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#wanted to do a more detailed background but i also wanted to be done by today so the winter void instead
existentialcrisis-9-5 · 24 hours
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DCA Subnautica AU
Version #2 of the designs, including the bioluminescence! + fun tidbits on each of the goobers and a visual on Y/N!
Eclipse is up first!
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Theirs was the first design I drew out in any detail (as shown in the crude MS Paint drawing), so it's the one that needed the most work. Even after making the more detailed version with the lights, I still ended up changing things as I got a better grasp on what direction I wanted to head in. Fun lore tidbit! Eclipse is a freak of nature and should not look like that! They're properly split down the middle between day and night. Also I messed it up in the drawing because I was tired when I made it, but they're also covered in scars and bite marks.
Sun !!
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I did Sun next, and here I had a better idea for what I was going for. There were still a few problems with this design though, which got changed. This is also where I started drawing the pattern on the tail, which I felt looked weird in this picture. Fun tidbit! Sun has an inability to express his feelings in the appropriate fish mermaid way, leading to much confusion.
Moon !!
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Moon was done last. Once again, I learned from this drawing and changed Moon's design to match, however Moon is the one that remains the most unchanged! I knew what I was going for by the time I got to him each time, so I guess that helped. Something I did alter, however, were some of the lights. I found that they either blended together too much or weren't as visible as I would have liked. Fun tidbit! This is pose actually based on a scene in one of the chapters. It was actually one of the earliest written scenes.
Y/N, my beloved <3
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I did 2 versions of Y/N, one with longer hair and one with shorter. It was important for me, when writing the story, that I kept the person I'm imagining as vague as possible, with the only physical descriptions being "physically fit" and having a few scars (for plot reasons), so this is only for me and whatever drawings I do. As a result of trying to keep it vague, I ended up going with the shorter hair (though in the final reference I made it a bit longer than shown here). Fun tidbit! The green is because whenever I'm sketching, I have 4 colours I sketch in to differentiate parts of the picture (usually background vs foreground or different people), and green was the one I used here (red, blue and purple were taken, I'm sure you can understand why). It ended up sticking, since I didn't want to go with the orange that's on Ryley's suit in order to avoid possible confusion.
That's it for now! At some point, I'll post the full references for each of them, but until then, the next thing I post will probably be chapter 1!
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jojen-hewitt · 4 months
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💖💙Happy Holidays!! 🎄✨
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bonetrousledbones · 15 days
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getting a sudden resurgence of art motivation is such a blessing and a curse tbh. bc on one hand im drawing a lot and having a lotta fun doing so but on the other hand i wanted to make Even More secret stuff for atbb that requires drawing so i told myself i would make a few very sketchy things that would have to be quick and don't have to be Insane Awesome Quality since they'll be blurry as hell in the final product anyway and i have like less than a week / a couple days at most to get it all ready in time
so anyways now it's 3am and i just finished the first of what i still want to do after 3 days
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#trousled dumb#WHAT THE HELL IS IT WITH ME AND OVERDOING SHIT THAT'S JUST GONNA BE BLURRED!!!!!!!!!!!!!#there are THERE characters in this fucking thing btw. and a background. whats wrong with me who have i become#i was sooo close to just leaving it with minimal shading & detail and finishing it like So Many Hours Ago I Don't Even Know#but i had that thought. you know the one. the one that says Wait I Can Push This More. and well i fucking pushed it#i think im gonna have to do an art dump when this event is done. because where this is gonna be seen beforehand it's gonna be 400px wide.#its original width is 1694px for the record. can you imagine the compression#motion blur + scanlines filter + several gaussian blurs + ungodly compression.......................why did i . do this#sigh. at least i am extremely proud of it and at least i lost track of time solely because of how much fun i was having#but also fellas i do not think i will be drawing everything i want to be prepared by the time of the reveal lmaooo#head in hands. i have drawn a really really good pair of boots. and also a lesbian. and also fully rendered drinks with ice cubes in them#ice cubes that you cannot see. because they are already so small that they had to be drawn with a 2px brush. and now they are blurred#and also obscured by the glass details in general. but by god do they change color under the liquid and everything#goodnight . i would put a cute little emoji here but there isnt anything that represents a smile akin to baring my teeth like a wild animal
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zemnarihah · 1 year
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wiz to the ard. complete
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treecereal · 1 year
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Another fairy extremely loosely inspired by those flower fairy i might do a proper study of them next but who knows when that will be.
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juubli · 7 months
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Here are some of process snapshots of this piece of Astarion in Baldur's Gate.
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I am a messy painter and I often adjust and change the designs as I paint. (Mostly because I don't have the patience to do proper line art haha)
I start out with a rough sketch, I usually sketch ideas out on my ipad and move to my cintiq to work with colors.
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Next I block in rough color thumbnail. I keep this part messy as I just want to figure out the value structure and the overall mood.
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At this point, I have collected a myriad of screenshots and reference images from the game, pinterest, and also from artists work that inspires me.
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With the references on one screen, I start to paint the details, I work from foreground to midground to background. (Sometimes I'll bounce between the depth when I get bored from painting one thing for too long)
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Sometimes after I block in the colors I'll make adjustments. I didn't like how warped the perspective was getting on the building on the screen right side, so I adjusted the vanishing point and added more tiers to the design. I went back into the game and looked at more how the stairs were designed and figured it out more thoroughly with a sketch on on top.
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I think sitting down and doing the details is the most time consuming part. I still want the focus to be on the character despite all the detail going on the background. At this point I'm toggling on black & white filters constantly to check the value, grouping everything in the background together, making sure the lighting frames the subject in focus. At this point I realized, I forgot to paint Astarion's hair LOL, and that the bg was getting a bit too detailed, so I used a more textured brush and painted away some of the edge details of bg buildings.
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Last, I make final adjustments, and I make a overall lighting/fx adjustment folder. Adding in some noise, adjusting the contrast, color balance, and lighting over all and call it done!
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Link to Print shop!
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lapis-maid · 1 year
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gonna sit on it for tonight since there's still a little more to be done here but. uh.
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uh. how is this turning out actually decent. like. what the fuck.
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empty-movement · 5 months
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Chiho Saito’s 1999 Revolutionary Girl Utena Original Illustration Collection
IT’S HERE. IT’S DONE. IT’S FINISHED. NOW…IT’S YOURS. Happy Holidays, my friends.
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Vanna here! I have posted some already about this project, and the responses I got, public and otherwise, have been absolutely incredible. Y’all have been reblogging and hyping this before it even finished…I haven’t felt so encouraged about an Utena project since the musicals! (Yes, streams soon, I promise.) You can read the other post to get more details, and catch my post here with more details about the process if you’re interested. The long and short of it?
This is the first artbook I ever scanned. I did it in 2001. In Photoshop, using multiple scans per page that took hours to process. But it was 2001. A half megabyte file that was 1250px wide was considered extremely hardcore and impressive. That’s just always been the business I’m in when it comes to Utena art, you know? 
