS to accept)

21. If you were the opposite sex for one day, what would you look like and what would you do?

22. Do you have a secret talent? If yes, what is it?

????????????? secret???? talent?????? lemme check, ,, , , *reaches into a bag* nope bitch empt y aint got No Talent lmao

23. What is one unique thing you’re afraid of?

okay so like this is really dumb and i partially answered this in this ask abt the flushing toilets @ night thing but like to elaborate and make it even more dumb not only am i afraid to flush toilets @ night bc it’s just rly creepy and loud to me (esp if i’ve been asleep) but like,, , sort of in the same vein of fear is that when i was little my older sister told me that there was a ghost in the toilet and if i don’t flush it’ll get me and like i kno it’s not tru but like,,,,,, Sometimes,,,,,, (i must clarify i’m not scared of toilets themselves but like flushing freaks me out sometimes like @ night or if i don’t flush fast enough lmao don’t look @ me i’m a mess)

24. You can only have one kind of sandwich. Every sandwich ingredient known to humankind is at your disposal.

Excuse? is this like that i can ONLY eat this sandwich or is it that this is the only sandwich i can ever eat or like i can only ever have one last sandwich bc honestly i’m Not Okay with any of those scenarios no matter how many ingredients i get for the initial creation

25. You just found $100! How are you going to spend it?

Dream daddy dating simulator lmao uh?? also probably more food for archie bc he is Expensive

26. You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere in the world, but you have to leave immediately. Where are you going to go?

Ireland probably. always wanted to see ireland

27. An angel appears out of Heaven and offers you a lifetime supply of the alcoholic beverage of your choice. “Be brand-specific” it says. Man! What are you gonna say about that? Even if you don’t drink booze there’s something you can figure out… so what’s it gonna be?

“Even if you don’t drink booze there’s something you can figure out” like???? no???? if u don’t drink alcohol why would u want a lifetime supply??? unless i could like…. sell it??? whats the Most Expensive kind i’ll just get an unending supply of heavenly Expensive Alcohol to sell for incredibly inflated prices to the rich bc it’s From Heaven and give the money to the poor bc like,,, why not

28. You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What is the first rule you put into place?

bitches gotta keep they damn opinions to themselves if they can’t respect somebody’s life based on factors they can’t help (race, religion, orientation, gender etc) also no money like We Don’t Need It i’m so tired of Needing money

29. What is your favorite expletive?

Fuck bc u can use it in So Many situations

30. Your house is on fire, holy shit! You have just enough time to run in there and grab ONE inanimate object. Don’t worry, your loved ones and pets have already made it out safely. So what’s the one thing you’re going to save from that blazing inferno?

o shit probably the twenty dollar metallic watercolors i got bc shit son??? actually probably like my laptop or smth idk

31. You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?

my childhood thx

32. You got kicked out of the country for being a time-traveling heathen who sleeps with celebrities and has super-powers. But check out this cool shit… you can move to anywhere else in the world!

this is.. not a questionalthough it is a wonderful scenario

33. The Celestial Gates Of Beyond have opened, much to your surprise because you didn’t think such a thing existed. Death appears. As it turns out, Death is actually a pretty cool entity, and happens to be in a fantastic mood. Death offers to return the friend/family-member/person/etc. of your choice to the living world. Who will you bring back?

none of them bc if the celestial gates of the beyond is real then all the people i’d want to bring back are probably in a Better Place or something and why would i want to drag them to Hell?

34. What was your last dream about?

Cannot remember to save my life altho i kno it was rly weird and convoluted

35. Are you a good….[insert anything you’d like here]?

u did not put anything Here so i will Ignore

36. Have you ever been admitted to the hospital?

Nope

37. Have you ever built a snowman?

yAH it’s fun!

38. What is the color of your socks?

not wearing any

39. What type of music do you like?

A Lot

40. Do you prefer sunrises or sunsets?

Sunsets,,, evening is so nice mm m

41. What is your favorite milkshake flavor?

chocolate ayyyy

43. Do you have any scars?

a couple but like for Dumb Reasons

44. What do you want to be when you graduate?

I’ve graduated hs but i wanna be an animator when i decide which college to go to

45. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

my brain pls bartender can i have a Healthy One (correction to favorite word #4: fav word currently is deign)

46. Are you reliable?

i would like to think so

47. If you could ask your future self one question, what would it be?

are you happy?

