Shorthand Google Reference Guide

I’m gonna type this up while it’s fresh on my mind because some of y’all don’t know how to use Google

SO YOU WANT TO DRAW A woman sitting in the grass.

IF YOU SEARCH: female sitting

Very vogue. Very male gaze. Good for fashion or model pictures, not very good if you’re wanting to draw a natural looking pose on a woman who isn’t a model and whose camera certainly didn’t fucking turn on by itself.

IF YOU SEARCH: female sitting pose

Arguably worse, depending on the use. My experience with “female + pose” searches is that you get a lot of IMVU and The Sims pose sets, and artists making sketch compiliations that… don’t always have great anatomy and are frequently just more stiff model poses. I do use similar searches for pinup sketches, ie, “female sassy pinup pose,” though “posing for pinup photography” and “how to pose for” will give different results if you aren’t finding what you need.

IF YOU SEARCH: woman student relaxing sitting on grass crossed legs

Closer. Still kind of staged looking. Maybe we don’t want her studying. Maybe we just want her relaxing. Still, you start to see how specific keyword searches will really get you results.

IF YOU SEARCH: woman sitting under tree grass relaxing nature summer

Nice. This is only a small handful of the results, but most of them more or less fit my mental image. Mostly stock images, but good for gesture sketches or figuring out a pose. Still… we could go further, and I think I will.

IF YOU SEARCH: woman sitting under tree grass relaxing nature summer senior photography

Jackpot. Senior pictures aren’t always awkward kids in braces. Look at how much more natural a few of these look? Compare that to the “Female sitting” search. Google Search tip #1 is basically “use more and specific keywords.” But just… one more thing I just… can’t get off my mind… what if I… just…

IF YOU SEARCH: black woman sitting under tree grass relaxing nature summer senior photography

Uh oh. So let me level with you, if you just google “dreadlocks,” expect a lot of white people. I spent over 30 minutes adding keywords to this search, and every page was still white people. Breaking it back down to “black woman sitting on grass” helped but gave me all the boring pose issues of the female sitting search. So basically, Google Search tip #2 is: Google image search is as White as the rest of the damn world. How do we find what we’re looking for now, then?

IF YOU SEARCH: black woman sitting in grass nature tumblr blackout

Beautiful, natural poses. Adding “photography” whitewashed it. Adding “summer” gave me bikini pinups. Searching for POC models using Google image search is infinitely more frustrating than finding a million thin white women, and you’re usually going to be better off supporting POC modeling blogs themselves than fighting with Google all day. Using “tumblr” and “instagram” as keywords may also get you a lot more natural, less Vogue Was Here hits. Pinterest too, on occasion.

But keep in mind that these are real people–especially using tags like “tumblr” or “blackout.” There’s a difference between referencing a pose or drawing different face shapes, and outright copying someone’s exact likeness without their permission. Maybe also consider liking/reblogging/following them if they’re a model or photographer. Use some common sense. You don’t own images found on google yadda yadda don’t be a dick.

Have fun being better at search engines and learning how to draw stuff!

tag yourself student edition

who cares: reads books in class instead of listening, attention span of 5 seconds when studying, generally starts studying in the day before, lost all their new fancy pens by week 2, still somehow gets A*, sometimes starts arguing with the teacher

i can and i will: motivated af, watches legally blonde 24/7, big dreams and aspirations, bullet journal is goals, sometimes very forgetful but makes up for it through very hard work, wants to figure out everything by themselves before asking for help

hello my name is stressed: signed up for 10000 extracurriculars and can’t get out of them now, time management god, hates the glorification of all-nighters but stays up until 6 am anyway, has the highest expectations regarding themselves, needs a hug

aesthetics TM: desperately wants their notes to look perfect, spends all their money on stationery, loves to doodle, PUNS, is great in one specific class, always tries to help their friends with homework, study playlists!!!, can still easily feel overwhelmed and lost but they try and that’s enough

what: has lost their motivation somewhere along the way, has no idea what’s going on, “there was homework”, messy notes and messy life, really wants school to end, hates the education system, has no idea what they want to do after school tho

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sapphire-53

7 years ago

look, tomorrow you will wake up and feel a bit better, a bit calmer. you are going to figure things out eventually, it dosnt have to all be done tonight. take a deep breath, relax your shoulders, and get some rest. you will manage.

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sapphire-53

6 years ago

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sapphire-53

6 years ago

“Everyone sound off.”

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sapphire-53

6 years ago

I feel like I need to say something about this…

Everyone hating season 7 for the LGBTQA+ rep is digging themselves deeper into a ditch. Joaquim Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery are the showrunners of the show yes.

But they don’t have all the say.

Dreamworks is a corporation. This is the capitalist America you live in. They don’t care about why you hated this season. They don’t care that you’re angry because you want better representation. They’re never gonna see that. Harassing the showrunners and voice actors who fought so hard to get representation is not the way to voice your criticism. Find out who the people are at the top of the food chain. Express your concerns to them. Email them. Send them letters. Reach out to THEM. Not the crew of Voltron. And here’s the other thing.

Again. Corporations don’t care about you. They care about making money, how high their ratings are, and when you decide to rate the season with LGBTQA+ rep BADLY, they’re not going to think “well we have to do better”

Nope. They’re going to think “we shouldn’t have gay representation in our cartoons in the future. It won’t do well.”

It’s a showrunners worst nightmare and a corporations “I told you so.”

You’re not doing any good this way. I understand why you’re upset. There are things that could’ve been handled better but what we got is literally what they were allowed to give us. Shiro is great representation. He breaks so many stereotypes. He’s a POC, disabled, neurotypical gay man with a chronic illness BUT HE’S ALSO. THE FORMER LEADER OF VOLTRON. NOW CAPTAIN OF THE ATLAS. SOMEONE EVERYONE LOVES, ADMIRES AND LOOKS UP TO AND TRUSTS WITH NO QUESTION. HE LITERALLY LEADS TEAM EARTH RIGHT NOW.

I for one am so grateful for him. For SHIRO. Our MAIN representation. If you put your anger for the mistreatment of the rest of the queer characters out on the wrong people, on the crew who had the best intentions at heart and worked so hard… on the show and it’s ratings.. it’ll be MUCH harder for there to be more representation like Takashi Shirogane.

Please understand that there are other factors at play. As sad as it sounds, for a brighter future filled with more diversity on screen, we have to treat every queer character we get as a win. We have to be happy with what we get. Because again. Corporations don’t care that we want better rep and no amount of social media backlash is going to change that, they only care about their ratings. But hey… I personally think we got of great rep in Shiro and I loved season 7.

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