It’s now the latest artbook I’ve scanned, and so much of the process, and effort involved, is unchanged. What has changed, is the result. Welcome to your new desktop background. Your new phone background. Your new poster print. 
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What I’ve done here is attempt to create definitive digitized images of Chiho Saito’s work as offered by this book--I have removed the print moiré of the original scans, and used my literal decades of experience to try and tease out as much information from them as possible. Without being physically in front of the original artwork (which is a thing I’ve had the great fortune to get to do) this is The Most Chiho Saito you are ever going to get. I’ve tried my best to make sure there is a way to get it that works for everyone:
Do you just wanna scope 'em out? Look at some disaster gays? Grab your favorite one or two? This is the path for you! Check out the ‘compressed’ (not very) 10k ‘web friendly’ (not really) copy at the Bibliothèque, the media archiving wing of the Something Eternal forums at Empty Movement*. All the following links are also available from here. Do you want these copies? All of them? Don't just grab them individually, friend. This batch is 375MB and can be downloaded as a zip of the individual files here on our Google Drive.
Do you like digital archiving? Are you looking for a copy that preserves the archival quality of the effort but sits nice and comfy in a single file? This is for you. A minimally compressed 10k, 513MB version worked into a PDF is now up, shiny and chrome, on the Internet Archive. Do you like the idea of the minimal compression, but want the individual files in a zip? Yep I did that too, here's the drive link.
Are you looking to print these in a larger size? This is probably the only reason on Earth you’d ever want them, and yet a bunch of you are going to go straight for these. Here are the zero-compression JPG full size copies, most of them are 15k across, like simply a ridiculous size. Pick your fave and download it from our Google Drive! 
I am genuinely really proud of this work.** I was able to tease out so much new detail from these…her incredible layering techniques, the faintest brush of her highlights, and the full range of her delicate hand at whites and blacks… details commonly lost in digitization. I sincerely hope you find something here that you’re looking for, as an artist looking for inspiration, as a weeb looking for a desktop, as an archiver excited to see incredible 90s manga artwork saved forever in the digital realm. I feel like I have already said so much about them, and could keep going, but you know what? This work speaks for itself. Enjoy, use, explore, and definitely tell us what you think!
We love y’all. ~ Vanna & Yasha
* AHEM ASTERISK AHEM
You might be wondering what any of that is. Something Eternal? Biblewhatawhat??? EmptyMovement.com? You might even have done a double take at the word ‘forum.’ And you should!!!
I have a confession. This artbook was my ‘side project’ as I worked on this, *the main project.* For a couple years I’ve been banging around with a new domain, and originally I had other plans for it, but Elon Musk ruined my Twitter and Discord is well along on its way to enshittification, and well….we joke on the Discord a lot about ‘reject modernity, embrace forums’ and you know what? We’re right. So Yasha and I are putting our money where our mouths are once again, and doing something insane. We are launching, in 2023, a website forum. Obviously, this is not the official ‘launch’ per se, but I cannot announce the artbook without directing you to the forum, since it sits on the attached very cool gallery system. Oops! Told on myself. Another post more focused on the forum will be forthcoming, but if you are just that motivated to get in right away, you absolutely can! (This will help stagger new arrivals anyway, which is good for us!) If you would rather wait for the ‘official’ launch, by all means that’s coming, including a lengthy screed about how and why we’re doing this. In either case, remember: this is a couple weebs trying to make internet magic happen, we are not website developers by trade. Give us grace as we iron things out and grow into this cool new website thingie…hopefully along with some of you! :D
If you do join up, naturally, there is a thread about this project!
** If you like this kind of content, consider helping us pay for it! We do have a Patreon! If you’re wanting to use these in some public-facing distributive way, all we ask is for credit back to Empty Movement (ohtori.nu or emptymovement.com, either will work.) 
I would like to say ‘don’t just slap these files on RedBubble to get easy money’ but I know that saying this won’t effectively prevent it. Y’all that do that suck, but you’re not worth letting it rain on the rest of this parade. :)
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mashkaroom · 1 year
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Translation thoughts on the greatest poem of our time, “His wife has filled his house with chintz. To keep it real I fuck him on the floor”
It’s actually quite tricky to translate. Because it���s so short, each word and grammatical construction is carrying a lot of weight. It also, as people have noted, plays with registers. “Chintz” is a word with its own set of associations. Chintz is a type of fabric with its origins in India. The disparaging connotation is from chintz’s eventual commonality. Chintz was actually banned from England and France because the local textile mills couldn’t compete.
Keep it real” is tremendously difficult to translate -- it’s a bit difficult to even define. It means to be authentic and genuine, but it also has connotations of staying true to one’s roots. Like many English slang words, it comes first from AAVE. From this article on the phrase:
“[K]eeping it real meant performing an individual’s experience of being Black in the United States. As such, it became a form of resistance. Insisting on a different reality, one that wasn’t recognized by the dominant culture, empowered Black people to ‘forge a parallel system of meaning,’ according to cultural critic Mich Nyawalo...The phrase’s roots in racialized resistance, however, were erased when it was adopted by the mostly-White film world of the 1970s and ’80s....Keeping it real in this context indicated a performance done so well that audiences could forget it was a performance.This version of keeping it real wasn’t about testifying to personal experience; it was about inventing it.”
One has to imagine that jjbang8 did not have the origins of these phrases in mind when composing the poem, but even if by coincidence, the etymological and cultural journeys of these two central lexemes perfectly reflect the themes of the poem. The two words have themselves traveled away from the authenticity they once represented, and, in a new context, have taken on new meanings -- the hero of our poem, the unnamed “him”, is, presumably, in quite a similar situation.
Setting aside the question of register, of the phonology, prosody, and meter of the original, of the information that is transmitted through bits of grammar that don’t necessarily exist in other languages -- a gifted translator might be able to account for all of these -- how do you translate the journey of the words themselves?
In my translations, I decided to go for the most evocative words, even if they don’t evoke the exact same things as in the original. The strength of these two lines is that they imply that there’s more than just what you see, whether that’s the details of the story -- what’s happening in the marriage? how do the narrator and the husband know each other? -- or the cultural background of the very words themselves. I wanted to try and replicate this effect.
Yiddish first:
זייַן ווייַב האָט אָנגעפֿילט זייַן הויז מיט הבלים
צו בלייַבן וויטיש, איך שטוף אים אופֿן דיל. zayn vayb hot ongefilt zayn hoyz mit havolim.
tsu blaybn vitish, ikh shtup im afn dil
This translation is pretty direct. There is a word for chintz in Yiddish -- tsits -- but, as far as I can tell, it refers only to the fabric; it doesn’t have the same derogatory connotation as in English. I chose, instead, havolim, a loshn-koydesh word that means “vanity, nothingness, nonsense, trifles”. In Hebrew, it can also mean breath or vapor. I chose this over the other competitors because it, too, is a word with a journey and with a secondary meaning. Rather than imagining the bright prints of chintz, we might imagine a more olfactory implication -- his wife has filled his house with perfumes or cleaning fluids. It can carry the implication that something is being masked as well as the associations with vanity and gaudiness.
