#i regret doing all of this in mspaint . this took me way too long | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

laneelliot12 · 4 months

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I love the way you draw cats! How did you adopt a style like that? Who/What were your inspirations?

Thank you!!! I'm so glad people have been liking them!! I'd say I get a lot of style elements from popular cartoons, like pokemon, but I also take a lot of care in my references, and learned to breakdown their shapes over years of trial and error. I'd say a majority of the inspo I got was from random warrior cats speed paints on youtube- I'd pause the frames and pay attention to all the different steps they did! I don't think any one youtuber stood out to me as someone I got my style from, but It's def an amalgamation of a bunch of creators from the early 2010's! I'd love to post something, or even a video one day, of how I do each of the steps I do to get where I get! [Below is a retelling of my art journey if anyone is interested!]

I'd like to think I've got two styles of drawing: art for ocs, and canonized fan art. For both I use a great deal of references, either chosen from stock/free use image sites or from pictures of my three irl cats (who are very photogenic <3)! I am self taught, which means I've gone through a LOT of trial and error over the good decade I've been into the WC fandom. About a year or two ago, my laptop (that I've had since childhood) crashed so hard it deleted everything from my hard drive, losing YEARS of progress/artwork that I hadn't posted anywhere. Foolishly, months before that, I'd deleted my DeviantArt where all my cringe emo ocs were posted, something I was embarrassed of at the time, and now deeply regret doing (fr keep and date ALL of your art it is so important for your growth). I wish more than anything that I could post some of it here to show how my style has grown and changed, but sadly, I'll just have to describe it to ya.

[^^^ Above: the only bit of art I have saved from that time!]

I started drawing wc art in the 4th grade with some friends at my school- a very close friend of mine had started doing it, and I had never really drawn before, so I just followed along with what she did; the meme-y 'firestar doesn't like waffles/derp' fad of the time had be in a VICE GRIP and a lot of my work looked like that. I drew almost exclusively on paper, until my parents let me use the trackpad/mouse on the family computer in mspaint, where my passion for it really started to take off.

From there I got into deviantart, and started out like a lot of young kids did- thick, uniform lineart, coloring in the flats manually, tons of airbrushes and clip images of sparkles, the GOOD STUFF. I would hold paper up to the computer screen and trace the emo mspaint scourge pmvs frame by frame, I was obsessed. Then, for my 13th birthday, my uncle gifted me my very first wacom tablet; a tiny, 6x6 plastic plate that came with a pen and a too short chord. I drew constantly, watching speed paints and reading riverspirit comics until my eyes melted out of my skull, rp'd and posted little comics about my day to day. This went on and I very slowly started improving the more naturally drawing came to me; I held my pen different, downloaded a pirated version of firealpaca, learned about lineweight, obtained LAYERS. Almost seven years ago now, that friend I started drawing with passed away while she was very young. I couldn't stomach drawing warrior cats art for a long time after that; and, my parents had been urging me to give it up for a while too (in their opinions, if I was going to waste my time drawing, it should be something I could do to make money. If only they could see my commission having ass now!!). I still made art, but I did it formally; still life, paintings, figure sketches. When I got to highschool, I went to a specialized program for gifted students (burnout king right here) and took a TON of formal art classes, studying it as my main field. I learned about shapes and color and the natural flow of a piece; but I never really get over my love of cartoons, or my love of warrior cats art. There was just something so special about it, so unique to any fandom I've ever been in, that eventually, I was called back to it. My life was very difficult during that time, when I decided to redraw some of my old digital art for a class warmup. I hadn't touched a laptop in years, and it was ROUGH, but I reconnected with it instantly, and it was the first bit of serotonin I'd had in a WHILE. I got back into roleplays, got back into tumblr, got back into all the old stuff that made me happy.

I graduated highschool in 2020 and started drawing a lot of warrior cats content in between shifts- which leads to where I am now! I was deeply insecure about it and would hide the fact I did it from people I knew irl because I was afraid they'd think im cringe (I am cringe and I love that about myself now, thank u therapy)- and now, I pay for our internet bill off warrior cats commission money, which felt like a pretty big leap!! I still like doing 'formal traditional art', and it has influenced my art and it's shapes a ton- but I still cling to the anime eyes I loved to draw as the kid who wanted to make cartoons for all the world to see.

