Pun's (Art) Ref Blog

[kineticpenguin]

At the risk of sounding anti-intellectual, I think that college should be free and also not a requirement for employment outside of highly specialized career fields

[kineticpenguin]

At the risk of sounding like an effete intellectual, I do actually think you should be allowed to just take college courses indefinitely

[yourunderwaterskies]

technically you can, if you don't care about degrees.

Free Harvard courses. Free Courses from Stanford. Free Courses from MIT. Free courses from Yale. Free courses from Princeton.

Free courses on Coursera.

Free Courses on EDx Free Courses on Alison

For paid, there's The Great Courses+/Wonderium. 20$ a month for unlimited courses.

When searching, the phrases you're looking for are Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), or you can do a general search of say, "free online college courses." Oh, and so you don't get surprised like I did, have an avoid: Hillsdale College is a conservative Christian site and not a valid MOOC place. Sign up with them and you will get things like THIS IS WHY THE LEFT IS TURNING YOUR KIDS TRANS AND GAY in your inbox.

[aloeverawrites]

@yourunderwaterskies I wanted to say thank you so much for adding these links, seriously, they've been life-changingly helpful to me-

And I also wanted to mention that humanitarian organisations have free courses too, like the Red Cross on international humanitarian law.

Humanity in War

Learn more about the Red Cross International Humanitarian Law (IHL) Program to train policy professionals, government officials, academics,

Kaya

Kaya is a free humanitarian learning platform which offers hundreds of training opportunities across a range of key topics, including the hu

[totallynotsilversora]

I forgot I have to be active here so here’s my Twitter tutorial on how to draw folds I made a while back to help a friend!

[buntong-h1ninga]

Yoooooo!!!!

FilmCow Royalty Free Sound Effects Library by FilmCow

FilmCow Royalty Free Sound Effects Library by FilmCow

[randomalienencounter]

ʖᔑᓭᒷ↸

[genericpuff]

All the cool kids use ComicFury 😘

Hey y'all! If you love independent comic sites and have a few extra dollars in your pocket, please consider supporting ComicFury, the owner Kyo has been running it for nearly twenty years and it's one of the only comic hosting platforms left that's entirely independent and reminiscent of the 'old school' days that I know y'all feel nostalgic over.

Comic Fury is a free, easy-to-use, advertisement free host for your webcomic(s). You can put up your own comics and get a website dedicated

(kyo's sense of humor is truly unmatched lmao)

Here are some of the other great features it offers:

Message board forums! It's a gift from the mid-2000's era gods!

Entirely free-to-use HTML and CSS editing! You can use the provided templates, or go wild and customize the site entirely to your liking! There's also a built-in site editor for people like me who want more control over their site design but don't have the patience to learn HTML/CSS ;0

In-depth site analytics that allow you to track and moderate comments, monitor your comic's performance per week, and let you see how many visitors you get. You can also set up Google Analytics on your site if you want that extra touch of data, without any bullshit from the platform. Shit, the site doesn't come with ads, but you can run ads on your site. The site owners don't ask questions, they don't take a cut. Pair your site with ComicAd and you'll be as cool as a crocodile alligator !

RSS feeds! They're like Youtube subscriptions for millennials and Gen X'ers!

NSFW comics are allowed, let the "female presenting nipples" run free! (just tag and content rate them properly!)

Tagging. Tagging. Remember that? The basic feature that every comic site has except for the alleged "#1 webcomic site"? The independent comic site that still looks the same as it did 10 years ago has that. Which you'd assume isn't that big a deal, but isn't it weird that Webtoons doesn't?

Blog posts. 'Nuff said.

AI-made comics are strictly prohibited. This also means you don't have to worry about the site owners sneaking in AI comics or installing AI scrapers (cough cough)

Did I mention that the hosting includes actual hosting? Meaning for only the cost of the domain you can change your URL to whatever site name you want. No extra cost for hosting because it's just a URL redirect. No stupid "pro plan" or "gold tier" subscription necessary, every feature of the site is free to use for all. If this were a sponsored Pornhub ad, this is the part where I'd say "no credit card, no bullshit".

