Beneath these eyes

“According to epidemiologist Richard T. Ellison III, it doesn’t matter what you do in the bathroom when it comes to keeping your hands clean. ‘The rationale is that when toileting, it’s possible to have fecal material and fecal bacteria get onto your hands … So it’s wisest to always wash with soap and water even after urinating. Neither plain water nor alcohol hand sanitizers are effective at removing fecal material or killing bacteria in fecal material.’ 

“According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, handwashing can prevent various illnesses and infections. Ellison added that it can also keep us from coming in contact with E. Coli and hepatitis.This is especially important for men to bear in mind because of perianal sweat. This type of sweat forms around the perianal area, which is the patch of skin outside the rectum. It can then spread to one’s underwear and to other parts of the body like the penis. Biology professor Pat Fidopiastis explained, ‘The point is that simply touching the penis in an effort to direct your urine flow can be more than enough to transfer harmful microbes to your hands, and then on to the pretzels sitting in bowl on the bar.’“

WASH.

YOUR.

When I took my Bloodborne Pathogens class and test to become a tattoo artist, they told us that 1 in 4 sexually active adults have an STD and HALF of those people don’t know it.  Did you touch your junk AT ALL? WASH YOUR HANDS.

Also that some forms of hepatitis can be transferred through skin (sweat, etc) and can live on surfaces OUTSIDE the human body for up to 2 weeks. 

(Which makes me paranoid as hell about pulling the handles of restroom doors to get out, or about people who go clubbing because ewww whose hands were on that  (table, bar, door, you name it))

WASH.

YOUR.

We live in a pretty great digital age and we have access to a ton of amazing tools that artists in past generations couldn’t even dream of, but a lot of people look at a cool trick and only learn half of the process of using it.

Here’s the missing part of this tutorial:

How do you populate your backgrounds?

Well, here’s the answer:

If the focus is the environment, you must show a person in relation to that environment.

The examples above are great because they show how to use the software itself, but each one just kind of “plops” the character in front of their finished product with no regard of the person’s relation to their environment.

How do you fix this?

Well, here’s the simplest solution:

This is a popular trick used by professional storyboard and comic artists alike when they’re quickly planning compositions. It’s simple and it requires you to do some planning before you sit down to crank out that polished, final version of your work, but it will be the difference between a background and an environment.

From Blacksad (artist: Juanjo Guarnido)

From Hellboy (Mike Mignola)

Even if your draftsmanship isn’t that great (like mine), people can be more immersed in the story you tell if you just make it feel like there is a world that exists completely separate from the one in which they currently reside – not just making a backdrop the characters stand in front of.

I’m a 3d artist and have been exploring the possibilities of using 3d as reference for 2d poses. I want to add a couple of tips and things!

Sketchup is very useful for environment references, and I assume it’s reasonably easy to learn. If you’re interested in going above and beyond, I highly recommend learning a proper 3d modeling program to help with art, especially because you can very easily populate a scene or location with characters!

Using 3ds Max I can pretty quickly construct an environment for reference. But going beyond that, I can also pose a pretty simple ‘CAT’ armature (known in 3d as a rig) straight into the scene, which can be totally customized, from various limbs, tails, wings, whatever, to proportions, and also can be modeled onto and expanded upon (for an example, you could 3d sculpt a head reference for your character and then attach it to the CAT rig, so you have a reference for complex face angles!)

The armature can also be posed incredibly easily. I know programs exist for stuff like this - Manga Studio, Design Doll - but posing characters in these programs is always an exercise in frustration and very fiddly imo. A simple 3d rig is impossibly easy to pose.

By creating an environment and dropping my character rig into it, I have an excellent point of reference when it comes to drawing the scene!

Not only that, but I can also view the scene from whatever angle I could ever want or need, including the character and their pose/position relative to the environment.

We can even quickly and easily expand this scene to include more characters!

i haven’t seen any noise about this on tumblr yet, but a fire has completely wiped out a small town in california.

they’re calling it the camp fire. over 20,000 residents have been evacuated so far, the last area estimates i heard were over an hour ago at 18,000 acres and its still zero percent contained.

UPDATE: 4PM FRI NOV. 9, 2018

the fire has completely walked over paradise, magalia, and much of the rest of butte county. it’s under 10% containment and moving towards chico, which was been mostly evacuated as well. it’s been documented as one of the top 20 deadliest fires seen in california. i know many of the people personally whose lives have been destroyed by this fire. my aunt and uncle’s home, of whom we’re very close to, was demolished last night, same goes for family friends and others who lived in paradise– which is completely gone. there are 5 confirmed deaths, several dozen missing people.

EVACUATION SITES STILL OPEN AS OF 1 HOUR AGO:

Butte County Fairgrounds (199 E Hazel St, Gridley, CA 95948)

Yuba-Sutter Fairground (442 Franklin Ave, Yuba City, CA 95991)

Glenn County Fairgrounds (221 E Yolo St, Orland, CA 95963)

Chester Memorial Hall (22 Gay Street, Chester)

HOW TO HELP/DONATE:

“Currently the best way to contribute is to make a monetary donation via the North Valley Community Foundation website.” -abc7news.com

“Supplies: Hope Center in Oroville (1950 Kitrick Ave Ste. A) is taking donations. Hours: Friday and Saturday 8 a.m. - 5 p.m., Sunday 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. Needs: warm clothes, shoes, socks, coats (primarily for elderly residents).” -abc7news.com

the majority of those affected by the fire in paradise were elderly people. and having known paradise and magalia myself for years, it’s not a wealthy part of california. these people will need help, and lots of it.

if you have any questions, you can message me personally or seek information online or from the above references personally.

Heres a photo my dads friend took right by his house

In Dutch, when you boil an egg and then place it into cold water to make it easier to peel an egg, it’s called “to scare” the eggs.

One day when I was about 6 or 7, my mom asked me to “scare” the eggs. So, little joker I was, lifted the lid of the pan and yelled “BOOO!”

My mom cracked up and has been telling this story ever since, for over 20 years. She’s come to love the story and still truly thinks that I wanted to really “scare” the eggs. Truth is I knew what “scaring an egg” meant and only wanted to make her laugh because she was in a sad place and time back then.