#warrior cats #my art journey #inbox

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expansionarchives · 3 years

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Unfinished sketch of a cottage posted by Jaccques Simmons on March 16th, 2023. Referencing the building he entered in his ‘Cottage Account’ on March 14th.

I only managed to draw the building itself before the photo died, but I tried cleaning it up from memory afterwards. The part that juts out is where the descending staircases were.

If someone ventures into the wilderness around here and finds a building shaped kinda like this, enter at your own risk. And at the very least, enter with another person.

---

Jaccque Simmons’s ‘Cottage Account,’ posted on March 14th, 2023. Recounting what happened to him when he entered a derelict building he had been tracking for the last few days.

Boy, I have got the story for you guys today. I almost died, I think, but that’s not the part that sticks in my head the most. Right now, I’m sitting at home at my computer, writing this on a keyboard with a cup of my rationed hot chocolate next to me. Despite it taking me nearly 4 days to get to the cottage, I only needed 1 to get home, and I couldn’t be happier.

Anyhow, let me tell you what happened:

After waking up that day and packing up my camp again, I noticed that the short hills in the distance had disappeared. I climbed up a tree to get a better look and I saw to my delight, the cottage I had been tracking this entire time was only about 400 feet away. As fast as I could, I got down and made my way towards it, very soon I sat in front of the building, and I realized it did not look anything like I had thought.

The ‘cottage’ was more like the shell of a brick building that just appeared smaller from far away, its insides were completely empty: 2 floors of garbage were piled onto the ground within the walls, and I realized that this house, whatever it was, must’ve been abandoned for decades at least. The small signs of dissaray I had seen on my way to this building were just hints of the cottage’s actual state.

Disheartened, I started loitering around to see if there was something to have made the trip worth my time. I looked at the ground under my feet and realized that it was crumbled asphalt, meaning there was once a road here--but after the wilderness changed sized over and over again it broke apart. Perhaps, I thought, I’d find something else of note if I kept following it.

So I did, I kept trekking along the traces of roads until I came to a dead end. There was a thin wall of shrubbery in front of me, but between the leaves I made out another building. It was short and squat, but more than enough to get my attention. I took my big knife from by belt and cut down enough of the plants to get through, and when I did I saw what looked like some kind of old storehouse.

It was made of stone, but had a metal roof and the remnants of a powerline was sat in front of it, with bits of dead wire scattered around. The old stone walls were cracked, with bits missing and exposing the inner wall. Across the entire thing were dead creeper-like plants, and in the center was a large metal gate, which appeared to me like it was made to drag a cart through.

Either way, I thought I had what I came for and I snapped a picture with my phone so I could draw it later. This is an aside but I know some of you guys are shocked that I would do this, but I realized after a bit of testing that photos of the stuff you find in the wilderness only ‘dies’ after a little while. Usually it does not last longer than a day, but that’s more than enough for me to draw something from photo reference. I’m not sure exactly why this happens, however, so I guess that’s something for the scientists out there to figure out.

After snapping my pic I pried open the metal gate. The inside of the building was barren, except for signs of the inner wall breaking off. I put my backpack down and brought out my flashlight, and I saw a descending set of stairs to my right.

In hindsight, these stairs were weird as hell. Just at one end of the building, within its own room or even with a fence around it, were a set of wooden stairs that descended into what was presumably a basement. When I walked up to it and shone by flashlight down, I saw it descended about 20 or 30 feet before ending at a normal-looking wooden door. I was so curious that, after making sure the steps weren’t too rotten to support my weight, I went down and tried to open it.

The door wasn’t locked, and it swung open to a small basement-like room. The space looked like it was dug out of the dirt and then had plaster walls and ceilings put up. It was weird as hell, as it looked like underneath this abandoned storagehouse was just an unfinished basement. There was no furniture, unless you counted the littles piles of dust bordering the walls, but there was another door just in front of me. Although the door itself hadn’t been installed so it was just a door-shaped hole. The door hole, if you will.

Through the door-hole was a long room with what looked like the measurement drawings on the wall. Like how someone would do to mark where they’d cut out a window or something, but for this there were the outlines of like 4 windows marked out in blue. Beyond that, the room was exactly as featureless as the last, save for another empty doorway. I went through that and found another room, but this time with no walls, just the metal frame of the room and the naked supports that were holding up the ceiling. To my right, now, was another empty doorway.