48. Do you hold grudges?

YAH but only if i’ve been Pushed Too Far which is Pretty Damn Far by most ppls standards

49. If you could breed two animals together to defy the laws of nature, what new animal would you create?

none I am Not a God

50. What is the most unusual conversation you’ve ever had?

i have had So Many???? the most recent one was two times in a row random ppl i barely knew asked me for my netflix account bc they didnt have one and like…. bro what who R U,,,,, (i had literally only talked to the first guy once for ten minutes on fb)

51. Are you a good liar?

is the sky green? don’t think so

52. How long could you go without talking?

Very Long but like Only on Bad Weeks

53. What has been you worst haircut/style?

None my hair is Magnificent (idk)

54. Have you ever baked your own cake?

like birthday cake? never but i lov to bake cakes so like i bake myself cakes all the time

55. Can you do any accents other than your own?

i am so bad @ accents i can’t even Read in my Head in accents even though i know what the accent Should Sound Like

56. What do you like on your toast?

peanut butter and banan slices

57. What is the last thing you drew a picture of?

working on a picture of a tiger redraw

58. What would be you dream car?

a Bike bc i Do Not Like cars

59. Do you sing in the shower? Or do anything unusual in the shower? Explain.

i only sing in the shower when nobody is home (which is infrequent bc my mom is Always here) bc i am self conscious around most ppl but like Music,,,,, also when i was little i would pretend that i was standing in the rain all sad like in movies lmao

60. Do you believe in aliens?

yah

61. Do you often read your horoscope?

i follow an astrology blog and i read homestuck i mean,,

62. What is your favorite letter of the alphabet?

i??? A maybe bc there are a lot of ways to write it pretty idk but like specifically capital A ig

63. Which is cooler: dinosaurs or dragons?

Dragons they’re fire-breathing friends and i love them

64. What do you think about babies?

Gross

65. Freebie! Ask anything interesting you can think of.

U Didn’t put anything Here either so like how abt i give u a random fact abt myself that seems good my favorite bird is the lammergeier bc they’re basically irl dragons and they’re so pretty??? love them??? also i hate monkeys and apes esp chimpanzes bc they are scary and too much like humans to me i don’t like them

BOY that took way longer than i thought bc i had to feed my cat halfway thru and everything and like this is a Long Post sorry guys but ayyyyy this was fun thanks ari

#ask meme #i think i asked all but like three

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riisinaakka-draws · 7 years

Photo

It has only been a little over a year since I started watching the show and joined the Black Sails fandom. I posted my first fanart exactly one year ago and it was the one above. Thus far I have drawn over 100 of them. I tried different mediums and styles, both for practice and for capturing the essence of the things I wanted to share. Some of them are great, some are silly, some are a bit out of character or not so good in other ways and some ended up surprising me in many ways. All are nonetheless very precious to me.

Under the read more there's a list of all my doodles thus far. Most of them feature Flint, Silver or both of them (there will be more of the other characters in the future, no worries). I have to admit I laughed quite a lot while going through these again. This is a really long post.

This is a list to show what sort of things there are and also for my own amusement and archiving purposes. The list is in chronological order, from first to the latest.

I tried to make this as concise as possible, but the tag/navigation page is here if you want to find something specific or don’t want to go through all this:

- Flint takes care of Silver's leg in the darkness of the captain's cabin.

- Some quick doodles of Flint, ballpoint pen

- Sharkdate cuties (really scrappy doodles of Silver gazing at munching Flint)

- Progress. A continuation to previous pic. Silver holding a cup, covered in blood and looking affectionally at Flint. Here’s a giffed version.

- Silver and Flint go for a night walk in winter and Flint finds the streetlights amusing. Modern Au, beanies and the BS logo

- “See any treasures, Capt'n?” Billy to Flint who is looking at something “shiny” with his spyglass.

- What if Silver stole that certain ponytail and made it into "a rabbit's foot"? And what if Flint had a medallion with pictures of the Hamiltons and later a lock of dark curls... I returned to this idea several times after this, lol. (still secretly wishing that anyone would write a ficlet about this).

