I’ve Seen A Lot Of Curious People Wanting To Dive Into Classical Music But Don’t Know Where To Start,

Have any song requests for someone who's favorite genres are heavy rock and electro swing?

Yeah listen to The Avalanches until you get that whole “electro swing” thing outta your system and then vibe to some King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard with the album 'Polygondwanaland'

i know hearing people on this website love to pass around those posts with links to free sign language lessons but you know you need to actually put effort into learning about Deaf culture, too, right?

One of the things that sucks about being an animation nerd is having to live with the fact that, from a technical standpoint, the Hotel Transylvania movies are absolutely ground-breakingly staggeringly incredible.

Apparently I still had some ideas on the same subject. Back to regular drawings tomorrow tho because comics are very time consuming !

Hi Neil

Why did you stop making bagels?

What did the bagels ever do to you?

XD

I stopped because I went to New Zealand, and didn't bring my sourdough starter. There's frozen sourdough starter waiting in the freezer in my house in Scotland for me to return and start bageling once again.

Working with rye flour was fun, as it was closer to using clay than to using dough. They were not beautiful but they tasted amazing.

(Photos: before and after boiling, and after coming out of the oven.)

Oh my god I hate Mattel so much.

They took the American Girl brand and gave it a lobotomy.

I was going to make a very very very very bad joke about one of the 90s girls getting an eating disorder after watching Britney Spears, BUT DECIDED AGAINST IT because eating disorders are something you don’t joke about, BUT. HERE’S THE THING.

Here’s the thing. Being a tween-to-teen-age girl in the late 90s early 2000s was BULLSHIT. You had 16-year-old Britney Spears singing “Hit me baby one more time” in her Lolita schoolgirl miniskirt and crop top showing off her perfectly flat abs, and then you went to school and had abstinence-only sex ed mandated by the evangelical right wing who gave out purity rings and told you that only sluts had sex before marriage. And then there was the issue of being a fat girl trying to find jeans that met her school’s dress code the days of low-rise jeans and belly button rings.

I ended up adoring Linkin Park because their music gave voice to the rage that I had inside of me because of all that. I wore men’s pants from Hot Topic not only because I thought they were cool, but they actually fucking fit and they covered my ass crack. I wore black because I didn’t fit in to the ultra-skinny, ultra cool kid Abercrombie aesthetic. And THAT is what growing up in the 90s and coming of age in the 2000s was like.

“Nicki Hoffman is a nine going on ten year old girl living in Seattle, Washington just before the year 2000 (the turn of the millennium). She is six minutes older than her fraternal twin sister, Isabel, but one inch shorter. Nicki prefers grunge, ska music, rock, alternative, and skating; she is the “grunge” to Isabel’s glitter. She does not like eating raw fish and sushi; her father teases that they can’s spell “finicky” without Nicki. She likes sour candy–the more sour, the better. She’s known to be shy, to the point Isabel points this out; she initially doesn’t have other friends than Isabel. She’s very anxious about the Y2K problem and the risks and worries that have been circulating, so Isabel and her create a list to take her mind off her worries of things to do before New Year’s.Her favorite color is purple, her favorite animal is a dog (she adopts her puppy, Blossom, as a Hanukkah gift), her favorite band is No Doubt, and her favorite show is The Powerpuff Girls (her favorite character being Blossom). She likes to snack on Wild Berry Pop tarts. She does not like her middle name, Pearl.The family is interfaith and celebrates both Hanukkah and Christmas. “

It’s a sterilized and dumbed-down version of growing up in the 90s, one where they only real problem facing girls is the y2k bug. It’s about the aesthetic but not the experience. Honestly the girls of today deserve to see that their moms had it difficult, too, and that the pressure to grow up incredibly quickly and be beautiful and flawless and instantly become a woman is nothing new, now it’s just on TikTok instead of MTV.

It’s the trap of nostalgia. Just because you were younger and not as aware of the issues going on in the world doesn’t mean the world was better.

any noun can become a verb if you don’t care enough

fat bodies tutorial!

ALRIGHT SO my pal @kalreyno wanted help with drawing fat characters and as a fat artist i felt like i could give a bit of helpful insight on that. there’s also been a lot of complaining about “boo hoo fat characters are hard to draw so i can’t include them in my work Ever” goin on lately so if that’s your case then this is for you too!! and also just for anyone who would like help with fat bodies in general, ofc. anyway, let’s get this show on the road!!

let’s start with some common misconceptions. these are the two main attempts at chubby bodies i run into, so i’ll focus on them. 

the Anime Chubby i see everywhere, and it’s just……so wrong in many ways. first of all, there is almost no additional body fat compared to your average thin character - except for where it’s added in “attractive” places (breasts, hips, thighs). the breasts are way too perky, and don’t have the realistic shape fat would give them (though how to draw accurate breasts is another tutorial all on its own lmao). there is still a thigh gap, which usually only happens in very thin people, and bones are still visible on the surface of the skin, which also rarely happens in fat people.

