#Affinity Publisher 2 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

greenhorn-art · 4 months

Text

World Champions | Artwork for World Champions by TheDefenestrator by TheDefenestrator, art by Blurb_brain

Fandom: The King's Avatar | 全职高手

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Category: Gen

Words: 71 944

At the end of season 4 of the Glory Pro Alliance, the government finally receives the information it has been waiting for: The other players have caught up. Or, In which Glory has been a government recruitment ploy for remote-piloted mecha operators all along.

About the Book

FONTS: Mundo Serif, Azonix [dafont], Segoe UI Symbol

IMAGES: Illustration by Blurb_brain [AO3]; cover image by NASA ID: 440611 [Rawpixel]; Planet Earth background ID: 6331593 [Rawpixel]; Circuit lines background ID: 3117935 [Rawpixel]; endpapers' image by Eric Eastman [Unsplash]; Swoksaar, Desert Dust, Lord Grim, Vaccaria, and Cloud Piercer [The King's Avatar Wikia]

MATERIALS: regular printer paper (8.5"x11", 96 bright, 20lb), 80pt bookboard, Iris Bookcloth (colour: Black Pearl), Neenah cardstock (8.5"x11", bright white, 65lb), waxed linen thread (white, 30/3 size), embroidery floss (shades 3750, 350, 3845, 370), leather cording (1.9mm diameter), Reeves’ acrylic paint (Mars Black, Phthalo Blue, Titanum White), Americana acrylic paint (glow in the dark), ph neutral pva glue (Books by Hand)

PROGRAMS USED: Typeset in Affinity Publisher, cover/title page/endpapers designed in Affinity Designer/Photo, QR codes generated with LibreOffice Writer, PDF arranged for printing with Bookbinder-JS

BINDING STYLE: quarto, case bound (slightly rounded, with oxford hollow, forgot to use tapes)

Fenes' "Glory's tech isn't handwaved" AU. This was great! Funny and creative, and I'm both amazed and full of admiration for Fenes' ability to juggle so many characters.

I was feeling excited and ambitious with this one. Tried some new fun things (double core endbands, painted edges) and used some new equipment (a lying press).

The Text

TITLE/HEADINGS FONT: Azonix says 'SciFi' to me, it's a bold, non-serif, sleek font.

BODY FONT: Mundo Serif, it's a decent serif body font I haven't used before. Felt like it worked with Azonix.

SCENE BREAKS: a special character in Segoe UI Symbol of a black & white icon of Earth, the globe showing Asia.

TYPESETTING: Finished typesetting the fic, left document open on my laptop, laptop's battery failed, file now crashes immediately upon reopening, issue persists with copied versions of file (；￣Д￣) . Thankfully I had a backup file for the typeset with the barebones of the text, so I didn't have to restart from scratch...

Title Page

My thinking: it takes place in space, the world's at stake, and it's the dawn of a new horizon for Earth. Glory and the titular champions are represented by Swoksaar, Desert Dust, Lord Grim, Vaccaria, and Cloud Piercer – the captains of what I'd call the 'big 5' teams. A circuitry board background element hints at the tech/mecha nature of the story's competition. It may not match Blurb's art, but I hope I was able to convey some of what the story is about.

The circuitry image is used as decoration throughout the book. I only used the avatars of the top five teams' captains because too many silhouettes would lessen their impact and readability. (Removing the backgrounds was tedious, but worth it.)

Here's what it should have looked like. The test prints for this and the BB art were fine, but I think my inkjet started running out of ink just when I printed the final copies and I didn't reprint them. (Too impatient, really wanted to finish up and read the book)

The Cover

World Champions is another Big Bang fic, and once again I based some of my design choices off of the accompanying artwork. The dominant colours of Blurb_brain's illustration are red and blue-green.

COVER PAPER: For the decorative cover material I used NASA's ASTER image of Poyang Lake. NASA has some really interesting photography some of which remind me of marbled paper, thought it could be interesting. I chose this image of Poyang Lake because 1) it's in China, 2) the colours were similar to Blurb's awesome illustration (fate strikes again, dropping matching images and artwork into my lap!), and 3) NASA is tangentially relevant to the fic, which takes place in space.

BOOKCLOTH: Verona bookcloth in the shade Black Pearl, a lovely dark navy blue colour. Thought it suited the cover paper and title page. (Bought it for this fic specifically, but the colour goes well with almost all of my decorative papers so it should see a lot of use in the future!)

Endpapers

The final decision that held this project at a standstill for two months. In the end I drew inspiration from the matchups against the final opponent in the story. The image I used is a little chaotic and a little too unrelated to identify why I picked it without an explanation, but this book is for me and I know why, so there. (Note that I played around with the colours and cropped the photo.)

Endpaper inspiration: the maps for the matches against the Infilhites

"a long bridge through an enormous tube-like hall, where light seem to come from every side through stained glass windows. It was visually confusing, limited lateral motion" "a warehouse, crates stacked on and beside metal racks that went all the way to the ceiling." "a house of mirrors, fully enclosed to be sure the Infhillte couldn’t fly out of it." "like a volcano, rivers of lava moving sluggishly down a slope, occasional vents of overheated air nearby." "a series of overlapping bridges between halls and stairways, level after level layered over an open abyss."

Trimming & Painting the Edges

Going all out, a 2-for1 deal: the opportunity to use my lying press for the first time and learn a new technique!

TRIMMING: Used a paring chisel and lying press.

CHISEL: The 1.25" wide paring chisel I used was form a modern manufacturer. (Vintage paring chisels are very thin, enough so that you can bend/flex the blade. But don't do that.) It's long and wide blade made it easier to register against the surface of the press for consistent cuts. Looks like this one below from Lee Valley.

LYING PRESS: My dad's project. Solid black walnut, hand carved screws and internal threads — he even made the tools to make the threads too! The jaws of the press are each 3 7/8" wide. It's big and heavy (though much smaller than full-sized professional ones omg), but there's enough of a flat surface to register the chisel against. A thicc boi, much like this one below from Bookbinding Supplies.

PAINTED EDGES: The idea was to have dark navy edges, speckled with white stars. I used acrylic from a tube to paint the edges — tutorials recommended it over liquid bottled acrylic, and I had an old set hanging around. Had to water it down because otherwise the paint just flaked off.

My test of trimming and painting went well. Then the trimmed book itself came out slightly crooked, the paint required significantly more watering-down than before, and the white paint did not want to be both opaque and speckle-able. Unfortunate, but still book-shaped! And now I have an idea of what to do differently next time.

Also, did not like the glow-in-the-dark paint. Looked too translucent in the light when compared to the white acrylic, and needed a thicker coat to be visible in the dark. (The thickness combined with the translucence and base colour kinda reminded me of boogers... Ended up scrapping most of it off, so there's not much left to glow.)

Endbands

Still in the mood to have fun and go all-out, I attempted double-core endbands for the first time.

TUTORIAL: YouTube @ BookbindersChronicle: Bookbinding 101 Sewing Headbands Session 2. Also watched @ DAS Bookbinding's Double-Core Endband // Adventures in Bookbinding, but I personally found Chronicle's closeup video easier to follow.

I used embroidery floss from a 100pk of assorted colours off Amazon, wrapped around a core of 1.9mm leather cording from Michaels. I drew from Blurb_brain's art for the general colours, choosing a dark base, with red, blue-green, and gold. The specific shades were picked to go with the cover.

#World Champions #TheDefenestrator #Blurb_brain #qzgs #tka #the king's avatar #fanfiction #bookbinding #fanbinding

90 notes · View notes

divine-crows · 16 days

Text

A Short Witchy Gift Guide for Non-Witches

Hello! I'm a witch. I also have a partner who's... not a witch? Lol. Anyways, I was thinking about how awesome it would be if people who are supportive of their witchy partners had a guide to help them with buying gifts (and it may help some witches fill out their wishlist)!

The following information is subjective and it's going to take your knowledge of the other person's likes and dislikes to ultimately pick what they like!

Now, books can be hit or miss. You'll want to be careful because a lot of books will have the same regurgitated basic information, and it might have content the gift-receiver doesn't really care to have or might already know. For book gifts it's probably best to just ask them if they have any books they've wanted for a while, but I have some ideas on how to look for good books regardless.

1. Books

LOOK FOR. . .

- Books with exercises (even if they can't use the content they can at least use that!)

- Books that are about a topic you know they are interested in but may not have a robust knowledge in.

- "Encyclopedia" books can be really good reference guides!

- I often get books that're published by Llewellyn because I've rarely read a book published by them that I didn't like; however, it's not a die-hard rule and you can definitely look elsewhere!

