Tumgik
#how-to
melannen · 10 months
Text
How To Make Your Own Fanfiction Archive, In Just Ten Easy Steps
As the go-to "person who knows about AO3" for quite a few people who read fanfic but aren't really linked-in to wider fandom culture, I've fielded a lot of questions about how to do certain things on AO3 to which my best answer is "you should really start your own archive!" I think, in general, more fans starting their own small archives would be a net good for fandom. AO3 was never meant to be the only archive for all fandom, or even the main archive, and the more spread out and backed up we are the more resilient we are.
But of course I have to be reminded that a lot of fans these days don't really have any idea how little "you should start your own archive!" really involves. (Also, that I should practice what I preach.) So I am now making my own fanfiction archive, and writing up this post as I do it to tell people how to make theirs!
Go to https://neocities.org/ and sign up for an account. It only needs a username (which will also be your website address), password, and email. Pick a username that will be related to your archive's title!
Choose the free account option (if you ever need more than what the free account offers for a text-only archive, you should probably look into graduating from neocities.) This should take you to a menu of "how to make a website" tutorials. You should do them! They're useful skills. But let's get your archive running first.
Hit the big red Edit Site button, or open the menu under your username and select "Edit Site".
Select the "Index.html" file to edit. You're now in an HTML Editor. Congrats, you're a web developer c. 1999!
Find where it has text between the < title> tags. Delete the filler text, and put in the title of your new archive. This text will be what shows on the tab when people go to your archive.
Find where it has text between the < h1 > tags. This will be big header text at the top of your page. Put the title of your archive here again. If you have no experience with HTML, you should read over the other sample text. It covers the basic basics very well! Once you've done that, you can delete everything else between the < /h1> tag and the < /body> tag. Save your index.html file.
Get an HTML file for a fanfic you would like to add to your archive. If it's on AO3, you can use the html download option built into AO3. If you have it as a word processor/google docs file, you should have the option to save as an html file. Save that html file to your computer.
Go back to Edit Site on Neocities and go to "upload". Find the html file you saved and upload it. (You can also drag and drop files to upload.)
The file you uploaded should now be showing with your other neocities files. Right-click on the title and select "copy link".
Go in to edit index.html again. Under where you put your header text, type < br> < a href=" . Then paste in the link you copied. Then type "> Then put in the title of the fic. Then type < /a> . Then save the index page again when you're done. You can do this for every fanfic you have.
Congratulations! You now have your very own personal private fanfiction archive that you are 100% in charge of and make all the rules for. It's at least as good as half the ones I was reading on when I started reading fanfiction and will serve its function well as a way to let people read your fic. You can link to it from anywhere you want! (Including your AO3 profile.)
Blogpost version, with FAQs and discussion
Anyway, here's my beautiful new fanfiction archive made using this tutorial:
Melannen's Fanfiction Archive
(I am honestly way more disproportionately proud of finally making that than I expected to be. It's nice to have your own archive.)
If you make one, share it here ! I want to see!
3K notes · View notes
capricorn-0mnikorn · 9 months
Text
[Music Not Impossible also brought chairs to sit in, ASL interpreters, captions, audio descriptions for the blind, and quiet, cool-down spaces for autistic people, so they can step away before they get overstimulated]
There's no actual flashing at the link, but there are bright lights in full-screen photos in the article. Don't know if that'll be a problem for folks, but I thought I'd forewarn, just in case, before people clicked through.
(Normally, I'd be skeptical of & cranky toward Hearing people figuring out a way to "Give the Poor Deaf People the gift of Music" but A) this tech is a refinement of what deaf people were already doing for themselves, B) complementary to the music, not an attempt at recreating, and C) the concert venue is offering the tech, and not expecting the primary users to shell out extra money or resources for it)
329 notes · View notes
dduane · 8 months
Text
The Novel as Cake
Tumblr media
    I was reading through the 'writing' tag on your blog, and came across your wonderful post about how you outline your novels using Cherryh's 'Shopping List' technique. My question is - how do you decide/come up with the 10 things in the novel? I have about 3-4 things I know must happen in my idea, and other random details about the world. But what is important enough to be one of the 10 things? And also, how do you generate your ideas for those 10 things? - Asked by Anonymous
…Okay, let’s take this from the top. (And for convenience’s sake, let’s stay in the shopping-list idiom; it’s useful enough.) (ETA: the blog entry that discusses the Shopping List outlining method is here.)