- Overload of Blackbeard - several doodles of different adaptations of BB

- Shark hunting. Flint has the shark on his lap and Silver stands in front of him. Composition inspired by that infamous Wolwerine and Nightcrawler cover.

- A gif of Blackbeard with flowers in his beard (I share a birthday with Ray Stevenson, that's why).

- a quick sketch of displeased Jack

- The Red Lollipop. Flint eating candy which is distracting to Silver, inspired by this awesome post (x). Silver steals the sweets and peels some potatoes. Bonus: Randall and Betsy the Cat.

- Draw me like one of your quatermasters... Flint doodles sleeping Silver in the Captain's log.

- Random sketches of Silver and Flint. Learning to draw their faces

- Flint with a horrible mustache and Silver with a long braided beard. (I should redraw this someday..)

- Flint takes Silver for a ride (modern Au with motorcycles). The Walrus gang follows "the flagship"

- Black Sails moomin AU, part I (I had so much fun with these).

The domestic modern beach au serie with 15+ doodles, various characters, inspired by this hilarious post (x). - Jack takes pictures of everything and Vane ends up buried in the sand - Silver puts some lotion on Flint (Billy tosses people up in the background) - Max and Anne Bonny enjoying each other's company - Rogers is going to get hit by a beach ball "accidentally". Anne, Max, Vane and Jack in the background - Ben Gunn shows his ship kite to Billy Bones - Vane and Flint swim butterfly. Silver (*.*) - Vane flips his hair like a merman, Eleanor is drinking and enjoying the view. - Mr Scott and Mr Gates enjoy their drinks at the bar while others fight in the water. Max and Eleanor gossip together. Anne and Jack hold hands like otters on swim rings. - Silver and Flint sleeping on the sun, Flint has a book on his face - The Ranger Crew swimming. Jack is slathered in sun lotion, Anne waits for him and Vane makes a joke. + Mysterious swimming trunks. - Silver is the sneakiest shit and likes to creep underwater and drag people down by their legs. - Silver and Flint eating ice cream + some early sketches in a gif - the Fucking Warship (minivan) rides to sunset, Vane is forgotten in the sand but do not worry...

- Silver and Flint sing the song "Dynamic Duet" from Starkids' Holy musical B@tman!

- Nooooooooo! Flint shaves his head, Silver doesn't take it well.

- Silver's character development. From little shit to actual scary fuck

- A HUG. (silverflint, done before s4. I really needed a hug)

- Bloodthirsty Bunny & Squinting Squirrel, (furries, i am so sorry)

- Flint brings water to Silver, a scene from the show. <3

- Sweetness of touch. Flint gets his hair/head touched by his loved ones.

The Walrus crew acquires some chicken. A lot of them. And a parrot. - Billy and Joji are tending them - people playing board games and ignoring the chickens - a coc- I mean a rooster between Silver's legs - Silver holding some chickens and Flint meeting "the Captain Flint"

- Flint gets his ginger crown back...sort of

Chickens, part II. Flint sends his regards. Teach has taken Anne and Jack to fishing and they get a surprise "gift" from the Walrus.

Fanart about Silverfin, a thrilling and unbeliavably funny (nsfw) silverflint fic by @jadedbirch and @zoinomiko (can’t tag u for some reason..).

Go read it :D I made some (sfw) fanart inspired by it (spoilers). - a comic of the tragic night - reunion and crowns (˵ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°˵)

- (a recap, not really a tutorial) about some of my messy work methods.

- Anne Bonny, without her hat, ready to kick your ass, season 3

- A portait of Max

- Every fashionable pirate captain needs a hat! Silver buys some silly pirate hats. Inspired by @vowel-in-thug's fic (part V, nsfw) and the CBeebies Bedtime Story etc.

- "Support". Silver and Flint approaching the Maroon camp.

- A portrait of Long John Silver on his way of becoming the legend

- Swords and time. James McGraw - Captain Flint. Sword placement comparison, gif experiments etc. (I really like this one)

- A canary. Flint finds a sad-looking caged bird aboard a merchant ship and then reads books to it in his cot. Inspired by @old-long-john's sweet and beautiful fic (x). Also thanks to @captain-flint for spotting the bird cage in s1.

