Words 'n' Stuff

[nikkilbook]

Masterlist and Clicky Links

🚧Under Construction🚧

Isabol

Isabol (Original Flash Draft)

With-No-Last-Name (Revised version of the above)

Nothing Has to Happen

Where's the Line?

The Color of Magpies

Original Short Story

Novella Draft 2.0

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Artwork

My Tag

No Loyal Knight

Short Fiction/Oneshots

Artwork

My Tag

Seven For A Secret

Draft 2.0

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Short Fiction/Oneshots

Artwork

My Tag

Metallic Heartbeat

Part 1

Part 2

Artwork

My Tag

Other Writing

Fanfiction

Co-Op Fanfiction

Original Fiction

Podfic Recordings

The Missing Piece - @beerecordings (original fic)

Spotify

AO3

[nikkilbook]

The Solitary Clone, Part 1: The Reference

I have had a hankering for nigh on 5 months now to make a Commander Cody painting. I finally have 3 seconds and 2 braincells to rub together, so LET IT BEGIN.

I don't know if it's canon or fanon for the design on the front of Cody's armor to be reminiscent of a sunrise, but I've seen it enough in fanfic that I've decided it's neat and I want it. I like me some mild abstraction and metaphor in my art, so when the Muses steal Apollo's mighty dodgeball and bean me over the head with the image of Cody's armor painted like a literal, fully rendered sunrise, with crepuscular god rays and everything, with dark grey storm clouds obscuring most of it and the golden rays cutting through it all, as a nod to Cody's Bad Batch design, where he still has his sunburst but it's painted depression/Empire grey, I can’t just not, you know?

Not sure when I decided to include Obi-Wan's lightsaber, but honestly. How could I not? The drippy blue marks are going to be lit up like the blade of the lightsaber. I don't know if it's crying or bleeding—what do y'all think?

(Also, it didn't occur to me until a bit ago when I was panning around my reference file, but I accidentally mirrored the pose from ROTS where Cody gets the comm call from Sidious to kick of Order 66. ✨️symbolism ✨️)

I haven't decided what the final composition is going to be, or if I'm going to do it digitally or traditionally. Right now I'm sketching and painting directly on top of my pose reference, so I can mess around with the shape of the armor and figure out how the lighting translates onto all the different shapes and textures. I've also been painting over some of the facial features so the generic head looks a little more like Temeura Morrison's Cody from ROTS. The final piece will be drawn from the ground up once I've locked the design in. 

(Shoutout to the verd'e of @the501stlegion and their insanely comprehensive Character Reference Library! I now have access to detailed photos of every piece of Cody's armor across ALL SEVEN DIFFERENT ITERATIONS of his canon design. Those bright little rectangles in the middle/upper right? All Cody armor. Y'all are bonkers. I am in awe.)

[tkingfisher]

P.S. The voice actor is doing the audiobook

Pre-order

[nikkilbook]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH????????????

[nikkilbook]

from Turning Back, Part 11 of My Brother’s Keeper

The tag that started it all

The first time I reached out

The point of it all

Happy 7 years, @beerecordings!

[nikkilbook]

Y’all 3D materials hurt my brain. So bad.

I FINALLY sat down with Poser to see if I could built a maquette for one of my characters, and after many trials and tribulations, I got the morphs figured out, so we’ve at least got the proportions and feature placements and junk situated. Getting any kind of hair in place made me want to pull out my own, so guess she’s bald.

But Y’ALL. The materials room is full of nodes and image maps and a thousand other things, and I just want to CHANGE. HER SKIN COLOR. PLEASE.

The video I watched last night to help with the morph question used a different iteration of the program (Poser Pro 11, I think?), and so some of the simple sliders they used aren’t there, and the reference manual is organized SO weirdly, and even though I have her color palette RIGHT THERE to pick from, none of them react the way I’m expecting. And the default models all use image maps for their materials anyway, so trying to go in and change the colors AROUND that make me want? to explode???

I am so close to saving a duplicate of the project and just. Deleting all the fancy materials and settings, and then building from there. No, my ancient fae woman who looks like if nighttime was a person does not need FRECKLES, thank you very much.

(It should not be surprising to anyone that materials and textures is about where I fell off the wagon back when I was trying to learn blender for the first time back in 2011.)