Let’s say you want to make a cake. …This cake also being your novel.
To have a solid story (in the western-novel tradition, anyway), you need at least two things: plot and theme. The plot is what happens. The theme is the why of what happens, and (to a certain extent) the book-wide spectrum of thought and emotion that underlies that; the answer to the question “But what’s the book about?”* …Think of this duality, for the moment, as the equivalent of having both liquid and solid stuff in your cake. You’ve got to have both or it won’t rise. A book with a plot but no theme has no soul.
So: you’re going to make a cake. What kind?
As an example, I’m going to ease myself out onto a limb here and equate “chocolate-chip devil’s food with chocolate buttercream frosting” with “epic-fantasy quest fiction with strong political, exoreligious, and quasiromantic components.” (A favorite for me, over time, as some folks will have noticed. I just can’t get enough of those chocolate chips…)
So how do you determine the ten things you need (or whatever number you like, but ten works for me) as major ingredients / sections?
Well, ideally from some familiarity with what has gone in other/similar cakes/works of fiction in the past: because (in genre fiction, anyway) you have at least some reader expectations to manage. If you haven’t been reading in your chosen genre, you really should be. ...Now, this doesn’t mean you have to do what other people working in the genre have done. Indeed, at all times you remain at liberty to “flip the punchcard” and do exactly the opposite of what everybody else has been doing, if that’s what suits you. But they’ve set out possible recipes for you, so (as a beginner at this work) it'd seem wise to examine those recipes and see what’s in them that might be useful for you. Once you’ve been doing this for a while, you don’t need to go looking, just as an experienced baker doesn’t need to run for the recipe book every time they want to make a cake.
Naturally you can substitute ingredients, add some or lose some, when you’re creating something new; just as you like—while always making sure you don’t throw away anything routinely required/expected in your genre. (Such as, for example, the Happily Ever After at the end of a genre romance.) But certain basics must be in place, things that make what you’re creating recognizably A Cake, as well as your own additions and embellishments.
In this case, that could be:
For a cake: flour, milk, eggs, butter, baking powder, cocoa, chocolate chips, vanilla extract, seasonings, a little bit of salt (because without that, even the sweetest cake tastes just a little insipid somehow)
For a novel: a protagonist/pairtagonist (is that a word? It is now…); an antagonist (not necessarily a character: an antagonistic or stymie-ing situation that keeps the antagonist from easily getting what they want/need will do just as well. This is where at least some of the interior drama will derive from); a change in interior or exterior conditions that sets events in motion; a “ticking clock” or similar construct that means the desired result must be achieved within a certain time or before certain conditions change or expire; various reversals or hiccups in the flow of the story that will inject a sense of realism (because when does anything ever go perfectly smoothly…?); a crisis point at which everything assembled against the protagonist rises up to be dealt with, and the protagonist rises up to meet the challenge and deal with it; and finally, a set of resolution events that (even if it doesn’t absolutely finish the story proper) brings about an end state that will leave you, and any theoretical reader, satisfied with the completion of the current story arc.
…Needless to say, this is an incredibly oversimplified take on the kind of strategizing needed when you’re creating the recipe for a novel that won’t simply collapse the minute you take it out of the oven. But starting simply is often best. The more you do this kind of work, the easier it gets.
Now: “How do you generate your ideas for those 10 things?”
There are a lot of possible answers to this, but the simplest is: Make them up out of nothing, as usual. :)
…This isn’t meant to sound like sass. You made up those first three or four things you came up with out of nothing, and now (because they’ve been there for a while, probably) they may well have started to acquire a kind of secret, temporally-based superiority in your mind—starting to feel somehow more valid than what needs to come next to fill in the gaps. This kind of creeping sense of validity-via-temporal-primacy is a commonplace when you’re in mid-process, and I invite you to ignore it.
