not to get mad nerdy but I just discovered tabletopaudio.com and I’m fuckin losing it

this person (people?) goes about making 10 minute long loopable ambient noise tracks for every imaginable setting (docks, taverns, forests, airships, spaceships, office buildings, sewers, EVERYTHING) and has over a hundred tracks to offer, and on top of that if none of them suit you there’s a huge feature called soundpad where you can mix and match from their set of hundreds of individual sound effects and music clips to make your own ambient background track

holy shit dudes

I did a little further reading on his about and the guy running this is just a dad with two kids who like playing tabletops with him and he had the composition and musical training to start making soundtracks for his games then decided to spread that to the world for absolutely free, he even welcomes you to use his tracks in your works (podcasts, videos etc) and is open to being hired for custom tracks

I love him

holy shit

JUST SOME THOUGHTS! I don’t really like the “go from the top up” advice on drapery/clothes - if you’re having difficulty try it like this!

YES I see the typo… I’m so sorry folks… I was in a frenzied rush to make this…… and I’m too lazy to fix it……

Just a quick tip to artists

If you’re an artist who likes to work really close, (like me), do yourself a favor and put up two views. You can do this by clicking View–> New on your toolbar.

There’s nothing worse than finally zooming out and realizing what you were doing was very wrong. This saved me a lot of grief tbh. I’m sure everyone knows this already but ._.;; I arrived quite late to that party.

WHAT

That’s amazing..

Does this work for Photoshop?

For Photoshop you’ll wanna go to Window > Arrange > New Window for [Document]. 

BRINGING THIS BACK BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW HELPFUL THIS HAS BEEN. This will save you hours and hours of backtracking (fixing a thing close up, zooming back out and realizing that the thing you fixed doesn’t work with the rest of the picture–rinse and repeat). As someone who uses the ‘squint and see if it looks right’ method of drawing anatomy, the tiny window is a goddamned life saver.

I used to do this but i actually REALLY like using OBS (broadcasting softwate) and using preview mode on another screen. It wont show the whole character but you can set it closer to your reference material (if you have 2 screens) and glancing to a new screen seems to give me fresh eyes and i can instantly fix problems.

Describing Black Hair in Fantasy (Dreadlocks, Braided Styles, etc)

How do you describe afro hairstyles in a world where the word doesn’t exist? 

My advice for describing afro hairstyles effectively in fantasy is to:

Describe the style. 

What does this hairstyle look like, exactly? What is a braid? What are dreadlocks? How do you braid, or how do you form this particular type of braid? 

Look up existing descriptions of the term, and use language from the definition. Combine, reword and trim as necessary. There’s no need to be wordy. A well-constructed sentence or two should serve its purpose.

Great sources are everything from hair glossaries (especially those found on Black hair websites) natural hair vlogs, and even the thesaurus.

Here are some word associations to play with:

General Textures & Looks

Afro Texture and Curls

Braids

These words can help be more specific with the look of their hair/hairstyle. Tight, tiny braids. Cloudy puffs of hair in twin pigtails.

Use words from the term itself in the description.  

Readers should get an “aha” moment when you do this. Twisted hair probably mean twists. Bantu knots resemble knots. 

Cornrows: 

Cornrows get their name from rows of corn with connections to African chattel slavery. Say you have a character with this style, but those historical connotations don’t exist in this world , or corn isn’t something your character would know about. There are still ways to make the connection.

Example: “She wore her hair in neat rows of braids along her scalp.” 

The key word here is rows.

Assuming you can use a part of a word that does exist in your timeline, use it for the strongest connection to its real world counterpart. See the next example:

Dreadlocks: 

Another Black hairstyle with history to its name, it may not make sense to use the term in your setting. However, you likely could still slip the word “lock or locked” into your description to clarify for readers what you’re getting at.

Example: “His skin was the same medium brown as her own and that of her people, but his hair was thick and coarse and pulled into the rough locks that looked like braids but weren’t, like the people to the south whose skin was darker.”

-By Shira Glassman, A Harvest of Ripe Figs, Mangoverse Book 3

What’s particularly great about this description is: 

Have someone read it. 

Have more than one person read your description. It would be great if at least one of those people is Black (and/or familiar with the style). Does the reader know what you’re trying to describe? Are you being concise, or over explaining it to the point of confusion? If your readers can name the style or picture it relatively quickly, then you’ve got a winner. 

More reading:

~Mod Colette

Something I drew for this year! I’m going to reblog this every two weeks until November because I really do think that this is important.