(If any of y’all happen to know how to do the material node thing, or the Poser thing in general that would be much appreciated. I got Poser 12 in bundle with CSP EX1 about a year and a half ago, and this is my first chance to really mess with it)

[mamoru]

might be having some kind of stress induced seizures. does anyone have any recommendations for seizure hats/helmets that are relatively comfortable to wear in bed and have some kind of machine washable outer thing?

it needs to be something I can wear all day.

there are beanies and stuff right

my skin bleeds easily, I am on a blood thinner, and I am mostly bedbound right now so a full sports helmet is not viable for this. it does not have to be as good of protection as that either

right now I use an illow sleep mask but it covers my eyes

thanks for any information

[vineshouldcomeback2]

i looked it up and this is the first website that came up:

Protective beanies for epilepsy and fall-related conditions. Ribcap's head protection promotes independence, supports an active lifestyle, a

they are expensive but if your able id say try em and if not, try double padding 2 beanies on your head or one beanie and then a larger hat thing. you might be able to get it medically prescribed to you but idk how to go about that.

[nikkilbook]

Seconded. They specifically have this one for sleeping:

Discover this protective sleep helmet, designed for sleepwalkers and people at risk of night falls. This comfortable helmet provides all-nig

And I saw an Amazon listing for this particular one (the Kate model), so you might be able to find it somewhere where it’s cheaper or if you have gift cards lying around.

According to the FAQ, there is NOT a removable cover, it’s all one mass. They recommend you clean it by hand, thusly:

IDK what your insurance is like, but if you have access to an FSA or HSA, ribcaps are eligible. I know Amazon lets you charge HSA/FSA cards for items marked eligible as well. Medicare Part B should also cover it. I know that sometimes you can get away with requesting reimbursement from your insurance if you get a doctor to write out a prescription for the medical device. So you still have to front the initial cost, but there’s a chance of getting some of it back.

Lemme know if you want me to Google anything else—I know for me, if my brain is completely shot, I can’t always muster the concentration or energy to ask a question in a search-engine compatible way, or flip through results or parts of a website to find what I’m looking for. I’m doing pretty well right now on the focus side of things, so I can be your Google-r if you have any followup questions.

[wizardarchetypes]

okay so i have to name my thesis today. i thought it was just a placeholder name but in fact it will be its permanent name i'm OUTTA HERE

[wizardarchetypes]

okay people name dogass books every day i can do this

[wizardarchetypes]

NOT ☝️ that my thesis is dogass. it would have to exist first to suck. and it will. exist. and suck. but the latter will be temporary.

[wizardarchetypes]

A Thesis of Salmon and Hagiographies

[wizardarchetypes]

perhaps a simpler title trend.

THESIS.

and the salmon it's about.

[nikkilbook]

I vote this one

[juliedillon]

A Hades and Persephone pencil drawing that I'm going to paint with watercolors :) (or rather, I'm going to print the drawing out on watercolor paper and paint that, so I don't ruin the pencil sketch)

[nikkilbook]

I’m so excited to see how this turns out! Somehow it hadn’t occurred to me that you could do a rendered under-drawing for watercolor? I thought it would get super smudgy and lose all the detail, and make the watercolor get all cloudy and muddy. The watercolors you’ve posted recent have been GORGEOUS and just as luminous as your digital stuff, so I’m so so excited to see how this one turns out.

[juliedillon]

It would likely get smudgy if I painted directly over the pencil, but I scan the drawing in, then brighten and tint it, and print it back out onto watercolor paper*. Here's a picture I took of the adjusted drawing printed out onto 140lb hot press paper; I cleaned up a few areas, and tinted the whole thing to be much warmer in tone. So far this has been working out well! I've found the drawing does a good amount of the heavy lifting, which is great because I'm finding I'm enjoying putting the extra time into the drawing instead of jumping straight into paint.

The other benefit of this method is I get to keep the original drawing! And if I mess up the painting I can just print the drawing onto another sheet of paper and start again. :)

*(note: this only works with printers that use pigment based ink, not dye based ink; dye based ink will bleed as it isn't waterproof. I have an Epson Surecolor p800 which has been great, but another artist recently recommended the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-7310 as a much more affordable alternative for printing out drawings for paintings).

[nikkilbook]

I was at a presentation recently by Carly Milligan where she was talking about her oil painting process, and she referenced a post made by Donato Giancola where he printed out his sketches/underdrawings on mixed media paper and then mounted it to a panel using matte medium. And if I recall correctly, before you apply the medium, if you have non-waterproof ink, you’re supposed to use workable fixative, and then it works. I have the slides somewhere, I can go find the link later.