AVOID. . .

- Books with reviews calling them too simple

- Reviews that point out any gaps in the material the author is speaking of

- If they're not a beginner-- books marketed towards beginners (it'll have beginner in the title, or even will have it in text on the front cover)

2. Tarot Cards / Oracle Cards

Trust me, if you're big on divination, you can never have enough cards. The nice thing about buying cards is there's a wide variety of designs, themes, and styles so you're bound to find something. I'd recommend checking out Etsy, they have some amazing creators on there that make beautiful cards.

- cards with styles your gift-receiver will like

LOOK FOR. . .

-cards based on themes they may appreciate (for example: maybe you find a self care oracle deck for them after they talk about wanting to do more self care)

- Reviews praising the quality of the cards, and the ease of understanding the cards

- sometimes you can find mini decks which are great gag-gifts or can be perfect for divination on-the-go!

AVOID. . .

- cards with a lot of reviews complaining about the cards being made with low quality materials, fuzzy images, or complaining about them being hard to read/understand

- cards that have any themes they may not like (for example: if they're uncomfortable with nudity, you might be better off looking for a deck that doesn't have it!)

- Unless they've specifically stated wanting it-- avoid getting a Raider-Waite deck... it's the 'classic' design, which can be charming, but a lot of people already have it and a lot of people would prefer a more specialized design over it.

3. Make them a Mini Altar Kit

Perfect for travel, and is easy to find ideas for on pinterest. This one is good because you can buy a lot of "applicable to all" resources and it's all easily compacted in an altoid tin. Pinterest is a great place to go for ideas!

You can buy them witchy herbs, plants they have an affinity for... so many possibilities!

4. If they have a green thumb-- Buy them plants!

AVOID. . .

- any plants that may be dangerous to pets if they have any

- if they plan on planting in the soil-- avoid invasive plants such as mint.

While not an outright witchy gift, there's something beautiful about how the glass bulbs create rainbows when in the sunlight.

4. Sun Catchers!

From the research I did, I couldn't find anything on their origins (aside from an article that didn't have any sources), and nothing suggested a connection to closed practices (if you have sources that say otherwise please correct me!), so from what I'm aware they're just a pretty decorative piece.

LOOK FOR. . .

- reviews with pictures showing the product works as intended

- I suggest checking out small creators on etsy, there's a lot of beautiful glasswork creations!

AVOID. . .

- creations with a lot of reviews talking about them coming broken

- buying similarly named dream catchers (unless supporting a native creator)

5. Crystals, Pendulums, Scrying orbs, Etc.

Trust me, you cannot go wrong with beautiful, shiny rocks!

- crystals from reputable sources

LOOK FOR. . .

- crystals you know your gift-receiver will like

- honestly if they're pretty and shiny you're probably good

- make sure you find a guide on some tells for fake crystals!

- sources known for selling fake crystals

AVOID. . .

- dyed crystals (they're all most likely quartz or dyed glass)

- if ordering online, make sure there aren't a lot of reviews talking about them coming broken/chipped/etc.

6. Witchy Candles and/or Wax melts

Etsy has a plethora of dressed candles, and I've even found wax melts! You can even diy some as a gift!

Note: please practice fire safety and watch your candles, especially if they're dressed with herbs which can easily spread fire!

LOOK FOR. . .

- colors, scents, themes they'll like

- if you're unsure about color, black and white are typically neutral colors

AVOID . . .

- getting them a candle if they're not allowed to light them

- buying them a wax melt if they don't have something to melt them with

So that's all for now, Also I'm 99% sure this isn't a new theme of post, if anyone knows a similarly done post, please reblog with it linked so people can access more ideas! Likewise, please reblog with your own ideas for gifts!

#witchcraft #witch #witchblr #magic #grimoire prompts #bos prompts #grimoire #book of shadows #witchy #witches of tumblr

46 notes · View notes

magicalmeily · 1 year

Photo

I've made a google doc collection of 150 useful design and art resources! Whether youre just starting commissions or want to make your workflow more streamlined, I recommend checking it out

The full list is below the read more, but I suggest looking at the google doc as well sincce it will be updated more often.

This list was created by @MagicalMeily

I encourage you to share this list with other designers, artists, or even students via this tumblr post, the google doc, or my tweet. Links marked as ‘Free/Paid’ usually means the free version has a lot of features anyway and the paid just has some extra templates or storage space. *Disclaimer - I haven’t used all of these services myself, so please let me know if anything dodgy slipped through the cracks, or if you have any others I should add.

I do not support NFTs or AI Art generators, so hopefully you won’t find any listed. Always double check commercial usage rights

