#(idk if i even posted any examples of when i try to draw like that before.)

[loveletterworm]

Its crazy how I have no fucking idea what I intend to do in general whatsoever like No I can't go to college I don't have any interests I could pursue there. No I can't do an art thing in college which is my sole consistent talent because I am quite confident they would not let me in due to the fact that I am not actually that good at it in a broad sense and also I wouldn't like having to do assignments about it anyways. No I can't get a job because I cannot drive anywhere. No I can't learn to drive because I'm scared of the road and cars and dying. But as for staring at the wall and not doing anything or going anywhere forever I am going pro.

[genericpuff]

oh boy it's that time again

when rachel posts 'video progress' of her work and we proceed to dissect it like a frog in 9th grade science class

like ok first the caption of "is persephone the chicken and hades the egg" makes no fucking sense except to anyone who overthinks it and goes "wait is that a reference to the popularly-perpetuated version of the myth where persephone went down to the underworld willingly and hades didn't actually exist???" because if it is ima scream lmao

but MORE IMPORTANTLY-

Here's the transcript of what she's saying in the video:

"I think I've always wanted to write Hades' and Persephone's story because obviously I really like them. It's like very much a chicken and egg situation because I think in the beginning I thought that I was going to use a very abstract black and white style, and I realized it wasn't very enticing or fun for me, um... and I started drawing these very like vibrant characters and as I drew them I understood more about the story the more that I explored the art style, um and I guess an example of that is, y'know, Persephone is like a very bright color um, and the Underworld, is a very dark dark blue, and so when she says she really sticks out so it's just environmental uh processes like that that really helped inspire the direction of the story."

(despite her expanding on the "chicken and the egg" bit it still doesn't make sense imo lmao)

But what we're seeing isn't S1 LO, it's actually from S3 of LO:

But um... you notice anything interesting about the screenshot I just showed you?

That literally looks NOTHING like what we see in the final panel. At the VERY least I think this goes to show how overcooked it becomes in post-production, when they add the canvas layer and hypersaturate the shit out of the colors, but even the blending technique just isn't matching up?

A lot of what she's doing in this video also feels very... non-existent, like she's brushing her pen around but very little is happening so it feels more like her just putting down random brush strokes to try and make it seem put-together but really she's just kind of pushing colors around and/or doing nothing. Especially when, again, what she's painting here looks nothing like the final picture (so at best it's a lot of wasted work??)

And knowing what we know about the assistants drawing the characters separately so that Rachel can rearrange them in the final episode layout... I don't wanna call foul play here, but this feels like yet another attempt on Rachel's behalf to make her process seem more involved than it is by simply redrawing a scene for the performative aspect of it all. It's like the "sketches" in the books looking way too 'clean' for the final product and giving the impression that she just sketched over the final panels to make them look pretty enough for print.

I also wanna mention that for some reason she's drawing this on her iPad when she owns a Cintiq. It could be because she was drawing this while abroad in the US for her conventions last fall, but despite clearly being ahead of schedule, she still wound up drawing the final episode the night of-

Oh yeah and btw there are like a million clipping layers for what looks like just a simple drawing of Demeter. And this lines up with our previous theories about her using like 128549021809 layers for literally one character.

And aside from all that her commentary, as always, is very nothingburger, just a bunch of word salad. Like she's literally trying to explain LO's color theory as "well Persephone is bright pink and the Underworld is dark blue so she sticks out! That's all you need to know!"

IDK, I'm not coming to any sort of ironclad conclusion based off this one video, but it does feel like yet another desperate attempt to prove that she does work on LO and doesn't just leave it all to her assistants to do at the last minute. But like... she's kind of screwed in that argument either way, because even if she draws the majority of panels in LO, that just further proves the argument that she's stopped trying.

[signanothername]

firstly: AAA YOUR ART AND COMICS AND STUFF ARE SO AMAZING!!!!

secondly: do you have any advice on how to come up with comics and then get them out of your head and onto paper?

BZHXHXHD THANK YOU SM!!!

And ooh that’s a good question

I usually come up with comics in one of two ways, either seeing something (whether another artwork, a text, something irl, etc) that inspires an idea for a comic, or via artworks I made that I expand on

Other times, it can actually be both

For example, the “A little life update” comic was actually inspired by this beautiful artwork, I saw it, and I immediately thought of Killer, idk something something about the despair of being stuck between a rock and a hard place etcetera etcetera (yes the comic that shows Killer to be in such a better place in life and show the hope he has, was inspired by crushing despair in actuality)

It made me wanna do something with Killer trying to call someone on a public phone, and so the first page came to be

Here’s the twist tho, I originally was gonna just make it into an artwork (yes, one single decision could’ve meant that comic wouldn’t have ever been made)

But a lil habit of mine is ask myself a shit ton of questions when it comes to my own artworks (it actually helps me turn what’s supposed to be artworks into comics), and that’s another way of how you can come up with comics, ask yourself questions, why is the character doing this? What are they doing? What if character did this? Etc

so I saw what was originally gonna be an artwork, and asked myself, who would Killer be calling if he ever did and why?

