I did promise to show my process of making backgrounds so here it is 🙆‍♀️✨

to start off--here's the line layer before I begin adding anything:

I still think this composition is a bit weird, but...eh 🤷‍♀️

next, I compile all of the references I've spent numerous hours foraging for:

these are all from basic google searches; for this piece, I looked for images relevant to the theme, so we have some vintage military manuals, illustrations, even a real army application form that I filled out in Johnny's name 😅 sources for these can vary, but I've had good luck perusing ebay listings for a lot of these scans 👍

next, I kind of just...scatter them around the page, seeing what fits where, keeping the figures as the focus but letting the background fill out around them:

I then start adjusting them more, utilizing various overlay options (hard light/ pin light/ multiply/ color burn are usually my go-to ones in PS) it takes some fiddling to see what looks best:

then I add a few more personal additions for flavor ✨

next, I adjust the colors a bit:

then I adjust the colors even more, bringing out the electric blue and pink to make it pop

here's the full bg without the figures:

and here's the completed piece:

as you can see, I did add a few more elements in the end, as well as adjusting the colors further with the addition of the fully rendered figures 🙆‍♀️

all in all--this is pretty much how I create all my backgrounds, like a fun little scrapbooking project~

✨ Goal Round-Up✨

I had a few art goals for 2023, so let’s see how I did!

Illustrate a scene from my fic series: ✅ Though not the fic series I was expecting! I still want to illustrate a scene from my Rhys and Yor series, as well as make more chapter art for my bg3 fic.

Learn how to digitally paint: ✅ I'm really really happy with my Lies of P painting, and I definitely want to continue practicing this skill in 2024!

Practice poses and hands with studies: ❌Though I did get a lot of practice drawing hands with my beans.

Make an art tutorial video: ❌I got about halfway done with my underwater rendering tutorial and then ran out of steam. Maybe I'll get it done in time for MerMay this year lol

Create 100 pieces by New Year’s Eve: ✅ I drew 115 in 2023!

✨NEW YEAR, NEW GOALS✨

Here are my goals for 2024:

Practice poses and hands with studies

Make an art tutorial video

Practice animation

Create 100 pieces by New Year's Eve

A huge thank you to all my amazing followers and supporters, you all inspire me and make being an artist on Tumblr so much fun! Love you all 🥰

YEAAAAAAAAAYYY IF SINALLY DONE!! 🎉 ✨🔥💀

✨1st artwork: Have you ever seen a Tennessean and a Romanian interact? Yeah.. Well, I did. I’m Romanian and my Bff is the Tennessean

HAHAHAH!!

DONT ASK ME WHY- I really just wanted to draw my and my BFFs Country interacting with eachother based on our crazy crackhead discussions togheter 🔥✨🤣

Don’t worry guys she’s fine, she’s also a crack head as well and Tennesee too.. Just maybe Romania on a different level- but we don’t talk about that *ahem* anyway! I Had so much fun working on this especially being able to kind of create some type of accurate small design for Tennessee! I Tennesse more square-like since Tennesse is not as round but rather more like a rectangular form so I wanted to convey that into him while- *ahem* Romania is more rounded but don’t be fooled by his soft look 👁👁💦

Poor boy he’s beyond confused and rather scared for his life…. And then there’s just Romania- 💀🔥✨

As always, it seems I can never stick just to a small doodle and simple render- NO I have to go on FULL-ON ARTWORK Because I always have to do things over the top at least it looks awesome UvU✨

✨2nd artwork: And as for America- well 🫢

I wanted to represents Romania being mad at America for not giving his people health insurance.

My best friend kept on telling me how bad health insurance is in America and I couldn’t help not to feel awful and mad for What was happening there so I could see Romania being like this towards Americ. Romania would surely try his best to keep the people healthy 🫠🥲

Do you think America deserves this 👀💀🤣

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

What do you guys think? Would Romania and Tennessee get along? Or Tennesse should rather give Romania a piece of bread just to survive this encounter? Let me know down in the comments 👁👁

Talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique, completely not ever been done before, unafraid to reference or not reference, put it in a blender etc. I’m beside myself rn! It was everything I could’ve hoped for and more, GOD. I had to wait for literal hours till I was finally able to get home and read this but it was worth every excruciating second lmao the talent that you are 🤧  

Look, I’ll be completely honest. When I sent that prompt over at @priapus-at-the-gate I wanted nothing more than a good ol’ PWP inspired by a couple of sentences in Devil’s Minion that had been driving me insane for a while, but you gave us one of the most fascinating, layered, entertaining, HOT character studies ever. You’re so insane for this THEY’RE so insane!!!

I feel like sometimes, as a fandom, we tend to forget that one of the key factors in Armand and Daniel’s relationship, and probably one of the main reasons they were so attracted to each other, was their constant switching/willingness to take turns in being the submissive and dominant partner. Of course Armand was always the most powerful of the two but he genuinely loved to yield for Daniel, he’d never been as submissive as he was whenever he was catering to Daniel’s every whim. “Anything you want, Daniel”, and he meant it. Anne herself said so explicitly a few times, they were truly the OG vers kings. And this is such a fantastic take on that crucial aspect of their dynamic, on their endless curiosity and the need to get to know each other inside out, even through play acting! And how they just fit together like puzzle pieces even when they switch places.

Some of my favorite bits, in no particular order: Daniel being the embodiement of Gentleman Death throughout the whole thing, Louis come pat your boy in the back, he’s doing so well!!! Sweet and gentle, but strong and commanding. Of course Armand was losing his shit over it. How he went from pretending to not having to pretend, not really, he was every bit of a flustered 17 y/o, rendered speechless by some tall, handsome man. Him putting on Daniel’s glasses, playing around with the cigarrette, Daniel lighting it for him, the secondhand kiss, the actual biting in the bathroom!!! Daniel committed to the bit and it paid off 🥹 he’s the definition of “veni, vidi, vici” when it comes to all things Armand fr. 

Phew

✨perfection✨

I can’t thank you enough, this one will stay with me for a while xoxo DA ❤️

YAY I'm so glad you liked it!! I was stressed about it, I wasn't sure the whole idea telegraphed but I guess from the response it did!

But of course it couldn't be PWP, I can't do anything simple haha And I just kept thinking, how would that situation arise? Because sure, Daniel could just chew on his neck until Armand gets the picture, but I think a pretend interview is just so much more fun. Even though Armand didn't go on stage much he clearly loves acting for mortals when he and Daniel go out to make friends, so I just think he'd have fun with it.

But YES I think it's so easy to fall into the trap of Daniel being his willing victim all the time when really they both enjoy both roles! I was nervous to write that for a long time because it felt like fandom expected Daniel to be the one submitting. But I'm so so happy everyone is super into him being in charge there, I really wanna write more of it! I think he's so awesome taking the lead and it's so hot for Armand to get to let go and let himself be enjoyed. And you're right, Anne said it herself that Armand yielded to Daniel in so many ways! Really by trying to please him, he was the one submitting all along.

God I didn't even think of the Louis parallel but you're so right. Daniel takes Gentleman Death to a modern and hot place and I think that is a special thing for Armand. Of course he goes pliant for the two guys who are gentle lovers when they go for the kill.

I'm so happy you loved it!! It was a good prompt, it deserved a developed response ♥ And I'd do it again any time for you!

I drew the same character about 100 days apart. Here’s what happened.

During the holidays I was given an iPad for the first time, and a friend graciously paid for me to download Procreate. I was struggling and stagnant using paper and pencil, and a shaky hand was making it very difficult to continue. Regardless, I wanted to keep going.

So I decided my first digital piece on here would be my Pokémon OC Cady - short for Arcadia - because I had a much more solid concept on her than my other OCs. At the time I was happy with the piece, and didn’t let myself get deterred. Clearly I still had a lot to learn.

From there it became about continuing to draw just about daily. Taking my time with the pieces instead of just rushing through to “complete them so I could comm someone else”. Not having to fight with colors and not having the right pencil was also a huge bonus.

Over time, bit by bit, I practiced with the different brushes and how to make different layers work in my favor. Eventually that same good friend who paid for my program also gave me some pointers on how to render soft skin, and I’ve never looked back.

For drawing Cady again, I knew I wanted to show off my anatomy progress and the shaded skin. Maybe mess with transparency of mesh. A lingerie piece seemed the best idea, so I went that route… Aside from a scene it made me think of which worked out to keep motivation.

The end result was this gorgeous piece that I could not be more proud of… The skin shading, flushing of body parts, and the pose telling a story… Muah, chef’s kiss ✨

I know it’s been said time and time again, but when it comes to art… Keep fucking going. You don’t have to finish the piece on the same day, if at all! Have fun with it and keep practicing, one day you will get there. Don’t be afraid to step outside your comfort zone. ❤️

I have ALWAYS wanted to get better at drawing people, but I think my talents lie with more cartoony things. Like, when I was a teen I was all about drawing adventure time characters 🤭 but drawing animals with hats has been my thing lately lmaooo. I drew an otter with a beanie the other day, but he was looking a little deformed, so I had to send him to the void lmao. Don’t get me wrong though, I still practice with faces all the time. I’m just kinda in the beginning stages of my art era, so I still have a loooong way to go haha.

But that’s one of the reasons why I love tumblr so much. I feel like in art school or other “professional” settings, they’re just looking for ways to pick your work apart and critique it, but here it’s just like “omg, look at THAT!! You did such a good job!!”. I really thought it was great and you SHOULD be VERY proud of it!!

