Ragged Banner Studio

This is Money Snake. She only appears every 312 years. 

Mobs of angry white people, protesting for their right to [checks notes] get a haircut—in the middle of a pandemic—yelled at cops, shoved them, threw things at them, and were nowhere near being respectful or peaceful, but for some reason, police officers didn’t mace them, didn’t shoot rubber bullets at them, didn’t tear gas them, and didn’t kneel on their necks and choke them to death. Qwhite interesting how differently white people are treated even when they disrespect the police and even when they riot over things like [checks notes again] their sports team losing or hell, even winning a game.

Someone asked me “HOWDOYOUDOLIGHTING” and it’s been a while since I’ve explained it so here goes. The art software I use is CLIP STUDIO PAINT but this is pretty basic and should be doable in most art programs.

Here’s the line art with a few blue glowing overlays.

Flat colours.

Shade 1 and Light 1 layers added.

Opacity on Shade and Light layers lowered to 10%.

Shade 2 and Light 2 layers added. Using the same colours I’ll go over the same areas as the Shade 1 and Light 1 layers with a soft brush.

Opacity on Shade 2 and Light 2 layers lowered to 30%. These shade and light layers don’t have to be any certain Opacity percentage. Whatever looks good. Usually I keep it subtle since the next step can bring up the intensity a lot.

Now I create a new top layer made out of all the other layers flattened down then set this layer’s blending mode to Hard Light.

writing-prompt-s:

firemageking:

nerdygayholtz:

prismatic-bell:

writing-prompt-s:

Valhalla does not discriminate against the kind of fight you lost. Did you lose the battle with cancer? Maybe you died in a fist fight. Even facing addiction. After taking a deep drink from his flagon, Odin slams his cup down and asks for the glorious tale of your demise!

Oh my god, this is beautiful.

A small child enters Valhalla. The battle they lost was “hiding from an alcoholic father.” Odin sees the flinch when he slams the cup and refrains from doing it again. He hears the child’s pain; no glorious battle this, but one of fear and wretched survival.

He invites the child to sit with him, offers the choicest mead and instructs his men to bring a sword and shield, a bow and arrow, of the very best materials and appropriate size. “Here,” he says, “you will find no man who dares to harm you. But so you will know your own strength, and be happy all your days in Valhalla, I will teach you to use these weapons.”

The sad day comes when another child enters the hall. Odin does not slam his cup; he simply beams with pride as the first child approaches the newcomer, and holds out her bow and quiver, and says “nobody here will hurt you. Everyone will be so proud you did your best, and I’ll teach you to use these, so you always know how strong you are.”

————

A young man enters the hall. He hesitates when Odin asks his story, but at long last, it ekes out: skinheads after the Pride parade. His partner got into a building and called for help. The police took a little longer than perhaps they really needed to, and two of those selfsame skinheads are in the hospital now with broken bones that need setting, but six against one is no fair match. The fear in his face is obvious: here, among men large enough to break him in two, will he face an eternity of torment for the man he left behind?

Odin rumbles with anger. Curses the low worms who brought this man to his table, and regales him with tales of Loki so to show him his own welcome. “A day will come, my friend, when you seek to be reunited, and so you shall,” Odin tells him. “To request the aid of your comrades in battle is no shameful thing.”

———-

A woman in pink sits near the head of the table. She’s very nearly skin and bones, and has no hair. This will not last; health returns in Valhalla, and joy, and light, and merrymaking. But now her soul remembers the battle of her life, and it must heal.

Odin asks.

And asks again.

And the words pour out like poisoned water, things she couldn’t tell her husband or children. The pain of chemotherapy. The agony of a mastectomy, the pain still deeper of “we found a tumor in your lymph nodes. I’m so sorry.” And at last, the tortured question: what is left of her?

Odin raises his flagon high. “What is left of you, fair warrior queen, is a spirit bright as fire; a will as strong as any forged iron; a life as great as any sea. Your battle was hard-fought, and lost in the glory only such furor can bring, and now the pain and fight are behind you.“

In the months to come, she becomes a scop of the hall–no demotion, but simple choice. She tells the stories of the great healers, Agnes and Tanya, who fought alongside her and thousands of others, who turn from no battle in the belief that one day, one day, the war may be won; the warriors Jessie and Mabel and Jeri and Monique, still battling on; the queens and soldiers and great women of yore.

The day comes when she calls a familiar name, and another small, scarred woman, eyes sunken and dark, limbs frail, curly black hair shaved close to her head, looks up and sees her across the hall. Odin descends from his throne, a tall and foaming goblet in his hands, and stuns the hall entire into silence as he kneels before the newcomer and holds up the goblet between her small dark hands and bids her to drink.

“All-Father!” the feasting multitudes cry. “What brings great Odin, Spear-Shaker, Ancient One, Wand-Bearer, Teacher of Gods, to his knees for this lone waif?”

He waves them off with a hand.

