#tag thingy

[burn-on-the-flame]

thanks for the tag @hammill-goes-fogwalking 🌿🌺🤍☀️

1) Something that might surprise your moots about you: umm no idea, skip

2) Your favourite drink/soda: cold water

3) A hobby/activity that you do: workout and long distance running

4) A TV show/movie you're watching right now: Babylon Berlin

5) A book you're reading: Ultravåld by Tone Schunnesson

6) Favourite dessert: ice cream

[orphanage-body]

I was tagged by @bigre-fichtre to post 6 faceless photos, thanks! Now, before I forget to do it, like the countless tag games I forgot to do (my apologies to everyone involved):

Tagging @trashlord-watson @a-random-fandom-friend @shy-sapphic-ace @sunkissed-strawberries, if you wanna do it of course!

[elderwisp]

archive tag by @krisunbr

thank you for the tag kris! rules are here. i tag: @coldmatee @goldenwaves @feroshgirlsims @stormentsims @crownsofesha @wrixie @pink-chevalier @solitude-paradise @sour-trait @moonwoodhollow (idk who's been tagged or not if so ignore me i'm senile !!!) this is going to be quite a lengthy post as i've been posting on tumblr for about 14 years but i really wanted to showcase that growth is possible. i would love for people to learn how to create with true pride but also engage with each other for community resources. there are so many free editing tutorials but if that's not your thing then that is completely valid. a community should be an accumulation of everything and not just one single style ✨ here's my journey. under the cut i break down each year, what was going on in my mind at the time as well as more photos i couldn’t fit into the collage! (warning, it is very long, u guys said yap and i said ok):

✶ i really was just a 15 year old kid who spent a lot of time imagining. like many of us here, i've played the sims for a really long time but i liked that this life simulator had an element of storytelling. (sims 2 castaway stories i will always love u...) however, i didn't start off by editing photos, but rather spending my summers and school nights creating sims 3 video series and machinimas on youtube. a lot of these were inspired by series like Anon or creators like Faalq and of course, I can't forget the creator of Pleasantview. eventually a friend at the time told me about how there was a community on tumblr who posted their pictures and that was the start of my first blog. 2012 through 2016 feels so much like the tumblr era, which true, i was inspired by a lot of the faded images with a pop of color here and there. i sure love injecting nostalgia into my edits. still do. around 2013, i discovered photoshop and used actions from other creators but it never really felt like me. you can see, i still tried shoving little pops of color here in there (middle row, far right) but it felt too washed out for my liking. between 2015 and 2016, i started experimenting with color, layer styles in photoshop and brushes. lol i remember i wanted to draw hair so badly and when i discovered brush stamps i was SO freaking impressed. eventually... i learned how to add on textures.

✶ in 2017, i recreated my blog because someone from school found my simblr. i really value my anonymity, still do, LMAO, so i obliterated my blog and regenerated as "pixelsymoi." i only remembered that because i found a pinterest with my old cc and people asking for a working link (I'M SO SORRY-). 2017 through 2019 i was leaning into grungier aesthetics, textures, contrasting boarders and staged backgrounds. everything here was about making something pleasing to the eyes. even when i started experimenting with storytelling (bonk and bonk), i found myself inspired by so many cinematography scenes from directors like Sofia Coppola as well as different music videos i'd watch. everything had to be photogenic in a way and i think that's just how my brain viewed the world at the time. romanticizing every element. this editing style oddly feels... romantic. my experimenting with lighting also really started to take off here. i also tested out the sims 4 around this time but it never really stuck. i struggled a lot with transferring the style i had in ts3 to ts4 which is what kept me away from the game. side note, but it was really neat looking back on these photos because there was SO much collaboration going on, it was a really nice time for roleplaying, collaborative storytelling and editing other oc's in my game! the community felt really strong here

