Wanted To Draw My Probe Gijinka With Space Animals ... The Stories Of All These Animals, What Roads They

wanted to draw my probe gijinka with space animals ... the stories of all these animals, what roads they paved, aswell as the costs that came with that, really sit with me and i like to think that their souls still wander the universe.

i also really wanted to draw juice and felicette because theyre both french .

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17776 Noris’s Dope

Scary Space Stories to Tell in the Dark

The universe is full of dazzling sights, but there’s an eerie side of space, too. Nestled between the stars, shadowy figures lurk unseen. The entire galaxy could even be considered a graveyard, full of long-dead stars. And it’s not just the Milky Way – the whole universe is a bit like one giant haunted house! Our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will illuminate all kinds of spine-chilling cosmic mysteries when it launches in 2027, but for now settle in for some true, scary space stories.

This comic style animation shows the front of the Roman spacecraft with a cartoon eye staring ahead and a lit candle in the foreground. The comic shifts back and forth between two frames with different lighting, making it appear as though the flame is flickering.

Flickering Lights

One of the first signs that things are about to get creepy in a scary movie is when the lights start to flicker. That happens all the time in space, too! But instead of being a sinister omen, it can help us find planets circling other stars.

A faint grid pattern is overlaid on a black background. In the upper-middle, a yellow orb appears to sink into this grid. Lines extend outward from it in every direction. A smaller yellow orb and an even smaller green one pass from the left to the right of the center of the screen together. As they move across, they bend the yellow lines of the farther star's light. A faint green circle in the lower-middle of the screen briefly brightens when all of the objects are aligned in the middle of the screen.

Roman will stare toward the heart of our galaxy and watch to see when pairs of stars appear to align in the sky. When that happens, the nearer star – and orbiting planets – can lens light from the farther star, creating a brief brightening. That’s because every massive object warps the fabric of space-time, changing the path light takes when it passes close by. Roman could find around 1,000 planets using this technique, which is called microlensing.

The mission will also see little flickers when planets cross in front of their host star as they orbit and temporarily dim the light we receive from the star. Roman could find an additional 100,000 planets this way!

Two objects in the foreground of this comic style graphic are each covered in a white sheet with black eyes, giving them a ghostly appearance. The parts that stick out hint at each object's true identity; the smaller Roman "ghost" has a communications antenna sticking out from the top while the Webb "ghost" has its primary mirror poking out of one eye and bits of the sunshield showing out of the bottom edges of the sheet. A jack-o-lantern trick-or-treat basket hangs from one corner of the Webb spacecraft. A swirl of stars decorates the gray background of the image.

Galactic Ghosts

Roman is going to be one of the best ghost hunters in the galaxy! Since microlensing relies on an object’s gravity, not its light, it can find all kinds of invisible specters drifting through the Milky Way. That includes rogue planets, which roam the galaxy alone instead of orbiting a star…

This animation starts with a star-studded sky in which the band of the Milky Way is prominent. A small, dark, circular object grows larger as it moves closer, eventually nearly filling the image. Its close approach reveals it to be a spinning gas giant world, covered in bands of clouds. The animation pans to watch the world fly by. The planet grows smaller as it recedes.

…and solo stellar-mass black holes, which we can usually only find when they have a visible companion, like a star. Astronomers think there should be 100 million of these black holes in our galaxy.

This comic style graphic shows a skeletal Roman spacecraft with a tattered deployable aperture cover on a dark gray background.

Stellar Skeletons

Black holes aren’t the only dead stars hiding in the sky. When stars that aren’t quite massive enough to form black holes run out of fuel, they blast away their outer layers and become neutron stars. These stellar cores are the densest material we can directly observe. One sugar cube of neutron star material would weigh about 1 billion tons (or 1 trillion kilograms) on Earth! Roman will be able to detect when these extreme objects collide.

This infographic shows how the life cycle of stars depend on their mass. At the top left, there is a small, yellow, Sun-like star. An arrow points from it to a slightly larger orange star, and another arrow then points to a very small white dwarf star. Beneath this row, a medium-sized orb labeled "massive star" glows blue. An arrow points from it to a larger orange star, and another points to a tiny white neutron star. The bottom row starts with a large, very massive blue star. An arrow points to an even larger orange star, and another points to a small black hole - a tiny black circle with a faintly glowing ring around it. The bottom of the graphic says "The fate of a star depends on its mass (size not to scale)."

Smaller stars like our Sun have less dramatic fates. After they run out of fuel, they swell up and shrug off their outer layers until only a small, hot core called a white dwarf remains. Those outer layers may be recycled into later generations of stars and planets. Roman will explore regions where new stars are bursting to life, possibly containing the remnants of such dead stars.

