Cave creature woes

Any pronouns, pref masc/neutral. professional lurker and aspiring writer/artist trying to get out of my comfort zone.

[olmanac]

Due to difficult IRL circumstances I'm entirely limited to only my phone and finger to draw with.

I consider making the art I do with just my finger an achievement but that doesn't mean it's not difficult.

[supreme-leader-stoat]

"Give us your government-issued ID to access our app's full features" babydoll you are text messages.

[plotbunnypettingzoo]

[mimosa-sexypeople-contests-2026]

I always forget there are maga people on tumblr, this doesn’t feel like a website you’d find them on, so to keep them away:

Reblog if your blog is a maga free zone because if it wasn’t clear enough fuck ice, fuck maga, fuck Trump, Fuck Rowling, and fuck all the other bigots I missed

[mimosa-sexypeople-contests-2026]

In case anyone missed it

[burgerdotcom]

reblogs were off

[olmanac]

Literally just got our power back on late yesterday due to power outages all over

And there's already another storm coming in with even more damaging winds and there's probably going to be another tomorrow.

I just want to not have to worry about one thing for like a day man

[anthonycolonthree]

(guy who's not getting anything done voice) I need to learn every skill and all information

[patientno7]

the suffering never ends

[sinksanksockie2]

This is the real process

[thewritingbeast-blog]

Resources for you!

Character Ideas:

Character creation masterpost

Character Alignment Chart

More character alignment descriptions

Muslim Character questions

Characters with magical powers

Building a new character advice

How to create a character for an online or tabletop RPG (also a good guide on creating characters in general)

Royalty/nobility TV Tropes page

Basic character profile

OC masterpost

Random character generators - (1), (2), (3), (4)

D&D Character Building Tool

Character Design Ideas:

How clothing affects a character’s personality

Character Design Inspiration blog

Concept art, fan art, cool art to be inspired by

Character design references and inspiration

Sources for POC character design ideas and models

Create your own character model using HeroForge

For horned characters

Body and hair types guide

Random outfit generator

Naming Help:

Amazing site with an endless amount of naming resources

General advice on avoiding naming appropriation

Hispanic Surnames

Gothic Victorian names

Huge master list for character things in general

Masterlist of names of all types - including but not limited to ancient/old world names, Celtic, African, Northern European, Southern and Central American Native names, Japanese, Chinese, Mongolian, Polynesian, and more

Another name masterlist

How to pick a character name guide

Yet another names masterlist

Creating Background/backstory:

Character Sheet/Development Sheet

Another character development list

In-depth character personality, motivations and traits sheet

320 talents and passions for characters

On writing likes and dislikes that aren’t frivolous

Why you should write non-human characters non-conforming to the gender binary

Stereotypes, tropes, and archetypes

Random backstory generator

Assassin and thief character tropes to avoid

Character Interactions and putting your character into your world/story:

Comparing character height/height references

Characters who are scientists and writing about them doing science

Describing what different voices sound like

Describing skin tones

Writing friendship interactions that are platonic

Why having one character knock their friend unconscious to prevent them from doing something is a bad idea

Advice on shipping OCs with canon characters and what to avoid doing

Sweet Polly Oliver and Sweet on Polly Oliver situations (think of Disney’s Mulan for an example)

How to write multiple viewpoints/juggling a main cast of more than 4 to 6 characters

How to make readers care about your morally gray hero/anti-hero

On platonic OC and canon character relationships

How to avoid Godmodding in RPs

When it’s cheap to kill off a character

Writing dialogue

Things you shouldn’t do to canon characters

Avoiding purple prose in writing and RPs

Slang resources

Dialogue tips

Websites to chart your story/plot/character relationships

Bonus art masterlist!

[brucewayneright]

BLESS EVERYONE IN THIS POST.

[moderncarapace]

MODERN CARAPACE

A park ranger pilots her mecha to protect kaiju from a world increasingly hostile towards them. Read the first four issues now.

Digital Comics

Browse all products in the Digital Comics category from moderncarapace.

[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! 

[concerningwolves]

[t-c-art-inspiration]

How on earth are you supposed to draw from a sholder? might as well tell me to draw from the foot. It makes no sense

[justpickupthatpen]

https://youtu.be/pMC0Cx3Uk84

https://youtu.be/NBE-RTFkXDk

:3

[stupidlittlesideblog]

Reblogging to save a wrist

[justpickupthatpen]

[briarbramble]

Hi I have a literal animation degree and I learned fucking ✨none✨ of this

[slushie-and-skittles]

Johnny Reference Sheet (except he is subject to my headcannons.)

