Satin White Palpita Moths, Palpita Flegia, Crambidae

— The Silmarillion

Paintings by Alan Lee

Cats in Planet Earth II

When a house is both hungry and awake, every room becomes a mouth. 

(poem is “ash”, by tracy k. smith)

Is there a word for that like, “bright darkness” you get in winter?? When it’s been snowing or it’s supposed to snow past sunset and the sky isn’t Dark Enough. One of my favorite things

Bassarona durga

self made prince

thecrystalkeepers

the tower —the bazaar

Hey Neyla! I hope it’s ok that I ask but is there a brush setting you prefer on procreate? I’ve been inspired by your art for eons but I can’t comprehend photoshop. You can totally disregard this if you don’t use procreate though!

Hello! I don't know how long this message's been sitting in my inbox because i didnt check in for a while 🥺 I hope you get to see this either way!

I don't use procreate unfortunately, but I can explain the settings I use for my brushes on CSP in general, and if it works like any other art software then you should have similar settings on procreate

for sketches/linework, I will very often use an opaque & slightly textured round brush. the most important for me is for the brush to have that fuzzy sort of texture that gives the impression of using a pen/marker on paper.

note that i am actually terrible when it comes to line weight, it's definitely not something i work on a lot other than in backgrounds, so I don't actually bother too much with pen pressure settings.

the only rule I abide to is to always set the minimum value above 0 (anywhere between 20-30 is what I use). this is because when I started drawing, I used to be very heavy-handed and would wear out my pens too quickly-- so setting a minimum can help you become more aware of how hard you're pressing on your pen and make gentler strokes.

another fun little setting i use is opacity: like I said, I use opaque brushes for lines, but I like to reduce a tiny bit of opacity when brushing very lightly to give that impression of pen on paper.

There's a couple more brushes I use for coloring or rendering; the major sticking point being that I don't use pen pressure to control brush size that much. If I want to make thinner/smaller strokes, I'll simply reduce the brush size because it's easier for me to control!

(also, opacity is something I'll use a lot more when I'm working on colors)

just know that this is my way of handling it, and it may not suit your style. pen pressure may be another artist's best friend, so please make sure you try out what works best for you :)

finally, some art softwares come with stabilization. I don't use it personally, unless i'm actually trying to do really smooth curves (which is practically never). stabilization can also make CSP lag a lot with higher values and large brushes. the use of stabilization doesn't make you a bad artist or a lazy one, and not using it can make your lines look a tiny bit wobbly if you're not used to doing quick strokes. use stabilization at your own leisure!

on a different note, i know this wasn't part of the question but I'm bringing this up since it's something I tend to hear from people who say they were inspired by my art (thank you by the way🥺💕!!) : don't be misled by artstyles that "make it look easy"! my sketches may look very simple and natural because i'm more adept at bringing out the essential and discarding details in a design. this is not necessarily what you want for your art style; maybe you like drawing details a lot, maybe you prefer the lazy way out going straight to the point. neither are good or bad, only what you like to do matters.

also, if you're frustrated by your work, don't be afraid to draw over it as many times as you want, adjusting things with the lasso tool or deform if something feels off then drawing over again. sometimes you'll be satisfied with your first take, and sometimes you'll need 3 bases before its acceptable (examples below)-- it all depends on your mood, energy, motivation, desired outcome, format, or even just randomness

oh and, sometimes the best way to enjoy drawing..is to find something to obsessively draw (,:

take care!