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tomlinfonda · 9 months

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"Why are artists so butthurt about AI art? Horse carriage drivers didn't complain when they invented the car, they were just grateful that the technology evolved and made it easier to get around."

Art is not a carriage, it's not a vehicle. Its purpose is not to be efficient, to do a practical job with as little effort as possible. Art is not something that can be automated, because its artistry lies in the humanity of its creator. Art is wonderful, from a baby's first drawing, inexperienced and unskilled, to the paintings adorning the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

If you consider yourself an AI artist, I ask you: are you proud of yourself when the computer has completed another image that you will claim as yours? Do you look at it and feel the joy of having created something?

Does the generative process teach you how to see the world better? With every image created, do you evolve? Do you understand the planes of the face better now than 1000 images ago? Do you know what rim light is, and where to put it? Do you understand light sources? Tones? Could you take a piece of paper and shade a portrait by yourself?

"AI software is just like Photoshop or Blender, the next step in artistic technology".

It's not though, is it? A digital artist uses a pen to put colors on screen, chooses where to put each brush stroke, when to smudge or use the liquify tool. A 3D sculptor manipulates basic shapes into characters just like a traditional artist molds clay. An AI "artist" doesn't make any of the thousands of choices that lead to the creation of a real piece of art.

"But art is hard, and I'm not good enough."

Neither am I! Man, I'm not the worst artist in the world, but I'm not great, still not at the level I would like to be. Sometimes I draw something and I look at it and realize that it sucks ass! Sometimes I post a drawing online and realize that I drew a character out of proportion, that the light source is not consistent, that I've shaded outside the lines! And you know what's great? That I get to have an understanding of what I did wrong! I get to evolve! I redraw something from 5 years ago and realize that my composition is much better, my shading more believable. And I know that in 5 more years, I might redraw it again and pride myself in how much I've evolved.

I've been drawing since I was a baby, and I still have a long way to go. And that is also fine, because art is a lifelong pursuit, growing, changing, just as I am.

It's okay to not be good. Hell, it's okay if you don't even try to get better. By drawing, you WILL. It's inevitable that, by practicing, you'll learn.

You know what will not make you a better artist? Software that will generate your "art" for you. The result might look more complex than what your skill level allows you to create right now. But it doesn't look better. You could draw a crooked circle on xerox paper and it will look better than all the AI art in the world. Because you made it. Have some faith in yourself. Your vision has more artistic value than what that computer generated.

"If you're afraid that AI will steal your job, learn to draw better!"

I'm trying. Are you?

#anti ai art #ai art is not art #ai art is stolen art #ai art is theft

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junorsky · 12 days

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You use procreate right? I'm a beginner in coloring. And your lighting and color is always so good. If you had like steps/tutorial/tips on coloring/lighting in procreate. I would pay for it even. It's hard to find a good tutorial on YouTube for procreate users, and the style that you do which is similar to the coloring style I've been trying to self teach myself for a while and failing. Anyways sorry if this is a weird ask, but I would honestly really appreciate it

One speedpaint coming right up!

Nothing weird about this question. Honestly, I struggle a lot as well, but my problem is the shape, not the colors. I suppose I can "feel" colors, that's why impressionists are my favourite (classics always help!)

I don't know if I can help with using procreate, because I'm not really savvy with it, I always use photoshop for more complex work as it is perfect for twicking lighting, changing tint etc. I prefer to sketch in procreate, because, a) it has many great default brushes, b) my back hurts from sitting on my pc, c) I can go anywhere, draw and immediately post it.

I’ll try to summarise what I figured out with procreate, and maybe give a few tips. But I don’t know if that’s the best way to use this tool. I’m just… winging it, haha

First, if you struggle with colors, look up the color circle

It shows exactly which color goes best with which. For example, if you use Orange for your lighting, and Blue for your shadows, it’ll look nice. Perfect, even. I love that one. Avoid using pure black for shadows, otherwise you risk to make it too… burned? Like, dirty. Be careful with Black magic.

I’ll use Zevlor here to show how it works.

In addition, you can use the opposite color to make the character stand out. It’s really important. What’s more noticeable, red on brown or blue on brown?

Also, learn to use masks. Really, they may be scary, but it saves SO MUCH time. Specifically with procreate, I always use them now for everything because I haven’t found the better way to avoid fixing the stray lines. With that solution, you'll need to correct only one layer at the start, the main one. Clipping masks are great to help with that, but procreate is a little uncomfortable in that regard. I’ll show what I do, perhaps it’ll make things clearer

Those are the most useful things to know, I think. Masks can be used in photoshop in the same way, I have a bad habit of creating too many of them so it's crouded. And they rarely have a name. I'm too lazy to name them all

Anyway, I hope I managed to answer at least one of your questions... or not X) I tried. Good luck with exploring Procreate!

