Maaloul is a Palestinian village in Galilee. In 1948, it was destroyed by the Israeli armed forces and its people were expelled, so they headed either to Lebanon or to the neighboring town of Nazareth. Since then, the former residents of Maaloul were only allowed to visit it once a year on the anniversary of the occupation, so it became a tradition to organize a picnic in the same place on that day.
The people of Maaloul village fled from it under the fire of Zionist gangs in 1948. This is a wound that will not heal. The people of the wound cling to it because it may one day chart the way back. The villagers visit the ruins of their village once a year to celebrate over them. It is an amazing insistence on clinging to the land and its memory. We were able to carry our wounds in our bags because the wound prevents forgetting. That memory, which was written in blood, is more lasting than all the ruins and all the artificial countries.
Via itszaynalarbi
Continue Escalating
the grass may be greener on the other side of the fence but you don't know how many dead bodies it took for it to get that way
I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard
Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.
Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.
Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.
Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.
SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.
SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.
Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.
Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.
Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.
Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.
Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.
Don't stop talking about them. We need to be their voice.
Inspired by the amazing poem by dana
DO NOT, AND I BEG OF YOU, DO NOT STAY SILENT. ISRAELI HAVE MASSACRED INNOCENT PALESTINIANS IN RAFAH, THEIR SAFE SPACE, THEIR CAMPS WHERE THEY WERE RESIDING. ITS A FUCKING MASSACRE. INNOCENT LIVES HAVE BEEN TAKEN, JUST LIKE THAT. MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN HAVE LOST THEIR LOVED ONES JUST LIKE THAT. AND IF YOURE STILL SILENT, SHAME ON YOU. SERIOUSLY.
Good news, fellow artists! Nightshade has finally been released by the UChicago team! If you aren't aware of what Nightshade is, it's a tool that helps poison AI datasets so that the model "sees" something different from what an image actually depicts. It's the same team that released Glaze, which helps protect art against style mimicry (aka those finetuned models that try to rip off a specific artist). As they show in their paper, even a hundred poisoned concepts make a huge difference.
(Reminder that glazing your art is more important than nighshading it, as they mention in their tweets above, so when you're uploading your art, try to glaze it at the very least.)