Happy Chinese New Year! Its The Year Of The Dog So To Celebrate, I Drew Up A Collection Of Sighthound

Happy Chinese New Year! Its the Year of the Dog so to celebrate, I drew up a collection of sighthound profiles (and hopefully more breeds if I can find the time)!

Sighthounds are among the oldest, fastest and tallest dogs in the world. Originally in the Middle East with the Saluki and Afghan Hound, sighthounds have since spread over Asia and into Europe and Africa. Not only used to hunt fast game like hare and deer by sight, the larger breeds (such as borzois, and Irish wolfhound) were bred to even hunt down wolves.

Other sighthounds not shown here include the Galgo Español, the Chart Polski, the Hortaya Borzaya, the Whippet, and the Caravan Hound. I didn’t include those breeds mostly because they can look very close to greyhounds and I wanted as much breed variety as possible!

All About Writing Fight Scenes

@galaxies-are-my-ink asked,

“Do you have any advice on writing fight scenes? The type of scene I’m writing is mostly hand to hand combat between two experts. I’m definitely not an expert so when I try to write it, the scene ends up sounding repetitive and dull.”

Fore note: This post is coauthored by myself and one of my amazing critique partners, Barik S. Smith, who both writes fantastic fight scenes and teaches mixed martial arts, various artistic martial arts, and weapons classes.

I (Bryn) will tell you a secret: I trained MMA for seven years, and when I write authentic hand to hand fight scenes, they sound dull too. 

The problem with fight scenes in books is that trying to describe each punch and kick and movement (especially if it’s the only thing you’re describing) creates a fight that feels like it’s in slow motion. 

I write…

Lowering her center of gravity, she held her right hand tight to her face and threw a jab towards his chin. He shifted his weight, ducking under her punch. His hair brushed against her fist, and he stepped forward, launching a shovel hook into her exposed side.

But your brain can only read so fast. In real life that series of events would take an instant, but I needed a full eight seconds to read and comprehend it, which gave it an inherent lethargic feel. 

So, we have two primary problems:

How do we describe this fight in a way the reader can understand and keep track of? 

How do we maintain a fast paced, interesting fight once we’ve broken down the fight far enough for readers to understand it? 

(We will get back to these, I promise.) But for now, let’s look at…

Different types of “fight scenes:”

Keep reading

I'M CRYING IN THE METAPHORICAL CLUB OH MY GOD

I WAS SHOPPING IN THE DEALER’S ROOM WHEN SOMEONE BEHIND ME STARTED YELLING AND I HEAR “ISN’T SHE SO ADORABLE?! AND IF YOU LIKE HER YOU SHOULD SEE MY WIFE” SO I TURNED AROUND AND I JUST

Ten minutes ( Royai oneshhot)

Roy Mustang was absently pacing around his office. Peace and quiet. Things that were unfeasible to get ever since he got promoted. After Grumman told him about the promotion he will have a lot of annoying attention and a smaller amount of meaningful conversations too. But that didn't bother him. He was one step closer to his goal. Colonel Roy Mustang. He liked the sound of that. But still, a lot of work had to be done in order for him to hear Führer Roy Mustang. Then President Roy Mustang. Roy will finally feel relief after he corrects the wrong, helps this country and protects everyone.Then his gaze fell upon his gloves. A thorn came to his heart. Ivy grew around his brain, clouding the vision. He stopped and his stare drifted at the window.

"You will feel the relief, but you will never fully atone for your sins", he said to himself. It was barely audible, whisper, completely silenced by the sound of incoming footsteps. A soldier who's belly is now full from lunch Roy didn't eat. The colonel decided to skip it today. He smiled at his thought that he shouldn't advance in rank too quickly, otherwise he will starve himself.

"Good afternoon, colonel", he heard a well-known voice, saw a well-known Lieutenant walk into his office (first as always), and returned the well-known salute.

"Lieutenant Hawkeye I wasn't expecting you here", he said with obvious sarcasm and gave a glance to the clock, "There are still ten minutes separating us from rest of today's work."

