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zulivaris · 3 years

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Art Block tips that helped me

I’ve recently experienced art block after 3 or so months of overcoming my last one. Thankfully this block only lasted a few days thanks to some things I’ve observed and noted down from the previous time. So I’m sharing these few tips in hopes that it might help someone get unstuck :D!

First and foremost if you’re tired, sad or anxious don’t be surprised that you can’t make art, go and take care of yourself by treating yourself with kindness and patience, the sketchbooks and canvases will wait for you :)

The tips are under here:

Separate art studies from the creative time: When you do art studies you’re there to focus on specific things, learn and understand how things work so you can apply them later in your art. Studies take a lot of energy and focus and are the opposite of the creative "flow” of making your own pieces. If you combine the two the results are either unfocused studies or stiff drawings. When you sit down at your desk ask yourself “Do I want to learn something new or do I want to create something of my own?”

When you have an idea don’t be afraid of being messy: Let’s say you want to make a picture of several cats kolo dancing in the moonlight. How do you go about doing this? Well since you came up with the idea you already have a vague image in your mind, sketch it out with simple shapes, stick figures, circle and spheres etc Don’t worry about cat anatomy, or the dancer’s moves, sketch out the essence of it. This method removes the need to be perfect or accurate.

Ok after the messy sketch then what? Well now that you have sketched out the essence of your idea (and hopefully had fun doing so) now you go on to look for references! You put the creative process on pause and you can do a few brief studies if you need to: anatomy, color schemes, values, poses. Pick out a few of your favorites but don't obsess over them, they are a guide, a tool.

You know much more than you think. You’ve probably been drawing for a few years now. You’ve probably done some studies and drawn more than one type of subject. Then you have already internalized some of that information. I used to be obsessed with capturing the minute detail of the subject, and not be able to draw ANYTHING without reference. Instead of a useful tool, references became another obstacle to my creativity. That’s perfectionism my friend, and that’s no good. Here is an exercise a good friend of mine offered: Draw a few characters, animals and objects from imagination. Make sure that the subjects have no personal value to you (no ocs for example) so that if you make a mistake you won’t feel bad about it. Make the process relaxed and comfortable, pour a nice cup of joe, listen to your favorite music ... You will notice that you do indeed know how to draw some things without reference, and it’ll help with your confidence.

The more you do studies the more you understand This seems evident but the more you understand your subject the freer you can be and the easier it’ll be to draw it from imagination in the future. If you really struggle with something to the point of frustration (as in you can’t get it right even with reference) It means you have to study it. Have a study list, for example: hands, perspective, color theory etc. And one of those days you want to study pick something from the list, and look for videos on youtube or useful sites like line of action etc. Only study one thing at the time. You can go from studying hands to studying arms since they’re more immediately connected, but you can’t study hands and then jump to learning perspective right after. Trust me you can learn perfectly fine with the resources online, and I’m sure you’re clever enough to do it :D

Mistakes don’t mean you “suck” I’ve noticed that the two most common causes for art block are perfectionism and lack of self-confidence. The two can often go in tandem which is worse :’D But let me remind you of something, you can fix your piece along the whole process. Use erasers, lasso tools, liquify , select, paint it all over etc If something looks off to you then you also know deep inside how to fix it. Useful ways to see what clunks: flip canvas horizontally (helps with placement, proportions), turn the image to grayscale (helps to check values and where your eye tends to look), look at your image in thumbnail size and ask yourself if it’s clear, see the pose’s silhouette and ask yourself if you can tell what the character is doing etc. Don’t fret, everything can always be fixed :)

Perfectionism, sometimes it stops you before you begin Perfectionism causes you to overwork a piece, it makes you draw less, it makes art stressful, it brings insecurity. Let’s remove it with a simple exercise. It can be combined with the “draw things from imagination” once you’ve drawn something you like: dont do line art, don’t shade it, keep it as simple and crude as possible and then...post it. Yes, post it. You’re not at your best? You’re only human, this will help you embrace that very human side of you. You make mistakes. So what? The more mistakes you make the more you know what you need to study and the better at art you become. Mistakes are there to show us what we need to learn. See them as another tool and not a sign of failure.

Make the process as enjoyable as possible: You like art. You love drawing. Never forget this. Otherwise why are you drawing if you don’t enjoy it? It’s easy to fall prey to the mentality of those relatable memes that “art= suffering” or “I can’t even draw the other eye”. No no no my friends, these messages are fueling your insecurities instead of overcoming them. Let me tell you what, art is fun. It is. Art is fun, because I decided to make it fun again. And you should decide on that too. Personally I adore lineart but my hand-eye coordination is lacking to do it digitally, so....I just skipped it. Yes. I skipped it. I do the sketch, I clean it up a bit and then jump onto color which I adore. It allowed me to draw more and more freely. When I draw I listen to music, make strokes with the rhythm, I take breaks often and I drink my favorite iced teas. If you don’t like coloring do it in grayscale, if you love lineart then do that etc It doesn’t mean you won’t learn your weak points in the future with studies and practice, but you won’t let your weaknesses prevent you from drawing at all. No no, you won’t let them. You draw because you want to, despite of them.

Don’t wait for inspiration, provoke it Inspiration is not a divine and capricious muse. You make inspiration. It’s easy just collect all the things you like, music, artists, objects, characters, animals, patterns, plants etc Make boards on pinterest or similar sites, combine things you like. You like suits? You like birds? You can draw a bird in a suit, or a bird-inspired suit design, there is frankly a lot of ideas that can spring up from little things like these.

When a project stops being enjoyable either pause it for now or move on to the next thing. Pieces aren’t precious. They’re not “the one time I got x right” they are one of many. This advice goes mainly to hobbyists who can afford the luxury of passing to a new project. I have a WIP of a character who is overly complicated (I enjoy a challenge from time to time) sitting for half a month. I sometimes come back to it and add something... but as soon as it starts to create discomfort and insecurity instead of enjoyment I move onto something else. In the meantime I created 3 or 4 new pieces. If I had waited on finishing that piece I would have been severely creatively and physically exhausted. The art comes from you, not inspiration. The more art you make the better you become.

That’s about it :D I know it’s long but I prefer to be thorough and cover all the possibilities. If you have read of this: Thank you so much I hope this helps you at least a bit, if it helps only 1 other person I’d still be very happy. Have a nice one, and kick art block’s butt!

#art block #art block tips #art block advice #art advice #art help #BloggityDiary #art reference #I hope this will help someone out #This will also help me remember my own advice sksksk

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livesincerely · 4 years

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you render me in a thousand details

Also on Ao3

00000

“Hey, Davey, can you grab me another can of paint outta the closet?”

Davey looks up at the sound of Jack’s voice. The man in question is perched precariously on top of a ladder, the latest backdrop for Ms. Medda’s new show set up in front of him

He places the book he’d been reading while Jack worked to the side. “What is it I’m looking for?” Davey asks, clambering to his feet.

Jack’s head turns in his direction but he doesn’t take his eyes off his painting, his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth as he carefully adds a series of fluffy white clouds to a cheerful skyline. “The extras should be just inside the closet on the right⁠—I need the dented can with the red stripe on the lid.”

Davey makes his way over to the tiny supply cupboard that Jack has claimed as his art closet. It’s a floor-to-ceiling collection of paint cans, canvases, brushes, and other supplies, and it never fails to amuse Davey how Jack can take one look at the mess and immediately unearth whatever item he needs for a particular project. Most of it belongs to the theater⁠—requested by Jack but paid for by Ms. Medda⁠—but Davey knows that Jack sometimes stores his personal pieces and supplies in there as well, if only to keep them safe from the daily mayhem of the Lodging House.

He reaches for the pull chain and a lone light bulb flickers to life. Davey takes a couple of tentative steps, squinting his eyes against the dust in the air as he scans the shelves for the can Jack had asked for, then lets out a squawk as he immediately trips over an unopened box of paint thinner.

His elbow knocks against something as he fumbles for balance and there’s a loud thunk and the flutter of paper as he sends a sketchbook full of drawings careening to the floor. Davey lets out a quiet curse, crouching down to pick up the scattered pages and tuck them back into place.

His movements slow as he suddenly understands what he’s looking at⁠—what he’s discovered. Because this is one of Jack’s sketchbooks, but it’s not one that Davey’s ever seen before. And the drawings inside...

Dazed, Davey wanders back into the larger room.

Jack glances back at him, one eyebrow raised. “What, did ya get lost in there? What took so long?”

Davey swallows. When he finds his voice, it comes out tremulous. “Jack, what is this?”

“What is what?” Jack wipes his hands on a spare rag, then comes over for a closer look. He gets within a couple feet of Davey, then staggers to a stop, his face going alarmingly pale. “Where did you get that?”

“I, uh, I knocked it off the shelf by accident,” Davey says. “Why do you have⁠⁠— What is this?”

Jack lurches forward as if to snatch the sketchbook away from him, but stops himself mid reach—like he can’t bring himself to actually tear the pages out of Davey’s hands. He paces in place for a moment, then takes a step back, crossing his arms over his chest.

“What, that?” Jack says, and it’d be a passable attempt at nonchalance if not for the nervous waiver in his voice. “That’s nothing, really. Just practice sketches, and, uh, doodles and stuff.”

Davey looks at him. Then he carefully opens the sketchbook to the first page. There’s an inhaled breath, the tiniest twitch of the hand, but Jack makes no move to stop him and Davey takes that as permission.

He’s quiet as he flips through the assortment of pages. Or maybe it’s that he’s stunned into silence.

There are all types of drawings. Some are only outlines, vague sketches with just enough detail to be identifiable. Others are fully-worked—entire pages of careful shading and texture and blending. He’d caught a few glimpses in the dim light of the closet, and this closer look only confirms his suspicion: these are all drawings of Davey.

There’s one of him from the other day, where he’d gotten caught in a storm and came back to the Lodging House sopping wet, his clothes dripping and his hair curling up at the ends from the rain. There’s another of him on his building’s fire escape, hands curled around the railing and head tilted towards the stars. There’s a series of drawings that are just of his eyes, all done in various shades of blue and in a couple of different mediums, which are the only bursts of color in any of the drawings so far. Davey asleep at the table in the mess hall with his head pillowed in his arms, a pencil starting to slip from his fingers. Davey sitting on the corner of Jack’s desk at Pulitzer’s, studying his latest political cartoon. Davey with the other Newsies, their bodies drawn in hazy silhouette, Davey standing at various street corners, hawking newspapers to faceless passersby.

A few of the scenes depicted are things Davey recognizes, distinct instances that he can place in his memory. Others are more nebulous, ordinary moments in an ordinary life. He turns to a new page, this time finding a sketch of him reading an unlabeled novel, curled up in the corner of one of the dorm beds. Davey frowns, a little perplexed. Although it’s beautiful, as all of Jack’s artwork is, he can’t begin to imagine what inspired Jack to draw this particular scene. He’s not even really doing anything in it⁠—it’s just Davey being Davey.

He turns to another page and his breath catches in his throat.

It’s a drawing of him⁠ caught mid-laugh with his head thrown back⁠, the morning sun shining brightly behind him and a slew of crisscrossing lines in the background⁠. Davey recognizes it as a moment from a couple weeks ago, when he and Jack had made the trek across the Brooklyn Bridge for a meeting with Spot.

Davey traces a finger gently along the broad strokes of charcoal. Jack had remembered this moment, had kept the image in his mind until he’d had a chance to commit it to paper, then rendered it in astounding detail. And Davey’s no artist, but even he can tell that this drawing must have taken Jack hours. Days even.

“This is what you think of me?” The question falls out of his mouth, so unexpected that not even Davey had realized he was about to ask it. “This is how you see me?”

“Whaddya mean?” Jack responds, shifting uneasily, his voice a little gruff in his discomfort. “‘S how you look.”

“Jack…” Davey trails off helplessly, unable to elaborate, unable to explain the fragile hope that’s blooming in his chest. He starts flipping through the pages again.

It’s a wash of ink and charcoal and lead, the occasional flash of blue, but all of him. Davey pauses on one particular page, which features a drawing of him from the shoulders up with his eyes rendered in vivid color.

Colored pencils are expensive. Paint even more so. Davey imagines Jack in an art shop, imagines him hunting through the rows of supplies for just the right shade of blue with the same determination that made him start up a strike, deciding that this color is worth handing over some precious amount of his hard-earned paycheck… Davey’s heart starts beating frantically in his ears.

“These are beautiful,” Davey whispers hoarsely. “The way you’ve drawn me… you’ve made me look beautiful.”

Jack’s eyes dart here and there. Davey gets the sense that he’s looking for the ‘right’ way to respond to this statement.

“...I don’t hafta make you look beautiful, Davey,” Jack eventually says, scrubbing a hand along the back of his neck. “You already are⁠—I just draw what I see.”

Davey calmly sets the sketchbook down on the nearest bit of clean, flat surface. Then he steps forward, grabs Jack by the straps of his paint smock, and kisses him.

There’s a split-second where Jack freezes, startled. Then he groans somewhere deep in his chest, wrapping his arms around Davey’s waist to draw him even closer, and the press of his lips against Davey’s is deep and soft and wonderful.

It’s Jack who pulls away first, moving back all of a hair’s breadth, his eyes flitting across Davey’s face like he’s savoring every detail of his expression⁠⁠—like he’s perfectly content to just look at him.

It’s only now that Davey realizes the significance of that gaze: Jack looks at him like he can’t believe his eyes, like he’s something out of his wildest dreams, and he cups Davey’s face between his hands with aching tenderness, like he’s something to be cherished. Davey can only press up into that embrace, can only hold Jack close and hope that he understands, that Jack sees the emotion in his eyes the way he sees so much of Davey’s everything.

But there’s one question he needs answered. “Why?”

Jack leans in and presses a kiss to Davey’s temple. “It’s just… you have so much to you, Davey. No drawin’ could ever be all of you. But that didn’t stop me from tryin’.”

A kiss on the high point of his cheek. “And once I got started, I couldn’t stop. I would see you sittin’ somewhere, anywhere, laughing or sleeping or shouting and⁠— and you just buzz behind my eyes and I can’t get it to stop unless I grab a pen and some paper and sketch out whatever picture of you I got in my head.”

A kiss right at the corner of Davey’s mouth. “And I couldn’t never show ‘em to nobody, couldn’t risk anyone seeing ‘cause there’s too much of my heart in ‘em and I couldn’t⁠—”

Davey lifts up and kisses him again: slowly, reverently. He whispers into the seam of Jack’s lips, “I love you too.”

#newsies #javid #Jack Kelly #davey jacobs #*the writing desk #*editor's note #*final cut #this is so soft y’all #self-indulgent fluff for the win #(and now back to the smut...)#;)

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hazelenergy · 4 years

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How I Digitally Paint like a Scenic Artist/Designer

Aka: how I did this and put my degree to good use.

LONG POST WARNING

Step 1: Research.

First off, get to your image search. If you are going to be using Google, you may want to type “-pinterest” in the search to eliminate the countless boards.

I had to figure out clothing that is vaguely late 1800s. I found a multitude of reference images that were fancier clothes- but I wanted to find images of clothing for kindred across all social classes. Photographs from the era and paintings are your friend. They will more accurately showcase what was worn.

After Fashion research comes location research. The 1890s in America is known for the rapid industrialization. Factories were getting bigger and work days were getting longer. But, I wanted the moonlight to be cascading into the place, illuminating the scene. This means I needed to find a structure that had skylights or let sunlight in. And the best images I found? Slaughterhouses. Fitting, huh?

The same rule for fashion still stands- if you can find photographs or paintings from the era- they’re better. There are tons of places still standing today from the 1800s. But today, they look WAY different. Ya know, Abandoned! So just be sure to take this into consideration if you search “abandoned slaughterhouses” or go trespassing like I did.

Lastly, pose research. Finding the poses for a fight scene can be tedious. So, I enlisted some help from a few fight choreographers and stunt men. You can record their fights and play them back at quarter or half speed. You can also get a mirror and flop on the floor a bunch. I did both. This lets you see the action/motion lines you are going to replicate in the drawing. Heres how we initially did fina’s pose:

And sometimes you have to go back and get a clean shot. I ended up using this pose for the axe.

Step 2: Set up and Background!

When you open a new file, set it to the dimensions and resolution you want. I was working at 600. Usually, I’m working at 300-350. You can always reduce resolution. Its hard to prevent fuzzy lines if you increase it later.