#asks #procreate #art wip #speedpaint #tips #??? i think

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feyspeaker · 3 months

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Hi! I made an account just so I could follow your work. Your art is brilliant and honestly and inspiration to where I want to be. I’m an older artist who has all the anxiety when it comes to improving my process. I’m trying to get into digital portraits and I have so many ideas in my head, but it’s frustrating because I’m not where I want to be to make this happen. What are some tricks that help you/software do you use? Of course, you don’t have to share anything that makes you uncomfortable. I currently have procreate and an iPad, but I feel a little lost. Wondering if I need a different writing tablet and photoshop. Not sure. I just eventually want to find that 3D, but also artistic look you are able to achieve.

hey there! thank you so much!!

ultimately, I will sound like a broken record but I always recommend you sign up for local figure drawing or painting classes. have people pose for you at home and sketch with charcoal and paper. go to the zoo and sit down in front on an exhibit for an hour and try to draw the animals in front of you as fast as you can and fill a couple of pages, move on to a new exhibit and do it again!

nothing is more powerful of a tool to learn than whatever writing utensil you have in your purse and the back of a napkin when you see something you'd like to capture. I've spent quite frankly my entire rememberable life doing this. I used to spend every single day in middle school/high school/my brief failed stint in community college with a pack of cheap sharpies and a beat up binder full of old worksheets and homework to draw on the backs of.

drawing/painting from life will teach you better than anything.

I use a very outdated version of Photoshop, and only got a "nice" tablet in the past 7 months.

Also, a huge tip to you and anyone else reading this: do NOT get too focused on a "style" that you want. Obsessing over that just ruined me for years and years. I wanted so, so, so badly to be the next Matsuri Hino when I was a kid. I copied her work religiously and it NEVER looked right. Frustrated me to no end. And you know why my stuff never looked like hers? Because I'm not her! You can't force your art to come out any way that isn't natural, and the sooner you can accept the art your hand wants to create, the happier you'll be and the easier art will get for you.

The past couple of years before I started diving into this more realism based work, I was just shoving myself through trying to make what art I envied of others. Very stylized/textured watercolor comic book style stuff. And I just was NOT getting any better at it. I have always been more inclined toward realism work, but I've hated it and yearned for stylized work. Yoshitaka Amano? God, I just drooled over that artstyle and beat myself up for never being able to capture it in studies or otherwise.

I finally essentially restructured my entire career around making the art that makes me happy instead of what I "wanted" it to look like. I was extremely depressed, my life was falling apart, and I still needed to make art to survive but I couldn't "art" if I was depressed and hated doing it, so I just had to step back and stop worrying so much about what I thought I wanted to make, and started making what felt most natural.

there's no easy way, and art can be a soul destroying path at times, truly. your software and hardware should come very last place compared to practicing from life (it doesn't matter if you want to paint cartoony stuff of realistic stuff, always start from life). naturally you will find what makes your heart sing the most.

I get a lot of messages from people telling me similar stuff "oh your art is EXACTLY what I want to do!" but I promise you that kind of thought process is chasing a dragon that is likely to harm or drag your creative process down. art style is such a deeply personal thing, so of COURSE it's important to find inspiration, but the second looking at someone else's artwork stops inspiring you and starts frustrating you, put it away.

There are some artists who I love, that I do not check up on often because their artwork ignites, like, serious bitter jealousy in me. It's the truth. I get so mad at myself for not being more like them, and it's such a poison. I think more artists should be transparent about this feeling because I KNOW the art community has a lot of jealousy and ugliness in it.

A fact of being an artist is that you will never be completely happy with a piece you make. You are always going to see the flaws, and that doesn't change whether you'd been drawing for 2 months or 20 years. Occasionally, you will get one piece that you are like "how did I make that???" and then get frustrated that you can't recreate it lol! It's a tough beast.

It's just really important to step back and work on yourself and where you are at, because at the end of the day, the way your soul wants to express artwork might be WILDLY different from what your brain wants, and it can be really detrimental to let those two go to war.

I hope this helps. I'm very passionate about this, and when I started out I ALWAYS ignored the artists who gave the same exact tips as above. I thought they were so annoying and unhelpful, but now I /get it/.

#ask

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cbedfordart · 9 months

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Hey! I’ve been following you for a while and I really love your art, it’s absolutely stunning and I love the way you paint and capture anatomy. I know this is a bit of a broad question but I was wondering if you had any tips on getting better at painting digitally and studying anatomy, maybe more specifically blending, colour picking, and structuring anatomy in a way that looks somewhat realistic?

Thanks and I'm glad you enjoy my work long enough to be following me for this long! I definitely love drawing a naked body that's for sure haha. In terms of tips for getting better there's a few things I can mention but it's going to fall broadly in the general answer of "study", because this is the most sure fire way to be able to understand what it is you're trying to emulate in your art. There are different ways to study, and they teach something slightly different. For example, doing studies from life (live drawing classes) help me understand movement in a way studying from a photograph cant, simply because you're seeing the same model in different poses in real time, you can see how the fat and muscle moves around as they shift to different positions. So they're not technically moving the whole time, but you're still seeing some movement there, and understanding what sticks to what while it rotates and bends. Studying from photographs can help give you time to do some real deep dives and investigate where different bones/muscles sit while someone is in a particular position. There's also the opportunity for understanding how shadows may be formed by the body as typically photographers are more conscious of how the subject may be lit than what may be available in a live drawing class. Beware though, as more things are photoshopped than you realise, not all photos represent reality. Especially glam and fashion photos. It doesn't mean its bad to want to have these effects on your work but just be conscious they might not always be anatomy accurate if that's what you're striving for. I sometimes make a conscious decision to go against what is anatomically correct for a certain effect myself. A book I have been recommending for years for anatomy is Dr. Paul RIcher's "Artistic Anatomy". It's great for understanding muscle structure intimately - it's designed specifically for artists, but with the idea of trying to stylise the diagrams as little as possible for the sake of understanding the human form. There's a lot of great info and detail in here, but beware, there is not a lot of variety in body structure (at least not in the edition I have which is missing female anatomy I think already so I'm not sure what else I don't have in here). So you'll be able to understand function a lot from here but you wont be able to learn a lot about fatter body types sadly.

