Some Photoshop Tips

I’ve been getting quite a few asks about the process for the patterns in my stylized artworks, so I decided to put together a couple of tips regarding them. 

Firstly, what you need are

—  CUSTOM BRUSHES  —

Most of the patterns I use are custom brushes I made, such as those:

For the longest time I was convinced making brushes must be super extra complicated. I was super extra wrong. All you need to start is a transparent canvas (2500px x 2500px max):

This will be your brush tip. When you’re satisfied how it looks, click Ctrl+A to select the whole canvas and go to ‘define brush preset’ under the edit menu

You will be asked to name your new glorious creation. Choose something that describes it well, so you can easily find it between all the ‘asfsfgdgd’ brushes you’ve created to be only used once

This is it. Look at it, you have just created a photoshop brush. First time i did I felt like I was cheated my whole life. IT’S SO EASY WHY HASN’T ANYONE TOLD ME 

Time to edit the Good Boi to be more random, so it can be used as a Cool Fancy Pattern. Go into brush settings and change whatever you’d like. Here’s a list of what I do for patterns:

- under Shape Dynamics, I increase Size Jitter and Angle jitter by 5%-15% 

- under Brush Tip Shape, I increase spacing by a shitload. Sometimes it’s like 150%, the point is to get the initial brush tip we painted to be visible.

- If I want it to look random and noisy, I enable the Dual Brush option, which acts like another brush was put on top of the one we’ve created. You can adjust all of the Dual Brush options (Size, Spacing, Scatter, Count) as you wish to get a very nice random brush to smear on your  backgrounds

The result is as above. You can follow the same steps to create whatever brush you need: evenly spaced dots that look like you painted them by hand, geometric pattern to fill the background, a line of perfectly drawn XDs and so on. 

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE

—  PATHS  —

But what if you want to get lots of circles made of tiny dots? Or you need rows of triangles for your cool background? Photoshop can do all of that for you, thanks to the magic of paths.

Typically, paths window can be found right next to Layers:

Now, pick a brush you wish really was in place of that path you’ve drawn and go to layers, then choose the layer you want it to be drawn on. Then, click this tiny circle under the Paths window:

Then witness the magic of photoshop doing the drawing for you while you wonder how tf have you managed to forget about this option for the past 2 years 

You can combine special brushes and paths for all sorts of cool effects. I mostly use them in backgrounds for my cards, but you can do whatever you want with them.

So I got a lot of messages after my first post asking me to explain layers, so I have put together a cheat sheet of the different layer types.  The quickest way to become awesome with layers is to know exactly what each one does. Once again, I’m no expert, and these are just my personal definitions, so please try these out for yourself! LONG POST BELOWWW THE LAYERS CHEAT SHEET PART ONE: 1. NORMAL:  Aw yeah you know all about this layer its just your average layer  2  DISSOLVE: This mode “dissolves” some pixels, allowing the lower layer to show through. very pixel-y.  Reducing opacity makes it dissolve more. ________ 3. DARKEN: Now the difference between darken and multiply are a little confusing, so I will explain them together. MULTIPLY is more of a glaze, while DARKEN favors the darks on all layers.  So if you have a darken layer on, it tend to reduce/remove the lighter tones on the layer if there are darker tones below it, while darkening the darks.   4.  MULTIPLY: A glaze that darkens the color of the layer below. It is great for shading.  Reduces whites. 5.  COLOR BURN:  “Burns” the lower layer favoring a more saturated look.  Marks made over white are not preserved.   6.  LINEAR BURN:  “Burns” the lower layer, with a little less saturation than color Burn.  Also will preserve colors over white.  7.  DARKER COLOR: I tend to avoid this puppy cause it does not darken on the RGB channel. (feel free to try him though!) ______ 8. LIGHTEN:  Lightens the colors below. Favors lighter colors on lower layers. 9. SCREEN:  Lightens the colors below, but much closer to the “glaze” analogy as above.  Reduces blacks.  10. COLOR DODGE: Often used for magic-y effects, color dodge bumps up saturation and is very bright. 11.  LINEAR DODGE: Much like color dodge, but less saturation.  12. LIGHTER COLOR:  Once again, this is an outside RGB channel layer, so I don’t really use this.  As you probably have noticed, the second two groups are opposites, so if you have a good handle on one, you probably know exactly what the second group does! I will do the remaining groups next week as they do not follow this pattern.   Thanks! drawmaevedraw.tumblr.com  EDIT: Part two here: Photoshop Layers Part Two!!