Do you think something like a fixative would work to preserve a watercolor underdrawing?

[nikkilbook]

Mounting Paper to Panel

Welcome to Donato Giancola's official website, featuring over thirty years of art excellence in science fiction, fantasy, and imaginative re

Found the boy

[juliedillon]

A Hades and Persephone pencil drawing that I'm going to paint with watercolors :) (or rather, I'm going to print the drawing out on watercolor paper and paint that, so I don't ruin the pencil sketch)

[nikkilbook]

I’m so excited to see how this turns out! Somehow it hadn’t occurred to me that you could do a rendered under-drawing for watercolor? I thought it would get super smudgy and lose all the detail, and make the watercolor get all cloudy and muddy. The watercolors you’ve posted recent have been GORGEOUS and just as luminous as your digital stuff, so I’m so so excited to see how this one turns out.

[juliedillon]

It would likely get smudgy if I painted directly over the pencil, but I scan the drawing in, then brighten and tint it, and print it back out onto watercolor paper*. Here's a picture I took of the adjusted drawing printed out onto 140lb hot press paper; I cleaned up a few areas, and tinted the whole thing to be much warmer in tone. So far this has been working out well! I've found the drawing does a good amount of the heavy lifting, which is great because I'm finding I'm enjoying putting the extra time into the drawing instead of jumping straight into paint.

The other benefit of this method is I get to keep the original drawing! And if I mess up the painting I can just print the drawing onto another sheet of paper and start again. :)

*(note: this only works with printers that use pigment based ink, not dye based ink; dye based ink will bleed as it isn't waterproof. I have an Epson Surecolor p800 which has been great, but another artist recently recommended the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-7310 as a much more affordable alternative for printing out drawings for paintings).

[nikkilbook]

I was at a presentation recently by Carly Milligan where she was talking about her oil painting process, and she referenced a post made by Donato Giancola where he printed out his sketches/underdrawings on mixed media paper and then mounted it to a panel using matte medium. And if I recall correctly, before you apply the medium, if you have non-waterproof ink, you’re supposed to use workable fixative, and then it works. I have the slides somewhere, I can go find the link later.

Do you think something like a fixative would work to preserve a watercolor underdrawing?

[juliedillon]

A Hades and Persephone pencil drawing that I'm going to paint with watercolors :) (or rather, I'm going to print the drawing out on watercolor paper and paint that, so I don't ruin the pencil sketch)

[nikkilbook]

I’m so excited to see how this turns out! Somehow it hadn’t occurred to me that you could do a rendered under-drawing for watercolor? I thought it would get super smudgy and lose all the detail, and make the watercolor get all cloudy and muddy. The watercolors you’ve posted recent have been GORGEOUS and just as luminous as your digital stuff, so I’m so so excited to see how this one turns out.

[solarpunkfool]

What if we win?

What if the children go to schools unafraid of tear gas and bullets?

What if the birds come back, and the bees are healed, and every species moves from endangered, to threatened, to thriving?

What if the rainforest ADVANCES?

What if every parking lot had solar panels? What if every structure had solar panels? What if we built climbing gyms and terraced gardens in the skeletons of old coal power plants?

What if you baked your neighbor bread, and they shared their home-grown blackberries?

What if every person who needed a home, had one? What if every person who needed healing was healed?

What if every body was treasured for what it was, not what it should be?

What if every trans child's parents attended their graduation, their wedding, their new-name-day?

What if every warehouse became a closed-circle repair station? Goods flowing out, and back, and out again? What if landfills started to SHRINK?

What if the water and air were clean? What if there was enough public transit that the cars dwindled, leaving the streets safe for kids on bikes, evening deer, midnight cats and foxes?

What if we win?

How would you win?

[aetherograph]

And we've won a lot already, mind you.

The condors are back. The whales are saved. The sea turtles are no longer endangered. The cranes are back. The bees are recovering. The air in LA and Tokyo and London is clean again. The aquifers in the LA Basin are refilling.

Children are kinder than previous generations. Parents are stopping the abuse cycle. Being trans and queer is more acceptable than ever on a ground level.

It's hard to see if you're young, if you don't know how to step back from social media and the news. But remember--bad news sells, and the algorithm knows despair keeps you scrolling. It's a skewed lens.

We are fighting and we are winning against this adminstration's bullying. We are coming together against the bullies and they are running away scared because they don't understand that we will do that.

People are working hard every day to find ways to make sure fewer animals get hit by cars and planes and rockets.