Just insert those three or four things into your shopping list in (roughly) story-temporal order, and then spend some time thinking about what kinds of events could usefully come between / flow from them. Hints:
Events that could realistically have been caused by the ones you’ve got already, and could also realistically be seen as causal to later ones you’ve already established, are always useful. Ideally, you’re trying to establish a chain of events in which none of them look accidental, or coincidental (because readers are rightfully sensitive to plots that only work because all the characters are idiots, or keep having “lucky accidents”). What you’re working toward is an event flow that seems, when viewed in completion, inevitable: as if it couldn’t have happened any other way. You will almost certainly not achieve this easily, early on in your novel work, and maybe not at all. But it strikes me as a good thing to be striving for.
Events that badly screw things up for the main characters are also always useful. Heroes do not become heroes by having everything go their way. Their heroism is achieved and manifested by having things go to shit around them again and again and AGAIN, and nonetheless still finding their way through all that shit to do what needs to be done. The lines attributed to the Confucianist philosopher Meng-tse (sometimes translated from Japanese into English as “Mōshi”) are a touchstone in this regard:
When Heaven is about to confer a great office upon a man, it first exercises his mind with suffering and his sinews and bones with toil: it exposes him to poverty and confounds all his undertakings. Then it is seen if he is ready.
So put your protagonists through the wringer. This is the greatest service you can do them: showing who they are by showing what they're made of.
A variant on this theme: Spend a little time thinking, “What is the absolute worst thing that could happen to these characters in this story / in this world?” And when you’ve figured that out, stick it into one of those gaps as a Main Thing—ideally one between the story’s midpoint and its already-planned crisis, if you’ve got that in place—and then start thinking about how to best exploit it to show how terrific your characters can become if you kick them around a bit. (Addendum: you are allowed to have one Absolutely Terrific and Beautiful Thing happen to assist your characters in recovering from this awfulness. Because they deserve it; but also, all invented worlds [if you ask me] should have beautiful things in them—things to long for, things that make your reader wish they could live there. And that you find beautiful, and worth returning to. You are absolutely allowed to keep yourself entertained, and emotionally refreshed, while you’re creating.)
…Anyway, take your time about getting those gaps filled in. It may take a little while: laying down basic story structure is worth not rushing, if you can avoid it. Once you’ve got everything major in place, the secondary lists will follow more easily.
HTH!
*This is a hilarious oversimplification, but my job at the moment is not (as the saying goes) to explain the workings of the entire universe while standing on one foot. :)
264 notes · View notes
leonaquitaine · 1 year
Text
How-to: Orbit Camera
Today we'll escape the boundaries of the game and use a mix of recording and editing tools to create a neat orbiting camera video!
For this recipe, you'll need:
1 x PC (these instructions were tested on Windows 10)
1 x FFXIV Client
1 x screen recording tool (Geforce Experience, Radeon Adrenaline, etc.)
1 x Avidemux (https://avidemux.sourceforge.net/)
GShade to taste
1 - Setup
Let's open the Character Configuration under Settings. in the General tab, locate the Camera Speed (Keyboard) slider, and set it to zero. This will give us that smooth, slow camera movement.
Tumblr media
At this point, you need the screen recording tool ready. I have GeForce Experience, so I'm using the Instant Replay function to save the last 5 minutes of gameplay; YMMV.
2 - Capture
Let's enter GPose. Position the camera so your character takes most of the screen while leaving some padding around, turn off the UI (Scroll Lock or LB+Back), and move your cursor to a corner.
Start recording, and use the Left/Right arrow keys to orbit the camera around your character. If your character is frozen (Target Motion toggled off) a couple of full circles are enough. At this point, you can stop the recording.
3 - Editing
Launch Avidemux and open the raw video. Now we're going to adjust some values.
Tumblr media
First, let's disable the audio. On the top menu, select Audio > Select Track, then uncheck all the Enabled checkboxes. This will mute the video.
Filters are how we'll modify the original video. By default, the Video Output is set to Copy; in order to enable filters, we need to select a custom encoder. Let's pick one that's pretty common and compatible across most services; in my case, I selected NVidia H264.
Now the Filters button should be enabled. Click it; the Video Filter Manager interface should open.
Tumblr media
These are the filters I'm using for this video:
Crop (to eliminate the unwanted background, bring attention to the character and set the target 1:1 aspect ratio)
Contrast (to prep it for devices with better luminance range, like phones)
swsResize (to create a smaller video file)
4 - Trimming
Now, the tricky part: In order to create a seamless, cycling orbit movement, the first frame of your video must match nicely with the last.