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

COMMISSION SETUP

Collection of designers rates - Graphic Design Rates Master Sheet

TOS Example, Free to use (by kawa_kunn) - Twitter / kawa-kun.art

Tiktok walkthrough of a commission TOS form - artofthecatt

Longer Video of commission TOS form - How to Create a Commission Form

Commission Advice (by AerlyaGraphics) - Aerlya Graphics

Merchandise/printing services (by @sunshinehoney6) - Merchandise Resources

COMMISSION TRACKERS/MANAGEMENT

(Free/Paid) Clients can see your progress - Trello

(Free/Paid) Single user or collaborative project tracker - Notion

(Free) General Commission Management - Commiss.io

TEAM DESIGN/COLLABORATION

(Free/Paid) - Zeplin

(Free/Paid) - Notion

(Free/Paid) - Figma

(Free for Individuals) - Box

(Paid) - Sketch

FILE SHARING

(Free) - Google Drive

(Free/Paid) - WeTransfer

(Free/Paid) - Jumpshare

(Free for individuals) - Box

(Free) - Blindsend

MOODBOARDS

Design Inspiration

Image search for inspiration - Muzli Search

Makes and automatically sets out moodboards - Visualist

DESIGN PROGRAMS

2d Animation (Free/Paid) - Cavalry

Graphics, Photo editing, Publishing (One -off payment) - Affinity

Graphics, Audio, Video (Free, Browser) - Artboard Studio

Graphics (Free) - Inkscape

Graphics/Layout (Free/Paid, Browser) - Canva

Graphics, Photo Editing (Free, Browser. Can open Adobe files) - Photopea

Vector making (Free, Browser) - Vectr

Vector making (Free, Browser) - Vector Ink

Wireframing (Free, Browser) - Moqups App

GENERAL HELPFUL TOOLS/PROGRAMS

Bulk file renamer - Bulk Rename Utility

Bulk image resizer - ImageResizer

File Converters - FreeConvert

Image Upscaler - Waifu2x

Floating view of reference images - PureRef

Timezone converter - World Time Buddy

Twitter image crop guide by @dripchirp - Twitter Crop Guide

Learning how to use the pen tool - The Bézier Game

PORTFOLIO HOSTING/WEBSITE MAKERS

Portfolio hosting (Free) - Foriio

Portfolio hosting (Free with Adobe Subscription) - Adobe Portfolio

Portfolio hosting (Paid) - Portfoliobox

Website builder (Free) - Carrd

Website builder (Free) - Google Sites

Website builder (Free) - Weebly

Website builder (Free) - Wix

Website builder (Paid) - Squarespace

Make a blog you can use as a folio - Tumblr

(Posts Selective Folios) - Bestfolios

(Posts Selective Folios) - PFolios

(Posts Selective Folios) - Pafolios

(Posts Selective showreels) - Showreelz

LINK AGGREGATORS

(Free) Linktree

(Free) Lnk.Bio

(Paid/Free) Later

(Free) Solo.to

(Free) Campsite.bio

DESIGN MARKETPLACES

BOOTH

Gumroad

Ko-fi Shop

COLOUR

Various colour palette tools - Adobe Color

Colour palette search and generator - Coolors

Colour palette generator - Color Space

Colour converter, make colour palettes - RGB.to

Displays big brands colour schemes - BrandColors

ACCESSIBILITY

General design accessibility tips - Lemonly Infographics

Font accessibility tips - UXdesign.cc

Accessible colour combination generator 1 - Accessible color palette builder

Accessible colour combination generator 2 - Color Safe

FONTS FOR DOWNLOAD

Google Fonts

Adobe Fonts

Pixel Surplus

Fontesk

Befonts

Behance

Gumroad

Free Japanese Fonts

BOOTH

TYPE TOOLS

Displays inputted text in fonts installed on your computer - Wordmark

Identifies fonts on a web page - Fonts Ninja

Typography Resources - Typewolf

Font Pairing Help - Fontjoy

Examples of fonts in context - Fonts In Use

Font Management - FontBase

MOCKUPS

Mockup World

Mr.Mockup

Unblast

ls.graphics

Anthonyboyd.graphics

Anagram Design

DesignHooks

Mockups-Design

STOCK PHOTOS/TEXTURES

Pexels

Unsplash

Barnimages

LostAndTaken

Freepik

Rawpixel

PATTERNS

Pattern Inspiration - Pattern Collection

Customisable Repeating SVG Patterns - Pattern Monster

Seamless background pattern maker - Patternico

Mesh Gradient Maker - Mesh Gradient

Make and print your own grids - Gridzzly.com

Downloadable Patterns - Subtle Patterns

ILLUSTRATION LIBRARIES

Toools Design

Irasutoya / いらすとや

Open Peeps

Humaaans

Open Doodles

ICON LIBRARIES

Paid/Free - Streamline Icons

Paid/Free - Flaticon

INSPIRATION GATHERING

abdz

Mindsparkle Mag

Behance

Dribbble

Muzli Search

100 Archive

Design Inspiration

BP&O

Pentagram

It's Nice That

DESIGN ADVICE/EXAMPLES/BLOGS/ ARTICLES

(Free) - World Brand Design Society

(Free) - AIGA Eye on Design

(Free) - Creative Boom

(Free) - The Design Team

(Paid) - UnderConsideration

LOGO/BRANDING DESIGN

Company logos categorised by letter/number/symbol etc - Logobook

Logo/Branding Examples - Logoed

PACKAGING DESIGN

Kawacolle

Packaging Design Archive

Packaging Of The World

WEB DESIGN

Siteinspire

Httpster

Lapa Ninja

Best Website Gallery

Dark Mode Design

Awwwards

Dribbble

(Wireframing) Moqups App

PUBLICATION/EDITORIAL DESIGN

Zine Creation Tips Masterpost - How to Organize a Zine 101

Editorial Design Examples 1 - Formagramma

Editorial Design Examples 2 - Pentagram

POSTER DESIGN

Typographic Poster Design Examples - Typographic posters

Poster Design Examples - Poster Poster

CHARACTER DESIGN

Character Design Library, Challenges, etc - Character Design References

Anime Settei/Reference Sheets - Settei Dreams

Historical Costume references - OSF Costume Rentals

V-DESIGNER/V-ARTIST

‘How to Design Your Own Vtuber Logo’ (by the-tragic-heroine) - The-tragic-heroine

Discover V-artists/V-designers - Heartist

V-Artist/V-designers Catalogue (Hiatus) - VTuber Catalog

Vtuber Resource Collection (by VTResources) - VTuber Resources

View badges/emotes will look like on Twitch - Twitch Elements

Resize badges/emotes to actual sizes - Twitch Emote Resizer

Vtuber based commission hub (beta) - VGen

PAYPAL ALTERNATIVES

Square

Stripe

Wise (previously TransferWise)

Kofi

Direct Bank Transfer

OTHER RESOURCE COLLECTIONS

Vtuber Resource Collection (by VTResources) - VTuber Resources

Designer Resources Collection - Design Resources

Merchandise/printing services (by sunshinehoney6) - Merchandise Resources

Typography Resources - Typewolf

#resource #design #Vtuber Support #masterpost #Master post

306 notes · View notes

silkandsulphur · 3 months

Text

Staff Application

Update: Staff positions are full!

Applications for Silk and Sulphur, the upcoming fanzine that focuses on Raphael and Haarlep are open now.

See the available positions below. If anything interests you, please dm me with a brief introduction and your qualifications :)

All positions: please only apply if you have the time and energy to see the project to the end. The duration will be around 4 to 5 months

Discord moderator: helps to manage the discord server for this project (1-2 people)

Writing coordinator: helps writers with questions they might have, follow-up with them throughout the project, optional: contributes to prompt list and helps in the vetting process

Art coordinator: helps artists with questions they might have, follow-up with them throughout the project, helps with technical requirements, optional: helps in the vetting process (2 people)

Layout artist: makes the layout for the zine, digital and print, preferably has experience with Affinity Publisher

Social media manager: regularly update the Tumblr and bluesky, so people don't forget we exist XD

#baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #raphael bg3 #raphael the cambion #haarlep the incubus #haarlep #bg3 haarlep

29 notes · View notes

authurials · 2 years

Text

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓 ... 2/3

𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒 . harwin looks to make good on his promise to wed you by the end of day

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐒 . one / three

𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐒 . 18+ situations

𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄 . pushed through this while feeling under the weather, but finally it is done and i can turn my attention towards the longer piece i’ve been thinking about (hint: it has the main character as the younger sister of harwin and larys). it will be strictly posted on ao3 but i’ll post on here when it’s published and when each update comes out. now in terms of this piece, i might (and that’s a strong might), make a third part at some point about their first time as husband and wife because that was my intention with this piece but as of now i don’t have it in me to write smut. with all that being said, remember to like, comment and reblog if you enjoy reading! do not repost/claim as your own please

𝐒𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄 accusing stare of a dragon was not a comfortable position to be in you were quickly coming to realize; it was a situation in which not even a cup of wine like the one in front of you could offer any real resolve to. When placed in a predicament such as yours all one could really do was sit and wait and maybe hope for a bit of mercy from the dragon. After all, it was you that was the cause of all the dragon’s ire and frustrations on that particularly gloomy morning.

Across from you sat the future queen of the Seven Kingdoms, the pale-haired beauty that was Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen; she sat stoically with her cup of wine in hand, bringing it slowly to her lips without ever taking her eyes off of you. It would be foolishly prideful of you to deny any idea as to why your lover had been so bewitched and loyal to her all of these years. She was pretty after all–ridiculously so; but not only that, she had this indescribable aura about her, one that exuded this undeniable affinity for power and fire.

Rhaenyra Targaryen was truly a dragon–one that you had managed to piss off.

“Ser Harwin Strong came to me earlier this morning,” she finally broke the tension after taking a sip from her cup. Setting it down, she continued, “but I suppose you were already aware of his intention to visit.”

“I was, your grace,” you bowed your head, both in an attempt to seem respectful and as a way to escape her piercing gaze; her eyes were dark that day, resembling the steel of that of a freshly constructed blade–heat still sizzling on the sharp edge.

Earlier that day, before the sun had barely broken free of the horizon and rose steadily into the sky, you had awoken for once in the arms of Ser Harwin Strong–your shared lover, your newly intended husband. It was not often that he could stay long enough for you to fall asleep let alone hold you in his arms throughout the night, and upon these rare occasions you would commonly take advantage with a late start to the day. However, that morning was not one for such luxuries and Harwin had departed soon after awakening, wasting no time in making good on his promise to be wed by the end of that day.

“Then I am sure you are also aware of his intention to step down as Lord Commander,” the princess hummed, “and take you as his wife.”

There was no point in denying it really; the princess had been aware of your presence in Harwin’s life since before they even began their affair together. She was also aware that there had never been any way in which to forbid Harwin from being with you–she had never wanted to try and cage him in such a way; so instead the two of you had had an unspoken understanding, you kept quiet about what you knew and she would allow Harwin to continue seeing you.

“Yes, I am aware of this,” you replied after a moment’s pause, finally raising your head once more to meet her gaze.

“I told him I could not allow this,” Rhaenyra’s lips were set in a grim line, your own down-turning into a frown as your heart skipped a beat. “His stepping down as Lord Commander will only further the suspicions surrounding my children in court, I am sure you can understand this.”

“Your grace-” you opened your mouth to defend your position; already the hope that had filled you since last night was dwindling away like a weak flame.

“But it appears he cannot be swayed from this decision,” the princess cut you off with a sigh, finger tracing the rim of her cup as she thoughtfully looked at its contents.

“I-” you took a deep breath to calm yourself once more, it would do you no good to become upset and therefore irrational. “I am not quite sure I understand what you are saying.”

Rhaenyra’s gaze met yours once more, holding it there as she spoke, “it is apparent that Ser Harwin is of one mind and cannot be persuaded to see better reason.”

She shifted in her chair, straightening her back as she folded her hands in front of her.

“And although it pains me to let him go,” she continued, smiling sadly, “the thought of refusing him this pains me more oddly enough.”

A part of you dared not believe what you were hearing, fearful to hope that after all these years of waiting things could fall into place so easily. If Harwin and you were to have the princess’ blessing, the only obstacle left in your path would be that of your current promise to Larys. Your father could hardly refuse a better match–Harwin was the heir of his father, and a knight unlike any other in the realm. The only problem you could foresee is Harwin’s father, who might not take kindly to you snubbing one son for the other.

