Something I’ve noticed in the Hellenic polytheism community is that a not-insignificant number of us joined this religion through Apollo. I saw him called a gateway god once and I still think about it a lot because it’s not only true, but mythologically, it’s true. Apollo and Artemis both function as gods of liminality. They represent the transitional period of adolescence: from childhood to adulthood, from immaturity to responsibility, from naivety to wisdom. In this sense, the twins represent a gateway in the human life. No wonder it’s the same for Hellenic polytheism.
These two behind the scene vids is amazing. You get so much of Chen Kun’s thoughts on Ning Yi, and all the careful details when it comes to Ning Yi’s movements and actions. Oh my fucking god, this is amazing.
I love the acting!!! The AMAZING ACTING! I can watch behind the scene footage of Chen Kun acting all day long. I also love how Chen Kun has these detailed conversations with the actors and the directors constantly. So good.
HOW DOES HE CRY SO BEAUTIFULLY.
HOW DOES HE PUKE BLOOD SO BEAUTIFULLY.
Spoilers. SO MUCH SPOILERS.
There are other bts vids for this series but I have not had the opportunity to view them yet.
Interviewer on Knives Out: Tell me Chris [Evans], what method did you do use to touch base on being a douche bag, millionaire, playboy? What was your influence
Chris, laughs: Oh it’s just touching base on the opposite of your personality. You see Acting is an art and I challenge that to change completely different of myself…
*meanwhile, his hands behind, shakily deleting ‘How to be a Genius, Billionaire, Playboy, Philantrophist like Tony Stark’ videos off his phone*
being a self-taught artist with no formal training is having done art seriously since you were a young teenager
and only finding out that you’re supposed to do warm up sketches every time you’re about to work on serious art when you’re fuckin twenty-five
someone: oh yeah, do this exercise during your warm ups! it’ll help
me: my what
What’s up I have an actual college degree in art and I was never ONCE taught to do warm ups.
when i was in undergrad, it was kind of mentioned in and offhand way that we should do warmups, but we were never shown what that meant. And, y’know, we were young so it didn’t matter so much.
Being older now and having an art job it’s…kind of essential.
So: a quick primer for those of you who are like ‘ok but how do i actually go about doing this warmup thing.’
1) you may be tempted to do ‘a warmup drawing’ which is just a drawing that will take longer than it needed to and probably be frustrating and kind of bad because you didn’t warm up first. It’s tempting but always a trick your brain is playing on you! Do not trust!
2) warmups will vary based on what feels good to you/what task you’re about to do/what motor skills you want to practice. That being said, some good standbys:
a) circles. Just a whole page of circles on whatever drawing surface you’re going to be using, whether that’s your tablet or your sketchbook or a drawing pad on an easel. For these circles you should make sure that you’re drawing from your shoulder and not your wrist. In fact, you want to be drawing from your shoulder rather than your wrist most of the time! forever! your wrist is delicate please preserve it!
In order to ensure that you’re drawing from your shoulder, when you’re holding your pencil or whatever drawing tool you’re using, the only part of your hand that should be touching the drawing surface is part of the last two fingers–some people prefer the finger tips, but I tend to favor the first knuckles. Either way, the fingers should really be ghosting over the surface, providing guidance rather than support.
I usually start with big circles and then go to smaller circles and lines of ellipses, and then try to fit circles and ellipses inside other shapes i’ve already drawn as a precision exercise, but i don’t do that unless i’m feeling loose
b) spirals! i don’t always do spirals, but if i’m stiff and the circles just aren’t cutting it, spirals are a good fall back. I start from the center and work outward, going both clockwise and counterclockwise until i feel comfortable with the whole range of motion. Some people really care about getting perfect spirals but for me it’s all about making sure i’m comfortable with how i’m moving so who really even cares about how the spirals look. Not me!
c) lines! straight lines! in parallel! i do a mix of vertical, horizontal, and diagonal. These are often more from the elbow than the shoulder, especially if I’m working on a smaller surface. For this exercise, I recommend holding the drawing tool perpendicular with the surface
d) connect the dots. This is a precision and accuracy exercise and takes two forms. The first is to draw two dots and then draw a straight line between them. The second is to draw three dots and draw the curve that connects them. This sounds a lot simpler than it is in practice. Take time to ghost over the line you plan to draw before actually committing to your line. (I don’t always remember where I picked up my warm up exercises, but I’m pretty sure I got this one from Scott Robertson. His how to draw and how to render books are very technical but also accessible and worth checking out)
e) cubes, spheres, cones, and cylinders. These help get your brain into a more volumetric space. I draw multiples of each, rotating the forms around, and I’ll often take the time to do some rough shading on at least a few of them
f) spidermans! This one is really good if you’re going to be storyboarding or working on dynamic poses. Just fill a page full of spidermans doing all sorts of acrobatics.
g) beans. I don’t do beans too much anymore, but I know a lot of people like it so I’m mentioning it here. Fill an area with different size bean shapes without lifting your pencil off the paper.
h) short medium and long line repetition. draw a short, medium, and long line on your page, and then draw directly on top of them 8 to 12 times, doing your best to exactly trace what you’ve already drawing. Repeat with a wavy line. I’m bad at this one, which means I probably need to do it more.
And there are lots more options too! Hit up youtube to see what other people recommend, put together your own go-to list, mix it up when you’re getting bored, etc.
This is a long list, I know, but I usually don’t take more than 10 to 15 minutes to warm up, and I can warm up one handed while I’m drinking coffee, so, multitasking hurrah.
Sometimes I’ll advance to a precision warmup and find that I haven’t loosened up enough yet; it’s totally ok to go back to an earlier exercise! Also, all of this has the added benefit of kind of ritualistically getting you into the drawing mode so even if I’m not feeling it before I start, by the time I’ve gotten to the end I’m usually Ready For Drawin’. Brain hacks.
so, yeah! that’s a lot of words, but! Warmups are important! Save your joints, take less advil, do better drawings!
Take it from someone with wrist pain so bad I can’t even fill out forms without serve pain anymore: y'all GOTTA write from your shoulders. In fact, I would recommend getting a wrist brace from a drug store or supermarket of choice so your wrist literally CANNOT move. ALSO, make sure you ARE NOT tripping your writing utensil with your THUMB; gently lay your thumb OVER it, lightly holding it in place, unconsciously holding your pen in a death grip also will lead to awful wrist pain. Please check out r/handwriting, they have AMAZING tutorials on how to hold your wrist without pain!
funniest thing would be if when Queen Elizabeth dies or steps down and Charles is all ready to assume the throne, here comes King Arthur, Excalibur in hand, sauntering back from Avalon like “oof what a nap! thanks for keeping the chair warm I’m back to be king again”
He’d probably be very mad at the “Saxons” (AKA England) and how they became a country and a monarchy on his very own island, then would probably attempt to conquer Europe and the Otherworld
