kisseswithtusks:

guardofvariansbutt:

guardofvariansbutt:

Okay I’m going to make a proper post about this. DO NOT BIND WITH ACE BANDAGES. DO NOT DRAW CHARACTERS BINDING WITH ACE BANDAGES. CIS OR TRANS! 

But I can’t afford a binder! 

I’m really sorry your financial situation is crummy, but ace bandages are really hurtful to your body. In the mean time if you’re small chested enough you can use a sports bra or a ‘chest compressor’ shirt which doesn’t work as well as a binder, but it hides most of it. 

I’m cosplaying on a budget 

Look above. If you have bigger breasts you might just need to buy a binder if you really want to bind your chest a lot. Health is one thing you shouldn’t budget on

My family won’t let me get one

This is a more personal response since every household situation is different, especially in abusive ones. If you’re old enough maybe you have a friends house you can ship the binder to so your family doesn’t see it? Or if you can try the tips above but don’t tell them its because you’re trying to bind? Obviously most important don’t do anything that will put you in harms way and talk to someone you trust about the situation. 

It makes my character look cool!

You know what doesn’t look cool? Injured breasts, broken and misshapen ribs and life long scaring. 

Its just art and its fake so why is it so bad?

People will see it and think its okay to bind with ace bandages because they don’t know better.  

But my character is a cis female?

Still not okay for the same reasons above!

My character is a fighter so her/their boobs get in the way.

Ace bandages hurt and compress not expand, making it hard to breathe. They also slip off so your poor character will be gasping for air and suffering from extreme aches and pains every fight. It costs $0 to write/draw a character using a proper binder or safe alternatives. 

Reblogging again because people were asking me about this post again

I know this isn’t specifically about orcs, but it’s so common for me to see images of Orcs and half-orcs depicted using unsafe binding methods that I had to add a “content warning for unsafe binding practices” tag to my posts in order to try and warn against it. 

Binding, regardless of the reason, has to be done safely. It can cause permanent and irreparable damage to the body when done incorrectly. Please do not depict your characters using bandages or any other unsafe improvised binders, as it could encourage the uninformed to try the same in real life while unaware of the risks. 

No matter what you or your character’s identity is, bind safely.

My Biggest and Most Annoying Fictional Horse Pet Peeve

elodieunderglass:

slavicafire:

jasmiinitee:

Big Horses are a Very New Thing and they Likely Didn’t Exist in your Historical and/or Fantasy Settings.

You’ve all seen it in every historical piece of media ever produced. Contrary to popular belief, a big black horse with long legs and long flowing mane is not a widespread or even a particularly old type of horse.

image

THIS IS NOT A MEDIEVAL THING. THIS IS NOT EVEN A BAROQUE THING. THIS IS A NINETEENTH CENTURY CITY CARRIAGE HORSE.

All the love to fancy Friesian horses, but your Roman general or Medieval country heroine just really couldn’t, wouldn’t, and for the sake of my mental health shouldn’t have ridden one either.

Big warmblood horses are a Western European and British invention that started popping up somewhere around 1700s when agriculture and warfare changed, and when rich folks wanted Bigger Faster Stronger Thinner race horses.
The modern warmblood and the big continental draught both had their first real rise to fame in the 1800s when people started driving Fancy Carriages everywhere, and having the Fanciest Carriage started to mean having the Tallest and Thinnest Horses in the town.

Before mechanised weaponry and heavy artillery all horses used to be small and hardy easy-feeders. Kinda like a donkey but easier to steer and with a back that’s not as nasty and straight to sit on.

SOME REAL MEDIEVAL, ROMAN, OTTOMAN, MONGOL, VIKING, GREEK and WHATEVER HISTORICALLY PLAUSIBLE HORSES FOR YOU:

“Primitive”, native breeds all over the globe tend to be only roughly 120-140 cm (12.0 – 13.3 hh) tall at the withers. They all also look a little something like this:

Mongolian native horse (Around 120-130 at the withers, and decendants of the first ever domesticated horses from central Asia. Still virtually unchanged from Chinggis Khan’s cavalry, ancestor to many Chinese, Japanese and Indian horses, and bred for speed racing and surviving outdoors without the help of humans.)

