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Enter the Sparkle Vortex

@oceanspiritus / oceanspiritus.tumblr.com

I follow my dreams and my dreams are memes!
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Drawing For Nothing is out!

Forgot to announce this here but the first ten chapters for Drawing For Nothing have been released! For those who missed the last post, this is a free, digital art book for animated films that were either canceled or bombed due to complicated issues.

More chapters are to come. A few highlights in the next installation will be My Peoples and Larrikins.

Also, if anyone wants to help research, feel free to send a DM! We're also working on a new cover that will feature custom artwork of various characters from these movies. If you think you got what it takes to draw in the style of another artist, we would appreciate the help!

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mysteryjune

a glimpse at the wonders held within this pdf

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elbiotipo

If you're in the need for some kind of magical artifact of magic for your setting, consider Fresnel Lenses which are used in lighthouses:

These things are Alive.

Fun fact:

They used to float (and some still do) on a bed of MERCURY.

It's a means of reducing friction during rotation, and one of the lighthouse keepers' jobs used to be cleaning and straining impurities from the mercury.

So yeah that probably did contribute to erratic behavior more than a few times.

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petermorwood

I read somewhere, and believe it, that inkjet printers work on the modified Gillette razor principal: sell the initial product cheap and profit by selling the always-needed refill that keeps it working.

Except that - and here's where "modified" comes in - while safety razors will take any blade of the correct shape, printers can be DRM-chipped (looking at you, HP) to ignore anything but the manufacturer's own refills. Those can then be priced as that manufacturer pleases, and discount sources can do only so much to ease the sting.

They can also be chipped to stop working when one colour runs low, no matter the state of the others. (Looking at you again, HP). This can be annoying enough with individual colour cartridges; it's bloody infuriating if the four colours are in a single unit that has to be replaced en bloc before the damned thing starts working again.

We had one of those (guess what brand) and it didn't take much simple arithmetic to realise that it would take very few refills before we reached the price of a more expensive but much better device.

So we sold the HP and got a Brother mono laser 3-function for heavy work, and a cheap-ish Canon colour inkjet 3-function for everything else.

*****

Best move ever.

It cost about €130 more than a printer-only inkjet, was bought in April 2018, is only on its second toner cartridge (generic, not branded), works reliably on the house network and so can print from any device from PC to phone.

*****

For colour work @dduane has that non-network Canon, which continues to print well when required - cross fingers, spin three times and spit to foil the gremlins - probably because its 4 x individual-colour (we made sure of that) cartridge consumption is more balanced by doing only colour printing rather than heavy black-only use for docs.

*****

The Brother we got was DCP-L2530DW...

...which may be available at discount since it's been discontinued and replaced by DCP-L2660DW...

...though IMO this other current model, DCP-L2620DW...

...is better for home use.

The specs suggest it's a more direct replacement for our device, and that flat top is far less intrusive than the angled feed hopper (which also prevents use as, inevitably, a part-time shelf).

DD's Canon is Pixma MG2550S...

...and AFAIK is still current.

This info is provided for reference; we're not shilling for Brother or Canon, just passing on satisfied-customer opinions, so all of the above is IMO and YMMV

:->

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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.

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mikkeneko

PSA to fan creators who don't have a lot of regular contact with children: They are almost always bigger than you think. A 1-year-old baby may already be walking. A toddler is likely already hip-high. A 10-year-old may already be taller than at least one of their parents. A 14/15 year old may already have reached their adult height.

Here's the link. It was actually not immediately easy to find, so I thought this might help.

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