“This woman, LaTeesha, Destroyer of Cancer, from whom the great tumors fly in fear, has fought that greatest battle,” he says, his voice rolling across the hall. “She has fought not another body, but her own; traded blows not with other limbs but with her own flesh; has allowed herself to be pierced with needles and scored with knives, taken poison into her very veins to defeat this enemy, and at long last it is time for her to put her weapons down. Do you think for a moment this fight is less glorious for being in silence, her deeds the less for having been aided by others who provided her weapons? She has a place in this great hall; indeed, the highest place.”

And the children perform feats of archery for the entertainment of all, and the women sing as the young man who still awaits his beloved plays a lute–which, after all, is not so different from the guitar he once used to break a man’s face in that great final fight.

Valhalla is a place of joy, of glory, of great feasting and merrymaking.

And it is a place for the soul and mind to heal.

I’M NOT CRYING YOU’RE CRYING

THIS IS GLORIOUS

Beautiful.

@prismatic-bell, can you do a trans girl that loses her battle with depression?  I think i need to read that.  This is so wonderful, please.

The assembled crowd pauses in their feasting and carousing, all confusion, when the newest arrival comes.

Some of them are older, and have never seen someone the like. Some have been here only a few short years, and look on her with sympathy.

She is beckoned, as always, to Odin’s table, and as always, asked for her name and her tale.

Her voice is quiet, and unsure, and afraid.

“My name is Leelah.”

The assembled crowd is still all confusion. Odin only raises his flagon high.

“And Leelah, warrior queen, tell us the tale of your great battle!”

The tale does not entertain; it brings tears. A girl cut off from her sisterhood, fighting the daily twin demons of body and mind, every day forced to answer not to the name Huginn and Muninn will keep her by but one thrust on her at birth, dragged forcibly from those who would call her sister and friend. Loki’s gift of transformation was not hers, and so she stands before Odin, Gallows-Burden, awaiting judgment.

A redheaded man in ancient leather armor raises a flagon.

“All hail Leelah, wise woman, great warrior!”

The shouts echo throughout the hall, up and down in every mouth–the ancient gods of yore, and the legendary heroes, and those unsung brave warriors of centuries untold, and the pink-clad scop in the corner with her unbound hair a glossy curtain to her waist.

As the last shouts fade away, Odin raises his flagon again.

“Leelah, great warrior, who has found favor with the assembled of Valhalla, you are most welcome here,” he says. “But I make you the offer, as well, of an audience with Freyja, Giver, Lady of the Slain, to enter her hall if you find favor, and there learn the ways of women and find your sisterhood.”

Leelah is conveyed, that very day, to Fólkvangr in the company of the Valkyries. She does not return, but instead a slender man in simple clothes enters Valhalla in the same company with which Leelah left.

Odin, as always, inquires.

“My name,” the man says, “is Brandon.”

Valhalla does not discriminate against the kind of fight you lost. Did you lose the battle with cancer? Maybe you died in a fist fight. Even facing addiction. After taking a deep drink from his flagon, Odin slams his cup down and asks for the glorious tale of your demise!

Oh my god, this is beautiful.

A small child enters Valhalla. The battle they lost was “hiding from an alcoholic father.” Odin sees the flinch when he slams the cup and refrains from doing it again. He hears the child’s pain; no glorious battle this, but one of fear and wretched survival.

He invites the child to sit with him, offers the choicest mead and instructs his men to bring a sword and shield, a bow and arrow, of the very best materials and appropriate size. “Here,” he says, “you will find no man who dares to harm you. But so you will know your own strength, and be happy all your days in Valhalla, I will teach you to use these weapons.”

The sad day comes when another child enters the hall. Odin does not slam his cup; he simply beams with pride as the first child approaches the newcomer, and holds out her bow and quiver, and says “nobody here will hurt you. Everyone will be so proud you did your best, and I’ll teach you to use these, so you always know how strong you are.”

————

A young man enters the hall. He hesitates when Odin asks his story, but at long last, it ekes out: skinheads after the Pride parade. His partner got into a building and called for help. The police took a little longer than perhaps they really needed to, and two of those selfsame skinheads are in the hospital now with broken bones that need setting, but six against one is no fair match. The fear in his face is obvious: here, among men large enough to break him in two, will he face an eternity of torment for the man he left behind?

Odin rumbles with anger. Curses the low worms who brought this man to his table, and regales him with tales of Loki so to show him his own welcome. “A day will come, my friend, when you seek to be reunited, and so you shall,” Odin tells him. “To request the aid of your comrades in battle is no shameful thing.”

———-

A woman in pink sits near the head of the table. She’s very nearly skin and bones, and has no hair. This will not last; health returns in Valhalla, and joy, and light, and merrymaking. But now her soul remembers the battle of her life, and it must heal.

Odin asks.

And asks again.

And the words pour out like poisoned water, things she couldn’t tell her husband or children. The pain of chemotherapy. The agony of a mastectomy, the pain still deeper of “we found a tumor in your lymph nodes. I’m so sorry.” And at last, the tortured question: what is left of her?

