You Live In A World Where Reincarnation Is Common And Expected, But It Cannot Happen Unless Your Past

anoosha syed (foxville_art) on Twitter made a really interesting tutorial on how to colour non-white skin in illustrations that I thought people who follow this blog might find useful (:

(resposted with permission)

Your small village was at peace once again. Because of the six people with weapons, the horsemen of the apocalypse were gone. So, while playing at the field with your ball, you bumped into someone. He was tall, with blonde hair and blue eyes. You noticed that he was one of the people who saved your village, and you just stared at him.

However, the blonde's lips curled upwards, then gave you a pat on the head. When he left, you felt your jaw drop as you mutter a, "wow, he's so cool..."

Then, on your side, you heard someone chuckling. Glancing up, it was another one of the people with the weapons. The male had raven hair, and green eyes. "I know, right?"

i hradcanon that in an au, yuu loves watching emotional romantic movies. he's a hopeless romantic!!!

YOU ARE SO RIGHT. yuu loves romantic movies sm and he loves the cheesy tropes and believes in soulmates and horoscopes andnsjanksnd

@etherealgrape

happy children because why not

Yuu, thinking: alright it’s a new day. it’s just a crush. just a little crush, that’s all. all that worrying i was doing, that was crazy. everything’s gonna be okay, it’s just a crush.

Mika: hi, Yuu-chan

Yuu, thinking: i love you

Tutorial and or tips in color studies?

Hi there! Sorry to keep you waiting on this ask!

I do have another post about landscape painting which overlaps slightly with this. But here I’ll talk specifically about the observational color studies I like to do. Other artists might have different ways of approaching them (and I still have a lot to learn myself), but these are some of the ideas I’ve found useful.

1. Don’t seek perfectionObservational color studies are just that – studies. Sketches. Note-taking to reference later. They’re not supposed to be complete paintings, so you shouldn’t feel pressured to make them “perfect”. I like posting them sometimes (and hopefully you like seeing them) but there are TONS of messy, scribbly studies I haven’t posted anywhere. They’re primarily a tool to help me learn, and if messy studies help me learn, so be it!

2. Simplify your shapesSo how do you avoid getting overwhelmed and lost in the details? Focus on the BIG IDEA. Decide what is most important to include in the study and leave out everything else. Start with big shapes, and add details at the very end, if you have time. Personally, I’m often interested in the sky and the color clouds become when light passes through. So I might make the study about the clouds and ignore buildings/details on the ground. or I’ll add only a very simple ground plane. Other times, I’ll rearrange a composition to include all the important information (like making an object bigger or smaller, or bringing two objects closer together).

3. Step by stepIt helps to find a good workflow, especially when you have to quickly prioritize what information to include. This is relevant especially when you’re painting something like a sunset, when the light changes RAPIDLY and you’ll have only 3, 4, 5 minutes to put your colors down. For me, this usually means I build my study from background to foreground: sky, clouds, ground plane, background shapes, foreground shapes. Since I work on iPad Pro, I also keep those parts separated out into layers. In the case of those quick sunset studies, I also observe the parts I haven’t painted yet in case the lighting changes enough that I’ll need to work from memory.

4. Some fundamentals to keep in mind:

Value structure: Even though these are color studies, value plays a major role in the colors you’re observing. Pay attention to the difference in value between subjects. Sometimes this can solve color-related problems when your study seems “off” somehow. (For example, maybe that sky isn’t as light as you think it is? A darker value might mean painting a more vibrant color.)

Lighting setup: Identify the different light sources in the environment. Is it cloudy and overcast? Sunny? Are you indoors, with multiple different light sources? A little study about lighting theory can really help you know what colors to look for in different lighting conditions. For example, in overcast light, you’ll see more of the objects’ local color, while in bright sunlight you’ll see a strong direct light (the sun), blue diffused light on shadows and top-facing planes (from the blue sky), and a warm bounce light (from sunlight reflecting off the ground). Will forever recommend James Gurney’s book “Color and Light” for help learning this.

Materials: Different materials reflect light sources in different ways. Being aware of how light passes through or reflects off different materials can help you understand the colors you’re seeing.