And the answer to those two questions that made sense to me most was Nightmare, but that led me to two more questions, when would Killer be calling Nightmare and for what?

And that led me to have a basic idea of how I wanted the comic to go

So it was basically like

Who would Killer be calling? Nightmare

Why would Killer be calling Nightmare if he ever did? That actually had different answers, to taunt him, to inform him of something, cause he misses Nightmare in his own fucked up way, etc

When would Killer be calling Nightmare? After he’s saved, or while still under him? After he’s saved makes more sense

What would Killer call Nightmare for? To give him an update about his life with Color

How would Killer be calling Nightmare? Through a public phone

Where would Killer be calling from? Somewhere in an AU in the surface

These six questions, what, why, when, who, where, how, are important to think of, they give you a basis to work on when it comes to comics in general

You don’t need to have a very clear answer to each of them to be able to work on a comic, but if you can at least answer 3 of them, that would give you enough information to work with in a comic

Now that I have a tiny bit of a clear idea about what I wanted to do (it doesn’t have to be perfect or completely concise) let’s talk about how you take these ideas out of your head and into paper

You can do that by imagining the dialogue in your head and then immediately putting it into paper, as I mentioned here, I actually struggle a lot with dialogue, art? No problem, I can easily imagine the art, but dialogue? It’s hell (please take the time to read the linked post, I talk in depth about how I handle dialogue)

That’s why you shouldn’t worry about perfection at this stage, just put every little piece of dialogue you imagine into paper, even if it feels like it makes no sense or is out of character, that’s something you can worry about later

Put in the dialogue, every little bit of it, and draw the panels that feels right for the dialogue

Here’s a little bit of example about what I mean when I say put the dialogue in then draw panels that make sense for it

This is a comic I plan on making, I actually drew that first panel as a stand alone artwork, then that inspired the dialogue, I wrote the dialogue down immediately, it’s a rough version of it, maybe I’ll keep it the same, maybe I’ll change it up as I work through the comic, but so far, I’m drawing the panels based on the dialogue so far, see what I mean by write the dialogue down? It helps IMMENSELY

It doesn’t have to be perfect and it certainly doesn’t have to be the final version, but writing it down will help you imagine the art that comes with it

Does that mean you can never start with the art then think of the dialogue? NO

You absolutely can start with the art for the comic first, in fact, sometimes, doing that actually helps you imagine the dialogue better, other times you can’t really think of a dialogue but have a very clear image in your head about certain character interactions, draw that it’s ok, silent comics focusing on character interaction, is a thing that you can do without worrying about dialogue

Now when it comes to the actual making of a comic, first tip is find your own footing when it comes to comic making

Like listen, people are gonna tell you that the correct thing to do is that you have to make thumbnails for the comic before you make the actual comic to make sure the flow is good and you have room for speech bubbles and what not

Here’s the thing, making thumbnails for your comic is a life saver, it’s great, if you can do that go for it! But for a person like me with little to no energy, I can’t do that without losing interest and immediately abandoning my comic, I can’t do that without becoming frustrated and hate art for it

That’s why I say find your footing, if making thumbnails before working on the actual pages works for you go for it! or you can immediately just work on the actual comic itself like I do, it’s all about what you’re comfortable with and what makes more sense to you

That being said, when it comes to the panels themselves, always aim for less panels and more pages than the other way around

Sometimes, emphasis on certain emotions or aspects of the comic can only be done with fewer panels

That’s why my own comics would sometimes have pages that are either one or two panels max

The less panels you have in a page, the more concise, clear, and easy to follow your comic is, one of the biggest mistakes I made as a beginner artist, is that I focused on cramping the story in as few pages as possible rather than focus on the clarity of the comic

Here’s an example

Good luck reading that dggxgdgdh

This is a very old comic I made back in 2018? 2019?, I wanted the comic to be one page so bad I cramped everything into it without thinking about the fact people are gonna have a very hard time reading it, like this easily could’ve been 3-5 pages but old me couldn’t imagine doing that many pages (if she could see me now with 15 pages comics dhhdhdg) not only that, but the panels’ arrangement makes 0 sense

So when you make your panels there are 2 things to keep in mind:

1- less panels and more pages = clear easy to follow comic, as well as a better emotional impact

2- panel arrangement has to make sense and should be easy to follow, you can make sure it’s easy to follow by reading your own comic over and over as you’re making it, if you find difficulty following the dialogue or art, then it’s best to refine, change or edit your panel or dialogue arrangement

Another thing to keep in mind when making the comic is the flow, the best way to go about making sure that the flow makes sense is by thinking of the comic as you would an animation, how did the character go from point A to point B?

