“Drawing Techniques To Improve Boot Shoes”

I spent hours staring at gold bars stock photos while making this and now my head hurts

Okay so I followed this video about foreshortening and…

Sycra. I love you so much for making this video.

Pronation and form changes by Anatomy Next

I’ve been studying the classic black tie dress code (mainly from here) so I thought I could share my notes. Maybe they can be helpful to someone else, too. If I made any mistakes or things are really confusing please tell me.  I also have some notes on white tie which I could share as well…

!! ART TUTORIAL !!

This is my first real attempt at doing a walkthrough for one of my landscapes, I’d really appreciate some feedback!

it is pretty much my workflow process, there’s always something slightly big to change during render I should have solved earlier!

Anyway everyone, feel free to message me if you have any questions and I hope this helps anyone!!

this was gonna be a tutorial and i guess it still is but if anything it’s just a really long and drawn out “essay” on drawing people with epicanthic folds. one of my biggest pet peeves is people drawing asian people exclusively with the same type of eye they’d give white people or anyone else who typically doesn’t have the fold! however i know that most people are taught with the standard white person eye (google image search for “eye” and it’ll all be pictures of white people’s eyes) so learning to draw epicanthic folds is a consciously learned thing. 

therefore i bring you this, which attempts to break the mechanics of epicanthic folds down into something that’s a bit easier to digest and implement in your own art! 

style can be argued i guess but it’s not that hard to stylize eyes with folds if you do proper observation and research. eyes with epicanthic folds are as diverse as eyes without so it’s not like you have to adhere to a strict model for them (although many people think that you have to) and all it takes to distinguish the two in stylized art (and even in semi/realism once you think about it) is a few lines! like i said this is a learned process but it’ll make your asian characters (and characters of other races even) a bit more interesting and believable.

Homemaking, gardening, and self-sufficiency resources that won’t radicalize you into a hate group

It seems like self-sufficiency and homemaking skills are blowing up right now. With the COVID-19 pandemic and the current economic crisis, a lot of folks, especially young people, are looking to develop skills that will help them be a little bit less dependent on our consumerist economy. And I think that’s generally a good thing. I think more of us should know how to cook a meal from scratch, grow our own vegetables, and mend our own clothes. Those are good skills to have.

Unfortunately, these “self-sufficiency” skills are often used as a recruiting tactic by white supremacists, TERFs, and other hate groups. They become a way to reconnect to or relive the “good old days,” a romanticized (false) past before modern society and civil rights. And for a lot of people, these skills are inseparably connected to their politics and may even be used as a tool to indoctrinate new people.

In the spirit of building safe communities, here’s a complete list of the safe resources I’ve found for learning homemaking, gardening, and related skills. Safe for me means queer- and trans-friendly, inclusive of different races and cultures, does not contain Christian preaching, and does not contain white supremacist or TERF dog whistles.

Homemaking/Housekeeping/Caring for your home:

Making It by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen [book] (The big crunchy household DIY book; includes every level of self-sufficiency from making your own toothpaste and laundry soap to setting up raised beds to butchering a chicken. Authors are explicitly left-leaning.)

Safe and Sound: A Renter-Friendly Guide to Home Repair by Mercury Stardust [book] (A guide to simple home repair tasks, written with rentals in mind; very compassionate and accessible language.)

How To Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis [book] (The book about cleaning and housework for people who get overwhelmed by cleaning and housework, based on the premise that messiness is not a moral failing; disability and neurodivergence friendly; genuinely changed how I approach cleaning tasks.)

Gardening

Rebel Gardening by Alessandro Vitale [book] (Really great introduction to urban gardening; explicitly discusses renter-friendly garden designs in small spaces; lots of DIY solutions using recycled materials; note that the author lives in England, so check if plants are invasive in your area before putting them in the ground.)

Country/Rural Living:

Woodsqueer by Gretchen Legler [book] (Memoir of a lesbian who lives and works on a rural farm in Maine with her wife; does a good job of showing what it’s like to be queer in a rural space; CW for mentions of domestic violence, infidelity/cheating, and internalized homophobia)

“Debunking the Off-Grid Fantasy” by Maggie Mae Fish [video essay] (Deconstructs the off-grid lifestyle and the myth of self-reliance)

Sewing/Mending:

Annika Victoria [YouTube channel] (No longer active, but their videos are still a great resource for anyone learning to sew; check out the beginner project playlist to start. This is where I learned a lot of what I know about sewing.)

Make, Sew, and Mend by Bernadette Banner [book] (A very thorough written introduction to hand-sewing, written by a clothing historian; lots of fun garment history facts; explicitly inclusive of BIPOC, queer, and trans sewists.)

Sustainability/Land Stewardship

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer [book] (Most of you have probably already read this one or had it recommended to you, but it really is that good; excellent example of how traditional animist beliefs – in this case, indigenous American beliefs – can exist in healthy symbiosis with science; more philosophy than how-to, but a great foundational resource.)

Wild Witchcraft by Rebecca Beyer [book] (This one is for my fellow witches; one of my favorite witchcraft books, and an excellent example of a place-based practice deeply rooted in the land.)

Avoiding the “Crunchy to Alt Right Pipeline”

Note: the “crunchy to alt-right pipeline” is a term used to describe how white supremacists and other far right groups use “crunchy” spaces (i.e., spaces dedicated to farming, homemaking, alternative medicine, simple living/slow living, etc.) to recruit and indoctrinate people into their movements. Knowing how this recruitment works can help you recognize it when you do encounter it and avoid being influenced by it.

“The Crunchy-to-Alt-Right Pipeline” by Kathleen Belew [magazine article] (Good, short introduction to this issue and its history.)

Sisters in Hate by Seyward Darby (I feel like I need to give a content warning: this book contains explicit descriptions of racism, white supremacy, and Neo Nazis, and it’s a very difficult read, but it really is a great, in-depth breakdown of the role women play in the alt-right; also explicitly addresses the crunchy to alt-right pipeline.)

These are just the resources I’ve personally found helpful, so if anyone else has any they want to add, please, please do!

I’ve had a HELL of a day trying to figure out skulls and facial structure, but here’s some stuff I did about proportions and shading and coloring. Face structure was referenced from this,

Shading locations I actually picked up from a thing that’s about makeup I’m pretty sure, but it gave some good results so I rolled with it. And the info on hue in faces are what I applied from this post. Gives the skin some more natural glow? Play around with settings and stuff.

[pixiv] [part 2]

PLUS! I’ve just posted a tutorial on LIPS over on TIKTOK HERE today - hope it’s useful! 

Lorenzo!