Sometimes I hyperfocus so hard on something, I forget I’m a person until someone interacts with me. I feel like some wild animal seeing a human being for the first time. I’m like “oh yeah I’m supposed to speak and stuff”
Me: *doing something for hours on end without stopping*
Someone: Hey, are you there? I was just wondering if you’d like to-
Me:
Sometimes I hyperfocus so hard on something, I forget I’m a person until someone interacts with me. I feel like some wild animal seeing a human being for the first time. I’m like “oh yeah I’m supposed to speak and stuff”
Me: *doing something for hours on end without stopping*
Someone: Hey, are you there? I was just wondering if you’d like to-
Me:
i do care if someone hires someone to clean though like you can’t just throw that out there as if it isn’t well known that those people that are hired to clean your home exist because they’re poor. wash your own dirty dishes
I understand what you’re saying, but you also seem to be ignoring the fact that people who are hiring these poor people to clean their houses are giving those people jobs. If they weren’t hiring them to clean their houses, these people may not have a job at all.
i don’t agree with this logic. i don’t think we need to settle for a job or nothing, is the same to be said for women who work under slavery like conditions in clothing factories in poor countries? why can’t we fight for change instead of accepting that some people just have to be maids
Before she moved in to take care of her, my aunt hired a maid to come to my disabled grandmother’s house once a week to clean for like 2-3 hours and paid her $80 every time she came over. There’s no way my grandmother, who had a bum hip from a car accident and hobbled around with her walker (back when she could even walk), could clean her own house. Maids provide an invaluable service, especially for the elderly and disabled, and they shouldn’t be eliminated just because you think their jobs are somehow not good enough for anyone to be doing. Many jobs like housecleaners, gardeners, etc., are great for people who may not speak the local language, who may have had a limited education, or who came here as adults with limited opportunities. My grandfather, who could speak four languages fluently but his English sucked, became a janitor at the age of 58 to support his family when they first came to America, and his kids always advocated that you should treat blue-collar and traditionally low-paid workers with respect because those jobs are valuable and even someone who cleans toilets is a person who is trying their best. Basically, we shouldn’t try to eliminate these jobs; they should just be better compensated.
yes i agree! i think that disabled people should have help and that it should be easily available for them but to me that wasn’t what the post was talking about!! i read it as a wealthy people simply hiring help to clean just because they can not because they need to. in an altruistic society people who love to clean could become a maid without having to depend on it, if everyone’s basic needs where met and no one would be walking hungry without their job that’s a different story to me! so while yes we do need to bring respect and wages to these jobs i also don’t think it’s unfair to think about if people actually need their houses cleaned by someone else! some do, including the disabled, some don’t!
But here’s the thing.
By focusing our attention and wrath on people who might buy things they don’t really “need” (OH the wailing over AOC’s $300 purse) we lose sight of the actual problem (Uber and Lyft spending $200 million dollars to defeat legislation that would require them to treat their workers as employees).
Rich people hiring cleaners because they’re “lazy” is not the problem. It is a symptom of the problem. If all rich people started picking up their socks and doing their own dishes tomorrow, it wouldn’t increase the wellbeing or economic security of the rest of us one iota. No small cosmetic change will do that. Only fundamentally changing the legal and economic landscape will do that.
And in the meantime, people’s goalposts for who is “rich” and who is “lazy” will always be so flexible that it will inevitably hit a lot more poor people with disposable income than actual 1%ers.
I know as a disabled person that we are constantly put under scrutiny to prove we’re “disabled enough” to afford accommodation so you absolutely CANNOT say “this is the rule but of COURSE disabled people are excepted uwu.” If the rule isn’t built to accommodate disabled people in the first place, it WILL be used to treat us like shit unless we can meet whatever level of “disabled enough” a random unqualified stranger has decided is today’s benchmark, and meeting that will mean a constant surrender of our rights to privacy and dignity.
This is all probably useless when talking to someone named “70s lesbian” but I really truly promise you, policing people’s choices and “rescuing” people from immoral or “demeaning” work is not nearly as useful as focusing on improving societal and material conditions for workers and poor people.