For example this page

Killer clearly has a bit of a distance from Nightmare in the second panel, so how did Killer go from being at a distance (point A), to right in front of Nightmare in the last panel (point B)? That’s what the two panels in between the these two points are for, is to show you that 1- Nightmare is using his tentacle, and 2- that tentacle wrapped around Killer’s arm, the rest would easily be filled in by your brain that Nightmare basically pulled him closer

Now for the ending of a comic, not every comic has to have a clear ending where it marks the end of a story, but rather, you can go for whatever satisfies you as an ending, or keep an ending ambiguous or open, to expand on a comic later

I say that the perfect ending for a comic is what gets the point of a comic across, if the point is made, then it’s a good panel to end the comic with

Don’t be afraid to scarp any page or panels if they make the comic awkward or if they don’t make sense or if it seems out of character don’t hesitate to change, edit or completely delete it

An example is the “choice” comic, it actually originally was 4 pages, I just decided to scrap the last page cause of two reasons

1- it added nothing to the comic

2- it was out of character for Stage 2 Killer

My last advice is don’t force the process, sometimes, the best way to go about making comics is to make them on your own time and slowly, sometimes, you get stuck with certain things in the comic, other times, you need a bit to figure out how to proceed with the comic, completely normal in the process, that’s why it’s important to work on comics in a way that suits you, but you can’t find what suits you without trial and error, so go and test the waters, you can never learn until you practice it yourself

Good luck, hope this helps, lemme know if you need more clarification or help, i’d be happy to help where I can <333

[revenantghost]

Tristamp Wolfwood is a bit different than his counterparts, yeah? And I don’t mean that in a bad way, Orange is going somewhere with it, but it’s very different from what they’ve done with Vash and Meryl imo. With them, I feel like we got a glimpse of pre-canon. With Wolfwood... Orange is up to something, and it goddamn terrifies me. I love him dearly, he has some many moments that make me smile and go, “Yeah, that’s Wolfwood, my beloved asshole.” But it’s different. Oh so very different.

I’m just gonna point out a few examples of things I think are different enough to note here (drawing comparisons from Trimax since that was the source for Tristamp, but I’ll try not to spoil much--just don’t Google names you don’t recognize), and then go a little off the rails with a couple theories (spoilers there, click the read more at your own peril). This is DEFINITELY not everything, and maybe my takes are a bit off, idk. If there’s something you’ve picked up on, definitely feel free to add it!

Well, here goes:

My dude is a mess. Wolfwood is typically put together and some would call him smooth (he’s a mess inside always, though) in his other incarnations. Orange pointed out at Sakuracon that the characters are supposed to look younger and more immature in Tristamp, and Wolfwood specifically is supposed to look like he can’t dress himself (lmao). They said they have their reasons but just didn’t have time to explore them in canon. So, I can make assumptions, but I’ll wait to see what comes in the future.

Another one that staff talked about in a recent interview is that Wolfwood is technically a priest according to his contract, but he calls himself an undertaker. Yeah, yeah, edgelord Tristamp Wolfwood and all that, but I’ve seen people call back to how, in the manga, it’s Vash that always takes the time to bury the dead. Wolfwood even chews him out a bit for this. But it’s literally in our introduction to him in this version. He carries the weight of the dead with him enough to make it part of his title, and that’s different for him.

I could be misremembering with this one. But I distinctly remember being surprised when I read Trimax because Wolfwood going into the Eye of Michael seemed more of his own choice than it is in Tristamp (not that a literal child could consent to, you know, torture and abuse)? But either way Wolfwood loathes the Eye of Michael from the get-go here, he doesn’t stay by choice and actively tries to escape. Just like all these choices he makes in Tristamp (which is MASSIVELY different in general), he does it for someone else. He can’t try to escape again, because they have Livio.

Speaking of! Livio!!! This was another thing that caught me by surprise going from Tristamp to Trimax, their relationship is so much different here, so much softer and it hurts in a beautiful way. I feel like less is more here to avoid spoilers, but this introduction pre-Trimax-canon and any future conflict with this backstory... is very different.

Holy hell, a moment like this happening so early?! Vash and Wolfwood having ideological differences and not understanding each other takes up so much time in Trimax. But over the course of three episodes, we go from Wolfwood killing someone that Vash wanted to save (props to Tristamp for making that gutpunch even more personal, ouch--though points deducted for not having the, “Shoot,” moment there), to Vash seeing how very similar they are and getting a grasp of why Wolfwood is the way he is. Wolfwood is so much softer in Tristamp. He’s way more emotional, he cares so deeply for things outside of himself, and he doesn’t have that apathetic bitterness. Staff have said that our main characters will be a lot more recognizable post-timeskip, so some shit is gonna happen to this man, but this is a fundamental shift in the early days of their relationship.

AGAIN!!! Wolfwood is doing this whole mission, betraying Vash, to save the orphanage. He didn’t have to listen to Vash trying to save the sandsteamer. It doesn’t matter if Vash is pissy if Wolfwood blew up the ship to save the orphanage, because that’s his end goal. He has a giant laser that just blew through an entire giant worm, this ship is nothing. Wolfwood’s trying to cling to the monster that he sees himself as, trying to stay the Punisher, but he’s not. He already has enough faith in Vash to trust him with everything he cares about. This takes a lot of development time for Wolfwood to trust Vash like this in Trimax--and even in the very end, he still doesn’t trust Vash with this. (If you know, you know.)