image

Carpathian native horse / Romanian and Polish Hucul Pony (Around 120-150 at the withers, first mentioned in writing during the 400s as wild mountain ponies, depicted before that in Trajanian Roman sculptures, used by the Austro-Hungarian cavalry in the 19th century)

image

Middle-Eastern native horse / Caspian Pony (Around 100-130 at the withers, ancestor of the Iranian Asil horse and its decendants, including the famous Arabian and Barb horses, likely been around since Darius I the Great, 5th century BC, and old Persian kings are often depicted riding these midgets)

image

Baltic Sea native horse / Icelandic, Finnish, Estonian, Gotland and Nordland horses (Around 120-150 at the withers, descendant of Mongolian horses, used by viking traders in 700-900 AD and taken to Iceland. Later used by the Swedish cavalry in the 30 years war and by the Finnish army in the Second World War, nowadays harness racing and draught horses)

image

Siberian native horse / Yakutian pony (Around 120-140 at the withers, related to Baltic and Mongolian horses and at least as old, as well-adapted to Siberian climate as woolly mammoths once were, the hairiest horse there is, used in draught work and herding)

image

Mediterranean native horse / Skyros pony, Sardinian Giara, Monterufolino (Around 100-140 at the Withers, used and bred by ancient Greeks for cavalry use, influenced by African and Eastern breeds, further had its own influence on Celtic breeds via Roman Empire, still used by park ranger officers in Italy)

image

British Isles’ native horse / various “Mountain & Moorland” pony breeds (Around 100-150 at the withers, brought over and mixed by Celts, Romans and Vikings, base for almost every modern sport pony and the deserving main pony of all your British Medieval settings. Some populations still live as feral herds in the British countryside, used as war mounts, draught horses, mine pit ponies, hunting help and race horses)

image

So hey, now you know!

I love this so much – and now I know why Tall Lanky Thin horses have a terryfying vibe to them, and the “primitive” native pony-like breeds awake in me only hope and trust.

such valid historical finger-eaters here

meanoldhag:

pikestaff:

ouijubell:

halftruthsandhyperbole:

Today I learned

Free Audiobooks and Ebooks on OVERDRIVE.

Free Graphic Novels (DC, Marvel, Image, etc), Music, TV shows, and music on HOOPLA.

Free music that you can KEEP on FREEGAL

You are PAYING for all this with your tax money – USE THEM. Most likely systems will have all 3 or 2 out of 3, so if you aren’t sure call your local library’s reference/information desk and how you can get set-up or started.

Helpful links to all of the above:

Overdrive: https://www.overdrive.com/

Hoopla: https://www.hoopladigital.com/

Freegal: https://www.freegalmusic.com/home

More places to find FREE EBOOKS:

Standard eBooks (basically stuff off of Project Gutenberg, but prettified)

Baen Free Library

Book Bub – Free eBooks and Free Kindle books

Bubblin Books

Useful if you’re an ebook power user: Calibre

many libraries also give you access to KANOPY which has free movies (mostly documentaries but last i checked Moonlight was on there!)

thegoddesswater:

coelasquid:

hollowlaughter:

thelonelyampora:

ATTENTION COSPLAYERS:

I would like to make the paint brand “Angelus” known. It is a special paint that is for leather, faux leather, rubber, and similar surfaces.

This is literally the best paint you can buy if you love a pair of shoes, but they aren’t in the right color for your character.

This stuff coats VERY well AND the coats of paint bend with your shoes. This means no cracking!!

In the photos above I took black rain boots and painted them with Angelus Turquoise. As you can see, they don’t look black any more! It’s so good!

I managed to paint two boots with a little one ounce bottle of the paint, and I still have a third of the bottle left over!

The paint dries very fast, so you can put layer on top of layer on top of layer without it streaking.

You can get the paint on Amazon and it comes in every color!

I just really wanted to make this known!! 😀 This stuff is amazing!

https://angelusdirect.com/collections/paint

Don’t buy Angelus pain’t on Amazon, it’s like $6.99 an ounce. Buy it direct from their online store the poster above linked, the single ounce bottles are $2.95 there. Also, a little goes a long way, unless you have something HUGE to paint, you can probably do it with a small bottle. I barely dented the one I got doing all the black on this;

Things I wish I had known last year.

How to put “wrote fan-fiction” on your résumé:

fivewrites:

fivewrites:

xeno-lalia:

resumespeak:

Leveraged an inventory of established fictional character and setting elements to generate a disruptive custom-curated narrative entertainment asset.

I worked in HR, handling applications and interviews, and if someone turned in that string of techno babble nonsense, I would have rejected them out of hand.

A resume doesn’t need to sound fancy or overly technical, it needs to tell us why we should hire you.

“Independent novelist/writer” is more than sufficient here. If you want to express the skills that fan fiction taught you, something like, “creative writing, editing, and publication,” will get you a lot further than… Whatever that just was.

