hot artists don't gatekeep

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.

Homie gonna share this

All profits raised from this print will be donated to the Palestine Children's Relief Fund.

moleskine = bad

IT’S SO BAD AND I HATE IT

moleskine makes people hate pens and is probably a huge part of why so many people give up on good pens.

to folks who might not know, moleskine is extremely famous AND infamous. they are hardcover notebooks with elastic enclosures. they are expensive, and sold everywhere from pharmacies to bookstores, and does collaborations with a variety of brands including james bond and pokemon. moleskine has tried to establish itself as a luxury notebook, which it technically is.

as long as you do not write in it.

moleskine paper is wholeheartedly shit. it is complete fucking garbage. you might wonder, what makes good paper? well the first thing is how well it can be written on. good paper can handle ink well. good ink handling means clear, solid lines without any feathering (fuzzy spreading), not bleeding through the page, and not ghosting. basically, you want paper that can do crisp lines with a variety of different inks and be used on both sides.

moleskine does not do that. anything more than a ballpoint or pencil will look fuzzy and gross and bleed right through the fucking page. the paper is shit. and that makes people think their pen is shit. and ballpoint pens can be seen on the other side of the page.

common knowledge is that fountain pens, rollerball pens, gel pens, felt pens, and more work better on good paper. good meaning good with ink. but when many people think good paper without knowing any better, they will reach for a moleskine notebook. because moleskine is expensive and advertises itself as good and is widely available. so people try out actually good writing implements on this shit paper, see how bad it works, and then blame the pen.

fountain pens, gel pens, and rollerball require much less pressure than ballpoint pens. they are ergonomic. easier on joints, easier for chronic pain. and moleskine makes people give up on them. nobody wants shitty bleeding feathered lines.

in the united states, our ideas of good paper and good stationery in general are extremely warped. so much of this is because paper here fucking sucks. a lot of paper performs like moleskine. there is shit paper at all price ranges. but you can pick up caliber brand paper (the ones that say made in vietnam) from cvs and have infinitely better performance for pennies. even though it looks low quality, caliber paper (vietnam) can even handle calligraphy ink clearly. bad paper makes people hate good pens and bad pens make people hate writing.

another thing really important to mention, a lot of people think thick paper is always better. this is extremely wrong. in terms of being able to handle a wide variety of inks clearly and cleanly, some of the best paper in the world is tissue thin (tomoe river).

do not buy moleskine. even if the stand is right there. they have some of the worst paper you can get at that price point. expensive paper is not always good paper, good pens need good paper, moleskine paper makes good pens seem awful, and moleskine is something you should only give to someone you loathe.

THIS.

God Moleskine is such a frustrating product, and as an aspiring stationer, I hate that it’s so popular in North America. They’re beautifully constructed, yes, but god the 70gsm paper that they use is SUCH GARBAGE when it comes to inks wetter than a ballpoint pen. They do offer heavier paper - 100-200gsm weight - but only in extremely expensive, large, or difficult to find products.

Leuchtturm 1917 produces great sketching books and, if you get their 120gsm notebooks, they hold up to inks fantastically. Their standard notebooks come in 80gsm paper, and that does hold up to fountain pen ink much better than Moleskine, but while you do get much less feathering and bleeding, there is still some bleedthrough with wetter pens.

Now, if you want the finest fountain pen paper I’ve found in a notebook format, you want Maruman’s Mnemosyne 183. It’s also an 80gsm paper, but it’s treated and laid in such a way that there’s no feathering or bleeding, even with a very wet fountain pen.

That said though, honestly the best notebook I have, in terms of accessibility, expense, and quality of paper, is a Brandz United notebook that I got for my birthday a few years back. It’s not anything special, in terms of paper weight - I can’t find anything concrete, but it feels like 80gsm to me - but it barely feathers and you need to really saturate the page for it to bleed through.