I like messing with designs on characters I like, so uhhh Johnny is now subject to my wrath yippeeee.

[pillowspace]

Sometimes I’ll hear someone say “I’ll try and get into my first fandom someday” or “I might come up with an OC someday” and I forget that not everyone is plagued by characters 24/7. People get to choose this

[circusballoon]

Needed to draw ace blorbos to celebrate it being international asexuality day

[olmanac]

Shadow Panther animatic shot. This is gonna be of the full first encounter!

(still not 100% happy with Cody or his face but I'm letting it slide so I don't waste another 3 hours on trying to fix him-)

I chose Shadow Panther/Johnny largely because he's the character that got me to watch the series and power through the early sessions despite not doing well with audio.

I hope to maybe do a full set of animatics in this style of all Season 2 Shadow Panther moments. We'll see.

[rumade]

I’d divorce him too lmao

[sustainableseparatists]

[sisyphereantask]

It’s never JUST about the tomatoes.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Basically!

Throughout the day, partners would make requests for connection, what Gottman calls “bids.” For example, say that the husband is a bird enthusiast and notices a goldfinch fly across the yard. He might say to his wife, “Look at that beautiful bird outside!” He’s not just commenting on the bird here: He’s requesting a response from his wife—a sign of interest or support—hoping they’ll connect, however momentarily, over the bird.

The wife now has a choice. She can respond by either “turning toward” or “turning away” from her husband, as Gottman puts it. Though the bird-bid might seem minor and silly, it can actually reveal a lot about the health of the relationship. The husband thought the bird was important enough to bring it up in conversation and the question is whether his wife recognizes and respects that.

These bidding interactions had profound effects on marital well-being. Couples who had divorced after a six-year follow-up had “turn-toward bids” 33 percent of the time. Only three in 10 of their bids for emotional connection were met with intimacy. The couples who were still together after six years had “turn-toward bids” 87 percent of the time. Nine times out of 10, they were meeting their partner’s emotional needs.

The Secret to Love Is Just Kindness

Those who showed genuine interest in their partner’s joys were more likely to be together.

[educatedsavage]

Damn, this made me think of all the “shouting into the void” social media posts everyone makes. Just bids for connection. From ANYONE.

[c-ptsdrecovery]

I think that is ABSOLUTELY what a lot of that is. Our culture is very isolated (even BEFORE covid!), and we’re desperate to connect with others. I read an article one time that suggested that childcare workers stop saying that a child is “Just wants attention” and start saying that the child is “looking for connection.” We’re starved for it even from childhood.

[seymour-butz-stuff]

[sosayset]

When they are speaking about a passion, respond to children as if you would a tenured professor at a prestigious university, and to an adult as if you would a child free of the burdens of adulthood. 

Children are desperate to teach the wonders of the world that they know, that they have just learned, and share it with anyone interested.  Adults pour passion they didn’t know they had into voluntary obligations, and crave a simple acknowledgment of that passion as being worthy and valid. 

“Dear third grader, tell me exactly why you chose <x> as you third favorite carnivorous dinosaur instead of second, as specifically as possible.”

“Hey neighbor, your vegetable garden is absolutely gorgeous this year…and no I’m not just saying that because the tomatoes you gave me last year were absolute perfection.”

[salmonandsoup]

And if you can’t respond to the emotional bid at that moment, let them know you heard them. If there’s a gorgeous bird outside, ask your loved one to take a picture so you can share in it together. But by god, hear them. Tell them they were listened to.

[doomhamster]

That *is* a response though! Telling someone “I’m busy/low on energy right this moment, but if it’s possible, I’d love for you to show me this thing later” works just fine. At least so long as you establish a pattern of actually following up on it, even if it’s just going “hey, wasn’t there a thing you wanted to show me? a bird?”

Most people hate being told “later”, but that’s just because most people who say “later” really mean “I can’t be bothered”.

[0zwodder0]

I’m graduating in a few days and also I’m an artist so yk what that means!!

custom grad cap!!

based on art from In Stars and Time by @insertdisc5

[olmanac]

Hollow by cloudeater to the life of the Hollow Knight.

[pillowspace]

The most idgaf thing I've ever made

[pillowspace]

I was by my neighbour's house yesterday and heard this song faintly come on from their house and I just gave a startled blink