LJ Fab @00oddnight00 - Tumblr Blog

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I’m laughing, but there’s a super useful corollary, which my husband calls “the Red Balloon.” He was a defense lawyer and had a fair number of drug addicts come through, and there is a thing where if you’re like, on your first offense, they’ll do a thing where you can go to treatment and if you complete it they’ll take the conviction off your record. And he would tell his clients, “Look, everyone’s going to tell you not to do drugs. They’re going to say it over and over again. And it’s like, if people tell you not to think of a white elephant, you’re going to think of a white elephant. But the trick to not thinking about a white elephant is to think of a red balloon. So you need to find your red balloon. For some people it’s yoga. For others it’s woodworking. For some people it’s scrapbooking or gardening or any of a long list of things to do. They focus on that, it’s a lot easier to succeed in ignoring the white elephant.” So yeah, “watch yourself” is one thing… but the better idea is to watch something else. (Even if it’s fanfic about werewolves fucking.)

It’s a form of productive dissociation, and is super, super helpful. It’s easy for me to get bogged down in how much pain I’m in… but some of the most painful periods of my life have also been the most productive, writing-wise, because writing is one of my red balloons.

uneventfulness

incidentalcomics

Obligations

rus-califi

Welcome to the space age, ladies and gentlemen

shunkawarakin

This is really quite a big deal. A tremendous amount of modern research ends up being sold to journals which require unreasonable payments to access it and only pay the original authors a pittance. It’s nice to see an agency like NASA deliberately widebanding its findings.

vabla

Not sure if people fully realize just how big of a deal this is. THIS is how science is advanced. Not through biased corporate research, business secrets, marketing, paywalls and patent wars. But through open, uncensored and unrestricted public access to knowledge.

question-the-status-quo-deactiv

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/?term=%22nasa+funded%22[Filter]

^ There’s the direct link to all the studies.

supaslim

NASA IS GOOD, NASA IS GREAT

aripuppyistired

@osunism

nyokoko

NASA is the hero we don’t deserve.

nightpiercer

This deserves every reblog.

slow-magic

@geh-is-okeh

crewdlydrawn-deactivated2022072

In the face of institutions being silenced, this is doubly huge.

kingscrown666

I love seeing that, for once, there are more reblogs than likes

Keep passing on this info, guys. Good job

swordmahes

AAAAAHHHHHHHHH

thesadghostclub

The times we struggle through can feel like wasted opportunity, it can feel like we’ve gained nothing because we’re focusing so much on getting through the days, or recovering. You might find you’ve grown a lot through this periods, and that is such a good thing. You’re becoming stronger, more in touch with yourself, and it’s important not to diminish that <3

You’ll grow and you’ll change and you’ll learn and that is GREAT!

This is available as an A4 print here!

nowyoukno

Source for more facts follow NowYouKno

snakesenpai

This is actually true!

“In some places, such as Nri, the royal python, éké, is considered a sacred and tame agent of Ala and a harbinger of good fortune when found in a home. The python is referred to asnne ‘mother’ in areas where the python is revered, it is a symbol of female beauty and gentleness. Killing of the python is expressly forbidden in these places and sanctions are taken against the killer including the funding of expensive human sized burials that are given to slain pythons.” (x)

And more thanks to kaijutegu:

“A public levy is made for giving elaborate burial rites when the python dies from natural causes. Every python has a human soul within it; this must be liberated by ritual after the death of the reptile. Any offence against the snake is an offence against the ancestor.” (x) p15

coolskelaton95

THAT’S. SO. SWEET.

jenniferrpovey

Okay, want to know the practical reason for this:

What do ball pythons eat?

Rodents.

Ball pythons are sacred in central Africa for the exact same reason cats are in north Africa and the middle east.

They are guardians of the granary.

cameoamalthea

That and they’re docile. They curl up into a ball when scared rather than biting or feinting biting. (While constrictors aren’t venomous, some may behave like a viper and mock strike to drive off threats if startled). While they can bite, accidental bites are less common, they’re not going to strike you for accidentally reaching or stepping too close.

So they not only protected granaries, but they didn’t pose a threat to people as compared to other sorts of snakes which may bite or in the case of venomous ones, pose a threat to people and live stock.

So they fulfill the two key things humans like in other animals

1) Helpful to us 2) Not harmful.

They were called “Royal Pythons” because they’re calm enough that you can wear them like jewelry, which some royalty did. It’s human nature to like animals that let us touch them, hold them, use them as we see fit and don’t hurt us. Even among Christian Igbo the snakes are seen as a positive animal, a gift from god, because humans tends to see animals as “good” or “bad” based on if they pose any threat to us.