I cannot stress the following enough:

You work background to foreground. Big Shapes and areas to little shapes. Work your way forward. What this means is you need to fill in as much space as possible first. Then build your details. I prefer working as follows: Big Solid tones, Soft shadows, Dark Shadows, Highlights, then final blend. Once you finish this, put an overlay on top. This knocks everything back and helps create the illusion of depth. See this at work with the video below or here

Step 3: Figure Drawings + Composition

Utilize that research and images you collected to pose your characters. I create subfolders for each set of figures. Organization is important here. This will help keep you on the right layer and prevent the eternal digital artist struggle of “Fuck that was on the wrong layer!”

Even after you move on to lineart and shading, Keep the sketch layer as a reference. You may need to see what youre original notes/ figures looked like as you do the lineart and shade. Don’t be afraid to move them around and alter the composition rn. You want to be able to make changes. Make notes! Detail light sources!

I’m about to through out some art jargon:

You want to think about asymmetric balance. The easiest way to achieve this in an eye-pleasing manner is to use the Fibonacci spiral. Yeah. This boi:

Place your figures and actions in a similar sequence to the spiral and the viewer’s eye tends to naturally follow it. This is sometimes called the Golden Ratio in the art world.

Doesn’t need to be perfectly on the spiral. You can break it- but its an excellent tool to plan how things move in the piece.

Step 4: Lineart

Once you got things sketched- its time to do the lineart. I’m using clip studio paint’s standard brushes. Nothing fancy. I often switch between the G-pen and the For Effect Liner. Mapping and Turnip are for thicker lines.

Usually I set these pens to a specific thickness depending on where I’m drawing.

My background figures are lined at 0.05 thickness, the midground is .1 to .2, Fina is .3 and the foreground is .4. I set my stabilization high to help keep my lines smooth. Stabilization 100 means there’s a significant delay between where the pen is and the cursor. I like the stabilization to be at 20 for freehanding and at 50 ish for outlining. Dont become completely reliant on the stabilization though. Good and smooth lineart is drawn from the arm not the wrist. Your range of motion is severely limited if you only move your wrist. Practice moving from your elbow and you’ll be surprised how much smoother your lines get.

Once I finish lining the figures, I usually go around it with an outline. This does three things:

1. Solidifies the figure and cleans lineart for paint bucket tool. More on that in the next step.

2. Its a stylistic choice. Helps give it that comic book feel with a heavy outline.

3. Pushes figures forward or back in the composition. Thicker outline helps denote that a figure is farther forward than another. My background figures have no outline to push them away

Step 5: Digitally coloring

For each figure you are going to select outside the lineart.

Create a new layer under the lineart

Invert the selection. Paint bucket. You should now have a solid shape of the figure under the lineart. Do not deselect.

Create a new layer above the one color. Title it solid colors. Paint in thick, solid tones. I like to use the mapping pen and turnip pen to color in my solid tones: skin, clothing, hair, etc.

After that, deselect. Create a multiply layer if you can. If your program does not have a multiplier function, Pick a tone you want to use for shadows and lower the opacity (usually 30-40% I like to use lavenders or blue tones). It will not be as vibrant, but you can edit it in post. Select off of the solid colors layer. I like to start with skin tones. Use the airbrush tool to create soft shadows. You don’t want to create harsh lines on this layer.

Then repeat this process with harsh lines.

Then knock it all back with an overlay. If you dont have the ability to create an overlay, you can again drop a solid color and lower the opacity, but you’ll have to mess with the color balance/ brightness/contrast to let all the hard work come through.

You’re going to repeat this for every single figure. Here’s a few color theory tips though.

Your overlay colors should be darker (not more vibrant) in the foreground and lighter (avoid using pure white) in the background. This helps with the depth of the piece. Things closer tend to be darker (not always true, depends on lighting)

You can choose to use color theory to aid your shadows. Instead of choosing black or grey for shadows, choose a complimentary color. I used a lot of green for this piece, I used red for really dark shadows. Its not that black drains color- its just loses some depth if not used carefully.

Keep your colors consistent. Helps unify the piece. You can strategically break the consistency to draw focus. For example, Fina is the only figure with a true blue overlay. This helps her stand out from the other figures who have reds and greens.

Step 6: Touch Ups and Final Renderings

Now comes the most tedious part. If you’re like me, your computer fans have been whirring for the last few hours trying to render this monster of a file. If you havent already, SAVE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS GOOD

These are the last four layers I have for the entire piece. Here, I am trying to create effective and believable lighting. This kind of work I have only been able to achieve in clip studio or photoshop. You can do it with normal layers, but choose your colors CAREFULLY. Stay away from pure white. Carefully utilize your knowledge of light and shadow to create soft highlights. Harsh lines tend to be a stylistic choice for me. The final layer, subtract, dulls out harsh red tones. I used this as a final overlay to help put everyone and everything in the scene. Without it, things are a little too green and skin tones are a little too blushed for vampires.

The challenge here is I want to tone down the red, but not lose the vibrancy of the blood. So, shift it to a blue. This also helped reinforce the “nighttime” effect. Its only a slight change.

Final thoughts:

Whenever you finish something, its important to reflect.

1. I am so FUCKING PROUD OF MYSELF. This is easily one of the most complicated pieces I’ve done in a while- and I’ve made 16′ tall faux stained glass. Brag. Let yourself feel awesome cuz you just made something awesome.

2. I timed myself on the piece. I could have easily spent another 7 hours on it. But its important to know when to stop messing with it. Partially for budget reasons but also when you get down to the details you can make yourself go insane. Theres also a ton of detail work I lost cuz of overlays or its just too small to notice. Fina’s face? hard to see cuz its not close enough.

3. I needed to take frequent breaks for this piece. That was good. Resting and stretching was very important. That is one of the reasons why I was able to work so fast.

4. I started doing more digital art in April 2020. I have to say, practice makes perfect. I practice drawing and digital painting for at least 3 hours a day.

That discipline has allowed me to improve so rapidly. So- I don’t wanna hear shit about I can’t possibly get this good! Or I couldn’t even draw a stick figure! BULLSHIT. You can. Get yourself some free software like Krita or Autodesk sketchbook and start playing!

And thats what I got! Thanks for coming with me on this long post!

#digital art #my art #okay to reblog #how to #long post

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quasieli · 4 years

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I falter where I firmly trod (Fjord/Caduceus)

[AO3 Link]

"Caduceus, may I speak with you?"

The firbolg's ears perked up at the sound of the arriving voice, no longer tinged with its once familiar drawl but still warm and welcoming nonetheless. He turned to see Fjord stood in the doorway to his room, the man's eyes not meeting his own. Quietly casting aside the task he had been busying himself with, Caduceus nodded and wordlessly gestured for Fjord to enter. "What can I do for you, Captain?"

Fjord stepped in and sat on the bed beside Caduceus, trying not to feel small next to Caduceus's larger frame. He laughed nervously, the beginnings of small tusks peeking out from the bashful smile he was trying to hide. Caduceus noticed and made note but said nothing. "You've done enough for me," Fjord began, turning a more leveled face up to Caduceus, the hint of a grin still threatening to peek out, "and that's why I'm here, I wanted to properly thank you."

"No thanks is necessary, Mr. Fjord," Caduceus interjected, despite knowing Fjord had more to say. He had to stand his ground now lest the half-orc say something to convince him otherwise. Caduceus was not often easily swayed, but the captain was a persuasive man.

Thankfully, however, he was not a perceptive man, something Caduceus was very grateful for as he felt heat rise to his cheeks and the tips of his ears as Fjord grabbed his hands, pulling them close to his chest. “Do not be modest, my friend. The Wildmother may have imparted you with her gifts as a token of her patronage, but you are the wielder of those gifts and am forever thankful for all that you have then given to me. Not just...” a pause, "the other night, but all that you have done for me in these last few months. This is not a journey I would have ever taken without your guidance."

Caduceus stared blankly ahead, so keenly aware of every breath he took in that moment. The words flowed beautifully into his ears, but his mind could not begin to process them. In an instant, his attention was diverted as the pair’s clasped hands pulled at the open collar of Fjord’s shirt, a hint of pink standing out against the brilliant verdant tint of his skin.

Without thinking, Caduceus pulled his hand free and touched the collar again, just enough to expose the flash of pink. “Is... is that the lichen?”

A rosy flush made its way to Fjord’s cheeks as he laughed lightly as a jumbled set of thoughts raced through his mind. Finally words formed to his lips, “Yes, yes it is.”

“Your wound is healed, you know,” Caduceus risked pulling at the collar more to get a better look at Fjord’s broad chest, hoping his curiosity could be played off as being purely medical, “you can wash the lichen off, they’ve done their job.”

Fjord looked fondly down at his chest, his own hand grazing past Caduceus’s as he gingerly touched the rosy plant, his touch less fearful than it had been before. Seeing the lichen affixed to his chest for the first time after his revival was a startling experience, to say the least.

In the last half year, Fjord had been bloodied, battered, bruised, a whole host of horrible and grotesque things marring his body. But this, this was something new. This was not disfigurement, no, this was something beautiful. It was foreign, scary even, but scary things still held beauty, and not just in the sense of vanity. This alien looking plant revitalized the life that had been taken from him that night. It was the most beautiful gift he had ever received.

“They have certainly done something,” Fjord muttered to himself. His palm pressed flat to his chest, the lichen tickling his hand as he felt the steady beat of his mended heart. He turned hopeful eyes up to Caduceus, words forming in his mind but interrupted by another sight.

Beside the pair lay an open book, a flash of a colorful drawing having caught Fjord’s eye. He turned his head down to better look, Caduceus turning as well. “What is that?”

“Oh,” Caduceus smiled as he grabbed the book, closing it gently as he placed it in his lap, “it’s nothing. Just some drawings I had been working on.”

“Drawings? I didn’t know you were an artist, Caduceus.”

The other man let out an chuffed laugh, shaking his head casually, “Artist is a strong word to describe what I do, I’m certainly not at the calibre of someone like Jester. This is just something to ease my mind.”

Fjord scoffed, “You need something to ease your mind? You seem so unflappable.”

Caduceus looked up, meeting Fjord’s bright yellow eyes, softer than they had once been way back when. The look suited him. “I’ve seen a lot in my time, but what happened that night is still fresh in my mind. Even I have my limits...”

A silence fell between the two for a moment, Caduceus’s face falling somewhat grim as dark thoughts began to gather once more. Noticing the glint fading in Caduceus’s large pink eyes, Fjord acted. “Hey," he began in a small voice, "Could I possibly see one of those drawings?”

The light returned to Caduceus’s eyes as he looked up to Fjord once more, grounded back in the reality that the other man was now safe. “Oh, of course.” He flipped open to the most recent of his sketches, a beautiful wreath of flowers that he had just begun to work on shading.

Wordlessly, Fjord asked to see the book, which Caduceus responded to in kind. While the art was not realistic by any means, it was beautiful nonetheless, Caduceus’s style complimented the curiosity and beauty of the strange plants he drew. Some may have found the thick lines and boxy interpretation harsh, but Fjord really appreciated his perspective. It was becoming more apparent to him that there was no wrong way to see the beauty of the world around them. “Caduceus, these are gorgeous. You really mustn’t downplay your skills, this is real talent.”

“That is very kind of you to say, Fjord,” Caduceus smiled genially, reveling in the smile and wonder that showed on Fjord’s face, “Take it.”

“What’s that?”

“Take it,” Caduceus repeated, gently grabbing for the book and carefully tearing the page out, “Take the drawing, think of it as another gift, from both me and Her.”

“I appreciate that,” Fjord smiled warmly, reveling in the warmth of this interaction with his friend. “Truly, it is a beautiful token.”

“Think of it is a momento to remember me by when you’re off being an important captain one day,” Caduceus chuckled, trying not to let the hint of sadness at that thought be shown.

An incredulous look flashed across Fjord face as he looked up from the drawing in his hand, "Nonsense. How could I ever forget a man as magnificent as you?"

“You’re too kind.”

A warmer silence hung in the air between the two now, mellowed by their gentle exchange. However, the silence did not last long as a voice from above hollered for the captain.

“Ah, that’ll be Jester now,” Fjord turned his eye to the door, expecting the tiefling to barge in at any moment, “thank you, again, for everything, Caduceus.”

“It was my pleasure, Fjord, I’m always here if you need me.”

As Fjord stood to leave, he looked down at the drawing once more, “Yeah, you will be.”

///

As dawn breached the horizon on the following morning, Caduceus was surprised to hear a knock at his door as he readied himself for the day. He was usually the first of the group to wake, getting up with the sunrise to make them all breakfast was his usual. The company was not unwelcome, he just hoped it came with good news. Hesitantly opening his door, Caduceus let out a sigh of relief as Fjord's friendly face greeted him. "You're up early."

Fjord laughed nervously, "I didn't really sleep much. Um, may I come in?"

"Of course," Caduceus stepped aside as Fjord entered, "is everything alright?" He could feel a nervous energy wafting off the man, this was not a state he had ever seen him in before, his brow furrowing at the sight.

"No need for alarm, everything is fine. I just wanted to add to my overkill of gratitude yesterday by once again coming by to say thank you, but not for what you think."

Caduceus's expression shifted, taking on a look of confusion that often graced his soft face.

"You helped me yesterday more than you know. Um, I had come to you not only to say thanks, but to ask a question, and you see, I never asked it, and yet you still gave me the answer I was looking for." Fjord paused, reaching into his back pocket and producing a folded piece of paper. He quickly, but carefully, unfurled it, revealing the drawing he had been given the day prior. "This drawing is special, it's not just a work of art, it's an answer I have been looking for."

Fjord placed the drawing aside and moved his hand to his collar, beginning to unbutton his shirt. Caduceus quirked a quizzical eyebrow, joyful panic setting into him as he tried to parse what the other man was doing. As Fjord undid the final button, he pulled away the shirt to reveal a new work of art; starting central at the scar on his chest was a beautiful bloom of flowers in the vague shape of heart, tattooed to the man's skin in a shimmering green ink. The piece fanned out, with gold tendrils of vines and ivy webbing and wrapping around his torso, all in the beautiful style of the drawing Fjord had been given. A large succulent was the central piece of the heart, blooming beautifully with the vibrant green of both the ink and Fjord's skin, its center flecked with a permanent leafy pink that resembled the lichen that had once grown there.

"I took your art as inspiration for something I had been thinking about for a long time. Everything you have done for me has opened my eyes to a whole new world that I did not know was out there. To me the sea was a harsh mistress to be feared and respected, and while I still believe that to be true, I now also see the beauty in the life She fosters. Some of it may be dark and scary, but it all has a purpose. I have a purpose, and you have helped me find that. I wanted a permanent reminder of that. Thank you, Caduceus, thank you for allowing me see beyond the veil of darkness that once clouded my eyes."

Caduceus was at a loss for words, his eyes slowly making his way through each detail of the work of art that was Fjord's body. He truly did not know what to say.

Fjord laughed, seeing the look over awe across the other man's face. "Here, a token of my own gratitude for everything you've done for me and more." The man stepped forward and locked his gaze with Caduceus. Placing a gentle hand on his face, Fjord guided Caduceus's head down to his own, their lips meeting in a simple and sweet kiss. "The first of many thanks for all that you've done," Fjord whispered, his finger's tangled in Caduceus's pink locks as their foreheads pressed together.

"This is a thanks that I will always gladly accept," Caduceus managed to mutter out as bliss flooded his mind. Without thinking, Caduceus pressed a hand to Fjord's chest, just as he had done on the ship's deck days before. This time Fjord hissed, his skin still tender from the inking. "Oh, I'm so sorry."

Fjord let out a stunted laugh, trying to breathe through the pain, "It's fine, I'll take it as payback for what I did to Beau when she got her ink."

"Here, let me fix that," as Caduceus raised his hand once more to heal the reddened skin, but was stopped before he could complete his incantation.

Fjord gently grasped his raised hand by the wrist, slowly closing the fingers with his other hand as he brought the closed fist to his lips. "These hands have done enough, you've done enough. Now it's time for me repay that debt."

"There's no debt to be repaid," Caduceus half scoffed through a smile.

"Then let me just treat you well," Fjord kissed Caduceus's knuckles once more, "it's what a beautiful man like you deserves."

#Critical Role #Fjorclay #Teahaw #Fjord #Caduceus Clay #My Writing #Fan Fic #Long Post #yeehaw I love pining

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managodess · 3 years

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Title: First Impressions Fandom: Original (AU setting) Characters: Felyx and Maya (Felyx belongs to AnonMS on Gaiaonline, Maya is my OC) Words: 1.9k Rating: E Prompt: Person A is at college, has some free time, finds a quiet spot to curl up and take a nap. When they wake, they find Person B, an art student, drawing them (without asking permission first). You choose where it goes from there.

Prompt by @otpprompts can be found here

Note: This was written in 2015 but I still think it’s cute and noticed I never posted it here.

