A general cane guide for writers and artists (from a cane user, writer, and artist!)
Disclaimer: Though I have been using a cane for 6 years, I am not a doctor, nor am I by any means an expert. This guide is true to my experience, but there are as many ways to use a cane as there are cane users!
This guide will not include: White canes for blindness, crutches, walkers, or wheelchairs as I have no personal experience with these.
This is meant to be a general guide to get you started and avoid some common mishaps/misconceptions, but you absolutely should continue to do your own research outside of this guide!
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The biggest recurring problem I’ve seen is using the cane on the wrong side. The cane goes on the opposite side of the pain! If your character has even-sided pain or needs it for balance/weakness, then use the cane in the non-dominant hand to keep the dominant hand free. Some cane users also switch sides to give their arm a rest!
A cane takes about 20% of your weight off the opposite leg. It should fit within your natural gait and become something of an extension of your body. If you need more weight off than 20%, then crutches, a walker, or a wheelchair is needed.
Putting more pressure on the cane, using it on the wrong side, or having it at the wrong height will make it less effective, and can cause long term damage to your body from improper pressure and posture. (Hugh Laurie genuinely hurt his body from years of using a cane wrong on House!)
(an animated GIF of a cane matching the natural walking gait. It turns red when pressure is placed on it.)
When going up and down stairs, there is an ideal standard: You want to use the handrail and the cane at the same time, or prioritize the handrail if it’s only on one side. When going up stairs you lead with your good leg and follow with the cane and hurt leg together. When going down stairs you lead with the cane, then the good leg, and THEN the leg that needs help.
Realistically though, many people don’t move out of the way for cane users to access the railing, many stairs don’t have railings, and many are wet, rusty, or generally not ideal to grip.
In these cases, if you have a friend nearby, holding on to them is a good idea. Or, take it one step at a time carefully if you’re alone.
Now we come to a very common mistake I see… Using fashion canes for medical use!
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(These are 4 broad shapes, but there is INCREDIBLE variation in cane handles. Research heavily what will be best for your character’s specific needs!)
The handle is the contact point for all the weight you’re putting on your cane, and that pressure is being put onto your hand, wrist, and shoulder. So the shape is very important for long term use!
Knob handles (and very decorative handles) are not used for medical use for this reason. It adds extra stress to the body and can damage your hand to put constant pressure onto these painful shapes.
The weight of a cane is also incredibly important, as a heavier cane will cause wear on your body much faster. When you’re using it all day, it gets heavy fast! If your character struggles with weakness, then they won’t want a heavy cane if they can help it!
This is also part of why sword canes aren’t usually very viable for medical use (along with them usually being knob handles) is that swords are extra weight!
However, a small knife or perhaps a retractable blade hidden within the base might be viable even for weak characters.
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Bases have a lot of variability as well, and the modern standard is generally adjustable bases. Adjustable canes are very handy if your character regularly changes shoe height, for instance (gotta keep the height at your hip!)
Canes help on most terrain with their standard base and structure. But for some terrain, you might want a different base, or to forego the cane entirely! This article covers it pretty well.
Many cane users decorate their canes! Stickers are incredibly common, and painting canes is relatively common as well! You’ll also see people replacing the standard wrist strap with a personalized one, or even adding a small charm to the ring the strap connects to. (nothing too large, or it gets annoying as the cane is swinging around everywhere)
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(my canes, for reference)
If your character uses a cane full time, then they might also have multiple canes that look different aesthetically to match their outfits!
When it comes to practical things outside of the cane, you reasonably only have one hand available while it’s being used. Many people will hook their cane onto their arm or let it dangle on the strap (if they have one) while using their cane arm, but it’s often significantly less convenient than 2 hands. But, if you need 2 hands, then it’s either setting the cane down or letting it hang!
For this reason, optimizing one handed use is ideal! Keeping bags/items on the side of your free hand helps keep your items accessible.
When sitting, the cane either leans against a wall or table, goes under the chair, or hooks onto the back of the chair. (It often falls when hanging off of a chair, in my experience)
When getting up, the user will either use their cane to help them balance/support as they stand, or get up and then grab their cane. This depends on what it’s being used for (balance vs pain when walking, for instance!)
That’s everything I can think of for now. Thank you for reading my long-but-absolutely-not-comprehensive list of things to keep in mind when writing or drawing a cane user!