Ok so this post is extremely long and I put it all together for my blogs Feeling sad page but as I don’t have a huge amount of followers I realize so many people are not seeing this information so I’m posting it here too!

alternatives without harming yourself:

killing yourself will not help. it is not a solution.

you have your whole life ahead of you. you have so many more years that you can accomplish things in. for example;

what you’re going through is temporary.

in case you need to hear this:

———————————————————————————————————

abuse

coping

chat rooms

add/adhd

coping

medication

addiction

coping and recovery

anger

coping

anxiety

coping

panic attacks

medication

bipolar disorder

coping

medication

chat rooms

depression

coping

medication

chat room

eating disorders

recovery

friends with illness

grief and loss

ocd

coping and treatment

chat rooms

perfectionism

coping

ptsd

coping

schizophrenia

coping

treatment

self-harm

self-love

suicide

therapy

———————————————————————————————————

the quiet place

things to do when you feel bad

when you’re not having a good day

reminders

self care suggestions

take a break

the thoughts room

90 second relaxation

the dawn room

the comfort spot

control a rainstorm

calm

how to make changes in your life

imalive

crisischat

7 cups of tea

kids help phone

positive love network

trans lifeline: 877-565-8860

depression hotline: 1-630-482-9696

suicide hotline: 1-800-784-8433

lifeline: 1-800-273-8255

trevor project: 1-866-488-7386

sexuality support: 1-800-246-7743

eating disorders hotline: 1-847-831-3438

rape and sexual assault: 1-800-656-4673

grief support: 1-650-321-5272

runaway: 1-800-843-5200, 1-800-843-5678, 1-800-621-4000

exhale: after abortion hotline/pro-voice: 1-866-439-4253

Dont forget about Crisis Text Line! 

Text HOME to 741-741

for those who might need it

Weirdly anti-millennial articles have scraped the bottom of the barrel so hard that they are now two feet down into the topsoil

its so wild like “this generation with no fucking money is learning to prioritize essentials” and all these chucklefucks can write is advertisements for these companies

at least our jeans won’t tear at the seams after two washes

FUCK FABRIC SOFTENER IT’S UTTERLY POINTLESS

AND FUCK DRYER SHEETS LITERALLY NOBODY EVER HAS ENOUGH OF A PROBLEM WITH STATIC TO WARRANT PAYING OUT THE ASS FOR THAT SHIT

DO YOU WANT CLEAN CLOTHES? YOU DON’T EVEN NEED TO BUY FUCKING DETERGENT JUST MAKE YOUR OWN* IT’S SO GODDAMN EASY AND 80X CHEAPER

FUCK THE ENTIRE LAUNDRY INDUSTRY *Fuck The Entire Laundry Industry Recipe

1 cup Washing Soda (not Baking Soda. Different things.)

1 cup Borax (not Boric Acid. Also a different thing.)

½ cup - 1 cup grated bar soap (you can use literally anything. I often use Ivory because it’s easy to get and I find it works well, a lot of people like Fels-Naptha, which is an actual laundry bar. Some people use Dr. Bronner’s. Really does not fucking matter.) After grating your soap, combine all ingredients. That’s it. That’s the whole thing. Use maybe a ¼ cup per load.

^^^ I’ve done this for years now and it works as well as any store bought detergent

WHAT Thank you, tumblr user awfullydull! Your URL does no justice to the good advice you give!

Also you can MAKE your own washing soda very VERY cheaply.