----------------------------------------------

As the minute hand drew onto the 45-minute mark, the teacher in the front of their little class of twenty people glanced up, casting the group a smile.

“That’s it for today then. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me now or come to my office later. And don’t forget, your portfolios are due at the end of the semester.”

It was only just November, which meant that Maya had until March, but nonetheless, her teacher’s words were a reminder that she should probably get started. The requirement was showing off different traditional media and while there were some that came to her more easily – she loved working with watercolors more than anything – there were others she still had to practice with to feel more confident.

And so, casting a short glance outside and shuddering lightly at the sight of the pale grey sky that looked like incoming snow, she headed into the library, bag over her shoulder, sketchbook under her arm. She might as well start practicing some pencil sketches now; she could refine some with charcoal, colored pencils, or just shade them otherwise. Maybe she’d find some inspiration.

As she had expected, it was quiet, something that she always found rather soothing about being here. Soft footsteps announced presence her as she made her way to a table in the back of the study room, settling down and trying to make as little noise as possible. She retrieved a small leather case, which held different pencils, pens and other general sketching supplies, then moved her sketchbook onto her lap, vivid blue eyes trailing around the room for something that might make her hands itch to sketch.

When they had nearly come full circle, she noticed a figure, huddled into a corner, head tilted back a little. Even with the dark strands falling partially into his face, she could make out his features.

‘Wow… he looks really good.’

Absently, the brunette bit her lip, leaning forward a bit in her seat as her fingers moved through the pages until she found one that was still empty.

She had hoped to find inspiration, but really, it seemed as if inspiration had found her instead.

Her normally light brown braids were dangling against the paper, which explained the blotches of color in them considering her preferred medium.

Slender fingers on small hands drew the pencil over the page in her sketchbook with trained movements. A gesture first, getting down the general shape of the figure in front of her, vague, guidelines. Then, details, fleshing out his pose and body, the slight tug of fabric in parts of his attire that hinted towards him being at least somewhat muscular. His hands, which looked a little roughened, as if he worked with them often, one of them dangling limply just past his knee, the other propping up his face just above his nose.

And finally, her gaze wandered to his face, biting down on her bottom lip harder as she focused on this. The angular line of his jaw, the slight tilt of his lips, the serenity of his expression.

Just as she was sketching in more detail for his hair, she noticed a shift, more than the simple tremble of breathing.

Dark, reddish eyes were looking at her and she could feel her pale face heat up, eyes widening in shock. For a moment, he seemed confused, still in a state of waking and she took her chance, tearing the sketch from her book and thrusting it against his chest.

“Wha-…”

“I’msosorryherekeepit.”

Her words came out in one breath before she hastily grabbed her things, clutching her sketchbook closer and rushing out of the library in a half panic.

The male seemed to need another few seconds to fully wake, hands shifting to grab the paper that had been forced onto him and glancing down, surprised to see himself caught on it, in soft, elegant lines thinly sketched with a pencil.

While he hadn’t remembered all aspects the strange girl’s appearance, a few things had stuck. Blue eyes and specks of color in her hair, her braids mostly. Then that look of shock, but she had run out before he had been able to fully commit her face to memory.

This wouldn’t do…

He let out a small sigh, stretching carefully, joints cracking as they slipped back into their proper places. He moved the picture into one of his textbooks, placing it gingerly between the pages so it wouldn’t get crumpled.

His mind had immediately jumped to the one person he was sure would be able to tell him more about the mysterious artist.

He just had to find her.

There were a few places she would spend her time outside of class, but the problem was that he never quite knew when she was or wasn’t in class and truthfully, waiting until the weekend, when he would definitely see her, seemed too far away right now.

Reaching into the front pocket of his dark jeans, he retrieved his phone, fingers quickly moving across the keys on screen before sending off a message.

He didn’t have to wait long to notice a familiar, dark-haired woman enter the library and make her way towards him. Her hair gave off a blue shimmer against the light and violet eyes, no doubt contacts, stood out against her porcelain skin.

Felyx wasn’t surprised to see her draw some looks from other students in the library, who glanced up from whatever they were doing a little too long, but either she didn’t notice or didn’t care.

“You called?”

Her lips curled into a small, though curious smile and she sat down on the table, legs crossed over the edge of the table.

“Here.”

He handed her the sketch, brow furrowed slightly. “You study art… any idea who made this?”

The female’s eyes scanned across the pencil lines, then moved back up to meet his red ones. “I’d recognize those lines anywhere. That looks like one of Maya’s sketches. She specializes in watercolors… Is that… wow.”

“I’m guessing she was sketching me while I was asleep because she left me with this and ran away when I woke up.”

Mosune laughed, a soft, melodic sound.

“I don’t think she was expecting you to wake up. Anyway, we have class together again on Thursday. So that’s three days from now. Room 104, in the back building. Class ends at noon; the teacher always finishes on time. You should be able to catch her then.”

“You’re a lifesaver.”

“I know.” She smiled at him and got to her feet again elegantly. “I’ll see you soon. You owe me.”

“I know.” He cast her a smirk and watched her leave before sinking back down against the wall, in the same spot he’d slept in. His eyes trailed over the sketch, taking in every little detail. It was amazing how well she had captured him… and he hadn’t even noticed her watching him.

For the rest of the day and the entire next day, Maya found herself glancing around a lot more often, as if worried that the male might be waiting for her somewhere. To what? Complain that she had stalked him?

God… she must have seemed like such a creep.

But by the time Thursday came, she had pushed the event to the back of her mind, focused on other things. Their morning class was a practical one, working with acrylics on canvas.

She chose an easel next to a familiar face, smiling at the girl with the violet eyes.

“Hey Mosune.”

“Hi.”

The other smiled right back at her, pinning her raven hair up in a bun.

“Any idea what they want us to paint today?”

“A still life or something.” Maya frowned ever so slightly. “Seems a bit boring, don’t you think?”

“I’m sure today’s gonna end up less boring than you think.” Mosune replied, smiling back at her.

Throughout their painting assignment, the two continued to talk, until finally, the teacher ended their class, giving them time to clean their workspaces and palettes.

It was noon by the time they made their way out of the classroom and Maya found herself greeted by the familiar but unexpected sight of the boy she’d drawn in the library a few days ago. He was moving fast towards her too, holding a frame in his hands and handing it to her as he approached.

“Here. You should keep this, it’s really good.” He cast her a small smirk and she felt the familiar warmth threaten to creep into her cheeks.

“T-thanks.”

She took the frame, holding it so the picture was concealed from view by a few classmates curiously moving past the two of them. Mosune seemed almost amused by this exchange, Maya noticed.

“Maybe I’ll see you soon.” And with that, he took his leave, leaving behind a somewhat confused brunette and her amused friend.

“Is that the guy you mentioned? Looks like he even framed it for you.”

Maya nodded, head lowering a bit to hide her burning cheeks.

“God this is so embarrassing.” She muttered under her breath. “Don’t tell anyone, alright?”

“Of course not.” Mosune promised, smiling, and drawing an arm around her friend’s shoulder.

The moment she got home; Maya hung the framed picture up on the wall of her dorm.

But it wasn’t until nearly two weeks later that a completely random event brought her to pay more attention to it than usual.

Distracted from trying to find something, she tripped over her bag, bumping heavily against the wall. The impact knocked the frame down and it shattered, leaving the sketch to slip beneath her bed. She crawled down to get it and when she did, she noticed something on the back of it.

“Is that…”

A phone number.

So that was why he had spoken about hoping to see her again.

Once she had cleaned up, she retrieved her phone, quickly typing in a message to the not quite so unknown number.

“Hi! Looks like you hid this a bit better than you probably thought. I’d love to meet up, maybe for coffee? The girl with the sketchbook.”

Her attention shifted back to the sketch and a thought formed in her mind as she spread it carefully onto her desk across a layer of newspaper, grabbing her watercolors.

Without even having to think, her hands drew across the paper, adding color to the pencil lines, even without having to see him. His face was ingrained in the back of her head.

It took her about two hours to finish the sketch and only then did she check her phone to see that he had replied.

“Sure!

How does tomorrow afternoon sound? I’ll meet you at the Corner Cup?”

She sent him a quick answer, setting the time at 2 PM, then laid the picture down to dry. Time couldn’t pass fast enough and by the time the next day had arrived, Maya was more excited than she dared to admit.

As her fingers nimbly worked to put the familiar two braids into her hair, her eyes moved back to the now finished painting. She would take it with her, give it to him. And hopefully, he would accept it. A small, tiny voice in her head muttered about how it was a shame; that the painting would look amazing in her portfolio, but she silenced it. No, this would be better.

#my writing #otp prompts #original writing #original fiction #writers on tumblr #felyxmaya #octp

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mysticsparklewings · 4 years

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Sparkle By the Sea

Pardon me as I just barely squeeze a MerMay piece of art in. I'll be honest with you guys, I've been pretty lacking in artistic motivation since NaPoWriMo ended. Although if you've noticed my lack of uploads, you probably could've already guessed that. This isn't abnormal for the aftermath of a month-long challenge for me, especially with a brand-new video game calling my name at every moment of the day, but even so I feel like this particular motivation drought was a bit different. Part of it definitely had to do with the changes to DeviantArt that I'm sure I don't need to remind everyone of, but that's been more of me dreading seeing what the state of the community is than anything else. (However, I have noticed I'm not a fan of the new tag system over the old category one, as confusing as the category system could be sometimes.) Rather, I think this lake of motivation has more to do with the fact that being largely absent from all social media during NaPo reminded me...well, that I hate social media. This is really a bigger discussion for a journal or something, but suffice to say it did not feel good to realize just how many literal hours I had previously been spending trying to desperately to scrape up just a little bit of support on other social media platforms (namely Twitter), versus the more natural growth I see here on dA that also feels a lot more genuine and less forced/obligatory. I can't really explain it, but that reminder/realization really helped my brain slip back into a place where I felt like creating again. And with that, I'll transition into talking about the art and save the social media talk for, as I said, a journal or something later on. Naturally, I've been seeing a lot of mermaid art this month and every year I feel the urge to get in on the fun, though I know better than to try actually doing the MerMay Challenge (especially not this year after having just done NaPo), so I usually either do a one-off drawing or if I'm too busy with other projects I just skip it. But I was starting to feel that need to make art in my brain again and I've had a specific set of stickers from the dollar store sitting in my stash for quite a while now that more or less sealed the deal for me. How do these stickers fit into the mix? Well, I originally fell in love with/picked them up because they are mermaid-themed and absolutely adorable--See for yourself! And I thought they would make for nice decals in a book project since they're wall stickers and therefore repositionable with minimal adhesive-yuck. And at first, I thought maybe I'd end up making them into said hypothetical book project in time for MerMay...except that felt a little cheap in combination with my lack of uploads. Did I really want to come back with a book project featuring mermaids I didn't even draw? And for MerMay of all things? So I sat on the idea and left the stickers out where I could see them, and eventually I sat down and took a closer look at them. The art style, upon further inspection, actually didn't look like it would be too far outside my usual art-making realms...Most of the coloring looks a lot like watercolor, except for the skin which I thought was flat and smooth like alcohol marker and the glitter accents which from my perspective pretty much had to be digital, but could potentially be replicated with glittery/metallic supplies... And that was the moment the idea hatched. I decided I'd try drawing a mermaid myself in the same style. This would work for MerMay, have something to do with the stickers, and based on my plans would work well for me as a mixed-media project, which as I'm sure I've said before is where I think my artistic talent shines best. I thought the scariest part was going to be replicating the looser and less strict line style, and to a point it was, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. I find it's usually kind of tricky to explain this, but really what this part of the process boils down to for me (if I'm replicating an existing style and not using my own), is really just studying the original artwork(s) and looking for patterns, then trying to stick to those patterns. For example, the style here features fairly large & rounded faces, and the hands are more like hand-shaped mittens (which was great news by the way because hands are always a pain in the butt for me), so I did my best to emulate those features. As per usual, I did start with a sketch, but I tried to keep it looser than usual, and then when I did the inking I started with my 0.2 Micron, again trying to keep things loose and no be too fussy if I could help it. Then I went back with a brush tip liner from Prismacolor to get more natural variation in the lines and to force myself to not have quite so much control over the line weight. I was also very careful with my choice of liners because I knew pretty much everything except the skin was going to see a lot of watercolors, which meant the lines had to be waterproof. And of course, I went with watercolor paper (my nice 100% cotton stuff this time) to make sure I didn't have any issues with blending or layering. Now, at this stage, I didn't know what I was going to do for the background, though I was leaning towards the idea of making one separately and placing the mermaid on top afterward, as sort of a nod to the original mermaids being stickers. But I wasn't totally sure yet. What I was sure of was how scared I was to just dive into coloring. The sketching and inking and gone so well I was thinking I was in for a rude awakening at any moment. So, just in case, I scanned my uncolored lines as a fall-back if I royally screwed up. With my paranoid mind set at ease (for the most part), I could begin with color application. I started with the skin since it was the easiest; Just one good layer of alcohol marker, leaving a little white space here and there like the artwork I was emulating. Although 1. The marker color turned out a bit darker than I was expecting and later blended too well with her tail, so I had to lighten it in Photoshop, and 2. because watercolor paper really soaks up the ink, I ended up with less white space than I thought I would. But beyond that, this step went off without a hitch. So then came the second-scariest part: The watercolor. I used a mixture of my Master's Touch watercolors and Mermaid Markers (yes, that was a very conscious supply choice ) and tried to take my time and be mindful of the color balance I was looking for. I'd decided ahead of time that I wanted to try and stick with a soft-ish palette like the original art, but I still wanted my choices to be different. Since yellow/gold is featured in the original but not used for a tail color, that's what I went with, and I opted for the blue-y-purple hair since a soft blue and purple are also prominent in the original and based on color-theory would be a nice contrast to the gold-orange tail. Though I did also try to get some pink in both the tail and the hair for a bit of unity and calling back to the pink in the original art. The trickiest part with the coloring was actually the tiny lips and blush spots. I ended up using a fluorescent pink for that turned out as more of a red originally and had to be touched-up via Photoshop because of that and also because of the lightening I did to the skin. It's more that it was a bit of a challenge to get the shapes of these much smaller areas right and in the correct place, since I had to use very minimal pencil markings, lest I end up with nasty graphite marks mixed into the paint. Getting the hair to be dark enough without being extreme compared to the rest of the drawing was also a great test of patience, but it ultimately worked out, I think. I also had a hard time deciding what color the piece of coral in her hair should be, which is why it ended up as this vague dusky-orange color. And I got more pink on the sand dollar next to it than I intended, but neither of those things is a huge deal. While I waited for all that to dry though, I had to decide how I was going to go about tackling all that extreme sparkle the original art had. I could have just added it in digitally and not even attempted it traditionally, but everything else had gone so smoothly that I decided to push my luck this time. Originally, I started with just glittery gel pens, but I found pretty quickly that they were sinking back into the colors underneath them too much and thus just weren't doing what I wanted. I wanted high-impact sparkle. After some brief consideration, I turned to the metallic watercolor sets I have made by Art Philosophy, which are very high-impact metallic and pretty opaque, which would work well over my failed gel pen and would work wonders for the areas where I wanted that high-impact over an opposing color. (I.E. Where I wanted the blue sparkle over a very orange-yellow area, which would normally make brown mud if the color on top wasn't opaque.) The funny part about that is that I originally used a different shade of purple and gold for those areas of sparkle that I ended up completely covering with different shades (the purple needed to be lighter and the gold needed to be darker/more gold and less yellow). And her eye shadow cover saw all three colors before I settled; The purple just seemed wrong, and the gold blended too well with her skin. I thought the blue wouldn't work so close to her blue hair, but it actually ended up looking the best out of the three. Although, I do have to make a full disclosure that the high-impact sparkle you see here is in fact where I went in and re-did it digitally once I scanned the artwork in. Unfortunately, glitter and metallic supplies just don't scan very well and usually end up looking too dark, dull, or flat by comparison. The metallic paints work just fine in person since you can move the art and see how they reflect the light, but it just doesn't work in a still image that's been captured by having a bright light uniformly shined over it. Still, re-tooling the sparkle digitally ended up being an interesting challenge, especially since it's been a fairly long time since I was messing with digital textures like this. Also worth noting is that I had to re-paint some of the metallic areas because they weirdly lifted off onto the plastic cover I used to protect the art when I pressed it onto the background to make the glue stick. I'm not sure if it's because those were the extra-layered areas and they hadn't fully dried all the way down to the paper, or if that particularly plastic just picks up this metallic paint really easily or what. And speaking of that background... Like I said earlier, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do for a background for a while, but after reviewing my mermaid-centric Pinterest board I decided a simple rock seat and something to vaguely suggest the ocean/water without getting too detailed would suffice just fine. Based on that, I felt like using gouache would work nicely (and I just really felt like using the gouache since I don't find a lot of opportunities to use it) and that a color scheme that flipped her hair and tail colors would be best for the effect I wanted. I've found I really like the Strathmore 400 series mixed media paper for gouache because of how smooth it is, so I cut a piece down to size and got busy. For the most part, I just kind of went in with the colors doing whatever felt right, and trying to use some gouache I'd already mixed from past projects (since gouache can be reactivated and I've found this kind, in particular, seems to reactivate really nicely) either on their own or to mix the colors I felt like I needed. And I also tried to do a lot of blending straight on the paper to get more variations in color and make things a bit more lively. Oddly enough, this ended up being a good example of gouache's covering power because I accidentally started applying the colors upside down--using more greens and blues on top and more pinky-purple on the bottom--and not only had to flip the paper around but also had to do a fair amount of covering the colors I'd already put down with colors you don't really want to mix with them because they don't make very pretty results. But it worked out just fine, so yay! I also added some clouds for a little extra ambiance, which I think looks quite nice. Believe it or not, the most difficult thing about the background was the rocks. I spent far longer than I care to admit (or bothered to document, for that matter) trying and in many ways failing to mix the proper shades of gray I wanted, and the end result didn't turn out quite as clean and graphic as I had hoped, but by the time I put the mermaid on top, you really can't tell because you can only see a fraction of what's actually there. And I mean, the end result isn't terrible, it's just not quite what I was picturing in my mind's eye is all. Personally, I know it's kind of an odd choice, but I really like how there's no defining line between the water and the sky, and yet you still get a clear idea that they're separate and the rocks aren't just floating in space. I'm not sure how, but I think I'd like to work with this kind of ambiguity more often. It's like a step between abstract and more structured art. Anyway. With the background done, the next step was to attach the mermaid, which I felt like doing in a more 3D and less flat manner, so I chopped up a cardboard box that previously held a chocolate bunny I had on hand and glued some pieces together to boost the mermaid up a bit. This where those deep shadows between her and the background are coming from. Here I feel the need to insert a comment about how difficult it was to get my tacky glue to dispense the glue for me, though there's a chance this is because I need to poke the opening in the tip to be a bit wider. (You have to poke it open yourself and I always felt like I never did get it open quite enough...unless you like strenuous hand exercises...) Of course, once all the above was done then I had to scan the art in, which I was admittedly a bit nervous about after the incident with the plastic cover peeling off the metallic paint (though fortunately, the scanner glass didn't have the same effect), and then all that was left wad the digital retouches. Overall, I'm really happy with how this turned out. It doesn't blend in as well as I originally wanted it to with the original art, but in the end, that doesn't really bother me. It's just a nice piece of art on its own that is also unique from what I normally do...except it's still got a lot of similar elements to how I normally make art. It feels a lot like the days when all I made was fanart. The key difference here is that I know myself better as an artist now and thus can use that knowledge to my advantage. I can't promise this a return to regular posting for me, though I do hope it's a gateway to me posting more frequently at least, but I can say I do intend on getting back to working on art more often and therefore being more present online again. At the very least, I can happily tell you guys that I have a couple of new art supplies en route to me that I've been wanting for a while and am excited to share with you once they arrive. If nothing else, we at least have that to look forward to! ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