As a disabled person, I don’t want to rely on someone being “altruistic” to do necessary housework I’m too fatigued and in too much pain to do - and on people deciding I was “disabled enough” through some arbitrary standard to require help. I get enough of “you’re just lazy and your pain is made up” already, thanks. I’d love to be in a position able to pay someone a fair wage to help deal with housework that I can’t do without hurting myself.
In the same way, I don’t drive. If I need to go somewhere, I really like when I’m able to pay someone for this service! I don’t like having to wait for a friend or acquaintance to be available, and coordinate their schedule with mine, and take time out of their day, and possibly resent me for it (especially if I need to go several places), and have the option of withholding this help in the future if they decide to be an asshole. (I’ve been in abusive situations before where my basic needs have been used as leverage against me. e.g. “Well, you set boundaries I don’t like, so I’m not going to take you to your doctor’s appointment”.)
If I can just say “Here, have money in exchange for doing this thing I can’t/don’t want to do”, things are a lot simpler. Relying on other people to help out of the goodness of their hearts isn’t practical or realistic for longterm, day-to-day survival stuff. (If it was, disabled people wouldn’t be in the shitty situations we’re so often in, and so many of us wouldn’t live in poverty.) It’s a nice IDEA, but it doesn’t tend to happen on a large scale. Cleaning is unpleasant! I’m sure there exist people who enjoy some aspects of it, but if I had to wait for someone to clean out the cat box because they want to, it would never get done. Because cleaning up another animal’s bodily functions is gross and stinky, and if it’s not your cat you really should be compensated in some way for this. I want everyone to have UBI, too, so that they’re not in a position where they HAVE TO do it or starve, but that’s a separate issue.
Hi, I’m employed part-time by a cleaning service, and I also work full-time as a janitor, and I gotta say, I’m not loving some of the takes in this thread.
1. First of all, there is absolutely nothing inherently wrong with employing a service to make your life easier, whether you need it or not. I feel like we should start with that. A person who hires the services of a maid or cleaning company is well within their right to do so, whether it’s because they can’t do it themselves or it’s because they just don’t want to. That’s their choice! They are paying money for a service! Except in cases where they are hiring someone directly, they do not control how much the employees who clean their homes/offices/businesses get paid!
2. That said, maid/cleaning services may get tipped, but they are still beholden to minimum wage laws. If you want to talk about paying us more, THAT’S how you’re going to do it, not by policing who is and is not “allowed” to hire these services. That said, it might be a good idea to actually do some research into how much a maid or cleaner actually gets paid. I think it’s going to surprise quite a lot of you. Obviously not every person who cleans is going to make a fair wage, but like. Quite a lot of us do, actually. For example, at my part time job, I make $17.50/hour. At my full time job, I’m salaried at $34k/year, with full benefits–and I mean full, including full health, eye, and dental coverage, retirement plan, accruing PTO, the WORKS–and a yearly raise, because,
3. Anyone who cleans in state- or federal-owned buildings are state or federal employees. I’m not sure if the same can be said for municipalities, but I know at the very least, public school janitors are… I’m fairly certain ALL employees of the city in which they work, if not the state. I work as a janitor at a state college, which makes me an employee of the state, which entitles me to the benefits and union protections of literally any other employee of my state. So, like, to make my next point,
4. Please get it out of your head that we need to be pitied for our “demeaning” work. First of all, that is incredibly condescending. Second of all, our work is extremely important! We perform necessary services to society across the board! Please stop looking down your nose at people who clean for a living!! Third of all, I obviously can’t speak for every person who cleans for a living, but from my own personal experience, I have been treated with significantly more respect by my clients at every cleaning job I’ve ever worked than I ever had working retail or food service. Obviously you’re going to get an occasional client having a bad day or who is generally unkind, but even then, they’re almost always appreciative of the work we do. I do not feel demeaned for my work. The only time I have ever felt ashamed of my work is when people TREATED my work like it’s something to be ashamed of.
5. Maybe some people “just have to be a maid,” but like. A lot of us enjoy our work? We take pride in it?? We get a sense of satisfaction seeing something that was dirty and gross NOT BE dirty and gross anymore??? Like, yeah, if I had the choice I’d prefer not to clean strangers’ houses or a bunch of classrooms, but that has nothing to do with the work itself, and everything to do with the fact that I’d just? Like not to work?? But even if UBI were instated tomorrow, I’d still want something to do with my time, and if I, with my level of experience and education, had to choose between the types of jobs available to me, I’d still pick what I’m doing, just because I enjoy it more! I don’t have to deal with vast hoardes of the general public! In fact, most of the time I’m alone! I work at my pace! Nobody’s standing behind me, rushing me or telling me to smile or docking my hours because I’m not up to some arbitrary standard. I LIKE MY WORK!
I know my experiences are not universal. I know there are plenty of cleaning companies that aren’t going to treat their workers with respect, and I know there are even more clients out there who are going to look down on us for the work we do. I know full well that we deserve better wages and better benefits and better treatment for the important work we do (and the fact that none of us qualify for the covid vaccine despite consistent exposure to everything from hospitals to public schools to private offices to private homes is definitely one thing that boils my blood when I think about it too hard).
But, again, this is not demeaning work. This is not shameful work. And there is no line to say whether or not the work I do is justified. I am being paid to perform a service. Whether that service is in the home of someone who can’t clean up after themselves or someone who just wants their time at home not to be interrupted by chores isn’t my business, and it certainly isn’t the business of someone who’d see me out of a job just because they don’t like that fact.
I hire a house cleaning service once a month, simply because cleaning is a skill I do not have. And yes, it is a skill–I can pick up my dirty clothes and empty the dishwasher and all the other basic adulting things, but really getting into corners and sweeping and scrubbing and all the other minutae? If it were up to me it would happen maybe three times a year. So I pay someone else to do it–not because I’m above doing it myself but because they’re much better at it.
Glad to finally have a version of this post with someone who actually does this kind of work chiming in. Cleaning is absolutely skilled labor. It would take me two days to accomplish what a professional does in three hours and they’d still do it better than me.
Leftists who think the solution is to eliminate certain professions they’ve been taught to look down are literally buying into capitalist propaganda. “Play the game or you might have to become one of *those* people.” Instead we should treating all workers and all types of labor with dignity and respect and make sure everyone earns not just a living but a thriving wage.
I have someone clean every other week. She helps me clean and she cleans (she can give me a task and I can do it but I get overwhelmed if I clean on my own). Thank you to all the cleaning people, food delivery people, and mail and FedEx drivers who make my life so much easier.
You know that Ada Limón poem where she’s like “i can’t help it i love the way men love”? my dad recently confessed to me that he became a shoemaker because they buried my grandma shoeless
oh…………………………………
Accident Report in the Tall, Tall Weeds - Ada Limón
consistently forget that medication that relieves minor incomveniences exists so when i have a headache or my eyes are itchy from allergies or whatever im like “oh… the suffering is endless. this human form is weak and the tiny pains do build like pebbles stacking to a mountain. i accept it” whole time theres aspirin and allergy eye drops in the cabinet
the cooking show I’m watching is rated PG-13 for language and nudity
no it’s not cutthroat kitchen or gordon ramsey it’s a documentary exploring the anthropological & historical significance of cooking, and the dangers of the mass industrialization of food.
and i misspoke it’s rated TV-14 (for language and nudity)
this guy is so fucking angry about sliced bread (justifiably) that he really came out on camera with this absolute banger of a quote:
“And this is really how capitalism usually works. It creates a problem, and rather than fix the problem, it creates a new business to solve the problem.”
utterly scathing and yes this is from a 60 minute documentary episode dedicated entirely to the subject of Bread
You can’t just not tell us why sliced bread is terrible D8
right ok so technically it’s not sliced bread but industrial, mass-manufactured bread that is…causing problems. Here’s the theory as the show presents it:
For about ~10,000 years bread was a fucking staple of the human diet. we evolved to eat this food, our bodies, our societies were built on this food, but all of a sudden we’re seeing a rise in gluten intolerance*. Aka our bodies are rejecting this food we’ve spent 100 centuries eating. Where is this coming from?
Well, a big part of it is probably that less than 100 years ago corporations changed the definition of bread. (Like, figuratively and literally, they petitioned the FDA to change the legal definition of bread so they could put in additives.) In fact, industrialization has changed the process and the ingredients used to make bread, to the point manufactured bread is a profoundly different product from what our ancestors knew as bread. Let’s start with:
1) The Process: For thousands of years, humans relied on naturally occurring wild yeast and bacteria found in the air to make (leavened) bread and bread starters (fermented dough used to “start” new loaves. hence the term “sourdough”). you can still do this at home–all it involves is leaving a mixture of water and flour lying around for a few days. notice something missing? that’s right, YEAST. this process of making bread involves yeast–yeast from the air around you–but it doesn’t involve concentrated baker’s yeast. Baker’s yeast refers to various strains of yeast that are added directly to flour & water mixtures as a leavening agent. This allows the bread to rise more quickly and cuts down on the overall production time. Convenient, right?
Now, adding yeast is not automatically a bad thing, and bakers have been doing it for a damn long time. But lately we’ve taken it to extremes–we’ve gotten too good at creating more and more efficient forms of commercial Baker’s yeast, specifically for industrial use on a mass scale. Manufacturers want bread to rise as fast as possible, because that is how you get more product on the shelves. Making bread in factories now takes a small fraction of the time it used to.
And why is this a problem? Because it turns out a more traditional “long fermentation process allows bacteria to fully break down the carbohydrates and gluten in bread, making it easier to digest and releasing the nutrients within it, allowing our bodies to more easily absorb them.” [1] The result is that the product you buy from the grocery store is less digestible and nutritious than the bread human societies traditionally relied upon. Hence the rise of gluten intolerance–the gluten we are eating is simply more difficult to tolerate than gluten in properly fermented bread. (This is the reason many people with gluten intolerances don’t experience symptoms when eating more traditionally made, longer-fermented sourdough.)
That’s not the only issue though. There’s also:
2) The Ingredients. not just the countless additives, but specifically: the flour. See, a grain of wheat is…incredibly nutritious, honestly. It has almost everything we need to sustain life and health. Civilizations did–and do–rely on bread as a fundamental dietary staple, to the point that you can track political instability with rising wheat prices. It’s essential. Look at this:
In a single grain, the essence of life.
So yeah, wheat is nutritional. We can build bodies and civilizations out of wheat. But it’s also, like…super difficult to access that nutrition. Well, more so than with most foods. If you eat a handful of wheat grains, a spoonful of flour–your body can’t digest that, you get basically nothing out of that (also raw flour isn’t safe to consume, don’t do that). Unlike many crops, wheat relies on being carefully and correctly processed in order for the final product to be as nutritional as possible. As stated above, part of that process is about fermentation. Another part is the quality of the flour, what it contains and how it has been milled and treated.
And that quality has changed a lot in just a century or two. Take white flour, for instance. White flour has been around for a long fucking time actually, but until the late 19th century it was considered a luxury item, a treat for the very wealthy. White flour was never considered a stable food–until industrialists learned how to manufacture it cheaply. [2] And then it was everywhere. And suddenly, surprise surprise, we started to see a rise in nutrition related illnesses. Because the bran and germ have been stripped away, white flour has only a fraction of the nutritional value of whole grain. But because this gives it a higher shelf life, it was more convenient (and profitable) for manufacturers. So when they learned about the health issues, what did they do? Go back to making healthier flour?