Happy disability pride month! Go forth and make more characters use canes!!!
also somwtimes when you dont understand a piece of art it’s not bc ur dumb it’s bc you havent had the very particular emotional experience that it’s trying to invoke in you and you just cant relate. which is also why sometimes you will hear a mountain goats song and say Meh and then you go through some shit and you listen to it again and lose your fucking mind at how real and raw it is. art is how we communicate with each other about experiences that cannot be adequately represented straightforwardly with language. sometimes you have to abstract your representation of the experience in order to truly communicate how big and insane it felt
Riding a bike is one of those things that’s a very physical experience, so if you haven’t ridden, then there’s a lot you will naturally not be aware of. I love motorcycle scenes in stories, but over the years I’ve noticed that scenes written by non-riders almost always make the same mistakes. They’re ubiquitous in fact, to the point that if you haven’t been there to learn the contrary yourself, it’s natural to assume that’s how it actually works.
The first thing to know about motorcycles is that when driving, the motorcycle performs as an extension of you. It’s almost cybernetic, the way your mass and balance fuse with the machine’s, the way it transmutes your sense of your surroundings and the surface you’re driving on, and the sense of the bike itself and how it’s performing.
Most notably, the driver’s center of gravity becomes the central steering mechanism. At speeds faster than around 10 mph, the driver steers primarily through shifting their center of balance. If you want to turn left, you lean your body left. You’re actually tilting yourself and the motorcycle to take curves and corners.
When carrying a passenger, then, the passenger needs to shift their center of gravity along with the driver’s. It’s like taking the ‘follower’ position in partner dancing. You lean WITH them; not less, because then your weight counters theirs and they end up not turning (which can be highly bad if, say, the road does not go that way), and not more, because then the bike could tip right over.
Being a good passenger on a bike is not a huge learning curve for most people, but there is a learning curve. And some people have more of a knack for it than others. Some people are natural back-seat drivers, for whatever reason overly pushy, eager, demanding, or determined that they know better than you, and have a habit of making it hard on the driver. I’ve had people tell me they hate riding pillion even if they’re good at it, because they don’t like how out-of-control it feels. I detest it myself, in fact; I’d far rather be driving, and it’s a constant struggle for me to just follow along and behave myself.
This means, though, that carrying a passenger who weighs significantly more than you can be a tricky business. I weigh about 110, and when carrying a rider weighing significantly more than that, it’s awfully easy to crash if the passenger tries to back-seat steer. (A way to mitigate this, especially for new passengers, is to simply take 15 minutes or so to bump around quiet local roads at low speeds so that the driver and passenger can familiarize themselves a bit with minimal risk to themselves.)
Now, undoubtedly the #1 most-committed mistake I see from almost everybody who writes about motorcycles (and for that matter, a lot of unsuspecting new passengers try it in real life) is the ‘wrapping arms around the driver’s waist’ business. It’s so common that this line is practically required by law when somebody’s writing a motorcycle scene, but seriously: DON’T DO THAT. <–The all caps there is not for shaming; it’s for emphasizing the safety issues. It’s not only uncomfortable for the driver, it’s potentially dangerous. It makes it hard to steer, hard to breathe comfortably, and easy to get jerked off balance and into a crash.
In a similar vein, holding onto the driver via grabbing their clothing is ill-advised. This can lead to getting jerked off balance, having seams dig in painfully, and being choked by fabric.
What to do instead: The rider sitting pillion should brace their hands on either side of the driver’s waist.
I know, if you’re in it for the sexual tension, this sounds less sexy, but I’m here to tell you that’s a filthy lie. A passenger who’s sitting properly is basically molded onto the driver’s back. Riding with/being a passenger on a bike is a startlingly intimate experience. There’s a lot of trust and teamwork involved, which takes place at a kinesthetic level. It feels a lot like dancing, as I said before, or maybe partnered sports, where the collaboration is happening at a physical, bone-deep level that often skips right past the conscious intellect.
Now, sometimes (you may’ve seen this on the road) you’ll have passengers who prefer to hang onto a part of the bike–bits of the frame, maybe, or a ‘sissy bar’/seat back sticking up from the back. It’s not uncommon, but it’s a bad habit because the passenger is never quite as in-tune with the driver this way, and if something happens–a tire slips in a puddle, for example–their weight moving in the wrong direction can end up jerking the bike out of the driver’s control.