The way I do this is by browsing the video (Click the slider at the bottom, then use the Left/Right arrow keys) for a frame with a clear feature (say, a light source coming behind the character), clicking Set End Marker (Control + PGDOWN), then Delete Selection (DEL). This will eliminate all frames up to that point.
Tumblr media
Now, I locate the exact same frame later in the animation once the character is spun around once, click Set Starter Marker (Control + PGUP), then Delete Selection (DEL). If done correctly, now you have a full cycle!
Tumblr media
Finally, the output format: Select MP4 Muxer, again a compatible format that'll work nicely with services like Twitter and Tumblr.
And… that's it, really! Now click Save Video and give the new file a name.
Tumblr media
And so, a new orbit camera video is born. Enjoy!
593 notes · View notes
savagechickens · 17 days
Text
Tumblr media
A Quick Read.
And more juggling.
52 notes · View notes
sensible-tips · 1 year
Photo
Tumblr media
Savvy Saturday: Quick Guide to Layers
A fun infographic to give ideas of all the possible layer combinations that can keep you both warm and fashionable this winter.
269 notes · View notes
mabelskins · 1 year
Text
Tumblr media
how to design: guidebooks
Okay, so I’ll just be straight forward, there will be little about coding here and way more about the look, mental models and navigation design tips to make your guidebook more effective. After navigating a few rp sites and making MANY mistakes with guidebooks, I decided to make my own guide to making effective guidebooks for your rp site with all that I’ve learned. 
First of all, let’s do some thinking here. The guidebook is the first place the players will be looking at on your website to decide whether or not they will be playing. Usually there is A LOT of information, about the settings, factions, powers, you name it. From a player's perspective, it's usually pretty overwhelming and exciting to go through this brand new universe they are emerging to. So it’s our job to make this experience as easy as possible. 
How do we do that? Well, it’s mostly about navigation. How will you decide to guide your users through the site? What visual cues will you be giving them? 
When it comes to online navigation, its very similar to navigating yourself through a physical place. You will usually use landmarks, visual cues, and signage. You will need to understand three things: where you were, where you are and where you want to be. Google maps is great at that, making it so easy that you can use the tiny dot to know which direction you are going (which is a life saver for someone like me who has no sense of direction).
What does that mean in a web scenario? Here are my five tips on making better designs:
Link states
Different states for left menu links (default, hover and active) will help the user understand where he is and where they can click next, making it look interactive and clickable. Something as simple as making active links bold or a different colour goes a long way.
Tumblr media
Buttons & Spacing
Have you got buttons within the pages? Links that connect to the fc page or other pages within the website? Make them stand out! Sometimes, links get lost because they look too much like a simple text. So instead of blending it into the text, make that link stand out. You can do it by adding an underline (if you want to be subtle) or make the link look like an actual button. 
Also, don’t forget to give proper spacing. Sometimes when there’s a lot of content, we feel the need to cram it all up to make it fit - but that can be confusing to the user. Make sure you provide enough space around the links and buttons to make them distinguishable and easy to read. 
Tumblr media
Other navigation Methods
Sometimes there is just a LOT of information. I mean a lot, and I’m always so impressed about how detailed some universes are - it's amazing. So, if that’s the case, perhaps consider other navigation methods, such as breadcrumbs, top navigation or a sub navigation bar. You may even go as far as drop-downs. Just remember to keep it consistent (more about that below) so the user always knows how to go around.
Tumblr media
Location
Stick with familiar locations! This one I haven’t seen a lot, but thought I’d include. Don’t make the users relearn how to navigate! Stick to familiar locations - if you are trying to innovate, think of other ways that can help the user instead of confusing them. Top and left navigation are the most used for guidebooks.
Consistency and organisation
Last but not least. The way the information is organised is VERY important. I cannot emphasise this enough. The left navigation bar should always be the same, the items shouldn’t change and there should be clear indicators in the headings to show where the users are and how to go back. Headings should be the same all around. So, this one goes to both coders and site staff - organise your material. The hierarchy and grouping of the content will help to determine the structure of your guidebook.
That’s it! I hope you find this useful, and if you’d like more posts like this let me know - what kind of content would you like to see on how to design?
