#about the process

[kimmiessimmies]

Before and after shot of James and his guitar

Interrupting regular programming to show @nocturnalazure, and anyone else interested, the before and after shot of James and his guitar featured in today's post.

Before

As you can see, James' outfit and this particular pose did not match. The guy in the pose picture was very slim, and James is rather muscular, so that also wasn't a match.

So I did a little crafting. I also shot this picture:

Just to get the "free" guitar. Then I cut a piece out of that shot:

And I pasted that over my original image. Then there was some erasing (of the hand for instance) and some precise drawing and colouring of certain parts that still weren't quite right and voila!

After

This is the end result. It's not perfect, especially up close, but so much better. Of course I also added my little sauce of light adjustment and tweaks like that. And we're done!

And now back to our scheduled programming!

P.S.: Using this opportunity to thank everyone for asks and tags! I'll answer everything after the chapter runs out in September!

[shelterwoodpod]

I think it's important for horror writers to read non-fiction not only because being grounded in reality makes our work much scarier, but also because it's a reminder of how dark and horrifying the world itself already is -- if we hope to capture the emotional truth of Horror we simply must know what humans are capable of surviving, what they're capable of becoming, and what they're capable of inflicting onto others

[virtchandmoir]

Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s Instagram Live (January 23rd)

[beenpole]

I don’t like making parallels to myself with my muses but Marcie generally taking no shit from anyone, especially men, absolutely comes from me. Daily life is pretty tough when you are shy and have anxiety, standing up to people doing you and others wrong is hard, a mountain to climb over. The courage to demand to be treated with respect and dignity as a person and as a colleague, a family member, a friend, a romantic partner is difficult. Every situation is like starting over, doesn’t matter how confident I feel now, the next time I might falter. 

Marcie goes through those same moments, needing to reach deep inside herself and say that this is something worth standing up to and worth fighting for. Respect should be given until it’s lost, there is no reason to treat anyone lesser until they show that they don’t deserve basic respect. There is no reason to treat people like trash, yet plenty do it daily. So if anyone thinks I am have made Marcie overly anxious and cautious, it’s based on my own experiences, and what I think plenty of others experience all the time.  Personal story: The other day at work someone above me in rank criticized what time I left (well past what I was scheduled) and joked that I was rushing home to read a book. Its such a small-minded yet personalized insult that I think it is actually effecting me. She could have called me lazy, or a bitch, instead she chose to comment on what she thinks my lifestyle and personality are.  Yes I do have books I have to read, but she doesn’t or shouldn’t know that. I have work to do, and now I am thinking to myself, why is she calling me a nerd of all things? Is it the words I use? Did I mention something about myself in a pretentious way? Sometimes I try so hard to be a nobody wallflower and be as un-excellent as possible that it baffles me when someone singles me out. I hate being the center of attention, even if it’s positive.  Marcie goes through things like this, but differently. Now THIS is going to sound pretentious, because Marcie is generally considered conventionally attractive, but having anxiety AND sticking out like a sore thumb is a bad combo. She doesn’t have much courage, she doesn’t like attention, it makes her sick to her stomach. I am not setting out for anyone to feel bad for a cis white woman that few would call ugly, this is an internal struggle that no one but herself can solve. No one else can make her feel better about herself, in her head. She has very little complaints about herself physically, other than being tall because it’s something that she was made fun of. Tall guys get special treatment too, but for women it is different.  Marcie’s childhood was emotionally negligent and she will spend the rest of her life trying to feel just ok. Sometime I worry when I write about her mental health struggles that someone will tell me I’m wrong no matter how hard I try to be accurate yet not stereotypical, since I haven’t faced the same issues, I can only relate it to my own (specifically with her OCPD/OCD and my ED) because as I said, I don’t like putting myself so much into my muses. Maybe I base a little backstory thing on my own life (I broke all ten of my toes when I was 13, and used that as inspiration for Marcie breaking her leg from falling out of a tree when she was 16, things like that.) 

I think its fucking bonkers how women are treated and invalidated daily, how men talk to us, no matter where we come from or what we do or how hard we try or how smart we are, they treat us all the same and mentally divide us into how useful we are to them. Every time a man talks to me like I’m a toddler I want to scream and cry and fight them, but I can’t do those things, so I try my fucking hardest to run fucking circles around them ethically, philosophically, politically, any way I can. Every single day I am treated lesser than because I muster up the courage to speak up, and Marcie is a part of that. She allows me to express how I feel sometimes. Sometimes when I am sad and feeling down, I can log on here, or write a drabble I will never post and sort out my feelings, and think about how I can do better next time. At this point I am not writing for anyone else, I am writing for me. 

[fayedrawsdaily]

As soon as I learn how to do backgrounds it’s over for you bitches

[kimmiessimmies]

Well, what can I say....

It's a start! Not making any promises yet though :P

[kimmiessimmies]

Random anon ask: Is there any decision you've made about your story that you regret?

About the probable consequences of my changed picture/words ratio

(Let's give this post a title, since it started out as an answer to an ask, but it became, of course, an essay...)

Thank you for your ask, Anon. Hmmm... Regret? Well, there are always things I keep wondering about. Is this the right decision for this character, or would it have been different otherwise? I guess that's just a constant inner battle. I guess what I do regret, in a way, is the fact that since I went to a format of fewer pictures and more words (honestly though, the same amount of words, just bigger text blocks per picture), I have noticed a loss of followers who were very present when there was more to see. Tumblr is a visual platform, and that has become apparent. I guess some people are put off by the big blocks of texts underneath an image, because it feels like a lot to read, when the text becomes easier to get through when every move is captured in an image. So, people may not have even meant to abandon my story; it's just that the chapters feel longer and like there's a lot more to read now (which, really, isn't actually true), so it feels like a mountain to catch up with once they've fallen behind. Which I can relate to, because falling behind is becoming my middle name when it comes to Tumblr... To those people, I would really like to say, if you still wish to catch up; please visit my WordPress blog, where the chapters can be read in one go. You'll see that it's really not that much 😉

That said, as much as I regret not seeing specific names among my likers and commenters anymore, I do not regret the decision to go for fewer pictures in itself. My chapters tend to be long, and there's a lot of conversation, and it became a tedious task to take a shot for every single sentence. I take my hat off to visual storytellers. You're all rockstars. It wasn't for me anymore. I tried for a while, sometimes it went really well and smoothly, and sometimes even the idea of having to shoot every single line felt like a job I had to do. And, honestly, it limited my writing... I started to write towards what I knew I could realistically shoot. For instance, one line from my upcoming chapter is "[insert name] let out a short laugh while shaking her head". Before, I wouldn't have written it that way at all, because what is the appropriate pose for someone laughing while shaking her head AND sitting at a table AND drinking coffee at the same time? Now I can write certain behaviours, movements, or reactions I don't need a pose for, because I'm not taking a shot of that particular moment. It has given me more freedom to write emotions and conversations the way I intend them.

I bet you weren't looking for such an extensive answer, were you Anon? Sorry about that! I think it's a known fact by now I can't be brief. 😋

Thanks again for your ask!