Also, if you’re looking for loose paper, I highly recommend Tomoe River’s paper - so fine and thin you can practically see through it, but it holds ink like a sponge, doesn’t bleed, has no feathering, and is smooth as glass. For correspondence, though, I am a fan of G. Lalo’s Pur Vélin, which is a 125gsm 50% cotton and 50% wood pulp paper. It’s absolutely beautiful and has just enough grain to it that there’s a super pleasant tactile feedback when you’re writing.

And if you want to go a lil’ bit fancy with gorgeous designs (and I mean GORGEOUS designs), look up Castelli. 

My current fave. No feathering, no bleeding, works perfect with ballpoint pens and with fountain pens, and the paper is super smooth. I’ve literally written novels in these fuckers. Also: cheaper than moleskine. 

@jimtheviking​ already mentioned Leuchtturm; I’m adding Black n’ Red, Clairefontaine and Rhodia.

All have better paper than Moleskine, which has been milking its early reputation for years while product quality went downhill. Now they’re just another Lifestyle Accessory for people who shop by brand-name.

I know I have a lot of artists who see my stuff

I was about to add Clairefontaine but I’ll add

ClaireFontaine’s paper is great no matter which books you get [or loose] but the age bag and Europa notebooks are my absolute fave, I buy them in batches to handwrite in with a fountain pen, and their sketching books, hardcover 90gsm is AMAZING if you draw with inks, especially crow and spoon pens, no bleeding, feathering and no catching with the sharp points

this feels like one of those subjects I Will Not Get, because the fanciest pen I own is the fisher space pen in my EDC

I have a notebook from Dollarama for $1.25 five or six years ago that handles my fountain pen’s ink better than a luxury grade notebook my mother found once and gave to me. Paper quality is SO important.

I know a lot of folks aren’t in a position to donate but even if you can just reblog this post, share the link around, that would be wonderful x

side note: the queer community is, by nature, full of people with hard to word and messy experiences. everyone can do whatever they want and people with unusual orientations, genders, and presentations are not the reason bigotry exists in the world. do whatever, love whomever, shape your life to suit your needs, beat language bloody to make room for yourself, your siblings are not the enemy and the only way we're all gonna make it is with compassion for those who are more like us than not.

Katherine Applegate tweeted this letter yesterday in response to the absolute bullshit going down in the Texas and her intent on missing the TLA conference (click the link for transcript in tweet form). 

suddenly everyone is hopping on disney's dick after the launch of disney+. humans as a society need to learn the ultimate truth, piracy.

me @people who sign up for online streaming services. rip to y'all but im poor.

gowatchseries.com, 123movies, fmovies, bmovies. i hope nobody reblogs this addition. :/

hi my name is capitalist and you're streaming capitalism ✨

NOBODY use levidia.ch IT HAS PRACTICALLY EVERYTHING so DO NOT ACCESS IT BY MISTAKE and END UP COSTING THESE MEGACORPS MONEY

PSA.

and do not type name of any movie on google followed by google docs because you can find almost all movies like that. so do not

This has changed my life

never even touch ev01.to if you want to get pretty much every movie and show there is. also don't even think about getting the webvideocaster app if you have a tv you want to cast onto.

wcoforever.com is ESPECIALLY bad. I mean pretty much anything animated, even anime? even amazon exclusives like invincible? how dastardly!

i do NOT advocate for using ok.ru to watch movies!! piracy is bad ;-)

Also I definitely don’t recommend using sflix.to for your movie and TV needs (including new ones) and 9anime for your anime needs. No, not at all!

Absolute wretched behaviour to ever use any of these and not spread your ass for capitalism

💚 Tumblr!!! You’ve been so kind to me! 💚

I’ve got 10 days left to raise funds for

DRYP - an app that helps you keep plants alive & happy!

This is a little ad I made for the app

out of frustration with the marketing of plants as lifestyle products for rich people with all-white apartments.

YOU TOO CAN HAVE A LOVELY GREEN HOME, I PROMISE! 💚🌱 IT’S NOT JUST FOR GWYNETH PALTROW!

Here again are the basic functions of the app:

And here again are some of the rewards for backing it!

Please signal boost to help me make this app a reality! Thank you! 🌱🌱🌱