completely double spaced version on google docs here – this post is more blocky for the sake of people’s dashboards, but still long so people will be less likely to glaze over it. my apologies if that makes it hard to read
things to look for and avoid in an autistic character
• symptoms only manifesting as “nonverbal and rocking”
• super smart / living calculator
• super dumb / doesn’t understand anything
• all the symptoms you can come up with for them are “awkward” and “has special interest(s)” (please do more research)
• trains, technology, and/or math as special interests
• acting like a child
•
getting treated like a baby
• unreasonably cruel and uncaring about others’ reactions to them being cruel
• if they’re comparable to sheldon from the big bang theory, start over
• animal comparisons
• a lack of feelings
• please no stories about what it’s like to be autistic told by allistics
talking about things outside of special interests (again…. come on……….) (special interests are usually the default things our brains go to when theres no stimulation or we want to entertain ourselves – it isn’t literally all we think or talk about ever. if a conversation has no connections to a special interest, reconsider having your autistic character bring it up in a context that is not an introduction.)
•
explicitly expressed to be capable of attraction and romantic feelings – if your character is an adult, add sexual feelings to this point
•
capable of general functioning, just with a disability that makes it more difficult – not a walking disability (….sigh)
• a wide amount of feelings and emotional turmoil (but perhaps only being able to express it in limited ways)
• we’re people
• just people whose brains are wired differently
things to avoid in research for an autistic character
•
autism moms / autism blogs and websites not run by autistic people
•
any affiliation with autism $peaks means you should walk away and never look back
•
a scientist trying to create explanations for what autistic people do without actually asking / not mentioning asking autistic people
• anything about a cure for autism
• a person that “worked with autistic kids” phrased in the same way as “worked with animals”
• talking about autistic people as if they are mysteries, are like animals, or are otherwise othered weirdos instead of people
things to look for in research for an autistic character
•
actual autistic people talking about their experiences and symptoms
• just stick to that and you’re good but it’s hard to find sometimes ngl. just look for the above red flags
things i would personally like to see in an autistic character
• less easy to swallow sadness and more destructive anger. i would love to see a canonically autistic character who was frustrated easily by small things and had trouble communicating why •
not a story about being autistic, a story that happens to have a character or characters who are autistic – it isn’t pointed out or questioned, they’re right at home with the rest of the cast and not othered (a la symmetra from overwatch) •
intensive sensory issues / small sounds making large reactions • clear communications about not liking x sensory thing (for example being touched) •
poor motor skills / clumsiness and not being laughed at for it • walking funny (body bent downwards, walking very fast, walking slowly,
big strides, shuffling, stiffness, etc) – no one treats it as if it’s funny or something totally strange • a big personality that has a presence so they can’t be cast aside (but feel free to have quiet characters too) – if this was along with being nonverbal they would probably leap to being one of my favorite characters ever • a fear of asking for clarification on sarcasm or jokes because of past experiences and an arc about the character becoming more comfortable asking questions
>> if any fellow autistic people want to add something, feel free <<
allistics are encouraged to rb this
A few things I would add: fidgeting with something without it being weird. Descriptions about why something is off (like I can’t touch foam because it feels like how static looks on a TV). Autistic people knowing that they’re different and that’s fine. Like, I don’t get why everyone else kind of has to inform the autistic person that what they are doing is different than what most people would do and why they seem shocked about it. I get having that reaction at first, but if someone has been diagnosed already it shouldn’t come as a surprise that what they’re doing is different. Or them pretending it’s normal. Another thing I’d like to see is autistic people who can resist their idiosyncrasies. I can do it. Like when someone has really long fingernails and you want to just clip them so everything is right with the world again, but you don’t because that would be rude to the other person. Autistic characters owning their autism in general would be a good idea. They don’t have to walk into a room and shout “I’m autistic”, but it would be good to see them let other people know if something comes up. Personally, I think the “Meet Julia” episode of Seseme Street does a good job with portraying an autistic character. If you want a good example to start with, look no further.
Natural Black Hair Tutorial! Usually Black hair is excluded in the hair tutorials which I have seen so I have gone through it in depth because it’s really not enough to tell someone simply, “Black hair is really curly, draw it really curly.“
The next part of Black Hair In Depth will feature styles and ideas for designing characters and I will release it around February. If you would like to see certain styles, please shoot me a message!