Tuesday Tips — Dynamic VS Flat staging

A huge component of storyboarding is to use the camera position and angle to tell the story you want to tell (or that you’re paid to tell…). No angle or position is bad by itself. But every camera choice you make influences how the story unfolds. There’s a time and a place for dynamic camera angles. Maybe right in the middle of an action sequence. But there’s also a place for what some may refer to as flat staging. Flat doesn’t mean boring. It often brings clarity and a sense of calm to a scene, a moment for the audience to understand where things are, often used in establishing shots. A mistake junior story artists often make is to overdo the dynamic shots. They can be very powerful, but use them wisely. As always, there’s exceptions to every rules. Sometimes, subverting the expectations of an audience by using an unusual camera angle can bring a sequence to life. Try and experiment! -Norm @grizandnorm #100tuesdaytipsbook #100tuesdaytips #tuesdaytips #arttips #arttutorials #DynamicVSflat

i have some more tips but i have to get back to homework!!! i hope this was helpful anon

How I draw hands

Nobody asked for this, lol. Here we go.

art tips post

for all the artists following me

I don’t like to reblog things on my art blog but this is a good one to have on here.

WHEN U DRAW SOMETHING AND IT COMES OUT FUCKING GOOD

Scribbled this up really fast (Like 3 mins :’D) for someone wanting to do paws o:

Very rushed but hopefully it helps anybody out there with the basic shapes!

the biggest lie ive ever been told as an artist is that u have to be successful at it for it to make u happy. u dont. u dont ever have to make a cent. u can pursue a completely different career and paint pictures for urself on sundays, write ur own songs on the bus, whittle a thousand little sculptures that dont look like anything. if the only fucking artistic thing u do in ur entire life is make little rabbits out of pipe cleaners just for urself bc u enjoy it, that is art that is worth being made. there is inherent value to joy

Brother's Grimm Wanderings, 2014 | by Kilian Schönberger

How to Make Your Art Look Nice: Lighting

Think your drawings are lacking that extra “oomph”? Maybe adding a little bit of lighting can help!

_________

The “How to Make Your Art Look Nice” Series

Flow and Rhythm | Thumbnailing | Mindsets | Reference and Style | Color Harmony | Contrast

Some advice for when you’re writing and find yourself stuck in the middle of a scene:

Never delete. Never read what you’ve already written. Pass Go, collect your $200, and keep going.

This is the literal best writing advice I have ever read. Period.

Special note: “Kill someone” means kill someone in the story. Please do not kill random real life passers by every time you hit a block. My lawyer says misunderstanding writing advice is not an acceptable defense. See you all in 25 to 50 years.

looks like someones been digging up the fairys garden

 My favourite writer error is forgetting that every character has their own motives, and most of them are unrelated to the protagonist. The most amazing thing ever is when a rival, nemesis, or casual bystander is to all appearances completely obsessed with the protagonist to the point that they appear to have shaped their lives around the protagonist. The protagonist is all they talk about. Thoughts of the protagonist keep them up at night. They constantly compare other people to the protagonist. They mock the protagonist, because they can’t seem to stop thinking, staring, or obstructing the protagonist in some way. You know it’s unintentional, but all else being equal, this character appears to have a raging crush on the protagonist, one that only true love’s first kiss can subdue. 

I call it the Draco Malfoy Syndrome.

yep.

This is still my favorite post on tumblr

I was getting pretty fed up with links and generators with very general and overused weapons and superpowers and what have you for characters so:

Here is a page for premodern weapons, broken down into a ton of subcategories, with the weapon’s region of origin. 

Here is a page of medieval weapons.

Here is a page of just about every conceived superpower.

Here is a page for legendary creatures and their regions of origin.

Here are some gemstones.

Here is a bunch of Greek legends, including monsters, gods, nymphs, heroes, and so on. 

Here is a website with a ton of (legally attained, don’t worry) information about the black market.

Here is a website with information about forensic science and cases of death. Discretion advised. 

Here is every religion in the world. 

Here is every language in the world.

Here are methods of torture. Discretion advised.

Here are descriptions of the various methods used for the death penalty. Discretion advised.

Here are poisonous plants.

Here are plants in general.

Feel free to add more to this!

An exceedingly useful list of lists for writers.

Seven Habits Of Successful Writers:

1. Write

2. Write

3. Write More

4. Keep Writing

5. Finish Writing

6. Rewrite

7. Go Write Something Else