Don't believe me? Alright, look at my creator backend (feat stats on my old ass 2014 comic, I ain't got anything to hide LOL)

TRANSCRIPTS! CHAPTER ORGANIZATION! MASS PAGE UPLOADING! MULTIPLE CREATOR SUPPORT! FULL HTML AND CSS SUPPORT! SIMPLIFIED EDITORS! ACTUAL STATISTICS THAT GIVE YOU WEEKLY BREAKDOWNS! THE POWER OF CHOICE!!

So yeah! You have zero reasons to not use and support ComicFury! It being "smaller" than Webtoons shouldn't stop you! Regain your independence, support smaller platforms, and maybe you'll even find that 'tight-knit community' that we all miss from the days of old! They're out there, you just gotta be willing to use them! ( ´ ∀ `)ノ～ ♡

[teomodo]

art books on the internet archive for you

morpho books

figure drawing for all it's worth (+ creative illustration)

framed ink

will eisner comics and sequential art

will eisner graphic storytelling and visual narrative

understanding comics (+ making comics)

folder of various animation production art

burne hogarth drawing dynamic hands

perspective for comic book artists

michael mattesi force drawing

the animator's survival kit

color and light james gurney

be free

[s-lycopersicum]

All you need in life is a color picker willing to expose you to the unbounded madness we call color vision.

me, absolutely clueless: "I want a color just like this one, but in red" color picker: Fuck you think you are, a Mantis Shrimp? Don't talk to me again until you can afford a wide gamut monitor.

[rnadvillain]

what is even happening here 😨 wheres the circle with the triangle inside we all know and love..

[s-lycopersicum]

The circle and triangle are a lie we tell ourselves to cope with the ugly reality... Now this-- this is the real deal!

In seriousness, this is oklch.com, a color picker for the OKLCH color model.

There are whole several hour lectures one could take in color science and theory, but to keep it short: the set of colors we can see, the set of colors monitors can display, and the set of colors computers can model are three circles that only somewhat overlap.

In this case, if I wanted this color

but in red, I could just go of Photoshop and move over the hue slider, getting this as a result:

Which is.. acceptable, but not as "bright" and "vibrant" as the green I had. Looking at the graphs in the OKLCH color picker, we can figure out why:

It tells us that a red with the same luminosity and chroma as this green is out of gamut—that is, it cannot be displayed by this monitor.

In this case, you can use the edges of the graph to find the color that is closest to what you want. You can, for example, keep the chroma but sacrifice lightness,

keep the lightness but drop the chroma,

or a bit of both, which is what the common HSV triangles already do.

But I like to know when it happens, y'know?

[xkcd-for-that]

What if what *I* see as blue, *you* see as a slightly different blue because you're using Chrome instead of Firefox and despite a decade of messing with profiles we STILL can't get this right somehow.

Color Models

[ralfmaximus]

Windows 10 LTSC – the version that won't expire for years

: Can't run Windows 11? Don't want to? There are surprisingly legal options

The 2021 LTSC is available in the plain vanilla version, Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021, with end of mainstream support scheduled January 12, 2027, and Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021, with an extended end date of January 13, 2032. They are not quite the same as the ordinary consumer editions of Windows 10. They don't include the Windows Store or any "modern" apps. Apart from the Edge browser, they have almost nothing else: no OneDrive, no Weather or Contacts apps, and no Windows Mail or whatever it's called this week.

...no OneDrive, Copilot AI, or all of the other useless crapware cluttering up the Start menu? AND patches/support through 2032??

Don't threaten me with a good time, Microsoft.

[doomhamster]

Jesus Christ is this REAL?! Can I... have Windows for YEARS more with no AI shit?!