I got this question and I really wanted to show on very simple examples how to render hair. Because it really is… simple! Following this guide you will be able to paint hair in few minutes.
This is called the ribbon technique.
It is used by many artists out there. I just wanted to show you a couple of examples. As you can see I picked Adam Hughes and J. C. Leyendecker. Look at it and see how they paint the hair. It doesn’t look like a mop. It looks more like big, overlapping shapes organized in some fashion.
Try to imagine a string of hair like a ribbon. Ribbon symbolize a large portion of hair. Don’t focus on every single hair string, instead of this imagine it as bigger shape. It will catch light in highest point and it will have core shadows.
Establish where light is hitting the hair and where it turns dark. Start with big shapes. big brushes to get the lights and volumes right. Then You can go into details and paint small brush strokes to add details like single hair strings.
I attached two examples. First is very simple where you can clearly see and understand the similarity between hair and ribbon. Second example is theory put into practice. But it’s basically doing the same things as shown in simple example.
Let me know what you think about this?
I based my knowledge on James Gurney blog (author of Dinotopia and Light and Color book)
And for the example I used Faestock (from deviantart) photo.
Hey y’all uwu ! With StormBlood FFXIV right around the corner, me and @yuyue-yue / @doorway-through, thought it would be helpful to offer a smol kimono garment guide! Both as educational enjoyment and to help any possible struggling artist! For more information, feel free to send @yuyue-yue any asks! She’s willing to help research and point folks in the right direction! This is only a starter kind of guide to help anyone with a few basics or figure out where to start your own research!
DISCLAIMERS (If you have any concerns please read):
-a super soft airbrush -clipping masks with multiply layers for the darkening, sometimes overlay and add/luminosity for the lightening (depending on your program, I use Clip Studio so I’ll be referring to it as “add”.) -A decently hard, but not too hard eraser. -Pain, screaming and joy. (this last one here can be done any time throughout your shading process)
Apparently, my style of shading is considered interesting by a few people (these are their words, not mine), because while most people paint in their shades with strokes of pain, I erase where the lighting hits.
For this tutorial, I’m gonna use this drawing of a small child that I apparently have:
Step 1: Softly shade in your shadows Considering this is gonna be on a multiply layer, I would pick a different color like a soft shade of blue or a soft shade of purple. Depending on the drawing, you can use other colors, too. Like so…
Slap this shit onto Multiply and you get this:
Step 2: Put another clipping mask on the layer above the soft shade, set that to multiply, and fill it all. It’ll look jarring at first, but bear with me,
Step 3: With a somewhat hard eraser, erase where the lighting hits. This part will depend on your own knowledge of lighting. If you need help, there are countless tutorials on the web to assist 😛
Anyway, this is my shading eraser’s settings:
and this is what this looks like when I apply it:
Of course, I’m no expert in lighting, but this is good enough.
Optional step: Add another multiply layer above this one to add more shadows in places that need it.
Like certain parts of his hair might need this:
With lighting, like for the hair, you put MORE clipping masks, but either in overlay or add (or luminosity). For the hair, it’s recommended you do one layer with soft lighting, and another above it for hard lighting.
In the case with the hair, it’s soft airbrush for the first overlay layer.
And I actually manually draw in the hard light rather than erase-shade. In the case with the hair, I use a pen.
And everything else you can just fuck around with. Optional things I do is use certain blending modes to smooth out certain areas, add an add layer above the lineart to add stray strokes of hair, and add a screen layer above everything to give it a soft glow look.
I certainly can’t speak for everybody, so try some techniques yourself and what not!
So I’ve been reading a lot of fics lately where people are either
A) Putting wings onto canon characters
B) Making OCs with wings
So I decided that, with the influx of people who are writing winged characters (and therefore the influx of errors that come with writing winged characters), I’d make a little thing to help you slap a pair of wings onto anyone!
This is also a bit personal, too, because the MC in my upcoming novel has wings!