Step one: acquire $5 bag of baking soda from Costco.

Step two: lay that motherfucking baking soda out on a baking tray.

Step three: bake the baking soda on a tray in an oven at 400° for 1 hour (to make the moisture evaporate, leaving washing soda)

Step four: revel in how easy and cheap it is to make your own washing soda, and maybe take a moment to be angry that the industry upcharges the fuck out of something that is so easy to make.

I see some of y'all complaining about static and/or wanting nice smelling laundry. Go to a craft store, find 100% wool yarn balls. If it doesn’t come in a ball, ask an employee to make it into a tight ball for you. Wash in the washing machine to make it felted. Remove from washer, add a few drops of essential oil to the ball, allow to seep in. Dry with clothing. Doesn’t need to be rewashed ever, and if it stops smelling, add few more drops of essential oil. Bam, reusable dryer sheets.

I love this post so much it’s filled with helpful advice, hatred, saving money, and fucking the system all in one

some resources for people who want to start animating

free animation programs

the 12 principles of animation

51 animation exercises (from beginner to expert)

glen keane animates a scene

my advice: have fun and play–play is learning | always be watching real life to see how things move | also be watching cool animations to learn from them | don’t wait until you’re ‘good at art’–animating will help you improve | it’s hard but so worth it when things turn out well, good luck!

art cheats

hello i am here today to not lose track of the art cheats i have discovered over the years. what i call art cheat is actually a cool filter/coloring style/way to shade/etc. that singlehandedly makes art like 20 times better

80’s anime style

glitch effect

glow effects

adding colors to grayscale paintings

foreshortening ( coil )

foreshortening ( perspective )

clipping group (lines)

clipping group (colors)

dramatic lighting ( GOOD )

shading metal

lighting faces

that is all for today, do stay tuned as i am always hunting for cool shit like this

a fools guide to not wanting to die anymore

by me, a fool who doesnt wanna die anymore 

… 8|

That’s some pretty good advice. I don’t know what’s left of my humor after ‘guess I’ll just die’ jokes but it’s worth a shot.

Personally i went from “guess I’ll die” jokes to “IF I HAVE TO BE HERE FOR 5 MORE MINUTES I PROMISE YOU I WILL BUY JUST, AN ARRAY OF CLOTHES.” and other wild hyperbolic stuff. Just replace the death part with something ridiculous and off topic. Its very entertaining

This also works with calling myself things like stupid, worthless, trash, etc. Even if you do this jokingly to yourself, your brain still believes it, and keeps up the cycle. Seriously, I found that when I stopped saying these things about myself, even jokingly, it made a massive difference.

Here’s a tip I picked up from a friend that’s helped me a lot — replace self deprecating jokes with ironically self aggrandizing jokes

Like every time I trip and fall, instead of saying “l’m just a disaster human” I say “I’m the epitome of grace and beauty”

Or like, when I draw a picture I’m not 100% happy with, instead of saying “my art is trash” I say something like “you know I think it’s time we replaced the Mona Lisa”

When you do that you get to make a joke, but you’re ALSO getting practice building yourself up, y’know?

And eventually it becomes a reflex and you get so used to it that you can say nice stuff about yourself even when you AREN’T joking

Jury nullification. Pass it on.

Jury nullification is so fucking important.

This is something that more people should be aware of, if only because (in many states, at least) defense attorneys are actually prohibited from mentioning it to jurors. The law allows a jury to return a “not guilty” verdict contrary to the facts of the case, but not for the defense to inform them of that power or to argue for its application in the current trial.

I didn’t know about this. Wow.

always reblog

This is SUPER IMPORTANT and also a good reason to show up for jury duty. You know all those laws you think are stupid? This is your chance to maybe do something about it. 

I…. I thought this was common knowledge… signal boosting this because it obviously isn’t!

Did not know this

Jury nullification in the United States has its origins in colonial British America. Similar to British law, in the United States jury nullification occurs when a jury in a criminal case reaches a verdict contrary to the weight of evidence, sometimes because of a disagreement with the relevant law.

extremely important: you cannot let the Judge know YOU know about this or you will not serve on that jury to even try this out.

