Jack rabbit

My therapist gave me this to help me dive deeper into my emotions during sessions because I have trouble getting past my “primary” emotions:

WOWZERS! I didn’t think I’d get this many followers in just a few weeks! Thank you everyone so much for your love! and to celebrate  I’ve decided to do a raffle!!!!

Rules:

-Be a follower/new followers are welcome (but please don’t unfollow after it’s over”!)

-Like and/or reblog this post(Max is twice)

PRIZES:

1st prize: A full body sketch of your oc with shading 

2nd prize: Full body drawing with flat coloring

3rd prize: Head shot with flat coloring

Winners will be chosen with a random number generator!

Sure thing! I don’t know how much of a help I’ll be, but I’ll share what I know!

Equipment:

 Anyone who says you need expensive tech to get started is a filthy heathen. Or just trying to get top quality stuff. Either way, you don’t need it.

My tablet: 

Bamboo Splash Tablet, $35 USD on Amazon. I’m pretty sure it’s made for someone in the 7th grade. Works fantastic, I’ve had it for 3 years.

Software: 

Paintsai would be a great starting point. It’s free(?), and comes with nearly everything you need. There are some minor glitches, but it’s a fantastic way to get your foot in the door. 

The software I use is “Clip Studio Paint”, which you can wait for to go on sale and snag it for cheap. I got mine for $20, and it’s fantastic. All kinds of tools, commands, filters, modes, and general awesome that keeps cool stuff flowing!

References:

If you get one thing out of this, you need to have a reference. Multiple, if possible! A great way to do this with pone is to go to derpibooru, and make a filter that has just the stuff you draw. For example, I have a “Male Pone Art” filter that blacklists “human” “anthro” “female” “futa” etc. Leaving me with a plethora of references. This will get your mind into how different positions are held.

As for specific anatomy references, I highly suggest this mega-source of all things pone; anatomy, muscle groups, general shapes, lewd bits, expressions, tutorials, it has everything. I always have it open when I draw.

For male junk, I always try to have Braeburned’s Junk Tutorial open. I know it’s a bit of a cliche to have it, but it’s hand’s down the most comprehensive and easy to understand approach to how to draw them, even if you’re not going for exactly what this look like. It covers how everything works, and mini-techniques for coming out nice.

Sketching: 

It’s messy. It never turns out right the first time. But do like, 3. I know it’s gross. I know, I know. The first ones always are. Imagine if you just got out of bed and are tasked with running a quarter mile. Naturally, the second quarter mile is going to be better because you’re not so sleepy. That’s what sketching is; wiping the sleep from your eyes and getting into top form.

Lineart: 

I’m going to say that about 90% of “Good” or “Aesthetically Pleasing” art is in the lineart. How smooth the lines are, how the thickness changes, how the curves move; it’s all there. Use a smoother, it’s built into most art programs, you’ll be glad that you did.

Coloring:

Easy trick for no white edges- Select everything that isn’t being colored with the magic wand tool, then hit “Ctrl+I”. Bam! Everything, including the lineart, is all selected for color filling! No weird gaps! 

Use the “Lock transparency” tab and Clippling masks in your art program. It’s a lifesaver, and can make some awesome effects:

Inspiration:

 Arguably the hardest part of art. You get into art slumps, or hit a wall, or get frustrated with how slow you’re progressing. First of all, it’s okay. Seriously, it’s not a catastrophe. You’re not going to be publicly shamed, it’s just a hobby. Conquering this varies from artist to artist, so I can’t tell you how exactly how to conquer it, but I personally have a few folders to help:

Anatomy: Images I come across that have particularly nice anatomy that I could use in a future image. 

Interesting Coloring-Lineart: Things that have a really neat art style that I want to try out.

Things I want to Draw: Self-Explanitory, cool creatures/robots/animals/scenes that I’d love to take a crack at

Tutorials: A collection of tutorials that I pick from at random and try when I get stumped on a project

Mac: Because sometimes you need spiritual inspiration.