Colour picking is probably the most difficult for me to explain easily, as I have spent a long time winging it, then studying it, then being really experimental with it. I could write a lot a lot about this but to spare making this post any longer I'll refer to another fun book just for getting started on some frequent and common terms called "Color and Light" by James Gurney.

I also love that he uses like, dinosaurs for everything in here lol. It's a great starting point that can give you some go to ideas that you can then experiment from there. It's not very authoritarian (or at least that's what I feel), and doesn't push anything forward as a hard and fast rule, just showing what affects some colour combinations might instil in someone.

As a whole, I've gotten better at painting digitally by studying traditional painting techniques. They theories are basically transferrable one to one with some few exceptions. I tend to blend my colours by simply using a soft round brush in Photoshop with a low opacity. Much the same way I would with a real canvas, with a large round brush and diluted colour. I hope this answers your questions in some way. I tried to be not too specific only because this answer would be at least another 30k words lol because this is something i think a lot about! I love technique! If I ever stream again, feel free to pop in and ask more questions where I might be able to show some stuff in real time! Not sure when that will happen though!

Also the way i do stuff isn't a "correct" way either. I like painting from imagination so this is how I make that work. Some people like to only work with references for every piece, and that is a completely legit way to create stunning art as well. Good luck!

#asks

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mrsshabana · 10 months

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Can you give a few tips on digital art? I'd love to get into it but I'm not sure how to start, what equipment/apps do you use? Thank youu 💞

♡ 𝑫𝒊𝒈𝒊𝒕𝒂𝒍 𝑨𝒓𝒕 𝑻𝒊𝒑𝒔 ♡

Of course! I would love to give some digital art tips! My first tip is to just have fun! If you are drawing for yourself and just want to have fun, then draw however you want that makes it the most fun experience for you! ଘ( ･ω･)_/ﾟ･:*:･｡☆ 𝑬𝒒𝒖𝒊𝒑𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒍𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔

I use Clip Studio Paint, for most of my digital paintings. Though I started off using Photoshop. I used to only use photoshop but I would not recommend it for beginners as it is expensive and difficult to learn. I would definitely recommend Clip Studio Paint as it's much cheaper and easier to learn.

I use the Huion Kamvas 13 drawing tablet. That is the link to the exact one I got from Amazon. It's a lot cheaper than Wacom tablets and it works just as good. I've been using this one for years and it's been great!

𝑯𝒐𝒘 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒕

I would recommend starting by drawing what you see. What I mean by that, is look up photos of things and try to replicate them as much as you can. I did this for a long time (probably too long) but it helped me immensely. Because everything we draw is based on what we see, so if you can replicate that then you can draw anything.

For example, if you know you want to get really good at drawing Gyutaro, I would look up male bodies and draw them. (Real bodies, not drawings or cartoons).

𝑨𝒓𝒕 𝑺𝒕𝒚𝒍𝒆

This may be controversial, but personal art styles don't really exist. This is the first thing I learned in art school and I think it was one of the most important things I learned.

What I mean by this, is that no one owns any particular art style. An art style is developed in many ways but it mostly emerges from combining other art styles or stems from another art style.

People worry way too much about "finding their art style". Don't do this, it's a waste of time. After time each artist develops a way of drawing that comes naturally to them but that comes over many years, so don't try to force it to happen. And when it does happen, don't stick to one art style!

I would say it is most beneficial to teach yourself multiple art styles. Every time I start a new drawing I try to figure out what art style I want to draw in. I do this by going through the art I've saved on Pinterest. I'll see something I like and make a set of rules that I have to follow while drawing in order to replicate that specific art style.

Not only is it more fun being able to draw in multiple art styles, but it's necessary if you want a career in art. (By career I don't mean doing commissions, I mean being hired by a company to make art. Like a concept artist for example.)

If you're worried about what art styles to try, just try any one that catches your eye! Or you can start by trying to draw realism. That's what I did, and it's very difficult and time consuming but if you can master realism then you can succeed at almost any art style a lot easier.

𝑹𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆𝒔

I cannot stress how important references are! If you do not use references when drawing then you are setting yourself up for failure.

References are photos you use to look at as a guide when drawing. For example, let's say I want to draw Gyutaro swimming in a pool. I'd look up photos (references) of Gyutaro so when I'm drawing him I can look back at them to make sure I am drawing him correctly. I would also look up photo's of a guy swimming, I would use this photo to guide me when drawing the pose and also when drawing the water etc.

