hi friends! guess who's finally doing her 𝑜𝓃𝑒-𝓎𝑒𝒶𝓇 𝒸𝑒𝓁𝑒𝒷𝓇𝒶𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃?
spoiler alert: it's me
so i'm a writer--we all know that. that's kind of my thing. however, because of all the wips i currently have, i worried a writing event would be too overwhelming. given that, i'm doing something a little different.
thanks to the lovely @angelicarlert & her brilliant mind, i'll be doing an editing event to celebrate my one-year mark (which was october 1st, but we're going to ignore that) where you can request banners, moodboards, etc.
this event will be running from Monday, November 17th through Monday, November 24th. all submissions sent during that time period (that follow the rules) will be completed, even if i don't post them until after the final submission date has passed. any requests submitted after that date will not be done.
rules & examples of what you can request below the cut 🖤
rules:
~drop into my ask box to submit your request.
~you may submit more than one request. however, please keep it to one request per ask.
~when submitting requests, please provide as many details as possible.for example, if you are requesting a banner for your oc, tell me some things about them, such as their favorite color(s), hobbies, interests, their general vibe, etc. if you are requesting a moodboard for a fic, tell me about the fic (the vibe, details of the story, any character pairing(s) you'd like featured, etc). you get the gist of it. the more details i have to work with, the better.
~no explicit nudity will be featured, but spicy/suggestive is fine.
~anon requests will NOT be allowed for this event. this is for a couple of reasons. one, for age verification for any requests containing spicy/potentially spicy content (such as a spicy moodboard of daryl x reader, for example). i need to be able to check that your blog says you are over 18 before i would be comfortable creating that (age/age range (like "late 20s" or "30s", for example, must be present on your blog). two, for banners for ocs or fics, to ensure that you are the owner of said oc/fic (unless you are doing it as a surprise for someone else, which would need to be stated).
~if you have any pictures you'd like me to use (like an oc faceclaim or a pic of them you drew), you can submit that with your request as well.
please read ALL RULES before submitting your request! 🖤
examples of what you can request (yes most of these have my old username on them & we're going to ignore that):
all edits above were created by me. ocs featured in the oc banners (lydia vector, bria thompson, estrala gallagher, eli vector, jay vector, and preston vector) all belong to me. pic of bria in her banner was drawn by @millermouth.
Since I finished the other banner, I started on one for the first book in the series, "Duty. Love. Sacrifice."
Made with Canva.
I was thinking of using the mabari as the graphic but it's hard to find graphics that match what a mabari looks like. I found these boxer hounds and tried to scale them up.
I am open to feedback and suggestions.
Edit: the design idea has completely changed and nothing in the image above is still relevant...
Making Fanfic Banners/Collages with Canva for FREE
Hello friends! Canva is an online software tool that mostly gets used for creating social media advertisements, but YOU can use it to make pretty, custom banners/collages/images for your fanfiction! For FREE!
WHY should you do this?
Fun
Custom art thing for your fic!
If you put pictures on your fic posts, sometimes you get more notes (sometimes)
The joy of creation!!!
I will walk you through it (with pictures) below the cut!
STEP ONE: GO TO CANVA, MAKE AN ACCOUNT
You can sign up with email, gmail, or FB. Gmail is the most convenient, but I think they do 2FA no matter what, so take that into account.
STEP TWO: DON'T PAY ANY MONEY & IGNORE AI
Every time you login or make stuff or do ANYTHING, Canva will try to get you to pay for Canva Pro. Don't do that. I've had access to the Pro and free versions and there's no reason to pay for anything on here. Also, they have an AI that's supposed to make things for you, but it sucks & isn't fun. Ignore it.
STEP 3: CHOOSE A TEMPLATE
Okay, so if you're a graphic designer... I mean I'm not sure why you're reading this tutorial, you can definitely make cooler stuff than I can! You should just use the 'create blank [post type]' button and go to town! But if you're not (like me) what I usually do is pick a type of template that Canva has (like blog banners, instagram posts, facebook covers, etc) and go browse their designs. My advice is not to look for something that you completely like, but something that has the right vibe-- you're going to be messing with all the individual aspects of the post anyway, so just pick based on aesthetics. Try to make sure that if you're going to put your fic title on your work that you pick/create a design where the text is clearly displayed/in an easily legible font.
NOTE: Some of the designs will have a little crown in the corner, and these designs are only available if you pay for premium. If they have a little $ on them, instead, that just means they have individual paid elements in them that you can get rid of, so feel free to use those, too!
STEP 4: CHOOSE YOUR PICTURES
Okay, so I like this screaming seagull one. I clicked on it, and selected 'customize template'. So now I want to get rid of the seagull, and replace him with my own stuff. You can do this a couple of ways: if you have screenshots from your game/show/other media, you can upload them by clicking on the little cloud icon on the left side that says "Uploads". If you DON'T have pictures, or you don't have ones you need, there are a couple options:
You can try to browse Canva's selection of pictures. It is in the "Elements" tab; you type in a search, and then select the "photos" filter from the little marquee below the search bar. My advice is to only use one word search terms, because Canva loves showing you all the photos that you can use if you pay for them, and if you use more words, they do that more often. There ARE free photos in there, but you have to scroll a bit.
If you don't want to deal with the search system or can't find what you're looking for, sites like Pixabay, Pexels, and Unsplash provide free photos that you can use without attribution, and do not require you to have an account to download. Please DO NOT just search using google/other engines and take things from there-- those photos are often not licensed for free use. The sites I linked will try to sell you pictures, but not as much as Canva, and there's usually a lot of free stuff to choose from. Download the pictures you want in a good resolution and upload them to Canva!
STEP 5: MESS AROUND WITH STUFF!
Okay, so now you can add your stuff and mess around with it!! Just click on the element (like the seagull) and delete it. Then go to your uploads and click + drag the image you want onto the canvas. You can use them as the background by dragging them to one of the corners, but you can also just put them on the canvas and mess around with them. In the left picture, you can see some of the options you have to resize and move around the image, so different elements appear on top of or behind it. If you click on the button that says 'edit' on the little bar menu that comes up when you select the image, you'll get the menu in the right picture, where you can mess with filters and colors, etc. It's not a completely comprehensive editing software, but you can do a lot of things! I encourage you to mess around and see what looks cool!
STEP SIX: ADD MORE STUFF, IF YOU WANT!
I love adding more stuff. You can change and add text by clicking on the textboxes that are already there, or you can use the "text" section on the left menu to add new blocks. They have some fun combinations and a lot of fonts! A thing I like to do is go in the elements tab and search for 'patterns'; you can add them on top of your image or elsewhere! The opacity setting is your best friend; you can overlay a bunch of stuff and create interesting/unique collages! You can also add basic shapes, frames, moving elements, and clipart, if you want!
STEP SEVEN (FINAL): DOWNLOAD YOUR THING!
When you're done, the 'share' menu in the upper right corner will let you download your image in a bunch of different formats (I'm pretty sure you could make a looping GIF for your fic here on Canva, too!) I usually do PNGs for the quality. I haven't had any issues uploading on Tumblr (or on Twitter, when I used it).
Anyway, I hope you'll try making these! I didn't show it, but there are a lot of different templates you can use, so if you want to make a collage instead, just look around! I think it's super fun to do for my fics! If you have any questions, you can bother me on my blog or in the replies section of this post, just please be polite! Thanks for reading!
