If you need a simple way to make your characters feel pain, here are some ideas:
1. Sprained Ankle
A common injury that can severely limit mobility. This is useful because your characters will have to experience a mild struggle and adapt their plans to their new lack of mobiliy. Perfect to add tension to a chase scene.
2. Rib Contusion
A painful bruise on the ribs can make breathing difficult, helping you sneak in those ragged wheezes during a fight scene. Could also be used for something sport-related! It's impactful enough to leave a lingering pain but not enough to hinder their overall movement.
3. Concussions
This common brain injury can lead to confusion, dizziness, and mood swings, affecting a character’s judgment heavily. It can also cause mild amnesia.
I enjoy using concussions when you need another character to subtly take over the fight/scene, it's an easy way to switch POVs. You could also use it if you need a 'cute' recovery moment with A and B.
4. Fractured Finger
A broken finger can complicate tasks that require fine motor skills. This would be perfect for characters like artists, writers, etc. Or, a fighter who brushes it off as nothing till they try to throw a punch and are hit with pain.
5. Road Rash
Road rash is an abrasion caused by friction. Aka scraping skin. The raw, painful sting resulting from a fall can be a quick but effective way to add pain to your writing. Tip: it's great if you need a mild injury for a child.
6. Shoulder Dislocation
This injury can be excruciating and often leads to an inability to use one arm, forcing characters to confront their limitations while adding urgency to their situation. Good for torture scenes.
7. Deep Laceration
A deep laceration is a cut that requires stitches. As someone who got stitches as a kid, they really aren't that bad! A 2-3 inch wound (in length) provides just enough pain and blood to add that dramatic flair to your writing while not severely deterring your character.
This is also a great wound to look back on since it often scars. Note: the deeper and wider the cut the worse your character's condition. Don't give them a 5 inch deep gash and call that mild.
8. Burns
Whether from fire, chemicals, or hot surfaces, burns can cause intense suffering and lingering trauma. Like the previous injury, the lasting physical and emotional trauma of a burn is a great wound for characters to look back on.
If you want to explore writing burns, read here.
9. Pulled Muscle
This can create ongoing pain and restrict movement, offering a window to force your character to lean on another. Note: I personally use muscle related injuries when I want to focus more on the pain and sprains to focus on a lack of mobility.
10. Tendonitis
Inflammation of a tendon can cause chronic pain and limit a character's ability to perform tasks they usually take for granted. When exploring tendonitis make sure you research well as this can easily turn into a more severe injury.
This is a quick, brief list of ideas to provide writers inspiration. Since it is a shorter blog, I have not covered the injuries in detail. This is inspiration, not a thorough guide. Happy writing! :)
Check out the rest of Quillology with Haya; a blog dedicated to writing and publishing tips for authors!
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Hi pigs "whale yuri Wednesday" with wings!!! I think the colors in your art are very cute nd i was wondering if you have a method with picking them? I struggle a lot with color picking when i dont have smth to work off of!
Also not an ask but you should post more about your original art/reblog it!! ocs too!! :]
well!! i don't have a specific method most of the time I'm eyeballing all of that!! but i can give some general tips on how i personally pick colours...
also: thank you 🫶🫶 ... i do not make art very often so most of the time i feel like there is nothing to post about!! but i will try to reblog my own art more often!! i have been working a lot on one oc of mine so perhaps you will see more of it :]
- i tend to first put all the colours side by side to get a sense of how they'll all look together!!
- usually i start with a very light or very dark colour that i like, and build off of that.
- after i choose a color to work off of, i tend to pick another colour that's similar to the first colour. (black and white can go well with basically every colour if you're stuck!)
i personally try to keep the colours distinct enough that you can tell it's another colour. this isn't totally necessary, it's mostly because i use a lineless style and my shapes won't be distinguishable if i don't make it clear which colour is which. for example with fhese two images - it's easier to tell between the colours on the right than the colours on the left.
specific processes here:
in the top left corner here, i chose the black, then the dark blue/dark purple, then the purple, then the light purple. they're all in the same area of the colour wheel but each one gradually progresses in brightness and moves into another area of the colour wheel.
same with the top right corner - i started with the white and chose a shade of orange that was easy to see against it. then a similar shade of yellow to pair with the orange, and then i wanted a highlight colour to stand out. since the general pattern of this colour set is bright/warm colours, we can choose another bright or warm colour that's different in brightness or shade - in this case i chose a bright green, but a bright red would have also gone nicely with this.
the bottom left and right is mostly the same as above, but finding a colour palette like the bottom right can be trickier. i started with a combination of white, cyan, and purple but thought that it looked a bit boring. so i picked a colour that wasn't blue or purple but a bright(er) red so that it stood out. could have also used bright orange/yellow/pink instead, but i think the red gives it an interesting contrast. i like to think that it's all about contrast
i tend to make colour palettes at random just for fun, so i think that practice or just putting colours together to see what looks good can also help!! some more examples below of just. colour palettes or colours that work well together
and yeah! to be honest i don't really know what i am doing but i like messing around with groups of colours. do what you want, lay down some colours that you like and most importantly have fun 👍👍👍
guys so the injury post absolutely fucking exploded (500 notes in 24 hours is a lot for me) and the fever part really threw yall for a loop.