For me, these images collected from tumblr are a mini library of art-block fighting squadrons. Plus, they are saved on my hard drive in case of a wifi-outtage.

Getting stabbed is an experience that no one in their right mind would want to have. But, what if you do get stabbed? What would that feel like?

It usually feels like you’re being punched.

The description of being punched really hard comes up a lot when people describe the experience. One woman said she didn’t even realize she was being stabbed, she just thought her attacker was punching her as hard as he could. Many people don’t feel the actual puncturing, just the force of the knife hitting them.

You might feel nothing at all.

This wasn’t as common as the feeling of being hit, but some people said they literally felt nothing. One person said they felt nothing, but their brain started racing and their fight or flight kicked in. Another didn’t realize someone stabbed them until they saw that they were bleeding profusely.

Occasionally, it feels like you got shocked.

A few stab wound survivors described it as a very quick, but powerful, electric shock. One person described it as static electricity, while another said it was like lightening hitting them. The pain of the initial shock goes away as quickly as it occurred.

Eventually, over time,  it’s probably going to hurt.

Ooh, post-apoc is fun! I don’t know what kind of apocalypse you’re writing, so I won’t have as many specific tips for you, but here’s what I came up with.

Tips on Writing a Post-Apocalypse Setting

The world cannot be completely over. In other words, you have to have worked out a way for your characters to survive whatever apocalypse you’ve concocted. 

Don’t just consider the humans. An apocalypse will affect plant life, animal life, and all the technology and buildings humans have created. You’ll have to figure out if animals are affected by the plague, too, or if the temperature has been raised enough to melt cars and evaporate all the water.

On a related note, how has the landscape changed? Are buildings degraded? Are there no more oceans or lakes? How does this present new obstacles for your characters?

What traits do your protagonists have that allow them to survive? More importantly, what traits would allow people to survive your apocalypse? Are they a good fighter because your apocalypse is a zombie one? Are they a good hunter/forager because your apocalypse caused all the farmland to be barren? Are they all dark skinned because the racist aliens kidnapped all the light skinned people? You get the idea.

Knowing the details and effects of your apocalypse is important, and knowing how your individual OCs are surviving is important, but knowing how society as a whole is recovering from the apocalypse is also important. What large scale forces are at work while your protagonist is struggling?

Lastly, don’t get caught up in the apocalypse. It’s obviously a large part of the setting, but stories are made from both setting and plot. Something has to be happening that will show off your concept!

Sympathetic villain: A character who is a bad person, but whose backstory/character arc makes you feel sorry for or sympathetic towards them.

Anti-hero: A character who does bad things to achieve a good goal.

Anti-villain: A character who does bad things to achieve a goal that they believe to be good, but is actually messed up.

Outlining a story is very, very important. Without an outline and thorough planning, your story will veer off in wildly different directions and will cost you a ton of time editing later, like my book did.

1. Get the characters down first

Characters are like the chess pieces of the story. Their moves and strengths/weaknesses will decide what is going to happen and how it will happen. Sure, you can have a nice plot and setting, but without the characters, the story is meaningless.

Here is the character chart that I usually use:

Name (First/Middle/Last/Maiden name)

Aliases/Nicknames

Age

Race

Gender

Sexuality

Height

Weight

Eye color

Hair color

Clothing style

Religion

Political views

Personality Traits

Strengths and Weaknesses

Likes and Dislikes

Family

Friends

Enemies

Role in the story

Backstory/past

2. Choose a template

Just bulleting the events does not give the plot the dimension that it deserves and does not really accommodate side plots.

I personally use the zigzag method that I discovered from this post. I branch off of the zigzags for my side plots so it looks kind of like a graph.

You can also use the subway method, which I found on the nanowrimo website.

There are a whole other host of outlines to choose from if you search them up!

3. Know that you don’t have to stick to it

An outline is just that: an outline. It’s not the final decision for the plot, it’s the first draft for the plot. If you’re writing and one of the points just isn’t working anymore, you don’t have to keep it because it was a part of your outline.

Write what feels right.