eventually ill do sumn

Sometimes art mostly reblogs

[hold-fast-to-hope]

A while ago I made a post asking for advice as a Christian fic writer, and I wanted to give back some of the few things I’ve learned now that I’ve finished something myself:

Fic writing is an act of listening and thus of love. You get to call attention to small details, go looking for the underlying philosophy of the thing the way people do when they write essays; and then, like essay-writers, you get to elaborate and question and resist and make connections to the world outside the story you’re starting from.

Writing fics takes humility, of a sort that essay-writing doesn’t require. On the base level you’re meeting the original story where it is — in the world of story — not from up above, as literary critic. You are taking the story’s substance from a thing that already exists. You are freely admitting (or ought to be!) that it isn’t yours, that it rests on the things that came before. In a sense this is true of all our stories; they derive from the created world, what Tolkien called “sub-creation.” But here you are engaging in a sort of “sub-sub-creation” if one may coin the word.

I used to wonder, why write a second derivative if you could write a first? Isn’t original intrinsically better? What original is, is intrinsically different. Original is a wider conversation; fanfiction is a targeted conversation. The thing to keep in mind is that what is of eternal significance is people’s selves — their hearts, minds, souls, bodies. Stories matter as far as they impact these selves, whether readers’ or writers’.

If fanfic readers, as others have said, tend to be exhausted, then fanfic writing is an opportunity to minister to exhausted people. (Which we know Jesus cares deeply about, with his call to “all you who are weary and heavy laden.”) We have the unique honor and privilege of such an audience, one which wants the guide rails of a known world/characters/etc. but also wants something new; and we have the new wine of the Gospel. Whether that comes through in the writing itself, or in our conversations with readers or writers, the opportunities are there.

I have heard it said that the best way to encourage Christian themes in one’s writing is to not think about them and let them come naturally; which I think is partly true, but if you can’t help thinking about things (as I can’t), it’s not necessarily bad to do things intentionally either. What I think matters is the sort of intent. Fiction, including fanfic, is best at showing a story; people say to not worry about writing “Christianly” because they are advising you to avoid showing a set of answers instead. If you set out to write something that will show a story — letting people be wrong, as God lets you be wrong; working out some thinking of your own on the topic that you chose; finding things that will encourage yourself on your own journey with God — then if nothing else you will have all the work that God will do in you from exercising that patient form of love he so often uses, from going through Scripture in ways you hadn’t seen coming, from considering his ways and how they might be shown in a world that was not of your forming.

[thirtyskeletons]

Any day now

[thirtyskeletons]

people have suddenly started reblogging this post of mine from february 8th, 2012. great bit everybody

[thirtyskeletons]

[rabbits-of-negative-euphoria]

and here’s the thing: America will never die. even if 50 years from now, the country is a burning hellhole, someone will remember. The Constitution was written into existence from ideas that had been developing for thousands of years prior. it was written into existence from ideas set forth in the Bible, which we KNOW will never die. and as long as there are people who love freedom (and there always will be), they will always remember the Constitution exists, even when and where it does not govern. Just look at Hong Kong.

America is an idea. America IS synonymous with freedom. And that idea of freedom may not thrive forever, but it will survive for as long as this earth keeps spinning.

[dickpuncherdraws]

zuko from my old abandoned centaur au! his outfits were all so much fun to draw

the fire nation royal line is known for having pure black coats, so when zuko was born with four little white socks, ozai was both horrified and humiliated. then when zuko was banished, to add insult to injury, ozai also had him branded like a common soldier. zuko always made sure to cover up his brand when he was undercover as the blue spirit or travelling in the earth kingdom, so that nobody would know he was fire nation.

aang | sokka | yue

[mouchiiarts]

Found this few months old wip in the dungeons and I decided to revive her lol. These are some sketches inspired by some even older sketches of this au I did back in high school! It's just a silly couple of doodles that were just for fun! A lot of these designs were inspired by @chiptrillino and their atla art! Maybe in the future, I'll also give the Fire Nation girls and other characters some designs too!

==========

[snowbugoutthere]

I keep slipping up, I offend God. Please pray for me?

[geminiagentgreen]

Will do, and for us both I trust that He who started His good work in us will see it to completion, and that we will never be let loose from His hand and that while we will still struggle and fail - He will continue to preserve and shape us according to the likeness of Christ

[manda-kat]

The idea that a religion should change with the times is dumb.

Okay, so your god suddenly sees the rules in a different way than they did for centuries before. That means either A: You worship a god that learns and develops its morality alongside humanity- making it no more moral or upright than an average human and therefore unworthy of any form of worship.

Or B: You worship a god that does and has always had moral standards, but is choosing to lie and hide those standards from its followers, in which case the dishonesty and failure to communicate expectations also renders it unworthy of worship.

Or C: the religion actually DOES stand firm with an immutable and unchanging moral god, but the followers have decided not to follow that idea and instead pretend their god has changed its mind about truth and morality, which means the followers consider themselves more knowledgable and trustworthy concerning morality and they therefore don't truly worship or respect this god they claim to follow.

The Christian God does not and will not change His decisions on right and wrong. You can worship Him and accept His word, or you can deny Him and reject it. But do not put words in His mouth as if He is some child who doesn't know what's best and needs you to speak for Him. Either you know that God understands morality better than you and has set rules for your good, or you don't think He's all-knowing at all and you have no reason to follow Him in the first place.

[hexjulia]

look at the cute cow angel i saw when i tried to link to the correct page of that manuscript.