#mermay

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nom-the-skel · 5 years

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Sans Tutorial?

Last year someone sent an ask for a tutorial about how I draw Sans, but I have been pretty busy and not gotten around to making it! I don’t know how helpful this will be, because it turns out my technique is basically:

1. draw a circle

2. draw the rest of the skeleton

But anyway, I’ll post the steps for this picture here :3

I have picked up some good tips from tutorials but I don’t use them very much because some are too basic, some are too advanced, some are written too proscriptively, and usually the example art looks way better than what I’m doing if I follow along. So my tips may be a mix of too-obvious and not-adequately-explained, but perhaps a few beginner or intermediate level artists will find something useful here :3 I will assume you know what layers are and have software that can do layers. I use Paint Tool SAI, which is pretty affordable, and there are other programs that are free.

First I draw a circle where I want the skull to be. I don’t necessarily stick with this circle as I continue sketching. And one of the advantages of drawing digitally is that I can move parts around if it’s not working. If I’m planning out a complex picture, Sans will be a circle with two more circles for eyes and a vague cylinder/blob as a body, at first.

Then sketch in more detail. Fingers are important, and I often have to go back and refine the sketch of the hands in the middle of doing the lineart.

There are many different and valid styles for drawing Sans. I always draw his eyes as this sort of arch-like shape, like a half circle that’s stretched out vertically. Even if they’re half-lidded, I start with the whole eye shape (and if they’re half closed they tend to end up pretty rectangular).

In this picture, I made his legs too short, then too long, and you can see some artifacts of how they got moved around and adjusted. (I pretty much never draw him just standing there in full-body, I guess owo) It’s much easier to adjust things in a sketch than after it’s been lined, so take your time. If I wasn’t feeling confident, or if I wanted to make the linework easier, or if I wanted someone to approve the picture before I did lines, I would do another, more-refined sketch on top of this one. But I’ve been drawing a lot of Sanses over the past few years so I didn’t :3 I do have a brush for sketches that is not totally opaque.

(Beginner tip: If you’re using a serious art program, you can reduce the opacity of the sketch layer and draw the next sketch in a new layer on top. This is how you’ll do the linework too. I also put Sans’s legs on a separate layer when I was adjusting them in this pic. This is also a good time to adjust the framing of the picture; I usually drew it too small and off-center. This pic is a bit off-center because I thought I might add text on the right side about the steps. But then I didn’t.)

Next is lines. In Paint Tool SAI, I can have multiple layers in a folder and select the whole folder as “selection source” (so I can fill in the colors later). This makes it easy to use a Lineart layer for the smooth curve of Sans’s skull, and a regular Raster layer for the rest of the lines. Of course, make sure the line width is similar. (Being able to choose a selection source other than “current layer” or “whole image” is one of the advantages of SAI in my experience.)

I used thin lines here. I don’t always, but sometimes I try to use thin lines and add plenty of detail and I’m pretty pleased with it. (Often if I want to save some energy I use thicker, rough-textured lines, so that you won’t be able to tell so much where I got the curve of the skull wrong and then adjusted it.) When I first started drawing Sans, I gave him too many teeth. Then I overcompensated and gave him too few teeth. Now I’ve settled on about this many teeth. I like to draw bony, skeletal hands. For any bones, Google image search is your friend. You don’t need to know the proper name of the bone; just search for the body area + bones. I usually draw the nose hole a bit more simplified. I don’t always bother with the drawstring. Sometimes I give him a turtleneck sweater so I don’t have to draw a glimpse of collarbone, ribs, spine inside his shirt. Idk why his tibiae are so thick today owo

Flat colors and cel shading. I like to put a bright color that contrasts with the colors I’m using in the background, so I can easily see corners that got missed by the fill tool. Usually, I do multiple layers of the base colors, so that I won’t have to worry about the edges when shading. (All the color layers are collected in a folder. Not the bg though; if it’s complex it will have its own folder.) Here, I used a shading layer for each base color layer (the shading layer is a clipping layer, so the shade color won’t be visible unless it’s overlapping its correct base color). I don’t like to be organized and label my layers, so I do the shading right after the base color, while I still remember what layer it’s on :3 You can also do the flat colors on one layer (or just in one folder) and then put a multiply or shading layer as a clipping layer over that for the shading (many fewer layers to deal with but you must pay more attention to the staying inside the lines). Aside from the sketches, I still haven’t used any brush other than the default pen. You can of course use more layers and more colors for fancier cel shading. I have used a few extra darker shades on Sans’s neck.

More shading. I usually choose between cel-shading and more shading, but I tried adding a little bit more here since it’s a tutorial. It doesn’t make a huge difference though; if I hadn’t done cel-shading, I would have made the blendy shading stand out more. You can do each color individually (here’s a tutorial about that), but you can also make a clipping layer over all the colors (flat colors on one layer or all the color layers in a folder) and make it a multiply or shade layer, and shading for all the colors there. I like to fill in this shading layer with white so it blends more between the light and dark. This is also a great technique for adding shading to something that has a pattern on its surface (e.g. you can add fur texture to your rainbow cat without painting the texture in every color of the rainbow). This is where I use brushes I adapted myself or stole from other artists :3 and another place where SAI has an advantage because it’s specifically designed to be good at painting. I lightened the background and added a little shadow (blurred with the watercolor brush).

Extra cross-hatchy lines. When I do thin lines, I like to add these lines as a little extra shading/detail. I usually do them before color, and on a separate layer so I can keep them out of the “selection source” when filling in flat colors. This time I did them at the end. They add a little texture to everything and I think they work well on the hand bones.

#nomtheskel art

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impressivepress · 3 years

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Do You Know that Henri Matisse Actually Came to Morocco?

The first thoughts that come to one’s mind when one thinks of Henri Matisse are France, fauvism, raw shapes and colors, smooth brushstrokes, modern art… But never Morocco! Why not? First, because not many people know that Henri Matisse actually came to Morocco (twice). Second, because not everybody knows Morocco…

When Henri Matisse (1869-1954) first visited Morocco in the winter of 1912, he was really unfortunate. The moment he was installed in the Hotel Villa de France in Tangier, a city in the north of the country, the rain began to fall. He was then obliged to postpone any outdoor activity, and ended up looking through the window. The rain was pouring so heavily for days that Matisse occupied his time by painting a vase of irises in his room. He complained about the weather in a letter to the poetess Gertrude Stein. Later in his trip, the French painter would get the chance to wander around in the old city’s narrow streets, and furthermore in his 1913 second visit to Morocco.

Just as it happened to Eugène Delacroix when he came to North Africa, Matisse found Morocco so different and exotic that he ended up making numerous sketches, drawings and paintings of it, or more precisely, of what he saw in it. For a French citizen who never went on a trip to an Arabian country, Matisse was quiet stroke by the people’s physiognomy and colorful garment, the architecture, the daily outdoor scenes, and routines… And it shows on most of the works from this period (1912-1913). We can see man and women with traditional colorful outfits (jellabah, gandouras, slippers…), sights from a window, cafe’s terraces and much more. It was as if the exuberance and the flamboyancy in the use of colors in all life’s aspects in Morocco suited naturally the pectoral requirements of the fauvism of Matisse.

Matisse didn’t want to depict Morocco as the French orientalists did of North Africa. He did not have a declination for the fantasist scenes of nude women offering themselves to the sight of Arabian men, scenes of grandiose salons and traditional baths… He intended to keep certain objectivity (even if it’s an audacious attribute to use with a fauvist) in the caption of the spirit of Morocco. And he certainly didn’t intend to paint Morocco as he was seeing it. But for me, a Moroccan, the second I saw for the first time one of Matisse paintings of Morocco, without having a clue about his visit to Tangier, I immediately felt my home country’s ambiance. And after further investigation, I discovered that Henri Matisse actually came to Morocco.

As we all know, Matisse intensifies the use of color palettes in most of his works; the only difference in the paintings he made of Morocco is that the final metamorphosis of the original state of people, places and daily life scenes and routines didn’t deviate that much from the country’s atmosphere and lifestyle. We could even dare to declare that the final work had a “Moroccan touch” to it. Even in the artist later canvases, we can see the influence of his two visits to the country. We can find portraits of French women (Laurette, the three sisters…) with traditional Moroccan dresses and turbans… As if Matisse had some kind of nostalgia for Morocco.

Matisse gave a fresh insight into Morocco, and North Africa in general, away from the exotic and fantasist vision of the Orientalists with their harems and baths (Delacroix; Gérôme), which refers more to dream than to reality. Matisse went to meet the people, so close and personal. We can see that clearly through the close-up portraits of people, and the “simplicity” in the caption of people’s daily life and routines, without extravagant artifices. One feels that also in the choice of painting just one single person, instead of a whole crowd of people. It’s a sort of intimacy and objectivity in the approach of this culture, which he have never lived nor experienced before. Though you can find a couple of paintings with a crowd, but they are really rare compared to the “individual” portraits. It’s as if Matisse may have stated: The individual loses its particularity once in the crowd…

Zorah, for instance, is an omnipresent figure in Matisse’s paintings from that period. She was somehow the artist’s favorite model from Morocco. He painted her in different places, positions, and outfits, as if he was trying to caption the essence of that mysterious woman. We are even tempted to wonder once looking to those various canvases : “But who is this Zorah?!” Matisse knew a lot of people. But not all of them had the privilege to be captioned in his work. So if he chose to paint Zorah, it’s because he saw something in her. Nobody will ever solve this mystery. But our consolation is the pleasure we feel in the presence of such enlightening masterpieces.

In this mise en abyme, Matisse presents us with a view of the old city of Tangier. The painting is invaded in blue, the typical color used in the surfaces of buildings in Tangier, along with white, especially in the old part of the city. So much that we are even tempted to call it “Harmony in Blue”… It feels like as if the buildings are emerging from the sea. It’s true that we don’t see much of the city. But a closer look to the scene that the window offers the viewer provides a proof that it is, in fact, an Arabian country. The multiple minarets, the tile roof, the palm tree, and especially, the man riding a donkey… are all significant clues. The two flowerpots attribute a wide depth of field to the frame. Without these pictorial elements, the painting would have seemed much flatter than it actually is. They give a certain charm to the whole scene. The horizon is perceivable only through the difference between the shades of blue (pale blue for the sky). The lines defining the window frame are so irregular that it seems as if the background scene forms one body with the foreground.

The girl depicted in this painting is placed in the corner of what it seems like a room. We can vaguely see the lines that define the intersection between the two walls and the floor in the right bottom. The walls are painted in pale blue. The girl is wearing a red kaftan belted to the waist with a patterned fabric (a traditional outfit that women wear indoors in Morocco), and her hair is covered with a red veil. The garment is covered with yellow and green ornaments. The color of her dress goes along with the red dots on the wall behind her. She is in a sitting position, cross-legged and her hands joined on her lap, a typical way to sit in Morocco and in Arabian countries in general. Her sleeves are rolled up to the elbow area. Moroccan women used to do that for a better mobility when doing indoor tasks and to avoid messing them up. The paint layers are so thin that if we get closer we can distinguish the strings of the canvas. It’s as if Matisse intended to show this girl in a raw way, without hiding entirely the cloth. This feeling is emphasized in the depiction of the girl’s features and the irregular lines that define her body as if to make of all the elements of the canvas one and unique body. The irregular red dots on the wall that evoke the red robe’s color act like stars, especially drawn on that tone of blue. The meaning of the French title is lost in translation. “Mûlatresse” means a girl who is born from a mix-raced couple, black and white.

Here is Zorah, the woman Matisse made many paintings of. She is seen (again) dressed in a pale blue kaftan, with yellow patterns. She is sitting on her legs, a position Muslims go through while praying, with her indistinct hands on her thigh. The laws of perspective are shattered in this painting. It is mostly perceivable through the disposition of the slippers vis-à-vis the whole scene. It’s as if they were added to the canvas without any consideration of the depth of field or any other fundamental law of perspective. The disposition of these slippers is as much fantasist as the presence of the bowl with the three goldfishes (a signature element in many of Matisse’s canvases). Especially on a terrace! But that’s exactly what’s fascinating about this work. As much as it is fantasist as much as it is dreamy and beautiful. One is tempted to say: But what is the goldfish bowl doing there? It seems like as if she is in a contemplating mood, isolated that she is from reality and from the outside world. In fact, no external element of the surrounding is distracting us from contemplating the “essence” of this painting: Zorah, the slippers and the goldfish bowl. It’s like an element of still life genre is added to this “vivid” painting. One hides the slippers and the goldfish bowl, and all the charm and beauty of the painting is varnished. This intrusion resembles the depiction by Tolstoy of the “insignificant” detail of Anna Karenina’s red handbag just a moment before her suicide (It’s not a spoiler. Everybody knows Anna Karenina’s fate!) A triangle of sun rays is seen on the top left, with a thin stripe of the sky. And again as in many of the paintings made of Morocco, shades of blue are dominant in this work.

Now, this is a different painting, with different colors and tones, and with a crowd… This scene is taking place in a Coffeehouse, as indicated in the title. Six men (no women, if you haven’t noticed it yet!) are seen seated in different positions but dressed in the exact outfit: Grey jellabah and white turban. Aligned black arcades are seen in the back of the scene, while the painting is surrounded with a decorated stripe. It makes it look as an illuminated manuscript. It’s as if Matisse wanted to add an artistic Persian touch to his work, art for which he was known to have a deep admiration. This painting captures the typical idleness felt in Moroccans daily life routines, which contrast a lot with the European Occidental constant haste. The anonymous faces and the uniformity of the outfits are meant to capture the nonchalance of Moroccan coffeehouse accustomed visitors.

