Hi there! I really love your comics and how expressive they are. How do you go about making the characters in your comic so expressive?
thank you! 💚💜💚 I am REALLY bad at explaining things, so my apologies if this doesn't make a lot of sense, but maybe there's something helpful in here somewhere. :')
1. warm up! drawing is a physical activity, after all! so if I'm planning on sitting down and drawing for a while, I usually start off by taking a couple of minutes to doodle a bunch of circles and lines and random shapes, just to get my drawing arm goin' again and get back into the physical groove. just stuff like this:
and just do that for however long you feel like! you can kind of feel when your arm starts to loosen up and your strokes get more confident. it makes it a lot easier to get those swoopy big lines and gestures!
2. play around with how you use your lines! paying attention to the shapes that they're making will change a lot about how much force and life your drawing feels like it has. (no way is better than another, it just depends on what effect you're going for and how it looks as part of the larger whole.)
and you can also use lines against each other to get different vibes:
it's not really a matter of "you need to make sure all your lines are always doing this all the time", it's more like...being aware of it, and getting that into the general thrust of a pose, if that makes sense? like a lot of smaller lines of action, beyond the big one that goes through the spine.
(just gonna use my own art as examples, apologies)
if you have a good foundation of tension, then all of the little bumps and contours of a character's details won't get in the way of it, and it'll still come through.
and don't forget about negative space either! the spaces between things have their own interesting shapes too!
I don't mean this to come off as, like, all these extra things that you need to be constantly thinking about and stressing over. more like...just try different stuff and then see how it works and how it changes the feeling! if you find a good shape, see if you can exaggerate it and make it more interesting, and how that affects things! angles and shapes are a LOT of fun to experiment and mess around with, especially when you're going more cartoony. :D
3. acting!
just...spending a little time to think about what the characters are actually doing! (aka the "figuring out what everyone is doing with their hands" bit.) this is more a personal preference, but especially in multi-panel comics, I like to have them be in the middle of doing stuff. not just big actions, but smaller things -- like even just how they're sitting or standing -- so that it feels like we're looking in on the middle of a scene, instead of a couple of characters just standing around neutrally and staring straight ahead while talking at each other.
this probably sounds really obvious, but it is one of the most fun parts for me! I love trying to find some little action or something that they can be involved in, especially if it's relevant to their character or adds an extra joke. (for some reason this usually involves me being mean to Sebek) (I'm sorry)
it doesn't need to be everyone Always! Doing! Something! all the time, especially if starts becoming distracting (sometimes they do actually need to just be standing around neutrally and staring straight ahead, especially if there's a bigger action going on that you want the audience to focus on instead). but even just figuring out some kind of non-neutral pose for them to be in can add a lot and make it feel less generic!
3. thumbnailing!
this is, again, very much a personal preference; unfortunately, every artist really is different, and we all have different processes that work better for us. so I can only speak to my personal experience! but I find what helps is to start REALLY rough -- not so much as in messy, as in not trying to start right into actually drawing everything out. like, literally just starting with stick figures and :O faces.
it probably doesn't sound relevant when talking about Drawing Expressively, but I find it's really, really helpful to have already figured out what everyone should be doing (acting!) and what the overall general layout and flow of things should be, before getting into the actual meat of drawing the characters. like having a sketch for the sketch!
(good compositional flow is something I struggle with, and text layout especially, so this stage also helps a LOT with making sure things are fitting where I want them and staying consistent/not breaking screen direction/etc.)
then after that, I can go ahead and focus on getting those Shapes and Lines and Angles and all that, without having to think too much about the layout or where things should go!
(of course, the downside of that is that my thumbnails are usually way better than my actual drawings, alas alas.)
4. this is more philosophical, but...give yourself some slack. the stress of Making Things Look Good is, ironically, often the biggest problem. (see: thumbnails looking better than the actual drawings.) so...let yourself draw shittier and without regards to accuracy. make things just for yourself without thinking about posting or showing them to anyone else. draw stupid faces and wrong proportions because they feel better that way. focus on what's fun and not on getting a perfect end result. "draw expressively, not well", as they say -- you can always tighten up things like proportions and details later, if you really want to.
that's all WAY easier said than done -- god knows I haven't really managed it -- but even just aiming for that attitude really, REALLY helps. if your lines are confident, they'll look a lot more alive and expressive than lines that are exactly technically precise but have no rhythm in them. (this is why tracing photographs tends to look so weirdly stiff and unrealistic, by the way -- even if you're drawing realistically, you usually need to exaggerate and stylize a little bit so it doesn't look lifeless.) it's a balance between caring about what you draw, but also being willing to let things go a little bit.