I will hang the jury for a solid month if I think a law is stupid. All it takes is one person to do it.

In case anyone is having a bad night:

Here is the fudgiest brownie in a mug recipe I’ve found

Here are some fun sites

Here is a master post of Adventure Time episodes and comics

Here is a master post of movies including Disney and Studio Ghibli

Here is a master post of other master posts to TV shows and movies

*tucks you in with fuzzy blanket* *pats your head*

You’ll be okay, friend <3

i will reblog this everytime it shows up because any of my followers could have a bad night right now

@virgil-has-a-houseplant

Adulting Posts

Adulting 101: The post that started it all! Discount cards, xmas lights, and general food advice.

Adulting 102: Cacti, electric bills, and some inexpensive cleaning advice.

Adulting 103: Peeing after sex, chalkboard paint, and why you need scented trash bags in your life.

Adulting 104: Electric bill budgets, lint drawers, and why mixed greens are more trouble than they’re worth.

Adulting 105: Paper bills, Yankee Candles, and where to purchase postage stamps.

Adulting 106: Scented tampons, dishwasher pods, and why you should live next to a fire department.

Adulting 107: Command hooks, inexpensive bathroom decor, and why organic cucumbers are overrated. 

Adulting 108: An Adulting post dedicated entirely to apartment hunting!

Adulting 109: Cleaning your shower head, condiments, and why you should never buy Dollar Store paper towels.

Adulting 110: Food hygiene, Airborne, and automatic payment advice.

Because abortions aren't the only way the patriarchy wants to control your junk

OBGYN: Yeah, you are exhibiting all the signs of Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. I’m so sorry.

Me: Huh? Oh, yeah. Insulin resistance, impossible weight loss, pre-disposition to type II diabetes, painful AF periods. Likelihood of bleed outs. Crap. That blows.

OBGYN: Yeah, well that too.

Me: *blinks* What?

OBGYN: Well, PCOS makes it very difficult for a woman to conceive and carry.

Me: BWHAHAHAHA. Yeah. No. No babies. Ever. Never wanted them. At all. Maternal instinct is not strong with this one. Only upside today.

OBGYN: Well then. Not exactly problem solved, but we’ll run with it.

Me: So about the MIND-SEARING PAIN and occasional HEAVY AF BLEEDING. When can we deal with that.

OBGYN: Not until you are 35.

Me: Dah fuq?

OBGYN: Not my rules. Hospitalization won’t even consider any treatment unless it’s life or death until you’re 35.

Me: Why?

OBGYN: Because you might want to have a baby.

Me: I’m 31. I didn’t want kids when I was 11, I didn’t want them at 21, and I sure as shit don’t want them now. Can’t I just sign a form that says “I don’t ever want a baby take it out, take it out now”?

OBGYN: Nope.

Me: Why?

OBGYN: Government rules. No removal of baby making parts before 35 unless your life is in immediate jeopardy.

TL;DR: The government knows better about your baby making parts than you do.

This is just evil. They are literally refusing to treat a potentially life-threatening condition, not just without the patient’s consent but despite the patient’s protest. Evil.

According to the National Women’s Health Network, there’s no legal age restriction- “Technically, any woman of legal age can consent to the procedure, but it should be medically justified. It’s incredibly unlikely that a doctor will perform a hysterectomy on women ages 18-35 unless it is absolutely necessary for their well-being and no other options will suffice.” Of course, this is in the US. Other countries may have different rules. 

If you’re in the US and your OBGYN says “government says no,” look for a new one because they lied to you. If your OBGYN says that “hospital says no,” look for a new one because this one doesn’t respect your bodily autonomy. It is true that most surgeons don’t like to perform hysterectomies until you’re in your late 30s at the earliest, but a respectful surgeon will listen to their patient and not just write them off. Sexism in hospitals is alive and well- and it’s not just anecdotal evidence. There’s been a history of looking at it academically/professionally since the 70s (look into Mary Halas as a good place to start if you’re curious), and it crops up all the time in articles in the Journal of Women’s Health and Women’s Health Issues, and the International Journal of Women’s Health all of which are peer-reviewed, well-respected medical journals. It’s absolutely a real thing. 

