Wing Tutorial That No One Asked For

Quick editing tip: Passing time

Hey all, here’s a quick tip about showing the passage of short amounts of time in a scene. I see a lot of beats like this:

She hesitated

He paused

A few seconds later

There was a long silence

He waited for her to answer

She didn’t respond

Instead of telling us there’s a brief moment of silence or pause in your scene, try showing us by creating the feeling that time has passed through action, description, or inner monologue. Here are a few examples.

Before:

“Are you coming or not?”

He waited for her to answer, but she didn’t respond.

“Clare? Did you hear me?”

“Huh?”

After:

“Are you coming or not?”

Clare scrolled through her phone, her face illuminating with a eerie blue glow.

“Clare? Did you hear me?”

“Huh?”

Before:

Jared lingered at the suspect’s front gate. If this guy didn’t answer Jared’s questions, he was screwed.

“Hey you!” a voice shouted. “Get off my property!”

Jared hesitated. Finally, he turned to face the man. “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

After:

Jared lingered at the suspect’s front gate. If this guy didn’t answer Jared’s questions, he was screwed.

“Hey you!” a voice shouted. “Get off my property!”

Jared patted his holster. He had a gun, but he certainly didn’t want to use it. Taking a deep breath, he turned to face the man. “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

Not only does creating a pause instead of describing a pause allow your reader to feel the moment more vividly, it gives you a chance to explain what exactly that pause is about. People hesitate, pause, don’t respond, etc. for all kinds of reasons. Give us as much insight as you can into your weird quiet moment.

Of course, you don’t need to do this every single time. Sometimes it’s fine to say “he paused” or “the room was quiet for a moment”—it could be the best choice for that scene. But look back through your draft and see if you’ve used those “telling” descriptions more often than you needed to. If so, try to create the feeling of a pause—perhaps one that gives the reader a bit more information—using these techniques.

Hope this helps!

STOP DOING THIS IN INJURY FICS!!

Bleeding:

Blood is warm. if blood is cold, you’re really fucking feverish or the person is dead. it’s only sticky after it coagulates.

It smells! like iron, obv, but very metallic. heavy blood loss has a really potent smell, someone will notice.

Unless in a state of shock or fight-flight mode, a character will know they’re bleeding. stop with the ‘i didn’t even feel it’ yeah you did. drowsiness, confusion, pale complexion, nausea, clumsiness, and memory loss are symptoms to include.

blood flow ebbs. sometimes it’s really gushin’, other times it’s a trickle. could be the same wound at different points.

it’s slow. use this to your advantage! more sad writer times hehehe.

Stab wounds:

I have been mildly impaled with rebar on an occasion, so let me explain from experience. being stabbed is bizarre af. your body is soft. you can squish it, feel it jiggle when you move. whatever just stabbed you? not jiggly. it feels stiff and numb after the pain fades. often, stab wounds lead to nerve damage. hands, arms, feet, neck, all have more motor nerve clusters than the torso. fingers may go numb or useless if a tendon is nicked.

also, bleeding takes FOREVER to stop, as mentioned above.

if the wound has an exit wound, like a bullet clean through or a spear through the whole limb, DONT REMOVE THE OBJECT. character will die. leave it, bandage around it. could be a good opportunity for some touchy touchy :)

whump writers - good opportunity for caretaker angst and fluff w/ trying to manhandle whumpee into a good position to access both sites

Concussion:

despite the amnesia and confusion, people ain’t that articulate. even if they’re mumbling about how much they love (person) - if that’s ur trope - or a secret, it’s gonna make no sense. garbled nonsense, no full sentences, just a coupla words here and there.

if the concussion is mild, they’re gonna feel fine. until….bam! out like a light. kinda funny to witness, but also a good time for some caretaking fluff.

Fever:

you die at 110F. no 'oh no his fever is 120F!! ahhh!“ no his fever is 0F because he’s fucking dead. you lose consciousness around 103, sometimes less if it’s a child. brain damage occurs at over 104.

ACTUAL SYMPTOMS:

sluggishness

seizures (severe)

inability to speak clearly

feeling chilly/shivering

nausea

pain

delirium

symptoms increase as fever rises. slow build that secret sickness! feverish people can be irritable, maybe a bit of sass followed by some hurt/comfort. never hurt anybody.