AGAIN!!!!! Wolfwood cares!!! He does not need to question if Vash is sure, if he thinks he can make up with or convince Knives or whatever, in fact he shouldn’t. He should give Vash no reason to question getting to July. But Wolfwood, be careful, your feelings are showing. Wolfwood’s getting worried about Vash. Even though all he needs to do is keep his head down and get this dork to July.

This was never Trimax Wolfwood’s motivation. Whatever drove him left him hollow and empty, he did not care. Even when he saw things starting to go south and he wanted out, Vash ended up being right: he was too much of a coward to do anything about it. (If you know, you know.) I had wondered, after Legato tried to bulldoze everything he loved, why the hell didn’t Wolfwood just desert the mission and team up with the gang. He already has such a deep connection with them. But this would be why.

WOLFWOOD IS NO LONGER CONTRACTED BY THE EYE OF MICHAEL AT THE END OF THE SEASON??? Some people say that Wolfwood still works for them, but tbh for what reason? They’re about to end the world. And then what about this line? He wouldn’t exactly have a choice, would he? I do think we’re gonna meet Chapel (right before Livio shoots himself, you’ll hear a voice and see a silhouette (not Razlo, though he’s there too) that seems to be a “new” character), and Wolfwood might end up working under him for some fucked up reason... But if not, this changes everything. It already changes everything considering how big Wolfwood escorting Vash to Knives is. But that’s done now. And because Vash saw right through him the first time, if Wolfwood comes back to do the same thing again, it might feel cheap and a little silly.

MERYL!!! Trimax is basically the Vash and Wolfwood show, right? The girls are around, but mainly their interactions are with Vash. But he and Meryl interact so much just over the course of twelve episodes. They even have that adorable group shot. She matters enough that he came back to rescue her, and the two of them worry about Vash together in the finale. Who knows what happened post-finale, but Wolfwood’s self isolation is already shot to hell. He’s more big brother Nico than he’d had the chance to be in awhile, he has so many people to care for.

So the danger has passed, Vash’s roots are back inside of him, the orphanage should be fine. But Wolfwood comes back for them. Yeah, yeah, the stupid cigarette excuse, but this is Wolfwood, not Vash. He didn’t come back because of the cigarette debt and we all know it. (Also kinda hoping that him saying what he does about fighting Knives being crazy is foreshadowing for some ridiculous 1v1 fight between them, had to throw that in there)

Now, theories Trimax spoiler time bby (I’ll also post any corrections under the cut):

EDIT 1: I was bonkers wrong on the Tristamp timeline (it takes place from May 25th to July 21st, not including the epilogue), so I just deleted that bit from the og post. I cannot remember where I got that number in my brain.

They are doing something with this man and I hate it as much as I love it. Every other character can go off and follow similar paths but they just nuked the entirety of Wolfwood’s storyline by having him be finished getting Vash to Knives and him choosing to trust Vash so goddamn early. And in less than a week of canon time!!! ORANGE WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!!

They’ve knocked everything out of the park so far, I had so many concerns about what they were doing while watching, and they squashed most of them. So I choose to have faith that Orange has a brilliant plan that will crush my emotions in mind. It will probably eviscerate us just like Trimax did. But I have two theories as to how this could go:

First: And by far the most likely: all roads lead to that goddamned couch. They changed a ton of things, but just to make it all hurt in a new and exciting way. Don’t get me wrong, this was the final straw in making Trimax one of my favorite manga ever--Wolfwood’s character arc is one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever read. I’m a bit nervous because we’ve already shifted that arc so much, but there’s a lot of room to fuck us all up in this one. I imagine the final confrontation will still be between the two brothers, but I imagine the context will be different.

Wolfwood’s already chosen to spare Livio, so that won’t be the clincher, but there are so many things that Wolfwood wants to fight for now to use against him. Something in the timeskip will probably firm up his ideals to be the opposite of Vash’s in a different way than before, but I imagine we’ll get at least a season of them being goofy and learning how to live and regain their humanity together before they’re couched. :’) And now the girls are going to be a bigger part of it to make the grief all that greater :’))) Thanks in advance, Orange :’))))))

Second: No couch??? I know, then what would be the point? He’s doomed in every universe, how will it be as powerful if they don’t do that here??? And I agree, I think this is way less likely. But Wolfwood has already accepted the power of anime Jesus friendship into his life, and that’s a huge part of what lead to his death. Not that I don’t think it’s still likely for Tristamp Wolfwood to think it’s too much to ask Vash to step away from the conflict with Knives for whatever his personal struggles are, but... man that sandsteamer incident is foreshadowing something and I’m afraid. It shifted so much in a way that is so significant, I feel like I’m not doing it justice with my words.