Another thing I see a lot of writers do in stories that doesn’t work in real life: unfortunately, helmets are NOT easily swappable. They’re designed to clasp the head; a well-fitted helmet should not move on your head at all, even if you shake your head hard (though it also shouldn’t be tight enough to exert uncomfortable pressure). A helmet that fits loosely is useless at best and dangerous at worst. One that’s too tight is either painful or doesn’t go on at all. It doesn’t take much difference in the size of two people’s heads for one person’s helmet to not fit the other person properly. (And even if they’re the same size, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be comfortable for more than short-term wear, but hey.)
Also, the stupid things are ridiculously expensive–especially the full-face models–so most bikers aren’t lucky enough to have a bunch of extras just laying around.
Another tip, both for writing and riding: riding pillion on a sports bike (those sleek ones where the driver’s crouched and leaning forward like a race jockey) is a miserable freaking experience. On a lot of models, you’re perched up there on something that barely counts as a seat and leaves you constantly feeling like you’re about to slide off the back; your legs are pushed up into a crouch; you’re hunched like a monkey over the driver; and possibly you’ve got a scalding-hot muffler pressed up against your calf.
(Pro tip: if anybody ever invites you for a ride on their bike and you’re wearing shorts, pay attention to where the muffler’s located in relation to the foot pegs.)
Now, what is it about motorcycles that makes some of us bikers go into a lathered-up frenzy at the idea of riding? It’s because it FEELS SO DAMN ALIVE.
Look. It’s like…life these days is, well, canned. We spend a lot of our time in pods–houses, cars, subway trains–breathing tinned air, walking around on pavement or carpet… But when I’m on a bike, it’s me and a 360 degree panorama of the world, and there’s nothing between me and it. Some people get off on the risk of that, but for me it’s a matter of immersion. When I ride, I can feel the cool humid air rolling down from under a forested hillside. I can smell the road dust, the oil, the exhaust, the herby scent of weeds and wildflowers on the roadside, the river I’m driving near, the shady scent of a forest, the roadside fruit stand…and I’m not talking in that wafty, broken-up way you get if you roll the car doors down. It’s like driving into a wall of scent, crashing through one bubble after another of temperature changes and smells and sounds and sights, and I have this bike underneath me that’s rumbling and vibrating and moving like it’s part of me, and it’s just the most powerful sense I’ve ever had of being in charge of my own life and not hiding from the world. I can see it, and it can see me, and yeah, that’s a bit dangerous, but it’s also real.
How do you draw Abodes Dreads/Braids? I'm a black creator and still (embarrassingly) struggle with them in the arcana style. (And in general XD) the way you draw her is gorgeous. And I must know the magic you poses.
Nothing to be embarrassed for! Unfortunately there’s not much reference for black hair in the Arcana, so we all have to guess. I’d highly recommend looking at @kianamaiart and Simkray’s hair brushes for other examples of stylising black hair (if anyone has examples of black hair in angular art styles, please share!!)
Anyway, I hope this helps!
Dreads and braids are both segmented styles which makes their basic construction similar, however dreads are stiffer and hang less than braids, which are quite heavy
She usually pulls her hair back so I only have to pay attention to the hairline, but I draw each dread as a somewhat stiff tube. Where it connects to the scalp I feather in short, fine lines for the edges/thin hair that’s attached to the skin.
To show the twisted texture of dreads, I add curved lines along each one. For me, this is a good balance of detail for the style (though I can still get tired of lineart -_-)
Then, as a final detail, I give Abosede imperfect ends, topping most dreads off with a thin twist. This is optional as some dreads don’t have this.
Then finally, for colour. I take reference for how they render ropes and add a series of light lines along each dread. Dreads don’t reflect much light, so these are pretty faint.
For some braided hairstyles, you just replace the tubes I use for dreads with a simple plait pattern (as seen in Lucio’s masquerade outfit). If you’re aiming for cornrows, instead of the segments, draw the tubes along the scalp with sharp ends. Then fill them with a plait pattern. For extra detail, you can hatch lines in between the cornrows where the hair is pulled into the braid.
Braids have stronger highlights than dreads, and I tend to dot them in the centre of each part.
So this is my basic process. If you have more questions, feel free to ask!
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furbishempress sent:
