People have written a lot of touchy-feely pieces on this subject but I thought I’d get right to the heart of the matter
Do you design a lot of characters living in not-modern eras and you’re tired of combing through google for the perfect outfit references? Well I got good news for you kiddo, this website has you covered! Originally @modmad made a post about it, but her link stopped working and I managed to fix it, so here’s a new post. Basically, this is a costume rental website for plays and stage shows and what not, they have outfits for several different decades from medieval to the 1980s. LOOK AT THIS SELECTION:
OPEN ANY CATEGORY AND OH LORDY–
There’s a lot of really specific stuff in here, I design a lot of 1930s characters for my ask blog and with more chapters on the way for the game it belongs to I’m gonna be designing more, and this website is going to be an invaluable reference. I hope this can be useful to my other fellow artists as well! :)
got an interview tomorrow
Hey friends!
Sorry for the late TUTOR TUESDAY, but here it is! Today is on clothing folds and was a recommendation from @kitemist, thanks! If you have any recommendations you’d like to see send ‘em in here or my personal! Hopefully I can expand on clothes more soon! Keep practicing, have fun, and I’ll see you next week!
Are you constantly wanting to do A Thing but never know how to do The Thing?
Does figuring out where to start a task and knowing what steps need to be taken to complete the task stress you out?
Lemme introduce you to...
For example, you want to clean your oven.
You simply go to the website and in the "Add new item" box, you type "clean the oven". You can then also use the lil chillies next to the plus to change the level of breaking-down you'd like. Next, hit the magic wand-looking button to break it down!
You can check off items as you go, and further break things down if desired!
It works on large tasks such as planning a cross-country trip, writing a book or going on vacation and smaller tasks such as cleaning an oven.
There's also tools for task time estimation, meal-prep that takes into account dietary constraints, equipment and such, and a braindump compiler.
It's available as an IOS/Android app for less than a dollar, or a free web app. I can't hype this up enough, the developers deserve so much love for this.
PLEASE READ/SIGNAL BOOST!!
Hey guys, if anyone has been following me for any amount of time, you may know that I’ve been struggling a lot this past year, with losing my dad to cancer, and losing my job and my U.C benefit several times during the year due to my mental health issues. I have almost been evicted and made homeless due to my benefit cuts and benefit reassessments and I have been under so much emotional stress from the lack of eating proper food these past few weeks, that I’ve almost been hospitalized.
Thankfully, due to the compassion and dedication of complete strangers, I was able to pay my rent and keep my home and buy small amounts of groceries. And I’m happy to say that my benefit is no longer in a reassessment period and is due to me on November 25th. However, I do have confirmation that the payment I will receive will only be £245.07 (I can show evidence of this) and a majority of that payment will once again go towards paying my rent, as my housing benefit is not yet in place.
I am really so sorry to have to do this again and again and I know that I have other donation posts circulating but, with me trying to get my life back to normal, things have been incredibly difficult. All I’m asking for is £100 to help get me through December, or if anyone can spare anything to help me to get back on my feet I would really appreciate it, even £1/$1 would really go a long way to help me.
My Youcaring post is available here if anyone wants to understand my situation.
Thank you ❤❤
Now first, I have to say, that the plot you’re able to come up with in one day is not going to be without its flaws, but coming up with it all at once, the entire story unfolds right in front of you and makes you want to keep going with it. So, where to begin?
What is your premise and basic plot? Pick your plot. I recommend just pulling one from this list. No plots are “original” so making yours interesting and complicated will easily distract from that fact, that and interesting characters. Characters will be something for you to work on another day, because this is plotting day. You’ll want the main plot to be fairly straight forward, because a confusing main plot will doom you if you want subplots.
Decide who the characters will be. They don’t have to have names at this point. You don’t even need to know who they are other than why they have to be in the story. The more characters there are the more complicated the plot will be. If you intend to have more than one subplot, then you’ll want more characters. Multiple interconnected subplots will give the illusion that the story is very complicated and will give the reader a lot of different things to look at at all times. It also gives you the chance to develop many side characters. The plot I worked out yesterday had 13 characters, all were necessary. Decide their “roles” don’t bother with much else. This seems shallow, but this is plot. Plot is shallow.
Now, decide what drives each character. Why specifically are they in this story? You can make this up. You don’t even know these characters yet. Just so long as everyone has their own motivations, you’re in the clear.
What aren’t these characters giving away right off the bat? Give them a secret! It doesn’t have to be something that they are actively lying about or trying to hide, just find something that perhaps ties them into the plot or subplot. This is a moment to dig into subplot. This does not need to be at all connected to their drive to be present in the story. Decide who is in love with who, what did this person do in the 70’s that’s coming back to bite them today, and what continues to haunt what-his-face to this very day. This is where you start to see the characters take shape. Don’t worry much about who they are or what they look like, just focus on what they’re doing to the story.
What is going to change these characters? Now this will take some thinking. Everyone wants at least a few of the characters to come out changed by the end of the story, so think, how will they be different as a result of the plot/subplot? It might not be plot that changes them, but if you have a lot of characters, a few changes that are worked into the bones of the plot might help you.
Now list out the major events of the novel with subplot in chronological order. This will be your timeline. Especially list the historical things that you want to exist in backstory. List everything you can think of. Think about where the story is going. At this point, you likely haven’t focused too much on the main plot, yeah, it’s there, but now really focus on the rising actions, how this main plot builds its conflict, then the climactic moment. Make sure you get all of that in there. This might take a few hours.
Decide where to start writing. This part will take a LOT of thinking. It’s hard! But now that you’ve got the timeline, pick an interesting point to begin at. Something with action. Something relevant. Preferably not at the beginning of your timeline - you want to have huge reveals later on where these important things that happened prior are exposed. This is the point where you think about what information should come out when. This will be a revision of your last list, except instead of being chronological, it exists to build tension.
Once you’ve gotten the second list done, you’ve got a plot. Does it need work? Probably. But with that said, at this point you probably have no idea who half your characters are. Save that for tomorrow, that too will be a lot of work.
After you’ve plotted the loose structure of your novel from this, see my next post to work on character!
After watching spiderman i finally understand this picture of Tom
This one was a popular demand. Many people people asked me about anatomy tips.
I know how hard this topic is and how confusing at the beginning. It’s just so much to learn! Exactly! I remember how lost I was in the beginning and trying out things that actually didn’t help me understand anatomy better.
Actually what I want to convey here is that you can learn to draw human without learning all the muscles and bones. My personal opinion, based on experience is actually that you can do that as something extra. Learning muscles and bones won’t help you draw. True story.
If you grasps few essential concepts first you will be better off, plus you will be actually drawing characters. You will be more confident in your lines and gain knowledge that will be enough to create artwork you want.
Look at body as any other object you want to draw. Simplifying and remembering the simplest ideas is way to go.
Remember: these few ideas I am presenting are just a tip of an iceberg. As you will progress you will expand your knowledge beyond few essential points.
This is my personal approach so I can’t say it will work for you. I know that it works for me
Hope you like it!
Happy holidays everyone! Have a wonderful & lovely time with your family & friends ♥
This was my full “The Pride” zine piece for @thevoltronzine :3