Lex Does Art N’ Stuff

She/ Her • Sometimes I draw • I’m winging it

[gistromboli]

Forgot to post my pride pfp here. Happy Pride Month!

[kateammann]

Happy Pride Month to all of my fellow aces!! 🖤🩶🤍💜

[gistromboli]

Some more little drawings of my boy. I might fully render the first drawing, but we’ll see.

[gistromboli]

Made some self-indulgent fanart to help cope with Ep 8

[gistromboli]

Life’s been busy. Here’s my updated pfp.

[gistromboli]

“Hold me now, I need to feel complete/ Like I matter to the one I need”

So episode 7 murdered me and danced on my grave. Very cool, very nice. Drew this real quick to ease the demons.

[gistromboli]

Realized I haven’t posted in a bit, so here’s my avatar’s character sheet

[toboldlynerd]

[gistromboli]

I’ve been cooking up an avatar for the past week or so and this is what I’ve landed on.

The official Government Issued Stromboli (not affiliated with any governments lol)

[gistromboli]

After several sleepless nights, I finally finished my BackseatScreams challenge art piece. Now I just have…2 more projects to complete by Halloween. Next one will be for the Aftershow AU, trust.

[gistromboli]

One more Backseat fan art for Silksong. Now it’s time to work on Halloween art for all my hyperfixations!

[bbybluemochi]

Hey! I was wondering, how do you draw the tattoos? I've been trying lately in an OC and i feel like something isnt right hahahah But yours seems very natural looking

I don't know if the way I draw tattoos is the most natural looking or the best way but I can show you how I do it!

The thing that will make the tattoos blend with the character in a more realistic way is the color. Tattoo ink fades and changes color a little once your tattoo is healed, and I've noticed that using a saturated color instead of pure black helps to achieve that effect. Of course, your color choices will vary a little depending on the skin tone of your character (use a darker reddish color for a character with darker skin tone, a lighter one if the character is very pale, etc), but the multiply mode will help make the tattoo design stand out regardless. You can play around with opacity levels too. Here's a side by side comparison of how the tats look if you use a brown/reddish color vs an achromatic black/gray.

It's a matter of taste, really. I don't think the 2nd image looks worse, but I like the look of the first one better because it blends with the skin tone a little. If your art style is more graphic/bold than mine, you may want to stick with bolder tattoos that stand out more than the ones I draw. For example, I don't always do this process; here's an example of tats I drew that do not blend as much with the skin:

For Frankie's tats I wanted a bolder look (she's the only one with colorful tats). None of these tats have a lower opacity setting, but I did color the lettering in a way that some parts are lighter/more saturated following the shadows of the skin. Again; this is all a matter of taste! My advice is that you should use the liquify tool a lot because as long as the tats "bend" and follow the body shape they will look like they belong to the character. Whether you prefer a "natural/faded" look or a bolder one it all depends on personal taste and your art style in particular. The gaussian blur trick makes a big difference too, although I don't always use it.

[gistromboli]

Different from my usual stuff, but I’ve been watching BackseatStreams on Twitch play the new Silent Hill f game, and it’s sooooo good. I want to do some actual dedicated fan art to SHf, but I already have so many projects lmao. Link if you want to check out the videos.

[gistromboli]

Congratulations to me for surviving another year, we’ll see how next year goes.

[gistromboli]

Break over, back on my bullshit. I wanted an excuse to draw Felix’s back tattoos and for whatever reason, this was the best way to do it.

I also wanted to draw Kabob using one of the wack ass pictures of my cats as reference.

Character designs by @chubs-deuce and fic by @munchiemooz. They have permanently altered my brain chemistry and I can’t even complain.

(Bonus cat reference)

[gistromboli]

I’m taking a break from digital art for a bit to work on some physical projects (and give my wrist a break), and by gosh by golly it’s kicking my ass.

I’ll show updates as this continues. Right now my next step is making glow-in-the-dark mushrooms for the skull using Sculpey. I’ve never used modeling clay in my life :)

Why do I try to do new things for projects I’m really invested in…?

[penbrydd]

Name Reources

So, you’re writing a thing, and you need to name a character. And, as we all know, naming a character is a giant pain in the ass. I offer this list of shit I use pretty regularly, for this purpose.

Behind the Name (The etymologies are weird as fuck, in a few places, but it’s great if you’ve got a name and need to find other names that are from or derived from the same culture/language)

Behind the Surname (BTN for family names)

Academy of Saint Gabriel Medieval Names Archive (This is the go-to for medieval names in Europe and the Near East. Hardcore scholarship and a distinct lack of fucking around.)

Kate Monk’s Onomastikon (The original internet name resource.)

The Soldier in Later Medieval England (Actual names from English military rolls around the Battle of Agincourt)

England’s Immigrants (Non-native residents of England, 1330-1550)

Celtic Personal Names of Roman Britain

Mapping the Medieval Countryside - People (People appearing in English inquisitions post mortem, 1418-1447)

Wiktionary’s Index of Biblical Names

Ancient Names Galleria (The weird shit is here. If you need Akkadian or Phoenecian names, those are totally covered.)

Trismegistos People (Names extracted from the Trismegistos Texts – mostly names from Graeco-Roman Egypt.)

Personally, I use the shit out of Trismegistos People, England’s Immigrants, and the Ancient Names Galleria. If you’ve got good sources I didn’t hit, feel free to add them in a reblog. I’m always looking for more good name resources. (And almost all of what I have is Europe and the Near East, with a little North Africa.)

[penbrydd]

Dropping this update in the most recent reblog in my notes, in the hopes it falls into as many laps as possible. Here’s some more good sources for names, this time with a more African focus.

Wikipedia Category: Surnames of African Origin (which is helpfully divided into sections by language)

Wikipedia Category: Amharic Language Names (I believe this list is primarily, if not entirely, given names.)

 YorubaName (“an online intervention to preserve and document all Yorùbá names in a multimedia format.”)

Writing Adolescent Fiction: Character names: Kenyan, Tanzanian and Ugandan (a list of given names and surnames with notes on how full names are constructed in each culture listed)

Again, if you know any good sources, particularly for regions I haven’t covered, let me know!

[penbrydd]

Rebageling with some more good shit:

So You Want to Name a Sino (a fairly detailed guide on how to name a Chinese character without sounding like too much of a moron)

Most Popular Baby Names for Girls Since 1960 (most popular American girls’ names, by state, from 1960-2012, as a gif)

Popular Baby Names (the US Social Security database of naming trends in the US, with search options for date, gender, location, and trend)

A Guide to Names and Naming Practises (a UK government guide to common names and structure of names from around the world, split first by continent and then by culture. PDF.)

Curiosities of Puritan Nomenclature (an entire book on trends in English naming and name structure and the Puritan influence, from 1880. PDF.)

Things I am particularly looking for reliable sources for, if you’ve got them: North and South American aboriginal names, Southeast and East Asian names, names from the former USSR, Australian aboriginal names. (All of these by culture or language family, if possible, not just by current national borders.)