"Well, someone has to do the work of a certain useless person", Riza said, a ghost-smile reclined on her lips after Roy made a grimace. Word useless was such a trigger that could induce the funniest expressions out of him. "Besides, that same person is either on a diet or has decided to avoid the fame he has gained with his new rank", with those words Colonel received the small, unnoticed package she carried underneath a bunch of papers. He gave her a confused look and opened it. A simple lunch, sandwiches, that now seemed like a glorious feast. Roy's hungry self was now staring at his trusty bodyguard. Guilt and happiness​ were mixing intensely in his heart.

"I.. you didn't have to, but I appreciate it... Lieutenant."

"It's okay. You have ten minutes to eat it before you get caught, sir."

Mustang nodded. He sat down at his desk and started to eat the sandwiches. He looked at Riza every now and then but she was concentrated on her work. He used her, manipulated her after disappointing his master, burned after burdening her with such guilt and now who knows what else he will do after driving her into his madness.

She made him sandwiches.

Would you ever do a simple tutorial of how you draw horses? I want to make centaur OCs but lord horses are difficult creatures to doodle 😭

Mmmm there are so many guides that cover what I do, and I reallydon’t do anything more than those. Still use the whole blocks and sticks andform building and whatnot. And a buttload of references. Anything I could say different would kinda step beyond the stage of simplicity?

To offer something though I would like, suggest tweaking the use of circles whenit comes to drawing horses. Or anything, really. Circles are great and highly accessible for fast, generaldrawing, but few natural things are perfectly round. Look at a horse from thefront or back - it’s square and flat and meaty and saggy too, depending on yourangle.

So like, I dunno, if you wanna step it up a notch, trychanging your use of building-circles into something like this

And especially practice being able to see these shapes indimension

And then piece them together. The triangle will really help guide the line up. Highly recommend.

Honestly I just follow the same gist of Hubedihubbe’s quicktut (please check it out, very good points made, much cleaner, actually labelled) so I kind of feel like I’m parroting here but.. I break down the rest inlines and diamonds.

As a personal preference, I like marking in the shoulderblade to elbow and the hip to knee, as they create pretty important shapes towardshorse recognition. If something keeps looking off, check your leg length. A super rough way to get a close idea of what you need can be found in using most of the shoulder block for a landmark? It’s not perfect maths, it’s a rough tell. The hind legs are then worked out via the red line, setting the hocks above the intersection across the knees 

And uh, it goes on from there. You gotta look at pictures, dothe study, and learn the meats. No real other way around that part.

There’s a horse bod.

But the reason of learning how to see those shapes indimension is so that you can push your poses further! Try piecing it together with your front-view knowledge. Andlook at references, always! 

Shoulders are pretty narrow compared to the belly and hindquarters, unless you start looking into the draft breeds - then both ends more or less square up together. But moving on, more leggies are slapped on that thing

And fleshed out with all that meat knowledge :P (I know I haven’t gone into heads but this was about centaurs anyway. This guy just felt like he needed one)

And when it comes to practiceand learning, don’t be afraid to simply drawthese shapes directly over an image. It will help familiarise you with howthese base forms interact with one another, how far they can squash and stretchand look at a whole variety of angles. It’s just practice!

Doing that helps to gain asolid concept of the subject, so that when you do set out on your own you canfind that convincing territory.

So hey, this has been a very long and terrible not-tutorial. More like insight or something, and would only be helpful if you’re somewhat familiar with horses and already got the fundamentals of drawing down pat, since I skipped over a lot. 

Haven’t drawn a horse before though? I recommend you the Shrimp method

Anyway, hope all this was kinda interesting

I AM TRYING MY BEST TO KEEP MY EMOTIONAL REACTION TO BARE MINIAJFJWKKFBDNFJDNEJFJDNSCKJDNFKCJDKCJCKDFKJDHDHDNDNDJDBFVBW H KDKCKFJDDKWJDJFKDJDJD

@skidzz DID YOU SAY GENDERBEND YOUNG ROYAI? NO? NEVERMIND, I ALREADY IMAGINED THEM 💕💕💕✨✨ Also, Berthold Jr, as the son of Mr Hawkeye, WAS actually learning alchemy, but Isabelle was more talented… Or at least we’ve talked about that with Mar haha