Silvery threads form a hexagonal, web-like pattern on a dark gray background in this comic-style graphic. The Roman spacecraft appears to be caught in the web.

Cosmic Cobwebs

If we zoom out far enough, the structure of space looks like a giant cobweb! The cosmic web is the large-scale backbone of the universe, made up mainly of a mysterious substance known as dark matter and laced with gas, upon which galaxies are built. Roman will find precise distances for more than 10 million galaxies to map the structure of the cosmos, helping astronomers figure out why the expansion of the universe is speeding up.

This animation starts with a network of glowing purple galaxies. The screen is almost completely covered by them. Then the view shifts as though we are moving forward through space. Bright clumps of galaxies connected by faint, smoky tendrils pass by on every side.

Learn more about the exciting science this mission will investigate on Twitter and Facebook.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

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Reblogging only because I find the Roman art cute :3 Roman stuck in the web to be exact

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norisowll

1 year ago

Tips for taking & pricing commissions

I very frequently give the same advice in the discords that I'm in so I thought I'd just go ahead and write a post collecting it all!

Pricing commissions

It's very difficult to look at your art and try and determine some arbitrary value and end up with a price that is not only fair but also something you can live off of. You could try asking others to arbitrarily value your art, but they're going to struggle just as much.

So let me detail a much more practical method for determining your prices. First, answer these questions:

Will this be your primary source of income?

Are you a bill payer?

Option 1 - You don't pay bills:

Look up the living wage in your area, multiply it by 2, and that will be your hourly rate.

If your area doesn't have an established living wage, look up the average living costs of your area and go to option 3.

Why do I say to double it? Because the living wage is calculated based on an 8 hour work day, and studies show that a 4 hour work day is more efficient and practical and that there is nothing to be gained from working beyond that. So, twice the rate, half the hours.

I say living wage over minimum wage because, really, the living wage should be the minimum. You should be earning enough money to live off of.

Taking commissions means you're setting your own rates and hours. While you specifically may not currently be paying bills, you will be one day & the prices you set have an influence on what prices will be considered normal for everyone. Take that opportunity to improve the industry for us all by setting an example on fair pricing!

Option 2 - You do pay bills, but this is not your primary source of income:

Then any commissioned work you do is you working overtime. Take the living wage x2 or your current wage (whichever is higher), and then multiply that by 1.5x to give yourself an overtime wage, and this will be your hourly rate.

If you're taking commissions because your job is not enough to cover your bills, take the amount you're short on each month plus some extra to cover one off things you might need to buy and save up for, then decide how many hours you can spare to work on commissions each month, and divide that total by those hours.

E.g. lets say you could do with an extra £100 each month and can spare an hour a week for commission work, that'd give you an hourly rate of £25. Compare that to the overtime wage we calculated before, and take whichever is higher.

Option 3 - You do pay bills, and this will be your primary source of income:

Calculate your living costs for a month, plus some extra for anything you might need to buy and save up, and divide that by 80 to get your hourly rate. Compare it to the living wage x2, and take whichever is higher.

Do some tests and time yourself while you work

Use the work timer tool that can be found here:

Neil Cicierega Tumblr.

Here is a very simple little app I wrote in AutoHotkey for Windows to help productivity. The artists I've attempted to give this to were hor

and calculate how long it takes you on average to finish pieces.

Then, add at least 2 hours onto that time to account for correspondence, research, and getting familiar with unfamiliar designs (add more if you think this will take you more time, you know yourself. This is all work, and therefore should be included in the price)

Once you have your times, multiply them by your hourly rate, and you have your base prices.

For example, the living wage for me is £9.90. For the sake of simplicity, I will round that up (don't ever round down) then double it, giving me an hourly rate of £20. If it takes me 2-3 hours with correspondence to finish a character bust, I should then charge £40 - £60 for it.

On discounted rates for multiple characters:

Don't do this.

For one, it makes it confusing for the client in terms of figuring out at a glance how much something will cost them. And for two, you are doing more work for less. It's not worth it!

Avoid making your clients having to do percentage calculations when figuring out how much it's going to cost them, in general.

While it might seem like it would make multi-character commissions more appealing, making it easier to calculate prices is what will actually make that more appealing!

Charge extra for complicated designs & requests

Make a note in your terms & info that these are a base estimate price, and that more complicated designs and pieces may cost more. Also note that multiple revisions may incur additional charges.

Sometimes you might get a client who asks you to redraw things repeatedly, even after giving the go ahead with the sketch... If this happens, charge them for it. You deserve to be paid for the extra hours they are making you work.

Taking Commissions

I recommend taking your commissions through a google form or similar:

A screenshot of a google form. The text reads:
Section 2 of 2, Commission Details.

There are 3 questions visible. One is a drop down answer asking what type of commission, one is a number scale for the number of characters requested, and one is a file upload for references.