Speaking of possible foreshadowing: Wolfwood isn’t the product of random experimenting like he was in Trimax, he’s the product of plant experimentation. And Vash can heal plants. Again, that’s a big ol’ stretch, as I think that they made the Gung Ho Guns a product of plant experimentation to try and explain the magic powers they all have, and it’s a very smooth idea imo. But it haunts me. Also, given that Conrad has probably been kept alive through fucked up plant methods and how long Rollo remained the same, and Conrad said the only flaw in his experiments were that they had to eat and drink... does Wolfwood and Gung Ho Gun friends have an extended lifespan??? Okay, getting off topic, sorry :’D

Basically, Wolfwood has already made huge leaps and bounds in trusting Vash, even listening to Meryl, and growing a heart for humanity. To the point I was half-afraid this guy was going to die in the finale, because we’ve already seen so much of his character arc. (It would have been a poor choice and I’m happy it didn’t happen EVEN IF I’M STILL AFRAID). And he’s based off of Trimax Wolfwood quite heavily! You can see it in the core of his personality still!!! WHAT ARE THEY GOING TO DO WITH HIM???

I doubt either of these ideas are going to be quite right, watch as Orange works in a secret, third thing that I can’t even imagine lmao. But this has been driving me absolutely bonkers and I had to share. This is still Wolfwood, and I have a feeling he’s only going to be more and more of the lovable asshole from here on out. But I have no idea where we’re going with it.

Holy hell, this was a long post. If you made it to the end of my insane ramblings well, uh... congrats??? I hope it was somewhat worth the read???? I’m so sorry?????? Thank you??????????

[cakesmelons]

idk if your still gonna answer asks about the situation but as a fellow trans person i need to explain something that i'm noticing a lot of people are not understanding (don't worry this isnt at you or anyone upset with cal) i'm seeing quite a few people go "she's sticking to her beliefs and being respectful! she's not being transphobic so what's the big deal!?" and i genuinely want the people saying this to read this post and take into consideration on why this doesn't make the situation any better her belief is a very outdated and also dangerous one because believing that there can only be a male and a female invalidates so many people (trans, enby, non-binary, intersex etc) and those beliefs can cause actual harm to people to the point of literal hate crimes, i'm sorry but you guys shouldn't give her a pat on the back for "sticking to her beliefs" because her beliefs are very, very harmful and i've even seen other christens disagree with her and try to explain to her why this is bad

secondly; there's also how she called trans people a label and used the term in quotation marks, we are not a label we are living breathing human beings who want to be happy with ourselves and have a right to exists thirdly and there's the elephant in the room... the twitter likes and follows, it's proven many times that cal has liked straight up horrible transphobic and homophobic tweets and even follows people like matt walsh who want lgbtq+ people dead, if anyone defending her didn't know about the twitter stuff then that's fine but if you did and still defend her then it's clear you guys are beyond help closing statement: the reason why people are very upset with cal is that she lied to so many trans people in the community with a cut and dry example of being two-faced, you simply cannot say you respect trans people and interact with them while also going out of your way to have a low-key transphobic belief, liking transphobic stuff and following transphobic people especially when undertale and deltarune cannonicly have lgbtq+ character (cal even drawing said lgbtq+ characters like undyne for example which i find rich since i've heard she doesn't like mlm and wlw ships) and the community having SO MUCH lgbtq+ people this isn't a "lets agree to disagree" situation, this isn't drama either, this is a very serious situation also i've seen people go "she hasn't said any hate in the past!" as an defense, sorry but that doesn't change anything... i think it just makes the fact that she fooled everyone worse anyway sorry for this lengthy asks, i'm too scared to make a post but also i've been very upset about the situation and wanted to get my thoughts out because the way people are defending her without understanding why this is actually very bad is making me facepalm so hard sincerely, a very emotional trans man

I really don't have anything to add. This is a pretty good summary of this whole thing.

[luminologism]

Sky Cotl Skytober 2024: A retrospective by ME!

All of my skytober pieces in chronological order! -> here The song I set it too! -> here

This year, I participated in an Inktober adjacent drawing event. I did the Sky Cotl version of Inktober, Skytober. Now that it's November 1st, I have thoughts and feelings about the experience, what I learned, what I did right, and what I can improve on! This post is very much for me to reconcile and reflect on the art I did this month, but please feel read and enjoy my raw thoughts as well. I feel like everybody can learn from or relate to what I'm gonna chatter on about below, so take a read if you're so inclined! I'll be touching on relatability, popularity vs niche, effort vs efficiency, and passion vs honing skill.

WHY I DID SKYTOBER

So, as I said above, I participated in Skytober! It's my first Inktober adjacent event EVER! I've done similar projects in the past related to other arts (NaNoWriMo for example) but ultimately failed! Why? Well, I just didn't see that stuff through. I did not have a strong goal, and thus the past projects inevitably failed.

This year, however, I was DETERMINED to finish this project! This is because I have been meaning to make my inevitable swap from Paint Tool Sai 2 to Clip Studio Paint for AGES. I've had this program since forever (and even had the old version Manga Studio as a kid!), but it was far too robust at the time for me to want to learn it. However, it's been sitting on my computer for ages, and I have a massive commission in the works currently! I felt many of CSP's tools would be useful for that commission, so I took a bit of a detour and decided that Skytober would help me sit down and actually spend time learning this damn program.