Inktober 2016, 20+ doodles, various characters - Silver, a sad little face doodle - A bringer of death and destruction (Flint as an angel of sorts). Quick doodle with a brush - Silver and Flint. A little doodle with an ink-dipped cotton swap - "Hungry", Silver and Flint find the whale and prepare to hunt sharks. - "SAD?" NOT TODAY! There's always Silver Lining. Silly and shitty puns. - "Hidden", The treasure has been buried. - "LOST", Silver and Flint look for a bird on board the Walrus. - "ROCK", Ben Gunn and Billy Bones play rock-paper-scissors. (sorry, still no better doodle of them) - "BROKEN", Benjamin Hornigold misses his chair. - "Lock the door", Flint on the floor of his cabin when they were becalmed ;_; - "TRANSPORT", Anne Bonny takes Jack Rackham to safety on a horse. - Madi, a little sketch - "Dufresne admires his new tattoo" - "TREE", What difference does it make? Captain Naft shares his insight. Froom and Crisp agree. Morley and Randall (+ Betsy the Cat) are not impressed (for obvious reasons...). - "RELAX", A nice afternoon at the seaside with some of the brothel girls - A little sketch of John Silver again, because I cannot resist him. - "Flint has a meeting with Death". - "ESCAPE", Flint has retired and Silver still sails the seas. Occasionally he visits James and steals some of his baked goods (with some help from his crew and birdies). - "FLIGHT", a sketch of a parrot on a napkin - "SQUEEZE", Jack Rackham enjoying his bath - "LITTLE", a little sketch of Max and Anne kissing in little rain, under Anne's huge hat. - "Surprise", Charles Vane lurking in the water - "And then! You won't believe what the.." Hal Gates and Billy Bones spend their free afternoon gossiping and having fun - "Forget-me-not" / "one dozen", Miranda finds some familiar flowers and thinks about Thomas. - "BURN", Thomas, James and Miranda, just eyes. Inspired by the powermetal duet "Wish I Had An Angel"

- Oooh, What does my reflection shoooow ~. (Lovable) Little shit.

- Accidents with the spyglass. Flint acts like an asshole, Billy and Gates are having none of it, Silver is yet to learn.

- Death builds a raft and follows the Walrus.

- Portrait of Eleanor, the Merchant Queen of Nassau

- "long johns and puns". Silver is looking for a new pirate style and Billy offers to help.

- Black Sails Moomin AU - part II

- Silver at the wrecks, light and visual practise

- Eleanor Guthrie and James Flint, looking in / out. visual practise, parallels and contrasts

- My Heart Will Go On, but I'll keep your ponytail and get a parrot for my duets. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

- Muldoon's tattoo ;_;

Some of the following have season 4 spoilers:

- Eleanor does some embroidery (of bees and fuck-yous)

- How Silver gets his new crutch (Israel Hands is handy)

- Flint and the Wanderer above the sea of fog

- Flint's mouth saying FUCK infinitely, a gif experiment

- "That's my wee lad, Gimli." Berringer's locket and asshole Rogers.

- For a moment there was a Hat Trio. Teach, Jack and Anne

- Silver and Madi, canon kiss

- The Spare Ginger. Silver doesn't like Eleanor's plan. Madi and Israel Hands try to comfort him.

- Eleanor Guthrie, a green portrait

- Long John Silver must make a tough choice, while Flint enjoys his capture at Eleanor's expense

- All those extra spyglasses in 4.08. Maybe the answer was Israel Hands' hoarding.

- Fresh air on the balcony of the Walrus. (a drawing of the ship at night). There're celebrations on the deck, Flint and Silver have a private talk.

I find it endearing how this list ends with the balcony one. Like a parallel (ha!) to the first one, where Flint and Silver are having a private moment on board of a ship, although it is a different ship and at a different time. A year ago I had no idea where this all would lead me and how much I would learn and get to experience *pats my past-self in the back awkwardly and fondly*

Looking back at them (doodles) I feel both proud and slightly embarrassed of my enthusiasm. I have never done anything like this for any other fandom. I have never felt so much and had such an urge to engage in this sort of thing.

This show, its creators and crew, this fandom. Just something unbeliavable. I cannot find the words to say how much I appreciate you all. The brilliancy, the humour, the love in all kinds of forms. I am so glad I stumbled on this show (it was a gif or a fanvid about ep 2.05 that made me aware of this show, btw. I cannot remember it clearly anymore and for a moment I thought Crossbones was a pilot for Black Sails and almost missed everything, but that's a story for another time...)

