the girl who collected stars

[Las Almas] It only took a betrayal and me getting a bullet to the arm for the Ghost to finally take off that mask. The room was quiet when it happened. It’s easy to forget that he’s not just a ghost, he’s Simon too. I can feel his eyes watching me write in this thing. As long as he doesn’t look too closely, we’re good. Think I need a few more glances before I can really get it right… Had no trouble with the eyes though. It’s easier to draw him with the mask on…

Back then, we began building Ellipsus out of a simple belief: writers deserve a place to create, collaborate, and share their work without handing over their words, their data, or their creative process to bad actors and Big Tech—a promise that matters now, more than ever.

Nearly 600k writers and counting are writing on Ellipsus because of this promise. We see everyday how writers are rejecting Big Tech's data mining model in favor of tools that respect user privacy and reflect our values.

We’re a small full-time team building, maintaining, supporting, and improving the tool every day. And to keep doing that sustainably—without compromising the promises that brought people here—we’re introducing Ellipsus Plus.

Plus is a set of optional features on top of free Ellipsus, designed to help fund the continued development of Ellipsus for everyone, free and paid; while helping us stay independent, ad-free, and working to improve the tool well into the future.

That means the Ellipsus you know is staying free: you can keep writing with unlimited documents, drafts, collaborators, and core features. Free Ellipsus will continue to receive updates, improvements, and new features too, including major work already planned (like offline syncing and native apps).

Plus features have been designed alongside community feedback, our pricing shaped by our users around what felt fair and sustainable.

Every Plus subscription leads to ultimate ownership of the tool. Not metaphorical ownership, but real ownership, including all future updates to the Plus plan. No endless subscriptions. Once you’ve paid, it’s yours. Really.

Our introductory Plus features are designed to be fun, creative, practical, and help you get the most out of the tool! We really hope you enjoy them. Here’s a quick overview:

Custom themes

Make your writing space feel like home with custom themes! Use any colors, gradients, images, or .gifs you love. Share with friends and readers. The choices are infinite.

Writing Insights

See insights into your writing process and spot patterns faster across ten AI-free metrics—like vocabulary diversity, sentence length, sentence rhythm, word frequency, and more. Writing insights are opt-in only, and run on local data, so your text never leaves the editor. 

Customizable Snippets

We all love snippets! Now you can give your words an extra personal touch. Customize your snippets with media backgrounds (GIFs, images), fonts, text colors, and custom themes—you can even add byline credits for authors and characters!

Emboss

Emboss is our AI-free proof-of-work layer for human writing. Show your readers the time, labor, and love that went into your work. Instead of relying on unreliable “AI-powered” “verifiers” that judge a piece after the fact, share your writing journey, with authorship metrics that help inspire trust. You can also show how your work evolved with snapshots of your version history. Emboss is fully opt-in.

We hope you’re as excited about Plus as we are! Try Plus free for 7 days, no payment required. You can read more (and sign up!) on our Plus page.

Again, there’s tons more to come, and we can’t wait to build it for you. Free or paid, Ellipsus is going to keep getting better. Thank you for your support.

Have questions about Plus? We’re hosting an “Ask the Team” doc where we’ll be answering your burning questions. Please make comments there! Now please, go forth and explore!

Bright colors are fun, but also tricky. Sometimes you just end up with a pile of rainbow barf 😭

My latest tutorial shares all my tips and tricks for working with bright and saturated color schemes! Watch it here.

Feb 2024

JASON TODD/RED HOOD

really like the new looking for JASON！！

Ophelia by Friedrich Wilhelm Theodor Heyser

Ophelia by John Everett Millais

1. identify what's making you draw so slow. can't figure out pose/anatomy? too perfectionist about inking? getting caught up in details? indecisive coloring?

2. timed gesture studies. draw a loose figure w photo reference in 10 minutes. do that a bunch of times. then 5 minutes, 3 minutes, 1 minute. train yourself to omit as much detail as possible while keeping the figure recognizable.

3. the dot/line exercise, sometimes called the "target practice" warmup. draw two dots, then a line connecting them. keep moving the dots farther apart while drawing the line as fast as you can while keeping it STRAIGHT (not wobbly!) and hitting the second dot. the line is ONE stroke. it's harder than it sounds. this should help you get an idea of how fast you can make a controlled stroke

4. look up tutorials on coloring more quickly in whatever art program you're using if you do digital art. chances are there's a tool or setting that can make it easier to fill in shapes. i almost never color by hand, i fill bucket everything

5. free yourself of "clean line art"... 9 times outta 10 people think sketchy lines are more visually appealing anyway. it's faster and they have more life. in my opinion at least

6. use lots of references. spending hours on a complicated pose from memory instead of just looking at photo/3D model reference isn't impressive it's just stupid and unnecessary

7. study with intent. if you struggle with leg anatomy for example, do lots of studies from photos (eyeballing and tracing), then try it freehand/from memory, rinse and repeat 9000 times until it's not something you get stuck on when it comes time to do an illustration/comic page

8. less detail. simplify. you can have ultra detailed art or you can draw fast. pick which is more important to you

9. bullshit it... draw ugly and bad but do it fast. done is always better than perfect

10. thumbnail. it's not just for comics. do a teeny tiny sketch of your drawing beforehand with colors. then use it as reference. helps to finish the actual piece faster when it's planned out

The pause before your lungs remember how to move, when your alveoli cling together like wet paper, when the arch of your ribcage stutters and whines in restraint. It only ever happens when Simon Riley is looking at you.

It doesn’t happen often.

But maybe that makes it worse.

More lethal, somehow.

His eyes are dark. Not the kind that hides, but the kind that pulls. A darkness with gravity, heavy like lead. The kind that makes everything stand a little shorter. That makes you stand a little smaller.

When your eyes meet his, something settles over you, not quite fear. Not exactly dread. But a presence that presses down like a storm front. Not ominous. Just impenetrable. Something that could swallow you whole and still starve for more.

And you know all about hunger, don’t you?

The kind that aches in your chest like a phantom limb. Always aching. Always reaching for a hand that can hold you without flinching. Someone that hears the thunder of your storm and stays to feel the rain soak.

Someone unafraid when the room floods with all the space you’re afraid to occupy – but clumsily, desperately do.

And that ache that gnaws at your throat every night– it climbs, slow and steady, until it suffocates the back of your teeth. Until it fills the bridge between your mouth and nose. Until it settles deep in your gums and turns them to goo. Until misery and longing melt together and spill, warm and quiet, down your cheeks.

And sometimes, only sometimes, you let your mind wander.

To what it might feel like.

Those gloved hands on your hips. That voice, gravel and smoke, rasp against your ear every morning. And you imagine yourself in the dark, not afraid, not alone. You let your mind drift into those shadowed corners.

Because people like you have learned to find the disquieting, warm. Comfort in the monster’s shadow.

Because if the thing that scares everyone else is standing beside you,