Any questions, ask box is always open! Would love to hear from other coders what their thoughts and tips are too <3
131 notes · View notes
buffetlicious · 5 months
Text
Shown here are two popular Dim Sum (点心) items - Fried Prawn Dumplings (明虾角) and Spring Rolls (春卷) with a cup of Teh Siew Dai or in simple English, milk tea less sweet. I have also included a video (not mine) on the making of the fried prawn dumpling.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
youtube
39 notes · View notes
thebougieway · 2 years
Text
How to: Skin like butter
Tumblr media
Every woman loves to feel soft, nobody should want to walk around on this Earth feeling like an alligator. In this post, I will be sharing my routine to what I call my “Skin like butter” routine. 
I. Waxing
I prefer waxing over shaving. Waxing has its' benefits such as:
Hyperpigmentation will lift over time if you're waxing consistently
Slower hair growth
Hair grows back smoothly and not stubble like (for me)
Super smooth skin, shaving doesn't necessarily get to the under layer of the hair follicle, where as waxing pulls it from the root
With waxing growing back your hair slowly, you can get on a schedule to getting waxes once a month... where as to shaving, you're going to be shaving everyday depending on hair growth. My next step is to be able to get laser hair removal but, that's another topic for another day.
II. Exfoliate
A good exfoliation routine is a base to smooth skin. As I'm in the shower, my routine consists of me exfoliating twice a week (per my esthetician) over-exfoliating can damage the top layer of your skin (the epidermis). My favorite product to exfoliate with is "Dr. Teals Eucalyptus Body Scrub" and "Dove's Gentle Exfoliating body wash". I use both products with a scrub brush from Amazon.
III. Moisturizing
I moisturize everything down from my eyebrows, eyelashes, face, lips, cuticles, & body. As of lately, here's my favorite products for each category:
Eyebrows: PURA D'OR Organic Castor Oil
Lashes: PURA D'OR Organic Castor Oil
Skin: Pond's Dry Skin Cream Moisturizer
Lips: Bath & Body Works Vanilla Hydrating Lip Balm
Cuticles: Cuccio Naturale Revitalizing Cuticle Oil
Hands: Cuccio Naturale Milk & Honey Butter Blend - 26 oz
Body: Sol de Janeiro Bum Bum Cream
Stay soft babe 🌸🌸🌸
419 notes · View notes
ofkithandmckinney · 1 month
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Mark's handy-dandy guide to wearing a mask.
15 notes · View notes
sweeetestcurse · 1 year
Text
My Gif-Making Process
Hello! I'm Gilli and I've been making gifs for a very long time and have recently been asked a few times about my process. So I've decided to go into detail on that. Probably too much detail. But this should help out anyone that wants to make gifs of their own whether it's of video game footage they've recorded or movies/shows that they own physical copies of.
Below the cut is a step-by-step process that I go through, plus information on how to record their game/rip blu-rays to a PC for those that don't know how to do such. There are screenshots showing the entire process of me making a single gif and the end results of that.  
I hope everyone finds at least one thing in this they find useful. 💖
Programs Used:
OBS Studio KMPlayer Photoshop  MakeMKV 
I wanted to start with how to record your game footage and how to rip blu-rays to your PC for those that aren't too sure about how to do that.
To record your own game footage, you'll need a program that records your screen as you play. For that, I use OBS Studio.
To set it up to record your screen, go down to the sources section and click add display capture. From there it'll have you pick which display it will be capturing, it should automatically have your primary monitor selected but if that isn't the case click the drop-down menu and pick the one that you'd be using to play games on. And make uncheck the box for capture cursor, as no one wants a flying cursor to ruin their footage.
Tumblr media
You may need to resize the capture window to fit, but all that takes is hovering your mouse over it, clicking, and dragging it to fit. 
Tumblr media
Next, you should go into the settings set up a few things. Mostly to make sure it'll be capturing at the right FPS and the folder the videos will save to when you record.
These are the settings I use. I don't mess with the audio portions since that doesn't matter for gifs.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
If you're using a capture card for a console, you can add that source to OBS, as well. This is what that looks like (you'll need to drag the window to fit here, as well.).
Tumblr media
I don’t mess with the settings, as I’ve never needed to.
And now may be good to note that with older consoles the default FPS is 30. If you want to record footage of that you'll want to switch the number that's captured down to 30 as well so your gifs don't have extra frames.