Vitish -- Okay, this is a good one. Keep in mind, of course, that I’ve never heard or seen it used before today, so my understanding of its nuances is very limited, but I’ll explain to you exactly how I am sourcing its meaning. The Comprehensive Yiddish-English Dictionary (CYED) gives this as “gone astray (esp. woman); slang correct, honest”. I used the Yiddish Book Center’s optical character recognition software, which allows you to search for strings in their corpus, to confirm that both usages are, in fact, attested. It’s a pretty rare word in text, though, as the CYED implies, it might have been more common in spoken speech. It appears in a glossary in “Bay unds yuden” (Among Us Jews) as a thieves cant word, where it’s definted as נאַריש, שרעקעוודיק, אונבעהאלפ. אויך נישט גנביש. אין דער דייַטשער גאַונער-שפראַך --  witsch -- נאַריש, or “foolish, terrible, clumsy/pathetic. not of the thieves world. in the German thieves cant witsch means foolish”. A vitishe nekeyve (vitishe woman) is either a slacker or a prostitute. I can’t prove this for sure, but my sense is that it might come from the same root as vitz, joke (it’s used a couple of times in the corpus to mention laughing at a vitish remark -- which makes it seem kind of similar to witty). I assume the German thieve’s cant that’s being referred to is Rotwelsch, which has its own fascinating history and, in fact, incorporates a lot of Yiddish. In fact, for this reason, some of the first Yiddish linguists were actually criminologists! What an excellent set of associations, no? It has the slangy sense of straightforward of honest; it has a sense of sexual non-normativity (we might use it to read into the relationship between the narrator and the husband) -- and a feminized one at that; it was used by an underground subculture, and, again, the meaning there was quite different -- like the “real” in “keeping it real” it was used to indicate whether or not someone was “in” on the life (tho “real” is used to mean that the person is in, while “vitish” is used to mean they’re not). It’s variety of meanings are more ambiguous than “keep it real”, which can pretty much only be read positively, and it also brings in a tinge of criminality. Though it doesn’t have the same exact connotations as “keep it real”, I think it’s about as ideal of a fit as we’ll get because it’s equally evocative of more below the surface. I also chose “tsu blaybn vitish”, which is “to stay vitish”, as opposed to something like “to make it vitish” to keep the slight ambiguity of time that “keep it real” has -- keeping it real does< I think, imply that there is a pre-existing “real” to which one can adhere, so I wanted to imply the same.
The rest is straight-forward. “Shtup” is one of a few words the Comprehensive English-Yiddish Dictionary (CEYD) gives for “fuck”, and I think it has a nice sound.
Ok, now Russian
женой твой дом наполнен финтифлюшками
чтоб не блудить с пути, ебемся на полу
zhenoy tvoy dom napolnin fintiflyushkami.
shtob ne bludit’ s puti’, yebyomsya na polu
In order to preserve, more or less, the iambic meter, I made a few more changes here -- since Russian, unlike Yiddish, is not a Germanic language, it’s harder to keep the same structure + word order while also maintaining the rhythm. I would translate this back to English as:
“Your house is filled with trifles by your wife. To not stray off the path, we’re fucking on the floor”
So a few notes before we get into the choice of words for “chintz” and “keep it real”. To preserve the iamb, I changed “his” to “your”. This changes the lines from a narration of events to some outside party to a conversation between the two men at the center. Russian also has both formal and informal you (formal you is also the plural form, as is the case in a number of other languages). I went with informal you because I wanted to preserve the fact that his wife has filled his house not their house, as someone pointed out in the original chain (though I don’t think that differentiation is nearly as striking in the 2nd person) and because it’s unlikely you’d be on formal you with someone you’re fucking (unless it’s, like, a kink thing). I honestly didn’t even consider making it formal, but that would actually raise a lot of interesting implications about the relationship between the speaker and the husband, as well as with what that means about the “realness” of the situation. Is, in fact, the narrator only creating a mirage of a more real, more meaningful encounter, while the actual truth -- that there is a woman the husband has made promises to that he’s betraying -- is obscured? that this intimacy is just a facade? Is there perhaps some sort of power differential that the narrator wishes to point out? Or perhaps is the way that the narrator is keeping it real by pointing out the distance between the two of them? there is no pretense of intimacy, the narrator is calling this what it is -- an encounter without deeper significance?
Much to think about, but I actually think the two men do have history --  i think the narrator remembers the house back when it was actually only “his house” and was as yet unfilled with chintz. We also don’t know what they were calling each other prior to this moment. This could be the first time they switched to the informal you. 
Ok moving on, I originally translated it as “твой дом наполнен финтифлюшками жены”. Honestly, this sounds more elegant than what I have now, but I ultimately though removing the wife from either a subject or agent position (grammatically, I mean) was too big a betrayal of the original. The original judges the wife. She took an active role in filling the house. If she were made passive, that read is certainly a possible one -- perhaps even the dominant one -- but it could also read more like “we are doing this in a space filled with reminders of his wife and the life they share” -- the action of filling is no longer what’s being focused on. Why do I say the current translation is inelegant? I feel you stumble over it a little, because it’s almost a garden path sentence. This is also an assset though. “Zhenoy tvoy dom napolnen” is a fully grammatical sentence on its own, and it means “Your house is filled by your wife” -- as in English, the primary read is that the wife is what the house is full of. If the sentence makes you stumble, perhaps that’s even good -- we focus, for good reason, on the relationship between the two men, but in a translation, the wife is able to draw more attention to herself.
Ok, chintz: I chose the word “финтифлюшки” (fintiflyushki), meaning trifle/bobble/tchotchke, because it, allegedly, comes from the german phrase finten und flausen, meaning illusions and vanity/nonsense. Once again, I like that the word has a journey, specifically a cross-linguistic one.
Keep it real: this one, frankly, fails to capture the impact of the original, in my opinion, but allow me to explain the reasoning. “Stray off the path” implies, again, that there is some sort of path that both the narrator and the husband were on before the wife and the chintz -- and one they intend to continue taking, one that this act is a maintenance of. It brings in a little irony, since the husband very much is straying from the path of his marriage. “Bludit’“ can also mean to be unfaithful in a marriage (as, in fact, can “stray”). The proto-slavic word it comes from can mean to delude or debauch -- they want to do the latter but not the former.
As for register -- “shtob” is a bit informal. I would write the full version (shto by) in an email, for example. The word for fuck, yebyomsa, is from one of the “mat” words, the extra special top tier of russian swears, definitely not to be said in polite company (and, if you are a man of a certain generation or background, not in front of women; it’s not that the use of mat automatically invokes a male-only environment, but if we’re already thinking that deeply about it. But while we’re on the topic, i will say that in my circles in the US, women use mat much more actively than men (at least in front of me, who was, up until recently, a woman and also a child).)