✶ 2022 i returned to my blog after a long hiatus. i needed a creative output so i dusted off the old blog, the characters that live in my mind and my laptop. then decided to actually give the sims 4 a try. i had joined around the time where storytelling was dying down. like so many good stories were left open and i was like NOOOOOOOO! so on a whim, i started posting tessellate. i had the little dudes just sitting there. they were somewhat developed and eh, i could figure out the details later, right? i had a vision that was more like uncontained water. i'll circle back to this thought though! i tested out two different reshades (bonk and bonk) before exploring how to create my own. i was quite proud of myself because i genuinely did not know what i was doing!!! i do look back at older presets now and go holy shaders- U DO NOT NEED FIVE VERSIONS OF MXAO pls... something that i noticed while putting this together is when i work with colors, i like blending academia (??) colors with saturated elements. i think that right there is what unifies my style omggg. when i discovered these lights, i was finally able the same knowledge in my prior years for color as i did for my edits around this time. and then there was this shader that released towards the end of 2023 that could take what i knew about lighting and apply it with precision...

✶ ...and then in 2024 everything exploded into colorful lights and fractured off into pretty little flecks of silver and gold. i could give quint relight the whole credit, but i'm not. LMAOO. there was a lot of meticulous thought of everything, whether it was positioning the lighting for the shader, to color hues of said shader, to the introduction of color grading to in game lighting/backgrounds. i took a shader like relight and went how can i keep pushing this tool? another tool i used was my first wacom. i used to dodge and burn my highlights and shadows by mouse so this helped my hand from not cramping up as much during larger edits. this was probably the year for discovery. i edited about 2000 photos, storytelling photos included. tessellate was moving along and in between i would practice editing or posing. i started watching a lot of typography videos and thus began my font hoarding.... sigh. i was really ill during this year so i had a lot of time on my hands. simultaneously, my blog was being seen for the first time. in my earlier years, things were close knit, like it was super rare for my post to break out of containment. this was the first post where that happened and i remembered my partner and i celebrated that because, well, i had a really rough couple of years. it was the first time in a while i felt like i was doing something right creatively. i do look back at this time with bittersweet feelings, i was so unsure of myself throughout it and put more pressure on myself than i needed to. i've come to realize that being disabled and chronically ill, there was this desire to "do something" and if i wasn't constantly preoccupying my time, i'd be tough on myself. and that truly wasn't fair to myself.

✶ and then 2025 happened. *jazz music stops* while i feel like what is seen doesn't accurately represent what i felt, i was genuinely burnt out at that time. and around this time, i experienced the monotony of routine. i was in this liminal space where things never changed. around this time, a lot of people conflated my image as a content creator and the thought of that was like being hit by demotivation juice. i was constantly overthinking my image, remembering many people with abandoned blogs in the past who were torn to shreds for less. so much so, i was incredibly afraid to start posting the violet moon. it was a very anxiety inducing time and the thing that originally helped me unwind became uncomfortable. looking back on it now, i have a difficult relationship with being creatively seen and that's been something that's followed me throughout. there's the need to make myself smaller, sell myself short, apply brutal criticism and none of that is healthy. i really needed to trust myself but also allow myself room for growth. backtracking to 2022, i said tessellate felt like uncontained water. since the only plan was what i had known about the characters, there was no overarching story i could weave together. while that's okay in a gameplay sense, it made it feel like nothing was progressing. plot holes appeared, at least ones i noticed and i just did not want another unfinished project. so i shelved until i was ready. more on that later lmao. i branched away from simblr and started watching and reading a lot of tips for writing. not only that, i watched a lot of film analysis, read a bunch of books as well as watched/read artists thought process for anything i had a question on. i started hanging out in my "your tags" feed and immersed myself in so much art. i picked up blender rendering at the start of the year which taught me how to layer an edit on top of different textures, different cutouts, different movement. although i haven't been back since march of last year, i applied what i had learned. i began writing nordhaven which became my digital scrapbook. the violet moon followed and i fell in love with hallowmire. the pride i feel from not only the editing style, but the worldbuilding and storytelling... it reminded me why i enjoy this wildly niche hobby. (pause, i'm listening to minecraft music and i started tearing up again.) i got serious about drawing, something i kept putting off for years. during that, i learned how to freaking draw magic! my editing style began to evolve rapidly again yet unlike 2024, it wasn't contained to one style. it was every piece of me. the gritty parts, the happy parts, the imaginative parts too. there was finally a sense of authenticity i had been looking for. but the end of the year was difficult for me, like things inevitably get worse before they get better and it lingered into the next year...