Pshaw. Of course not. No, instead they kept removing nutrients, then artificially adding them back in. And that is how we got enriched flour–flour which is still significantly less nutritious than whole wheat flour. [3] And this is what the previous quote about capitalism was referencing. The food industry created a problem, and rather than undoing the problem, they created a whole new business to “fix” it:
And thus came the mass rise of “enriched” foods.
Eat Wonder Bread! It has as much protein as roast beef! As much calcium as cottage cheese! As much iron as lamb chops! No need to eat real foods, when you can eat highly processed foods instead! Don’t cook your own meals, let trustworthy corporations feed you! Mass-produced factory foods are easy, are healthy! There will be literally no downsides or long-term repercussions to public health & wellness!
So yeah. Much of what we think of as “bread” is chemically and molecularly distinct from traditional bread, and is very different (and less nutritional) than what our ancestors were eating even just a century ago. (On an individual level, I’m not sure how to mitigate this, other than by purchasing the healthiest options available (e.g. whole wheat, sourdough), buying from small bakeries/farmer’s markets, or baking bread at home. Lately there has been a rise of small health-concious brands focusing on traditional fermentation and whole ingredients; some may be available in your area. But ultimately, it’s the entire wider system that needs to change.)
And there you have it! I have never been so incandescently furious about wonder bread. This documentary will do that to you–and will change your whole understanding of modern food. It’s a 4-part netflix series called Cooked (2016), based on Michael Pollan’s book of the same name. Most of the info above comes from the third episode, and is accurate to the best of my knowledge (but let me know if I got anything wrong).
*I want to be perfectly clear though, gluten itself is not inherently bad. It’s being demonized in the press on no scientific basis, just to push yet another diet fad. Unless your body has actual issues with gluten (e.g. celiac disease, gluten intolerance) there are no proven benefits to eating gluten-free. There are, however, benefits to eating less processed, more nutritional (delicious delicious) bread.
all these stories about how the modern day dionysian ritual is going out and murdering someone in the woods…the true modern day dionysian ritual is drunkenly going to taco bell at 3 am and i dare anyone to tell me otherwise
Modern Day Dionydisian Ritual:
I simply cannot feel sorry for multi-millionaire Scarlett Johansson only earning $20 million instead of $30 million or what the fuck ever because Disney recognised that large parts of the world still can't safely go to the cinema on account of the deadly pandemic and released Black Widow on Disney+ at the same time as in theatres. But then I also support anyone suing Disney for any reason, so you see my dilemma
The case isn’t really about Scarlett Johansson. It’s about setting precedent for the way actors are paid when content is released on screening services going forward, and Scarlett Johansson is pretty unique in her position of both having a valid case for breach of contract and having a large enough platform, following and wealth that suing Disney won’t completely destroy her and her career.
She offered to renegotiate her contract at the point the decision to release on Disney+ was made, and Disney refused, that is what lead to the case.
The overwhelming majority of actors, even actor’s working for Disney are not millionaires, I know that because I am a jobbing actor, and I earn less in a year then either of my siblings, both of whom have office jobs.
When you get a film or television job, in addition to what you’re paid at the time you also get something that in the UK is called royalty fees, and in the US is called residuals. This occurs when the show or film is shown or licensed on another channel or network, almost always for a set period of time, although Netflix has started buying the rights to small indie films outright.
Royalty checks can be hilariously small. A friend I trained with once got one for £2.07 because their show had just been licensed to be shown on a Thai TV network, but more often they are a lifeline for actors. Most actors work minimum wage jobs in between acting gigs, and when you also have the cost of Headshots, Self Tape equipment, travel to auditions and lost wages whenever you have to take time off to prep and travel to auditions, you understand why equity wages are so high for individual jobs, because that one episode in a soap you got paid £800-£1200 for (minus 10-20% for your agent), could be your wage for 2 months and you would be considered a fairly successful working actor, even if it was your only acting job in that time period.