And yeah! I used to be involved in both, but atm I’m working on becoming a theatre teacher! My favorite part about it is the costumes, so I’ve taken as many costume design courses as I could. My professor was an asshole, but I think I’ve improved a lot on my end. My FAVORITE thing I did was creating costume renderings for my theatre history class. The costumes styles that have been created throughout the years are SO freakin cool, so it was fun to recreate some while also adding my own little ✨touches✨

And omg, I TOTALLY GET THAT. It’s fun to take your aggressions out on fictional characters sometimes. Very therapeutic 😌 You’re not gonna get any judgment from me about that 😉

Omg I also drew adventure time characters!!!!!! It’s such a fun style :) I’m on a rewatch of adventure time rn actually 😚

See it’s amazing to me that you can draw animals because I find animals kinda tough to draw, I should really practice them more!!

in critique at art school there’s this weird psychological thing that happens where if the first person that critiques your piece says something negative, then EVERY person after them will also say something negative. It’s really weird. I’m not a psych major so I have no idea why it happens (group think maybe?) but that happened to me at art school a lot and usually when I was already pushing myself VERY hard. Art school made me lose my passion for art for a long time before I got it back. Haha ANYWAY

sorry ur professor was an asshole, that is always the worsttttt!! I would love to see some of ur costume designs sometime anon 😍

i apologise in advance, Xiaoli’s life was utterly miserable and i’m making it worse for fun. tbh it’s for good reason and it makes the happy moments (and ending) so much more well deserved

basically as a lieutenant in france during world war one he was kinda known for being pretty tough on people but his Captain who served under him, Jim Farlow, was one of the few people he really got on with. They ended up being best friends kinda thing but Xiaoli didn’t realise Jim had a thing for him until Jim made out with him as they were writing reports and Xiaoli was like “oh shit this is way better than kissing women”. But for a while they pretended it was a mistake (despite still making out and stuff) and then they finally caved and decided to just accept they really liked each other. HOWEVER. Xiaoli is married with a wife an daughter and kinda starts to realise he likes it better with Jim but obviously can’t say anything about it to his wife. tbh it’s a pretty normal unspoken thing for that to happen in the army lol but Xiaoli still stresses about it.

His regiment are travelling between fronts through deserted french towns and stuff but they’re ambushed. Xiaoli and Jim are caught up in an explosion from a grenade hitting their fuel canisters. They’re both taken to a field hospital then a military one away from the lines. Xiaoli is rendered blind with burns on one side of his face. Jim is worse off as he tried to protect Xiaoli - he broke his spine and is covered in burns from the fuel. he dies pretty soon after and Xiaoli is sent home alone. His wife can’t handle looking after him with his PTSD and nightmares, and their daughter is terrified of him so she decides it’s better to leave, especially when she figures out Xiaoli met someone else and that she fell out of love with him.

Xiaoli still wears his wedding ring on a necklace with a piece of Jim’s hair in a locket. he can’t let them go. and it makes it so much harder on him with Hatter because of the guilt he has for Jim and his wife and kid especially when hatter has feelings for him but doesn’t know how to comfort Xiaoli trying to muddle his way through the grief. oh and Xiaoli is convinced it’s his fault Jim died trying to save him. so much ✨angst✨ especially when Xiaoli partly wants to reciprocate Hatters feelings but feels like he can’t. HE WANTS TO BE HAPPY BUT ISNT LETTING HIMSELF! he KNOWS he can choose to be happy with Hatter and WANTS to be happy but he can’t let go of the past. it kinda projects onto Hatter and his fears of losing the ones he loves so he straight up gaslights himself into thinking that he doesn’t have any feelings at all just so he doesn’t have to go through the grief again or let Hatter get hurt if he fails him like he did Jim and his family 🙃

Hatter is definitely convinced Xiaoli doesn’t like him in that way too so imma keep making this a whole lot worse for them. tbh it’s so much more satisfying when they do actually admit their feelings

Hiya friends!✨ I finally made an Etsy for my embroidery and would love for you all to check it out! During these crazy times of covid I’ve been able to make a lot of really fun things and the end of my senior year of art school brought one of my favorite projects to date, embroidered letters. If you don’t know me, which you probably don’t, I’ve been studying graphic design and after 5 years I’ve finally graduated. Covid took a lot away from me and my fellow graduates. Our senior show we’d been working so hard in got cancelled, other shows I was to be a part of got cancelled, and I didn’t get to soak up those last few months of inspiration and motivation from my teachers and fellow students. It really fucked with me. People have it a lot harder out there and I recognize that, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get to feel the sadness that came with my last, most important semester being cut short. With that all being said I have had the time to be creative and I hope you all enjoy my works and maybe buy something or share with your friends! Anything is greatly appreciated. Also, working on some commissioned pieces so if you ever have a design you would love to see message me and I’d love to create something beautiful for you! Much love, Shelbs💗