“Although,” Rhaenyra’s voice drew you back to the matter at hand, “perhaps I could persuade you to make him see how foolish he is being?”

“Your grace?” You frowned.

“This union will have its consequences,” she explained, “not only for Harwin and I, but you as well. Surely you know that I am not the only one they whisper about in the court? These rumors will only worsen if you are intent on marrying, especially as soon as tonight; it will be seen as confirmation of what they suspected all along.”

“And what is it that they suspect?” You asked, raising an eyebrow; you were well aware of what people said about you, you just wanted to hear Rhaenyra say it.

“That Ser Harwin has been bedding us both, and that he has managed to put a babe into you as he has done to me thrice now,” she offered you a crooked smile. “Only this time his trysts have caught up to him and now he is being forced to marry you.”

You snorted, breaking out into laughter that the princess soon joined in; although there was truth to it, the drama of it all was rather amusing to the both of you.

“I care not for what others think,” you said once you had both finished, one last chuckle escaping your lips as you smiled fondly at the woman across from you. “I only care that I will finally be able to call the man I have loved for so many years my husband, and that he will call me his wife. They can say what they want about me, our love is my armor as your station is yours, princess.”

She regarded you with amusement still warm in her eyes, bowing her head respectfully before standing up.

“Then there is nothing more for us to discuss.”

Leaving the princess’ apartments was like leaving a dream, a dream that you could hardly dare believe to be true even as the proof was waiting for you outside. Harwin was leaning against the wall, arms crossed as he waited, but the moment the door opened to reveal you he was pushing off to greet you. After a quick glance around, you noted that there was no one to bear witness to the exchange so you relaxed as he took your hands. Feeling the leather of his gloves under your fingers, you looked up into his concerned eyes.

“When I heard she had called you for a meeting in her solar, I feared-” he began.

“I know,” you interjected, nodding. “I feared the worst as well but I believe the princess has come to see that this is inevitable.”

“I do not wish to cause her any pain,” Harwin admitted, ducking his head.

“Nor do I,” you insisted, pushing back a curtain of curls as you reach up to cup his face, “but she understands this is what you–we–want. She wants you to be happy, Harwin.”

“And I want the same for her,” Harwin hummed, looking up to gaze into your eyes. “Does that upset you?”

You paused for a moment, contemplating the answer to his question. Many a time you had found yourself jealous of the relationship Harwin had with Princess Rhaenyra; it was only natural after all to not want to share the man you loved with another, and certainly not with one as beautiful as her. Not only had you envied her beauty, but also the sons she had bore Harwin, the sons you had not been allowed to give him. A part of you would most likely always resent the woman for what she had been able to share with Harwin, but now that resentment dulled in comparison to the respect you now held for the future heir.

“No,” you laughed softly, smiling. “I would expect nothing less from the man that I love then to wish the best for the mother of his children. She will always be a part of who you are, Harwin, and since I adore every part of you then there is love in my heart for her as well.”

“You never fail to surprise me,” Harwin chuckled, leaning down to press a kiss to your lips. Pulling away, he muttered, “and every part, you say?”

“That is quite enough of that, ser,” you scold teasingly, even as you leaned up for another kiss, “at least until we are wed.”

“Then thank the gods I intend to make you mine this very night,” he smirked. “I had just finished speaking with our fathers when I heard word of your meeting with Princess Rhaenyra.”

“You spoke with my father?” You asked, suddenly uneasy once more. “What did he say?”

“He was surprisingly more agreeable than my own,” Harwin sighed, folding his hands behind his back as he stood to his full height once more. The pair of you began to walk, you listening intently as Harwin recounted what transpired. “Of course, why would he not be? I am my father’s heir, after all, and if you are to be my wife that would make our children the heirs to Harrenhal.”

“And your father?” You pressed, remembering your earlier concerns.

“He has….concerns,” Harwin hesitated, looking straight ahead as you continued on your way. “There is Larys of course, which you have already been betrothed to; luckily an official announcement has yet to be made, which will make for less questions when we wed. However, father has made it clear I am to find him a suitable replacement as soon as possible.”

“In a way of apology?” You inquired.

“Aye,” he nodded, frowning. “Yet it is not only my brother that causes my father hesitation, but also the implications of our hasty union.”

“People will talk,” you agree, “not that they are not already–this will simply confirm what they all already believe to be true.”

“I am aware,” he sighs, “but that offers little comfort to my father’s ailing fears over our House’s reputation.”

“He is opposed to us marrying then,” you stated with certainty, teeth beginning to worry your bottom lip.

“Not opposed,” Harwin shakes his head, taking you around the corner, your hand tucked into the corner of his elbow; it is then that you realize the both of you are headed back towards your chamber. “I will not deny that he has his concerns, but he ultimately has agreed to support the union because at least it will put a stop to the speculation–eventually. I would also like to think he wishes his son to be happy with the woman that he loves.”

He nudged you teasingly, causing you to smile with ease once more as you continued your walk. There was more to discuss and much to do if the two of you were to be joined that night, something Harwin continued to insist upon despite your own insistence that you were okay with a longer engagement.

“Afraid you will change your mind, my lord?” You asked, both in jest and out of your own curiosity.

“Never,” Harwin passionately declared as you stopped outside the door to your chambers; you could hear the bustle of someone from within, though you chose not to question it at that time. “I simply wish to waste no more time in making you mine–wholly and completely. I will hesitate no longer when it comes to this matter.”

“This matter,....” you teased, rolling your eyes. “You make it sound so romantic.”

“It is what I do best,” he chuckled, giving your hand one last squeeze before letting it go. “It appears the handmaids I requested have arrived and begun preparations for tonight. It would be rude to keep them waiting any longer, my love, so I am afraid we must part ways–for now.”

“Handmaids?” You raised an eyebrow. “My, you have been busy this morning, Ser Harwin.”

“As I said before–no more hesitating,” he smirked, leaning down to press a kiss to your lips as his hands rested on your lower back. “My decisions must be quick and sure from now on if I am to be your lord husband. Now, into your chambers with you, wench.”

“Harwin!” You gasped as you felt the sharp sting of his hand on your rear end, gone as quick as it had come. Staring up at him in bewilderment, he chuckled and turned to leave, striding down the hallways and leaving you a blushing mess. Not for the first time, you thanked the gods for the emptiness of your surroundings before quickly disappearing into your room.

You were greeted by the two familiar faces of your fellow handmaids, girls younger than yourself who had yet to etch out something for themselves in this world. They welcomed you with excited praises and congratulations, wasting no time in helping you undress so that you may soak in the warm bath they had drawn for you. There was still plenty of time before the wedding, but Harwin had made his instructions clear that you were to be pampered until then.

“I cannot believe you are to be wed this very night, my lady,” one of the girls, Dacey, sighed dreamily; she sat beside the tub, working on some needlepoint while she waited for you to finish so her and the other handmaid, Maege, could help you dress.

“And to someone as handsome as Ser Harwin Strong,” Maege giggled from across the room, laying out your clothes carefully on the bed.

“Handsome, yes,” Dacey nodded, “and strong.”

“I am indeed a very lucky lady,” you laughed, dragging the washcloth down your arm as you regarded the younger girls with amusement. At their age you too had been titillated at the prospect of marriage, having had this romanticized outlook on it; and though you were lucky enough now to marry the man that you loved, you knew that that was not always the case. However, you hoped that someday Maege and Dacey could find their own Ser Harwin–men that were handsome and strong and kind to them.

It is what all women deserved, after all.

“Are you nervous?” Maege asked once you were out of the tub and dried off; you were now pulling on your undergarments, stepping into them with skin still flushed from the warm bath. Behind you, Dacey helped pull together the ties and secure them together, fingers working quickly as Maege unraveled the pieces of your gown.

“A bit I suppose,” you smiled, smoothing out the wrinkles in your undergarment’s skirt. “Although I have known Ser Harwin for years and I feel rather comfortable with him….”

“Do you now?” Dacey asked. You could practically hear the knowing smirk in her voice and you felt yourself blush, fearful you might have let too much slip.

Thankfully, Maege came to rescue by lifting up the layers of underskirt that would go under your gown; together, she and Dacey attached the underskirts to your waist, securing them in place so that they would not slip and fall. The gown itself was a creamy yellow color, pale with golden embroidery on the bodice and sleeves, but otherwise plain in its design. However, you found that you loved its simplicity as the handmaids lifted it so they could lower it over your head and arms. Once the gown was tightened in the back by Dacey, you were free to see yourself for the first time in the mirror.