So always use references!! And don't be afraid to copy poses either, it saves lots of time and is very helpful for learning how to draw anatomy. Don't be afraid to use yourself as a reference either.

For example, when I drew Gyutaro having a pillow fight I couldn't find a good reference for the pose that I had in mind. So I just took a photo of myself in that pose! I look nothing like Gyutaro, but a body is a body. I used my photo as a reference to draw the skeleton and then changed the body shape to match Gyutaro's.

𝑴𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝒈𝒖𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒔 !!

My biggest tip for anyone, but especially beginners is to make guides before you draw any piece! Here is an example of one that I did for an assignment in my Manga Art class in college.

I wanted to do an art style similar to Death Note but I also wanted it to have a retro vibe too. So I made this Art style/Reference guide. I compiled images that represented the art style I was going for and took notes for things that I thought would be important to keep in mind when drawing.

I still do this a lot when drawing, especially if I'm trying out a new art style I'm not very familiar with.

𝑴𝒂𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑨𝒄𝒄𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝑭𝒂𝒏𝒂𝒓𝒕

People always ask me how do I draw Gyutaro so accurately. Well, I'm about to tell you how!

I draw him all the time, so lot's of practice. But there is a certain thing I find really helps when trying to accurately draw a character's face.

We'll use Gyutaro as an example

Find a photo of Gyutaro's face that you want to practice with (not fanart, it must be either from the anime or the manga).

Look at the photo closely, and try to draw it as accurately as you can.

Now, on a new canvas, try to draw the same photo of Gyutaro again but without looking at the reference. (Just using your memory) And give yourself a time limit too, no longer than 5 minutes.

Compare your drawing to the photo. How accurate is it? Probably not very accurate yet, but that's ok! Look closely at your drawing and compare it to the original. What is wrong with it? Are the eyes too small? Is the mouth placed too high?

Figure out what is wrong and fix it next time. Repeat these steps until you are able to draw Gyutaro's face accurately without looking at the reference photo.

If you are still struggling after a while try tracing over the original image a few times. This can help you memorize the structure of his face.

It may take a while but eventually you'll get to the point where you are able to draw Gyutaro's face accurately without looking at the reference photo!

This tip works for everything by the way, not just character's faces. I use it for everything! I used to suck at drawing hands, so I did these steps but with a photo of a hand, and now I can draw hands! Use these steps for anything you feel is difficult for you to draw accurately. It's great for learning anatomy.

Here's an example of the final results when I did these steps. The drawing on the right is what I was able to do at the end just from memory.

ﾟ+*:ꔫ:*﹤　𝓣𝓱𝓪𝓷𝓴 𝓨𝓸𝓾　﹥*:ꔫ:*+ﾟ

I know I wrote a lot, but I hope these tips helped someone! And if you have any questions about anything I mentioned here, feel free to ask! (ɔ◔‿◔)ɔ ♥

#gyutaro #gyutaro shabana #digital art #art tips #fanart #replies #kny fanart

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lexart-io · 3 months

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hi! I'm a fan of your work and am trying to learn ai myself, could you tell me a bit about your process? keep up the good work :D

thank you! everything i do these days is rendered in automatic1111 stable diffusion, run locally on my computer (on my nvidia rtx 3060 gpu w/ 12gb of vram). i train my own base models with kohya trainer XL and LoRA models with kohya LoRA trainer XL, both of which i usually run on google colab (on an nvidia a100 gpu because training models is a lot more resource intensive than rendering images).

most of what i do is less about the text prompt and more about the models used. in fact, i tend to recycle through a lot of the same text prompts over and over (with only minor changes to them) as i test out the models that i've trained. i think the most creative part of working with ai is in training models. text prompting is just the surface of it, but training ai is where you're really starting to create something that no one else can exactly replicate (unless they literally steal your dataset and settings). it is an extraordinarily fascinating form of creative expression that is unlike anything in human history... basically wrangling a blank slate machine intelligence to do your bidding by teaching it.

i do a lot of experimenting with the datasets that i use to train models. some are trained on more specific subjects or aesthetics, while others are trained on more symbolic concepts. then i combine these models when rendering images (the nice thing about LoRA models is that you can combine many models in a single text prompt). when i find combinations that seem particularly cool, i'll render a whole series of images and use those as a dataset to train a new model. then i'll combine that model with other models and sort of continue this evolutionary process of training and retraining models, using datasets comprised mostly of previously rendered images.

the datasets for my earliest models started with things like this (i would just slowly collect random cool images that captured a vibe that i liked, categorize them with other similar images, and eventually train a model on that specific vibe):

whereas now they're usually trained on images i previously rendered that share a specific vibe.

training models is definitely an art form itself... a lot of very delicate settings, how/if the dataset is tagged (the process of describing what is in each image to help the ai identify what it is analyzing during training), the specific images that comprise the dataset (1 bad/confusing image can sometimes really negatively impact the resulting model), etc. this is a whole HUGE subject that i could write FOREVER about, but i'll spare you (and myself) the endless wall of text haha.