Anyways, I guess what I’m getting at is this: here’s a list of doctors (mostly US-centric) who perform different sterilization surgeries without giving their patients trouble. While even a surgeon on this list might caution anyone under 35 away from a hysterectomy, at the end of the day it’s your body and your pain. (And some of the docs here have been known to perform hysterectomies on people in their 20s with no fuss.) While this list won’t be practical for everyone- after all, medical treatment is ridiculously expensive in this country, it might help someone. 

Holy shit fam Holy S H I T

SIGN ME THE FUCK UP I’VE BEEN TOLD THIS IS NOT ALLOWED FOR YEARS

Oh god

QUICK REMINDER THAT I HAD A HYSTERECTOMY A FEW DAYS AFTER MY 26TH BIRTHDAY B/C I HAD CANCER AND I DID EXACTLY THIS. I HAD A DOCTOR WHO DIDN’T WANT TO DO IT AND THEN I WENT TO A NEW DOCTOR AND AFTERWARDS SHE MORE OR LESS SAID MY LIFE WOULD HAVE BEEN IN DANGER HAD I NOT DONE IT.

Sometimes it’s not the doctor, it’s the hospital.  For example, my OBGYN worked at a Catholic hospital, so they couldn’t perform any type of sterilization onsite unless it was an emergency situation.  

So if your doc feeds you this BS line about not being allowed to, ASK IF IT’S THE HOSPITAL POLICY.  If it is, ask if they are able to perform the procedure elsewhere. If they are not, ASK FOR A REFERRAL.

I was 28 years old when my OBGYN explained that he wasn’t allowed to perform a sterilization procedure onsite, and then he proceeded to tell me what a crock of shit it was and referred me to someone else who was able to. And even though I was under 30, his referral listed me as “an ideal candidate” for the procedure.  

If they pass off this line and insist when you know otherwise, FIND A NEW DOCTOR.

if someone does the “fine, you’re right, i’m clearly a terrible person, i’m satan, i’m the worst person alive, i should just die” thing in response to criticism of their harmful behavior, they are trying to manipulate ppl and flip the situation around so that they look like a victim

stop tolerating this in 2k17 tbh. like really and truly, if you or your friend thinks this is okay pls call the hotline on the bottom of the screen and learn how to take responsibility for your bad behavior 

The bad thing is I do this on a regular basis. Not because I want to manipulate people, but because that’s actually how I feel. I’m bad at receiving concrit. I can’t say that everyone who reacts this way feels the same as I do, but…not every case is like that.

have you considered that, regardless of your intentions, reacting in such an exaggerated way would make it very difficult for anyone to criticize you or tell you that you’re harming people with your behavior? i’m not interested in searching out people’s motives, i don’t really care why someone does or says manipulative things. being unable or unwilling to simply apologize and not make it about themselves is a solid indicator that a person is not interested in being held accountable for their bad behavior, and people, especially the injured parties in question, shouldn’t have to tolerate it.

take responsibility for your bad behavior 2k17 tbh

Okay, life lesson time. 

When I was in my late teens and early 20s, I kept getting involved with people who would say, “Oh, I’m a bad person” any time I brought up ANYTHING that was the least bit of a disagreement. 

Like, “Please don’t leave my X on the floor” would get, “Oh, I’m a horrible person!”

HERE’S WHY THIS IS A HUGELY PROBLEMATIC BEHAVIOR, and if you think I”m calling you out and you think you’re about to shut down, take a breath, remember that this is about learning, and keep reading.