As you stood in front of it, hands gripping the thickness of its skirts as your still damp hair curled around your face, it finally hit you that you were truly going to be married that very night; not only that, but it was to be with the man you had loved for so many years–since you were a girl of six and ten. There would be no more sneaking around, no more moontea, no more having to hide what you and Harwin were.

“You look beautiful,” Maege smiled over your shoulder, Dacey nodding in agreement as the three of you looked at your reflections in the mirror.

It didn’t dawn on you how nervous you truly were until you were standing outside the small chambers of the sept later that night. Your father stood by your side as you worried your hands together and waited, pacing slightly back and forth.

“What ails you, daughter?” He asked, looking rather reserved with his hands folded behind his back; your relationship with your father had never been a close one, having spent much of the past few years apart with you at court and him off at Harrenhal.

“Nothing, nothing,” you shook your head, frowning as you continued your measured steps. “Well, I suppose it is not nothing….is it natural to be this nervous?”

Your father smiled, looking down at his shoes as he addressed you with a soft laugh: “I am afraid so, my dear. The day I wed your mother, I felt as if the nerves would consume me–and I wasn’t even the one who had to walk down that aisle.”

At the mention of your mother you stopped, looking over at him carefully; your mother had been long since dead, taken by a sickness that had spread throughout your homefront like a barely contained fire. At the time of her passing you had been a girl of two and ten, not yet a woman bloomed and forever without the guidance only a mother could provide. To this day the ghost of her memory haunted the space between you and your father, neither of you able to bridge the gap her absence had created. Yet, in that moment, with your father’s admission, you felt closer to him than you had in all these years.

“It is time,” your father hummed, holding out his hand for you to take. “Shall we, daughter?”

You took a deep breath and took it, allowing him to tuck your arm in the crook of his just as the double doors of the sept were pulled open. The chamber was dimly lit by oil lanterns hung high in the rafters and melting candles scattered about on every available surface. The pews of the religious sept were empty aside from near the front where Harwin’s father and brother sat to the left, similar to Harwin standing at attention on the same side with the septon beside him. The sight of him in his finest cloak and tunic had your heart fit to burst, heavy for once not with the ache of a forbidden love but with your desire for this man.

Your future was now so clearly stretched out in front of you as you were led down the aisle. You could see you and Harwin years from now, husband and wife, children at your feet playing as you both rested by the fire. To some it might have seemed terribly boring, but for you it was all you had ever really wanted, and now it would finally be yours.

As you stopped in front of Harwin, whose own eyes looked nowhere but at you, the septon cleared his throat and began the ceremony: “who here today gives this woman away?”

“Her father does,” your father spoke, placing your hand into Harwin’s outstretched one. You were drawn closer so you were standing by Harwin’s side, the pair of you situated in front of the septon as he continued.

“Very good–” The man nodded. “We stand here in the sight of the gods and men to witness the union of man and wife: one flesh, one heart, one soul, now and forever.”

With shaking hands, the septon leans forward and ties a pale ribbon around yours and Harwin’s joined hands. As he does, you lift your head to look into Harwin’s eyes, crinkled at the edges as he smiles warmly at you. You smile back nervously, bowing your head once more as the ribbon was finally secured.

“Let it be known that these two are one heart, one flesh, one soul,” the septon spoke. “Cursed be he who would seek to tear them asunder. In the sight of the Seven, I hereby seal these two souls, binding them as one for eternity. Look upon one another and say the words-”

Hands still tied together, Harwin and you turned to look at one another as you began to resight your vows: “Father, Smith, Warrior, Mother, Maiden, Crone, Stranger….”

As you said the words together, lips moving in sync, gazes unwavering, you were suddenly that girl of six and ten again; meeting Harwin by the Gods Eye under the secrecy of night, stealing glances in the great hall at meals, brief moments together in the shadowed corners of a hallway. Through it all, you had always hoped for this moment.

“I am hers,” Harwin said, “and she is mine. From this day, until the end of my days.”

As he spoke, you felt that familiar ache in your throat, but ignoring the threat of tears, you repeated his words:

“I am his, and he is mine. From this day, until the end of my days.”

“With this kiss,” Harwin smiled, leaning down, “I pledge my love.”

And with those words, you both sealed that promise with a kiss.

#˚ ₊˚ˑ༄ؘ 𝐅𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐇 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐘𝐏𝐄𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐑 :#house of the dragon #hotd #harwin strong #harwin strong x reader #harwin strong one shot

359 notes · View notes

covidsafehotties · 18 days

Text

Published May 13, 2024

Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 can re-structure chromatin organization and alter the epigenomic landscape of the host genome, but the mechanisms that produce such changes remain unclear. Here, we use polymer physics to investigate how the chromatin of the host genome is re-organized upon infection with SARS-CoV-2. We show that re-structuring of A/B compartments can be explained by a re-modulation of intra-compartment homo-typic affinities, which leads to the weakening of A-A interactions and the enhancement of A-B mixing. At the TAD level, re-arrangements are physically described by a reduction in the loop extrusion activity coupled with an alteration of chromatin phase-separation properties, resulting in more intermingling between different TADs and a spread in space of the TADs themselves. In addition, the architecture of loci relevant to the antiviral interferon response, such as DDX58 or IFIT, becomes more variable within the 3D single-molecule population of the infected model, suggesting that viral infection leads to a loss of chromatin structural specificity. Analysing the time trajectories of pairwise gene-enhancer and higher-order contacts reveals that this variability derives from increased fluctuations in the chromatin dynamics of infected cells. This suggests that SARS-CoV-2 alters gene regulation by impacting the stability of the contact network in time.

Totally "just a cold"

#mask up #covid #covid 19 #covid isn't over #pandemic #covid conscious #covid is airborne #long covid #wear a mask #coronavirus

15 notes · View notes

soylent-crocodile · 10 months

Text

Magura (Monster)

(Realistic Magmar by Namh on Deviantart)

(I mentioned these earlier in @thecreaturecodex's ask box before we started actually talking, and here they are, published to tumblr! Magura started as a servitor race for the Great Old One Cthugha, who is relevant to a character from my Strange Aeons game, and was inspired by the pokemon Magmar, even if it quickly spiraled in its own direction.)

CR9 NE Medium Aberration (Fire)

Magura are a race of intelligent, omnicidal beings who seek to cleanse the universe of life through the detonation of stars. They travel through space on massive fiery skiffs powered by solar sails on a search for stellar systems to annihilate. An average magura citizen is a scholar of these astral detonations and of alien technology, being well-versed in arcane secrets and occult philosophies about destruction, the planes, and fire. Despite this, many magura are spiritual, and the worship of fiends and outer gods (particularly daemons) is a common part of magura societies.

Magura philosophy understands the material plane, if not creation itself, as a mistake on the part of the gods- a material existence can only lead to suffering, as interpersonal connections and material goods are lost, destroyed, or simply fade to the sands of time. Their answer to this philosophical quandary is to destroy the material plane by snuffing out stars one by one. True to their beliefs, magura do not collect material possessions for any purpose other than practical use, and even then, many destroy or dispose of tools even if there’s a potential future use, much like other mortals have the opposite affinity.

Magura bodies subsist on solar energy in a process not unlike photosynthesis, though with different chemical pathways. Magura appreciate the irony that they rely on the stars they destroy to move and survive, and acknowledge that the completion of their goal will cause the extinction of their race- this is a sacrifice they are comfortable making, especially as it’s rather far into the future.

Magura leaders are called Magura Guides. Magura Guides can cast spells as an 8th level wizard, and often advance their levels in Wizard or Rogue.