✶ ... but then this year, i was reminded the importance of community and connection. i had opened up about some things that were happening in the background and people reached out to me privately or publicly, shared their own experiences, and i've slowly started to feel safe again which in return has helped with a clearer mind but confidence as well. sometimes, all you really gotta do is be honest and reach out. i spend a lot of my time in procreate. my reshade preset being the assist while remembering, applying and drawing all of the fundamentals i learned. it honed in how i drew in shadows and lighting. i'm less nervous with those layers specifically! i keep improving on my hair drawing. huge thank you to Isa! i had read and watched so many tutorials but this one breaks it down so clearly. i've pumped the brakes on posting quite a bit, but it's become more about enjoying the process and being more intentional with my editing rather than trying to strike lighting twice or do fifty backflips. it's being able to complete a project and go, i've communicated some sort of emotion here. it holds weight. there was this quote i heard idk where, but someone said that it's good to learn rules so that when you break them, it doesn't leave you misunderstood. something about that just changed my brain chemistry but also made me want to communicate better visually and narratively. what's the meme that goes listen.... and learn.... LMAO!! i have been writing tessellate privately in the background and although it's not in a state where it's ready, i love what i have so far. each character feels so alive but also, there's a story! a story that..... dare i say it.... tessellates together *explodes* i want to get in the habit of periodically visiting that save and sharing updates but ! i also don't want to give too much away or send mixed signals about certain characters O_o in the meantime, i'm still committed towards working on hallowmire and completing nordhaven. there's a lot of layers to my editing currently, like it'll probably shift some more by the year ends. to me, art is beautiful in the sense that there are traces of other people left in each edit you make. whether it's inspiration, experience, or different engagement of thought, the more time passes along, everything seems to bloom in cycles. and that's something meaningful that generative ai can't replicate. at the end of the day, i can say, i have the skillset to create something that causes people to feel. for people to connect for a moment. to make people feel seen. and there's magic in that.

if you read this you are the truest tank there is! thank you so much and if you've been around for a long time, i really really appreciate it. shocker but i'm not good with words, my blog oddly enough removes the pressure of socialization and masking because i do think about this as if i'm chucking something into the void 💀 anywho, i've yapped. here's some extra pictures with my incredibly unserious commentary:

[elderwisp]

color theory is my passion, tessellate edition

tagged by @thebramblewood (thank you!) and rules i will definitely not be following (i swear i swear i'll follow it for the nordhaven rendition!) | divider credit

i tag: @vampwan @pink-chevalier @madebycoffee @syyymbiote @warmsol

gosh where to begin...

-> i began writing tessellate during an incredibly bleak time in my life. lmao it felt like the introduction to stardew valley where the farmer works in a depressing grey cubicle. i've had most of these characters during my late teens and after many renditions, it felt like a comforting time to pick them back up see where it took me. i wanted to add more layers to each character through little pops of symbolism but color became the loudest. in a way, it felt like a reboot, invoking a feeling that had felt long forgotten. Joy.

-> you can see how throughout the years, the saturation intensifies over the years but also how the color palette becomes more defined. at first i leaned into soft blues and oranges, eventually adding green into the mix before settling on red, blue and green. i want to dive more into why but i'll save that for this tag (i'm so freaking excited i get to yap about background things!!!) i will say this: i love the idea that the primary colors used serve as a foundation for the characters and that as you go through each person, the colors shift towards what aligns with them. so using rgb in the editing became what unifies them. it's also malleable enough that every edit wouldn't feel so formulaic! maybe red is more present in one edit or green comes forward in another! and then when you start to combine them in relight, it blends them together, creating those shifty hues.