anyway, some final gritty details worth mentioning about the workflow of actually rendering images and getting as much coherent detail as possible out of it: when i render something i like in automatic1111, i'll usually re-render it with hires fix using the LDSR upscaler to upscale it x2. some models don't play nicely with upscaling (and things can come out warped), so i'll either try again at x1.5 or x1.25 or try reducing the denoising strength (i typically like to keep it around 0.5). assuming the model(s) used do play nice with upscaling, i'll sometimes then send it over to the "img2img" tab and upscale it again x2 using the "SD upscale" script with the LDSR upscaler (denoising set to around 0.3 here). occasionally i'll upscale it x4 one last time using Real-ESRGAN (and then resize it down to something normal, since by this point the image resolution can exceed 10,000x10,000 pixels lol), which can help to smooth out any rough textures. the final step is making any last adjustments in photoshop - things like contrast or cleaning up noise / stray pixels.

hope this helps and hope it isn't too much of a mess to read haha. i really tried to condense as much of my process as i could into something as short as possible (i actually deleted 3 paragraphs during this because it was getting way too deep and i don't want to burden anyone with a boring novel of overly specific details). there are a lot of tutorials out there regarding everything i've mentioned here; reddit and youtube are probably the best resources. if you have specific questions on anything though, feel free to reach out! i'm always down to help folks get into this.

#stable diffusion #photoshop #digital art #ai #artificial intelligence #generative art #ai art #synthography #ask

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k00290022a · 6 months

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Trying to teach myself a basic understanding of Adobe animate. It's difficult but I'm making progress. I drew the car In photoshop and imported it in

#photoshop #animation

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wineonmytshirt · 4 months

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what do you y'all use to download videos to make gifs on photoshop? sorry if this is a stupid question i'm a beginner and trying to teach myself

#jen talking to all of you

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piratemousey · 6 months

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"Peace on the Road"

Tav and Gale

Affinity Designer (I'm teaching myself still with tutorials and a technique called "What's this do?")

My Tav: Ava Kross, Bard School of Lore

She honors the goddess Tymora who brings luck to adventurers with gold clovers falling like coins on her lute. The pillows are ones she's collected along the road to try and make her tent more comfortable.

This took long but I learned a lot about the program. The background was the last thing I did when I realized they were just in a white space. lol So, the background was a quicky.

If anyone has recommendations or tips about digital art, let me know. I learned photoshop about fifteen years ago in college when I went for fine art. I almost changed my major but then I had to go live with a blue eyed cutie.

Anyway, here's a fanfic for anyone interested in Gale romance.

Tav x Gale

Warning: romancing Gale, act 1 and 2 spoilers, head cannon, kissing, misuse of magic, magic which may not exist but it's a story, Lorroakan slander.

Tav laid quietly in her tent, the only sound the soft notes as she plucked her lute. After a long day on the road, Tav finally cleaned off the mud and crawled into her tent. The camp was quiet. The companions had spent the morning sifting through the remnants of the Duergar village. The underdark was strange for Tav who’d spent her life one the surface, but as she looked through the empty homes of the underdark dwarves, Tav no longer felt satisfied in her victory for the Myconids. Part of her knew that saving the colony was right. The Duergar were servants of the absolute. But it didn’t make it any easier to see children toys, crafting materials, pots and pans. Evidence of life. Life outside of warfare and dark alliances. They had lives and loves. It wasn’t that much different from Baldur’s Gate.

As Tav heard the soft rustle of her tent’s flap being moved, she wasn’t surprised to turn her eyes to find Gale crouched there.

“I didn’t know if you wanted to be alone with your thoughts,” Galen said.

“I can be with my thoughts and you,” Tav said. Gale smiled, looking down in his bashful way. It was funny to Tav that a powerful, daring, ambitious wizard would blush for her.

Gale climbed into the tent, sitting on the inside of the bedrolls where there was room. He sat contented on her overstuffed pink pillow. Tav and Gale had grow closer since the grove and the tiefling party. They shared so much in common; their love of knowledge and all things arcane. They read poetry to one another and recounted countless facts they found fascinating. But, it was more than that. Since the moment they spent in the weave together they’d been comforting one another. It started with a hand on the shoulder, or a touch on the back. It wasn’t something they talked about, it was something that happened. They quickly escalated to hugging.

Tav remembered when Gale hugged her fully for the first time. She’d sent everyone away from a planning meeting in frustration, but Gale stayed. He watched her with his soft brown eyes before he gathered her in his arms. His tenderness moved her and she found her frustrations lulled by the warmth of his affection. Gale held her firmly, and she held him back.

They hadn’t even kissed yet but she felt the connection. The warmth and reactions of love. He was trying to be a good friend. He was burdened by the orb and couldn’t imagine anything else in his life.

But Tav knew she was falling in love.

“Half the trouble is the beach wasn’t the best place for a camp,” Gale said. He moved his fingers in a practiced way, and a soft purple glow surrounding them along the floor of her tent. The soft scent of roses and vanilla encompassed them, sealing out the reality of the world outside.

“It seems I’m not alone in being thoughtful,” Tav said. “The whole camp is quiet.”

“I think everyone is tired,” Gale said. “Most of us haven’t been without the sun for this long, it will effect the mood. The underdark is peaceful though, and beautiful in it’s own way.”

