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See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna
illimaia

Ways to find a plot when you have characters and a setting

embarrassingwriter

… but only characters and a setting. 

  • You have a world. A universe. A setting. Good! Describe what happens in it normally - describe your main character(s)’s daily life. Now, what would destabilize this routine completely? If many things could, write them all down. Pick your favourite idea(s). Plots are born from change: everything was going normally… until it wasn’t.
  • Make a list with all the goals/motivations of your main characters. Can the plot revolve around your characters going after these goals? 
    • Which goals are more important? Focus on those. 
    • Are different characters’ goals in conflict with each other? Conflict is usually what propels a story forward. 
    • What could go wrong in your character’s pursuit of their goal? Make it go wrong.
    • If you don’t know your characters’ goals, go back to the drawing board; they probably need more development.
    • If there’s not enough conflict of different motivations, make a new character who creates conflict!
  • How do you want your main character to have changed by the end of the story? Do you want them to be less selfish? To have come to terms with a part of themself? To have learned something new? Write down ideas that could accomplish this change. 
    • If you can’t think of any way your character could be changed (read: improved) by the end of the story, go back to the drawing board. They might be “too perfect”.

Notes: 

The change that triggers your plot can be anything. It doesn’t have to be the start of an epic war that will bring forth the apocalypse, it can be your character meeting a new person who shakes things up in their life, or anything you want!

Motivations can be anything. It doesn’t have to be something grand - if your character’s motivation is to just live a quiet life, you can still come up with a plot that will get in the way of that goal! 

Character development can be anything, as well - you don’t need a cliché moral to the story; your character doesn’t even need to change in a good way, if that’s not what you want for your story!

This is what I’ve found works for me, but if you try it and it doesn’t, or if it sounds way too sententious and strict for you - that’s okay! Take it with a grain of salt! Maybe you think your characters are just fine and don’t need more developing even in the situations in which I recommended you “go back to the drawing board”, or maybe you have better ways of coming up with a plot. That’s fine, the writing process can be very personal!

Writing
stinktalksmalls
officialprydonchapter

How do you write healthy parent-child relationships?

dragon-in-a-fez

this might be more response than you want, but interesting (and kinda depressing when you think about it) fact: there’ve been a bunch of research studies where parents have been asked what they think makes a healthy parent-child relationship, and they tend to like…not answer the actual question because they think they’re being asked what good parenting is, which is not the same. so they talk about things like helping kids with homework and making sure they eat well. children, on the other hand, usually respond to the same question with stuff that’s literally just the definition of healthy relationships generally. affection, honesty, respect, spending time together, sharing interests. and the real kicker is, objectively, we know that’s the kind of stuff that actually has a much better impact not only on whether or not the relationship is strong and positive but also the kid’s overall happiness and psychological health.

so, if you want to write a character who’s really intent on being a Good Parent you’d have them putting massive effort into making their kid Grow Up Right, worrying about shit like if they have The Right Friends and they’re spending Enough Time Outside. but if you want to write a good relationship, just make parent and kid laugh together and respect boundaries and be emotionally supportive, like you would when writing a solid pair of friends or romantic couple.

officialprydonchapter

No that was actually really helpful and I’m glad you took the time to give a serious response

Writing
riggedbones
lifehacksthatwork

Just a bunch of Useful websites - Updated for 2023

Removed/checked all links to make sure everything is working (03/03/23). Hope they help!

Sejda - Free online PDF editor.

Supercook - Have ingredients but no idea what to make? Put them in here and it’ll give you recipe ideas.

Still Tasty - Trying the above but unsure about whether that sauce in the fridge is still edible? Check here first.

Archive.ph - Paywall bypass. Like 12ft below but appears to work far better and across more sites in my testing. I’d recommend trying this one first as I had more success with it.

12ft – Hate paywalls? Try this site out.

Where Is This - Want to know where a picture was taken, this site can help.

TOS/DR - Terms of service, didn’t read. Gives you a summary of terms of service plus gives each site a privacy rating.

OneLook - Reverse dictionary for when you know the description of the word but can’t for the life of you remember the actual word.

My Abandonware - Brilliant site for free, legal games. Has games from 1978 up to present day across pc and console. You’ll be surprised by some of the games on there, some absolute gems.

Project Gutenberg – Always ends up on these type of lists and for very good reason. All works that are copyright free in one place.

Ninite – New PC? Install all of your programs in one go with no bloat or unnecessary crap.

PatchMyPC - Alternative to ninite with over 300 app options to keep upto date. Free for home users.

Unchecky – Tired of software trying to install additional unwanted programs? This will stop it completely by unchecking the necessary boxes when you install.

Sci-Hub – Research papers galore! Check here before shelling out money. And if it’s not here, try the next link in our list.

LibGen – Lots of free PDFs relate primarily to the sciences.

Zotero – A free and easy to use program to collect, organize, cite and share research.

Car Complaints – Buying a used car? Check out what other owners of the same model have to say about it first.

CamelCamelCamel – Check the historical prices of items on Amazon and set alerts for when prices drop.