And that actually is fairly practical for humans to do, to distinguish ‘dangerous’ from ‘non dangerous’ and develop negative prejudices against ‘harmful’ and positive feelings towards “non-harmful/helpful” animals.

@smartwittyurl thoughts?

jooshthepunished-deactivated202

Sacred Scaly Noodle Cat

uncle-beanbag

They’re the best

tilliewalden

More winktobers

theartofanimation

Woraya Chotikul - http://www.kaifineart.com/2014/08/woraya-chotikulcotton-valent.html - https://th-th.facebook.com/woraya.chotikul - http://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=1251665 - http://meawbin.tumblr.com - https://twitter.com/horrormove - http://horrormove.cgsociety.org - https://www.facebook.com/CottonGallery

apicturewithasmile

“I’m much happier at 53 than I was at 23.” (x)

t-aash

i love you guillermo del totoro

2nd-rate-film-school

Please watch the video! He has great advice and is such a wonderful, happy man.

theartofanimation

Waneella - http://waneella.tumblr.com - https://www.instagram.com/waneella - http://wunylla.tumblr.com - https://vimeo.com/waneella - https://twitter.com/waneella_ - https://soundcloud.com/waneella - https://www.patreon.com/waneella

gay-irl

gay🇦🇺irl

seriouslyeverythingcanbeok

Gen z I love you

lynati

*double thumbs-up*

teaboot

Bad title good kids

ultrafacts

For more posts like this, follow Ultrafacts (Source)

qndeldr

I still need to know what dog this is

ultrafacts

It is the Caucasian Shepherd Dog aka Russian Bear Dog. This picture below is just a PUPPY.

bubblegumdomme

Holy shit.

kaylamariiie1993

I NEED THIS IN MY LIFE NOW

ultrafacts

leadhoovesies

MOUSE

musical-dreamer-of-love

THE REAL LIFE CLIFFORD!

bayocake-deactivated20160731

Level 1

Level 17

Level 35

thespectacularspider-girl

I could literally ride this dog into battle.

and I would.

vancity604778kid

For anyone wondering, that last pic is another awesome breed called the Tibetan Mastiff :)

ultrafacts

Fun fact: Tibetan Mastiffs were often “paired” with Tibetan Spaniels. The Tibetan Spaniel is a natural-born tattle tale and would run along monastery walls to keep an eye out for intruders. Upon spotting someone suspicious they would go get the big dog.

ninjaspiderjuurouta

N O. Oh my God that is so cute

vardasvapors

why isn’t there a short film based on the thing where diana wynne jones refused to drop out of tolkien’s college class even though he was intentionally making it as boring and dense and unintelligible as possible so that everyone would drop out and he could get out of teaching it and write lotr instead. just imagine the potential of a 1940s Female College Student sitting in an empty classroom with Secretly Furious professor resentfully lecturing a meandering incomprehensible stream-of-consciousness inner monologue about The Structure of Narrative to this kid determined to get her money’s worth out of this chump. and them both getting way more personal and intellectual development out of this song-and-dance than they thought they would. hey guys why isn’t there a

neil-gaiman

I love this idea. In our world Diana (1950s, Tolkien was working on The Return Of the King) went every week. In the end it was just her and one other man. Tolkien wanted them both to quit because if nobody turned up for one lecture he got the rest of the term off to write. So his lectures were not actually student friendly, delivered as they were inaudibly to the blackboard. (She said it wasn’t the denseness so much as the pipe in his teeth, that you couldn’t see his mouth or hear exactly what he was saying, and he seemed to be talking to himself. The bits she could make out were fascinating but they were few and far between.)

Meanwhile, Diana told me, CS Lewis was a rock star, delivering his lectures in the biggest hall at Oxford, with students hanging from the rafters.

In the story world, Diana would be the only student. And she’d do a deal with Tolkien, to learn Story Things out of class, in exchange for not coming any more.

Except... I like that Diana became the best writer of magic, possibly the best children’s author ever, all on her own. She didn’t need Tolkien magic or CS Lewis magic. She just needed to be irritated by the books she was reading her children, and determined to write better. And it took her a couple of books until she got there. But she did.

theartofanimation

Cassandra Jean - http://cassandrajp.tumblr.com - https://www.instagram.com/cassieclare1 - http://cassandrajeanart.blogspot.com.es - https://twitter.com/CassandraJP - https://society6.com/cassandrajean

sisterclaire

Hi! I'm working on some fanart and I was wondering if Clementine's horns have an official design, or does all the losing and regrowing mean that they're different most of the time?

Awesome! I can’t wait to see your art!

As for her horns, they are definitely different at different stages of her life! The last version of them was one I had to draw several times, so I actually made a Sculptris 3D model to trace because it got too hard to draw them over and over and different angles:

I think as long as they look like antlers, that’s the main thing. 👍

Incidentally, Sculptris is a free and super useful program that I highly recommend for stuff like this. I’ve used it to make a lot of digital 3D references for hard-to-draw objects and props:

Hope this helps!