↑ I hope some of this helps! I don't know if any of this was actually what you had in mind, let alone much of it actually made sense outside of my head. :') but hopefully you (or other people) will be able to get something out of it!
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°○ Missing | Hashira x platonic! Tsuguko! Reader Headcanon| ○°
How the hashiras react to having to fight you as a demon.
Description: It's been weeks since they had last seen you, and they were already worried over their minds. When it is officially declared that you're missing, they look all over for you, only to find you as one of the enemies.
Genre: Angst.
Characters: Giyuu Tomioka and Kyojuro Rengoku.
°○ Giyuu Tomioka ○°
Giyuu already had a bad feeling about you leaving for that mission, and seeing your condition now had proved his suspicions.
You're usually tan body was now as pale as snow, those innocent eyes with round pupils that gave your face just a bit more charm and cuteness were now paled in comparison of the color before, and your rounded pupils were now slits. Fangs had protruding from your gums, giving you the look of a monster. You had become a demon. It hurt him to see you in such a way, knowing that your cheery, sweet soul was dead, replaced with something cold and heartless.
It was his fault anyway.
If he hadn't let you go on the damn mission in the first place, none of this would've happened. Instead, he was now standing in front of a shell of who you truly were, something that was no longer the sweet, cheerful tsuguko that Giyuu had promised to protect, just like he promised for every other person who he still failed to protect in his life. He couldn't protect his sister. He couldn't protect his best friend. And now he failed to protect the last person he was truly able to care and love for, his tsuguko.
He watched as you charged forward, aming for him with nothing but pure, animalistic hunger in your eyes. He had to accept that you were no longer human. No longer the person who had changed his life for the better. Instead of enjoying a peaceful day of your return, he was standing here, getting into a stance and slicing the delicate head off your shoulders, his ocean eyes turning glossy while doing so.
Giyuu stared at your withering body with no emotion. You were gone. For good. He slowly turned around and walked away, his eyes glossy and his heart broken.
"I'm sorry, Y/n.... I couldn't protect you..." He whispered.
°○ Kyojuro Rengoku ○°
For one of the very few times in his life, Rengoku had failed to smile. His usual heart filled with warmth was now full with a mix of shock, guilt, and sorrow. He felt like he couldn't even move when his bright, firey eyes stopped upon your demonic frame. The snow-white skin, sharp claws, and weird markings all over your body told him exactly everything he needed to know.
You were a demon.
Despite the feeling of anguish in his heart, he charged forward, taking a swift slice of his bright red sword towards your pale, delicate neck. Though it hurt him to have to do such a thing to someone so dear to him, he knew it was for the great or good.
He watched as you slowly faded away, his eyes filled with sorrow as you ever so slightly disappeared from the world.
"Goodbye, Y/n. I'll see you again soon." He spoke, his eyes widening once he heard soft words emitting from the remainder of your mouth.
"Goo....dbye....juro..."
Before he could blink, you were gone. Leaving him alone to face the world once again.
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toska
Dabi x gn!reader
Warnings: soft Dabi, reader is a bit rude to Dabi in the beginning, discussions of love and how it's supposed to feel (both explanations are negative), indecisive reader, unambitious reader, talk of body hatred, and oh my god if you feel the way this reader feels I am so so so SO sorry and I hope that one day you and I can heal ; _ ; (I tried to keep Reader's body type unspecified)
toska - (roughly) a dul ache of the soul, a sick pining, a spiritual anguish; also, "Russian word roughly translated as sadness, melancholia, lugubriousness".
Unbeta'd I ride at dawn--- this started somewhere and then ended somewhere else entirely and I'm sorry.
A flame-bitten finger traces along imperfect skin - skin that shivers beneath the touch, goosebumps pebbling in the wake.
The sensation worsens when that burning hand plucks petals from a nearby flower, all blues and purples with a splash of white, and traps the supple material between a hot palm and a cool arm.
Blue eyes flicker with interest, a flash of white heat singing the petals and the near invisible hairs on your forearm. A stream of smoke rises up from beneath his palm, long fingers wrapping around your arm when you try to jerk the appendage away on reflex.
Dabi thinks your scowl is funny - he must, given that he chuckles when you narrow your eyes at him. You don’t waste your time trying to pull your arm out of his grasp. You’ve come to know that it is better for you to accept whatever new burn you’re going to have when he finally decides to let you go than fight with him and have him tighten his grasp.
“Just because you have dead pain receptors doesn't mean I do.”
The small smile on his face is whisked away by a neutral line, his grip on your arm loosening enough for you to yank it back to your person. All that meets your gaze when you inspect your skin is a red blotch, earning Dabi a sigh. You brace your hand against the stone beneath where you sit, staring listlessly toward the city below. He’d insisted that you come up to this roof with him nearly an hour ago.
