okayophelia:

Archetypes | THE ALCHEMIST

He is dangerous because he challenges the very fabric of the universe with his incessant meddling. Whiling away the bitter hours he toils over ancient tomes and ancient minds. He takes his potions into his vulnerable flesh and starts lightning storms in his bed. He hunts for the grail in his own blood, destroys gods with his every achievement, and his laboratory is his cathedral. In the dark, he does his pure work, and in the light he shimmers with the dust of newborn gold. He will uncover the secrets of the deep earth, he will meld his body to immortality, and he will laugh in the face of time. Freedom is his calling; freedom for all from the cage of the maddening imperfection of the cosmos; for as lead made gold is the most beautiful of all possible forms, so does a perfect and eternal body make a perfect soul. He will find the key to life everlasting, or burn himself alive in the attempt.  In this peculiar way, he is the kindest madman you will ever meet.

manatopia:

» Entertainment Page #01

LINKS PREVIEW | INSTALL
→ Learn how to install this page!

Terms of Use
1) Please do not remove the credit.
2) Do not alter and redistribute as your own.
3) Do not come and ask me for help on changing anything!

How To Edit
Everything on how to edit this page is set up in the page itself. Be sure to look closely on what you need to change and how to add more sections and more lines for information. It’s all right there in the code.

This page was inspired by MyAnimeList! I would highly suggest if you watch anime and read manga to use that website instead. It is so much easier to manage and gives you better options.

Learning Katakana/Hiragana? Here’s a fun game to try

icanspeakjapanese:

It’s called Kana Invaders. 

Thanks artisagoof!

(Source: jumpstartjapanese)

How To Improve Your Art

wannabeanimator:

From ~Maidith on deviantART:

“How do I improve my art work?” is one of the most asked questions in art related forums, mainly regarding drawing and painting in any media. Because the question is recurring so often, I wrote the following tips that I still copy-paste in various threads. 

You can apply these universal strategies not just to traditional and digital painting media, but most of them even to photography and collage.


- Look at pictures by artists you admire, and try to figure out things. How do they handle light and color? What edges are sharp, and what edges are soft? Why do they use that particular color there? What technique did they use? How did they work? The more you look at work of others, the more different kinds of styles and techniques you will see.

- Learn from the masters. Copy works you adore. Not for imitating the artist or showcasing your copy, but for the sake of learning. Don’t be shy, ask your favorite artist everything you want to know, such as “What paper do you draw on?”, or “How do you go about painting a picture, do you start with a sketch?”, etc. But be specific, don’t ask “how can I paint like that?”. And check the artist’s website, chances are they already have tutorials, a FAQ or step-by-step tutorials there.

- Challenge yourself. Never used a particular medium? Then buy it, no matter how poor you are, and try it out. Never drawn a still life? Do it. Never used that particular color scheme? Give it a try. At a certain point, when you are afraid of repeating yourself, you are on the right track to improve.

- Use reference. If you aim for realism, you can’t paint most things straight from your imagination. The old masters always made preliminary studies of life models, and did most paintings from life models too. For example, if you are unsure how to paint a head with the light source from below, look up a photo, or take it yourself, or have someone pose for it. It is worth every effort!
Stock photos from deviantartists can be a valuable resource also and provide inspiration.

- Draw from life. It’s probably the most valuable practice that there is. Sign up for a life drawing class so that you’ll be actually “forced” to do it. Believe me, it works wonders.
As for studying anatomy from books about figure drawing (Loomis, Bammes, etc.) a good exercise is to copy the body parts and figures in there and then trying to draw the same from your mind to see how much you remembered.

- Look up tutorials. Browse through the tutorial section and study the many different ways and media of the different artists. Also visit the websites of the great artists here - many have tutorials up there.

- Collect pictures. On my harddisk, I have different folders of fantastic art.
They are very inspiring to browse through and can give you new ideas in terms of technique. Whenever I feel uninspired, I look through my folders.
The images I’ve collected over time, mainly from Cgtalk.com, Deviantart, Epilogue, Artrenewal.org and many other websites.

Further Reading:
Why Reference is not a crutch

Useful resources
[link]
[link]
[link]
[link]
[link]

Forums for those who want to learn
ConceptArt
Sijun

la-romanesca:

Asian dramas/movies download links: see full list here

I took the liberty to to make a list of sites where you can download Asian movies and dramas. Because downloading in a post-megaupload era has become a pain in the ass that I have to go through layers of hell and crap to found a proper, working download link. So yeah, sharing is caring etc etc however that saying goes.

