3rd Week Of Freshman Year And I’ve Already Been Acknowledged To A Shy Bean Who Follows Around The Seniors

“It seemed to be a chronic disease. It was as if even the most intelligent person had this little blank spot in their heads where someone had written: ‘Kings. What a good idea.’ Whoever had created humanity had left in a major design flaw. It was its tendency to bend at the knees.”

— Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay

This is the most accurate description I’ve ever found, thought it was worth spreading ❀

As someone that has grown up surrounded by beaches and done surf life saving, I know how the sea works. Lots of people dont. Every summer multiple tourists die here because they don’t respect the sea, if you’re going to the coast, here’s a thing I saw on Facebook.

“If people held themselves to the same standards they hold other people to, there would be far fewer problems in the world.”

— Don’t be a hypocrite don’t have double standards

How to show expression with the mouth!

This was a request and at first I wasn’t sure if I had anything to provide with, but as it turn out it got a little longer than I expected because there were actually things I had to say!! Wow!! 

Anyway, this is some guidelines I follow when I try to make the face expressfull, more specifically the mouth! It is often neglected, since it’s actually pretty hard, I’ll admit. But I’m here to help (hopefully…)! A mouth expression tutorial as per request. Enjoy and hopefully it will help some a little. ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

Draw the teeth at the right angle. 

This is super important. The upper jaw follows the angle of the head, and the lower jaw will depend on how open it is. Make sure you have a rough estimate of where the teeth are, and how much of them you’re going to see!

The lips will VERY roughly follow the same angle as the teeth. It really depends on the character, but it gives you a sense at least. 

If you DON’T do this, you’re going to lose so much volume and the mouth is going to end up looking unrelatable. I showed this example in this tutorial:

It’s not just the lips! 

The cheeks, chin, and tongue play a role too! 

Try look at your own mouth or references! I have a very pliable and large mouth, so that’s one reason why my characters have it too lmao.

ASYMMETRYYYYY (ง ͠° ͟ل͜ ͡°)ง

I cannot emphasize how important asymmetry is when drawing expressions. It applies not only to the eyebrows to achieve the Dreamwork Face™, but also the mouth. Seriously if you draw a symmetric mouth I will deliver myself to your mailbox and then shout at you until you fix it. 

Look at the difference between these two for example: which one has more “life”? 

I think you get the idea.

Push and squish - give it flow

Here’s an old drawing I have but it illustrates how I think when I squish the mouth, and use folding and wrinkles to my advantage.

Look at your own face and see where skin bundles up, where it creases the most and when bumps appear on your chin. Subtle details makes all the difference! 

One VERY effective detail is illustrated in the first sketch, where I pull upwards on one side, and downwards on the other. That’s a good detail to use when the character is making a skewed expression, or is extremely frustrated. I encourage you to play around with that concept bc it’s ~super effective~!

EXAMPLES:

Happy: Your entire mouth is pushed upwards, not just the corners of your mouth!

I tend to draw a :3 mouth bc I’ve been drawing Lance too much….. You don’t have to but it’s basically imprinted in my motor memory by now. 

Pouting/frowning: corners are pushed down, middle pushed slightly up. Sometimes, there’s a slight dip in the middle too. It can give a sense that the character is biting their lips.

Showing frustration/intimidating/is intimidated: basically showing a lot of teeth. The corners are as open as possible and the middle sorta more squished. An extremely important detail here is showing some of the gums, and open space between the cheeks and teeth. That way it looks like the mouth it open to it’s full potential. Here is also where you basically MUST add folds and bumps, or else it’s not going to look relatable. 

(Here I am again with the pulling upwards on one side and downwards on the other, as illustrated on the last sketch)

And then again, here’s just another doodle showing how important it is to show the gums. It’s the same face twice, but the second one looks slightly more frustrated doesn’t it?

(from my other tutorial on how to draw facial expressions)

As you can see, this last one is very versatile and I draw it a lot. Play around with the basic shape and see how much subtle details makes a lot of difference! 

That’s it! 

I hope that cleared some things up and was somewhat helpful! Enjoy drawing ✨

Because animals deserve to drink too

With season 17 coming out Saturday I felt inspired to finish this old project I started months ago.

Super disgusting! People are FUCKED UP. 

It’s racial discrimination to treat someone less polite than someone else would be treated in the same circumstances, because of race. We can’t ignore the case of blatant racism. We MUST draw public attention to such cases. We must ensure that racists are identified and socially discredited. There are no reasons or excuses for racism. It’s just disgusting.

Dear longfic writers

If you sometimes feel like it was pure, ridiculous hubris that you ever started a story that would take so much work and persistence to finish, I promise you, you’re not alone.

If you feel like you’ve already been writing forever and the “good bits” are still ages away, you’re not alone.

If you’ve been stuck for days or weeks or longer because you know what happens later but you don’t know what happens next, you’re not alone.

If you’re desperate to squeal about your beloved OTP but you feel like you can’t, because spoilers, and it’s driving you nuts, you’re not alone.

If you feel like you’ll never finish and you’re bound to fuck it up somehow, you’re not alone.

If you wonder if you’ve sabotaged yourself because who’s going to click through to a 28 chapter WIP, you’re not alone.

If you feel like you’ve been pouring your life into a single story for ages and will be for ages still and you don’t know why anymore because hardly anyone seems to care, you’re not alone.

If you can hardly even plan the further-away parts of the story or even think about them because thinking about them reminds you how absurdly far you still have to go and you get massive anxiety, please believe me.  You are not alone.