He sets his hand on your thigh, ripped up flower petals fluttering around as he repeats the action, this time with the petals, and the fabric as a barrier between the brutal flash of his quirk and your flesh. You poke gently at the skin between his knuckles, tentatively touching the staples. Your fingers twitch away from the metal, scorching hot just from the small puffs of flame he let out from his palms.
“What does it feel like?”
“Like running through the snow and jumping in a hot tub.”
Dabi snorts, shaking his head while he rubs his hand slowly up and down your thigh, “right.”
“So hot that it feels cold, like leaving my hand in cold water and then putting it in a bowl of hot water. It stings and makes me think my skin is melting off my bones, at the same time as it feels like my skin is freezing and becoming brittle.”
He nods his head, his hand lifting from your thigh to touch your chest, “that’s not what I’m askin’. What does it feel like?”
“What does what feel like, fire boy?”
“Being in love.”
You peer at him closely, trying to gauge why he’s asking - or, furthermore, why he thinks that you’re in love. You’ve always wondered if you say ‘I love you’ to people because you mean it, or because they said it to you first.
But, at the same time, you can’t be sure that you don’t feel love. You don’t know what it really feels like - at least, not in the way that it's been shown in television or movies or described in books and poems.
“It feels empty.”
Dabi’s stare is weighted, resting heavily on your body.
“It feels like a dull ache, like there’s a hole in my chest that nothing will fill. It feels like losing someone important, wishing you could have them back but knowing that it’s not possible. There’s an anguish there, so deep that I can’t do anything about it, so yeah. It feels empty. It doesn’t feel real. It’s painful.”
Part of you is not surprised when Dabi pulls his hand away from you, but it dawns on you, as your heart sinks into your stomach, that he must have been asking because he thought you were in love with him.
“... what does it feel like to you?”
“Like I wanna’ hurt you. I don’t understand it, can’t comprehend it, and I want to hurt you. It’s an itch I can’t get rid of, a disgusting insect in the back of my head gnawing away at my thoughts and I despise it, and I want it to stop,” his hand returns to your thigh, and he scoots closer, one leg dangling over the edge you’re both sitting on, “can I hurt you?”
“No.”
His huff is so incredulous it causes a puff of laughter to escape you.
“That was so fuckin’ instantaneous.”
“I don’t enjoy pain.”
“What if I let you hurt me too?”
“But you can’t really feel pain anymore, D, and that means that I could potentially really hurt you and neither of us would be aware.”
“But it would be fair. I get to hurt you because I loathe how you make me feel, and you get to fill your emptiness with pain.”
“I don’t follow your logic, but I appreciate that you’re trying.”
“Unless you wanna’ fill your emptiness with somethin’ less painful?” he mutters, leaning toward you.
You go rigid, shoulders bunching up. His lips - uneven and unnatural - scrape along your neck, sending a violent shiver down your spine as your body jumps beneath the affection. He sighs through his nose, the rush of warm air eliciting a similar reaction.
“Do you like that?”
“I don’t know.”
“How can you not know?” he scoffs, moving closer despite his indignation. You have half a mind to slap his hand off your thigh.
“I don’t know how I’m supposed to react,” you turn your head to the side when Dabi decides to bury his face in your neck, tongue and teeth moving over your skin. It makes you uncomfortable. It makes you anxious. You can’t be sure the butterflies are actually a good thing as they flutter their wings throughout your stomach and chest.
It feels foreign and unnatural and you’re not sure why he insists on kissing your neck the way he is.
At the same time, you don’t do anything to stop him. Part of you hopes you can just breathe through it. Maybe…
Your anxiety grows when his strong fingers dig into your thigh, pulling at your flesh.
It takes a moment for you to work up the courage to discourage Dabi from continuing, his curious mouth moving up your neck toward your cheek. He leans back, expression unreadable save for the irritated twitch in his lip.
“You know I’m impatient,” his voice is low. Dejected. His frustration digs bruises into your thigh, and despite the pain, and the fact that you told him you don’t enjoy pain, you let him. It is better than reminding him that he’s a villain and if he’s going to be so impatient, then he should just take what he wants from you.
Dabi has always seemed to want you to be willing, rather than despondent.
“Nothing to say to that?”
You shrug, your leg jerking under his hand when he digs his fingers into it again. Words escape you until Dabi moves his hand off your leg and sighs heavily.
“This is never gonna’ go anywhere, is it?”
“No.”
“And I thought I was the villain.”
