alarming rate

i do not use drawing programs or digital brushes for 99% of my process, but i do often use a program to edit my images after i have finished painting! here are my most commonly used supplies for my paintings/illustrations/drawings/comics/whatever else im making:

paints/pigments/coloring materials:

holbein acrylic gouache

childrens craft tempera (brandless, probably from dollar store)

gesso (liquitex for thinner smother, golden for creating textured ground)

weber costello chalk pastels (from 1979...)

pentel oil pastels (cheap bulk packs)

crayola washable markers

pigma graphic pen (1 felt tip)

v301 fountain pen (from office supply)

uni-ball signo (micro 207)

whiteout (biq liquid and presto jumbo correction pen)

sumi ink

reeves gouache (i use as watercolor lol.)

brushes:

budget princeton brushes

childrens art supply brushes

single arteza brush

single pricy princeton brush (small liner)

paper/ground

canson mixed media paper

bienfang mixed media paper

raw canvas/prepped canvas

canvas texture office supply paper

printer paper

linoleum floor samples

particle board

cardboard from the trash

digital editing software/misc

ibis paint mobile (usually my edits are cropping and color correcting, but sometimes i will add things in or take things out to clean up how something looks. if i use any digital brush it is just default "digital pen".)

scribus (great replacement for inDesign, fuck adobe. its free! i format all my books and design work in it)

men are a created thing. you take a child and you begin the process by manufacturing him into something called a boy. and within the boy you begin cultivating the things that you hope will result in a man. to not arrive at the end result of man is a tragedy, not just on the failed man himself but on all that had a hand in raising him. to have early failures in boyhood brings about the specter of fear that your boy will not become a man. it is important, then, to identify the sort of things that might bring about a failure to achieve manhood and resolve them.

being a man can be understood in boundaries. on all sides you are contained by them and simultaneously they are not something that applies to you. a man is not perturbed or bothered by anything he shouldnt be, and it is a virtue to be unperturbed even past that point. a man does not tell someone no, a man does not tell someone to stop in the event that doing so would belie some kind of upset, some kind of weakness, some kind of insinuation that he could not stop this on his own and has to place himself at the mercy of someone else to be the one to stop. that he didnt have the power from the beginning to discourage this and end it before it began. and on the other end, a man does not stop when he is right.

being a man is predicated on a complex system of respect, and who is worthy of it. you respect the right kind of men, you respect the right kind of performance, you align yourself with the correct kind of man and his correct kind of performance to signal that you too value the right things. it is also built on disrespect. you disrespect the wrong kind of people. you reinforce that is to be respected by disrespecting what isnt to be. you do these things where people can see them, for the benefit of being seen performing the correct kind of respect and disrespect. there is a correct way to respect without kissing ass. there is a correct way to disrespect without seeming defensive.

obedience cannot be removed from the chain of respect. there is a scale of tolerance for being told what to do and doing what you are told. do you respect the person giving the order? is it an order or is it a request? what is it you are being told to do? who will see you doing it? who has seen you being given the order? who will know you have done this after it is done? and then the final question after every consideration, will you do it?

fëanor takes the materials and he places them into his son's hands and he tells him to make something sharp. his sons are to be melted and poured into a mold, and heated and folded and flattened and beaten and sharpened until they are something that can kill, and they will do this to themselves.

you listen to your father. you listen to your father because you are a boy and you do not want to be a boy. to be a boy is to be in the uncertain and terrifying place before manhood. instead of obedience you will be able to make everyone else obey. instead of fear you can make them afraid. you can be above them and you know, you know you will feel safe in your authority because you are a still a boy and you do not understand yet that you never stop being a boy. everyone is pretending.

sketch of them from my work breakroom that prompted this lol. beleg only gets to be the taller one for another three years.

if every night at around the same hour he turned to you and said aye could he spend all the night laughing with this merry host he would, but better to go now that he may rise to be merry again come morning. and laughing you joined him to bid them all good night, is the mind not trained then every night at that hour to remind you it is late, he is wanting to be abed?

grief is subdued in the absence of remembering, isn't it? in discarding the ugliness of before and seeking in the present something to forget it. this works only if what is being grieved is an ugly thing. this works only if the grief is something that one can be distanced from. that grief is not a chair left by the fresco of a great tree full of birds that he loved so much. that grief is not one that you pass in the hall and can see him sitting in so vividly that to move it is to take it out from under him.

some thoughts i have kicked around for some time regarding finrod and how i draw and dress him that i do not know why i have not shared yet.

from both his talent at making friends and getting along with anyone but also his apparent ability to sing himself disguises and other forms to wear, the impression i have of him is something approaching a chameleon. i dont think he is entirely disingenuous and shallow, i think his core personality is consistent and maybe not something that can be hidden away behind niceties or adjustments, but i do see him as someone who changes to suit his environments (and maybe even takes some joy in doing so. and becoming "someone else" for a time). this carries over into the clothing and how i draw him because i wanted some kind of clear visual indicator as to what he was doing and what about him changes. he likes his clothes he likes trying on new things and if this helps to endear him or familiarize him somewhat to new people then thats all the better. i am standing on the line between outright cynicism and acting only for diplomacys sake and genuine aesthetic interest. there is diplomatic cynicism but it is not all that is there.

i feel even before crossing to middle earth clothing and moving between aesthetic conventions is already something on his plate. he is foremost his fathers eldest son, but he is also his mothers? And while perhaps the expectation might be moreso to visually match the former, the latter is still a part of him. he is not just a noldo but in not conforming to one he conforms to nothing. he can get away with more than his elder cousins can, but he has to learn how to meet the expectations placed upon him for how he acts and how he dresses.

another note with this one is his demeanor and posturing. becoming more closed off and rectangular as another layer to his "costume" in this case.

i have to talk about his hair because i bring it up and never elaborate. for all that his demeanor and dress may change he does not tend to change his hair. its out of place in almost every context and almost every outfit he wears and i wanted it to stay as a sort of visual example of that part of him that he cannot change or hide away completely. that he has a loud personality and hes warm and maybe too quick to trust and love. in leaving it down he might come off to an elvish audience as childish or unserious, and maybe he is both of those things on occasion but its not as though hes incapable of taking things seriously. he lets hurts go, forgives quickly, gives the benefit of the doubt far longer than he should, and in another place maybe these traits would be seen as kindness and wisdom, but in the place he finds himself in they are profound weaknesses.