Call Me Fruit Hat

i just learned this which is MUCH easier than what i used to do

Shapeshifters who have entirely blank featureless faces and bodies who can look like anyone, but it takes a lot of concentrated effort, time and skill, to mold their features into a realistic human face, similar to putting on a full face of makeup in the morning 

I realize now that it was a book about me dealing with depression before I even knew it. Looking back at how blatant the projecting was, it’s obvious now. It wasn’t then.

In the story, the middle-generation people are lost. They’re apathetic. They’re just a placeholder. The only job they have is to keep the ship running, have kids, and die. As the middle generation of people began becoming adults, suicide rates were skyrocketing. Crime and drug rates were jumping. This generation was completely apathetic because they felt that they had no use.

In the story, a small group of people in the middle-generation create the Weather Project. They turn the ship into a terrarium. They make magnificent gardens and take the DNA of animals they took with them and recreate them and they make this cold, metal spaceship that they have to live their entire lives on into a home. They take what little they have and they break it and rearrange it into something beautiful. They take this radical idea and turn the ship into a wonderful jungle of trees and birds and sunshine.

And I realize now how much it reflects my state of mind as I transitioned from a child into an adult while dealing with depression. You always hear “it gets better” and “when you’re older things will be easier” and I was so sick of waiting for it to get better. I was in the middle-generation stage. And I was sick of it. I was so sick of waiting.

When I was in highschool I didn’t know how to end the story. I didn’t know how to have a happy ending. I didn’t have the life experience then to finish the story in a meaningful way. I didn’t know how to make it better for these middle-generation characters.

But now that I’m older, I’m learning. That if you sit and wait for things to get better, it never will. You have to take your life and break it apart and rearrange it into something beautiful. You have to make the cold metal ship into the garden that you deserve. You have to make your own meaning. You have to plant your own garden.

Yasuo Ōtsuka (mentor to Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata) short lecture clip on character design

8 vegetables that you can regrow again and again.

Scallions

You can regrow scallions by leaving an inch attached to the roots and place them in a small glass with a little water in a well-lit room.

Garlic

When garlic begins to sprout, you can put them in a glass with a little water and grow garlic sprouts. The sprouts have a mild flavor than garlic and can be added to salads, pasta and other dishes.

Bok Choy

Bok choy can be regrown by placing the root end in water in a well-lit area. In 1-2 weeks , you can transplant it to a pot with soil and grow a full new head.

Carrots

Put carrot tops in a dish with a little water. Set the dish in a well-lit room or a window sill.  You’ll have carrot tops to use in salads. 

Basil

Put clippings from basil with 3 to 4-inch stems in a glass of water and place it in direct sunlight. When the roots are about 2 inches long, plant them in pots to and in time it will grow a full basil plant.

Celery

Cut off the base of the celery and place it in a saucer or shallow bowl of warm water in the sun. Leaves will begin to thicken and grow in the middle of the base, then transfer the celery to soil. 

Romaine Lettuce

Put romaine lettuce stumps in a ½ inch of water. Re-water to keep water level at ½ inch. After a few days, roots and new leaves will appear and you can transplant it into soil.

Cilantro

Oof- well.. I’m not sure if I have advice that will actually help since I’ve been drawing comics for a long time.. but finishing them was another story lol.

I found researching how to make comics, and figuring out what helps the story being told (panel positions, character placement, speech bubbles) does make it easier to write the story and guide the characters.

This tutorial is one of my favourites to link, and whenever I felt stuck I’d refer back to it

There’s also the 180 rule, which I learned about very late into drawing comics.. and admittedly broke that rule a few times through my comics after I learned about it anyway xD, this one mostly helps with your readers and it’s hard to explain so-

Here’s one post about it, and another, I can try explain it more if needed though!

(There’s this, but I’ll be honest I haven’t read it- but it might be helpful lol)

Here’s another one on story boarding being important and whilst I don’t do this- it might help others :D, I tend to write out every important detail and store it aside for later (and wing a lot of details that end up changing said story BUT ANYWAY). The beauty of creating things is that you don’t HAVE to follow these things to create, but if it helps then yay!

I do have one piece of advice- if you need to portray a characters emotions, make sure to show as much of their body as possible and show it through their body language, it helps! It also makes it more fun because a characters face and body language can tell two different things.

LAST THING-

Make sure to pace yourself, set a goal, one page a week or month if you’re busy. Sometimes when I struggle a lot, I get on a game I like and do a short quest or mission, then pause and make myself sketch at least 1 panel before I can play again.

…And another last thing because this has become a ramble: Pick out some music for when you’re in a huge drawing moods. Motivational, emotional, anything that suits the mood of what you’re drawing. Some days you have to force yourself- and sometimes you even have to fight through art block, BUT YOU CAN DO IT!!