What is important is what happened after. My boyfriend might say, “Oh, I’m just an awful boyfriend” and instead of him acknowledging the BEHAVIOR and working on fixing it, he’d get me trying to buck him up for the next half hour, telling him he was a good person. The behavior that started it all would not change.

Well, things led to things and I went back home to live for a while, and found that the same exact thing was happening… with my mother.

And then I learned about pattern arguments. Pattern arguments are the ones where you keep having the same nonproductive argument over and over again. They don’t all follow this pattern, but this is a really common one.

The trick?

BREAK THE PATTERN

First you have to know what the pattern is. In this case: 1. Grievance 2. Self deprecation 3. Ego stroking So, with my mother, we started in on one of these, and she said, “I guess I’m just a terrible mother.” And instead of reassuring her, instead of derailing the issue and letting it go… I said, “When you say that, it makes me wonder how terrible a daughter I could be that you would think you were a bad mother. We have this conversation this way over and over, and the problem that I have always gets pushed aside in favor of trying to make you feel better. When you’re willing to have a real conversation about this, I’m happy to talk to you, but I’m bored with this argument, so I’ll see you later if you want to really talk.” And I left the room. Now, my mom is a reasonably self-aware person, and does a lot of hard emotional work, and so she got it, very quickly. 10 minutes later she came out and found me, and we had a real conversation about whatever the hell the issue really was, and we have literally NEVER had that particular pattern argument again in 23 years.  Boyfriend came to visit. I was upset about something, he started in on the “I’m just a shitty boyfriend” thing… and my response? “Yep. You are.” His jaw dropped. He blinked. And I said, “Look, that’s what you do. You say shit like that and it means you don’t have to change your behavior, and I’m tired of the pattern we have where I tell you something isn’t working for me, you tell me you’re terrible, and I spend half an hour making you feel better. I’m tired of it and I”m not doing it anymore. If you’re willing to have an actual conversation about this, and not just the same old argument, I’m game. But this thing we do where you talk yourself down and I butter you up? Is boring. And I’m over it.” We also did not have that argument again. (The relationship finally ended for real a while after, but it ended in a grown-up way, and not with a ridiculous meaningless fight.) When you knock yourself down, the gut instinct for the people around you is to pick you up. But that means you’re not pulling your weight in the relationship. You’re making them do the work and you’re not actually hearing them. So that brings us to another point:

How to deal with criticism

Okay, so if you’re not going to knock yourself down when someone says something negative about you, what DO you do? We don’t actually train people to take criticism well. But it is an art and a skill and NECESSARY to finding emotional stability in the face of a critical world.

I see it as a flow chart, but since the flow chart I made for it ended up in a book that I don’t own the copyright to (not a big deal) I’ll write out the decision tree here instead: 1. Someone offers criticism (constructive or not!)

2. Listen and think about it without immediately trying to defend yourself. You can say, “Okay, I need a moment to take that in and think about it because I want to understand it.” Or something else appropriate to the situation. It is okay to ask for time to think in most circumstances. Most people will appreciate that you are thinking about their words instead of immediately getting defensive or counterattacking. Think about whether what they are saying is valid, might be valid or is not valid. 

3A. If it is valid, then you have a choice. You can try to fix the behavior or you can acknowledge that it is a valid criticism but decide you aren’t likely to fix it. Start by acknowledging the validity of the criticism, and then say what you’re going to do to fix it, or say that it’s valid but it isn’t something you’re willing (or possibly able) to change, or say that it’s a valid criticism and you’ll need to think about possible solutions. They may have a suggestion. Taking it or not is also a choice. 

3B. If you’re not sure it’s valid, but it might be, tell them, “I really need to give this some more thought.” or “Can you tell me more about this? I’m not sure I understand the issue well.”  Or “If you can point me at some reading material or search terms, I’d like to study this before I decide what I’m going to do.” 

3C. If you know it is not a valid criticism, STOP a moment, and look at WHY they are making it. This is where Active Listening can be very helpful. “I hear you saying that X is a problem. I don’t see it that way right now but I’d like to understand better why you do.” Or if you think they don’t have enough information, “I hear you saying X, but my understanding of the issue is Y. Here’s what I know about it if you’re ready to listen.” If they’re just looking for a fight, tell them you’re not interested in fighting, and disentangle yourself. 