With that all set up, you'll need to open up the game you're wanting to record. Sometimes recording is simple and other times it's a bit of a pain in the ass. When it's simple, you'll be able to alt+tab out of the game and start recording with OBS whenever you wish, so you won't have to make a huge video file for only a minute or two of footage that you want.
When it’s difficult, however, the game doesn't like being alt+tabbed out of and starts running sluggishly when you do that. When that happens, save and close out altogether. Then start recording with OBS before opening the game and go from there. It's a little bit of a process to find out which game is which, but it isn't a difficult one.
And to record a video in OBS, simply hit the Start Recording button and you're good to go. When you’re finished, click it again. And that’s it.
As for ripping blu-rays to your PC, you'll need to have either an external or internal drive that's able to read blu-rays and MakeMKV. And you should make sure you have enough space on your PC for it. I've found single episodes of a show can be anywhere from 5 GB to 20, and movies are larger the longer they are. The average I've run into is about 30 GB.
If you have all that set up and ready to use, start MakeMKV and click to open the blu-ray disk. 
Tumblr media
The movie (or episode) file tends to be the largest on the disk. Uncheck everything else and choose your output folder. 
Then hit Make MKV and wait until it's done. The ensuing file should easily play in KMPlayer, or your program of choice.
________________________________________________________
Now, with all of that out of the way, we can get to the actual gif-making of this gif-making tutorial.
When you've got the video you want to capture frames of, open it up in your program of choice and capture away. These are the settings I tend to use.
Tumblr media
To open the frames in Photoshop, click File and go down to Scripts > Load Files into Stack. 
Tumblr media
In the Use dropdown menu, click on Folder. Then click Browse and find the folder you loaded your frames into. If you want to make sure the files load in order, go ahead and click Sort By Name. It’s usually not necessary, but it could cut out the time it’ll take to reload the frames again if something goes wrong.
It should be noted that the process of loading frames will take longer the bigger they are, hence why I use the JPEG setting instead of PNG. I've not noticed a change in quality between PNG and JPEG, but if you wish to make sure you're using the best quality possible, go ahead and use PNGs, just know that this part might take some extra time if you do.
With everything loaded, click the Create Frame Animation button in the timeline window. Then, find the three small lines near the X that closes the Timeline window, and click on that then select Make Frames From Layers. 
Tumblr media
After this, you might need to highlight all the frames and, in the same menu, click reverse frames. It’s not actually reversing the gif, but making it so it plays correctly. For some reason, this happens a lot for me in Photoshop. I cannot explain why it does, just how to fix it. And it takes all of .5 seconds to do that.
Next comes the more tedious step in this whole process. You’ll want to go through each frame and make sure there’s no doubles. If there is, it’ll mess with the timing of the finished product. Double frames can make a gif seem slower than it should be overall, or just in certain parts. If you’re making a gif with a lot of frames it can be annoying, but it’s worth it in the end.
My next step is always to crop the canvas down with the crop tool. For simple scenery gifs that I save at 540x480 pixels, I use a preset that I made. 6:5. Then I'll drag and/or shrink it down to exactly what part of the canvas that I want to gif. In this case, I moved it a smidge to the right and hit crop.
Tumblr media
Then I resize it. Since I've noticed that sometimes there's a small line around some gifs, I resize it down to 582x485 pixels so there's some extra I can crop out around the edges. It's a personal preference, you don't need to do this. It’s just something I’ve done for years.
From here, I start coloring/lighting. Most of the time, I use five layers for this. But every so often the gifs will need a bit extra to get them where I want them and I can end up with 10. It all depends on whatever it is I’m making gifs of. For the gif in this example, I'll be using my usual five layers. Levels, Curves, Select Color, Exposure, and Vibrance. I don't believe the order of the layers matters, but I always start with lighting and move on to the color.
This part is all personal taste. The way I choose to color things might not be how you like it. If that's the case, switch things up. Experiment. If you want things brighter, with the colors more saturated, try upping the levels on those layers. Hell, you might not even want to mess with the colors at all, just brighten things up which is totally fine. But these are the settings I've decided to use for this particular gif, for those that might be curious.
This is what the gif looks like before any coloring, sharpening, and without tweaking the frame delay.
Tumblr media
First, I use a Levels layer. Most of the time I use it to start brightening things up, but sometimes I only use it to darken the shadows a bit. This time, I’m doing a little of both.