the Michelin Man is better in some ways, but still not that great. it’s a slightly better attempt, but basically all that’s done there is taking a thin character and blowing them up, while giving no thought to fat distribution. the thigh gap is usually still present, and they look a lot more hard than soft - and fat is very soft and pliable.

here’s a chart on how fat usually distributes (if you can’t read my messy writing, “1. next to no fat, 2. moderate amount, 3. most of the fat distribution”). basically, the more muscle an area has, the more prone it is to develop fat, such as the abdomen, thighs, and upper arms. it’s important to note that fat sits on top of muscle, and that it does distribute in different levels, and not evenly across the body as shown in the Michelin Man. 

now, here’s an accurate fat body with all of that kept in mind!! notice how the fat isn’t only kept to aesthetically pleasing areas, and how it sits realistically on the character’s body. their breasts sag a lot more, which happens even in thin people with larger breasts, and the nipples are pointing more downwards than straight out. there is no thigh gap in sight, there are no bones in sight, and most importantly, they have fat rolls, which are very important in drawing a convincing fat character!! as far as i know i’ve never met a single person with no rolls at all, and everyone has them, whether thin or fat - they’re just more prominent and more consistently present in fat people. pay close attention to where they are and how they’re shaped.

here are a couple of drawings showing how fat is affected when sitting vs stretching. as seen in the first, the fat specifically on the stomach is distributed a lot more evenly and stretched out, so it becomes “flatter”. the love handles are still pretty visible, though, as well as the fat on the thighs and arms. the breasts are raised with the shoulders, and the fat on the shoulders and near the neck forms rolls as it’s being pushed together. 

in the second, there is a lot less room for distribution, so the fat is all pushed together. the breasts sag and the stomach forms rolls and spills into the lap. a good analogy for the way fat works is to liken it to a water balloon, and thinking of how its shape would change when resting flat on a surface, hanging off of a ledge, held upright, etc.

here are a few extra tips i find a lot of people miss!

first on the top is the hip/pubic region. the first circle is showing the way the bellybutton is folded in fat people, as opposed to stretched out in thinner people. the second is the stomach fat spilling over onto the pubic region and creating a separation in the two areas, which is something that’s missing in a lot of art. in addition, the pubic mound also gains fat, making it round as seen in the profile drawing i did up there (i’ve heard people refer to it as fupa?). the last in the hip region is the lack of a thigh gap. i can’t stress this enough!!!! if you’re trying to draw a convincing fat character, make sure their thighs are pretty much always touching!! for reference, mine literally don’t separate until my feet are about 2ft from each other.

the bottom right is showing the double chin, which a lot of people are afraid to draw!! fat does distribute itself here too, and there’s nothing wrong with it, so don’t feel like you shouldn’t give fat characters a double chin in your work for fear of it looking like a caricature.

in the bottom middle, it’s showing how fat affects different types of breasts with the presence of more or less breast tissue. 

lastly, at the very right are stretch marks with their usual locations and directions, which i also can’t stress enough!!!!! i sometimes forget to add them honestly, but they’re so important in accurately portraying fat characters, as they literally come from the skin being stretched from fat being gained (and they’re also just rlly neat lookin like why wouldn’t you lmao). some people have less and some people have more, feel free to experiment with them!

the last thing is body types!! there isn’t one single way for a person to be fat, so feel free to experiment with shapes once you’ve learned the basics!! 

so there you have it, a tutorial on how to draw chubs!! now go forth and make some accurate fanart or some rad fat characters, because the world could always use more of both. hmu if you have any questions or concerns, and thanks for reading!!

EDIT: someone pointed out the bad wording in the tutorial. thank you for bringing it to my attention and sorry for offending anybody. i’ve updated the tut, so please reblog this one!

For the folklore side of tumblr...

Folklore and fairy tales ask game!

1. Did you grow up with any fun folk beliefs/customs/superstitions?

2. What is one of your favourite romantic fairy tales?

3. What is one of your favourite non-romantic fairy tales?

4. Did you grow up hearing or reading folktales?

5. Did you have a favourite folktale as a kid?

6. Do you have a favourite book with folklore or folk/fairy tales?

7. What is one of your favourite folkloric creatures?

8. Is there a specific fairy tale you dislike?

9. Is there a particular culture's folklore you know most about?

10. Is there a particular culture's folklore you'd like to know more about?

11. Have a bit of folklore trivia you'd like to share?

12. Do you have any media about folklore to rec?

13. Do you have a folklore rant you're holding in? (Let It Out)

14. If you could change something about a specific fairy tale what would it be?

15. Got any burning folklore questions?

16. What's a folktale you used to love but grew out of?

17. Do you prefer fairy tales, fables, legends or myths?

18. Do you care about the distinction between literary fairy tales and folk fairy tales?

19. If you could own any object from folklore what would it be?

20. If you met a talking animal would you prefer it to be an enchanted human, a disguised spirit, or simply a gifted animal?

21. For the multi-linguals: do you like the term 'fairy tales' or do you prefer what they are called in your other language(s)?