Matisse’s paintings of Morocco represent a kind of eyesight on an undiscovered world which, for a Moroccan, is something he/she passes by daily. The daily routines imprison our perception and the unfortunate result is that we no longer give its own value to people and things we meet and experience in everyday life. Matisse’s foreign eyesight is somehow a new lens through which a Moroccan, and especially an art admirer, rediscovers the beauty and the treasures of his/her own country. And that’s exactly the effect of great art. It renews one’s perception, and we see people, places, and things as if we are seeing them for the first time. I somehow revisited my own country… So, for that, I would love to sincerely thank you, very dear Henri Matisse.

~ Yahya Bensouda · May 19, 2018.

#matisse #painting #art article #morocco #the moroccans

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i-write-shakespeare-not-disney · 7 years

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The New Romantics ch. 4

Part 1 Here

Part 2 Here

Part 3 Here

click the OP if the read more link doesn’t show.

When Keith opened his eyes, Lance was gone. It took him a moment to remember what had happened the night before and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it now that he was alone. He understood what Lance meant about cuddles to cushion the subconscious thought of feeling dirty.

Several lines had been crossed, and Keith was well aware there was absolutely no going back at this point. Maybe before they may have been able to laugh it off or pretend nothing had happened. But not anymore. Keith groaned and willed himself to go back to sleep, but he was also aware of how physically dirty he was since he’d simply fallen asleep the night before instead of cleaning up.

Scrunching his nose, he wrapped a towel around his waist and went to the showers. It was still early, and Keith knew he was the only one awake. As he showered, he wondered how he was supposed to look at Lance like nothing had happened. It had to become awkward. Keith had never been one to have a close relationship with anyone, emotionally or physically. He was close to Shiro, but even then he had his walls up. Now this physical thing with Lance which had put them both in vulnerable, exposed positions with each other in every sense of the word…. It was too bizarre.

It’d been vulnerable. It’d been open. And Keith didn’t do openness or vulnerability. Once he was done showering, he went back to his room, smelling the sweetness of whatever Hunk had concocted for that morning. He dressed quickly, throwing on jeans and a black shirt before racing down to breakfast.

He’d been starving, and was so overcome with the urge to eat he’d completely forgotten his apprehension until he found himself sitting across from Lance. Even Lance seemed a little awkward, eyes flitting along the table as he babbled on and on half about one thing, half about another.

Hunk managed to shut him up by forcing a spoonful of food down his throat.

“Pidge, you seem rather chipper this morning,” Allura noted after Lance had busied his mouth with food instead of words.

“Well, after sleeping in Green for a while, I missed my bed.”

“Why were you sleeping in your lion?” Shiro asked.

Lance had stopped eating. Keith clenched his jaw, careful to keep a poker face. For a half second, Lance locked eyes with Keith and they both turned to look at Pidge. The look on her face let them know that she hadn’t caught onto her slip up until Shiro pointed it out, but she recovered quickly. “I’ve just been tinkering with her system. I stay there late, so I just fall asleep there.” Lance turned back to his food and Keith ran a hand through his hair tiredly.

“Hey, Pidge, maybe you can help me out my lion. I’m thinking a special mini fridge to keep sandwiches, you know? In case I get hungry.�� The others looked at Hunk in exasperation. “No?”

“Anyway... With our systems up and running, we may not need to leave this planet just yet,” Allura said. “However if the Galra are following us, we may want to be on the move.”

“In the meantime, we’re going to figure out how the Galra were able to infiltrate the system,” Coran said.

“What does that mean for us? More exploring?” Hunk asked.

“No. We should rest for a bit. I’m going to see if I can help Coran bring the castle defenses back up while Pidge and Allura make sure the systems can’t be overridden again,” Shiro said.

Keith hadn’t really been paying attention until everyone started bustling around. He rushed to finish his breakfast and figure out what he was supposed to do. Before he could berate himself for not paying attention, a pair of hands settled on his arms, stopping him in his tracks.

He blinked rapidly, confused until he saw Lance. He looked serious. Worried. “Are you mad at me?” he blurted.

Keith frowned and furrowed his eyebrows. “What? No? Why would I be?”

He shrugged, gripping the sleeves of his jacket. “For last night. Or for leaving. I don’t know.” He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I don’t know. Last night just…. Felt like a major shift.”

A relieved sigh escaped Keith’s lips. He nodded and crossed his arms. “I think I know what you mean.” He frowned and managed to meet his eyes. He didn’t feel embarrassed like he thought he would. He felt a little exposed, but Lance wasn’t a person to exploit that. At least, Keith didn’t think he was. “I’m not mad. Just… not sure how we’re supposed to act like nothing happened when… so much did, I guess?” He ran a hand through his hair and shrugged. “You okay?”

The corner of Lance’s mouth quirked up. “I’m okay,” he answered. “So… we’re good?”

Keith nodded. “We’re good.”

He stuffed his hands in his jacket pockets and tilted his head. “Since we’re left to our own devices, you want to hang out?” Keith raised an eyebrow and Lance rolled his eyes. “Yesterday, when you were upset…. I guess I sort of realized that even though we’re friends- some days, of course- I don’t really know a lot about you.”

Keith immediately felt his defenses go up. He shook his head and turned away, walking down the hall. “No, no, no. I don’t do heart-to-heart talks, Lance. I don’t talk about my feelings or thoughts, okay?”

He could hear Lance’s steps behind him, and with his long legs, it wasn’t long before he was in front of Keith, stopping him again. “I’m not saying I want you to tell me your deep, dark secrets. I’m saying… I don’t know. Things like, what’s your favorite color, or your favorite hobby, those kinds of things.”

Keith looked at him suspiciously. “Are you asking me on a date? Because I don’t do those either, Lance, and this was supposed-”

“No!” he groaned in exasperation. “Just… never mind,” he sighed. He shrugged, and lowered his eyes. “See you at training.” He turned away and something about the tone of his voice made Keith feel a sharp tug of regret in his stomach.

The closer Lance got to the end of the hall, the more insistent the feeling felt, until he managed to call his name. Lance turned, and Keith let his head fall back, staring at the ceiling. “Fine. But just because I have nothing better to do.”

He walked toward him and noticed the victorious smirk on his face. “Whatever you say, Mullet,” he chuckled. Keith decided to pretend he hadn’t heard him and followed him until they got to the lion hangar. Lance sat at the paw of his lion and Keith sat beside his own. It gave them a good five feet of space between them. Lance raised an eyebrow and snorted. “I don’t bite, Keith.”

“Um, yeah you do,” he pointed out. Lance’s eyes went wide, his cheeks flaming red under olive skin before he burst into laughter, with Keith following shortly after.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he chuckled. “You know what I meant.”

Keith shrugged and leaned back against Red. “Black. And drawing,” he said. It was silent and he looked over at Lance who was staring at him in confusion. “My favorite color and hobby,” he explained.

The smile that spread on Lance’s face reminded Keith of a child’s smile on Christmas morning. “Really? I mean, I guess I could’ve guessed on the black. But drawing?”

“Any art, I guess,” he admitted. “I like seeing my hand smeared in pencil lead or charcoal or pastels. I like bringing a blank paper to life with a few lines or a few colors. Making something out of nothing. Even when I was little and I’d go to the beach, I’d sit in the sand and make stuff. Not sandcastles like kids usually do, but… faces, people coming out of the sand, hands, things like that.” He chuckled and looked at his hands. “I miss doing that. Sculpting, sketching, coloring. I was trying to get a hang of watercolors and acrylics, but I never really managed to get far.”

“I don’t think I’d ever have pegged you for an artist. Artists are so serene, so calm, so patient. You’re the opposite. Red can attest to that!”

Keith snorted and shook his head. “Are you kidding? Trust me, artists are not calm. It’s always, What fucking color am I looking for? Where the fuck is my pen? Fuck the other eye, fuck it. Fuck shading! Screw this stupid crick in my neck I’ve been working on this for hours! And many, many more f-bombs and anger.” Lance was laughing so hard, he was doubled over. He could imagine Keith in those exact scenarios. “As for patient? Well, drawing is the only time when I’m not really aware of time. There’s nowhere I have to be, nothing I’m rushing for. It’s my time to just… be. I guess.” Lance hummed and looked at Keith with the remnants of a smile on his face. “What about you?”

“My favorite color is lilac. Like the sky at sunrise. My favorite hobby?” He shrugged. “I don’t know. A little of everything I guess. I liked helping my mom cook, or playing tag with my siblings. I never really had a passion, you know? Until I got to the Garrison, at least. Then, being a pilot was all I ever wanted to do. That’s why I hated you so much when you were there. It came so naturally to you and I was working my butt off to be the best at something for once.”

Keith raised an eyebrow. “‘Hated?’” he questioned.

Blue eyes flickered to him guiltily. “Envied? I don’t know. Very strong negative feelings,” he laughed. Keith laughed along with him, ducking his head.

There was a part of him that wanted to know how that hate or envy went away. If it was past tense, surely it was gone, right? What replaced it? Friendship? After the last few weeks… Keith doubted the term friendship even applied to them. He didn’t think it ever could again.

It was quiet for a moment as Keith lost himself in his thoughts. Being at the Garrison felt like years ago. He remembered caring so much about the stupid school. Now it just seemed so insignificant, such a miniscule problem compared to the things happening now.

He very vaguely remembered Lance in his time there. He remembered seeing him around the corridors, tall and lanky, always sticking out like a sore thumb because of it. He never really thought much of him. Keith never thought much of anyone. No one else really mattered at the Garrison. It was strange to think of those times. Those days when Lance was a nameless familiar face, then fast-forwarding to being a sort of coworker in defending the galaxy with his annoying bravado, and fast-forwarding once more to Keith squirming at his touch, his name falling from his lips like a desperate prayer.

He ran his hand through his hair, yanking at the roots to ground himself to reality again.

Suddenly, Lance’s uncharacteristically soft, vulnerable voice broke through his frustration. “What do you think they told my family?” Keith looked over at him, surprised to see his face clear of any emotion whatsoever. Stoic expressions were not a Lance thing. They were a Keith thing. And it looked wrong on Lance. When a few seconds passed without a response, Lance’s eyes flickered to Keith. “I don’t know if they think I’m missing, or ran away, or… dead. I don’t know what I’d rather have them think.” His voice was so flat, so empty, it terrified Keith.

He had no idea how to offer comfort for someone so full of emotions like Lance. He didn’t know what to do if Lance started crying or if he begged Keith for consolation. That was something Shiro did. Something Hunk could do for Lance. Even Pidge could be better at this than Keith.

“I’m sorry,” he sighed, lowering his head and hiding his face. Keith frowned, not understanding why Lance apologized when Keith was the one who didn’t even acknowledge him. “I just… thinking about tag and cooking just made me remember other things with my family. And I have this really painful pressure in my chest now, and I don’t want to cry because that won’t do anything, but I can’t help it, my throat hurts and I-”

His voice was breaking. It was weak. It was pained. And it was so unlike Lance, that Keith couldn’t handle it. And that was why he did the only thing he knew how to do when it came to Lance- he kissed him.

He heard the thud of Lance’s back against Blue, felt the shock and hesitation on his lips. “Don’t cry,” he pleaded against his lips. “Don’t cry.” He kissed him again, his lips familiar though still hesitant.

Then Keith felt his hands on his shoulders, pushing him back gently. He pulled away and looked at Lance worriedly. They’d never kissed outside of their rooms since their first kiss. It was like an unspoken rule. His blue eyes stared at him in shock and confusion, but he didn’t seem upset. “What are you doing?” he whispered.

Keith gulped and stared back at him. “Um, well… I didn’t know what to do…,” he mumbled. “I don’t know what to say to make you feel better, I’m not good at those things.”

Lance furrowed his eyebrows and gave him a small smile. “So you kissed me instead?” Keith frowned and sat back, pressed against Red, a bright blush dusting his cheeks. He crossed his arms and stared at the ground. A few moments later, Lance shuffled closer to him. “I appreciate the attempt,” he said with an honest smile. “As for how to comfort me, it’s like this.” Lance scooted next to him and pulled Keith’s arms away from his chest and around himself. Keith shifted as Lance placed his head on his shoulder and pulled Keith’s arms in tighter. “This is a hug.”

“I know that,” Keith grumbled. But he wrapped his arms tighter around him. “But does it even help?”

Lance shrugged. “I can still be sad. But I don’t feel so lonely anymore. It’s just… comforting.” Keith hummed and leaned his cheek against the crown of Lance’s head. “And even if I cry, it’s not like it’s your fault.”

“No, but you’re Lance. You joke around and you laugh too loud and you smile like you slept with a hanger in your mouth. You don’t cry.”

“Everyone cries,” he answered softly. “You don’t go kissing everyone who cries, do you?” Keith groaned and shoved him away, but he was delighted to hear Lance’s familiar laugh. “I’m kidding,” he chuckled. He pressed his shoulder against Keith’s and let his head rest against Red.

Keith bit his lip and sighed. “I’m not good with people,” he muttered.

“You can learn,” Lance suggested. “There’s comfort in listening to me. Thank you for that.”

Keith held out his fist. “Frenemies.” Lance smirked and touched his knuckles to Keith’s. “When I’m overwhelmed, I train. It gives me something to focus on, you know? Moving, sore muscles, it… it’s distracting. You want to try that? We could team up against the training sequences.”

Lance tilted his head. “Hm. Worth a shot. Come on.” He stood and hauled Keith up. They walked out of the hangar and to the training room in comfortable silence. Once they were there, Lance walked around, claiming to stretch, but it looked more like he was trying to imitate a ninja. Keith couldn’t help but smirk at the sight. What a goof.

“Initiate level two training sequence,” he said, pulling his hair up. Lance grabbed his bayard just as the first droid ran at them. It was simple on his own. It was even easier with Lance and his long range weapon. “Initiate level four training sequence,” Keith called.

Four different robots rose from the floor and started for them. “Oh, quiznak,” Lance muttered. In the time it took him to take out the one farthest away, Keith had unarmed the one closest, and used it to lift himself and kick it back enough. Lance shot it mid-air and Keith ran his sword through the last one. “Sweet,” Lance said, perking up. “Next level, next level!”

Keith rolled his eyes, but smiled. He continued to the next level, which took longer but was just as simple. It wasn’t until they reached level nine that they both seemed to get their challenge. Keith’s arm was extended, his sword menacing the faceless droids. Lance had his focus completely on his energy blaster, one eye closed the other zeroed in on a target.

“Watch your left,” Keith called as he lunged forward, wiping a droid legs out from under it. He stepped back right as another druid brought down a sword, where he’d been standing. A blue blast shot it back and Keith looked at Lance.

“Got your back, baby,” he smirked. Keith smiled and returned to the fighting.

It felt like he knew Lance’s next move as his own. They moved like it was a choreographed dance, a murderous, lethal dance as each robot fell. Keith found himself managing backflips before Lance shot his weapon for a final blow, and they finished back to back as each robot remained demolished.

Just as Keith was about to call for the next level, they heard a whistle. “Whoa. You guys were… awesome,” Hunk said. They turned, surprised to see the other paladins near the entrance. “Shiro heard fighting and then we all sort of-” He moved his hands in a grouping gesture. “Flocked. You guys… were awesome.”

“You already said that, big guy,” Lance said with a cocky smile. “But thanks. Just to show why I’m the sharpshooter of the group.” He stretched and tilted his head. “We training as a group or something?”

“We weren’t planning to. Like Hunk said, I heard fighting, and I found you guys. You seemed too concentrated for me to step in,” Shiro said.

“Well, good call, because I need a break,�� Lance huffed, dropping to the floor. “I’m all sweaty and gross.”

“Boo-hoo, princess,” Keith said with a roll of his eyes. “End training sequence.” He sat beside Lance and looked over at the others. “I haven’t gotten past level nine before. So this was pretty fun.”

“I’m glad to see you two are working together more,” Shiro said, giving Keith a proud smile.

Keith managed a small one back. Then Hunk yelped, “Lance what happened to you?”

Keith looked over where Lance had taken off his shirt and flopped onto his stomach. His back was covered in long, bright red welts that rose like ridges along his back. “Keith!” Pidge yelled.

“What are you yelling at me for? I didn’t do that!” he shouted back. “Lance what happened?”

Lance sat up and grabbed his shirt, but he wasn’t putting it on. “Nothing I just woke up like that, I'm fine.”

“You don't just wake up with scratch marks, Lance,” Hunk said.

