#ask ever

🌈 Share something soft/fluffy from your WIP.

Purple, my beloved! Wishing you sunny days and hoping the world is giving you back just as much love as you bring to it. Here is a little snippet from the first draft of my Dadko WIP that I hope you enjoy. 💜💜

Zuko left his car in the driveway again, knowing that there was no way Izumi had made it past nine o’clock and not wanting to disturb her. The keys shook in his hand as he unlocked the front door, and he had to dawdle in the foyer, steeling his nerves and taking a few deep breaths before he ventured in further to confront the Katara of it all.

The house was mostly dark, save for one lamp in the living room. Zuko paused next to the dining room table to drape his suit jacket over a chair and loosen his tie. Noise from the TV drifted over to where he stood, but Katara hadn’t said anything. As he walked down the pair of steps into the living room, he discovered why.

Katara waved to him from the sofa and then pressed a finger to her lips when he opened his mouth to say hello. Izumi was sound asleep, her head in Katara’s lap. And if that alone hadn’t been enough to make his heart skip a beat, the tender way in which she reached down to brush Izumi’s bangs out of her eyes definitely did. Zuko sat heavily down on the coffee table, transfixed.

“Sorry,” Katara said, and the word was barely a whisper. “I would’ve put her to bed, but she just sort of fell asleep on me. She was really hoping to see you when you got home.”

Zuko shook his head. Katara had pulled a throw over Izumi and he reached out to tug the blanket higher, running a thumb over his daughter’s cheek.

“I don’t care,” he said just as quietly, his voice hoarse. “It’s fine.”

🐉

my venti spread from the genshin keepsakes zine in 2022! i don't think i ever actually posted this, and the venti renaissance/return to mond rn is making me so emotional haha...

no matter where your travels take you, you'll always be welcomed home in mondstadt!

edit: SORRY the text is VERY SMALL so i've transcribed venti's letter here!

........this is a topic i feel unqualified to present on lol but i'll try...!!

first, taco1704's anatomy notes: eye spacing, spacing in profile, eye shape in angles (highly recommend browsing their media tab and/or getting their books, tons of really helpful anatomy diagrams!!)

personal notes:

i use the default settings and simply embraces the blobs

you can control the blobby worm-ness a bit by how much pressure + velocity you exert. i do clean up lines as i go but i try to not overwork it bc the line variance with the brush feels nicer than making it Perfect

i recorded drawing the lineart for that Sunday pic as a demo! (it's not sped up, sorry... idk how to do that w/ a screen recording)

trust the process (and urself)!!! for me, composition comes out of deciding: what key concepts/motifs/story i want the image to convey -> what techniques can i use to get there

if you find it overwhelming to make compositional choices/run out of battery while working a single image for a long time, why not practice & apply using simple techniques as you level up? even in my "complicated" drawings, the actual methods i use to fill up empty space are generally one or some combination of the below

these are some fast ways to add interest and info density to ur drawings, and they're easy ways to get you thinking about how you apply them to achieve the effect you want! choosing what kind of particles or how to fill the frame is still an exercise in story telling

making involved illustrations is just a chain of these small, individual decision-making efforts... as you practice and develop speed/stamina, i feel it gets easier to apply it towards making a storytelling image