Tav nodded her agreement. “I love the glow of the plants. It makes it more obvious everything around us is alive.” Tav let out a sigh, trying to push away her worries. “I’m probably the only one wondering what happened to the Duergar’s children than,” Tav confided in Gale knowing he’d search for a way to make things right.

“Given the Myconids propensity for recycling, I’d say they’re probably full of mushrooms tending a mushroom garden,” Gale said thoughtfully. Then he looked over at Tav realizing what he’d said. “I’m sure some of them made it to other colonies.” He tried to recover.

“You’re probably right on both counts,” Tav said. She pushed lose hair back from her. “It’s just one of those days you get on the road I guess.”

“We go through a lot in our day to day,” Gale said. “Never mind the hard ground, the cold, the mud, the dead things. We encounter things which test us. My own experimentations aside,” Gale said while he gestured to the scar on his neck from the orb blast. “These tests may not be fun, but there are some which can make us better. Some of them bring rewards which can further our skill and power, some take from us. People like us, we can’t resist the tests.”

“I always tested well but I went to a bard school,” Tav said in a self depreciating way.

“All knowledge brings challenges, none are less than the others,” Gale said. His smile was earnest, his face open like it was when they’d be info-dumping to one another about their interests.

“You don’t believe that,” Tav said with a laugh.

“I do, just because it’s not something I excel at…” Gale said.

Tav chuckled at Gale’s stuttering explanation.

“You don’t think your bard school was important?”

“I think it was important; especially at the time. But, I would have bet Gale of Waterdeep, an evocation wizard with his tower and his Tressym, would find it frivolous.” Tav said. She smiled and kept her tone playful so he’d know she was teasing him.

“You wound me,” Gale said with false discomfort. “I'd never begrudge a bard their own search for truth. You know my love of knowledge is only surpassed by my own self-obsession."

“What a self to be obsessed with,” Tav said. She couldn’t help but flirt with Gale. He was so close and she loved his smile. He looked so handsome and sweet when he smiled.

“If you think I’m bad you should meet this absolute ass of a man I know in Baldur’s Gate. Lorroakan. Thinks if you summon enough elementals and inherit enough magic artifacts from famous cousin’s people will think you’re powerful. He has a fire elemental in library, I understand the necessary for a good firetrap now and then, but surely he sees the danger of a flame creature near books.” Gale was incensed by this Lorroakan and his reckless elementals. Tav loved when he grew impassioned.

“We’ll have to go post up in front of his shop,” Tav said. She gestured with her lute. “I’ll think up some limericks for him.”

“I can provide petty details if you have need of any,” Gale said, looking pleased. “Wizards do love to gossip.”

“A collaboration?” Tav said. She shifted her body on the bedroll. She wanted to draw Gale’s attention to her body, and it worked. She saw him look over her reclining form briefly, his lips parting. “That could benefit us both. Tymora blesses people who share creatively in order to celebrate life, love, all kinds of things.”

“The blessing of a goddess,” Gale said, his eyes finding Tav’s again. “Well, we know the lengths I’d go to for such a favor.” Gale’s eyes were full of his affection for Tav. She’d seen the look before, usually when she wanted him to kiss her the most.

“I know Lady Luck well. I can teach you what you need to know,” Tav said. “She’s a more… giving goddess than some of the others.” Tav kept a soft sexy smile on her lips. She could tell Gale was responding to her innuendo.

“What would your first instruction be?” Gale asked, his voice taking on that soft rumble Tav loved.

“You can come closer if you’d like,” Tav said. She shifted her lute the beside her as if clearing the way for Gale.

Gale moved onto his hands and knees and moved closer. His smile endearing and self-assured. He rested on his elbow beside her. At first it looked to Tav like he might leave a space, but then they were close. They were in each other space and the weight of attraction pressed between them. Tav felt a yearning, she saw it on Gale’s face. He looked over her figure again before his hand rested on her side, the other arm, pushing beneath her back.

The soft perfume of roses had filled the tent only heightening the romantic atmosphere. And the silence of the camp gave the impression of being completely alone.

Tav and Gale gazed into one another’s eyes with desire. Gale rested his head against Tav’s cheek for a moment as he felt overwhelmed with affection. Tav released her lute, leaving the favor of the goddess Tymora for later. She rested her hand on his arm as it held her. Gale eased back to meet Tav’s gaze again. His hand moved from her waist to her cheek, gently tracing her lips with his fingers. Fingers which commanded the weave, hands which could be strong or delicate as needed.

Tav enjoyed Gale’s touch. She wanted to kiss him, but she also wanted whatever tenderness he would show her.

His hand moved under her ear. As Gale titled her head up, she closed her eyes. Their lips met softly. When Gale tilted his head to the right. He separated their lips for seconds. Those seconds drove Tav wild and she set her hand on his wrist. Gale’s lips curled in a satisfied smile as he gave her individual feathering kisses. Then he tilted his head to the left. He leaned into the kiss, pushing her lips apart. Tav scooted closer, her body pressed against Gale’s as their kiss deepened. Tav moved her hand into Gale’s coat, rubbing his chest. Gale’s tongue was pushing against Tav’s own, pushing her arousal. She used her tongue to run down Gale’s before gently sucked on his tongue while her fingers pushed open his collar.