[skribblegurl]

some people think writers are so eloquent and good with words, but the reality is that we can sit there with our fingers on the keyboard going, “what’s the word for non-sunlight lighting? Like, fake lighting?” and for ten minutes, all our brain will supply is “unofficial”, and we know that’s not the right word, but it’s the only word we can come up with…until finally it’s like our face got smashed into a brick wall and we remember the word we want is “artificial”.

[heywriters]

I couldn't remember the word "doorknob" ten minutes ago.

[bumblewyn]

ok but the onelook thesaurus will save your life, i literally could not live without this website

[breelandwalker]

REBLOG TO SAVE A WRITER'S LIFE

[myfairkatiecat]

LIFE SAVED

REBLOGGING TO SAVE ANOTHER WRITERS LIFE

[sirowsky]

I use this every time I sit down to write. It's the best tool in the world and I would be lost without it!

[galacticneighbor]

not to vague anyone but switching from spotify to youtube music is not raging against the machine <3

[galacticneighbor]

I saw the "youtube music is raging against the machine" post again so instead of ripping someone's throat out with my teeth here is Arthur's Official Media Privacy For Dummies Post <3

My credentials are that I have 700 songs I didn't pay for on a refurbished ipod from 2007 and it's AWESOME. (PS backmarket.com for refurbished tech they have lots of old ipods if you're into that. But also phones and laptops and shit for cheap.)

First off. Reddit.com/r/piracy forever and ever. Go through their masterpost they have literally anything you could ever want. You will never pay for media of any sort again. The people of reddit are smarter than me.

If you currently use Spotify and wish to stop, here is where I would start:

1. Bandcamp!! If you want to financially support your favorite artists it's Bandcamp.

Plug your playlists into merch table they will do the hard work for you here <3

2. Spotidownloader

Put your playlists in they will spit a download link out it's so easy. All the metadata is there and everything.

They can only do 100 songs at a time so it's not ideal for a bigger library but it works fine for what it is.

3. Lucida

Awesome for full albums or individual songs if you're just looking for a few things and not transferring a whole library.

3. Newpipe

https://spotalike.com/en

A handy youtube clone that's good for streaming or downloading music and videos.

And finally, this isn't piracy advice but you don't need daily curated playlists and you definitely don't need yearly listening stats. Listen to the bands your friends listen to. Keep a list of songs people recommend to you. Try to find a local radio show or a college radio channel. Go to local shows. Be curious about genres and new bands. Put effort into curating and owning your music library, it's worth it.

[life-ennder]

where to download every pokemon game excluding spinoffs

(plain text: where to download every pokemon game excluding spinoffs)

GAMES

pokemon red/blue

pokemon gold/silver/crystal

pokemon ruby/sapphire/emerald

pokemon firered/leafgreen

pokemon diamond/pearl/platinum

pokemon heartgold/soulsilver

pokemon black/white

pokemon black2/white2

pokemon x/pokemon y

pokemon omega ruby/alpha sapphire

pokemon sun/moon

pokemon ultra sun/ultra moon

pokemon let’s go pikachu/let’s go eevee

pokemon sword/shield

pokemon brilliant diamond/shining pearl

pokemon legends arceus

pokemon scarlet/violet

EMULATORS

gameboy

DS

3DS

switch

let me know if any of the links are dead and ill update them as soon as i can!

[life-ennder]

pokemon legends za

[midwinterhunt]

Hot Writers Don't Gatekeep

the writers REALLY liked my artist resource post, so I thought i'd give y'all my dragon hoard of things i use for writing

Reverse Dictionary, you type in the meaning of a word, and it gives you a bunch of words that mean that. (MY MOST IMPORTANT OFFERING IN THIS LIST)

Slang Dictionary, what it says on the tin.

Anglish Translator, Anglish is if English evolved without borrowing from other languages and it really itches my brain (Anglish is if english grown without borrowing from other languages and it truly itches my brain)

Incorrect Quotes Generator, Put character names in, and incorrect quotes come out. Really fun way to goof around with your characters' dynamics.