This man-sized creature resembles an upright reptile, but its head has a pointed beak and is covered in large, bulbous growths. Misc- CR9 NE Medium Aberration (Fire) HD14 Init:+7 Senses: Perception:+15 Aura: Flamestoke 60ft Stats- Str:21(+5) Dex:17(+3) Con:17(+4) Int:22(+6) Wis:16(+3) Cha:18(+4) BAB:+10/+5 Space:5ft Reach:5ft Defense- HP:119(14d8+28) AC:22(+3 Dexterity, +13 Natural, +6 Deflection) Fort:+10 Ref:+7 Will:+12 CMD:28 Resist: Acid 5, Electricity 5 Immunity: Fire, Disease Weakness: Vulnerable to Cold Special Defenses: Heat Shimmer Offense- 2 Claw +16(1d6+5 plus Burn) CMB:+15 Speed:30ft Special Attacks: Burn (2d6, DC19) Feats- Great Fortitude, Improved Initiative, Power Attack (-3/+6), Combat Expertise (-3/+6), Improved Dirty Trick, Greater Dirty Trick, Improved Feint, Weapon Focus (Claw) Skills- Acrobatics +15, Bluff +12, Escape Artist +9. Fly +15, Heal +6. Knowledge (Arcana) +10, Knowledge (Planes) +14, Linguistics +10, Perception +15, Sense Motive +12, Spellcraft +18, Stealth +15, Use Magic Device +13 Spell-like Abilities- (Caster Level 10, Concentration +14) Burning Gaze (DC15) /constant Fireball (DC17), Major Image 3/day Special Qualities- No breath Ecology- Environment- Space (Hot) Languages- Ignan Organization- Solitary, Wave (4-6 Magura, 1 Magura Guide) Treasure- None Special Abilities- Convection Flight (Ex)- In areas of intense heat, magura are particularly buoyant; they gain a fly speed of 40ft and a maneuverability of average. Flamestoke Aura (Su)- Mundane fires around a magura are empowered by a magura’s internal heat. The Reflex DC to avoid or put out a mundane fire within a flamestoke aura increases to 18, and the damage dealt increases to 2d6. Heat Shimmer (Su)- A magura’s internal heat warps the air around it, causing a visual distortion. Magura have concealment (50% miss chance) against ranged attacks and a deflection bonus to AC equal to its intelligence modifier. Creatures with the fire subtype can see through this effect.

#soylent original #any setting #monsters and races #cosmic horror #stars #aliens #homebrew #pokemon #magmar

62 notes · View notes

keganexe · 1 year

Text

Setting Up a Zine Layout for Print (with Affinity Publisher)

Listen up shits spoons

Heyo back with another guide for folks new to art and layout! In this one I'm gonna talk about setting up your zine for print with a commercial printer (Like Mixam). If you wanna look at my other guides you can see them here (as of the time of this one I've done one other guide, but I enjoy doing these so I'll probably do more as time permits)

I'm specifically gonna be talking about using Affinity Publisher 2 because its what I do all my professional work in, but the ideas should hold solid for other programs like Adobe InDesign, Publisher 1, or others! I'm also gonna talk specifically with Mixam measurements since they're my printer of choice.

I'm going to get real into the basics of this one, so if you've done a good bit of layout already this is probably all old hat for you. I'm specifically skipping around the topic of Color Management, but I talk about it a LITTLE.

This is a lot of text, so if folks would like I can probably record the setup some time in the future if that would generally be helpful? Lemme know what we want haha

Okay lets dive in though

So lets start at the very beginning which is choosing a page size. I'm going to assume we are working with Letter sized paper because that's what most folks in the US do, which means we want to set the pages up to be half letter. This is gonna give us a zine that folds like this just for clarity.

So lets hit File->New... up top, and you'll get a screen that looks like this. We are going to change our measurements to be Page Width 5.5 and Page Height 8.5 which is our measurements all folded and whatnot. We want to set our DPI to 300 so the printer has plenty to work with and we don't end up with pixely shit on the pages.

Under the Pages tabs things should default correctly, but we want Facing Pages to make layout a little easier, and we want to start on the Right with a single page. This tab should look like this

Next we are gonna hop on over to the Color Tag the long of the short of this is we want to work in CMYK/8. I'm specifically working with the color space used by Mixam within CMYK/8, but your computers default should be fine here, so just set your Color Format to CMYK8, and let it choose the default for Color Profile.

I don't personally set Transparent Backgrounds because I think they're a fucking eyesore, but that's dealer's choice and if you prefer them what's wrong with you good for you.

Color Management is really a pretty complex topic I'm not really good at talking about because I don't have the knowledge I should on it (I've largely worked in Black and White!), but here is a really solid primer on why we want to work in CMYK over RGB, and why that's so important for printing.

Hopping over to the Margins and Bleed tags, we are gonna do some minor changes to the default. If you're laying out something over say 60 pages I'd look at editing the inner margins here a bit.

I'm gonna go off the Mixam Full Bleed Print guidelines, and give myself some extra space for safety, but if your printer has other thoughts you should follow those instead. I've found that generally these guidelines work for most projects so you're usually safe to follow this bit as is. If you don't know what Margins or bleed are, I'd just read through the full bleed print guidelines linked above because it's a great primer. If you don't care or already know, keep reading.

For Margins we are gonna include margins and set our inner margins to 1 inch, and our outer/top/bottom margins to .5 inches

For Bleed we are gonna set everything to .25 inches for safety, Mixam only needs .125 inches.

Finally, so we don't have to go through this every single time, we are going to save this setup by clicking the button up top (next to where it says Letter* on my screen). I'm calling mine Mixam Half Letter Zine so I can remember it next time.

FINALLY you can click Create at the bottom right of the popup, and if you've done it right you should be greeted with a screen that looks somewhat like this

Now we're gonna set up some Master pages, font and paragraph styles, baseline grids, and guides to get the best looking zine possible.

At the top of the screen we wanna go to View->Preview mode, and make sure its unselected. This is gonna make sure we can see all the setup we are doing now, you can unselect it at any time (by hitting the toggle or Ctrl+shift+w) to see what the zine looks like without our guidelines on once we get them setup. Also on the view menu we want to turn on basically everything except Grid in the top bit. Here's what your menu should look like, and what your page will look like if things are setup right!

Okay so lets start with Masters! Setting up a good flexible master page or two is a great way to make sure your Zine keeps a consistent look throughout, and it carries your setup across pages! Look to the top left of the working space, and lets go work on Master A by double clicking on it.

I'm going to setup a quick set of guides just so I can lay things out a bit easier! While on Master A hit View->Guides and under Column Guides we are gonna add in 2 Columns and 3 Rows with a Gutter of .125 inches. The margins should be correct, and we want the Spread to be at x:0 y:0 which it should by default. In a lot of circles you will hear this called The Grid, but my friend Clayton did a great guide on this already so I'm linking that here. I also like to set some Horizontal and Vertical guides just so I know where the exact center of the working area is, so I'm going to make 2 Vertical Guides at 2.5 and 8.5, and a Horizontal Guide at 4.25 inches. The long of the short here is this gives us a lot of room to snap things to in the future. I set my Column Guide to pink to make it stand out a little more, but when you export this it'll disappear so just set it to whatever color works best for you.

With the master set, click back over to Page 1, and you should see it now has a series of guidelines based on this master. Hell yeah.

Lets move on to text styles now! These are going to save you a lot of hassle in the future with making sure everything matches, and works how you like. Double check that you're off the Master, and then lets make a text box using the Frame Text Tool, and lets get ourselves a text box somewhere on this page. The placement doesn't SUPER matter here because we are just going to erase it at the end.

Toss a few lines of text into this box, I usually use Title, Header, Body Text, and then 3 lines of Bullet Text

Now we are gonna hop into the Text Styles menu. I keep mine pinned on screen, but if it isn't visible, you can find it under Windows->Text->Text Styles

Now highlight each of these lines of text, and double click the appropriate text style from this menu (ie we are gonna set Title to Header 1, Header to Header 2, etc). It'll look something like this when you're done

Now we're gonna change each of these lines of text to look how we want! For the example I'm making my titles and headers in Bellybeans FG, and setting the rest of the text to Open Dyslexic and resizing them so they look good.

My page looks like this now

Now's a great time to mention that there is a difference between Rich and True black, and it's confusing and it fucks a lot of folks up. The link up above (the primer on CMYK above RGB) talks some about your blacks, and links to a follow up article about them! You can skip reading any of that for now (but like you should), because the tldr here is going to be make SURE that if you are using Black you have the color set to c:0 y:0 m:0 k:100 if you don't wanna have issues later!

Now we want to update our font styles to match! To do this we are going to go back and individually highlight each line of text, and then right click the matching Text Style, and hit Update. The screens should look like this.

Next we are gonna set up a baseline grid! This makes it so that text on one side of a spread is gonna line up correctly with text on the opposite side of the page, and just helps with making pages look good and even! We want to set the grid Relative to the Top Margin, and then set the spacing to whatever you feel is correct in your heart of hearts. These are the settings I've used, but do whatever looks good here, there are probably some hard and fast rules for how to do this well, but I do not know them.

On my specific example you can see my Bullets are really spread out, and I don't like that, but the Body Text lays out much nicer. Lets deal with some spacing issues!

We are gonna hop on over to the Paragraph tab now, for me this is another tab on the Text Styles Window, but if you don't have it visible Windows->Text->Paragraph should bring it up.

