#hailsfromtexas

happy free-for-all friday! send me your questions about coding or photoshop, and i’ll answer them!

hi there! this is a pretty big question, so my apologies in advance for the length! i’ll break down your question into sections so i can answer each one as thoroughly as possible nwn

how do you get your inspiration?

it depends! usually it comes from one of two places: i’ll either find an image that i really like and can visualize as part of a theme, or i’ll have a concept in my head (“i want to do a dark theme about X part of character’s personality”) and go image-hunting from there. i can’t really start a theme until i have a good image -- a promo picture, a screencap, or some other central image (there’s a theme i made somewhere out there where it’s a raven) that i can start to build my theme around! which leads me to...

how do you go about making it?

as i’ve said, i start with a central image! for my own theme, it was the gif of margarethe holding the slipper. for this theme, the person that commissioned me supplied the image of sailor venus. for this one, it was the drawing of galadriel + baby (i don’t know what baby that is... i don’t know anything about tolkien). and so on! once i have an image i can work with, i start to build around that.

i start thinking about the ways in which my main image can interact with what will eventually become the box for posts. to return to the sailor venus theme, i posed venus behind the box; for my own theme, margarethe is at the top of the box; for this theme, still under construction, chibi-moon is in front of it. the reason for this is because the composition of central image + box will determine, for me, the general layout of everything else in the theme -- if i want to add brushes, where i’ll later place the links and title, etc.

from there, i start building other elements of the theme. i’ll work on determining color scheme, adding brushes, stock images, and textures, and sometimes text, if i’m not planning to add it in the html/css stage. for an example of how things develop, here is an early concept i sent to one of the people who commissioned me; here is how it all shook out in the end. you just move around and add/remove elements until it looks good!

are there any techniques you’ve found helpful?

here’s the part where i’ll get even more unhelpful than usual! this is an area where experience will help you more than anything. the more photoshop you do, the more “techniques” you’ll develop -- basically stuff in a grab-bag of knowledge that you can pull out when you need it. (you’d be surprised how many of my own techniques are just “make a layer and draw on it with a soft brush.”) the best way to develop these skills would be to read lots of tutorials, make many photoshops, and lay down on the floor and cry a lot.

(here’s the tag for my own tutorials, in case you wanted to take a look!)

one thing that i can’t emphasize enough is building a library of brushes and textures -- that’s going to be the most helpful of all. having grunge, floral, colorful, light leak, etc. textures as well as splatter, abstract, grunge, decorative, etc. brushes all on hand saves you time searching for new assets every time you make a theme or graphic. as you continue to photoshop, you’ll also get an idea of the brushes and textures you like to use best, as well as the sources you find dependent and high-quality, so when you do have to go looking, it’ll go faster. (and don’t forget to keep those libraries organized!)

also, what size should i be making my background?

in my opinion, you should be making it as small as possible while still including everything you need (image, box, brushes/textures, etc). you can read this post for a longer spiel on background image sizes!

OMG you don’t even know she’s just “I’ll shut that smart mouth up”

BOLD YOUR CHOICES

Affectionate; Holding hands | Cheek kisses | Hugs from behind | Cuddling | Hand kiss | PDA | Spooning | Shared baths | Whispers | Affectionate texts | Caressing | Stroke hair | No displays of affection

Sex; Shower sex | Wall sex | Neck bites | Oral | Morning sex | Drunk sex | Public sex | Backseat of car | BDSM | No sex

Dates;Picnic | Cinema | Restaurant | Sports game | Hike | Coffee | Museum | Club | Bar | Beach | No dates

Would my character…