I didn't go into it but I can! just to clear up questions.
Fevers are funky asf
like, there are so many factors that indicate when a fever is like a big deal and when it's not. part of it has to do with the age of the patient, how long the fever lasts, any causes or prexisting conditions....
Like this:
If person is feverish due to an infection, their symptoms are gonna be slightly different than someone who is fighting the flu. this is because the antibodies are attacking different parts of the nervous system with different kinds of chemicals blah de blah blah blah.
The younger the patient, the more susceptible they are. if the character is a child, a fever of 102 F is way worse than a 30 year old man experiencing that. It'll take a larger toll on the baby's body.
Some people have naturally higher body temps. There is a standard deviation away from the target temp that is still ok. Some people simply exist at 99.2 F, even though for some that's febrile.
idk man it's weird people are weird don't @ me about it.
obviously it's bio science which means not everything has exactly a clear answer. there are so mnay variables at play that it's easier just to blanket statement the whole thing.
because this isn't a blog for medical advice.
please don't use this blog for medical advice.
100% of death.
thanks guys love the effort
xox
It's genuinely super simple, so here goes! Apologies by the way if anything is unclear or glossed over. A lot of this is personal taste and such so I hope this can be a nice boost to create something!
To preface this little guide already assumes you have basic knowledge of color distribution, lineless art, or breaking up art into proper layers for later processing! I am also assuming that your art program has access to scatter brushes and tiling textures. Personally I use Clip Studio Paint, but this can work on other apps. Anyways, here are some good sites for this:
EZGIF - Free, easy gif maker for assembling any kind of gif*! It also has stuff like converting those damn WEBP's back into png.
*PLEASE KNOW THAT YOU CANNOT MAKE GIFS THAT ARE PARTIALLY TRANSPARENT. YOU MUST USE A SOLID COLOR UNDER ANY PART THAT IS OVER BARE CANVAS
Transparent Textures - Free to use source for HQ transparent textures that tile! Amazing for finding a paper texture for these if you commit to the paper doll look. Best results for textures that are in white or black!
So! You have a finished, prepared piece that you want to glitterfy. Well I'm not covering that right now so you can scroll down to That part if you came just for the glitter. This next section is for...
To start, your piece should already be separated into respective layers in any order you'd like! We're about to use a ton of clipping masks so Make sure you know your program before starting! So, as my example we have my oc Roy, resized to around... 1500x1500 or the nearest equivalent Smaller is better because it brings out the texture! He looks a little ah...Flat, though right now?
I'm using this guy for a couple different reasons! Those being:
Roy has translucent bodyparts! Just so you will know what to do with characters who are translucent! I'll get to this in a moment so sit tight
He has a clear, defined, and distinct palette that is easy to pick a color to slap the glitter on! This is important because I personally find balance to be the most appealing part of the finished art.
He also just has a lot of doohickeys on his design.
This is where you need your transparent texture! You can use any kind of texture and I encourage experimentation and such, but I personally use a simple paper texture. What we are going to do is go through and clip our imported and tiled texture to each applicable layer! (Make sure to just Copy and Paste the layer you do NOT need to repeatedly go through this menu...)
And... When you are done, you should have something like this:
"But why don't I just clip the texture to the entire piece through a folder? Why go through the hassle of clipping to each individual layer?"
Well that's because of the next step, where we will be adding the shadows. If we don't clip each individual layer, your shadows will look like this example on the left which sort of just ruins the 3D effect and kinda just looks icky, as opposed to this, which is nicer and smoother.
Now I'm no lighting wiz! In fact I'm rather mediocre at best but some general tips for adding the shadows:
Try to keep your shadows going all in one direction mostly! It gives the effect of one light source and generally just looks better than if you shaded around ALL edges everywhere.
Try to only shade where there are parts overlapping that need the dimension! Overdoing it can make the piece look odd. It's especially helpful to separate any details like different shades of hair, layers of hair, etc so that you can put as much volume as you want.
Once the shadows are all added in you should have something that looks like this:
Which looks good! Now I'd sometimes stop here if I can't pinpoint how I'd like the glitter to sit or if I think the piece just doesn't need it, but we're moving on to the big important steps!
This part is entirely up to your taste! But I'll describe how I do my glitter stuff. Firstly I start out by identifying which color I want to pop out. For Roy here I chose the red parts! For your character it may be different. Experimentation is key!