The case isn’t about a multimillionaire quibbling over how many millions she is being paid, although it’s likely that had Black Widow had a prepandemic release Scarlett Johansson would have been paid closer to 200 million than the 20 million she is being paid. Although Disney is pushing that angle hard so I fully understand why you’ve fallen into their propaganda trap. It is one of the very few opportunities for actors, screenwriters, cinematographers, directors, and all the other hundreds of creatives involved in the filmmaking process to challenge some of the status quo with streaming services and really ask questions about how royalties will work in the future.
There is a reason that the unions are backing the case and that’s because the other way around, breach of contract is a huge deal, there can be penalties of hundreds of thousands of dollars for contract breaches, often on jobs where you are paid a fraction of that, and believe me, Netflix, Disney, Amazon, Universal all persue those payments, and in certain circumstances even go out of their way to blacklist the artist.
If breach of contract is a big deal when actors and other creatives do it, it should be just as big a deal when studios do it, but it isn’t because Capitalism is rarely about rewarding artists and all about bottom line profit.
This case has the potential to really change things and help millions of ordinary, jobbing actors and creatives. I am 100% on Scarlett Johansson’s side with this and any reasonable person who cares about the well-being of artists should be too.
^^^^^^^^ this. this right here
she has the money for lawyers, let her set the precedent for those who don’t
You know how an elderly lady got third degree burns to a horrifying percentage of her body because MacDonald's was serving coffee at next-to-boiling temperatures and the lid came off her cup and spilled all over her, and she wanted MacDonald's to pay for her medical fees which to her were astronomical but to a mega corp like MacDonald's was a raindrop in the ocean, and instead of just paying the med bills for this woman they went out of their way to deride her and besmirch her and turn the story into "hur dur dumb American didnt know that hot beverages are hot," and thats the version of events everyone remembers, having been successfully distracted from the truth of the matter by a targetted, vicious, loud propaganda campaign by MacDonald's?
Well that's exactly what disney is doing with this "ScarJo is being horribly insensitive about the global pandemic we're in" and their "we were merely being socially conscientious and kind to let people stream our new movies instead of having to go to the cinemas for them" campaign.
This suit isn't actually about ScarJo. Quite aside from the fact that it IS a breach of contract to do a dual release and not hand over any of the profits from the streaming release (which she is absolutely entitled to), its actually about every single actor and writer and voice actor and etc that has similar contracts with all production companies, most of whom do not have the resources that ScarJo has.
Disney knows that if ScarJo wins this, they will be forced to equitably distribute income from their streaming service to those who have the right to such things. They do not want that.
They want you to pay your monthly subscription and your $36 early access fee, and they want to pocket all of that money, even though a portion of it should be going to the actors and creators of the film.
They know that if ScarJo wins, they will not be able to hoard as luck money. So they are running a discredit campaign.
"Oh look how heartless ScarJo is, for wanting MORE money even tho she already got $20m, and EVEN THOUGH we're in a PANDEMIC and there are people DYING. Its so HEARTLESS of her."
And guess what!! Its working!!!!!! People already aren't huge fans of ScarJo, for a range of reasons, but mostly, people are falling prey to the propaganda campaign.
Don't do that. Don't be the person who thinks an old woman who wants her crazy high medical bills paid because she was handed a poorly secured cup of boiling water is actually just a money grabbing idiot. Don't be the person who spreads Disney's "we're the good guys in this actually" bullshit. Don't fall for it.
This whole thing is SO much bigger than ScarJo.
Condensation confrontation
Hate diet culture so much bitches will b like “don’t eat processed carbs they’re so bad for you” like and??? So what?? God did not give us grain and stone to grind it with for no reason. Bread is inevitable. Bread is food for the heart and the soul. U think I’m gonna give that up in pursuit of instagram fitness?? U think I’m gonna deny myself the simple pleasure of toast with jam so I can endlessly chase an ever-shifting standard of beauty that ultimately means nothing? In 20 years I will no longer be beautiful and in 60 my body will be vacant food for other, smaller creatures. But the taste of fresh bread? Of homemade donuts and still-warm pie? I will carry the taste on my tongue into whatever follows this life. So like. Stop telling me I should diet lmao. I’m not abt to martyr myself just to get a man to look at me.
