Donutdomain - 🍓Helpful Reblogs🍓

I'm currently working on an animatic, could you give me any advice?

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I still haven’t taken any animation or storyboarding classes, but these are general TECHNICAL tips I’ve learned online and through trying to fix my own boards. Definitely practice with things your passionate about/interested as it’ll make the process so much more fun (: for me the technical parts aren't the hardest, moreso actually visualizing and deciding the scenes mentally, which takes practice.

Also 6 cuz yeee:

I had a classmate laugh cuz I said I used wmm for my boards and he thought he needed a fancy $7 blue pencil LIKE NO BRO JUST USE WHAT YOU HAVE IF YOU CAN’T AFFORD THINGS LOLLLL. I have a small huion screen now, but it’s down to preference cuz honestly I prefer paper over digital 0′;

Good luck though! Once I take classes or if I have more tips id gladly share them with yall (:

seeing the photos from Webb up against photos from Hubble just makes me… I don’t even know like, wow! Look at that!

NGC 3314

At first glance you'd be forgiven for thinking this was two galaxies merging, but they are actually 23 million light years from one another, and just happen to be overlapping due to our perspective.

The closest galaxy is 117 million light years away with the other 140 in the constellation of Hydra.

IC 342: Hidden Galaxy

"IC 342 is a challenging cosmic target. Although it is bright, the galaxy sits near the equator of the Milky Way’s galactic disk, where the sky is thick with glowing cosmic gas, bright stars, and dark, obscuring dust. In order for astronomers to see the intricate spiral structure of IC 342, they must gaze through a large amount of material contained within our own galaxy — no easy feat! As a result IC 342 is relatively difficult to spot and image, giving rise to its intriguing nickname: the “Hidden Galaxy.” Located very close (in astronomical terms) to the Milky Way, this sweeping spiral galaxy would be among the brightest in the sky were it not for its dust-obscured location. The galaxy is very active, as indicated by the range of colors visible in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image, depicting the very central region of the galaxy. A beautiful mixture of hot, blue star-forming regions, redder, cooler regions of gas, and dark lanes of opaque dust can be seen, all swirling together around a bright core. In 2003, astronomers confirmed this core to be a specific type of central region known as an HII nucleus — a name that indicates the presence of ionized hydrogen — that is likely to be creating many hot new stars."

Image and information from NASA.

Random Fact #3,517

A lightning spark can reach over 8 kilometres in length.

I wasn’t happy with the painting explanation I threw together the other day and I keep thinking of steps/important notes I should have included, so I made this more detailed version today! This is more or less how I paint, and the main things I keep in mind when I paint. Originally I was just going to “add a few more details” to the original tutorial, but I kept thinking of stuff and went a little bit nuts trying to phrase everything in a way that makes sense.

there are many incredible tutorials about digital (and traditional) painting, color theory, light and shadow, etc out there– I want to urge anyone interested in learning more about this stuff to go seek out professional advice! Painting is really, really complicated, and I’m absolutely still learning how it works and how to do it good. This is just m’thoughts and some images to go with them.

some vaguely coherent notes on owl facial discs because they were the hardest part of the bird for me to figure out and if this helps at least one person then I consider that an epic win

Photos: Barn Owl, Long-eared Owl

3 Ways to Write Scene Transitions

Moving from one scene to another in your short story or novel can be challenging. If your plot spans more than a day or a week, you've got plenty of time to cover.

How do you transition your scenes without jumping over crucial plot points or making the pacing feel rushed?

There are a few tips you can try when you're facing this problem.

1. Tease What's to Come

Let's say you've started a chapter with your protagonist encountering people they don't like while shopping at the grocery store with their exhausted two-year-old. The experience is frustrating, so your protagonist is simmering while sitting at a red light on the way home.

The main action of the chapter happens when the babysitter arrives that night, but it's only 12 o'clock in your scene. You needed your protagonist to encounter the people that annoy them to establish motivation for the action later on.

You could jump time by teasing the action itself. Your protagonist could thrum their fingers on the steering wheel and glare at the red light.

They opened their arms to the resentment churning under their skin. It sank into their bones, morphing into electricity that kept [Protagonist] plodding through their day. The red light mocked their need to take action, but they could wait.

Because when the babysitter showed up that night, they would take their revenge out on the city.

That could be a great place for a scene break or even the end of your chapter, depending on how much you've written. The reader won't mind a time jump because their interest gets piqued. They'll want to know what revenge means for that character and what will spin out from the choices they make.

2. Switch Points of View

If you're writing a 3rd person POV story with perspectives from at least two characters, you can also transition scenes by switching narrators.

While one character completes a plot-relevant action, the other could move the plot along by being a bit further in the future.

Consider something like this as an example:

Sarah's heart beat wildly in her chest as the heavy words finally fell from her lips. It was just the two of them in that park, but it had felt like the whole world had watched her admit her love for Melanie in the molten gold rays of the setting sun. All she needed now was an answer.

[Scene break symbol or the start of a new chapter]

Melanie heard Sarah's heartfelt words echo in her ears long after she had mumbled something about needing time. Time to think, to process. Sarah had been so understanding, even when she dropped Melanie off at home right afterward and skipped their usual Facetime call that night.

It wasn't until Melanie woke up the next morning in a sweat that she realized she finally had to unearth her biggest secret—she had only started the friendship with Sarah because she'd been in love with Sarah's older sister since the second grade.

You could make that time jump into however long you needed. Play with the scene set up in particular and then give the page or two to whoever loves to read your writing. They could talk about if it felt like a rushed scene or if the time jump felt right for that moment.

3. Wrap Up the Moment

Most of the time, I find myself struggling with a scene transition because the moment that I'm writing isn't finished.

Recently I was writing a scene with two friends in a wagon on their way to a new city. They have a great conversation that sparks some character development in-between plot points, but I could feel that conversation coming to a lull.

It felt like the right moment to insert a transition, but something didn't feel right.

I had to walk away from my work and come back to it to realize that I needed to wrap up the moment to move anything forward.

The solution I found was ending the conversation by making them appreciate their friendship more than before, based on what had been said, and then the protagonist ended the scene by reflecting on how they knew they could face anything in the new city with their friend by their side.

The next scene started with their wagon approaching the city walls after a night of sleeping under the stars. The reader will still understand that it took more time to reach their destination, but they don't have to read excessive details about the cold night air or hard ground under the protagonist's back to get to what they're most looking forward to—the arrival at the new city.

Nothing about that night would add anything to the plot, so dropping the overnight experience at the beginning of the sentence makes for a great transition to the next scene.

Make Your Transitions Clear

Whether you end a scene with a cliffhanger, a heartfelt moment, or by switching between points of view, your transitions should always help the plot.

You can always edit them while reworking the finished draft later or ask for beta reader opinions from the people who always love reading what you write.

i learned that the Sun is 99.86% of all mass in our solar system. Every other planet, asteroid, and comet only adds up to 7/50th of a single percent (x)

[ Download Link ]

As promised, it’s finally here! Thank you to all of my patrons for not only the support that made this possible, but for giving me the confidence to work on a big project like this.

Rather than providing any drawing instruction, what this writeup aims to do is help you learn to unpack the decisions being made in a given composition, and articulate what elements in a piece are responsible for its impact. Being able to isolate these qualities in your own art and art that inspires you opens up avenues for improvement regardless of medium, style, or technical skill. This is the first of hopefully many PWYW art ‘tutorials’ from me. 

I hope you all enjoy!