So for me personally I want all my bullets to be on the following line, and not skip a whole line between them. I'm going to highlight all my text, and in this menu I'm going to go to Spacing > Space After Paragraph and set the amount to 0 pts.

You can also go further into this tab to change some more rules about what your bullets look like (things like how big your tabstops are, what the bullets look like, etc) but I'm not getting into that here!

After all this I'm gonna hop back into text styles, highlight each line of bullets, and Right Click->Update style on each of them (Just like we did previously!)

It's really tempting to skip this section of setting up your zine, but it enables a lot that can really help you out a ton in the long run. Having standardized Headers allows easy updating of headers and titles across the document, easy setup of Table of Contents for folks using them, and also on export is going to auto-bookmark the pdf for folks using PDF formats. It really pays to take time and set things like this up correctly the first time. After you're happy that this all looks good, you can go ahead and erase this text box.

Now we can break into zine layout proper, but if you just wanted basics you can stop here! Whatever you do from here is gonna print pretty decently.

If you'd like to stick around I'm going to set up some slightly nicer master pages, talk about why I use multiple masters, set up page numbers, and get us a table of contents!

So from hereon I'm just gonna work on laying out a basic Zine. So let's hop back into our Master Pages, and start setting up some flexible masters. I know I want at least two masters, one where I have text on both pages, and one where I only have text on the rightmost page. For right now we are going to just work on the spread with text on both pages, so I'm going to create a text box on both pages within the spread that fills the entirety of that guide we set up earlier. On the leftmost page, I'm going to right click the text box with the Frame Text Tool selected, and I'm going to choose to Insert Filler Text so I can see how everything looks.

Make sure this text is in your Body Text Style, and then click the little triangle on the text box

I'm now gonna select the textbox on the rightmost of the spread. If you did it properly, your page should look somewhat like this.

After I'm happy with this page, I'm going to erase the text in both boxes. I wanna add in some page numbers now. They aren't going to fit in the boxes here, but if you remember correctly I left myself a little bit of wiggle room when I set up the margins! Mixam needs .25 in clear, but my boxes are all .5 inches from the edges of the page. To make sure I don't egress the space too badly here, I'm going to set up a new horizontal guide from the View->Guides page we used previously, and I'm going to set this guide at 8.25 in which is the true bottom edge of our workable space.

I'm going to create new text boxes for our page numbers that line up with the outer edges of our guides, and the new true-bottom line I just set up.

It looks like this, but there's an eye icon which means no text in this box is going to be visible!

No worries this is because our baseline grid isn't playing nicely here, we are gonna break it in a moment, but for the mean time lets right click this text box, and select Insert Fields->Page Number

On the left page I'm also going to Bold and Left Align this box, but otherwise keep it in my Body Text Style. With the text all highlighted, I'm going to hop into the Paragraph window again, and scroll down to Baseline Grid->Align to Baseline Grid, and turn that option off.

My page now correctly shows a single # in the spot I'd want my page numbers to be. When this master is used, that number will automatically update to be correct! I'm going to duplicate this text box, and drag it onto the right page of the spread, and set the alignment to Right. I'm going to refill the textboxes with Filler Text for a moment, and turn Preview Mode on so I can make sure I like the page. For me this master now looks like this

I'm going to duplicate this master now, and on the left page of the spread I'm going to remove both text boxes. I like to name my masters so I know what they are at a quick glance. This is going to leave me a second master that looks like this.

You can get really involved on your master pages generally! I'm not doing anything fancy with this one, but previous projects have that heavily used masters might have pages that look more intense and include things like photo boxes, more complicated sets of text boxes, and even some text to use as a guide as I go.

Lets hop back to Page 1 of our doc, and leave the masters behind

Page 1 is going to be the title page for the book, but it likely now has a bunch of details now that you don't particularly need. If you have a master you don't want on a page, you can right click the page, and click Clear Masters.

I'm almost out of images on this post so I am gonna go mostly imageless from hereout. I'm gonna toss some text on pages, and then make a table of contents, and get my page numbers fixed up since most people don't actually want to count the Cover as Page 1 as far as page numbering goes.

With the project laid out, and the pages where I want them, the actual "Page 1" is going to start on Page 5 for me. Looking at the pages on the left side, I'm going to right click Page 5, and click Start New Section. On this new section I'm going to fill it out so the new section starts on page 5, and restarts the numbering at 1. Here's what it looks like for me.

On page 3 I want to include a Table of contents so if the ToC window isn't visible I'm gonna hit Window->References->Table of Contents, and then in this window I'm going to hit the insert button. You can really dial in a lot of settings here, but as long as you've been using those Text Styles I mentioned previously, it should be pretty easy! Since I've been using only Heading 2 to start chapters, I'm going to unselect Heading 1 since it is effectively only being used on the ToC page and the cover, and I don't think folks need help finding those. This ToC feature rocks and as long as your page numbers are correct, and you use your text styles it should auto-update! If it doesn't there's a refresh ToC button on this window as well. Regardless (and perfectly using my 30th image) this is what it looks like for me now.

You'll also note I updated the text styles here as well! Anyway this is a real overview of zine layout for print, there's probably more things I should cover, but I'm out of images and tired so I'm leaving it here. If this was helpful I'm gonna put this template up on my itch after I clean it up some down the line.

I'm gonna have to come back with a Part 2 that talks about exporting and whatnot, but this is all I can realistically fit in a post for now.

If you get any use out of this and wanna throw a few bucks my way you can do that here

and if you have any questions I'll answer what I can! Just shoot me an ask on here, or like annoy me on my discord (its in my pinned post)

okay thanks bye

#skillshare #this one is gonna need a followup and I will make it one day but I ran out of images #I keep threatening to stream this so if thats something folks want I actually will I s2g

133 notes · View notes

geeklania · 1 year

Video

youtube

Hablemos de la actualización 2.0.3 de #AffinityV2 con una pequeña reflexión sobre el futuro, mostrando el nuevo atajo de teclado del Generador de formas y el error que se mantiene activo en Windows con la herramienta cuchillo en #AffinityDesigner2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrvdPd3lF3o

#affinity v2 #Affinity Designer 2 #Affinity Publisher 2 #Affinity Photo 2 #youtube #canal de youtube #youtubers #español #actualización

0 notes

campgender · 3 months

Text

Do you have a light?

The bigger one shifts her eyes like a grizzly bear guarding her young. She squeezes the other girl’s hand.

Do you know where you are, honey?

Yes. I’m at a dyke bar.

You here with friends?

Not tonight. Why?

The skinny one shakes her head and laughs.

It’s just—no offense, but you look like a fag hag. Like a straight girl who comes to these places with her gay guy friends, and expects the butches to just fall all over her. Or like a bisexual. Sorry. You don’t look like a real lesbian.

She wasn’t entirely wrong. My queer identity is, to an extent, based on my intimate friendships with gay men and my affinity for aspects of their specific culture. I went to my senior prom with an entourage of theater fags, and we styled my hair and makeup to look like some grotesque combination of Mae West and Joan Crawford, complete with fake lashes and lips painted in a huge red bow. I wiggled around in a lacy vintage dress that barely contained my curves. When I look at photos from that night, I realize that the campy display is one way I perform my gender. I’m a hag, and I’m a femme. Both of these names are important to me. Unfortunately, people seem to believe and understand only the first one.

from “Confessions of a Fag Hag Femme” by Sasha Elise Cohen

published in Visible: A Femmethology, Volume 2, ed. Jennifer Clare Burke (2009)

#sasha elise cohen #femme #fem #dyke4fag #fag4dyke #fag hag #mac’s bookshelf #biphobia #everything goes back to femme #fucking fav

15 notes · View notes

denniswilsonzine · 2 months

Text

Had a burst of energy/inspiration/itch to get zining again over the last few days

& been finally doing the hard work of adjusting articles from issue 1 & 2 for print, revisiting old feelings re some of the personal content, changing font sizes (one whole section had a font that looked good on screen but ended up looking far too big on the text print), adjusting/improving layouts, updating/revising text where needed, adding bleed and checking any urls still work + changing them to visible text not hyperlinks.

Decided to change the image of me wearing the Forever t-shirt from the original version as I feel better about myself now.

The original Viz Elvis Presley Dambusters clock plate of Tutankhamun collage was tiny res, I had to upscale it & recreate the text in Affinity Photo. - managed to re-find my scan of the advert & get a screengrab of Dennis performing You Are So Beautiful. (found a really good free upscaler at Upscale Media)

youtube

That handwriting font was really annoying me (looks a bit too messy, not happy with some of the joined letters & not sure it's going to be readable enough when actually printed) so I've almost completely changed it from Biro script font to Conté Script, since taking the screenshots, after going through a whole load of font samples til the word beautiful lost all meaning . Also the first spread doesn't quite look like that now, I've added some more graphics.

