❝ N = R x fp x ne x fl x fi x fc x L


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inspiration Hogwarts RPG homework assignment (Astronomy) [★]
materials various clip arts from the Internet & some version of Adobe Photoshop

I figured a good place to start with all this would be all the way back to when I first started properly dinking around in Photoshop with one of my first manipulations (manip) I made for SS back in Term 28 (I joined site at Term 26). Perhaps even THE first one...and yikes The premise of the assignment (see the pink star above) was to create our own planets and alien species. My character at the time was obsessed with baking, so naturally this meant her project would reflect this. On the left you see the planet...which is some pretty interesting attempts at modifying colors (looks like I only used overlay and soft light options for those layers *pets past me and gives a gold star for trying*). On the left are the aliens I manipped together using some black and white clip art for the bodies and some cute food ones for the heads. I colored these in Photoshop (ACK NO SHADING ) proooobably using the paint bucket and then called it a day

❝ training day


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inspiration SSRPG characters Evangeline Shacklebolt Toussaint & Zinnia Shacklebolt
materials Adobe Photoshop Elements 9

As a follow up to a first manip, I thought it would be a good follow up to share something I created recently (like...literally days ago). A bit back I had the itch to create a character using Ariana Miyamoto as a face claim. Sarah (sarahlooo) offered me a place on her Shacklebolt family tree and the rest is history! Evangeline and Zinnia are cousins who act like sisters. Evangeline is an auror at the Ministry and Zinnia is a chaser for the Kenmare Kestrels and every so often they'll hit the gym together for some conditioning - since their professions demand it!

This manip has quiiiiiiiiiiiite a few adjusting layers to it (8, to be exact) and layer masks were used on an image of Jourdan Dunn to fit her into the image I took from Ariana Miyamoto's instagram.

❝ sakura


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inspiration this video by YouTuber Jazza & the kanji for cherry blossom, 桜
materials Ohuhu alcohol markers, Ohuhu marker pads, & copic black 0.3 inking pen

I am a total n00b with these markers (and really anything other than your standard colored pencils and crayons ), but they came recommended to me by fellow SSers Tegan (Tegz), Lulu (Star-Lord), and MJ (emjay) and I have been looking for more offline creative outlets to help decompress. I'll share my swatching of these markers later because that was a really fun process So THIS is my first attempt at an illustration using alcohol markers and there are some obvious oopsies in the shading but live and learn!

As to the subject itself, those familiar with Japanese anime and manga may easily recognize this character as Kinomoto Sakura from the Series Cardcaptor Sakura (this is her Clear Card version aesthetic and inspired by this image). The Japanese word for cherry blossom is 'sakura' so of course I always think of this character too whenever I hear the word (CLAMP was a HUGE part of my middle school years, okay?), so when I thought about what kanji to use for this project and settled on 'sakura'...I just knew I needed to use her for the design. This site breaks down the various parts of the kanji rather nicely, but I'll go over these in brief to explain the choices I made.

First, on the left, is the kanji for tree (木) which is the radical for this particular character and what I used as the base for her staff. The next are those three "ticks" you see used for lines in her hair. I did not know this BUT...in the olden days of yore those three lines used to be the characters for shell written twice (貝貝) and it was simplified over the years to just be those three strokes. While it can mean shell, but two in a row signifies a necklace - which is what the petals are around the center of the flower Finally is the character for woman (女) which I've used as the base for her torso. I think next time I won't go over the strokes in such a harsh black color, but try to pick one that blends better with the over all image.

"So in the end, the kanji for sakura looks the way it does because of “tree necklace woman,” or, to put things a bit more eloquently, because the cherry blossom is a plant whose five petals seem to be forming a beautiful necklace around the center of the flower."

❝ thumbs down


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inspiration Create This Book by YouTuber Moriah Elizabeth, my boys' current favorite fruit, and something I find beautiful (butterflies)
materials Ohuhu alcohol markers, printer paper, & copic black 0.3 & 0.05 inking pen

I know. I KNOW. I'm a little obsessed with these markers I can't help it...THEY ARE MAGICAL!

Anyway. Story time, as always. I've been subscribed to Moriah Elizabath for some time now and when she released her second version of Create This Book fellow SSer (and the first SSer I met in real life!) Rose/Roselyn bought it for me and sent it all the way to Japan. We were going to work through the book together but real life got in the way of that and I am only just now properly cracking open the binding and giving it a proper go as the world goes into lockdown. No time like the present to begin new pursuits, right?

So for this concept what I wanted to do was take things I think are pretty and use colors that I do not like. I knew I wanted to do something with a butterfly the moment I read the prompt and I ended up asking my boys (ages 7 and 3) what was something they liked. They happened to be eating strawberries at the time so...there you go

I definitely learned how to blend colors much better after my last full scale drawing (aka no streaky streaks) and the blender marker was a real life saver here (see those lines on the half strawberry for reference).

❝ polyjuiced!







inspiration This Potions lesson
materials some version of Adobe Photoshop

I came across these siggies the other day and it really pumped up the nostalgia factor. Back in term 28 in the Hogwarts SSRPG, Potions classes revolved around Polyjuice and for the final assignment of the term students paired themselves off and polyjuiced into one another. My character, Kurumi, was paired with her enemy and rival at the time, Sierra Greingoth (Anna Banana). Drama was had all around the school as everyone got into shenanigans and during the period that our characters were polyjuiced as one another, Anna and myself wore one of these siggies.

For me, this was my first time experimenting with layer opacity in any real way (this is what I used to create the fade effect of the girls morphing into one another) as well as my first attempt at mixing font faces.

❝ it's complicated



inspiration Hogwarts SSRPG characters Eiji Rasting (myself), Missa Renaldi (Samia), & Trinetta Gladin (Lissy Longbottom)
materials Adobe Photoshop Elements 9

I made this back in September 2019 and it never really saw the light of day save for private shares between Sammy and Lissy, but the whole thing started when Sammy sent me the original picture of Missa's FC (Stella Hudgens) and my eye instantly went to the other two people in the picture and I mused about how easy it would be to manip it. I was...mostly right but a fair bit incorrect in my assumption This trio have been a complicated mess of teenager pretty much their entire time at Hogwarts together and this manip was going to be a Polaroid from a RP we theorized about...but then Hogwarts angst and drama happened and it never came into fruition. As, you know, the RP do.

What made this manip so hard was remarkably not color matching the different tones from the pictures I used, but in giving Eiji and Nettie's heads the grainy downgrade to match the quality of the original. I think what I ended up doing was a Gaussian blur layer set to lighten on each of their heads and then duplicated the base head layer and then rendered a grain texture to that and set that to a soft light over the original head...and then played with transparency levels for each until I got something that blended in best.