-> Not sure if I've yapped about this on my blog but ! When it comes to certain romances, i do think about harmonious colors. Like Icarus's color is red while Frances' is green. Or how Taryn is orange and Atlas' is blue forming a complementary color. The blue and the orange also perfectly describe the nature of their relationship as they are both two completely different people. Polarity in relationships is a less common romance trope I see. Oftentimes it swings into enemies to lovers because having little in common might give the idea that there isn't much to build off of which valid but ! hear me out, hear me out, it does not give curiosity enough credit. what if two people challenge each other's notion in a way that wasn't so... destructive? and what if, trying something out of your comfort zone created some of the better memories? IDK ! there's a lot to work with there !! anyways here is your little hints towards the revised version of their romance. also they kiss a lot sooner- also when i storyboard for the group, i color code the scenes associated with said character. idk where to put this lmao

-> When it comes to resonating colors with certain characters, I talked about it here, going in depth with each character! Assigning colors to me felt a lot more symbolic rather than visual but from time to time, I've incorporated pops of color such as Atlas with blue streaks in his hair or photos that heavily include the color blue. Underneath Atlas' surface lies a deep melancholy. His whole revised arc focuses in on remorse that gnaws at his core, appearing when it no longer can be hidden. (Please take this figuratively and literally in the future-) There are a lot of secrets for the reader to uncover that once the full image is presented, it gives you an explanation. however, it isn't an excuse. as his arc develops, he has to make the final decision on whether or not he would like to allow his sadness to be consuming. the color blue has many meanings, especially as hues change. sorta like the blue sky, a canvas of possibilities but for something more simpler: A fresh start.

-> and here are some edits over the last two and a half years where i spent a lot of time experimenting. i left the other two and a half years out as well as some other thoughts since i'll be expanding on the archives meme. although tessellate is currently being worked on in the background, this creative project felt like a major stepping stone for me. it's always encouraged me to try something new out and in it's own way it became undefined. what i've been working on lately is really allowing the story to develop into something that not only encompasses my style but leaves a notable and clear mark that is true to every character. if you've read this far, again thank you ;_; <3 nordhaven will be next and that will focus in on just rowan

[elderwisp]

color theory is my passion, hallowmire edition

tagged by @niecjing thank you! (rules that i’m realizing i failed oh well) | divider credit

i tag: @allfrogsmatter @jinkiwhims @acidheaddd @aching-joints @stormentsims (please let me know if you want to be tagged in the next round ;O;)

✶ i was tagged thrice for this so i'll be doing another for tessellate and maybe one for nordhaven. i wanted to start with hallowmire because i feel like there's a really nice journey behind it. this project blossomed during a time where i felt as if i was going through the motions and was a little burnt out. i wanted to push my own boundaries to create something that felt immersive yet magical. fantasy is something i've always wanted to explore but felt intimidated like it was something out of my league. what a perfect time to try something challenging

✶ unlike tessellate, each characters doesn't have a designated color, however, the world itself is where certain color groups pull through. the initial concept was every world would focus on deep greens, browns and a general bronze-y color. from the media i've viewed, brown tends to dominate steampunk colors, so i wanted to add in the green to break up the similar colors to add more depth. i began to run into issues as each world, even with lighting mods, shifts subtly in color as well as details were being lost in the background which was vital for immersion. oddly enough, i thought a lot about dragon age and the dark crystal where there is a lot of changing in environments. i thought a lot about how everything was cohesive yet different. so i started molding my editing to a clear image as well as creating a preset that could bring cohesiveness to a changing world.

✶ Ravenwood heavily focuses on glimmery metallics, jewel tones with that pop of moody and gothic Victorian colors (lmao the color black and brown-). i originally had intended for faded, lower contrast images but too many details were getting lost in the process. also! contrast just makes magic pop! idk how to describe it but the dream-y yet sharp highlights (?) is the signature of hallowmire and the thing that brings everything together!

