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Despite making this post in August, this post spikes in brief periods throughout the year, depending on when folks like to start.

Reading all the cool costume projects people are working on

As a former music teacher, I can also say that "learn the fundamentals first" is the death knell for a vast percentage of beginners, especially adult learners.

I've run into this with drawing several times, where some well-meaning artist has lectured me on needing to study anatomy properly or not use shortcuts like CSP brushes. And oh, believe me, I know. I know exactly how to learn an artistic discipline in a structured way. I just...don't want to!

The thing is, I'm not aiming to be a professional artist. I want to draw my gay little anime guys. I would undoubtedly improve at art much faster if I approached every gay little anime guy drawing as a study exercise. But I would also have quit drawing a decade ago if I couldn't just let myself enjoy drawing imperfect fucked-up little guys with whatever shortcuts I needed to body myself across the finish line.

With my adult piano students, my approach was always "What's your goal?" If their goal was to learn exactly one Elton John songbook to play at parties, then...that's what we did. We'd put tape on the keys to label the notes, and just fuckin go for it. Learning exactly one Elton John songbook is a good and noble musical goal, full stop.

Some of my students needed and enjoyed a more structured approach to learning; if they wanted to be able to play classical music, then yes, scales were going to have to enter the equation at some point. And yet others would learn the Elton John songbook, catch their white whale, and realize they wanted to explore more of the ocean. The scales were still there for them to learn!

Often the choice isn't between "learn art well" and "learn art imperfectly" - the choice is between "learn art imperfectly" and "don't do art at all." To which I say, learn imperfectly! Or, what the hell, don't 'learn' art. Just do, and enjoy the doing of it.

don't forget sleeve garters and suspenders

Sleeve garters are just so you can keep your cuffs right where you want them, typically used professionally by people like bartenders, who are wearing dress shirts to do manual labor and don't want their cuffs brushing through spills when they are wiping down the bar etc... but also useful for keeping cuffs exactly the right length for your suit without having to tailor all your shirts, or, if you have several suit coats with slightly different length sleeves, you can always have your dress shirt's cuffs showing that perfect half inch below the suit sleeve or whatever the fashion is for the time

right now it's about 1/2 an inch, but that's the sort of thing, like tie length, that can change a little with fashion trends -- but basically, you never want your shirt cuffs to be doing this

Because that looks SO sloppy, right? Looks like you're wearing your father's shirt under your little brother's jacket

BUT! you do want the cuffs showing, like this

because it makes the suit sleeve look precise and on purpose, or you might push it and show even more if you are wearing nice cuff links

because this clearly still looks purposeful and precise, and shows off your jewelry.

often, fashion dictates taking any opportunity to show your layers -- for example in medieval europe it was fashionable to literally slash expensive outer garments so you could ALSO see some of the expensive clothing underneath, which is how before long you get "slashed" sleeve patterns like this becoming popular among the wealthy

(notice the roughly half inch of sleeve cuff showing at the bottom here as well)

To The Petrova Line

and i need to show you all some of these because ?????

incredible

you say “nail jello to a tree” and most people think jello all by itself.

but if you put any actual thought into what you’re doing and then give it just a little support

well gosh. look what happens.

I would say that recreating the characterisation, mood and general vibes of an existing work of fiction is in fact a skill in and of itself that's acquired via practice. A common compliment delivered to fanfiction writers is how well they have captured the spirit of the original work. Inexperienced fanfiction writers fail to do this.

When creating an original character you can, ultimately, say anything about them and now it's canon bcos you created them and you said so. conversely, well, if you are covering a well known song and start playing the wrong notes people will notice immediately.

In addition: a lot of fanfiction, IMO, is in actuality a form of metafictional literary analysis. a story where two characters sit down and talk about their feelings about a canonical event? literary analysis, which is of course a skill. Sometimes fanfiction is bad bcos the writer is not good at interpreting texts.