A resume should be tailored to the position, if you can afford the time and energy for that. But if not, then just think about what writing got fandom taught you. How to respond to criticism, how to present a professional pubic face, how to correct punished mistakes, creative thinking, project planning, persuasion via emotional leverage, html formatting, office suite fluency.

There are a lot of actual, marketable skills that go into fan fiction.

How to put “I was in a zine” on your resume

Writer:

  • Published short fiction stories for anthology collection
    • Able to write short fiction within a designated word count for layout purposes (900-1500 words, 1500-2000, 3000-5000)
  • Wrote short articles for independent publication
  • Assisted with editing short stories for publication
    • Able to reduce or expand written content based on layout needs
    • Able to check for basic spelling, grammar and syntax
  • Familiar with Microsoft Office and Google docs

Artist:

  • Produced full-colour digital illustration for independent magazine
    • Able to produce digital illustrations optimized for both online and print display
  • Produced full-colour 2-page spread for art anthology
  • Published 4-page short comic in anthology collection for charity
    • Able to transfer traditional art to digital illustration
  • Illustrated the cover (always brag if you’re on the cover) of an independent art publication
  • Familiar with professional illustration tools such as Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Clip Studio Paint and stylus tablet

Merch artist / graphic designer:

  • Designed 2″ clear decorative double-sided keychain charm as bonus sale item
  • Designed 5″ x 6″ sheet of graphic stickers included in art anthology
    • Able to design bold graphics that are measured for laser cutting production
  • Designed layouts for 65-page art and writing magazine, focusing on (art placement, text layout, etc)
    • Able to keep layout design simple and in accordance with the project director’s chosen theme
  • Created promotional art, icons and banners tailored for social media sites like Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, etc
  • Familiar with professional layout and design software such as Adobe Illustrator and InDesign

Running a zine

  • Produced an independent art and writing collection for sale / for charity
  • Managed (10, 20, 30) independent artists and writers out of over 500 applicants to create a short-run independent magazine
  • Worked in online sales and social media promotion selling an independent comics anthology
  • If it’s really spectacular you can brag about specific numbers
    • Our book raised over $4,000 for charity in under six months of production
    • We sold over 750 copies in two weeks of online sales
  • Produced a digital PDF and printed version of anthology, mailing to recipients all over the world
  • Communicated with printers and manufacturers of plastic accessories and paper goods, assembling professional packages of our merchandise for mailing.
  • Built a custom digital storefront and navigated professional market and payment systems including Paypal and Tictail / Bigcartel / Wix etc
  • Created promotional events to boost sales, including raffles and giveaways over social media
  • Organized participants through mass emails and use of social media posts on tumblr and twitter
  • Familiar with organizational software such as Microsoft Excel, Google spreadsheets and Trello

Added some more

highlanderburial:

chofee:

squigglydigg:

mercurialmalcontent:

ask-xion:

flatbear:

foervraengd:

Every artist who sees this post should do the following:

– Watch the video.

– Follow the instructions

– Reblog

I can’t stress you enough about how important these exercises are for your drawing hand. You don’t wanna get CTS of Tendonitis and similar stuff that will prevent you from making art or even hold  a pencil.

Okay, this guy is my HERO. I just did these exercises as I watched the video, and already my arms and hands feel better. I have a degenerative tendon disease that prevents my muscles, tendons and ligaments from retaining their elasticity, and so anything that maintains the health of my bendy parts is important.

I URGE YOU. Even if you don’t draw, do these several times a day. Even just sitting at a computer can do serious damage. My dad, who was a rugby player, a carpenter, and now a handyman, suffered from severe carpal tunnel syndrome, simply as a result of sitting at the computer at the end of the day to play a little solitaire. Don’t let it happen to you!

((Guys, I will reblog this like, 5 times a day just so you all will see this. This is REALLY helpful, and it’s quick and easy.))

Wow, these are REALLY helpful. And yes, this is not just good but IMPORTANT for more than artists — if you type a lot, play a lot of video games, do anything that requires lots of repetitive movements of your hands, wrists, and arms (gardening, sewing, factory work), these can help. Even if you don’t yet get pain these are a great preventative measure, because the damage builds up over time. Youth is no protection.

And like he says, you should feel a stretch, but don’t push it too far!

Signal boosting.  Guys, I just did this and holy cow do I feel incredibly light and limber in my arms.  Again, even if you don’t have any sort of disease, do this as a preventative measure.

guys, i have carpal tunnel, and work a job where i have to type for 8 hours, and also draw sometimes. these are awesome. also this pdf is magical as well.

Great for model builders too!