Ok i think that’s all the comments i have!
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yabishrihere · 2 months
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My Astarion study is done (kind of, probably)
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This was a fun challenge, I definitely started slipping into my old ways as I continued on trying to be more detailed but I stayed loose where I could. I don’t need to try to be perfect I just wanted to draw and I was able to do just that. Getting to play around and learn was the most exciting part of it all.
I also think it looks so cool with a transparent background but idk what to do with that information
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boxbug · 7 months
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A Canary’s Final Flight
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My piece for @trafficzine 4th edition! Get it for free here! 200 pages of excellent art and fics, incredible work from all participants and from the mods especially!! huge shoutout to the mods for real
Process notes under the cut! (I struggled a lot so it's a bit of a novel)
So the entire process was a Ride. I knew when I picked this prompt that I was going to have a hard time, because Jimmy’s final death had been illustrated a billion times over by extremely talented artists. But I had a Vision of the snapshot of the second before the impact, when everything is still but you know what’s about happen. It was very much inspired by the clip of Fog by Jabberwocky, bu the thing is, they have the advantage of all the build up of the fall, and that’s when the trouble started.
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This was my first version, and obviously it wasn't working. And I was trying so hard, with so many iterations! Small wings, big wings, no wings, different poses, less backgrounds elements. I'd done compositions were everything seemed peaceful but something is Wrong, but it wasn't working this time.
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So instead I focused on what rendering I'd like to do - I tried a painterly approach, for that visceral feeling, but it wasn't working either (but hey, I did keep the red sky, so, progress)
At this point I'd been doing back and forths for weeks and I was just as lost as at the start. Now that's my tip for people who make art of any kind, in situations like that, stop thinking about how you can make the best piece possible, and think about you can have fun with it (because when you aren't it's visible). And for that was, 1 - going back to using ink and pen nibs and doing way too detailed inking, and 2- looking at Dave McKean's covers for Sandman (which, funnily enough, was also a reference for my previous trafficzine piece)
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And from there I was actually going somewhere! Between the jagged rocks, the red sky, and the increased verticality with the borders, I had hit the vibes I wanted.
I did some experimentation with the border, and even though I really liked the bad boys I drew they were taking too much away from the lonely desolation, so I actually used Red (Unecessary Redstone)'s idea of all of Jimmy's worldy's possessions scattered on the ground post impact, with the idea to make it looks like the central image is his grave being dug.
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(and yes for a short amount of time the were supposed to be clock markings on the sun, but there was already enough going with the wings so I scrapped that) (also fun fact the reason why the wings aren't fully material but more ghostly is because my toddler cousin was watching me draw the very first draft and asked why he didn't just use his wings and i went :( so the wings are a metaphor now)
So from there I found a bunch of picture and took some myself, cut and assembled everything together, added shadows in all the appropriate places, and repainted some elements so that everything would look better intergrated (some of the wheats are basically 100% handpainted, the cardboard as well). This took a suprisingly long amount of time, but I was done!
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Well I wasn't expecting to have that much to say, but I hope if you're still reading, it was at least interesting!
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f1version · 2 months
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DATES WITH YOU ♥︎ F1 HEADCANONS
includes: charles, carlos, max, daniel, lando, oscar, lewis, george, alex, logan, pierre, yuki, lance, mick, and sebastian.
summary: f1 drivers’ and their favorite themed dates!
author’s note: happy valentine’s day my loves!! this is incredibly late (almost 15th where i am) but here it is <3
love on top, a vday special ♥︎ general masterlist
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now playing ♫₊⊹ until i found you by stephen sanchez
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★ CHARLES LECLERC ( 16 ) — Charles has a bucket list with dates. Enjoys planning them curled up in bed, talks about how you shouldn’t repeat one until the list is done—unless you are a Drive-in theater date, he loves them. When they're arranged in Monaco, it's usually for old romcoms and coming-of-age movies, which is perfect in both of your eyes. Charles makes sure to bring snacks, blankets and pillows, everything so you can be comfortable while cuddling him. He whispers sweet nothings in your ear as the movie plays, dusk falling over you, looking as beautiful as ever. He loves this type of dates… it even gives him a chance to show off his magnificent car, but hey! that's off-topic.
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★ CARLOS SAINZ JR. ( 55 ) — You and Carlos have a passion for trying new recipes, so sometimes, when you have everything you need, you decide to put on matching aprons, as well as toques, and start working on your next masterpiece. Usually, old Spanish songs play in the background, Carlos singing, grabbing you by the waist to distract you and dance a little. He loves days like these, your focused face and little scoldings are all he needs, especially because one way or another, you will end up laughing and dancing with him, sometimes full of flour and seasonings, the kitchen wearing its best perfume.
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★ MAX VERSTAPPEN ( 1 ) — Max is always looking for ways to impress you, to catch you off guard and surprise you, he loves how you tease him about it. So that's why, when you go to one of your favorite places ever —the planetarium— as a date, he recollects as many details about the celestial objects as he can, waiting for your surprise when he drops a fact you didn't know he knew, starting a long, beautiful conversation about it. You know a lot more than him, but he's eager to learn, loves the way you explain every single thing to him, loves the way places like this brings you closer.
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★ DANIEL RICCIARDO ( 3 ) — Daniel loves music, he spends hours on end with his headphones on, discovering new artists every day, sharing his songs, albums, and artists of the month with you, adding to his playlists your recommendations. So it's no surprise you find yourself going to multiple concerts. Dancing and singing, hugging and fangirling. Sometimes artists know Daniel and that's when you laugh the most because there's always a chance of him ending up on stage, singing to you (or trying to).
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★ LANDO NORRIS ( 4 ) — Lando loves your creativity, he’s a fan of getting to know what's on your pretty mind and seeing your ideas come to life, he also loves sharing his own ideas with you, feels free doing so. His favorite dates with you consist of this: having a canvas, paper, or even pottery to paint on, gossiping and laughing for hours, having picnics and enjoying food. Lando would buy hundreds of utensils, wanting to try everything with you, forever. PD: He would have you paint him and his car, probably.
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★ OSCAR PIASTRI ( 81 ) — It didn't start as a date per se, Oscar just couldn't sleep one night and you suggested building the Lego Star Wars ship in your closet, so you stayed up until 6 in the morning building it. He loves the tranquility it brings, how you can go from discussing the deepest topics to a comfortable silence. Focuses on the little things, like when your fingers brush his while reaching for a piece or that little celebration when you find another. In his apartment, he has a shelf dedicated to the Legos you've built together and photos to go with it. So, in Oscar's humble opinion, these are the best dates in the world.
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★ LEWIS HAMILTON ( 44 ) — You and Lewis can live off two things: Roscoe and the beach. Surfing is something you have always bonded over, that's why you love heading to the beach early morning, going for a run with Roscoe, and then jumping to surf (taking Roscoe back inside first). You can stay out there for hours, challenging each other, improving your skills, and lying on your boards, talking about everything and nothing, loving every second of it.