Needless to say, I think my attempts at learning at least a bit of the program was successful. I learned a lot of the basic functions and where I liked tools and functions placed, I learned how to fiddle with some interesting brushes, and I also spent a LOT of time learning how to (roughly) paint backgrounds! These are all skills I was desperately trying to learn anyways, so having some solid and strict direction very much helped. I still have a lot to learn program wise, but drawing (nearly) every day has definitely given me a solid foothold in this program. As a diehard SAI2 user, the jump is difficult! But I think I did alright.

MY CREATIVE MINDSET AND DIRECTION

Now, the art itself. There are favorites I have, and there are absolute duds as well. In my eyes, to be specific. Drawing (nearly) every day is bound to run you dry for some mental and creative resources, but I did a few things to help mitigate that and keep the train chugging. For a long time, I had been meaning to make a Sky Cotl animatic using the song Virtual Angel by ARTMS. That's a recent release from that music group, but it's been one of my favorites recently. I think it's a beautiful song, and with lyrics like 'for the sin of swallowing up the sun' and 'fly me to your eden, this is eden' and 'i'll be there for you when your wings break', I thought the song fit Sky Cotl's vibe perfectly. However, I know absolutely nothing about animatics, so I decided to repurpose the idea into assigning a lyric to each Skytober piece instead. This massively helped with direction of ideas. It wasn't perfect, but it still significantly helped. Another thing I did to keep myself inspired was I actually wrote out a significant number of my ideas beforehand. They were not super fleshed out at times, and often they changed if I got inspired in another way. And other times, I just completely gave up on any ideas and decided the goal was just to finish SOMETHING, if just to keep the ball rolling. Either way, at least planning some things ahead of time helped eliminate a majority of the 'idk what to draaaaw!' woes down. It also helped me stay efficient, and having the song as direct inspiration sort of kept stoking the fires of my passion and helped me keep going! Raaah! Even so, I still ended up with duds, and you can absolutely see that reflected in each pieces notes.

RECEPTION OF MY WORK

I've never had this much attention on my work before. I used to run a pretty popular twitter before restarting it (and then deleting that second one just recently due to twitter being twitter), but I've never surpassed 1000 notes on anything before. Please understand, while I know that's not really all that much, for me that is! It's like imagining 1000 people standing in the same room as me giving me a thumbs up on my silly picture. It was amazing!! I would look at my notes all day at the start of the month with a smile on my face. It was surreal seeing people's thoughts coming in in real time. Seeing everybody's thoughts and feelings and interpretations of my works was amazing and so interesting to see. There would be people simply screaming at my work with glee, giving me genuine and sincere compliments, giving me their interpretations of how my works made them feel, and so much more! The most jarring thing for me was seeing a few people tag their friends in my work. I would sit there like 'huh, this person liked this piece so much that they had to show their friend directly!'. And it made me smile.

I also got to see in real time how my efforts can directly correlate with the interactions I got. And that swung both ways. There are some pieces I posted that barely had eyes on them, and it wasn't because I did poorly. It was because I think people can very much see when something is low effort or if you post something without confidence. Meanwhile, there were some pieces I posted that I sort of just threw together, and people LOVED? My picture for the prompt 'Mural' went absolutely bonkers, and I don't even really think it's all that good! On that piece I was just testing out manga stone wall brushes and fussing with glowing layer modes. It's by far my most popular Skytober piece as of posting this retrospective though, so it's interesting to see!

Another thing I saw that was interesting and I picked up very quickly on was my own OC content sees less eyes! Not because my OCs are bad or anything, but strangers can't relate to it! Even if the art is baller, my OC content had less interest than my more vague pieces. The pieces where I posted random moths (the closer to base game look, the better) were the ones people liked the best! That, or if I posted in game characters.

OVERALL

All in all, it was a very enlightening experience! If I do another event like this again, I will not pigeonhole myself to the square little paint stamp vibe I had going on. That made it hard to branch out or many images look wider. I will also put less effort in. Funny that I word it like that, but I actually think I put TOO MUCH effort in on some pieces! That made my inspiration (and other pieces) suffer. I also think that while I enjoyed posting my works with song lyrics, I won't do that again. Or if I do, I'm choosing a shorter song. I might also combine prompt days next time.