All layout design was done in version 1 of Affinity Publisher (some of the original layout etc. for the pdf issue 1 was done with a dodgy copy of Indesign).

#Zining in progress #work in progress #zine updates #Dennis Wilson #fanzine #fanzines #zines #zine #Affinity Publisher #Affinity Photo #wip #zine layouts #You Are So Beautiful #youtube #Youtube

10 notes · View notes

greenhorn-art · 8 months

Text

Prince of Shadows, Lord of Thieves by alkat

Fandom: The King's Avatar | 全职高手

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Category: Gen

Words: 1 929

Once upon a time, their exploits were immortalized by artists and writers across the tapestry of history. Once upon a time, they were worshipped as gods and reviled as demons. None of that stopped the Met from stealing all their shit.

About the Book

FONTS: Alegreya [Google Fonts], Lato [Google Fonts]

IMAGES: all art made by myself @greenhorn-art for this fic

MATERIALS: regular ol' printer paper (8.5"x11", 20lb, 96 bright); ~2-2.5mm binder's board; Neenah cardstock (8.5"x11", 65lb, bright white); Cialux bookcloth (black); waxed linen thread (30/3 size, white); wheat paste (1:4 flour:water); paste wax (from a friend, unknown ingredients&quantities, some kind of wax and turpentine/mineral spirits)

PROGRAMS USED: Affinity Publisher 2; Affinity Designer 2; Bookbinder JS | Renegade's Community Imposer (settings: Quarto, snug against binding edge, custom signatures of 2, 1, 2 sheets).

Text & QR codes printed with colour laser printer (duplex, flip long edge), images printed with inkjet printer. QR codes generated with LibreOffice Writer, snipped, saved, and inserted where needed.

BINDING: quarto (quarter-letter) size, sewn board binding with french link stitch and breakaway spine.

So this one all started because the visual of HST's outfit was so fun that I was possessed by a visceral need to draw it. Inspiration slapped me across my mind's eye, and much like a medieval knight being slapped in the face by a glove (which didn't actually happen, that's a myth that sprung from the throwing down of a gauntlet. but that's beside the point), I felt bound to take up the challenge. Which lead me to draw a few more, and then I ended up binding the whole thing.

(Also, I find it really amusing that the famous Terracotta Warriors were just storage for YXs stuff. And the gang going 'shopping' at various exhibits for gifts for friends/family,, like that sure is SOME window shopping! I can hear it now: 'Oooh I'll take one one those SMASH, and that SHATTER, and throw in some of those CRASH, they're going to love these! 😇'. All in all, it was a fun little read, and fun little project! :D)

About the Art

Because this was initially a one-off drawing I tried a new art style (and struggled to at least not stray too far for the rest). It was fun and helped me think more about shape and visual focus, instead of being caught up in the details.

The crow (based off of image ID: 4039963 from Rawpixel) and the red umbrella on the front cover were filled curves made with the pen tool. The illustrations' poses were based off of a combination of images found on Google and photos taken by myself.

Pinterest is awful for sources, but it would have been handy to pin the references I'd googled. Only remembered to save the one of a man sitting at a desk. (I deliberately searched for someone sitting with bad posture because YX is described as being "slumped" over the desk. I figure that since "the laws of physics held no meaning to ["cursed souls eschewed by the natural order"]", they'd also be immune to mundane things like discomfort from sitting hunched over for too long. Back pain images were a gold mine! All I had to do was choose one with lighting that would give me a silhouette.)

The Myriad Manifestations Umbrellas and illustrations were drawn in Procreate.

I opted for a more plain umbrella design because it's not (presumably) a fantastical weapon in this story. Though the initial version did have YX cradling the donghua!MMU.

For the scene breaks I inserted the images, pinned them inline as character, and adjusted height and baseline in the pinning menu to fit.

The author wrote one scene break differently than the others, using multiple empty paragraphs instead of just one. Following suit, I used a different image for that particular break. I wanted to reference vampires somewhere, so for that break I made two bloody spots resembling bite marks. The blood spots were made with a group of shapes in Designer.

On cover design:

Because the MMU is what sparks the whole heist, I wanted it on the front cover.

Earlier iterations involved a full cover spread with a man's shadow standing before a shattered glass case, with a plaque mounted on the wall to the left providing information. The plaque was formatted like a museum label and had the author, date published, title, event collection, and story description. I'd also added a QR code to it. Ultimately, I abandoned the concept because it was difficult to decipher what is was when only looking a one cover at a time.

My second idea for the cover would have been a bookcloth-only cover with a cut-out of the MMU on the front, acting like a window showing off an image of the MMU on paper below it. (Inspired by the work of a number of folks over on Renegade's Discord. Here's a few examples gleaned from a quick search: szynkaaa's lung cutouts, some of EHyde's books, and the front cover of Spock's massive all-in-one TGCF). As fun as that would have been to try out, I felt it didn't quite suit the style of the art so I nixed that too.

Eventually I landed on the back cover design with the Met exhibition webpage. At last, I felt that the back & white and simple-shapes-background went with the artwork. The webpage viewed on the phone is based off of the Met's actual website. I took a snip/screenshot of the Met's logo from the banner at the top, then looked at their exhibitions' pages and eyeballed it to create my own. (Threw in the QR because I wanted the easy access to the fic online on the back cover). I chose to use a phone screen rather than I computer monitor because it worked better composition-wise. And besides, while YX may be allergic to owning a phone, SMC is not. I imagine that she saw the news while on her phone then messaged him.

The front cover came together after that. An umbrella for the MMU, and a pop of red. One of YX's messenger crows. A black shape in the background similar to the back cover's, sort of creating a spotlight over the umbrella and placing the rest of the cover in shadow.

Trying New Things: Applying a protective finish to printed covers

Over on the Renegade Bindery Discord, folks have spoken about using a beeswax & turpentine/mineral spirits 50-50 mix to seal printed covers (thank you Kate). According to my dad that's just a paste wax, so he threw 3 different ones at me and said 'have at it'.

I tested them out using the same paper and inkjet I'll use for the cover. I was looking at 1) whether the paste wax affected the paper colour or print quality, and 2) the finish. After applying one coat each and buffing them out I had my winner. Then I applied & buffed two more coats to it and tested 3) water resistance by dripping tea on it. The liquid beaded up and wiped away without staining -- good, three coats will work nicely.

(Test results: Mystery paste wax from a friend wins.

The commercial SC Johnson Paste Wax Original formula (intended for woodworking) has a nice dry shiny finish, but coloured the paper slightly brown -> disqualified

My dad's homemade stuff has a nice shiny/satin finish and didn't change paper's colour, but it felt slightly tacky even after buffing it -- maybe I didn't buff it enough?

The gifted paste wax has a matte finish, didn't change paper's colour (in the image below this one has 3 coats. The paper is now slightly off-white, but still acceptable), and while not as dry-to-touch as the Johnson it was not as tacky as the other homemade stuff.)

When I print out my quarto covers, I print front and back covers side-by-side on the same page*, with some guides to ensure I'm cutting and gluing in the correct place. (The guides mark the boundaries of the covers and start of the turn-ins, and stop at the edge of where I cut. Before cutting I flip it over to mark the guides [see marks indicated in image below] on the wrong side and connect them so I can see where to glue/place book. Then flip it back over to cut, right side up.)

*I'm being economical here at the cost of possible warping damage. This layout means that I'm only using one sheet of paper, but the grain is running in the wrong direction (across the book instead of preferred head-to-tail/top-bottom). This could cause warping issues, but I'm OK with that. I'm hoping that by just gluing at the edges, instead of pasting down the whole thing, warping will be minimized. (I use wrong-grain endpapers most of the time with larger books anyways).

I applied the paste wax before cutting out the covers, working carefully to avoid accidentally creasing/bending the paper (which happened twice, but it was minimal and I hardly notice it). Doing so before cutting ensured that the cover material was completely covered. Even the turn-ins -- something I later came to regret. After all, wax is used specifically so that things don't stick to it. It made it rather difficult to drum on the endpapers because I was trying to glue something down onto a waxy surface. It all worked out in the end -- perhaps due to the fact that there were multiple layers of wheat paste which could adhere to each other, followed by being squashed in a press.

#Prince of Shadows Lord of Thieves #alkat #fanfiction #bookbinding #my art #the king's avatar #qzgs #tka

92 notes · View notes