(the Apocalypse of Saint-Sever, (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 8878)

[mrrrrps-deactivated20201225]

Visit Original Link

ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ

[unteriors]

Lonesome Pine Trail, Mosheim, Tennessee.

[littleevilguy]

Had to give this one a doodle. Such a baffling layout. I used flare pens.

[plague-vulture]

washing dishes is evil because you go "oh fuck there's so many dishes this is gonna take foreverrr" and then you enter the dish abyss and emerge with your abdomen somehow covered in water and your hands all wrinky and then you look at the clock and what felt like half an hour was actually 10 minutes

[maudiemoods]

What do you all study when you're doing art studies??

[venomous-qwille]

Heeeeeyyy, I love me a good fucking STUDY

for environments:

shot deck is a massive database of film shots searchable by grading, tod, shot type, characters and content! Studying from films really helps improve your values and composition as the shots are usually very carefully constructed! It helps you find ways to maintain realism while still packing mood and narrative into your work!

master paintings! I recommend the orientalists like Jean Leon Gerome in particular their environments had great compositions and throw around a ton of colour and light! I like the modern artists Craig Mullins and Richard Schmid also, as there is so much impressionist lost detail and simplicity yet the environments feel so real.

The 1960s era disney background artists like eyvind earle are a masterclass in stylisation and simplification and make a wonderful choice for studies. (That being said modern disney visdev artists like Nathan Fowkes are just as fantastic to study for the same reason)

architectural photography can be a great resource too- I love to look for work by urbEX people!

thumbnailing and comp studies- trying to break down a photo into as few values as possible and still have it be readable- this really helps train your brain in the relationship between light exposure and local value.

Im begging you if doing it in colour is too hard to start with just do it in black and white!!!!! Greyscale painting is an essential step in learning to paint and understand lighting scenarios!! Colour is hard!!!

there is no substitute for going outside and doing some plein air painting- really looking first hand at how the light effects different materials and objects, how it bounces around, what edges your eye naturally loses in certain lighting scenarios. Just go outside and draw and try to notice stuff.

for characters:

figure studies!!!! from life if you can but if you cant there are a ton of great resources out there- personally I love croquis cafe and posespace, but if you can afford it (and are interested in intense anatomy study) then scott eaton has a site called bodies in motion which is fantaaaastic. I think by now everyone knows nyx and senshistock, I also use a lot of grafit studio photorefs to study more complicated poses!!

Master studies (again). I particularly like to study the work of John Singer Sargent, Joaquin Sorolla, Edwin Austin Abbey, Alphonse Mucha (his le pater compositions are out of this world), any of the New Rochelle artists (e.g rockwell, tom lovell, those 1950s illustrators REALLY knew their shit).

I literally have a resin skull on my desk that I've used to do quick studies with different lighting, just 10 mins a day back when I was doing it and it levelled up my skill a lot!.

Material studies are essential to leveling up your character painting!!! Look at fur, look at metal, look at the way something embroidered reflects light vs tooled leather!!

gesture studies! Look at a dynamic pose and see how you can exaggerate the motion in away that captures the sense of movement. This is tricky to start with but its really worthwhile especially when you combine it with other exercises. Mixamo is a cool library to look into for this kind of thing as you can pause and rotate the models in the middle of their actions!

breakdown the work of artists you admire- it's ok to study other living artists (and try to reverse engineer how they are making their decisions) it's a very effective learning tool! Really figure out what it is about that persons workflow you like, and how you might incorporate that element into your own. Obviously, dont post studies of living artists work!

The most important thing is that when you do a study you go into it knowing what you want to learn. Dont try to do everything at once! It's ok to focus on the muscle structure and not give a damn about the gesture. It's ok to focus on the texture of the fur and completely ignore the characters face.

The best way to keep doing studies is to find refs you like- things you are interested in and that capture your imagination! Follow your curiosity and remember that just a tiny little bit a day makes a huge difference.

Gunna take a sec to recommend the tutorials of Devin Korwin. He talks about how to study and how to breakdown art fundamentals in a way that is at once both very advanced but also digestible. I highly recommend his pdfs!

[ashestoashis]

1. your suffering can’t end until you stop identifying with it. if your sense of self is tied up in your suffering, anyone or anything that attempts to separate you from it will become the enemy because, whether consciously or subconsciously, you will on some level believe they are trying to take away a part of who you are.

2. read the above again.

[dollarmeat]

[schuetzengrabenmints-deactivate]

USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA

WE WENT TO THE MOON 6 TIMES (not counting Apollo 8, 10, and 13) JUST TO PROVE HOW BADASS WE ARE

USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA

[dragon-in-a-fez]

I actually love the song Yankee Doodle because the lyrics seem like complete fucking nonsense to modern ears. you hear it as a kid and it's like oh dope the Wiggles made a sequel to Jabberwocky. but you look it up and "Yankee Doodle stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni" is actually 18th century British for "Americans all want to be hipster twinks but they're too poor and stupid to do it right." and to top it off Americans in general were just like "this is unironically a bop"

[luna-azzurra]

Steal from everything you love. watched a movie and thought "wow that scene hit different"? figure out why and use it. read a book where the banter made you kick your feet? study it. saw a tiktok that made you Feel Things? that's research. keep a notes app full of random lines you'll never use. screenshot tumblr posts at 4am for "inspiration." your influences should be obvious and chaotic. remix everything. that's not theft that's apprenticeship.