The air shifted and the smell of seaweed drew Tav’s attention from her enjoyment of the moment.

Gale broke their kiss. When Tav looked around, she saw the purple glow was gone. Gale had stopped channeling.

“I’m sorry,” Gale said. “I don’t know why I used a concentration version of the spell. There’s another scent spell that stays around, but I don’t knows your thoughts of woody scents.”

“Did I break the concentration of Gale of Waterdeep?” Tav asked with a sly smile.

“You did indeed,” Gale’s gaze was on hers again, his passion only just beneath the surface.

“That sounds maybe like another test for you to pass,” Tav teased.

Gale laughed, letting his head drop between them. Tav felt so natural and relaxed as they held one another.

“Maybe another time,” Tav said. “I like woody scents, reminds me of the library.”

“Me too,” Gale replied as if their love of the library was almost a new idea. She loved his enthusiasm. Gale leaned onto his side to cast another spell, the warmth of the weave filling the tent again. The scent of heartwood and oak moss.

“That’s lovely,” Tav said watching the soft tendrils of weave which carried the scent.

Gale’s touch drew Tav’s attention. His thumb caressed her neck, his fingers gliding to her chin. He tipped her lips to his again. She let her fingers travel again over the scars on his chest, feeling his heartbeat race again. Tav didn’t know what reaction was occurring, but she knew it made Gale’s passion rise.

Tav and Gale kissed gently and spoke softly to one another as they lay in the haze of their affection. The small tent became an oasis from the troubles of the road and those which had upended their own lives. However, Tav felt conflicted. Amongst the tadpoles, and devil’s deals, fetching heads for giant mushroom people, She’d found Gale. He was wandering into the wilderness to die when the illithid plucked him up for their plans. Tav would never had the chance to meet him let alone fall in love with him. While Tav didn’t hold tightly to the goddess of adventure and luck, she wasn’t lying when she told Gale about the blessings which found people who honored her spirit. Tav didn’t care if she had to thank a goddess, an illithid, or a pack of goblins, she was gifted Gale. Tav wouldn’t lose him to the orb or some goddess’s whims.

💜💙

I know that the game cannon has it’s own romance points. However, my head cannon is that while Gale was defiantly distracted with his own mortality, he and Tav were physically affectionate. The night with the stars, the tour, and the bed was their first time having sex. Gale had separated his emotions and even alone time with Tav from their day to day in his mind, not believing he could have anything good. He continued to wait for Tav to leave him as the pain from the orb grew, but that didn’t happen.

That’s why when he confesses his love he’s desperate and somewhat confused. He never thought he’d find love. He thought his fate was to die. But, in act two he can’t deny their love any longer.

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 gale #gale of waterdeep #fanfic #bg3 fanart #fanart #fanfiction #gale dekarios #bg3 gale romance #Kissing in the weave while flipping off mystra #mention of big brown eyes #Love to my fellow Gale romancers

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laiostoudenn · 2 months

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An apology, below the cut

An apology to @minthara and @mercymaker (whom I can’t tag so if anyone wants to point them to this post, that would be lovely)

@minthara, I should've done this sooner and I apologize firsthand for that. I wish it could be through a DM but for obvious reasons it can't. I've never had to do a public apology so please bear with me. Please know I did see the post and had plenty of talks with friends and yeah, you were right. I copied your homework when I should've TRIED asking in your inbox. But I didn't. And I'm sorry. I think I got caught up in teaching myself things in photoshop while using works as inspiration for enhancing my skills because honestly that's what it was supposed to be. I wanted to enhance my skills. But I should've done that by finding my own style or again ASKING. And you know what? It was unfair to you. So I wanted to publicly apologize and acknowledge it. I could've reacted better, but I didn't. I've taken all the posts down in respect to you. Going forward if something inspires me or I want to try my hand I will ask but it's no excuse for the frustration I caused you. Please know there was never any malicious intent. I have taken all the respective posts down in respects to your work.

@mercymaker, when you asked for credit and I kind of shrugged it off as “oh I forgot” then made another post… in hindsight I can see how insensitive that was. I honestly did mean to credit you but that really doesn’t matter now. You were right to be upset. I also apologize for reacting so ugly, I thought you were coming for my OCs for some reason so I got defensive. (Also I was already having on off day that day anyways but again, not an excuse). I handled it terribly and should’ve actually tried hearing what you were actually trying to say, which was “give proper credit, etc.”

So my point is, going forward, if something truly honestly inspires me and I want to try my hand at it: I will ASK first and make sure to double check that I properly tagged the right people. But I’m truly trying to experiment with my own style. I own up.

#for anyone unaware of the situation #don't worry about it #it's something i need to own up to #i just don't want to go on acting like it didn't happen #never had to do something like this so #forgive me if it was not worded the best #dropping this and going to bed #i wish i could just stop thinking about it #i'll go back to regularly scheduled posting tomorrow i guess

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tbcanary · 11 months

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do you have a guide to making your animated comic edits?

i don't, actually! in part because i'm relatively new to these parts and no one has asked for one, and in part because every gif i do is kind of a unique little adventure into teaching myself a new skill, so there isn't just one approach. but! i'm delighted that you want to know! so i'll try and walk you through a couple of them.

we'll start with this guy, because he's a favorite of mine and showcases a lot of the steps that i usually have to do:

tools you'll need: photoshop CS6; digital versions of the comics you'd like to edit.