[velvees-archive]

save for the dual destinies dlc case, i’ve finished my first play through of the mainline ace attorney games. incredibly solid series. i have a draft with my thoughts on each case in the aj trilogy + game ratings. dunno if i’d wanna post it though, it’s kinda long.

so instead, i’ll post some misc thoughts about phoenix and edgeworth portrayals across mainline/aai + my personal favorite interpretations of them by the writing team!

spoilers for AA mainline and AAI duology

by far, my favorite phoenix portrayal is og trilogy phoenix. the way he interacts with his environment and the people around him is very authentic, albeit rude as hell (which, in hindsight, is even more authentic for phoenix, so…). saw someone’s tumblr post mention that phoenix is such a “straight guy” which…yeah LMAO. real to life accuracy, so much so it’s infuriating. i think what i’ve played of dd’s dlc case captures what i wanted to see from post-trilogy phoenix in that he’s still an asshole and comically stupid, but not actually stupid, if ykwim. something i disliked abt the rest of aa5 and aa6 is how the writing team watered his character down to the following two oversimplifications: “phoenix only wins cases bc he bluffs!” and “uhh...what evidence does phoenix present now?”

don’t mistake a silly man for a stupid man. mia calls phoenix a genius in the og trilogy. phoenix dives in head first but he’s meticulous when it comes to drawing out the truth. most of all, he doesn’t outwardly show how frazzled he is (see that one drew misham quote about phoenix quietly watching the court as he’s accused of forging evidence), even if he feels that way. i get the colorful usage of expressions is for comedic effect but it just makes him look like he doesn’t know wtf he’s doing, and that’s a disservice to his character. yes, he bluffs, but he isn’t clueless. anyway, i’m excited to replay the first trilogy now that i “know” second trilogy phoenix. that might also just be my way of saying “give me back MY phoenix”, bc the last time i’m (mostly) on board w his portrayal is in aa4, and even then i didn’t like the dialogue in his forged evidence trial.

*though, as of writing this, i’ve seen some good arguments abt his forged evidence trial dialogue that make me think ok maybe it was actually pretty accurate. let’s see wht i think on replay

on the other hand, my favorite edgeworth—at least in principle—is post-apollo justice edgeworth. in many ways, i think how he’s portrayed at 35 is how he would’ve been had dl-6 not occurred, barring his career choice. still a bit pompous, still fairly mean (at least on the surface, we all know he cares more than he lets on) and perhaps a bit uptight, but self-assured and just. the writing team makes a point to show that edgeworth doesn’t care about prestige or fancy titles. that feels like him in a way post-first trilogy edgeworth doesn’t. this particular point was fleshed out in aa1 and rfta, tho, so idk if i can give yamazaki credit for it.

there are some things that will always bother me abt post-first trilogy edgeworth (the problems are present in the aai duology as well) where the writing team shoves him into a box teeming with boring tropes for his character archetype.

an example:

creds for both these pictures: me

edgeworth is fine w pictures in the first trilogy, but comes to hate them in the aai duology.

ik it’s small but honestly what was the reason? what justification is there for this outside of wanting to fit edgeworth into a “cold character” stereotype?

bridge to the turnabout and turnabout ablaze are only about a month apart. i’m not buying into the sudden aversion to picture taking, regardless how minute a criticism it is. in any case, i feel like what i’m trying to say comes through w these screenshots: yamazaki’s edgeworth is always just a little off.

i am forgetting where i saw the post and i have too many liked posts to scroll thru to find it again but i saw a reblog?? tumblr post?? abt yamazaki and takumi’s diff approaches to edgeworth, where takumi says edgeworth listens to trot while yamazaki thinks he’d listen to classical music, and if that doesn’t drive the point home, idk wht will.

why then, did i enjoy post-aj edgeworth most? short answer is i’m taking liberties w his development and its implications. while i never completely buy into post-aa3 edgeworth, i can digest and get behind most of him when i’m not nitpicking, unlike w post-aj phoenix. does edgeworth feel a little uninspired and one- as opposed to three-dimensional? yeah, but his core is so strong i can overlook it. i’ll miss seeing a developed edgeworth when replaying the trilogy. him at 35 makes me feel warm inside.

anyway, i didn’t intend to start hating when i made this post bc i ultimately still believe the second trilogy was pretty good, if not overly ambitious with it's storytelling. maybe i'll post that AJ trilogy review.

overall, tho, t&t and aai2 were my favorite games to come out of the franchise. i’m going to do that slow replay of the first trilogy, aai duology, and aj:aa before making final judgments.

[lmaowh-at]

I really love your artstyle so I wanted to ask whether there was any inspiration behind it? I don't really think you can just "find" your artstyle without putting any thoughts at all behind it, so maybe some favourite artists by who you were inspired? Even when you draw in different styles it's still kinda recognisable that you were the one to draw it

Oh wow! That's a big question because I take a lot of inspiration from artists that I can't recall, but I will try!

I think the first ever thing that really influenced my style was..... jjba. Idk if there's still anything resembling arakis style in my art but it was a huge stepping stone so I think I have to mention it

Another very important inspiration for me was Marc Chagall... I got a book about his work in the moscow jewish theatre and I think it seriously altered my brain chemistry. The compositions and shapes he uses are crazy. Also fun fact my great grandpa was a student of his

I think medieval manuscripts in general have been a big source of inspo for me in recent years especially after getting into pentiment and french monarchy rpf (dumas' valois trilogy). I think you can really see my inclination towards very flat & structured (? Idk how to explain this) compositions. Also sometimes I just straight up copy the style like in that one idiot fanart. It's very fun and serves well for the kind of media i usually like

(Ft a stavos wip I drew a while ago but it's kinda nothing so I didn't post it)

Umm I think artists like Hugo Pratt and Gigi Cavenago also made an impact. Pratt especially in later Corto Maltese comics, like golden house of samarkand for example. For Gigi Cavenago is just the covers of dd lmao AGAIN WITH THE COMPOSITION AND COLORS... they're just so good

More artists: Harry Beckhoff, Tove Jansson, uhhhh. There's a lot I just don't remember currently sorry!