Shiro turned him around and the Paladins grimaced. “They're not scratch marks. They're claw marks.”

“Those weren't there- uh, before. Were they?” Keith asked. He'd touched Lance all over last night and he hadn't felt anything but an expanse of smooth, warm skin. There had been no blemishes or scrapes. He was soft. He was always soft.

Pidge cleared her throat and pushed her glasses up her nose. “Maybe I can inspect it a bit, figure out the cause. Come on, Lance.” Keith watched as he followed Pidge pulling his shirt back on.

“You guys don't think the castle is haunted again right?”

Keith and Shiro shared a look. “Don't be ridiculous, Hunk. The castle isn't haunted and it never was.” Hunk didn't look too comforted by Keith's words. Shiro shook his head and walked away. Keith followed and Hunk scampered after them.

The image of the marks on Lance's back were etched into his brain. What could have happened between last night and this morning for those to have appeared on him?

A few ticks later, Keith heard a knock on his door. “Yeah?” It slid open and Lance walked in, looking slightly guilty. “Did Pidge figure out?”

“She didn't need to. I know how I got them.” Keith frowned. “Dude. It was you. You did that.”

He shook his head, scoffing. “No way. Those are claw marks; I barely have any nails, much less claws.”

Lance gulped and stuffed his hands in his pocket. “I have to tell you something,” he said. “But just stay calm okay?” Keith crossed his arms and frowned. “Yesterday… well, last night when we… you know really got into it…. You sort of… changed.” He raised an eyebrow. “Like… when I had to slow you down.” His cheeks turned red as he spoke, obviously nervous.

“What do you mean changed?” he asked.

“Into… something with… claws. You know?” Keith stared at him, not wanting to believe what he was insinuating. “You're not fully human, you know?” He shook head and backed away, feeling his stomach drop. Lance noticed the change immediately, his expression falling as Keith started struggling to breathe. “Hey, no, no, no, no, look at me, Keith. It's okay, it's okay. Calm down, listen. It's okay, you're still you. You're still Keith, okay?”

“No. No. Get out. Go away, Lance.”

Lance cupped his face and pressed their foreheads together, shaking his. “Don't do this, baby. It doesn't matter.”

“What do you mean it doesn’t matter? I grew claws! Jesus what else happened to me?” he shouted. “Why didn't you tell me?”

“I didn't want you freaking out like you are now! So what you turned sort of Galra, I don't care.”

Keith shoved him back. “Are you that desperate for a fuck, Lance? Willing to stick your dick wherever you can?”

His lips parted and his eyebrows furrowed, like Keith had hurt his feelings. But he was the one turning into a half breed alien, and Lance was the one who kept it from him because Keith was in the middle of fucking him for the first time, and of course you didn't care what was fucking you so long as you got fucked. Lance was not the one that should be upset. He didn't have that right.

“Well, when you decide to stop being an asshole, we can talk about this,” Lance spat before turning away to leave.

Keith watched him leave and stared at his hands. He'd actually changed? How had he not noticed it? How could he not have felt it? Had he been so wrapped up in Lance, in sex, that he didn't even realize his body was changing?

Frustrated, he fell to his bed and pulled the covers over himself. They smelled like Lance. And sweat. And sex. It wasn't very pleasant, but Keith didn't want to get up and wash them or change them, so he tried to focus on the smell of Lance.

Being part Galra was one thing. And it had taken a long time to accept it. To not feel unwanted and disgusting. Now he was looking like one? With claws? What else? Yellow eyes, furry ears, purple skin, fangs? Would he stay that way one day? Why had he changed? Why with Lance, why at that moment?

He laid in the bed unable to sleep. It was too early anyway. Breakfast, talking with Lance, training. It couldn't have lasted more than a few hours. Time was more difficult in space.

“Did you talk to him?” Pidge asked as Lance flopped onto the couch. “I'll take that as a yes. Did it go well?” Lance glared at her and she cleared her throat. “I'll take that as a no. What happened?”

“Exactly what I said would happen. He flipped out. That's why I didn't want to tell him!”

“He would've found out either way,” she reminded. Lance frowned and hung his head off the side of the couch. “What?”

“I think he thinks I'm using him.”

“Aren't you using each other?”

“Not like that,” he protested. He thought of the fear and betrayal in Keith's eyes when Lance told him. “He thinks the only reason I don't care about the Galra thing was because of what we were doing. He doesn't believe that I wouldn't care anyway.” She grimaced and leaned her cheek on her fist. “I'm sorry you're the only one I can talk to about this you're the only one who knows.”

“You could just tell the others. I doubt they'd really care.” Lance shook his head. “Give him time to cool down. You know him. It'll blow over.”

“Yeah,” he mused, looking at the ceiling.

Later that night, Keith only left his room to eat dinner and left as soon as he was done to go to bed. He tossed and turned unable to sleep. He thought it might be the smell, so he dumped the covers in the closet and pulled his jacket over himself instead. But even so, he couldn't bring himself to fall asleep. Something felt wrong. Off.

He didn't feel overheated or anxious like Lance had before. It wasn't that kind of uneasiness. It was different it was… sadder. Like he'd forgotten something he just didn't know what.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been tossing around, but once the frustration made him stand, he realized Lance hadn't stopped by his room. Was he giving him space? Keith could barely remember what he'd told him. Lance was a patient person, but even he had to have a breaking point and Keith must have reached it for him.

Thinking about Lance made Keith feel worse. Guilty and jittery. He wanted to see him. Wanted to know why he hadn't said anything, why Keith couldn't remember a single instance of disgust on his face, only soft and desperate kisses and touches.

And he wanted to know why he never came back.

He stepped out of his room and walked over to Lance's, hesitating, walking back and forth trying to swallow his pride. Then finally he knocked. There was no answer. It occurred to Keith that maybe, just maybe, it was the middle of the night and he was asleep. Still, he tried one more time, knocking a little harder. “Lance?” he called. His voice echoed in the hall. He wondered if he would even hear it if the walls were soundproof.

Just as he decided he should walk away, the door swished open and Lance tilted his head, his eyebrows furrowed. He wasn't smiling. “Yeah?”

Keith crossed his arms and kept his face passive. “You never apologized for keeping it a secret.”

Lance stared at him for a few seconds before shutting his eyes. “Are you kidding me right now? You say the things you said, lock yourself away like some damsel in distress all day, ignore me, and that's the first thing you say?” He opened his eyes and clenched his jaw. “Goodnight, Keith.”

“No, wait,” he growled, putting his hand on the door. “You didn't come back. That's… my point. You left and you didn't try talking to me again.”

“I told you, when you were ready to talk we would.” He leaned against the doorframe, staring at Keith with icy eyes. “Besides. I wanted you to see that you're not some meat stick. Or something to just put my dick in. I was planning on not going to your room at all until you realized that I really don't care about this Galra thing.”

“Why? Why don't you?”

Lance frowned and shook his head. “It's late Keith. We can talk tomorrow.”

He began shutting the door again, and again Keith put his hand against it, forcing it to slide back open. “Stop closing this thing on me!” he snapped. Lance's eyes widened and Keith averted his gaze. “I… I can't sleep. I feel weird I feel… sort of sad, but not. It's not sexual, I know that. It's just… I think you're the only one who can help.”

“What are you talking about?” Keith shrugged, not really knowing what he wanted or what he was asking for.

“I just-I.” He groaned and let himself fall forward, thumping against Lance's chest. He gripped his shirt lightly in his hands, his forehead dipped into the crook of his shoulder. Then Lance put his arms around him and Keith relaxed a little more.

“Oh. You're lonely.” Keith grumbled incoherently causing Lance to laugh. “It's okay, Keith. Craving affection is fine, isn't that something close to what you said when I had my problem?” Keith shrugged. “Come on,” he murmured.

He pulled him into the room and tugged him against his chest, tilting so Keith was at his mercy when it came to falling against the bed. His long arms were wrapped tight around Keith, warm and comforting. Like the hugs.

After a few moments of silence, Keith murmured, “You really don't care?”

Lance shifted behind him, his hand running up his arm and back down. “I don't. Why don't you believe me?” Keith shrugged. Lance nudged him and pulled him around so they were face to face. “So your skin changes color and you get claws. Honestly the scratching was kind of hot.” Keith rolled his eyes and when he focused on Lance again, that dorky, wide smile was back. “It doesn't mean you're not still my Keith.” His lips parted and he stared at Lance. My Keith. “The very same Keith who's my friend, my rival, who bickers with me and pretends to hate my jokes and makes me shiver just by running a hand down my chest. Purple or not, it's still you, Keith.”

Keith furrowed his eyebrows and leaned forward brushing their noses together.

“Oh are we doing your method of comfort now?” Lance teased. Keith scowled and shoved him away, turning so his back was to him. “Aw, no, no, no, I was kidding come on,” he laughed. “Turn back around, come on.”

“Goodnight.”

“Ke-eith,” he whined. “Come on, baby. You know you want to.” He leaned into his ear and started singing, “You want to hu-ug me, you want to ki-iss me, you think I'm se-xy.” Keith burst into laughter and turned to face him. “Kiss me,” he sing-songed.

“No,” Keith yawned. Lance grunted and Keith shook his head. “I'm not kissing you, I'm tir-”

Suddenly a pair of warm lips pressed against his, Lance's tongue darted out against his lips and Keith didn't bother fighting it. He kissed him back and pressed against him. Slowly, Keith shifted over him, never letting their lips part. Lance’s fingers thread through his hair, pulling him in closer, his mouth working expertly against Keith’s. He only hoped Lance’s enjoyed the kisses as much as he did. Keith bit down on his lower lip and pulled back slightly, keeping Lance’s plump, swollen lip between his teeth.

“My way is better,” he whispered, letting go of his lip. Lance’s hands moved up and down his sides lightly. His eyes were bright, mischievous, and playful. Keith licked his lips and frowned as he looked at Lance. “I’m… sorry for what I said. I didn’t mean it.”

Lance’s smiled faded and he leaned up, pressing his lips to Keith’s softly. “I know,” he whispered. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“When did you notice it?” he asked, falling to his side. “How much did I change?”

Lance caressed his face. “You had purple here,” he murmured as he ran his fingers lightly across his cheeks and down his throat. “All the way here,” he continued, slipping his hand under the fabric of his shirt to stroke his shoulder. He leaned forward, planting warm kisses against Keith. “The claws. Your ears were a little pointy. That’s all. I noticed it when we first… went all the way. And it gradually increased as we went. It went away when you fell asleep.” His hand cupped his cheek again. “But I was focused on your eyes. Your eyes never changed.” Keith bit his lip and leaned into him.

He shut his eyes as Lance held him close. Keith’s hands went to the nape of his neck to play with the hair there, lulling himself to sleep while twirling Lance’s hair around his forefinger.

When Keith woke up, it took him a moment to remember he wasn’t in his room. He looked over and found Lance beside him, face smothered into the pillow, hands stuffed comfortably beneath it. His mouth was open, his long lashes fanning out. He looked small. Like a little kid. Keith could almost imagine Lance when he was ten or so. He looked peaceful. Suddenly, it hit Keith that he’d spent the night with Lance.

He jerked up in the bed, snatching the covers away from Lance rapidly. Lance grumbled and opened his eyes tiredly. “Wha-happen?” he mumbled.

“I… I think I spent the night. I… I can’t tell what time it is, but-”

“So?” Lance yawned.

“It was a rule!” he protested. Lance shrugged. “Lance, come on.”

“Keith, technically we didn’t do anything, so I don’t think it counts. Look everyone’s still asleep, so you have two choices: either come back to bed or go back to your room. I won’t be upset, I understand. But I’m very sleepy.” He turned his head and shut his eyes.

Keith hesitated, watching Lance breathe for a few seconds before walking over to him. He pulled the covers over him again and smiled at the sight of his sleeping form. He leaned forward, kissing his temple. “See you later, Sharpshooter,” he whispered. He stood and left the room, biting his lip as he walked back.

He and Lance were at a strange point. He wasn’t sure what that point was, but he didn’t mind not knowing.

Click Here for the next chapter

#klance #laith #voltron #au #sfw

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loving-jack-kelly · 7 years

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Peculiarity

Chapter 1 Jack's art has always been more than just art. From the time he excitedly called his mother over to see the butterfly he'd drawn only to helplessly watch it fly away, paper wings with crayon lines disappearing into the sky before she could see it, to the time the fearful picture of his father, drawn in terror and hopelessness, had flipped off the page and nearly killed the man it shared a face with, his art had a tendency to come alive, acting with the emotion behind it. The first time he'd read the Harry Potter books, or rather, listened to the CDs in a library to look like he belonged there, he'd hoped just for a little while that his eleventh birthday, coming up, would also bring a letter, and a place to belong other than the groups of similarly lost, hungry boys he'd found. But the pictures and portraits in the wizarding world didn't come off the page, didn't float away, didn't have three dimensions, didn't try to hurt or kill people. The art in the wizarding world didn't act in the fear behind it, or the hope or joy or love, it simply moved and reflected the things it portrayed. And when Jack's eleventh birthday passed with no letter delivered by an owl, he wasn't surprised as much as he was disappointed. As he grew up, always moving, avoiding places he knew people would be able to tell he was alone in, finally settling in a suburb or New York with a nice park and several fast food restaurants and a nice library, he learned, slowly, to leave bits and pieces out when he drew, to not add the last eyelashes, leave out a few curls, avoid shading in the last shadows, because as long as he knew it was unfinished, it stayed on the paper, stayed where it belonged. People payed him to draw them on good days, to exaggerate their eyes and mouths, people walking through the park who walked home with a barely unfinished picture of them, never to quite notice the missing fingernail, eyelash, birthmark. In the summer, he moved to the city, finding his refuge in the bigger Central Park, where more people came and stopped, but less people noticed him. Except for the men who have him a feeling he could never quite shake, either wearing dark glasses but looking straight at him like they weren't blind, or who's eye color didn't quite match their faces, the people who sometimes slipped and smiled at him, or who showed their eyes that were white but obviously could see him. And sometimes, the shadows that didn't match anything around him but wouldn't disappear, the rustles in the trees late at night that didn't go away until he yelled, that terrified him but he couldn't place. And then, the boys. A group of them, coming through the park like tourists but at the same time like they knew their way around better than anyone. "Wanna draw me?" One of them, younger than the rest, sat down at Jack's feet eagerly. "My name's Les and that's my brother Davey and all my friends-" "Les. We're in a hurry, don't bother the guy." One of his friends spoke quickly and quietly, with a Brooklyn accent thicker than any Jack had ever heard in real life. Les looked disappointed. "I could draw you and then you could come back later and see?" His friend looked skeptical, examining his setup of old drawings rather than making eye contact. "You don't have to pay if you don't like it." He offered. "I'll just add it to the board." "Fine." The guy finally made eye contact, and something about his ice blue eyes sent a shiver down Jack's spine. Not the same as the men who's eyes didn't match them, more like by simply making eye contact the boy knew Jack better than he knew himself. "Les we have to go. We'll be back in an hour or so, I suppose." As they walked away, Jack started to draw, losing himself in recreating the waves of the little boy's hair, the creases in his worn shirt. As always, he wasn't quite sure he was imagining the face adjust its smile into something more lifelike, blink once or twice, even the chest move like it was breathing before settling into peacock like pride. "I love it! Spot please can I keep it?" Spot arrived behind Les, as Jack was brushing away the eraser crumbs and mentally checking off the things he'd left unfinished. The eyes were missing the blot of red that occupied half of the white of his left one. Of his freckles, the big ones symmetrical on either side of his nose had been left off. The writing on his shirt had been left an outline, not filled in with details. Just enough left off to keep the sketch from coming alive. Spot looked at him sharply, his ice blue eyes still seeming to read Jack's entire being as easily as he took in the sketch. "How much?" He asked, still speaking in that same quiet, fast tone. "It's only five dollars for a pencil sketch." Spot's eyes widened and he hissed through his teeth like Jack had just quoted the price for an original Monet, until Les cleared his throat and pulled a five dollar bill from Spot's pocket. "That's not a lot at all!" "Right." And with that, the pair walked away, Spot pulling another from the group aside as they walked, heads together and glancing back at him. Over the next few days, Jack started to notice Spot hanging around, watching him with those eyes, never talking, just staying close, watching. He never stayed for more than a few hours, but he kept showing up. And then one day, nobody was around and he approached. "I know." He said abruptly. "You know what? How to fake an accent from last century?" Jack was irritated by his constant, silent presence, and didn't feel like putting up with vagueness after putting up with that for a week and a half. "About your art. About how it comes alive and that's why you didn't finish Les's picture. And that's why you ran away from home. And that's why you're here, in the summer, here is better than the smaller park you normally call home." Everything he said was matter of fact and quiet, but his eyes didn't leave Jack's. "I don't know what you're talking about." Jack's mind raced through his lie, trying to figure out how this boy could possibly know. "The butterfly, your father, plants and animals and people, coming to life, sometimes scary and sometimes not. The shadows with tentacles for tongues that belong to nothing you can see, the men with white eyes who look at you and scare you." Jack inhaled sharply, but still insisted. "I have no idea what you're taking about, just leave me the fuck alone." "I'm like you, Jack, we're all like you. Strange. Odd. Peculiar." Spot was slightly too close for comfort. "Les can see the things that make the shadows. Race can make water do whatever he wants. Finch can fly. I can read people and minds. And you can bring art to life. And we know how to keep you safe from the things that scare you, but you need to come with me. Now." "Dude, I don't have time for some crazy fantasy, magic power bullshit." "I'll prove it. Think something entirely random, a number, a name, something nobody would guess, and I'll hear it." Jack thought carefully for a second, but settled on the one thing he'd never told anyone, ready to laugh in this boy's face and walk away. "When you were seven, you found a crawl space underneath a neighbors porch that nobody had ever touched and hid there when things got bad at home. The only thing underneath the porch besides you was a stone frog, and you named him Gregory." Spot didn't break eye contact. "Come with me." "How did you-" "I told you, I read minds." Spot glanced at the old fashioned watch he was holding. "And either you need to come with me now, or you need to choose to live out here, on the run, alone, and hunted." "Hunted?" Spot quirked an eyebrow. "The men with the white eyes, the shadows, they only leave you alone because they don't know for sure that you're one of us. If they ever saw you slip up, if they ever saw one of your drawings blink or breathe or fly away, they wouldn't just be watching anymore. You would be their target, and they'd do anything to get you. Come with me, and I can promise you'll be safe. Stay here, and I can promise you won't be." Spot stared at Jack for a second longer, not blinking, before turning and waking away. Part of Jack wanted nothing more than to turn away from the boy, ignore him and hope he never came back. But a larger part, the part that had been living on the streets and knew how to read people, and the part that felt cold and unexplainably terrified every time a man with white eyes leered at him, had a feeling that following him was the smart move, the right move. So he quickly swept his art supplies into the bag, folding his board and following behind Spot as he walked quickly towards the edge of the park. Something was telling Jack that Spot was telling the truth, and he followed that instinct.