Maker spaces are more common than ever. Solar and wind are more common than ever. Coal plants are shutting down every day.

Unprecedented numbers of acres are being bought back or given back to their rightful stewards, and the world heals because of it. People are working hard every day to learn how to help a forest recover faster.

We are not at zero. We are at decades of effort to heal the world. We've come SO far.

In 1982 there were only 22 California Condors left in the world. In 1992, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), with its public and private partners, began reintroducing captive-bred condors to the wild. In 2001 the first wild nesting occurred in Grand Canyon National Park since re-introduction. In 2002 there were only 8 pairs of wild nesting birds population-wide. In 2008, for the first time since the program began, more California condors were flying free in the wild than in captivity. Today there are nearly 500 – more than half of them flying free in Arizona, Utah, California, and Baja Mexico.

When I was born, there were no condors in the wild. I'm 37 now, and there are over 250 condors flying free.

When my mom was born in 1955, there were days when she wasn't allowed to go outside to play, because of the air pollution. When I was born, that never happened anymore.

When I was born, humpback whales were critically endangered, and people thought they were going to go extinct. Today, they've recovered to exceed their recorded numbers. Other whales too!

We fixed it.

We CAN fix it and we ARE fixing it and we DID fix it.

[overmocha1068]

There is a light at the end of the tunnel.

It's still far from our reach.

But it's there.

[hope-for-the-planet]

Believing that things can get better is not blind hope or optimism--it is based on hard data that many things have consistently gotten better over the arc of history.

In addition to all that was mentioned above:

The likelihood of dying in infancy or childhood--or losing a child--has plummeted just in my lifetime. The likelihood of dying in a natural disaster is the lowest in recorded human history. Yes, even with the uptick in natural disaster intensity from climate change!

Humans alive right now are more likely to have access to healthcare, electricity, education, birth control, clean water, and nutritious food than at any other point in human history. There are so many diseases we can treat now that were a death sentence for 90% of human history.

This is not by accident. This is because generations of humans put in work to make life better for their communities.

Some of our solutions had the side effect of creating other problems--better access to electricity that ultimately made people's lives easier and safer led to pollution and climate change, for example--but we are tackling those knock on problems too. Our generation's solutions to our current problems will probably create their own less-bad side effects for the humans after us to deal with.

Is it silly and naive to believe we might actually be able to make things better? Not at all. We have many times before. We are doing it right now.

[beerecordings]

Thought you and the gang might like to know that, while most of my Photoshop files of art from pre-2022 was stored on my college OneDrive and thus was victim to the Great Purge of “Oh Shoot I Was Supposed to Transfer Those Before My Account Closed,” leaving only the exported jpgs I saved to my Google Drive that one time, there is, somehow, a single PSD with all the layers intact left remaining

And it’s this mfer

YOUR COMPUTER KNOWS THAT PIECE IS ICONIC

official My Brother's Keeper art.... that really is a fantastic piece and so impressive. my beautiful sad guy. sorry the other pieces got torched though. the sins of Microsoft are endless

[nikkilbook]

I had decently hi-res jpgs/pngs of the other digital pieces, so all was not lost, but now that I’m turning stuff into stickers and junk I’m having to painstakingly mask the backgrounds out and hope it doesn’t look dweeby. Which MBK would have, because of the transparency of his overlapping bits. I wouldn’t have been able to get a clean mask that didn’t look like I’d cut it out of a magazine. So we were saved!

PS I’m gonna make little metal prints eventually, and I think this one might look especially cool with the luminosity of the different layers. I’ll let you know when I get that set up and I can see about sending you one!

[nikkilbook]

BOOKMARKS!

These were my prototypes and were an UNMITIGATED success! The next plan is to make little trading card-sized guys.

(Also, I’m prepping for a con right now, but once that’s done—after Valentine’s—these will be going up onto my Ko-Fi shop, if anyone wants one of their own. Bookmarks will be $12+postage)

[beerecordings]

Thought you and the gang might like to know that, while most of my Photoshop files of art from pre-2022 was stored on my college OneDrive and thus was victim to the Great Purge of “Oh Shoot I Was Supposed to Transfer Those Before My Account Closed,” leaving only the exported jpgs I saved to my Google Drive that one time, there is, somehow, a single PSD with all the layers intact left remaining

And it’s this mfer

YOUR COMPUTER KNOWS THAT PIECE IS ICONIC

official My Brother's Keeper art.... that really is a fantastic piece and so impressive. my beautiful sad guy. sorry the other pieces got torched though. the sins of Microsoft are endless

[nikkilbook]

I had decently hi-res jpgs/pngs of the other digital pieces, so all was not lost, but now that I’m turning stuff into stickers and junk I’m having to painstakingly mask the backgrounds out and hope it doesn’t look dweeby. Which MBK would have, because of the transparency of his overlapping bits. I wouldn’t have been able to get a clean mask that didn’t look like I’d cut it out of a magazine. So we were saved!