Know this: I have loved sharing this experience (the show, the fandom) with you and I appreciate everything you have given to me or shared with me. I will treasure this. (I apologize not thanking more people individually, but this post would’ve never reached its end otherwise).

*throws hearts and forehead kisses to the best and inspiring fandom and the greatest show that broke my heart and healed my soul so many times*

All the possibilities and love to you. Thank you <3

(This is not a goodbye, btw. There’s still so much more to come!) (◠‿◠✿)

P.S. All this started as doodles so that’s why I have kept using that word eventhough it doesn’t really apply to many of these anymore...

#black sails doodle #anniversary of my descent to black sails hell and heaven #<3 #i can't really think of any tags for this #a list of things I have drawn for bs thus far #for archiving purposes #what a journey :D #I hope this is readable #there are several unfinished ones waiting but i am not going to spoil the fun yet #i hope there aren't many errors in links or tags #I won't tag or thank more people individually (at least in this post...sorry)#(better to not have too much stuff in one post)

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smashdraws · 7 years

Text

The things I’ve learned from art school: part 1/?

I’m a second year illustration student, and I’m here to share with you pearls of wisdom from what I’ve experienced and learned in college (so far), from the actual drawing process to attitudes about art/drawing. Most of these things I’ve learned the hard way, and some are from things I’ve seen others struggle with.

The most work you should be doing in your drawing process is thumbnails/sketching stage.

“There’s no point in finishing a drawing if it’s flawed from the beginning”. That’s what my Composition & Transparent Media professor constantly told us. During our first piece of the semester, he had us stay on the sketching and redrawing stage for a little over a month in order to perfect them. He wanted to make sure the perspective was right, composition was pushed to its fullest, details were added to make every space interesting, the whole shebang. Obviously you’re probably not going to spend a whole month redrawing a piece over and over every time you draw, especially if it’s a time-sensitive project or just a personal piece you’re doing for funsies. However, the sketching stage is where most of the creativity happens. You have to decide on composition, scale, design elements, characters and how they’re positioned in the space, environment, and so much more. And I’d be willing to bet that you won’t get it right the first time.

Give yourself projects when you aren’t in school.

It helps with artist block. The summer between freshman and sophomore year of school I could probably count the number of drawings I did on one hand. To be fair, I was working two jobs 6 days a week so i didn’t exactly have a lot of time, but I found that once I got out of school I had zero drive or ideas. Without assignments from class to draw for, I had nothing to draw, and when I got back to school for sophomore year I had a lot of trouble getting inspired again. It made the beginning of the year really hard for me. Find something, ANYTHING, to draw while you’re out of school, even if you draw fanart for one thing all summer, at least you’re still drawing.

If a character in your drawing is reminiscent of another character/too generic, think about altering it- especially if it’s a work that focuses on said character.

This really only applies for artists who’s focus/career is character design, but it’s still relevant to others. As painful as it is to hear, it means you might not be pushing your concepts enough. I took a class on Concept Art, and the first assignment was character design. A few of mine were deemed too generic looking, and one was too reminiscent of an existing character. It really hurt to hear, especially since I pride myself on character design and they were for a story I’ve had in development for over 6 years. It really made me feel like shit and made me not want to develop the characters further. But I needed to hear it, and I had to continue developing them for the class, so I ended up overhauling and redesigning the characters until they didn’t seem like the same ones anymore in order to make them more interesting. I hated it, but it’s what I had to do.

That being said, things like this really make you think about distinguishing your characters and art from others out there. It’s essentially impossible to be 100% original, but that doesn’t mean you cant try your damnedest to make your ideas as close to original as they can get without getting overcomplicated.

When designing characters, mix up the body shape and facial features.

This one is kind of specific, but still important since character design is an important element of illustration. If you don’t vary things up you’re cruisin’ for a bruisin’ from your professors and peers. And frankly, its boring as hell when someone’s characters all look the same. This is something I see a lot, and I can never get attached to an individual character cause they all looked the same! I found that it happens a lot with male characters, they all have defined abs to some degree and perfectly toned arms and honestly, it gets boring when all of someone’s male characters have the same body type. As for face, there is literally no excuse. There are SO MANY KINDS OF FACES MAN. Round, rectangular, circular, heart-shaped, squared. People can have hooked noses, upturned noses, tiny cute noses. Even eyebrows- arched, flat, thick, waxed, faint, or bold. You’re allowed to have preferences for what kind of bodies you like to draw, but don’t be afraid to branch out!