-Yamino

succubusboyfriend

being a self-taught artist with no formal training is having done art seriously since you were a young teenager and only finding out that you’re supposed to do warm up sketches every time you’re about to work on serious art when you’re fuckin twenty-five

succubusboyfriend

someone: oh yeah, do this exercise during your warm ups! it’ll help

me: my what

suave-eddboy

thepioden

What’s up I have an actual college degree in art and I was never ONCE taught to do warm ups.

sparksel

when i was in undergrad, it was kind of mentioned in and offhand way that we should do warmups, but we were never shown what that meant. And, y’know, we were young so it didn’t matter so much.

Being older now and having an art job it’s…kind of essential.

So: a quick primer for those of you who are like ‘ok but how do i actually go about doing this warmup thing.’

1) you may be tempted to do ‘a warmup drawing’ which is just a drawing that will take longer than it needed to and probably be frustrating and kind of bad because you didn’t warm up first. It’s tempting but always a trick your brain is playing on you! Do not trust!

2) warmups will vary based on what feels good to you/what task you’re about to do/what motor skills you want to practice. That being said, some good standbys:

a) circles. Just a whole page of circles on whatever drawing surface you’re going to be using, whether that’s your tablet or your sketchbook or a drawing pad on an easel. For these circles you should make sure that you’re drawing from your shoulder and not your wrist. In fact, you want to be drawing from your shoulder rather than your wrist most of the time! forever! your wrist is delicate please preserve it!

In order to ensure that you’re drawing from your shoulder, when you’re holding your pencil or whatever drawing tool you’re using, the only part of your hand that should be touching the drawing surface is part of the last two fingers–some people prefer the finger tips, but I tend to favor the first knuckles. Either way, the fingers should really be ghosting over the surface, providing guidance rather than support.

I usually start with big circles and then go to smaller circles and lines of ellipses, and then try to fit circles and ellipses inside other shapes i’ve already drawn as a precision exercise, but i don’t do that unless i’m feeling loose

b) spirals! i don’t always do spirals, but if i’m stiff and the circles just aren’t cutting it, spirals are a good fall back. I start from the center and work outward, going both clockwise and counterclockwise until i feel comfortable with the whole range of motion. Some people really care about getting perfect spirals but for me it’s all about making sure i’m comfortable with how i’m moving so who really even cares about how the spirals look. Not me!

c) lines! straight lines! in parallel! i do a mix of vertical, horizontal, and diagonal. These are often more from the elbow than the shoulder, especially if I’m working on a smaller surface. For this exercise, I recommend holding the drawing tool perpendicular with the surface

d) connect the dots. This is a precision and accuracy exercise and takes two forms. The first is to draw two dots and then draw a straight line between them. The second is to draw three dots and draw the curve that connects them. This sounds a lot simpler than it is in practice. Take time to ghost over the line you plan to draw before actually committing to your line. (I don’t always remember where I picked up my warm up exercises, but I’m pretty sure I got this one from Scott Robertson. His how to draw and how to render books are very technical but also accessible and worth checking out)

e) cubes, spheres, cones, and cylinders. These help get your brain into a more volumetric space. I draw multiples of each, rotating the forms around, and I’ll often take the time to do some rough shading on at least a few of them

f) spidermans! This one is really good if you’re going to be storyboarding or working on dynamic poses. Just fill a page full of spidermans doing all sorts of acrobatics.

g) beans. I don’t do beans too much anymore, but I know a lot of people like it so I’m mentioning it here. Fill an area with different size bean shapes without lifting your pencil off the paper.

h) short medium and long line repetition. draw a short, medium, and long line on your page, and then draw directly on top of them 8 to 12 times, doing your best to exactly trace what you’ve already drawing. Repeat with a wavy line. I’m bad at this one, which means I probably need to do it more.

And there are lots more options too! Hit up youtube to see what other people recommend, put together your own go-to list, mix it up when you’re getting bored, etc.

This is a long list, I know, but I usually don’t take more than 10 to 15 minutes to warm up, and I can warm up one handed while I’m drinking coffee, so, multitasking hurrah.

Sometimes I’ll advance to a precision warmup and find that I haven’t loosened up enough yet; it’s totally ok to go back to an earlier exercise! Also, all of this has the added benefit of kind of ritualistically getting you into the drawing mode so even if I’m not feeling it before I start, by the time I’ve gotten to the end I’m usually Ready For Drawin’. Brain hacks.

so, yeah! that’s a lot of words, but! Warmups are important! Save your joints, take less advil, do better drawings!