Ashe

look what I found

Just the greatest catalogue of hand pose refs/traces ever created

Examples:

Dungeon

Bludgeon

Pantheon

Patreon

Surgeon

Luncheon

Nickelodeon

Pigeon

I got some request for my process with backgrounds after the Onsen, so this will be a step-by-step-ish doumentation for an American Southwest landscape.

BIG. ASS. CANVAS. like at least one side should be 5000 pixels

Get a shitload of references:

Yeah 42 is enough

4. Or, uh. Seventeen minutes. Kinda slapped and scaled them in approximately the size and location I want them.

5. Now I'm gonna spend an outrageous amount of time isolating the exact thing I want from these references and Paper-dolling theminto place

Bounce light is something I didn't cover but I adore it!

Gamut Mask

(image via )

James Gurney is an absolute master and gives really good clarity on colour techniques. Yes, it is traditional paint focused, but the principles are the same. Yes it is informed by the environmental colour but as a painting technique it is achieved this way!

While it's not super important to know about the mathematical side of blend modes, I think it's worth knowing at least enough about how each of the categories of blend modes works and why they do what they do; if for no other reason than having a starting point when you start experimenting with them in your work.

An overview of the basic blend modes and how they work from Genevieve's Design Studio: Accessible with minimal color knowledge; practical and illustration focused. https://youtu.be/kMc87hQrJd0?si=TWCB365pKSfWS8p0. (16 minutes) This creator also has a ton of free resources you can download, including a Blend Modes cheatsheet, but fair warning: you have to create an account to get them!

A mainly single-page-gag comedy about a tabletop/comic book/all-your-nerd-tools store's staff and regulars, all of whom are stereotypical greasy misogynist basement nerds of the era, but there's a few glacial paced overarching storylines, one of which is two of the guys slowly realising that their over-the-top ironically homoerotic game of gay chicken that they've been playing as a sort of ridiculous anime-ass rivalry against each other really is just sexual tension, as it turns out they're both bisexual. They're still both dickheads, but they both do kind of want to hatefuck about it.

And two other members of the group both come to discover that they're both trans. A classic "playing a female dnd character For No Reason" to "actually I don't like being called he/him at all" pipeline may be involved. Also the discovery that trans lesbians exist, and consequently starting the slowest-burn-ever classic lesbian "idk I'd date you and I know you said you'd date me but I'm not sure if you'd be into me" courting ritual with each other.

free 2 use

I couldn't find the caramelldansen base in this post, but here is a version that should work just as well.

Here is the original lick icon base.

To save these and have them be usable, you have to click the "free download" button underneath the image.

Some other good bases:

Dance Icon

Caipirinha

Run Run Run

You can find many other bases like these through DeviantArt.

How to make them into a GIF:

Step 1. Edit the base however you like (I used MSPaint)

Step 2: Crop and save each frame individually as PNGs (Note for the lick base: It's best to crop them to include the black boarder. This makes the GIF 50x50, which is the standard DeviantArt icon size and can easily scale larger if need be.)

Step 3: Go to ezgif.com/maker and upload all your frames

Step 4: Set "delay time" to 10, then click "Make a GIF!"

Step 5: Right-click the result and save it. Congrats! You used a GIF base!