Odin raises his flagon high. “What is left of you, fair warrior queen, is a spirit bright as fire; a will as strong as any forged iron; a life as great as any sea. Your battle was hard-fought, and lost in the glory only such furor can bring, and now the pain and fight are behind you.“

In the months to come, she becomes a scop of the hall–no demotion, but simple choice. She tells the stories of the great healers, Agnes and Tanya, who fought alongside her and thousands of others, who turn from no battle in the belief that one day, one day, the war may be won; the warriors Jessie and Mabel and Jeri and Monique, still battling on; the queens and soldiers and great women of yore.

The day comes when she calls a familiar name, and another small, scarred woman, eyes sunken and dark, limbs frail, curly black hair shaved close to her head, looks up and sees her across the hall. Odin descends from his throne, a tall and foaming goblet in his hands, and stuns the hall entire into silence as he kneels before the newcomer and holds up the goblet between her small dark hands and bids her to drink.

“All-Father!” the feasting multitudes cry. “What brings great Odin, Spear-Shaker, Ancient One, Wand-Bearer, Teacher of Gods, to his knees for this lone waif?”

He waves them off with a hand.

“This woman, LaTeesha, Destroyer of Cancer, from whom the great tumors fly in fear, has fought that greatest battle,” he says, his voice rolling across the hall. “She has fought not another body, but her own; traded blows not with other limbs but with her own flesh; has allowed herself to be pierced with needles and scored with knives, taken poison into her very veins to defeat this enemy, and at long last it is time for her to put her weapons down. Do you think for a moment this fight is less glorious for being in silence, her deeds the less for having been aided by others who provided her weapons? She has a place in this great hall; indeed, the highest place.”

And the children perform feats of archery for the entertainment of all, and the women sing as the young man who still awaits his beloved plays a lute–which, after all, is not so different from the guitar he once used to break a man’s face in that great final fight.

Valhalla is a place of joy, of glory, of great feasting and merrymaking.

She adjusts her nametag, fixes her ponytail, and continues her rounds. 

Many of the other nurses don’t understand why she likes working the terminal cancer ward. Nurses and doctors learn not to get too attached, to maintain a professional detachment, but it still hurts. It’s human nature for it to hurt, when you see a fellow human succumb to the inevitable. 

(Many of the nurses favor working in obstetrics. There’s something magical about watching new life fight its way, blinking and new, into the world. This particular hospital has the best reputation in the country; Doctor Vanger is famous worldwide for her skill, for how she’ll fight tooth and nail to bring every mother and child through safely, no matter how small or sick or early. Girda inclines her head in respect whenever she passes Dr. Vanger; she has known Freyja for a thousand years and more, and the goddess is due her respect.)

Mr. Yu passed away an hour ago. It is likely a relief, Girda thinks. The old man fought to the bitter end, but in the end there was so much pain, and he’d been so tired. 

He would have been a fine addition to the Allfather’s hall, but he wasn’t hers. As the orderlies prepared to wheel the body down to the morgue, one breifly reaches his hand over the body. There’s a flicker of something that might be a mirror, and Girda watches the soul of Mr. Yu rise. 

Nurse Jiang smiles briefly, his eyes warm. The soul bows, and is gone. Girda inclines her head to Jiang, the greeting of one judge of souls to another. He smiles back at her, nods in response. 

The night continues. 

Near midnight, Girda’s feet take her to a certain bedside. She doesn’t need the machines to tell her that the woman here is about to die; she feels it in her bones. 

Mrs. Lesten was beautiful, once. Now she’s shriveled, wasted. That once beautiful teak-dark skin seems tissue-thin, aged far beyond the woman’s forty years. Once-bright eyes are sunken, and once-lovely hair is gone. 

Girda sits. She takes a frail, wrinkled hand, and waits. 

She does not wait long. She never does. She always knows. 

A sigh. An ending. 

Girda reaches out, smiling, as the soul lifts free from mortal flesh. No other gods have a claim on this soul; the Allfather’s only criteria is those who died bravely. And this woman, oh, this woman did, this woman fought and there is no shame in losing to so great a foe. 

“Hail, warrior.” She says. “Come. Valhalla is open to you. Come sit and dine with us.” 

Mrs. Lesten is frail still, but already her soul is beginning to remember the shape of healthy flesh. The touch of Valhalla is already on her. 

This is a post for comic book artists preparing their pages for their publisher or colourist. I’m aware that many pros still don’t know some of this stuff, often because the bigger publishers have production teams who will take the incorrectly sized or shaped pages and adjust them before passing on to colourists or for print. However, this a) is giving more work to people that you can easily do yourself and b) reduces the amount of control you have over how your work is printed. It makes sense to provide files that will present your work in the best way possible.

So, the basics of a digital page file:

Check out Color Supply! The site has inspirational colour palettes from designers & illustrators around the world!

It’s got some tips and tricks about picking colours. They also have a Hex Colour Palette Generator!

How I draw eyes