#I wrote this #chapter 2 is almost done so it shouldn't be too long #Peculiar au #miss peregrines

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virgoraccoon · 7 years

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Commissions

(Open)

Special event commissions: These usually have special Price and Rules, and limitations such as material or the notion of it being experimental work.

Description: Shots (headshots, isolated body parts etc.)

crops: waist up images in most cases

Full: full character drawing

Base Price- [$15 for -shots], [$20 for crops], [$30 for full] PER CHARACTER

+$5 for wings (per pair) +$5-20 for complex characters +$10+/25+/50+ simple backgrounds +$5-25 for complex props (like weapons, tools, whatever) +$5/10/20 for simple shading

[$150+ for ref] -SFW -these can easily hit 200, but won’t usually go over that -commissioner can request specific parts for a ref sheet, otherwise my quote will be for what I think is “enough” for the character provided -I won’t do big walls of text of specific format/graphic design stuff, it’s super simple like the above examples +$50 for “concept art” if the character provided does not have a solidified design and accurate art already.

[Bundle] $75 5(five) “Shots” and 1(one) Full -must be of the SAME character -5 body parts can be listed, otherwise I will pick them

-I will stream some of these; because I’m not offering anonymous commissions you may not request that your piece be kept 100% private (but if it’s a gift you can ask me to not stream it or to wait longer to post it). -I will wait 3 days after delivering finished art before I post it to my galleries, to give the commissioner a chance to see if first.

-ALL commission updates, information, edits, whatever- must be discussed by email. I will not deal with business stuff in stream chat, or any kind of private message. -You may update your commission with a prompt of equal or lesser value at any point before I have begun work, but it may increase your wait-time.

-I will not do ANY work before I have received at least 50% partial payment.

What are you getting? These are kind of a surprise, unless you’ve linked me one of my finished pieces and requested a quote- in which case you’ll get something fairly close to what you linked. Style and technique are what I feel like doing that day, quality is determined by how much you’ve paid (unless I really like how the sketch comes out and decide to spend extra, unpaid time on it). When are you getting it? These do not technically have a due-date, but I will try to have them done within 90 days of payment. The actual system, is that I will not take more of these than I could complete in a particularly-dedicated week of work. These won’t usually have that short of a turn-around, because they are lower priority than some of the other things I am working on.

—————– [YES/NO content] [YES] -you may color it yourself OR have someone else color it for you (just credit my lines separately of the edits!) -you may use this to commission fanart/fan-characters -this includes gore stuff as long as it still follows the other rules. -If you don’t know if your idea is acceptable or not, you can ASK ME and I’ll get back to you ASAP. I won’t be mean about it, I’ll just tell you “no”.

-I will send one image at the end of the sketch phase to confirm posing/character accuracy

[NO]. -no one under 18 can commission Me -if you are under 18, please do not have a friend order it for you instead! -No real people ( i can draw fictional humans, but not people who exist/ have existed)

-I can request modifications to or turn down any prompt.

—————————

[Instructions] Fill out the form below and email that to [email protected]

Once I’ve received the form, I will reply with payment instructions and a quote (if relevant) -if you’re paying over $200 for your piece, you may opt for a half-now, half-later payment plan. You will be expected to provide the second half of payment after I’ve done the lineart.

[Form]

Email Title: Commission -basic Commission [your name]

(Reminder) “see reference” or “check reference” is not a good response to any part of the form. -Make sure you fill out all three sections of the form

DO NOT link ref that contains NSFW I don’t want to have to look at it while im working.

—————————

(per commission) URLs to credit (such as Weasyl, Tumblr or FA): Your paypal email: Twitch username (if you have one): (per assignment/prompt) Are free upgrades okay?: y/n [-shot], [crop], [full], [ref]: Do you want a guaranteed stream slot (+$10): y/n Add Shading: y/n *What is happening?: *Where is it happening?: Why is it happening?: Background:[no pref], [blank], [solid color], [marbled], [drawn background] *Themes/moods: colors you like: colors you hate: (* Can be as specific or vague as you want. Being less specific gives me more room to create interesting art.) (per character) Character’s name: Character owner’s URLs: Accurate picture reference: (absolutely needed, here)

If you don’t have this: +$50 for “concept art” if the character provided does not have a solidified design and accurate art already. Corrections or notes to reference: Species: Wings(+$5): y/n Eye color: Sex/Gender: Skin colors (mouth, ears, so on): Body-type: Height: (measure quadrupedal characters at the shoulder and bipedal characters at the top of the head) Personality: Clothes and accessories suggested/examples: Clothes and accessories REQUIRED: (if it’s not here I might not draw it)

#commission #open #Character Design #art #information

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aseethe · 7 years

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Tips for artists on how to handle clients

I've had my fair share of difficult and sometimes even downright frustrating customers but over the years I have found my own style of dealing with them, and you will too. Even if a customer is being difficult you have to keep a professional appearance and comprimise with them. Believe me, it works out.

Client is being vague; not specifying what they want. There's 2 things you can do here. First, you need to know what they want in terms of detail(full body? shaded? sketch?) so you can gauge the price on the piece. Most likely they'll start off with those details, especially if you have a form to fill out for them so this shouldn't be a frequent issue. If they don't specify the concept they want, such as poses or expressions and ask that you only "make it look cool" you can either go over an idea or several with them or take artistic freedom.

Client is being picky and needs it to be just right. This is the kind of client that will ask for updates and WIPs regularly to make sure you're doing it exactly how they imagined it. This can get tiresome, so there's a few ways to avoid it. One is you can ask them to draw up a rough sketch of their idea for a pose or expression if they are having trouble explaining it or you're having trouble understanding. If they don't want to, try several quick sketches yourself of what you think they're trying to describe and send them all to let them choose. If you don't want to be stuck stopping your flow every half hour to send this person a WIP and wait for their reply, inform them you are only going to send 1-2 before the sketch is inked and they can ask for changes then.

Client is asking for too many changes or wants you to change the entire sketch. If you have put in a considerable amount of time and effort into a sketch, it can be frustrating to change it even more. My personal policy is I only take up to several change requests in the sketch phase under the exception that they want something fixed in the finished product because I may have gotten a design or color wrong in the character. Sometimes a client will never be 100% satisfied with your sketch or finished product. Depending on how much you value your time and effort on a single piece determines how many changes you're willing to make. If you feel you don't want to continue fixing so much that the sketch is barely what you had in the first place, you can tell them they have a limit in advance or charge them for the extra changes if you so choose. If they want the sketch entirely different right off the bat, charge them for the additional sketch and either scrap the original or use it for yourself or even a future commissioner that would like it.

Client is complaining about your prices or extra charges. I can't say I've experienced this much at all, but my advice for anyone with this problem now or in the future is to be straightforward with them and tell them that your time is valuable and that the piece they want is time-consuming and that you cannot work for free. If they are complaining about your charges on their complicated concept or character, refer to your ToS if you have one or just explain to them that the extra time used to draw their request is cause for extra charge. If they are complaining that your art is too expensive for them, try offering your cheapest type of commission. If they are rude about it, apologize for any inconvenience and move on.

Client has an unappealing character or request. This is very subjective and some would claim it's not an artist's place to criticize a customers wishes or opinions. While that is true to an extent, I definitely know what it's like to get a request that I just did not like the idea of drawing. It's ultimately up to you whether you choose to do this commission you don't like, but remember you always have the right to refuse the request. If they ask why, I would avoid explaining the real reason. Don't lie, just tell them that you feel you are unable to do it or something along those lines. HOWEVER, there have been times where I have taken on a commission of, what were in my opinion, rather unattractive characters, but experimented with subtle changes to the design in my piece. For example using more appropriate & complementary shades of the design's colors instead of loud primary tones, or using grays/off white instead of pure 000 black or 255 white. Not changing the design in a huge way, just tweaking it somewhat to make them more visually appealing, and correcting obvious & uncontroversial design mistakes. There have been clients that were actually thrilled to see me put in effort to improve their character’s design and tone down their um, aggressive color schemes. Just remember to still have respect for their original design and the client's original concept because again, this is a subjective matter!

It's a learning experience and in times it can be really difficult to balance being polite and firm, especially when you want to keep the sale and not scare away your customers. You have to draw a line between their requests and your comfort and rights as an artist doing commission work. It's easier said than done, but with this guide I hope I can help those who are having trouble finding a way to politely refuse a commission or compromise with their client. Good luck out there!

#art tips #artist guide #clients

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elsewhereuniversity · 7 years

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[Right, so. P sure I’m officially obsessed lmao. Anyways here’s the third and probably final part of the tale of The One With Many Names, also known as My Blatant Self Insert. Hope it doesn’t break canon too much, please enjoy, and sorry for spamming! (also i still have No Idea What I Am Doing ahahahaha.)]

—-

Eventually, as everyone knew ce would be, The One With Many Names was Taken.

Spectator, the junior who watched people and noticed patterns, sharp-eyed behind the shadows of their hoodie, collected their bet. They placed a pittance of their winnings on Many-Names coming back.

It was mostly out of pity.

~~~

Your memories are doing The Thing again, and you cannot for the life of you remember the sequence of events that led to place you in the Elsewhere. But you know you are without iron, and your backpack is missing, and you should be terrified. Except They took you Elsewhere early in the morning, when you were stumbling your way to your eight am class, and you are far too tired to really care.

(You still have your dog tag necklace. Putting it on is too deeply ingrained into your morning ritual for you to forget it. This is a small comfort.)

You stare up and around at the Elsewhere despite knowing that you shouldn’t. Your eyes settle on something with too-sharp teeth like needles, shades of blue like ice and ocean, vaguely humanoid in shape but with proportions defying normal physics. You close your eyes and take a shuddering breath. Your eyes hurt. It’s too fuckin’ early for this. You consider the questions you could ask, from the informative (‘why have you taken me’) to the Actually Helpful.

You go for the latter.

“If I tell you a story,” you say slowly, carefully, “will that work as payment for my freedom?”

The fae hisses, and you flinch, wishing that you had your notebook with you, or at least another hour of sleep on your side. “You presume?”

“I, I, I have heard your–the, the stories humans tell of you,” you say, stumbling over your words, “the stories the students tell of you. They say you will free us if we bargain.”

“And you come,” the fae says contemptuously, “and bargain a mere bedtime tale? Stories have power, child, but I have heard so many before. You would have to pay something more than a paltry rendition of a well-worn path to return to your realm.”

“If you don’t want my stories,” you say in return, “then why?”

You blink, and the shades-of-blue creature is upon you, cupping your chin with icicle fingers. “You shift,” it says, “You are not fixed. You have a touch of us in you. Thus, you are ours.”

You squeak, and cower, and cover your eyes. You take deep breaths until the frostbite of the creature’s fingers fades. Then–your fear carrying you beyond terror and out the other side, knowing you are dead or worse than anyways, you speak.

“If you have not taken me for my stories,” you say, and pause, and swallow hard, “th-then y-you, you don’t–” You stop. Collect yourself. Attempt to speak with confidence. “You do not know of my skill. I would not tell you a mere bedtime story. It may follow a similar path as others, true, but…”

The fae tilts what passes for its head at an unnatural angle. You breathe in deep and make your bargain. “A story. A tale. If it pleases you–if it pleases an audience, mayhaps–I am to be released. Sent back to my realm. If not…” You swallow hard, knowing your next words would seal your fate. You are not willing to speak them. You hope the fae will speak for you.

It does not, of course. You close your eyes and damn yourself. “If not, I accept the fae–the touch of You I have inside me.” ‘Do with me what you will’ is not said, but you both know They will if you lose.

“Deal,” the fae says delightedly, “Begin telling.”

“If it pleases an audience,” you repeat. Perhaps a variety of opinions would be what damns you, but relying on the tastes of a single fae…if the story you have in mind displeases it, then you are lost. Better to have a security net of varying opinions.

The fae narrows eyes dark as ocean abyss and hisses. You flinch. “An audience,” you repeat anyways, “I said, if it pleases an audience.”

“You said mayhaps.”

“My stories are my talent,” you say, “if this is the last one I tell, I want it to be remembered.”

Amazingly, this works. You get your audience.

You stand in front of the fraction of a Court, wishing you could write or type the words rather than say them. You are afraid.

But you know your talents. You know your stories, you know your characters, and it is not the first time you have told this tale. If all else fails, you have the phrase ‘but there is always more to the story,’ a gimmick you can pull out to expand and continue if the fae do not like it quite as much.

If you are honest with yourself, you will probably pull out that “gimmick” anyways. You love your stories and characters too much to not expand on them. You close your eyes.

You gather your thoughts. You take a deep breath.

“This,” you begin, “is the story of Phoenix Song.”

~~~

It is nearly a year before Many-Names stumbles back into the normal world. Ce comes back somewhat confused and half-glowing, as though some internal light has given cer an aura of confidence. For all that, the glow is entirely human and largely metaphorical. Cer changling leaves as ce moves back into cer dorm, all smiles and laughter. The kind of smiles and laughter that covers deep, deep relief.

People ask how. Ce replies with a grin. “They love a good story, didn’t you know?”

Spectator attempts to get a fuller explanation, because for all their perceptiveness this has still totally blindsided them. Many-Names explains about the world ce’d spent five years in the making.

“I picked the one that I thought would appeal the most to Them,” ce explains. “Well, that and I actually had it figured out to the end.” Ce says maybe ce’ll show you cer old notes. “If they still exist, anyways,” ce adds thoughtfully, “I think I might have given the story to the F–Fair Folk. It’s a worthy trade.”

Many-Names leaves out drawings with cer ice cream and milk now. Sketches, colored with pencils, sharpie-lined, printed digital art in full color and shading. All labeled with names. They are always gone in the morning. Spectator thinks, to their great disbelief, that Many-Names has managed to create a fandom.

This is bad for cer. This is very very bad.

“They aren’t going to let you leave, you know,” they tell cer, “Not if you keep giving them content.”

Many-Names pauses in the middle of a sketch. “Well,” ce says eventually, “there’s always the internet.”

“You’re not getting it,” Spectator decides, and tells cer, “You can’t leave, Many-Names. Can’t go home. Can’t see your mom. Can’t go out and get another job. You’ll have to stay. Become a teacher, or whatever. You have to stop talking to Them.”

Many-Names considers this. “I can’t just cut off,” ce tells them, “That would be rude. I mean, they’ll forget soon enough. Or I’ll get tired of drawing stuff. But as long as we’re both interested, well, they get art, and I get these things.”