More Free Textbooks and Courses Online

mehreenkasana:

It makes me so happy to know that whenever I share these links on free education, books and resources online, people not only learn a lot from it but are often generous enough to share it with their friends and other folks online. It goes positively viral. That’s the beauty of learning: Passing it on. So let’s see what I have this week on more book-sy, academic stuff.

We all know that a student’s budget doesn’t allow extravagant book-shopping. This is why the internet is here to help. I’ve compiled a short list of websites that offer free textbooks in PDF and other forms. This summer, don’t let your tight budget ruin your chance to gain more knowledge. Here are some places to go to for help.

• Flat World Knowledge.
• Open Textbooks.
• Book Boon.
• TextbooksFree.
• Curriki.

Happy learning, folks!

flickfreak:

oliveryeh:

“Ok aspiring fiction writers, if you’ve ever wondered how to write a successful novel, the secret is here: kill off your characters. Of the handful of books that won the prestigious Man Booker Prize in 2011, all 13 novels had the common theme of putting to death main characters…” Read more…

kill character…. o_o oh god….

gyapo: anime rec (the ones I watched) :

lavestale:

Funny ones/school life :

• Great Teacher Onizuka (old but so good)
• School Rumble
• Kimi to boku (slice of life)
• Toradora
  
• Gokusen

Battle/shonen :

• Bleach
• Katekyo Hitman Reborn
• One Piece
• Fairy Tail
• Gintama (hilarious)
• Soul Eater
• …

Diary of a Martian Patriot: The symbolism of colour in Islam: Blue vs. Green

hime1999:

edencomplex:

One more thing before I rush off!

I had to save this because it really helped define my headcanon as to why Harun (Umayyad) was born with green eyes and was pretty much treated like the Chosen One, and why Abbas (Abbasid) was born with blue eyes, was treated…

(Source: aethyrknight)

adrjs:

Magic Jewelry: Part I

1. Alluring Key
2. Golden Steampunk Time Travel Key
3. Ruby Angel Key
4. Autumn’s Key
5. Leaf Gold Key Necklace
6. Water Turner Key Necklace
7. Dark Leaves Key Necklace
8. Silver Swirl Key
9. Half Machine Key
10. Zen Charm Key

Part I - Part II - Part III - Part IV - Part V  ::: Posted by: adrjs

мαηαтσρια тнεмεs: Passion's infinite scrolling doesn't work; do this to fix the problem!

manatopia:

Unfortunately Tumblr is a pain in the ass and they don’t let you just update your code right away…they make you wait, for days, weeks, for them to update even the smallest changes you make to your themes in the garden.

I was informed Passion’s infinite scrolling doesn’t work, so if you want…

whaoanon:

UM SURE I can try!!

Honestly, a lot of my cuts/scrapes/scruff/whatever is just cross hatching.  When it comes to color, for scrapes and tears and stuff, I normally use neutral colors, or just a darker of the color it’s on — on a blue shirt, it would be a darker shade of blue, and desaturated a little bit sometimes even. I normally go and use a color close to the base color, and then do one or two gradually darker colors

For cuts and bruises, I just go with what I’ve noticed on my own skin sobs SO I don’t know how well you can take this for colors. I’ve noticed for myself, that when you first get a nasty bruise, it’s dark and it’s redish/purple. After a few days, it dulls down to a more blueish/purple. Then slowly it goes down to a green, greenish yellow, yellow, yellowish brown, and then back to your skintone.

With cuts, I normally get a bruise around the cut.

UMM Blood is thick, so it pools up a good deal before dripping off something, in my experience. 

You’re more prone to get scrapes and scruff things up and cuts around joints, and appendages. Things that you fall on and catch yourself on, or  well…use?? Like you use your hands/fingers to pry something open, you’d ram into something with your shoulder/upper arm/elbow. You fall on your knees, etc. 

With big cuts and slashes and stuff, remember that it..takes away skin, and digs into you, so it literally takes a chunk out of you??

AND UHH A good way for it too is use a lot of black deep in there. When blood is together, it gets really REALLY dark, and not bright red you want to color it normally. Like, almost dark brown color black. So using a lot of blacks helps.

UHMMM idk it’s a lot of cross hatching and short, quick lines and swipes.  


OH AND ALSO!!! Black eyes.  Normally, if you get a black eye, your nose also bruises, and your other eye bruises a little unless you get far on the right  or far left
AND UHH with bruises, try to avoid straight up circles. Break it up a bit, or it’ll look really fake.  

   

SauceNAO

gyapo:

Find the sources of your images & you’ll be able to credit rightfully.