✶ Innisgreen was was like how in the hell do I add color to this world?? I wanted it to feel magical and otherworldly. I spent a lot of time looking at art. (Here is my art tag on my other blog showcasing a lot of the people I was inspired by.) really trying to understand how certain values were being pulled and how certain color combinations worked in a fantasy setting. I focused a lot on ethereal blues, magentas, and cyans, while the pops of earthy tones brings Innisgreen back to the world.

✶ Forgotten Hollow was so stinking difficult. an actual challenge that took a few weeks and several reshoots. i wanted the exterior to be devoid, sorta dilapidated to represent the true nature of the Immortalis. It's bleak, dystopian and oppressive. While on the inside, everything is monochromatic in rich browns and expensive golds, red is the color that pops, connecting the manor to the Sanguis.

✶ there's a lot more i can dive into for the other worlds LMAOO but i've yapped quite a bit so i'll wrap it up! there are so many edits i was unable to include but i do look back fondly on each of them as well as how i've grown throughout. it's helped me better understand lighting, values and color grading as well as allowed me to grow in my ability to draw! i eventually want to combine both styles without sacrificing clarity so that is my next focus! thank you for reading if you did. you can catch the story here if you're curious ;_; <3

[ontheriiver]

Danke, @pusteblume258

reading: „Das Vermächtnis der Eldron“ - frühe 80er Jahre Fantasy mit sprechenden Tieren und Elben und dem Traum von einer besseren Welt. Und „Wissensorientierte Unternehmensführung. Wissensmanagement im digitalen Wandel“, aber das hat leider keine sprechenden Tiere…

last series: ich hab so ne Bergretter-Doku gesehen und ich hatte ja vorher schon Angst vor Bergen, aber jetzt weiß ich zusätzlich noch ganz viele weitere Möglichkeiten, wie man in den Bergen verunglücken kann.

last movie: …ich kann mich nicht erinnern. Zählt irgendein random Tatort als Film?

last song: mikah - melancholy song

sweet or salty: [hier „both is good“-gif einfügen]

coffee or tea: Kaffee zu Kaffee-Anlässen, Tee auf der Arbeit. Den guten Grüngold. 😌

working on: ich mach so nen Kurs zu betrieblichem Bildungsmanagement und ich finde den tragischerweise tatsächlich richtig interessant. Parallel dazu: möglichst viele Erdbeeren essen, solange Erdbeerzeit ist. Joggen. Spanisch lernen. Glücksmomente finden.

[awordwasthebeginning]

(Slowly working my way through tag games I haven't been playing for months. 😅 This time, with thanks to @bookshelfdreams!)

Reading: Die Siedler von Catan by Rebecca Gablé - I'm not very far yet, though.

Last series: Agatha Christie's Marple (it is/was on the ARD Mediathek)

Last song: Faun - Mit dem Wind

Last movie: Die Farben der Zeit (Colours of Time/La venue de l'avenir)

Sweet or salty: Both? Both.

Coffee or tea: Tea

Working on: my sleep schedule, which is very irregular atm

Knitting (or other craft of choice): Does gardening count? I should be pruning some summer-flowering shrubs soon.

Writing: a fic I've been working on for literal years

tagging: @definitely-not-an-alb, @elkaylikes, @himbo-crimes, @immergladsss

[awordwasthebeginning]

Also several months ago, @eolewyn1010 tagged me in this little game:

Take something from my flat

blue plastic shoe tray

tester for super expensive super healthy super sensitive skin cleaning lotion

little wooden box, painted by 8yo me, filled with an assortment of stones

magnet of a woman wearing a Bollenhut, promotional gift by Freiburg i.Br.

pentatonic flute

rolled up Juso pride flag

about a dozen little notebooks small enough to fit in a pocket

Voting ended onJun 14

tagging, if you want: @anenemyanemone, @doubledenimcrew, @hail-the-underdogs, and @talon24 ^_^