And this was something I didn’t notice until I was on my way out, but, the doorway I saw from the naked room should have lead right back to the first room I entered when I descended those steps. But it didn’t. I went through the naked room and found myself in an even more naked room. The previous one had its frame and stuff exposed, this room had none of that. It literally looked like a cube-shaped hole that was excavated out of the ground.

I’m going to make a diagram in MSPaint to show you what I mean.

The grey room is the one I just entered, the excavated one, and I swear up and down that there was no change in elevation as I walked through these rooms. If this was a normal place, I swear the room I just walked into WOULD have intersected with the first room I went into.

So, yeah, in hindsight this place was a little insane. But, it just looked so benign and weird in more obvious ways that I didn’t notice. Was that somehow on purpose? By the whatever or whichever that built this place? Assuming something like this actually was built and didn’t just like, spring out of the aether or whatever. Perhaps if I spent a couple more second to think about this then

Anyhow, once I had reached the super empty room I saw another opening, but it wasn’t shaped like a door like the rest of the passages. It was just a rectangular hole, seemingly carved into the wall itself. I shined my flashlight down, and saw the ceiling steadily lower like a ramp until it opened up again at the very end, presumably into a new room.

Now, this is obviously the part in the horror movie where everyone yells at me to go back to saftety. I’m in this pitch-black basement, with only my flashlight, and a long narrow hallway leading into some mystery room. But you have to understand how it felt in the moment. The situation the world is in right now is completely and utterly undprecedented, it’s basically supernatural. The world is growing bigger and smaller behind our backs and now, within one of these strange flux regions, I find not just a building but a basement, leading to somewhere?

With how the wilderness is acting, along with some of the stuff I've seen other survivalists post, I felt like if I didn't see what's at the end of the hallway, then nobody would EVER see it.

So I continued.

And down I went as the roof continued to lower forcing me to eventually crouch my way forward until I got into a really weird room. It’s difficult for me to describe so I went through the effort of drawing a rough summation from memory.

There was this pedestal-shaped thing that descended from the ceiling, and from it was a clay tablet that hung down a short distance from a two thick black ropes. The tablet had an indentation a bit larger than my head's, and hung down to about my chest. There were no strange markings or runes or anything, on either the tablet thing or the structure in lowered from.

This little room looked completely different to everything I had seen so far. It almost didn’t look manmade. It wasn’t dug out or built and set into the ground by anything, it gave me the sense that it was just... there. That entire time, somehow, this room naturally formed. It doesn’t make any sense, but that’s the only way I can imagine describing it. The rock walls were smooth, and a sort of ochre colour, but the wall in front of me was more yellow. The room itself was also immaculately clean, no dust or anything.

I looked into the clay tablet-like thing that stuck out from the upside-down pedestal. It was completely still until I poked the edge, and it swung about harmlessly. The indention was ovalular, and struck me as the exact kind of shape something meant for you to stick your head into would be.

So, of course, I stuck my face into it. It didn't look supernatural, and I was really curious. Maybe there was some kind of magic influence going on as well but it literally looked like something that was made for you to stick your face into I thought this place was leading me to something. Like, I had gotten so far, at the literal end of this tunnel, I would find something interesting, and this was clearly what I was meant to do. So yeah, I did, to see if my face would fit. And I very quickly regretted it.

As soon as my nose touched the back of the tablet thing I gasped. But it was like an involuntary thing, all the air rushed out of my chest and then I took another quick breath, just as involuntary. Right then, I had lost control of my body. It was like sleep paralysis, I was standing normally, leaning into the clay tablet thing, but any attempt at moving my arms or fingers or legs failed. I wasn't able to control my breathing. I wasn’t even able to let go of my flashlight.

My eyes flitted around inside the tablet, I could just see out the edges of my peripheral vision, and I imagined some kinda shadow creature taking me or something, but nothing happened. I began counting the seconds, and 27-ish seconds in I realized I wasn't looking into a clay tablet anymore--I was looking outside. Just outside the storehouse, I could even make out the shrubbery that I knocked down to get there.