(i assume you can use any version of photoshop or any editor capable of creating gifs, but CS6 is my preference. photopea is a fantastic free alternative, but figuring out timing and transitions is a lot harder there and requires more effort.)

step one: find your panels and elements

it's worth noting here that i cannot - and i mean this - cannot draw. at all. a lot of my life would be easier if i could, but here we stand. as such, nearly every element of these gifs is pulled from the comics themselves.

for this particular gif, which is admittedly on the simpler side, i needed two things: the initial panel, of jason leaping into the air, and a still image of jason as robin. preferably from the same run with the same artist, because that way, the art matches. i found these:

and that's all i needed for this one. sometimes i need to pull several panels for the vibe i want, or for specific things -- leaves to drift through the frame, magical elements, text and sound effects, speech bubbles, etc -- but adding those in follows pretty much the same processes either way.

step two: prep them!

easier said than done, really. what i needed to do here was make myself a blank canvas around the elements that i would be messing with. this varies from project to project, but for this one, it goes as follows: remove the narration box and jason from the first panel; create an isolated version of jason that can be pasted back in; create an isolated version of robin that can be pasted in the same place at a similar angle.

this is a lengthy process, because i work off my laptop and have a touchpad and no artistic skills. here, it requires drawing in a lot of building and making a successfully blurry, ombre sky. and, because robin!jason's toes are cut off, i have to draw those in and try to match the shading.

(there's also some work here with color balance and photo filters to match coloration; i had to add some highlighting and change the colors on robin!jason a bit to match the background lighting of the overall image, but not by much. sometimes, this step is more involved.)

after some fiddling, i usually end up with things i'm happy with. for this gif, those are as follows:

(this is done through the blur tool, the magic wand selection tool, refining the edges of a selection, or -- in many cases, because comic lineart is my enemy - erasing every pixel of the background or character by hand. yes, there are easier ways to do this, but i like my time-consuming methodologies. they're soothing to me.)

and now we're ready for the fun parts.

part three: assembly!

so we take that background we just made and we paste hood!jason back on it on a new layer. silly that we have to, but yknow. it's fine. he's in there. and now the goal is to find a way to successfully transition from hood!jason to robin!jason in a way that's satisfactory.

i follow a lot of standard gifmaking practices, i feel like? but i'm also self-taught, so i actually don't know how true that is. i create a timeline in photoshop and set it to have a delay of about 0.2 seconds to start with, just to see how the transitions go. i usually start with 10 frames, and then add or remove depending on what seems right.

(the variations here can be broad, by the way. i have a green arrow gif with 140 frames with no delay and a wonder woman gif with six frames on a one-second delay, for example, but those are for another time. starting with 0.2 seconds' delay across 10 frames is just a comfortable starting place for me, is my point.)

this is what the timeline looks like for this project:

(it's that bar at the bottom. you can see the settings and all that as they appear in the final product: 0.1 second delay over 12 frames, so not too far off from my default. nice.)

operating within that 10-12 frame range, i mess around with photo filters and the blur tool to both make hood!jason disappear and make robin!jason appear. this involved a heavy use of the "accented strokes" setting in the filter gallery and smudging and blurring until they looked how i wanted them to, which is to say, rather silly.

here's red hood vanishing:

and here's robin appearing:

there are a few additional versions of these, but i think you get the idea. these are all the bits and bobs, and i just have to lay them out in the timeline in order to get the transition as i'd like it to be.

so i start with jason as hood, and then i move through the timeline and click and unclick the little eye to view them. this is also a heavy process; this gif has about twenty layers, and i'm revealing/hiding each one individually. that is actually not as bad as it could be; one of the poison ivy gifs i've published has about 600 layers that i did that with, and i have a green arrow gif with about 800 layers and 70 frames that i didn't even end up publishing because i wasn't happy with it. c'est la vie.

the end product should look something like this:

which, when played at 0.1 second delay and looped, looks like this:

part four: in conclusion...

i recognize this "guide" is messy and skips over quite a bit, but that's because every gif really is its own beast. i am very familiar with trial and error, and with trashing things that don't end up working out. each gifset takes me about 10-12 hours, depending on complexity, without even counting the time to track down panels or read the comics themselves.

if you want to start with something simple, i suggest animating text bubbles. all you have to do for those is erase them from the background and then drop them back in over the top for about 0.5 or 01 seconds apiece for readability. this gif of mia, for example, was just isolating her from her background, creating a new background from a different panel, and then flipping the text on and off. it's got five frames on a 0.5-second delay.

basically... fuck around and find out. a lot. once you know how the gif timeline works and how to hide/reveal layers, the world is your oyster, because that's all this is.

again, i know this is messy and all over the place, but i hope it helps! have a little fun with it, and don't be afraid to mess up. it's fun either way. <3

#tbanimations #how to #ask.tb #elioherondale #i am always down to talk about how these got made so if there's a more specific one you had in mind...#feel free to ask about it #i am an open book i like discussing the things i make

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