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"You can't make friends onli-" I would defend any of my Tumblr mutuals to the death with only a pocket knife and random rock, you heathen.
@cactisays you are quite scintillating <3
In case anyone’s having a bad day, here’s a collection of Holmes complimenting Watson in canon:
“Excellent, Watson!”
“Dr Watson is my friend and partner.”
“Would you go in, Watson? Your appearance inspires confidence.”
“Watson, you are a British Jury, and I never met a man more eminently fitted to represent one.”
“Dr Watson is the very soul of discretion.”
“Brilliant, Watson!”
“Capital, Watson!”
“Very good, Watson.”
“Exactly, my dear Watson!”
“Brilliant, Watson. You are scintillating this morning.”
“Good, Watson, good!”
“You look the same blithe boy as ever!”
“Watson has some remarkable characteristics of his own.”
“Indeed an ideal helpmate.”
“With your natural advantages, Watson, every lady is your helper and accomplice.”
HOW DO YOU DRAW SO FAST OMGGGG
I worked really hard on it tbh haha. A few years back I went through a long period of intense perfectionism where I slowed down to a crawl (like five comic pages in 4 months). I finally decided that that wasn't working for me, and so I started implementing my motto: shitty is better than incomplete!
Basically it's about the idea that it's more important to me to get the ideas and stories out there than it is for them to be perfect. I have a lot of stories I want to tell, and there's only so much time for me to tell them. It helps to remind myself of this as much as possible!
As for technical tricks, I do a few things that really help:
Draw a lot! Practice is truly one of the number one ways to improve speed, as annoying as it is to accept
I don't zoom in too far
I only use 1 brush at 1-2 sizes for inking (outside of specialized stuff like stippling)
I put hard limits on a lot of stuff--how much shading I do (if any), or what shape my comic panels are (only squares, no diagonals or weird shapes), for example
My characters (comic characters especially) all have pretty simple designs and outfits
I write down every idea for an illustration that I have, even if I'm not ready to tackle it yet. That way when I have a chance to sit down, I've got a whole list ready to go and I'm not waffling around in the concept stage
Finally, I've learned to accept my imperfections as a neat part of my art! It's not easy, and I slip back into bad habits sometimes, but I try my best to see every misplaced mark or color that bleeds outside the line as proof that a human hand made this. I don't spend a lot of time correcting mistakes or painstakingly trying not to make them.
Here's an example from Hello Sunshine, where if looks fine from far away, but if you zoom in a bunch, you can see all kinds of little "mistakes." gaps in the ink and color, the line of Alex's ear doesn't match up, very sketchy linework where their faces meet, haha.
But then when you zoom out even a little bit, you a) don't notice those things nearly as much, and b) I think it gives it a kind of traditional charm. Just because you CAN use ctrl-z doesn't mean you HAVE to.
Anyway I hope that helps!!
All Those Christmas Clichés: Advent 2023
Because I'm the emperor of terrible decisions... fuck it, let's do an advent fic. Daily triple drabbles, set 1-25 December 2023, using the prompt list from @youneedsomeprompts found here.
All Those Christmas Clichés
December 1st: Making an advent calendar for a friend/loved one
This is exactly what I’m doing rn
The real writer experience is standing in the shower and coming up with the most authentic dialogue with perfect phrasing and raw emotion in your head, then stepping out and drying your hair, putting on some clean pajamas and opening a word document to write down all your perfect ideas only to realize everything has evaporated.