Op genuinely thank you for this
“bread is inevitable” is our household motto now
It’s funny how y'all will reblog any and all US things but when whole Europe might lose access to internet then everything is quiet.
Are you fucking serious? Is this really happening? I’m European and I didn’t know a single thing about this
Here you have
Also ao3 has spoken out about this
Hey fellow Europeans, please sign the petition, it takes just a couple seconds! And the saveyourinternet.eu link makes it really easy and quick to email or tweet your representatives too
Interviewer: where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Me: I used escapist fantasies as a coping mechanism to get through years of trauma and therefore never learned how to plan for a real life future
Alternatively: I went through periods of depression so frequent and intense that I never considered that I’d actually make it to my 20s so now I’m kinda just making it up as I go
It gets even weirder when you hit 30.
yo here’s a useful tip from your fellow art ho cynellis… use google sketchup to create a model of the room/building/town you’re trying to draw… then take a screenshot & use it as a reference! It’s simple & fun!
Sketchup is incredibly helpful. I can’t recommend it enough.
There’s a 3D model warehouse where you can download all kinds of stuff so you don’t have to build everything from scratch.
reblog to save a life
This is an incomplete tutorial, and it drives me crazy every time I see it come around.
We live in a pretty great digital age and we have access to a ton of amazing tools that artists in past generations couldn’t even dream of, but a lot of people look at a cool trick and only learn half of the process of using it.
Here’s the missing part of this tutorial:
How do you populate your backgrounds?
Well, here’s the answer:
If the focus is the environment, you must show a person in relation to that environment.
The examples above are great because they show how to use the software itself, but each one just kind of “plops” the character in front of their finished product with no regard of the person’s relation to their environment.
How do you fix this?
Well, here’s the simplest solution:
This is a popular trick used by professional storyboard and comic artists alike when they’re quickly planning compositions. It’s simple and it requires you to do some planning before you sit down to crank out that polished, final version of your work, but it will be the difference between a background and an environment.
From Blacksad (artist: Juanjo Guarnido)
From Hellboy (Mike Mignola)
Even if your draftsmanship isn’t that great (like mine), people can be more immersed in the story you tell if you just make it feel like there is a world that exists completely separate from the one in which they currently reside – not just making a backdrop the characters stand in front of.
Your creations live in a unique world, and it is as much a character as any other member of the cast. Make it as believable as they are.
Great comments and tutorials!
I’m a 3d artist and have been exploring the possibilities of using 3d as reference for 2d poses. I want to add a couple of tips and things!
Sketchup is very useful for environment references, and I assume it’s reasonably easy to learn. If you’re interested in going above and beyond, I highly recommend learning a proper 3d modeling program to help with art, especially because you can very easily populate a scene or location with characters!
Using 3ds Max I can pretty quickly construct an environment for reference. But going beyond that, I can also pose a pretty simple ‘CAT’ armature (known in 3d as a rig) straight into the scene, which can be totally customized, from various limbs, tails, wings, whatever, to proportions, and also can be modeled onto and expanded upon (for an example, you could 3d sculpt a head reference for your character and then attach it to the CAT rig, so you have a reference for complex face angles!)
The armature can also be posed incredibly easily. I know programs exist for stuff like this - Manga Studio, Design Doll - but posing characters in these programs is always an exercise in frustration and very fiddly imo. A simple 3d rig is impossibly easy to pose.
By creating an environment and dropping my character rig into it, I have an excellent point of reference when it comes to drawing the scene!
Not only that, but I can also view the scene from whatever angle I could ever want or need, including the character and their pose/position relative to the environment.
We can even quickly and easily expand this scene to include more characters!
Proper 3d modeling software is immensely powerful, and if you wanted to, you could model a complex environment that occurs regularly in your comic or illustration work (say, a castle interior, or an outdoor forest environment) and populate the scene with as many perspective-grounded characters as you need!
reblogging to save a life
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Look at this amazing addition! This is fantastic!