This is also, however where you need that scatter brush I mentioned earlier. Personally I just use the default CSP spray brush, but again go wild!
Make a folder above your piece, set its blending mode to glow dodge (or add, or add glow depending on what options you have), and create three layers inside of this folder. Setting the folder to clip is optional right now but will be needed later.
Then, fill each glitter layer with your choice of particle in whatever color looks good! Yes, you can do gradients and other stuff on the particles too! World's your oyster.
^ Unclipped example of a glitter layer.
Glitter tips for the early 2000's webcore enthusiast:
Use different strokes and patterns for the glitter distribution! This helps it animate better by moving around. For example this time I went diagonally for the first, horizontally for the second, and then in loose circles for the third. Particle density and stuff is also completely up to you.
Use a color that would pop against the intended area! For Roy I used an orange-ish yellow since it compliments both blue and red.
So now we have the layers! This is where clipping is our best friend once again! You're just going to go in and clip the glitter to whatever layers you want it on. Entire folder, not just one of the layers!
Once that's all done, go through and toggle the respective glitter layer for the frame, saving individual copies when done. You should end up with 3 identical images with different glitter distribution.
Open up your frames all in one canvas, stacked on top of eachother (no jittering or slight displacement! ON TOP of eachother!)
Our layout should look something like this...Note how the translucent parts are rather hard to see, well if you took your frames and put them in EZgif, they'd be gone entirely! That's because you physically cannot have a partially translucent gif due to technology limitations. So an easy little cleanup thing I did was:
Make sure you do not miss any gaps! I personally missed the gap between the arm, leg, and lanyard and I had to redo this next step...
You can now save individual frames of your character with the fill so that they don't go bald when you move on to the next step! Again, you should have 3 frames.
This is nice and easy. Upload your three frames into EZGIF and wait for it to process. It'll look like this if you're in the right place.
Once things have loaded, make sure to change the settings to the following:
FRAME DELAY: 0 (this is how fast the frames move.)
DON'T STACK FRAMES: ENABLED
You can play around with this but I generally leave everything else alone because you don't need it. Just hit the make a gif button and you're all done!
Aaaand that's it! If you've read this far...Firstly thank you for dealing with my rambliness and horrible explanation skills. Secondly, I hope that this can come in handy for anyone interested! Would love to see if anyone puts this to use. n_n
50 Questions ⚜ "Well-Rounded Character" Worksheet
Basics: How to Write a Character ⚜ A Story-Worthy Hero
Basics: Character-Building ⚜ Character Creation
Key Characters ⚜ Literary Characters ⚜ Morally Grey Characters
5 Personality Traits (OCEAN) ⚜ 16 Personality Traits (16PF)
600+ Personality Traits
East vs. West Personalities ⚜ Trait Theories
Character Issues
Character Tropes for Inspiration
Tips from Rick Riordan
Allegorical Characters
Binge ED
Childhood Bilingualism ⚜ Children's Dialogue ⚜ On Children
Culture ⚜ Culture: Two Views ⚜ Culture Shock
Emotional Intelligence ⚜ Genius (Giftedness)
Emotions ⚜ Anger ⚜ Fear ⚜ Happiness ⚜ Sadness
Facial Expressions
Fantasy Creatures
Happy/Excited Body Language ⚜ Laughter & Humor
Hate ⚜ Love
Health ⚜ Frameworks of Health
Identifying Character Descriptions
Jargon ⚜ Logical Fallacies ⚜ Memory
Mutism ⚜ Shyness
Parenting Styles
Psychological Reactions to Unfair Behavior
Rhetoric ⚜ The Rhetorical Triangle
Swearing & Taboo Expressions
Thinking ⚜ Thinking Styles ⚜ Thought Distortions
Uncommon Words: Body ⚜ Emotions
Voice & Accent
Writing References: Plot ⚜ World-building
just saw another fic that completely misunderstood elementary schoolers. going to make a post as soon as my shift is done
Apparently a lot of people get dialogue punctuation wrong despite having an otherwise solid grasp of grammar, possibly because they’re used to writing essays rather than prose. I don’t wanna be the asshole who complains about writing errors and then doesn’t offer to help, so here are the basics summarized as simply as I could manage on my phone (“dialogue tag” just refers to phrases like “he said,” “she whispered,” “they asked”):
“For most dialogue, use a comma after the sentence and don’t capitalize the next word after the quotation mark,” she said.
“But what if you’re using a question mark rather than a period?” they asked.
“When using a dialogue tag, you never capitalize the word after the quotation mark unless it’s a proper noun!” she snapped.
“When breaking up a single sentence with a dialogue tag,” she said, “use commas.”
“This is a single sentence,” she said. “Now, this is a second stand-alone sentence, so there’s no comma after ‘she said.’”