But, just as it felt like I had taken in my surrounded I was taken away from my view of the cottage. I started to see flashes of places and things that I sort of recognized. The ruins of a building with lot's of windows that I eventually realized was my neighborhood's library, but once that happened I was shown something else: An overgrown road, with big chunks of asphalt sticking out of swamp water, I eventually noticed half of a sign sticking out of the dirt and realized it was one of the streets leading up to my nephew's highschool. Then my vision shifted again.

Over and over, mind you this entire time I'm still in a vegetative state with my face shoved into a clay brick, I'm shown these random scenes of shrubbery and stuff only for me to recognize something about them, and for my vision to shift to something else. It didn't feel like I knew what I was doing, it was like I was hypnotized and my eyes just glazed over what I saw until the synapses in my brain went off and I recognized the place.

I swear this went on for at least an hour, and the more it went on the more exhausted I got. I could feel my knees go weak and my back start to hurt from the slouching. But no matter what I did or thought I couldn't get my body to move, I realized I wasn't able to consciously close my eyes, even. My blinking was on autopilot. I started to regret my life and stuff, like, was this how I was going to die? Trapped in some weird thing because I stuck my head into it like an idiot? I just wanted to go home, but when I tried to shut my eyes I saw something flash in from of my vision. Something familiar, that gave me a weak idea.

I focused on the image of my house, the doors, the walls, the windows, the solar panels I installed last year, other random stuff that I thought could only be associated with my house and nobody else's. The vision of my house came to me, and I recognized it, and I even saw the footprints of my boots as I stepped out of it the first time. And I felt weirdly relieved.

And the thing that was like, flashing my vision, tried to move onto something else. But I willed it to stick onto my house, like when you put two different images in front of your left and right eye I could see both my house and something else at once. But I consciously shifted all my attention to my house. My vision tried to shift again but I refused to think about anything else, the living room, my house-phone, my computer. This went on like, 2 or 3 times until suddenly I felt the strength in my legs returns and I literally jumped backwards, sending my face out of the clay tablet and towards the entranceway I came from.

I landed on my ass and for the first time in what felt like forever I was able to consciously breathe again. I flexed my fingers and toes as I stared at the tablet thing that was now swinging idly from the two thick ropes. I half expected something to jump out at me, some men-in-black type guy to pick me up, go "You're not finished yet." and shove me back in, but nothing else happened.

When I regained my bearings I headed straight the hell out, and while I was walking out of the basement I held my hatchet in the other hand, just in case. Fortunately, I was unassaulted, and exited the storehouse with no further damage.

Once I stepped outside I saw that it was about 5 PM, and I tried to put as much distance between me and the storehouse as I could. After a graciously short amount of time, I had made it back home. And now I’m typing this update for you guys.

This is kinda of crazy, but in hindsight, what happened is kind of reminding me of how CDs are read in a disc reader. A laser goes across the surface and grabs the bits of pieces of data that's physically spread around thef the disc, then pieces it together on your computer to make a movie or image or something. Was this shrine thing like... reading my mind, somehow? It was flashing my memories or something, showing me images until I recalled what the place was, and then showing me another. I'm not gonna worry about how, this surreal wilderness is messed up enough. But what I wanna know is if so, if that thing held me there to see what I remembered and recognized, why?

One thing I can say, however, is that I have never been more happy to be home. Regretably, supplies are getting low. My instant hot chocolate is almost gone, so I need to enjoy it while it lasts. While I was away, however, my backyard garden has been doing well, and I can confirm that the wilderness has lot's of resources for you to gather and scavenge, as well as wildlife to hunt down. I certainly won't go hungry, but man, I am already missing the benefits of normal life.

I'm also coming to accept that there are other people out there. Not as priveleged as I was to have the resources to set up all the things I have in my house. The wilderness gives me lot's of room to expand as well, so I think after this week, when I head out again, I'm going to look for survivors and lead them back to my house. I'm thinking of making my place some kind of beacon for people to come to, I can expand the farm, make some shelters--there’s lot’s and lot’s of lumber to go around. Maybe provide a place for a good meal for people to find. Maybe I can figure out a way to put out signs and stuff leading to here.

Afterwards, I can radio someone it to bring a chopper and send people to the larger cities. I think almost dying has burnt out my adventurous spirit a bit, perhaps this is how our ancestors felt when they first began making permanent settlements.

Signing out, y’all. And stay safe out there.

#worldbuilding #expansion #simmons #visual #narrative #tombs

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