It allows you to ask all the questions you need answers to in order to determine if this is a commission you're willing and able to take on, without having to go through some awkward small talk as you try and get this information out of your potential client.

It also makes the process easier for your client, as they can simply fill out your form to tell you about the commission you want without having to cold message you about it and try and figure out what details are important to tell you and what aren't.

Additionally, when using google forms, you can get the advanced form notifications forms addon to automatically email your potential clients after they've filled out the form. (Just be aware that if, like me, you're using firefox the settings do not currently work on FF, you'll need to manage those through another browser but it should only be a one time setup anyway).

I have the advanced form notifications set up to send a confirmation email to my clients that I will then reply to when I reach them on my list, and also an email sent to myself to let me know that I've recieved a new submission.

I use gmail, so I also have it set up to automatically label the confirmation email with an "incomplete" label so I can view all pending commissions in one place.

Optional, but I also have my form linked to a spreadsheet. You can mirror the contents of the response sheet onto another sheet using an array formula, allowing you to style it and by using conditional formatting and checkboxes, you can do stuff like this:

A screenshot of a colour coded spreadsheet. The text is partially obscured in places for privacy reasons, but there are 5 checkboxes: Contacted, Half Paid, Completed, Fully Paid, and No response/rejected. After this are answers to various questions like type of commission and number of characters

---

The way I have my google form set up is the first section reiterates my terms and conditions and requires that the potential client accepts these terms before proceeding onto the next page.

Speaking of, a very important part of taking commissions is your terms. Here are some base terms I would recommend:

I reserve the right to refuse any commission for any reason without question. [This protects you from any kind of client or commission that makes you uncomfortable.]

Clients are not permitted, under any circumstances, to use any part of their commissioned artwork for non fungible tokens. Use of the artwork for any advertising or profits associated with non fungible tokens or cryptocurrency is strictly prohibted. [Self explanatory, but sadly important to include now]

I reserve the right to display the commissioned piece on my website(s), online galleries, and in my portfolios. (If the character is an original character, you will be credited accordingly) [This just lets you post your work on your social media and the like.]

You may use the commissioned work for personal use only (this includes avatars, signatures, wallpapers, etc.), but credit must be given.

I reserve the rights of to the artwork, so you may not use the commissioned work for any projects (commercial or nonprofit) without express permission, nor redistribute the artwork as your own. [This protects you from people commissioning you and then profiting off of your work. Commercial commissions should be handled differently with a proper contract & you should charge 3x your base price for it at minimum.]

Accepting payments

I recommend using PayPal invoices to manage your payments. You can set up an invoice template and then and create an itemised list of all your charges, require a minimum of 50% payment upfront, and allow for tips.

You'll then have a record of your commission payments for tax purposes, and you'll be protected from fraudulent clients and chargebacks. Just make sure you disable shipping if you're not sending them a physical piece!

A screenshot of a paypal invoice annotated to say "enter your customers email, and then if this is a digital piece, make sure to disable shipping." "Create an itemised list of all the charges that make up the total price." "Allow partial payments, set it to 50% of the total, and allow tips." "Reiterate your terms and conditions."

On your commission info or in your terms, make it clear that you require 50% of the payment upfront before you will begin working on the commission.

This protects you from scams where a "client" will make you complete a commission and then never pay for it, but also gives your clients the security that you won't take all the money and run, either.

Here is an example of what to write irt your payment and process from my own info:

A screenshot from my commission info page. It reads:
Pricing, Payment, and Process

I will only be doing portraits & half-body pieces, without or featuring minimal backgrounds, as seen in the samples above.

The price will vary depending on the complexity of the piece and the designs of the character(s). There is no specific limit on how many characters may be in a piece, but additional characters will not be discounted and will be priced accordingly. I will send you a price quote when I contact you from my waitlist.

Payment will be taken through Paypal—I will send you an invoice. At least 50% must be paid upfront in order for me to begin work.

You will fill out the form with the details of your commission request and be placed on my waiting list. I will contact you and give you a week to respond before contacting someone else that I will prioritise should they reply. After three weeks without response I will remove you from my waitlist.

Once payment has been recieved, I will begin work ASAP—expect an update by the following Wednesday. I will check with you regarding any changes, but please be aware that multiple revisions may incur additional fees.

Note the explanation of the payment processor I will be using, expectations on what may influence the price, when to expect to hear from me, and that multiple revisions may incur additional fees.

As a note, should you require to charge additional fees after you've already begun and been paid, you should create a new invoice with the additional fees for the revisions and not continue until the fee has been paid.

And that's all my advice, I think! Best of luck to anyone taking commissions, I hope this is helpful.

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saving this for reference

3K notes View Post

norisowll

2 years ago