4. If the criticism is something you are going to listen to and take action on, tell them what kind of action you’re going to take. If it’s something you’re hearing and thinking about, tell them that. If it’s not something you’re going to do anything about or it’s just wrong, thank them for their input and move on.

Literally never is it going to be helpful to say, “Oh, I’m just a terrible person.” That’s very much like a nonapology-apology in terms of how unhelpful it is to any conversation. It’s kind of worse because it actually expects emotional labor from someone who is already having to bring up something unpleasant with you. Think about what they say Decide whether you’re going to do something about it Do the thing, or tell them you’re not going to do the thing.  Don’t demand emotional labor from other people when you were the one who messed up. 

Apologize if appropriate.  This is all predicated on the notion that you’re talking to someone who actually wants to communicate and isn’t just an asshole on the attack.  Because seriously, the whole “I’m a terrible person” thing?  Boring as fuck. Knock that shit off. Maybe you are. Maybe you aren’t. But take responsibility and have a little self-respect and don’t make others pick your emotional dirty towels off the metaphorical bathroom floor. 

Yeah, I want to reiterate all of the above, because I feel like the top post doesn’t do an especially good job of conveying that mostly when people do this its not on purpose, its generally because they’re feeling real distress.

Its just that it doesn’t matter.

If every single criticism of you ends in an emotional crisis, you become uncriticisable, and its unbelievably difficult to deal with someone when you can ask them to stop doing something, or to fix something.

9 times out of 10 when someone asks you to stop doing something, or fix a behaviour, its not that big a deal, they were a little upset, they said something about it, and a quick apology and not doing it again, or even just making a sincere effort to do it less, and they’ll probably not even think about it again.

And yeah, it can feel really, really bad to realize you’ve upset someone, even if its only a little bit. But it is unbelievably difficult to maintain a relationship with someone who makes all their feelings your problem. Not because it means you’re evil, or abusive, or being deliberately manipulative, but because most people just don’t have enough emotional energy to process for two. They just don’t.

This would have been amazing to have when I was 16 and an arsehole, but thank God for the people who helped me break that behaviour.

This. I figured it out on my own at some point that, due to my low self-esteem, I was doing this internally. I wouldn’t say it out loud and so it wasn’t manipulative, but it still wasn’t helpful at all. Neither was my original method of “oh look at the ways I’ll be amazing and better to make it for it” that never actually got done. But forcing myself to stop, listen, breathe, and assimilate the information, without getting emotional or upset or focusing on my feelings too much, has seriously helped me analyze myself and my behavior so much more.

If you think the criticism is valid, another thing that could be good to say would be “You’re right, leaving it on the floor means it’s in the way and will get dirty/will be more likely to get broken” or whatever. This shows the other person that you are working hard to see how things are for them, in contrast to “I am a terrible person” which has no room for their needs or concerns.

Real talk.

Important life lessons here.

For all the artists out there

Youre telling me I threw away 10 dollar markers FOR NOTHING

REBLOG to save a life and a wallet!

Plus copics are actually refillable and you can buy more colored ink online for pretty cheap! So yeah dont throw out copics.

NO NO NO NO!

Never refill a Copic with regular isopropyl alcohol unless you have absolutely no other option.

Copic markers have their own ink refills to go with each marker,

They look like this and cost around the same price as a Copic Sketch maybe slightly more however they can be used to refill a marker several times

By using isopropyl alcohol what you’re doing, in fact, is diluting what little ink you have left in your make, therefore changing the shade of it.

Of course the one exception to this rule is the colourless blender 0 which is a marker that is full of regular isopropyl alcohol.

As a side note, DON’T throw away your marker if one/both of the is damaged

Copic also make replacement nibs for all of their markers

Which are much cheaper than buying a new marker as you get multiple in a pack.