Ready for a long ace-centric metaphor about sex?
Alright, so. Coffee. I don’t drink coffee. I have no desire to drink coffee. I find people who enthusiastically go on about the flavor differences of lattes, espressos, and french press brews, both amusing and mildly baffling. All the coffee ads. Coffee jokes. Bustling coffee shops. To me, all coffee is similarly bitter and unpleasant. I have been through so many “Try this, it’s sweet! You can’t even taste the coffee!” Alas, I always can. And I’m sensitive to caffeine anyway. So, I don’t really think about drinking it when I wake up or am tired.
Yet I love the smell of coffee. I love the idea of coffee. The feeling of a warm cup taking the chill from my fingers, the cozy ritual of having a drink and chat. I might try someone’s coffee. If they ask, if I want to please them and share in something they enjoy. I am also perfectly capable of learning the preferences of those I care about and creating a cup for their pleasure.
But I don’t want coffee, generally speaking. I will probably make a face after trying their coffee and wash the taste out with something else. They may rush to reassure me that it is an acquired taste. And I’ll have to reply that it’s a taste I don’t particularly care about acquiring in the way they did. ‘Drink it till you like it’ will never work for me.
But that doesn’t mean I am against coffee or think people shouldn’t drink it. Doesn’t mean I’ve taken a vow to never drink any. And sure, maybe if you get one of those sugar and whipped cream disasters, more of a warm milkshake than a cup of coffee, I’ll probably be happier sipping it with you. But honestly? I’d rather smell someone else’s coffee and not be expected to drink it. I’d really rather have the heat and sweetness of my hot cocoa.
I love this
The best part is it works for ALLLL the ace spectrum! Maybe you like one specific type of coffee on rare occasions! Maybe you enjoy coffee when you’re sharing the drink with someone! Maybe you can’t even stand the smell of coffee!
This needs to be on my blog.
This is it exactly oh my god.
I will always reblog it when it comes back to my dash because I am both asexual and don’t like coffee and the funny thing is that people genuinely can be most baffled about the coffee.
Usually, when I tell people I don’t drink alcohol they are fine, but when I tell them I don’t drink coffee they just stare at me weirdly. And this, in a way, can also be a metaphor for asexuality. Hopefully less so.
@steverogersnotebook this is like finding the piece of a puzzle I was looking for for ages!
@ladyredflame I’m glad you found it. I debated reblogging it so soon after whenever I did last, but I figured; 1: if I can’t remember when ‘whenever’ is, it’s time and B: somebody needs to see it.
Holy shit I think I just figured out my sexuality. I’m actually crying tears of joy right now, thank you.
*pats your back*
Sometimes… that’s just how it goes.
Reblog if you are an asexual positive blog, believe asexuals exist, and are willing and able to create a safe space for your asexual friends
As an Asexual myself, YES
As someone who is now 99% sure they might be ace…
YES. THIS. BOTH SIDES NEED TO SEE THIS.
As an asexual, I deal with this a lot, and it’s not okay :/
Honestly I would kill for my ace friends they’re wonderful and don’t deserve this shit
CAT by By 九米 / Zhaobangni (1631123)
this is the most romantic thing i’ve seen all day
No shit. That tom cat was like:
“This thorn invested wall means nothing.”
“I will gladly walk on it a thousand times over, if that means I could be with you, my lady.”
and the lady cat was all:
“My brave darling.”
OOOPS MY HAND SLIPPED!!
Suddenly my muse insisted me to draw the personification version of the last pic, and who am I to reject inspiration when it comes so willingly to me? At least this will help with the artblock issue I currently have to deal with.
Russian imperial era inspired because hot damn.
Note: I tried google reverse image (and other reverse image search engines) those photos and came up with nothing. I wish I knew the original photographer because I want to love hug him/her so hard for capturing such inspiring moments.
OMG that’s the cutest thing ever and the best courtly love ah so brilliant.
Few romantic heroes could do better.
I don’t post cats often but that illustration.
that ILLUSTRATION
OMG