“There’s no dialogue tag after this sentence, so end it with a period rather than a comma.” She frowned, suddenly concerned that the entire post was as unasked for as it was sanctimonious.
hey i hope its okay to ask but i was wondering what your process for art looks like? you have a really unique style thats like. somewhat eyestrainy but still soft looking and i'm just curious because it is very tasty
Got super long winded so check under cut :]
also this is for my more.. recent art? for more of my older stuff I made THIS a while back <- the prev thing also has a lot more actual discussion on the Whys of color choices and the like. More informative? I actually cared a lot more about making things look nice back than HAHA
Sometimes I will stop here [most of the time actually [or a bit before [forgoing colored lines]]]
And again, liable to stop at Any of these points. [exept Only flat colors that looks boring as hell HAHA]
Finished product VVV
Do you have any tips to give when it comes to designing characters? Especially regarding clothing?
oh my goodness okay so… first of all, keep in mind your character’s setting, personality, their culture, et cetera.
Is the area they live in warm or cold? Do they prefer to be warm or cold? Are they insecure about their body or do they just prefer to dress more modestly? Are they willing to show off some skin?
do they like tight, thick clothing or do they hate feeling restricted? Do they want stiffness or do they want to feel the wind blow through their sleeves and pants? Keep in mind your characters abilities/hobbies/job, et cetera! If they do a lot of things that require agility and mobility, make sure they don’t wear anything that could restrict their movements. They need to be able to move quick and freely.
finally, shape language! Do you want your character to feel stiff or loose? Soft or rigid? Somewhere in the middle? Do you want your character to feel strong? Shy? Gloomy? Approachable?
For stronger, firm characters, I recommend angular, boxy clothing. Padded shoulders and straight slacks and skirts are good for portraying this! For approachable, kind characters, loose fabric that is light and flows with the breeze is good, and long, heavier fabrics are good for shy or gloomy characters. Here’s cosmic as an example and then a few other characters!
Note how Saturn’s coat takes up a lot of space, makes their shoulders seem squared as if they’re holding their head higher than the others. It makes them seem firm and bold, and confident! They also stand out more because of the contrast of the cooler blue hues in their arms(legs?) against the warmer, beige tones in their coat and the warm brown in their hair.
Seraph’s clothes are loose and lighter, don’t take up as much space as Saturn’s—however some parts still do! His wings, halos and his sleeves, for example, are extremely long! This is because while he is not as bold and loud, as strong and confident as Saturn, he still carries himself with a lot of comfortability and pride. His design also is more eye-catching because of the stark contrast between the dark purple of his belt, the white in his toga and the browns in his skin and hair!
Aster, meanwhile, is generally much smaller than the other 2 and gets drowned out a little bit by the weight of her hair and clothes. Her skirt also pools around her feet, tethering her to the ground almost! Shes got much softer edges than the others 2 and takes up as little space as possible—her clothes are also much darker and muted compared to the others 2—also, all her clothes are much heavier and weighed down, they’re very droopy which portrays a much more gloomy vibe.
*edit, playing into the temperature thing; Tycho is super cold! It’s always snowing there. Saturn is cold-blooded so they have to dress warmer, whilst Seraph is somewhat of a walking space heater. Aster might not look too dressed for winter but her skirt is removable and doubles as a cloak! She has pants underneath. :]
other examples include!!
Misery from Ruby Gloom! Misery is a very anxious and melancholy character, and she’s very hesitant to do anything out of fear of causing problems. Her clothing design reflects this! She’s much darker compared to the rest of the cast and almost all of herself save for her face is hidden. Her colours are also much more muted and dull, and there isn’t as much contrast between them as there is with characters like Ruby or Frank and Len. All of her clothes are long and hang down and, much like Aster, tether her to the ground. She also takes up a little less space than almost the entire rest of the cast.
Another example is Hobie Brown/Spiderpunk! His clothing is all very angular and dramatic, with a lot of rigid lines and sharp edges, as well as stiff, heavy fabrics like leather and denim. Hobie is a very unapologetically confident character! I won’t go into too much detail because I’m quite sure everybody knows who he is, but he’s extremely nonconformist and a complete anarchist, and is quite proud about it. Even though most of his clothes are in darker, muted hues, his design is very loud and hard to ignore. Also the classic blue and red of almost every Spider-Man design is just as smart, as they’re (almost) completely contrasting colours, so they still catch your eye.
Lastly is Darryl from TGaMM! While he’s a little shit sometimes, he’s ultimately still a good friend and brother to Molly, and is generally just having fun without any malice in mind. He’s very laid back and approachable, but not as excitable as Molly! (Important; Molly's design is much more rigid and high-contrast compared to Darryl’s! Darryl’s colour palette is more muted and harmonious while Molly’s is a little more all over the place, though it’s still not an eyesore. You feel me?)
I hope this helped! If you have any more questions that I didn’t answer or if you need me to elaborate on something feel completely free to let me know!!
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