Reblogging to save an artist. Copics are meant to be reusable and I know how hella expensive those things are. NEVER throw out your Copic markers!

hey uh? i dont really know if this is real but im? kinda both scared and disgusted rn? even if you’re not muslim if you could spread this? i dont know how many muslim followers i have but, please, stay safe?

please spread this and please stay safe.

every single one of my followers should reblog this. Keep your brothers and sisters safe.

DUDE WTH

what the frick is this real

according to the internet this is a real thing in the UK.

thats messed up.

stay safe 

I just looked it up and for real people are getting these letters all over the UK.

Please be safe if youre muslim, if youre not muslim please look out for and protect the muslim people around you, theres some seriously sick people out there that may very well act on this.

What the actual fuck.

Please stay safe everyone

Rushed to snopes, hoping to find it’s a hoax - doesn’t seem to be, and it’s reported on The Independent and on Sky News and on The Guardian.

Stay safe, everyone.

Evil. 

Literally only like 10 people follow me but if that's 10 more people who are prepared and know to be safe and can help spread the word then good because this is disgusting

Trying to draw buildings

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!

I tried Sketchup before but did struggle a lot with it X_X Maybe I should give it another try sometime ….

ART TIPS ☝☝☝☝

Thing i learned some time ago!  hope you all find it helpful ( perspective grids can be your friend!)

HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS

things i did that forced me to be a better artist:

“draw the goddamn background you coward“

“Don’t trace” originally started as a warning against tracing as art theft (as in, tracing someone else’s art without permission or credit is art theft) and then over the intervening years turned into “you can’t use references because it’s cheating” and I think that’s one of the worst cases of the telephone game I’ve ever personally experienced

you are allowed to trace as practice

you are allowed to trace your own work (for example photographs you took yourself or to keep architectural consistency)

you are allowed to trace things the original artist is encouraging you to trace

you SHOULD use references

you SHOULD be allowed to pick up other artists’ artistic tics you like (…as long as they’re not offensive, like blackfacing, but that’s a different kettle of fish)

you SHOULDN’T go around moralizing at other people about how they learn best because you can and will lose friends that way and you can and will hurt other artists’ development that way.

Also other than art theft there IS no such thing as cheating in art okay use sparkle pens and fan brushes to your heart’s content why is that even a thing I have to say (…and yes I’ve had conversations in the analog world about fan brushes as “cheating” I’m so tired of snotty artists who think you shouldn’t be allowed to use tools that make things easier because they can do it the hard way)

But honestly, this need to be said louder, as an artist you end up feeling like you aint getting better, trying to draw in perspective without having a guide line . And when others shame artist for using references its like they are expecting the artist to know by memory how everything works on every perspective.

To Consider that fan brushes, or custom brushes are cheating and expecting the artist to do everything in the “original” way is like wanting the cashier to charge you without using a calculator to do the sum. Tools are invented to be used.

“tools are invented to be used” well put

Not allowing using references is same as telling to a chef they can’t use recipes but they have to pull any dish in the world out of their asses just like that. The first thing, the very first thing my photography teacher told us was “When photographing was invented, ARTISTS took pictures of cities and traced them on their paintings because hey - easier work! Why bother to work hard when you can make it easy for yourself and save your time and energy?”

I’ve been drawing for years, and I still trace. It helps me learn relationships between shapes, and to understand perspectives that are difficult. Other days, I eyeball it until it looks right. 90% of what I have on my computer is reference images. 

Thing is, use what makes you learn best. Don’t steal, but don’t suffer because someone says references aren’t getting.  

Lots of this.

I work in animation.  My boss encourages the whole team, every day, to learn how to draw the characters by tracing them over and over, before trying to draw them freehand.  It helps commit their shapes and proportions to muscle memory and actual memory.

Tracing is an invaluable method of learning.  As long as you aren’t tracing somebody else’s work and calling it your own, you’re in the clear.  TRACE YOUR LITTLE HEART OUT.