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★ GEORGE RUSSELL ( 63 ) — While experimenting with extreme sports would be a lovely date for George, he chooses to call his favorite something more domestic: comfy clothes, a good bottle of wine, and a long puzzle night ahead of you. He enjoys the challenging but relaxing parts of the activity, loves to strategize alongside you, and loses his focus when looking at you, falling deeper in love.
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★ ALEX ALBON ( 23 ) — Playing Mario Kart as if your life depended on winning has always been part of your relationship — "It's our love language," Alex says— That's why you love to spend a large amount of time (and money) in arcades. You play against each other, with and without; also spend forty minutes trying to catch that one stuffed animal from the claw machine, cheering (and almost getting kicked out) when you get it. Alex loves it as much as he loves you.
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★ LOGAN SARGEANT ( 2 ) — Logan fully believes that the best date in the history of dating are theme and amusement park dates. Whether it's a local funfair or the (in)famous Florida parks, Logan loves walking hand in hand, map and snacks in the other, trying to go on as many attractions as possible, calming the nerves of each other when necessary, laughing at the photos quickly taken on the rollercoasters (and going again to attempt looking good), and many other things that make this type of date his favorite.
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★ PIERRE GASLY ( 10 ) — Pierre loves chaos and what's more chaotic than doing karaoke? Your catalog goes from High School Musical's "Gotta Go My Own Way" to Gaye and Terrell's "Ain't No Mountain High Enough." Sometimes they end up drunk enough (from adrenaline, from love, or both) to sing French songs and attempt Celine Dion's highest notes. You can spend hours teasing each other, dancing to the rhythm, and sneaking kisses in between songs.
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★ YUKI TSUNODA ( 22 ) — Contrary to popular belief, Yuki's favorite type of date isn't taking you to a restaurant or cooking together, because even though he does love doing those things with you, your trips to farmers markets are his favorite. When the season is right, you visit them hand-in-hand, no matter the country since there is nothing better than discovering new foods with your favorite person. And hey! If there is something to eat, why not mix dates?
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★ LANCE STROLL ( 18 ) — No matter the weather or season, you and Lance will always be up for an ice cream date. You're on a quest to find the best flavors, and the fact that some dates end in small big disasters is enough to keep you searching together, chins full of ice cream and all.
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★ MICK SCHUMACHER ( 47 ) — Two things about Mick: he really enjoys ice skating and he loves you. If you put them together, he's guaranteed to have the time of his life, so he's lucky you like ice skating as much as he does. You both spend hours on the rink, being careful not to fall while holding hands, yet most of the time it's Mick who ends up in the floor as you drown in laughter. He loves that sound. He loves making you laugh and smile, it's his favorite pastime, and seeing you shine on the ice rink makes him realize how much he adores this place.
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★ SEBASTIAN VETTEL ( 5 ) — Seb’s favorite is going hiking and then camping with you in the beautiful Swiss mountains, away from the a much hectic side of life. Just you and him giving new meaning to the known, sharing not only the beauty of life but also the comfort of one another, wrapped around small info-dumps and timeless laughter. It’s therapeutic being so close to each other, so pure and loving. If you ask him, he would repeat this date a thousand times over.
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actual-changeling · 6 months
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i feel like all my meta posts just clicked and solved a puzzle in my brain. however i am also currently upping my sleep med dosage so if any of this sounds like the incoherent rambles of a mad man it's cause i am. incoherent and insane and rambling that is. (not a man)
but i have to write this post since i had a lightbulb realization moment.
because the thing is, besties, that aziraphale is a fucking horrible liar. he gets nervous and fidgety, he stutters, you can SEE him sweating anxiety. just look at him in the bookshop when the archangels inquire about their not-so-little 25 lazarii miracle.
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his best "lies" are when he is actually telling the truth but twisted. he has never been a good liar (see job) and that has not changed in six thousand years. all smiles directed at archangels are visibly wrong, his discomfort is tangible.
whenever he panics it is written across his face clear as day, including, and this is the important bit, when he is talking to the metatron.
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now, you are wondering why exactly that matters, and the point is something we have all talked and thought about for ages but my brain just. formed some new neural pathways.
because he is a terrible liar, he is horrible at hiding his emotions.
but you know who isn't?
crowley.
unless you know him, it is very hard to read his facial expressions with his glasses on. he can turn his emotions "off", he can put a wall in front of them and by extension around himself.
i talked about it more in this post, so for background info have a look at it (if you want to)
it's crowley's thing yet there is one moment, one, glorious moment in which aziraphale executes it perfectly. and that moment mirrors crowley putting on his glasses, it is aziraphale attempting to hide away all of his feelings and thoughts so no one can tell what he is really thinking.
the parallels besties. the fucking parallels.
what really sells it to me is that last comparison because it matches too well to not be intentional. honestly, after the sink story i think every little thing in this show is done on purpose and with attention to detail, so.
the empty look, the heartbreak, the pain - the realization. this is it. i am not walking away from this unharmed but i am walking away. or rather into the loneliness, the absence of the person i love.
for aziraphale also the realization that the world is about the get fucked and he is not.
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after that we have the inhale of courage. taking a deep breath to calm yourself, to find your way back to your body. a kind of preparation we have all done at one point or another.
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the mask slides into place. or at least you want it to slide into place, you are trying to fucking jam it into the spot you need it to be but sometimes it's like trying to push the square peg through the round hole.
it's a disconnect, it's putting up a physical and emotional wall. crowley does it to hide away from aziraphale.
aziraphale does it hide from heaven and the metatron, yes, but he does it to hide from himself. at his core, aziraphale compartmentalizes. he is so fucking good at cognitive dissonance it's scary, and that's what happens here.
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he knows, he KNOWS, that he needs to lock up his feelings or he won't be able to get into that fucking lift and do what he thinks he needs to do.
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and so he walks away from crowley just like crowley walked away from him, copying him and doing exactly what he has seen him do a thousand times: putting up wall after wall after wall. ripping out every sprout of vulnerability before it can bloom.
except that he stopped doing it after the no-pocalypse, and that is why it hurts so fucking badly when he puts his glasses back on.
he is not ripping out a sprout, he is uprooting an entire fucking tree
aziraphale cannot hide behind sunglasses by crowley so he hides underneath an angelic persona, the person he thinks he should be, needs to be, and the problem is that whenever he slips into that role, it becomes him.
getting crowley to take off his glasses again is going to be a herculean task and the same goes for getting aziraphale to drop his act. they're one and the same in shape and origin and purpose but they are not indestructible.
because listen. all of this is painful and it hurts. it really is.
the fun part, however, is the fact that we know exactly what it takes to destroy that barrier, we have seen it happen to crowley before.
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my point is that we are missing the parallel for said destruction.