“In label only, D. You also deserve someone who knows what they want - both in life and a relationship. I can’t give you either of those things,” you shrug, the lights of the city blurring together, “unlike you, I have no ambitions. I have no purpose. I simply exist. I don’t know what I want, and haven’t known for years.”
He fishes his cigarettes out of the pocket of your sweatshirt and lights one up with a blue flicker, his movements harsh.
“So you used to know.”
“Yeah. I used to think I wanted a relationship. I used to be pretty enough to be in one.”
Dabi grumbles something under his breath, glaring at you. You tilt your head to the side, sighing through your nose, “you’re prettier than me, D.”
“Yeah? Tell me how that makes sense.”
“It doesn’t,” you mutter, surprised that he’s stayed as close to you as he has. He’s been surprisingly patient with you, “but I’ve stopped trying to make sense of it, y’know? It’s all fine and dandy until I remember I’m part of the equation. Everything about me is ugly, especially my body. I wouldn’t like it even if I was thinner - or bigger. It’s me, so it’s ugly.”
“But you think other people who share your attributes are beautiful, doll,” Dabi leans his forehead against your shoulder, “why can’t you think that about yourself?”
You suck in your cheeks, looking at him sheepishly when he raises his head.
“... you were gonna’ say that phrase, weren’t you?”
“Uh huh.”
“And you didn’t because…?”
“Because I think I’ve said it enough for one night, and you’re probably sick of hearing it. So. Um. Reasons.”
“Mm-hm. Reasons?”
“Yeah. The best. Logical. Make perfect sense reasons - definitely not illogical, or contradictory reasons!”
And to your surprise, Dabi chuckles, shaking his head as he inclines it to your shoulder again. Maybe it is nice for him to hear you try to be funny about something that is objectively not funny - or maybe he appreciates that you are already aware that your reasoning is illogical.
“Next time we should talk about something else.”
“But what if talking to me about how much you hate yourself makes y’feel better?” he counters softly, lifting his head from your shoulder to toss his cigarette away. You glance at his lips only to quickly look away when you realize he caught you.
“Isn’t that too much weight for you?” you ask just as softly. Thankfully, he knows what you mean: by comparison, your body is fine. Your body is normal.
His no longer is.
“But I understand - don’t argue with me.”
“Okay.”
“Saw you lookin’.”
You hum.
“So do it.”
You glance at him again, brows narrowing back, and your stare drifts to his lips, then back up to his eyes. He nods his head a little in encouragement.
All you can muster is to kiss him on the corner of his mouth. You let it linger, let yourself feel it, and then you pull away. Dabi brings your head to his collar, though, making you lean against him
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
You laugh airily, closing your eyes.
“It wasn’t.”
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When you say becoming a father??? Are you saying like SOON?! 👀
okay so
I've been looking into Single Father Surrogacy.
Now, I am still trying to understand the whole process of what it will initial, and different types of surrogacies because I honestly didn't know of these two above on the image, and that could only be it, but I'm trying to figure out or understand it better. I feel as though educating myself first is the right decision before I do anything else. I don't know what I'll have to do in terms of supporting said person carrying my baby, but I'm willing to fund everything and do anything required of me to make it happen.
I'll most likely start the application and inquiring process next year, but I am aiming for when I'm thirty-two or latest , thirty-five years old to make the single father surrogacy a reality.
I know it sounds pathetic or weird, etc but I've come to accept and be at peace at least that I might not find someone out there? You know, to love and create wholesome, small but meaningful memories with, etc.
I was also super okay in being with someone who already had children through prior relationship(s), heck I would have loved their kids as my own or at least treat them with so much love, care, and hopefully become someone they would be able to trust, etc. I was totally okay with that and all I would have asked said partner is one child from both of us or if not, them to be okay with me becoming a sperm donor.
However, I'm not going to go on dating apps ever again (although I might try eHarmony just to give these next two years a shot) and no one here where I live interests me so I know that I will most likely end up being single forever. And that's okay. I really am okay with that. 😊😊😊 Sometimes life is that way.
However, I am super lucky and grateful about the fact that I do still have an opportunity in becoming a parent without a partner through surrogate.
I know I said, I was okay with having a partner that didn't want kids, and I am, but only if they would be okay with me becoming a sperm donor so if ever, it would be used and I'll know that there's a little half me out there (if I'm not allowed to be involved in their life). I feel ready to be a parent. I want that responsibility. I believe in my ability to be a great father and so this will be the "taboo" measure that I'm willing and will take to become a dad. 😊😊
Sorry about rambling, but I'm passionate about this AND I just wanted to share a little more context to your ask.
Yes, I do have plans on becoming a father soon 😊😊😊
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