PS I’m gonna make little metal prints eventually, and I think this one might look especially cool with the luminosity of the different layers. I’ll let you know when I get that set up and I can see about sending you one!

[nottheweirdest]

Fanfic Writer Emoji Ask

😅 What's a story or scene you've created that you're a smidge embarrassed exists?

🥺 Is there a certain type of moment or common interaction between your characters that never fails to put you in your feels?

🤡 What's a line, scene, or exchange you've written that made you laugh?

😈 Has there been a point in a story where you did something just to be playfully mean to your readers?

✍ Do you have a beta reader?

🛒 What are some common things you incorporate in your fics? Themes, feels, scenes, imagery, etc.

🎢 Which of your fics would you call your wildest ride?

✨ Give you and your writing a compliment. Go on now. You know you deserve it. 😉

💋 First kiss fics. Love em or hate em?

🎶 Do you listen to music while you write? What song have you been playing on loop lately?

🛠What tools/programs/apps do you use to write?

⛔ Do you have a fic you started, but scrapped?

🙋‍♀️ Do any irl people know you write fanfic?

🍦 What's the sweetest fic you've created so far?

🍷 Do you drink and write?

🍆 Do you write the spicy stuffs? If so, what's your most popular nsfw fic?

🌞 Do you have a preferred time of day to write?

💖 What made you start writing?

💌 How do you feel about comments and feedback?

❌ What's a trope you will never write?

💲 Would you ever open commissions?

🧐 Do you spend much time researching for your stories?

🏆 What's your most popular fic?

🎃 Do you write fics for certain holidays? Which is your favorite holiday inspired fic?

🎯 Have any of your readers accurately guessed major plot points? Care to share which?

🎨 How do you feel about fan art of your stories?

📈 How many fics do you have?

🦅 Do you outline fics or fly by the seat of your pants?

👀 Tell me about an up and coming wip please!

🤗 What advice would you give to new fanfic writers that are just getting started?

💞 Who's your comfort character?

🧠 Pick a character, and I'll tell you my favorite headcanon for them.

🤩 Who is your favorite character to write?

🤲 Would you please share a snippet of a wip?

😬 Which of your fics would you be most horrified for friends, family, or coworkers to stumble upon?

🎉 What leads you to consider a fic a success?

✅ What's something that appears in your fics over and over and over again, even if you don't mean to?

📚 Would you ever want to turn writing into a career?

⌛ How long does it take you to write a fic, or a chapter?

🤯 What's a genre you struggle with as a writer (ex. romance, action, etc.)?

💔 Is there a fic of yours that broke your heart?

💥 How do you feel about criticism?

🤭 Do you have a favorite tag to use when posting your works?

🥰 How do you feel about reader interaction? Are you open to receiving questions about your fics?

[louisegluckpdf]

reading nabokov is maddening because his writing is so playful and evocative and effortless and english isn't even his first language. he's doing things in a second language most people could spend their lives trying and failing to replicate in their first language. makes me feel like this

[louisegluckpdf]

"my very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when i was three" like come ON how did you write the funniest sentence ever by adding a two word parenthetical. leave something for the rest of us

[captain-stretch-nuts]

Mercury, Venus, (uh oh) Pearth, Mars (phew), Djupiter (never mind), Faturn ⁉️, Luranus (kinda French actually), Pneptune

[sevdrag]

I got to “Faturn” and burst into horribly loud laughter I’m now crying over this in bed fucking Faturn

[nikkilbook]

I think I just aspirated on my own spit

[funny-tik-toks]

[coelasquid]

The Clip Studio Asset challenge theme going on right now is “chains”, I’d been meaning to make some chain brushes anyway for optimizing Pipeburn so I don’t need to ink every individual link in every panel like I did last time and decided to actually enter for once. I made a set of set-dressing chains with varying levels of detail to be layered through Foreground, middle ground, and background in scenes, as well as some various jewelry and machine chains. They’re all free for whoever wants them, but if you download/like/share you can help increase my chances of winning some Clippy!