662 notes · View notes
tastesousweet · 4 months
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⭒ the girl with the tattoo (i)
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grumpy!matt sturniolo x sunshine!fem oc / reader
summary : matt is a grumpy tattoo artist and y/n books him for her first tattoo.
warnings : needles and pain (not very detailed tho)
mickey speaks : i don't have any tattoos so i actually know nothing ab the procedure lmaooo just guessing but i’ll be writing multiple parts for this. also i am very much self indulging bc i headcannon y/n as poc! but obvi anyone can read there's not much exclusivity ab how i write her, i js wanted to note that for any poc readers <3.
THIS IS PART 1 BTW!!!!
“SHITTT,” you draw out the last syllable at the rumble and screech of your car engine as you continue your attempt to start it.
eventually you throw your head backwards in defeat, annoyed by the unbudging car. this is the actual worst timing. you're supposed to be at the tattoo shop (that is a 12 minute drive from your apartment complex) for an appointment in less than twenty minutes.
you truly want to scream and border on throwing a tantrum but decide it would probably be better to find a solution than complain about the agony further.
you quickly find your roommate's contact, raising your phone to your ear and pinching your eyes shut as the vibrating ring hums through your skull.
"y/n? what's up?" andrea answers confused as you had only just walked out of the door five minutes ago.
"hi drea... so i know you have your own plans right now but is there any way you can give me a ride... please?"
you hear shuffling on the line, "mmm, where to?"
౨ৎ
“thank you again for driving me,” you smile at andrea and squeeze her hand before reaching for the door.
“yes, of course. you can call me when you’re done and i’ll head over here- m’sorry i can’t stay with you.” she replies and exaggerates a frown.
"i'll be fine, i think- i hope..."
"you will be fine. just don't stress or it'll hurt more."
౨ৎ
your arms are crossed tightly over your chest as you make your way into the shop (in its form of an oversized warehouse, fixed up to look stylish and comfortable- something you’d never really seen before). the rickety jingle of a small bell kindly indicates your presence to the rest of the shop.
a few people sitting in a waiting area look up before continuing their conversations (though some continued to stare as you walk by). you see a surprising amount of people crowding in a brightly decorated lounge area, housing many arcade games and a kitchenette.
you reach the receptionist desk and are greeted by a young man dressed casually, humming along to the music playing in the background of the space.
“um, hi. i’m here for my 1:30 appointment.” you state with a smile, you’re suddenly aware of how nervous you truly are.
the brunette looks over to a desktop screen with a soft scrunch of his face, “for y/n, right? huh, that’s crazy…” he rubs his chin, “1:30 was like nine minutes ago,” he looks up at you, almost like he was questioning you; who do you think you are? and why do you think you’re important enough to be late?
as soon as your face begins to morph into fear and embarrassment his own face splits into a large smile as he laughs softly. “i’m sorry- i’m such an ass but i had to- your file said you’re new clientele so i just had to fuck around.”
“you’re sick! i was fully prepared for a fucking lecture on timeliness or something,” you let out a soft laugh.
the boy comes from around the desk holding a paper and clipboard. “yeah, sorry, i’m chris,” he reaches a hand out to which you willingly return and restate your name to him, “‘m not usually up front so you probably talked to asha over the phone when booking.”
you nod and smile at the familiar name, “yeah, she was so helpful over the phone.”
“she’s awesome, i miss her,” he touches each of his shoulders then forehead before kissing his hand and pointing to the sky.
"oh my god? i'm sorry for your loss."
his eyes squint and lips pucker in confusion, "oh, she's not fired she's just on vacation right now."
"so why'd you...?"
chris cuts you off by handing you the clipboard and grabbing a pen from a cluttered mason jar on the desk as he explains, “okay, we’re just gonna have you fill out this quick consultation form; just so you and your artist will be on the same page about things.” you nod in understanding. “keep it brief, matt’s not big on reading large bodies of text,” chris laughs.
“got it,” you smile before turning to find a chair and begin writing. you truly were relieved that chris wasn’t hard on you about being late, for a second you thought you would be lectured and have to carry the guilt of dissapointing someone into a room where you'd be paying to lie in excruciating physical pain. (damn, double homecide)
the sheet had general information to fill before the questions specifically about the tattoo you’d be getting today came.
you go back up to chris once you’re finished.
“cool, follow me we’ll set you up with matt.” he leads the way and your nerves are suddenly back as it's feeling more and more real with each step. you pacify your thoughts by looking around at the many images and messages written in sharpie along the walls of the hallway. there's also plenty of hanging shelves around with vintage trinkets and succulents that compliment the space around.
chris reaches a curtain and dips his head past as if he were checking for something before giving you a chance to see. you notice the small "Matt" embroidered on the black curtain. chris then opens it wide enough for the both of you to walk into the surprisingly large space.
(who you can only assume to be) matt sits comfortably in a wheeled desk chair, legs spread. his elbow rests on the arm of the chair and he holds his head up with two of his fingers, as his middle finger grazes his irritated mouth with a stern look on his face while he scrolls on his phone.
he doesn’t move his position when he looks up at the two of you.
“alright! matt this is y/n,” chris motions between you two. matt hums, placing his phone on the desk and placing his hand out expectantly for the clipboard. chris goes to hand it to him and whispers, “fix your face, jackass,” then turning around to leave you some reassuring words, “good luck y/n, the tat’s gonna look amazing.”
but chris doesn’t see matt exaggerating a large, sarcastic smile from behind him in defense of chris’ words (he immediately drops it though). something that would make you at least giggle if you weren’t so nervous.
“thanks,” your voice is a little hoarse as you haven’t used it in some time. matt watches the boy leave before looking over to you. he rolls the chair closer, reading over your short (as requested) responses.
“you can sit down.” he forms it almost as a question like are you going to sit down or do i have to direct you to do everything?
you sit on the black cushioned bench, lined with a disposable white cloth and begin to fidget with your fingernails as matt goes over your paperwork quietly.
“''kay, so you’re getting a small hello kitty on your lower hip?” he summarizes while checking and signing a few lines on a paper.
“yeah, um, i told asha over the phone that way you could have it sketched already- she told me that’s best and saves time for the both of us.”
his response is a slowed nod and a breathy, “yep,” as he rolls over to his desk and places the clipboard on the surface before opening a drawer and digging through it.
you gaze around the room and wonder if he decorated the space himself or if he wasn’t the type to be bothered enough to add personal things to his work area. almost all the posters are of music artists or tattoos, the most personal things you see are a small picture frame on his desk and a pokémon plushie sat on a chair in the corner of the room. all of which just pose more questions in your working brain.
you notice him switching to a different swivel chair that is lower to the ground and bringing himself (as well as a moving table with already prepared supplies) closer to you.
you’re nervous again. even after your roommate and older brother have both given you advice on first tattoos and the pain expected you’re still finding yourself scared of what to expect. your ear piercings would have nothing on this.