1. Know that there are a lot of types of wings to choose from
Part of being a writer is the desire to take something (whether it be a pre-existing work or an idea in your head) and make it into your own. So, instead of just going with the classic bird wings, why not spice it up a bit? If your character is an angel, you certainly don’t have to stick to the classic depictions of angel wings. Why not give them butterfly wings or dragonfly wings?
Here’s a small list of different types of wings to choose from:
Bat wings
Beetle wings
Bird wings
Butterfly/Moth wings
Dragonfly wings
Note that these wings are for animals who can fly. There are also animals who can “fly” that actually glide, such as sugar gliders and flying squirrels.
Yeah, so the options are pretty limited, but feel free to make up your own kinds of wings that aren’t necessarily based on a pre-existing creature’s wings!
2. Be familiar with the anatomy of your character’s wings and their limits
If your wings are completely unique, draw them out. A diagram or picture is key when it comes to things like description. I’m not gonna tell you what everything does and give you Animal Wing Anatomy 101, that’s for you to research. Know that there are different types of wings and that they have different uses, strengths, and weaknesses.
3. Never use the full extent of your research!
Surprise, surprise!
“But wait, Maddy!” you cry, writing utensil in hand and poised to stab me. “I thought we were supposed to were supposed to show our research!”
Well, you are. Technically that’s not wrong. But, readers don’t want to know ALL of it. Over-described wings are sometimes worse than under-described wings; what sucks more than not knowing what a character’s wings look like is having to look up wing anatomy in the middle of the chapter!
Only use the most basic of vocabulary when it comes to describing the parts of the wing. Most of the time, you just have to say “bat wing” or “feathery wing” and the readers get the basic idea. (Like seriously, do you think the readers know what a dactylopatagium brevis is????? It’s a part of skin on a bat’s wing btw)
4. Don’t bring your character’s wings up only when they’re needed!!!!
Unless your character’s wings can fade away when they’re not needed, wings are a 100% real, 24/7 thing! It’s bothersome when writers mention the wings in one chapter and then only bring them up when there’s a daring escape that needs to be performed! Most of the time, I forget that the characters even have wings at all!
There is also the fact that wings aren’t all pros and no cons. If they’re functional, they’re probably big, and if they’re muscular, they’re probably bulky. If your character is clumsy, they’ll probably knock things over constantly, and if they’re not clumsy, they’ll still knock things over constantly.
Your wings are two (or four, or five, or six quintillion) extra appendages; they’re a part of your character! You don’t have to spend every second reminding the readers that they’re there, but don’t go long stretches of time without even mentioning them.
5. Your character’s wings can be a good way to indicate their mood or to provide for that little bit of description that you think you make be lacking
Why wouldn’t you want to describe the wings? I mean, you don’t want to describe every minute detail over and over again, but it’ll boost your word count a lot more than you think. They can also be used to convey your character’s feelings without explicitly telling the reader! It’s like a new set of facial expressions!
See? You can tell he’s wary and ready to fight from the movement of his wings! Also he’s crouching next to a dead body but that’s not relevant right now
Here’s a list of wing language (?) that you can incorporate into your story that will not only increase your word count, but will also add to the sustenance of your story!
Nervous
Twitch
Flutter
Ripple
Fold tightly
Fidget
Flap
Angry
Flare
Bristle
Fluff up
Ripple
Beat
Raise up
Snap open
Happy
Flutter
Curl up
Ripple
Wave
Flap
During Battle
Bludgeon
Smack
Bat
Clout
Whack
Kick someone’s legs out from under them
Snap someones neck (only for muscular wings like bat and bird wings)
Problems that may come with having wings
Poke out from under blankets and let all of the cold air in
Stepped on
Get pins and needles from being folded for too long
Squashed on chairs/ in beds/ in crowded hallways
Vulnerable in battle
Molting (for bird wings)
Hope this helped!!!
This could be really helpful for anyone creating species with wings.
Citizen is simpler and more beautiful~ but just in case anyone needs this.
DUDE BUT THIS IS WHAT I’VE BEEN TRYING TO TELL PEOPLE
in medieval times you ONLY addressed a king/queen with “Your Majesty”, NEVER “Your Highness”. To address a king/queen with “Your Highness” was considered an insult.
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