5. Going beyondAs you become more comfortable making observational studies, the more you might wish to push them even further by not just copying from life but communicating a feeling. A few ways you might accomplish this:

Exaggerate your colors. Suppose you see a hint of color you wouldn’t normally expect to find, such as notes of purpose or red near the horizon of an otherwise blue sky. Try making it brighter/bolder than you really see it. Bump up the saturation, maybe. This is a delicate balance, as you don’t want to exaggerate to the point where the colors become garish. But putting emphasis in certain places can remind yourself, or show whoever’s looking at your study, that you found certain details interesting.

Think about mood. A color script from an animated film follows the emotional beats of the story. As you’re making your studies, consider: how does this moment feel to me? Take a cloudy scene, for instance. Is it cold and miserable? Windy, full of movement and energy? Calm? Dark and ominous? A moment of anticipation or hope with the clouds about the break apart? Each of those conveys a completely different mood. So you might decide upon one and push your color palette to support that idea.

Don’t just copy: communicate. This last one is a bit of an abstract idea I need an example to explain:

This sunset study here gave me difficulty because it involved not just color but the properties of light. The sun didn’t actually appear white to me - it appeared a bright red/pink color, glowing brighter than the sky around it. But that wasn’t something I could reproduce, because if I only painted the color, it wouldn’t appear glowing and would blend into the rest of the sky. Instead, I had to think critically: how do I communicate the brightness of this sun? In the end, I opted to make the sun white, with the color I actually observed the sun to be surrounding it.

On my Instagram, I’ve posted a lot of process videos to accompany my studies, if that interests anyone! They’re always second image on the studies’ posts.

I hope you find these thoughts helpful! 

Have you ever wondered where books come from?

Well then, let me show you, because that’s what I do for a living.

Right now, it’s this time of the year, and the little ones have just freshly hatched:

You’ll notice they’re still blind and naked when they hatch. So I make them little coats to keep them warm during their first winter:

See how they happily line up to put them on:

See? Better. Now they’re ready to go and explore the world.

And if they make it through the winter and we take good care of them, they will grow up to be strong and wise like their older fellows:

So, in case you were ever wondering, now you know.

On Writing Flawed Books

If you’re a writer and you’ve thrown yourself into learning the craft–following writing blogs, reading craft books, attending workshops–there’s this thing that is very likely to happen. 

Armed with newfound knowledge of what makes a piece of writing fantastic, you’ll realize that your writing.. isn’t. 

It may even start to feel like your writing is the worst writing that has ever existed. It may make you scared to put a single new word on the page in front of you. You’ll see exactly what you’ve been doing wrong, and you may very well not know what to do fix it. 

I’m here to let you know that it’s natural to feel that way when you’ve reached a point where your knowledge surpasses your ability. A secret for you? Your knowledge of craft–any craft–will always surpass your ability if you do what you should and continually study said craft. It’s a good thing. 

It’s okay for your writing to be flawed. 

You can write a book, know it has flaws, and still be proud of everything you’ve accomplished. 

Published books are flawed. Best selling, critically acclaimed books are flawed. Readers love books with flaws, because those flaws tend not to matter as long as the story connects with them. 

There are people who complain about all the adverbs Rowling uses for dialog tags in Harry Potter. Features in Harry Potter can be used as examples of “bad craft.” Does it mean the books are poorly crafted? Does it lessen their value to the literary world? To the world at large? OF COURSE NOT. 

No book is perfectly crafted. Not a single one. The book you’re writing will never be perfectly crafted. So what do you do about it? 

Tell your story. 

Do your best. 

Keep Improving. 

But don’t let the fact that your work has flaws stop you from writing–or worse, stop you from being proud of everything you’ve already written. 

Do you have somo BroTP in ONS ? i have a s u p e r weakness for YuuMitsu as bffs 😷

oh i LOVE platonic yuunoa & mitsuyuu, ESP mitsuyuunoa. i love them as a trio, for some reason it just works for me. UNFORTUNATELY yuu gets third-wheeled like all the time bc they are girlfriends

basically i feel like yuu gets along w every girl well bc he doesnt catch feelings for them but thats just me slsndksm

im also a sucker for platonic mikalacus & mikarene. i want my boy to have friends too

~Yuu (trying) to flirt with Mika by using cheesy pickup lines on him XD ~

Link to the original idea is here: larina496(.)tumblr(.)com/post/140027942764/so-i-saw-a-post-about-yuu-saying-cheesy-pick-up