Handspeak, an ASL dictionary

Library of Babel, Odds are, the finished version of your wip is in here somewhere

The best fantasy map maker i have ever used

Glitch Text Generator is one I use A Lot, does ť̷̨̢͓̤͔̤̤̝̺̯̄̔̄̌̄͗͒͋͂͋͝ḩ̵̼̜͍͚͕̏̓͊̈̉̆̄͐́͗͒̈̃̊̚͜i̵̻̐̇̎̏̀̋̌̃̇̿͘̚s̴̮̔̂̇͒͑͝͝ͅ to your text

Totally not bootleg microsoft office

Emotions Thesaurus a guide for writing emotions and their associated body language

Mythcreants, has a whole bunch of stuff you can read to learn more about the technical aspects of writing

A decent article talking about what to think about when creating a language

Trope Talks, particularly good for beginner and younger writers or people who have a hard time reading. Honestly this whole channel is a fantastic format to get information into my adhd rattled brain.

FOR MY AO3 BESTIES! Postimages will host your image forever so you can embed it into your work

Ambient Chaos, sometimes the only thing in the world that can kick your brain into writing mode is nuclear sirens and lofi beats

Radioooooo, play a station from any place and year. Particularly helpful for period pieces.

[midwinterhunt]

Food timeline, when foods were invented

[jdp]

Teranoptia is a free font that generates creatures based on what you type. From the foundry:

Teranoptia is a typeface without letters, a peculiar contraption that allows you to imagine chimeric creatures just by typing letters with your keyboard. Its design has been inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry and by medieval illustrations, as well as by children's books. You can use it to create border ornaments, to daydream about monsters or just to spice your layouts with marginalia.

[sapphim]

I hope everyone whose computer hardware is as old and shitty as mine knows they have until tomorrow to enroll in a year of free extended security updates for windows 10

[octal-alchemist]

it says you can enroll until Oct 13 2026, next year. I'm very glad to have seen a note about this

[sapphim]

ah, some of the articles I had seen had very misleading headlines re: the deadline but you're correct. the free extended security update opt-in is available for the duration of the next year

[undlark]

I made some brushes on clipstudio paint and they were sitting around in a mess before I bothered to clean them up and throw them on CSP's assets. You can find 'em and more here on my profile!

Yes, the scales is 10 clippy, those ones were pretty tedious to get right with as minimal clipping.

[theprofessional-amateur]

I am forever grateful to an archivist mentor I worked with in grad school for some resume advice she gave me and thought maybe others would also benefit from it.

Keep a Master Resume.

This is not the resume you send out. This is a detailed resume of every job (with dates and location, supervisor and location phone number are a bonus) and as many skills/duties/accomplishments you can possibly think of for each and every one of the jobs and education programs you can think of.

She showed me hers, it was about 25 pages long, and formatted exactly like a regular resume for ease. Every time she would learn a new program/skill, she'd add it. Change in title or duties, add it. Complete something big/special/complicated/new to her/professionally significant, she would add it. This way when she went up for a promotion or raise, she had a detailed record of highlights to pick from to show she deserved it. There was no "when was that? Did I submit that last round of reviews?"

Applying to a new job? Pick and choose items from your Master Resume to plug in to the resume or CV you will be sending based on the job posting. You don't need to rewrite it, just cut and paste relevant details.

[theprofessional-amateur]

I am applying to a job not exactly my field but with enough skill cross over that I feel I would be a good fit. Being able to build out a resume by cutting and pasting from the Master Resume is saving me so much time and energy. The info is there, I just need to plug it in to the file I send. Since both are already formatted, piece of cake!

I can't recommend it enough.

[amezure]

Support me on PATREON or Ko-fi 💕

[thedawner]

I'm having a 20% discount on all my shop items until December 6 (midnight)! Use the code BUG at checkout.

Visit thedawner's Ko-fi Shop!

I've opened a Ko-fi shop. Come take a look!