“These things,” Spectator repeats. Many-Names flicks a hand at cer windowsill. There is a bright red feather that almost glows, an image of a hammer, a glass crafted phoenix that seems to burn internally, a music box, and a crude, human-like figure.

“It’s like fanart,” ce says in a delighted tone, and Spectator gives up. They’re graduating this year, they don’t have time to pull a delusional freshman out of cer dealings with the Gentry. Ce seems happy, anyways.

~~~

And life in Elsewhere University carries on.

[x]

#thecrazygirlfromgigapause #this is the best possible ending!#stories #many-names #submission

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lady-divine-writes · 7 years

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Klaine Valentines Challenge Drabble - “Outside In” (Rated G)

There's a man that Kurt's been trying to work up the courage to meet, but what Kurt doesn't know is that there's a possibility that the feeling's mutual. (1508 words)

Written for the Klaine Valentines Challenge 2017 prompt "Your Song".

Read on AO3.

“Oof! Oh my God! I’m so sorry!”

“No, I’m sorry. I should look where I’m going.”

“Well, so should I, so I guess we’re both at fault.” Kurt kneels down to pick up his dropped books, a few of them being handed to him while he shuffles through a mess of papers that are part his sheet music and part someone else’s Music Theory notes. He passes the notes along to their owner, peeking up and smiling at a set of hazel eyes he’s seen more than once, a pair of rosy lips he’s envied time and again, and a face he’s wanted to find the nerve to talk to, but hadn’t yet.

This isn’t the way that Kurt wanted to meet this man, colliding with him on his way out of the NYADA campus coffee shop, but he’s not exactly complaining.

Kurt catches a name on the cover of what looks like an essay.

“Blaine Anderson?” he asks, praying that that’s this man’s name and not the name of a close friend … or boyfriend. “Is that you?”

“That’s me,” the man says, exchanging his essay for a few manuscript pages. “And these say Kurt. Are you Kurt?”

“Kurt Hummel.” Kurt juggles a book and a few loose pages to extend a hand for Blaine to shake. Blaine has a nice, firm handshake.

A soft, warm handshake, and Kurt feels himself melt in his boots.

“Uh … so, you’re a music student?” Kurt asks, opting for small talk instead of silence since this clean up and sort is taking more time than he anticipated.

“Composition,” Blaine says. “Hoping to become a song writer. And you?”

“Musical theater,” Kurt says, slipping his books and papers into the messenger bag slung over his shoulder. “Hoping to become the next Neil Patrick Harris.” Kurt chooses that name in the hopes that that will be hint enough about his sexual orientation, as opposed to leading with, I’m gay. And you? “I wondered why it was I only ever see you in the coffee shop and not in any of my classes.”

Another on-purpose slip, subtly cluing Blaine in to the fact that Kurt’s noticed him before. Kurt has never been forward. He usually keeps his infatuations to himself. But it’s taken Kurt this long to talk to this man. The universe pretty much had to drop Blaine in his lap. Kurt doesn’t know if that’s a sign or not, but he’s not going to let this opportunity pass him by.

“Yeah, yeah, I … wondered that, too.” Blaine smiles, looks away, adorably shy as he gathers up the last of his things. Kurt bites his lip. So perhaps Blaine has scoped Kurt out, too, once or twice? Very interesting.

Kurt’s fingers stumble through more papers while he steals a second to scowl up at two young women who groan, “Excuse me,” instead of doing anything close to helping. When Kurt looks back down, there are only two sheets of paper left. He and Blaine both reach for one.

“Uh, I think this one’s yours.” Blaine hands Kurt a blurry photocopy of “On the Street Where You Live” that Kurt had tucked away for scratch paper.

“And this one’s got to be yours.” Kurt doesn’t notice the nervous way in which Blaine reaches for it since his eyes have snagged on a dedication that makes Kurt furrow his brow. “Wait. What’s this?”

“Oh, it’s uh … nothing,” Blaine says. The top right corner curls under Blaine’s fingertips as he tries to grab it back, but Kurt moves it away. When Blaine tries one more time, inching closer to get a better hold, Kurt stands up. Kurt knows he probably shouldn’t be reading someone else’s work without their express permission, but he can’t help himself.

It’s not obvious from the lyrics (for a song entitled “The Muse”). It could just be a plain old love song. But from the dedication at the bottom (and Kurt hopes he’s not being conceited), he thinks this song may be about him –

For the guy at the coffee shop with the perfect hair and the diamond eyes, who’s never going to notice I exist.

… alongside a tiny, rudimentary sketch of Kurt’s favorite hippo head brooch.

“Blaine?” Kurt raises his eyes and finally hands the page over. “Is my ego going into overdrive, or is this …?”

“Yeah,” Blaine says, resigned. He grabs the page with a little less care than Kurt would like and shoves it in with the rest. “It’s a song … about you.”

Kurt wants to smile, but he feels lousy. He really shouldn’t have read it. He takes for granted that they attend a performing arts university. Songs and plays and stories are considered assignments here, and most of those are written for public consumption. But some aren’t. Some of them are an expression of their souls. The stories of their lives. “It’s beautiful but … I don’t understand.”

“I …” Blaine shuffles out of the doorway and over to a far wall when another pair of irate students push past, and Kurt follows. “I’ve watched you come in here every day since the beginning of the semester. I’ve watched you order coffee, hang out with your friends, talk on the phone ...” Blaine smiles, a little guilty, a little dreamy “… I’ve memorized your smile, the way your eyes crinkle in the corners when you laugh, the shade of dusty rose your cheeks turn, the sound of your voice when you’re reading through a piece of music ...” Blaine sighs. “You inspire me.”

Kurt takes a breath in, but he doesn’t let go. He considers everything that Blaine just said, and goes with his gut – an anxious gut that suddenly has no filter. “That’s … kind of creepy.” Blaine stares at Kurt, mouth agape, the hurt in his eyes almost tangible. “I’m sorry,” Kurt says with a nervous hiccup. “It is.”

“I was going for romantic,” Blaine says with a self-depreciating shrug, “but …”

“Well, I guess it’s a good thing then that I’m a little creepy, too.”

Under Blaine’s confused gaze, Kurt reaches into his messenger bag and pulls out a sketchbook - a well-used one, the cover worn, the color faded where it’s been held for long periods, the pages bent at the edges from leaning against Kurt’s stomach while he draws. Kurt peeks to make sure Blaine is still watching - and he is, with an almost childlike curiosity. Kurt opens the book, landing on a sketch in the very middle, a simple black and white portrait … of Blaine.

Kurt offers Blaine the book, and Blaine takes it, carefully flipping through the pages. There are, of course, pictures of things other than Blaine – outfits Kurt’s designed, portraits of friends, set designs for the winter musical … but most of the pictures in that book are of Blaine – Blaine sitting at the coffee shop reading a book, writing, drinking, staring with a far-away look in his eyes, a look that Kurt now knows might have been directed at him. “You drew these pictures,” Blaine asks softly, “of me?”

“Yeah,” Kurt admits. “I did.”

“But, I’ve never seen you draw.” Blaine is no longer flipping through the pages, but examining each picture one at a time, every line, every tiny detail. “I’ve never even seen you carry a sketchbook.”

“I try not to be obvious,” Kurt explains, “so I keep it in my bag. I would …” Kurt’s cheeks pink as he confesses to being possibly creepier than Blaine “… watch you out of the corner of my eye while I was on line getting my coffee. I’d memorize your features, your expressions, what you were wearing that day, and then sketch them out later.”

Blaine reaches the end of the book. He lingers on the final portrait of him, smiling down proudly at a page in front of him, one with vague squiggles to represent words. Blaine remembers that day, remembers the cardigan he’s wearing, the paisley bowtie. If Kurt only knew what was on that page …

Well, Kurt knows now, if only indirectly.

Only one song that Blaine’s written has ever made him smile like that.

“Wow.” Blaine closes the book and hands it to Kurt.

“Yeah.”

“I’m so … clueless.”

“Again, that makes both of us.”

“So” - Blaine blows out a breath, one that’s been building in his chest, making his body heavy – “what do we do now?”

“I think,” Kurt starts, “if you’re up for it, we sit down at a table, you tell me about your song, I’ll tell you about my drawings, and we learn about each other from the inside out.”

“That’s … uh … kind of poetic.” Blaine gestures to a cluster of empty tables. Kurt takes the lead, choosing a table as far from the commotion of the room as possible. “Maybe you should be the song writer.”

“That’s okay.” Blaine pulls out Kurt’s chair, which makes Kurt swoon just a little. “I think I’m fine being a Muse.”

***A/N - Yes, that's Darren's song "The Muse" referenced in there :D

#klainevalentines2017 #klaine fanfiction #klaine fic #frankie writes

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fashiontrendin-blog · 6 years

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This tattoo artist reveals exactly why your tattoo doesn't need to have meaning

http://fashion-trendin.com/this-tattoo-artist-reveals-exactly-why-your-tattoo-doesnt-need-to-have-meaning/

This tattoo artist reveals exactly why your tattoo doesn't need to have meaning

Whenever people see my tattoos, they immediately ask what they mean. For the designs on my body that serve no specific purpose or have no other “meaning” besides I think that they look cool (like the skeleton on my ankle), I feel pressure to attach something sentimental to them. But it’s not necessary for tattoos to have a specific interpretation or symbolism in order to be significant to you. And even if it is insignificant to you, all that matters is that you chose to get it because you liked it and wanted it on your body.

After spending time with tattooer Mars Hobrecker in his studio nestled in the back of The Living Gallery, an event space and art gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, I now feel more open to getting a tattoo that I didn’t spend months or years planning out, like the deer on the back of my arm that pays homage to a trip I took to Japan with my dad or the hand holding flowers on my inner arm that is a tribute to the women in my family.

Most of Hobrecker’s appointments are based on predrawn designs, which are known as “flash” in the tattoo community. His clients pick from the latest designs he’s drawn that are taped onto the pages of a photography magazine. Flipping through it, I noticed drawings of objects including everyday objects, like chairs and toothbrushes, and medical equipment, like a speculum, as well as people, both clothed and naked. At first, I was closed off to most of them, mostly because I was trying to connect something sentimental to each of them. The lady sitting in the chair didn’t have a vague resemblance to my grandma and the man hoisting a woman in the air didn’t resemble my ideal relationship.

Brooklyn Beckham is being shamed for his tattoos and we’re not here for it

Hobrecker was incredibly patient as I looked through the magazine-turned-flash-book dozens of time trying to pick something for him to ink onto my skin. He tells me what freaks him out the most is when people open the book and almost immediately point to a design they’d like. “I just feel like I could never be that decisive,” Hoebrecker tells me as I spot a Cruella de Vil-like a woman walking a gaggle of Dalmatians, a package of birth control pills, and a circus-performing couple. I find myself gravitating toward the nude sketches of people covered in colorful flowers, or “garden people,” as Hobrecker calls them.

Each design in the flash book demonstrates a striking between Hobrecker’s style and the many delicate flowers and tiny tattoos that flood Instagram feeds, and unlike the slim pin-up girls of traditional tattoo designs, Hobrecker has a refreshing take on representation in his work.

“People have lots of different types of bodies, so I should be drawing lots of different types of bodies,” he states matter-of-factly. “There’s such a huge range of bodies that come through the door to get tattooed, so I feel like my work should reflect that. I don’t want somebody to flip through and think none of these people look like me.”

Like me, most of Hobrecker’s clients take their time selecting what designs they want permanently etched into their bodies. They’ll flag a couple pages and discuss their top three picks with the tattooer, and some even settle on one completely at random. “I feel like that’s actually a great method because even if you pick the one you like less, you immediately know you like the other one more,” he says. “If you have that sink in your stomach, like, ‘Oh I was hoping for the other one,’ then you know that’s the real choice.”

I find way more meaning in taking a moment to sit with my body and think about my relationship with it.

If you ask Hobrecker, determining whether or not the image “means” something to you should be secondary. Instead, he believes a tattoo’s significance could be found in the tattooing process itself. “I find way more meaning in taking a moment to sit with my body, think about my relationship with it, and have that hour or two where you’re really forced to think about yourself and have this very physical sensation associated with that,” he explains. “For me, that holds way more meaning than a rose that you get for your mom.”

Becoming a tattooer

Although Hobrecker set up shop in The Living Gallery in December 2016, he’s unsure of when he officially became a tattooer, mostly because it wasn’t a career goal of his. (Note: Hobrecker never refers to himself as a “tattoo artist,” which stems from feeling like tattooing isn’t an art practice.)

About three years ago, 25-year-old Hobrecker graduated from school for photography but realized he didn’t want to take photos anymore. Selling his camera equipment and buying a tattoo machine became his next option. At the age of 16, giving “horrible” stick and pokes with sewing needles to his friends and friends of friends became one of his regular extracurricular activities. From this, tattooing became less about the art of it to him, but more about helping people assert control over their bodies. As a trans man, this discovery was crucial to Hobrecker.

“When I was younger, I was always very involved in queer and trans communities,” he says. “The people I was surrounding myself with, myself included, didn’t feel super at home in our bodies.”

My first tattoo was a very permanent reminder of the ownership I had over my own body.

“I can’t speak my mind because I’m a black transgender woman,” says Munroe Bergdorf in her most candid interview ever

In Hobrecker’s case, he didn’t feel like he had control over his body when he was younger either, having attended an all-girls Catholic school where he was required to wear a uniform and barred from dyeing his hair. In this controlled environment, all Hobrecker could do was get a tattoo in secret when he was 18. “That was something that couldn’t be taken away from me,” he says. “That was a very permanent reminder for me of the ownership I had over my own body.”

With his background in stick and pokes, Hobrecker figured a machine would be a faster way to tattoo. Once he had one, he taught himself how to tattoo via the Internet, learning about different machines and needles. Typically, this kind of information is accessed through traditional apprenticeships in tattoo shops. Hobrecker mostly circumvented this by tapping Instagram’s “weird” tattoo community, which he declares is “entirely noncompetitive.” In fact, most of Hobrecker’s tattoos, which add up to about 50, are trades from other tattooers.

Hobrecker explains that, oftentimes, tattoo artists share information with each other, too. “It feels really supportive, and I think that’s because a lot us did come into tattooing through nontraditional means,” he explains. “Tattooing has had a lot of gatekeeping in the ways that people are allowed to learn and access to information, but now there’s a wonderful community of people who snuck in through the back door and are really supportive of one another because we all kind of went about it the same way.”

The tattoo community feels really supportive, and I think that’s because a lot of us came into it through nontraditional means.

These delicate finger tattoo designs are perfect for first-timers

Because he doesn’t consider himself an illustrator and doesn’t draw unless it’s for a tattoo design, Hobrecker’s distinct style developed as he learned to tattoo, too. He read that you needed separate needles for lines and shading, and this influx of information was so confusing to him that he decided to skip shading altogether and focus on lines. “That’s why I draw like this,” he says. “It was really an entirely practical decision.”

Sourcing his designs

Somewhere on Pinterest, Hobrecker keeps a board filled with more 200 photos he plans to use as references for drawings. As the earlier mentions of medical paraphernalia might suggest, he gravitates towards medical imagery. “Even the [designs] that don’t look like they were from old medical texts are,” he says. This comes as a surprise when he later tells me he’s had a largely negative experience with medicine, due to “going through transgender help and as someone who has really severe chronic pain — both things that doctors don’t really like to believe people have because they’re not necessarily visual.”

He also draws inspiration extensively from sideshow and circus history. When he sees these pictures from the past, “I look at them and think this looks like me and my friends,” he says. “It was a lot of trans people and a lot of disabled people with nontraditional bodies, so I feel like I relate.” However, he’s very careful about which images he pulls from because of the controversial history of sideshows and circuses. “I don’t need to profit off of someone’s images who has already been used in that way for centuries,” he says.

Due to time restrictions, I wasn’t able to add one of Hobrecker’s flash designs to my tattoo collection. I browsed the book so much while talking to him that I basically memorized it, but once an image of a sitting garden woman called out to me, our interview was coming to an end. (I now know I truly wanted her because I saw on Hobrecker’s Instagram that someone else recently picked her out, and a pang of jealousy hit me.) Talking to Hoebreker nevertheless offered a different type of permanent change for me, though.

Next time I visit Hobrecker’s studio, I’m more likely to select something randomly than when I first went there. This specific part of our conversation will pop in my head when I thumb through his flash book once again: “I think that the image can just be something that’s fun, something that you vibe with. The meaning can be much more in making a commitment to a permanent change to yourself.”

Want more inspiration? Here are our favourite tattoo ideas from Instagram:

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