“first tattoo?” matt clarifies, as if he could read your mind. you nod and go to speak but stop when he gestures for you to lay back on the cushion.
you’re sure that he only was searching for a quick confirmation from you and is not too interested in your life or what brings you here but you’ve found that talking relieves your own stress and you absolutely cannot just lay there and only speak when spoken to.
“yeah, i guess m’nervous. i just hope i don’t, like, die from pain or hate the outcome or curse myself in a couple years for the placement- but it's not that i'm doubting that it'd be cute. younger me would be screaming at the fact that i'm even here..." you pause just for a second. "but then again i'm not sure how much forty year old me will appreciate it. so i guess i just don’t know. you know?”
you lean yourself up to get a look at matt, only to realize he has airpods in and simply has not been listening or interested in you (just as you expected). he’s moving his head the smallest amount to the beat as he works on his sketch.
he notices your movement though and takes a headphone out of his ear, “are you okay?” is all he asks.
a pretty broad question. and an anxiety inducing question to ask a girl who's been questioning her decisions as much as you have. you hope you’re okay. will you still be okay when this (mostly) permanent decision is etched into your skin forever? is he okay? will he give you any sense of encouragement or comfort during this process? are tattoo artists typically like this or are you just considered especially needy clientele?
“yeah, i just was- like, curious, i guess.” you mumble a little and internally hate that you feel so insecure in this situation. so out of control.
“was just adjusting my sketch to be a smaller. nothing crazy happening over here.” he shrugs. “you can go ahead and pull your shirt up, though. i’m just gonna clean the area and prep before inking.” he explains to you very straight and to the point.
you fall back into place and obey, inching your shirt up further to expose your lower stomach. you drape your arms over your face to gain composure as you hear matt rip some packaging.
the coolness of the cleaning pad sends your stomach butterflies and you try to not think too hard about the fact that matt’s hands will be on your lower stomach and hip for a good length of time.
eventually matt speaks to you again, “i’m starting so if you’re feeling the need to get the fuck out you gotta do it now or for forever hold your peace.”
you smile a little at his dry joke but when you turn your head to see him fully serious you blink, “no, i’ll be fine. thanks though.”
he just nods his head and goes to put his airpods back in before you’re interrupting again, “wait. whatcha listening to?”
he’s suprised by the question. his clients rarely get too involved in what he’s doing. mostly because he does a great fucking job no matter how few words he may utter over an entire session. there's a mutual understanding there that he's never had to speak up about to anyone. other artists use a strong bond or charisma to secure returning customers but matt finds there’s nothing better to display than his pure talent and passion for his craft. that’s how he keeps clients. they ask and he will always deliver; and that’s how he particularly likes it. no questions and minimal conversation.
the sound of the tattoo gun begins and just for your sake he decides to answer the question without malice, “just some frank ocean instrumental tracks." he places his hands back onto your skin, "don’t start moving.”
you pinch your eyes shut and squeeze your forearms as soon as the initial pain takes over. it’s a feeling you can only describe as a needle poking into you a trillion times at once. which is literally what's happening to you.
you’re not oblivious to matt’s disengagement with your attempts at conversation but you need him to continue to speak to you or else you’ll think too much about the needle actively puncturing you. “oh yeah? i’ve never listened to him before…”
“surprising. he’s pretty big.” matt mumbles slightly, focusing on his work far more than his slight interest in your knowledge of frank ocean.
“mhm. i’ve been meaning to give him a listen. could you share?”
matt’s eyes just move to look up at your face as he tries not to beg you to just be quiet and let him do this so that you both can leave within an hour. “i’m good on that.” he returns to tattooing.
“huh? you can’t share music?”
“i would prefer not to but-” he doesn’t even know why he’s continuing to fuel this anymore.
“what if i add a pretty,” you pause to wince a little as the needle moves lower, “pretty please?”
“i’m almost done,” he mumbles the lie.
“matt?”
he pauses for only a second to glance over to you. he’s met with a face scrunched in pain with an attempted smile that he thinks makes you look more like a doped up hippie than the cute effect you were going for. you plead after his glance, “pretty please?”
he rolls his eyes and sets his tattoo gun down, reluctantly swiveling over to his desk. before you even realize what exactly he’s doing there’s a airy beat of drums and piano playing from a small speaker in the room.
once he's back over to you he can tell you’re smiling even though your face is mostly covered by your arms. “thank you, i needed a distraction or something.”
he mumbles an “mhm” and returns to his work.
౨ৎ
there was generally no talking after that. only a few moments you observed (due to your need to cling on to literally anything going on besides the pinching at your lower side) that were any indication of matt's quiet presence. you noticed when matt would softly hum the lyrics to the instrumentals over the speaker and when you began to tap your fingers out of boredom and nerves, to which he simply placed his hand over them to force them flat while muttering a small “stop.”
when matt was completely finished he asked you if he could take a picture to add to his instagram and you agreed eagerly. he then added a strip of tattoo film over a layer of protective ointment. after he helped you to fully stand he explained how to care for it and how important cleaning is because “that shit will get gunky as fuck.” and you told him that you promise to do everything he said. he also gave you a detailed list on a card for you to follow just in case you forget.
you glance down at your tattoo one last time before you begin to leave the room you’d just spent a lengthy hour of your life in. you assume matt doesn’t want much else from you until he calls your name from his desk. you turn and see him still looking at his phone before glancing up, “uh, what’s your insta handle, so i can tag you in this?”
you don’t know why you’re surprised but you are.
you agree to exchange handles with him before deciding to compliment him once more, “my tattoo is perfect, by the way. i love it so much, thank you.” you want to tell him that you hope you didn’t annoy him too much but you don’t know if that will annoy him more. so you take his nod and hint of a smile as his way of showing appreciation, keeping your own smile bright to mask the crushing feeling of someone seeming so indifferent towards you.
after walking past the curtain and through the trinket-filled hallway you’re back to the main area of the warehouse. you see a different collection of people gathered playing pool and some more huddled on a couch looking at a girl’s phone in awe. chris is busy talking with what seems to be a close friend when you walk up to the reception desk.
when his eyes find your bright expression he’s bouncing back with energy, “hey! i’m assuming it went well?" he asks.
"very well. glad it's over though, i can't lie." you laugh while taking your debit card from your purse.
"yeah, definitely not the best feeling. especially when matt's ugly face is that close to you." chris jokes and takes your card to cash you out.
you laugh along with him but assure him that matt's looks weren't an issue. he raises his eyebrows and has a growing smirk that travels to his eyes when he gives you your card back. you try not the blush at the implication, "i didn't mean it like that."
"right," he nods and chuckles softly, "well hopefully you'll be back for another eventually?" he hands you a receipt.
"i mean how could i not with such a sweet receptionist asking me? i'm sure you get everyone to come back," you joke.
chris shrugs with a cocky grin, "somethin' like that."