Tumblr media
Then it's onto Curves for a little more brightening and some contrast. I use these sparingly. It's very easy to wash everything out.
Tumblr media
And one last brightening layer, Exposure. I've never touched the Offset option. I don't know what it does and at this point, I'm too afraid to ask.
Tumblr media
Next is Vibrance. So that I know exactly how much I need to fix/change the coloring. I don't like to make my gifs too saturated, so I don't mess with these settings very much.
Tumblr media
And now comes the fun part. Actually coloring the gifs. I tend to situate my Selective Color layer between the Curves and Exposure layers, but I don't think it matters where it goes.
Here’s what it looks like before coloring.
Tumblr media
This is another super subjective and personal series of settings. For this gif, I want to bring out more of the warm orange and yellow shades without washing out the green of the conifers in the background, but you might want to bring out cool tones instead. There's no wrong way to color gifs.
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
As I’m sure you noticed, with this gif I’m not messing with the Cyan, Blue, or Magenta modifiers. Not every gif needs to use every single modifier, and that’s fine. 
This is the end result of all those steps.
Tumblr media
And next is the sharpening. Select all the frames in the Timeline and the Layers window, head on over to those three little lines in the right corner of the Timeline window, and select Convert to Video Timeline.
Tumblr media
Then click Filter > Convert for Smart Filters.
Tumblr media
And then Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen.
Tumblr media
I use two sharpening layers and these settings aren't set in stone. Sometimes this is too much, sometimes it's not enough and I need to up some settings. It's just another one of those things you can to tweak as you work.
Tumblr media
On the second layer, I hit the gear next to the OK button and selected both Use Legacy and More Accurate, then adjust as I wish.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Then I save it. I do not understand these settings. One might think that I would after using them for so long, but I do not. Please don't ask me about them or I might cry.
Tumblr media
We’re not done quite yet. As I'm sure you noticed, the gif is a bit too large a file for Tumblr's 10 MB limit and I haven't even touched the frame delay settings. That's because I do it once the coloring and everything else is done.
Go to whatever folder you've saved your work in and drag the gif/s into Photoshop. Once they’re loaded, select all the frames in the timeline and click on any of the small arrows pointing down in the right-hand corner of each frame in the timeline, then select Other, then you'll need to set your frame delay. 
Tumblr media
For 30 FPS (console games and live action, usually) I use .05 and for 60 I use .04.
Tumblr media
Next, I delete frames as needed to fit under Tumblr's limits. And with that done, this is the final result next to where I started out, so you can see the differences more clearly.
Before:
Tumblr media
After:
Tumblr media
I’m pretty sure I’ve gone over everything, but since I’ve been doing this for so long that I easily could have missed something since I’m so used to seeing it all the time. If anyone has questions, I’m more than happy to answer them. ❤️
83 notes · View notes
craftdiscoveries · 22 hours
Photo
Tumblr media
papercraftpanda (via How to Sew the Chain Stitch Bookbinding Pattern)
8 notes · View notes
deathtaffy · 8 months
Text
youtube
In this step-by-step guide, I'll show you how I create a silicone cap mold (squish mold) for a resin art toy. Join me as I address the challenge of crafting a replacement mold for my best boi, Blobbii.
23 notes · View notes
dynamoe · 2 years
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
You too can learn to draw like a 100 year old man!
Tack's Cartoon Tips for the Aspiring Cartoonist (1923) on Flickr
197 notes · View notes
deepdreamnights · 7 months
Text
A Free Hour in the Ball Pit - "Vary (Region)" Midjourney Feature
Tumblr media
Midjourney just updated with an inpainting feature (called "Vary (Region)") . In keeping with MJ's "internal generation only" ethos, it can't be used with images that start outside MJ, but it allows for precision editing. While I imagine most uses will be for fixing minor flaws, I'll mainly be using it for major edits prior to manual editing.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
The above image was made through first generating the nighttime ball pit, then adding the monster via inpainting by changing the prompt. From there I did iterations of the whole image until the monster's anatomy tightened up enough for use for this demonstration post.