Develop your own style.

As an artist, you need your own style. Imitating other artist’s styles isn’t going to get you far in school or the real world, and chances are, your peers will call you out if your style looks too much like another established artist’s. In order to make a living and gain clients you need a style that you make unique, taking inspirations and aspects from other styles and squishing them together to make one amazing art style baby. Your art style will probably be the deciding factor in whether or not your client hires you!

Tracing references is OK when appropriate.

As long as it isn’t for a published or commissioned piece, there is absolutely no harm in tracing references. In your down time take some pictures of yourself or find some online and go ahead and trace ‘em. Really pay attention to how the body actually is, how the perspective on legs work, how that hand is foreshortened. Do this enough and you’ll find yourself thinking about all that when you’re drawing normally!

There will always be students better than you, you just gotta accept it.

It’s just a fact of life, unfortunately. When you’re a freshman, you’re in classes with only freshman for your foundation year. You and your peers are all on the relatively same level. What had affected me starting my second year (and I didn’t realize it until much later) was that now that I was in classes with upperclassmen, who had a year or two’s worth of experience on me, I felt as id my art was not up to par. It’s easy to forget your classmates are not just from your grade anymore, especially in electives. All of the electives I took had mostly Juniors and a few Sophomores, and my work always didn’t quite have that polish and finesse to it yet that the upperclassmen’s did have. It’s just a fact of life that you’ll always be up against artists who are more skilled than you , but thats because they have more or different experiences. You have to keep in mind that you can’t compare yourself to them, since it isn’t fair to you that you’re comparing yourself to someone who may have 3+ years on you.

Learn realism to some extent- figures, animals, everything.

You don’t have to like it, but you can always tell when an artist never learned it because their figures are always off. There is a difference between stylizing and not knowing, and it’s almost always evident. You can see it in the way hands are drawn, noses are rendered, and how they shape and place breasts. Do pages of body studies focusing on hands, feet, leg muscles, back arches, faces, all kinds of stuff. You’ll thank yourself later.

Your professors and peers will know when you don’t put in your best effort.

They’ll know when you aren’t pushing yourself because you’ll make fundamental mistakes. Slightly imperfect coloring, wiggly linework that wasn’t done quite carefully enough, not bothering to fix those damn feet in the finish. They always know, somehow...even if you’re careful with your laziness.

Buying expensive materials is usually worth it.

It may cost more but your work will benefit from it, and they last so, so much longer. I had to buy 3 brushes when my techniques class was doing watercolor, and in total they costed over $100. I found as I used them that since they were hair brushes and not synthetic, they held so much more pigment and water, and I could get a much finer tip. I was incredibly lucky that my professor provided the paint, which could go up to $20 a tube for some colors with the brand he had. Paper is also something worth splurging on, because let me tell you I have had disastrous effects when using shitty (coughCANSONcough) watercolor paper. The 9x12 paper block I bought for class was $30, and it was the best paper i’ve ever worked on. Absolutely worth the money and I will be buying that brand for projects from now on. And the best thing about all these is that they’ll last forever!

You NEED to find ways to get excited about a project you hate, because you’re gonna have to do a lot of them.

If you don’t find ways to get excited about projects you’re not too thrilled to do, you’ll never succeed. I learned this in my freshman year very fast, because man oh man were there some projects I couldn’t have cared less about. If you can, gear the project towards one of your interests without compromising the purpose or assigned subject.

I hope this advice can help some folks! Art school is a lot of tough love, and a lot of stepping 300 yards out of your comfort zone (sometimes by force). But they key is to not be afraid of trying new things! You’ll find things you absolutely hate doing, and will never want to do ever again if you can help it, and you’ll find things that you’ll love to do. It’s all about keeping an open mind!

Keep drawing, keep learning, keep creating.

#advice #life lessons #art #art advice #college #art school #not art #artist #learning #tough love #long post #critique

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