౨ৎ
"oh my god it's fucking adorable, what?!" andrea exclaims with a spoonful of frozen yogurt still in her mouth.
she initally begged to see it as soon as she picked you up but you dramatically told her you had just experienced the worst pain of your life and you'd need a sweet treat if you were planning to not sleep the rest of the day away. so she just rolled her eyes and demanded you show her once you both arrive at your favorite frozen yogurt shop (conveniently down the street from your apartment complex).
"i knowww," you respond and quickly pull the lower part of your shirt down with a smile, taking a seat across from drea.
"how'd it go, though? i'm curious. i've only been to warehouse 79 like once, and it was for an event."
"it was good, they were all generally kind and my guy did exactly what i wanted. i'm pretty happy."
"'my guy,' oh okayy?" she takes a bite and smirks.
"not what i meant! i should have just said matt. like, the guy who did my tattoo-"
"mhmm."
"stop.” you smirk, “i mean he was not ugly by any means but he seemed to not care to get to know me at all. which is fine, he's not paid to care about me. but i doubt i'll ever see him again." you shrug taking another bite of frozen yogurt.
꩜⋆ ˚。⋆🎱˚
652 notes · View notes
echo-bleu · 7 months
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The Sculptor in her Workshop, Unknown, Late Third Age, Tirion.
and
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The Return of the Lost Son, Unknown, Early Fourth Age, Tirion.
This is something of a companion piece to this Nerdanel character study (on AO3). In it, she sculpts her husband and sons as she feels them die across the sea, and she waits long ages for Maglor until he comes home.
(Makalaurë, standing still in the empty space that long awaited him, makes a better marble than live body.)
I think this is the most detailed piece I've ever done. I genuinely started it as "oh, I have a very vivid mind picture of this scene, I could do a little sketch!" and here I am about two weeks and 19 hours of painting later. I'm really proud of it, though.
Please reblog if you like it!
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IDs (also in alt), details and more rambling under the cut.
[ID: Two digital paintings of the same room, a sculptor's workshop. In the first, Nerdanel, a light-skinned elf woman with long curly red hair, is working on an abstract sculpture in marble. Behind her are six marble life-sized statues: Fëanor, brandishing a gem, Maedhros, with one hand missing, arms partly crossed, and after a gap, Celegorm, kneeling down to hold Huan, Caranthir, reading a book, Curufin, forging a dagger on an anvil, his arm raised to hammer it, and Ambarussa, holding each other. On the foreground right is a large stab of marble waiting to be sculpted. The second painting has the same background with the workshop and statues, with a more reddish tint as if it's sunset. The abstract sculpture has now replaced the slab of stone and in the middle, Nerdanel is kneeling in front of Maglor, as light-skinned elf with very long dark hair, holding his hand, while she has her other hand on her mouth. She is crying. Maglor is standing in the gap between the statues of Maedhros and Celegorm. The other pictures are details of the first two.]
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The statues in order: Fëanor, Maedhros, (Maglor), Celegorm&Huan, Caranthir, Curufin, Amrod and Amras. Feel free to zoom in, they are each pretty detailed.
This is the first time I've drawn any of the younger sons. I did Nerdanel and Fëanor, Maedhros, Maglor and Celegorm before, each in slightly different AUs, but desiging Caranthir, Curufin and Ambarussa was fun!
Maedhros is missing his hand and has scars, because while Nerdanel never saw it, Finrod came to tell her what he looked like after Angband. She first sculpted him with his hand, though, so I imagine taking a hammer to it must have been... a specific sort of pain.
Curufin is a mix of Fëanor and Celebrimbor, they all look like each other, but I headcanon that Fëanor was more thin and wiry (though still strong), while Curufin was a bit buffer, as he focused more on large works (weapons and infrastructure) than jewellery, and Celebrimbor who was a teen/young adult in the war put up more fat once in Ost-en-Edhil, after many years of privation.
I can never settle on Caranthir's craft/occupation, but it's something bookish. As for Ambarussa, I think Nerdanel just wanted to remember them as happy youths, rather than attach them to any activity.
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epiicaricacy-arts · 4 months
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oh we’re still so young, desperate for attention
this was super experimental so i will talk about my process (+ clearer version) under the cut
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i’ve been looking at a lot of “messier” or more textured painting styles recently and an artist that stuck out to me is clariondeluna ! they posted a self-portrait recently that i really liked and i was super interested in the brushwork seen in their work. i love all the textures and how the shapes feel so loose yet everything is so detailed.
that’s not a method for me at all!!!! i cannot paint like that at all and the stuff i like to paint is very different to theirs. which is okay!!!! i had no intention to copy this artists style so closely like with what i tried to do in my raiden painting, i just wanted to try this style out :^)
it’s been a goal of mine to avoid over-rendering like i tend to do a lot, and i think i’ve been doing good with that recently! the mindset i’ve got going on right now is that if i find myself staring at it too hard for too long, i have to leave it and move on. if there’s still something wrong with it, i can fix it later once ive got a fresh view!
i’ve been trying a lot of things with my art this year. i always try to challenge myself with each piece, and to end the year off i wanted to be as uncomfortable as i possibly could be with this painting. i let myself draw whatever i wanted because i still wanted to enjoy it, but everything i did in this process was new, including parts of the subject matter.
i’ve never drawn a head at an angle like this, and i struggle with drawing mouths open. i don’t do bold lighting like this, and if i do, it’s not fire. i’ve never drawn fire! i also rarely work with warm colours and i hate using green, so i combined those to be my colour palette. i like working cleanly so instead of having a dozen different layers for one section, each section only had 1-2 layers for rendering. instead of clipping masks i would simply paint over things loosely and clean it up later. i never like having limbs cut off in a drawing so i had his other arm go GOD knows where. i don’t like weird patterned backgrounds so i made myself figure out how to like it!
IS THIS MY FAVOURITE PIECE OF ALL TIME. no. absolutely not. but i’m very proud of how this came out with all the challenges i put on myself. i WANTED to get better at these things and be more broad with my art, both in terms of the styles and subjects i portray.
okay let’s talk about wtf this drawing is
for those who don’t know, the design in this painting is my fatui/“Father” lyney fan design (read the design post here). the concept isnt super complicated and i don’t really have much explanation for it, but i wanted to combine the story of how lyney wanted a delusion before getting his vision, fire eating circus acts and how olympic medalists will bite their medal to prove it’s real??? don’t quote me on that i’m like 75% sure that’s a thing that happens. i don’t watch sports though so im just believing someone i heard on the internet ages ago.
anyways. i think fire eating acts are cool. and i think the fact that lyney wanted a delusion is very interesting to me. scratches my brain in the right places. and yk as a magician lyneys character revolves a lot around fooling people and creating illusions so i guess what im saying here is that lyney is trying to prove to himself that this power he’s been bestowed is real. bc his whole life his only constant has been lynette so he is trying to see if he can trust this new power. cause i guess this is an alternate universe where lyney does eventually become “Father” but he never got his vision ??? idk im not making lore for this i just wanted to dress up this funny little guy.
ok i’m done
thanks for reading
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here’s my dog
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