Starting prompt:
a chuck-e-cheese ball pit filled with glow-in-the-dark plastic balls, [yellow GITD, blue GITD, magenta GITD, green GITD], neon glow in the dark, nighttime photography, dark interior, disused, eerie, pulitzer prize winning photography, taken with DSLR, provia
Second Prompt:
the loch ness monster in a ball pit, nighttime photography, dark interior, disused, eerie, Pulitzer prize winning photography, taken with DSLR, provia :: photograph of a giant sea serpent at the chuck-e-cheese, plesiosaur, brachiosaurus --s 50 --v 5.2 --ar 4:3
15 notes · View notes
chordsykat · 7 months
Note
You seem to be one of the best oc creators in the fandom and I was wondering if you had any advice on mtl ocs? I wanna make one but I'm not sure where to start!
Goddamn, anon. That's one hell of a compliment to wake up to, but I'm glad you like my characters all the same. Truth is, this fandom is full of very fleshed-out, intricate OCs. Utterly jam-packed. I only think mine get a lot of attention because I present their stories in a visual media, as I am extremely, extremely lucky to have the time and energy to do so. I'm also old and benefit from having my characters for over ten years. I have had a lot of time to get to know them.
That said, entering into a fandom with a lot of excellent OCs might seem a bit intimidating, but the first thing you have to remember is that it's a fandom space and it's all about having fun. We're all really supportive of each other in this arena, which is another rare thing for fandoms in general -- but here in MTL you shouldn't be afraid to just dive right in.
I'm not sure if you're more of an artist or writer, but the first real piece of advice I can give is that there's no wrong way to make a character. For me, drawing them is most helpful, but you might also want to get their traits down on paper, first. What do they look like? How do they move? What are their basic personality traits, too? Any way you want to tackle it is fine. If you do happen to be a visual artist, I just happen to have a little tutorial I made on character design, right here.
Honestly, I think another thing that Baen-Shee benefits from is the fact that I made a whole group of them, instead of just a one-off individual. There's a built-in sense of "Oh, it all fits!" when you make multiple characters, and have them all taking on different roles. In this case, they're a band, so you can play off traits typically associated with people in their individual musical sweet-spots: Confident frontwoman, badass lead-guitarist, cocky drummer, mysterious bassist, demure rhythm-guitarist, etc. They're also a family, and you can work within those associations. And, as you'll come to find out - they're also a bunch of superheroes, so you can work with associations tied to their elemental powers. It's all reciprocal when you do work on multiple characters at the same time - you can see what I mean when you look at their individual character sheets and compare them.
Also, don't be intimidated by making a band if you yourself have never been in one. I think this is one of the things that holds a lot of people back from making MTL OCs, specifically. First of all - this fandom is full of original characters who are not, themselves, musicians or in any way inclined. Don't feel like you have to have a character that is in music in some way. Second, if you do want to make an ensemble act -- Just model them after a band you like and go from there. If you're caught-up on details about how certain aspects of music and instruments and all that work, I have a tutorial for that as well and plan to make more. You don't have to be a band-guy to be in this fandom. Hell, you don't have to be a "music" guy. You just have to be creative!
So, now we've come to the part where I say you can basically take everything I just said and throw it out the window if you only want to follow one rule. And that rule is this:
Give your character a story that will make people care about them.
If your audience can read a story about this character, step into their shoes for a while, and find a place of comfort, there - congratulations! You have written a good character. Are there small intricacies to this and could I go on for days and days about what all this means and what ways you can go about doing this? For sure - but until I get the time to do that, rest-assured that people will be drawn to revisit stories about your OC, the more they find themselves caring about them. And the key to that is putting them in situations where the reader finds themselves rooting for them. I really think this is the biggest way to win an audience over for an OC (or a pile of them, as the case may be). One small point of advice, though: Try not to step on other characters' toes as you do this. Especially the canon cast's. Unless it's funny. Then, go nuts.
I promise more tutorials on this in the future, anon. I invite you, meanwhile, to go check out the Metalocalypse OCs Wiki and study the characters you find interesting. See how they're put together, and pay close attention to what makes them compelling to you. It'll surely give you ideas for your own OCs. @thatwritingho has put a ton of work into it, and you're sure to want to spend hours there, if you're into making characters of your own.
As I said, there's a lot to this - but I hope to explore it in even greater detail, in future posts. Hope the things I linked and what I've said here so far though, is of use to you!
9 notes · View notes