ALSO about fevers - they absolutely can cause hallucinations. Sometimes these alter memory and future memory processing. they're scary shit guys.

fevers are a big deal! bad shit can happen! milk that till its dry (chill out) and get some good hurt/comfort whumpee shit.

keep writing u sadistic nerds xox love you

ALSO I FORGOT LEMME ADD ON:

YOU DIE AT 85F

sorry I forgot. at that point for a sustained period of time you're too cold to survive.

pt 2

also please stop traumadumping in the notes/tags, that's not the point of this post. it's really upsetting to see on my feed, so i'm muting the notifs for this post. if you have a question about this post, dm me, but i don't want a constant influx of traumatic stories. xox

IT'S FINISHED! I'VE FINISHED IT!

for the past few months i've been putting together a guide for writers looking to make OCs who suffer from DID, since i have a personal investment in good representation and an absurd amount of autism. and today it is FINISHED!!

it's gone up on my neocities, but i really wanted to post about it too.

here's the link

please check it out / bookmark it / share it if you're interested! if just one person finds this useful and makes art from it all my hours of hyperfixation will be worth. ok. love you

Dear downydig,

Any secret knowledge on how to do fluid and dynamic poses? (Btw, I love ur art!! So comfy and cozy!!!)

Sincerely, Paper-Starz

Hello hello! I have some advice! I did a thing on lines of action and the benefits of tracing in learning models a LONG time ago… the advice still holds up! Use shapes like ‘s’ curves, ‘c’ curves, and even sharper ‘U’s to give a fun fluid motion! Limbs and spine are the main help here, but the head sometimes comes into play ✌️

I have a little more to add, however! One of these pictures is my oc and the other is a king fu panda character but it’s still useful! When creating a pose, you can also use silhouette! Bonus points if the shape of the silhouette is different than the shapes that compose the character (in a way that matches the personality of course!)

How do you legs

Curves vs. straights baby !

I try to always think of the flow of the legs in relation to the overall posture, so getting those curves and straights into play is really handy.

I've added an extra colored line here (the green one) that I tend to do with poses that are leaning heavily, so the line of action becomes more clear and less broken up by the hip. This works best for standing poses (and is obviously not anatomically correct, it's just my preferred way of drawing bodies).

In sitting poses, the straights help to emphasize contact with the ground.

Yalright punks I made a fun lil coloring tutorial! Plz note that I don’t know shit about color theory and this is just stuff I taught myself over the years

When your Character...

Gets into: A Fight ⚜ ...Another Fight ⚜ ...Yet Another Fight

Hates Someone ⚜ Kisses Someone ⚜ Falls in Love

Calls Someone they Love ⚜ Dies / Cheats Death ⚜ Drowns

is...

A Child ⚜ Interacting with a Baby/Child ⚜ A Genius ⚜ A Lawyer

Beautiful ⚜ Dangerous ⚜ Drunk ⚜ Injured ⚜ Shy

needs...

A Magical Item ⚜ An Aphrodisiac ⚜ A Fictional Poison

To be Killed Off ⚜ To Become Likable ⚜ To Clean a Wound

To Find the Right Word, but Can't ⚜ To Say No ⚜ A Drink

loves...

Astronomy ⚜ Baking ⚜ Cooking ⚜ Cocktails ⚜ Food ⚜ Oils

Dancing ⚜ Fashion ⚜ Gems ⚜ Mythology ⚜ Numbers

Roses ⚜ Sweets ⚜ To Fight ⚜ Wine ⚜ Wine-Tasting ⚜ Yoga

has/experiences...

Allergies ⚜ Amnesia ⚜ Bereavement ⚜ Bites & Stings ⚜ Bruises

Caffeine ⚜ CO Poisoning ⚜ Color Blindness ⚜ Food Poisoning

Injuries ⚜ Jet Lag ⚜ Mutism ⚜ Pain ⚜ Poisoning

More Pain & Violence ⚜ Viruses ⚜ Wounds

[these are just quick references. more research may be needed to write your story...]

How to Paint Light by jonhuangart

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.

Bird Wing/Tail Database

If you ever need references for bird wings/tails I cannot recommend this collection enough! It has images of the dorsal/ventral sides of wings from a wide variety of species.