Have I Been Pawned – Still the king when it comes to checking if your online accounts have been released in a data breach. Also able to sign up for email alerts if you’ve ever a victim of a breach.

I Have No TV - A collection of documentaries for you to while away the time. Completely free.

Radio Garden – Think Google Earth but wherever you zoom, you get the radio station of that place.

Just The Recipe – Paste in the url and get just the recipe as a result. No life story or adverts.

Tineye – An Amazing reverse image search tool.

My 90s TV – Simulates 90’s TV using YouTube videos. Also has My80sTV, My70sTV, My60sTV and for the younger ones out there, My00sTV. Lose yourself in nostalgia.

Foto Forensics – Free image analysis tools.

Old Games Download – A repository of games from the 90’s and early 2000’s. Get your fix of nostalgia here.

Online OCR – Convert pictures of text into actual text and output it in the format you need.

Remove Background – An amazingly quick and accurate way to remove backgrounds from your pictures.

Twoseven – Allows you to sync videos from providers such as Netflix, Youtube, Disney+ etc and watch them with your friends. Ad free and also has the ability to do real time video and text chat.

Terms of Service, Didn’t Read – Get a quick summary of Terms of service plus a privacy rating.

Coolors – Struggling to get a good combination of colors? This site will generate color palettes for you.

This To That – Need to glue two things together? This’ll help.

Photopea – A free online alternative to Adobe Photoshop. Does everything in your browser.

BitWarden – Free open source password manager.

Just Beam It - Peer to peer file transfer. Drop the file in on one end, click create link and send to whoever. Leave your pc on that page while they download. Because of how it works there are no file limits. It’s genuinely amazing. Best file transfer system I have ever used.

Atlas Obscura – Travelling to a new place? Find out the hidden treasures you should go to with Atlas Obscura.

ID Ransomware – Ever get ransomware on your computer? Use this to see if the virus infecting your pc has been cracked yet or not. Potentially saving you money. You can also sign up for email notifications if your particular problem hasn’t been cracked yet.

Way Back Machine – The Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites and loads more.

Rome2Rio – Directions from anywhere to anywhere by bus, train, plane, car and ferry.

Splitter – Seperate different audio tracks audio. Allowing you to split out music from the words for example.

myNoise – Gives you beautiful noises to match your mood. Increase your productivity, calm down and need help sleeping? All here for you.

DeepL – Best language translation tool on the web.

Forvo – Alternatively, if you need to hear a local speaking a word, this is the site for you.

For even more useful sites, there is an expanded list that can be found here.

wellnoe

Anonymous asked:

Any advise for someone who is learning about rendering light and shadows? :) i love your blog and art so much!!!!

wellnoe answered:

ah thank you!!!

i don’t think i do a lot of extreme shadows/lighting in my drawings (with some exceptions).

i think the 2 main points are that shadows and highlight colors depend on the environment of the piece, and that in general i make shadows more saturated than highlights.

you can kind of see both things in these drawings:

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in the first, i shade areas of jean’s skin with a redder color, and also use shades of blue to shade areas of her clothes (i also desaturated some areas with blue to push them further into the background, which you can especially see in her legs and hair). the gold on jean’s belt and boots becomes both darker and redder as it moves into shadow. in the second drawing, jean’s silver outfit is shaded with much more saturated blues and purples.

on a similar note, i think shifting hues with shading really helps to create a fuller piece. you can really see this in the white costume i think? i use a lot of different colors to shade.

hope that was helpful in some way!

wellnoe

wait i forgot to say: a lot of the time what i end up doing for pieces w more extreme lighting is slapping on some approximate colors w approximate shading and then playing w layer modes and then coloring the piece from there. if you’re having trouble figuring out how to get the effect you want layer modes are your friend.

Art tips
meanegirl
vympr

If you're applying for office jobs and you're lying about being proficient in Excel (which you always should bc nobody knows anything and google is free) a handy video to give you the basics on Excel's functionality is Joel Sposky's You Suck at Excel Video. It's about an hour long and gives you enough background info to know what people are talking about when referring to Excel, and from there you can do your own further research. There are also handy little guides and notes people have taken on the presentation that go over the highlights here and here <3

Job computer stuff
skeleslime-phantom
adorkastock

Do you know about my free web based sketch app that rotates random pose references? 🤔

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It's called AdorkaStock Sketch and you can access it on desktop or mobile. It will adjust to fit your screen! On mobile you can scroll down to see the options.

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There are currently just over 2,000 poses in rotation with more coming. You can change the timer, skip poses, sort with filters, or try predefined class modes.

The site is completely free and thanks to my Patrons I was recently able to remove third-party ads! If you turn off your ad blockers while using the site you will only see my own ads.

You can also make a free account which will allow you to collect a favorites list and set sketching goals.

Please check it out and use it as often as you need to for pose browsing, gesture warm ups, or long drawing sessions (just hit pause on any pose!)

Hope it's super useful for you. Happy drawing! 🎨✨

Art reference