Also some artists online that are big inspirations for me:

Ruiriell

Antikovich

Cy_lindric

Puyogho

And my pinterest board with a lot of other stuff

That's it I think. Thank you for the ask!!!

[xamaxenta]

HI I AM BACK! I noticed the first time but after seeing your tag about old art it's made me curious if it's an overall style change or a stylistic choice (also please don't take this negatively I am simply wondering with open arms.)

In some of the art, you draw Sabo's hair really fluffy and wavy, and then in others it's drawn more rigid and pointy, while still trying to look curly? More pointy than the other, I mean.

I went back to look at the sketch you posted earlier and noticed that same effect on Sabo's hair but even more pronounced, to the point where at first glance I would have assumed it was Ace and not Sabo. But you also have a distinct way of doing Ace's hair that is not like that (like Sabo's) so it's left me really curious if drawing Sabo like that is meant as a way to make them more similar (at least more than the fluffy hair was?) Or if it's the result of an art style that's changed over time.

Or! If you don't feel like answering those individually then I would love if you'd give this one a shot when you have time: What is your art process like when drawing Sabo's hair and how does (if it does!) it differ from anyone else you draw?

I think it really depends on the overall mood Im looking for?

Now that youve mentioned it I noticed I have three very separate ways of drawing Marco Sabo and Ace and they all emerge depending on either my mood, what the au happens to be or if there’s a specific vibe im wanting

Ofc alot of the sketches i just posted in that complilation are from like march 2023-march 2024 so it could also absolutely be a style change which is normal and im just along for the ride

Heres some examples idk if they help but its to showcase that i honestly dont draw any of them the same way ever 😂

Bonus marco ace at the end bc Ace has so many forms in my hands

ALSO Sabo and Ace has excruciatingly similar hairstyles especially after Ace gets redesigned for marineford/wano yes Sabos hair has obvious waves but the parting the length augh oda why

Anyway the simplest answer is probably stylistic choice i really love fluffy hair, i cant help but give Ace fluff and i cant help but give Sabo fluff and well marcos got his own thang yknow?

[dross-the-fish]

First of all I just really want to say I absolutely LOVE your art and specially the way you draw Erik, Leroux-Erik my beloved 😭💕

Ok ANYWAY. I saw your posts discussing about Erik and how the Phandom portray him and Raou, and I really want to point out some of my views (in the healthiest and most polite way possible!!!)

I'm not trying to deny Erik's flaws nor that I have an obvious bias since he's my favorite character ever AAAND Raoul is a character I dislike a LOT for multiple reasons lol but, I want to adress that: Erik is a person that endured multiple ways of abuse and humiliation in his life, since he was a child. He has multiple scenes of trauma response and, as you pointed out your post, acts impulsively many times and also shows clear remorse for his actions. What I think separates him from Raoul is (aside from the obvious class diference and the fact that Erik has a whole history of trauma and evidences of mental illness) the fact that Erik learns something from his selfish, self-destructive behaviour. He *had* a chance to end up with Christine if he didn't so shitty with her, and this is very impactful in the end specially because Leroux didn't treat him as a villain who deserved punishment, but as a traumatized AND completely abandoned person who fucked up pretty bad

Obviously, despite my personal beef with Raoul, I don't think he's some sort of abusive devil or any shit like that. I just think Christine would be better at her own. Forgetting Erik's flaws for a minute — Raoul *is* very manipulative, childish and uncaring towards Christine. He, unlike Erik, doesn't learn from his mistakes and presents the same behavior until the end of the story. Idk my girl Christine could be better at her own, single, following her career. The fact that Raoul was born in a rich family in the 19th century and didn't face any of the poberty or struggles that lower-classed people like Daroga, Erik and Christine had also make his character waaaay more difficult to like in my point of view. I'm NOT SAYING THAT "being rich makes you evil" (duh) nor that Erik's actions are ok, just to be clear! It just bothers me how so many people treat Raoul like a saint little puppy and Erik as a monster, like COME ON

Now, back to Erik: I'm not saying you intended to mean that, but I have a huge problem with how part of the Phandom thinks Erik had malicious intentions when approaching Christine, or that his feelings for her are fake. The "Erik knew precisely what he was doing since the start" really makes sense considering how his redemption arc went in the novel. Obviously this changes a lot in many adaptations (for example he's clearly much more self-aware and manipulative in the musical). But Leroux-Erik *genuinely* believed he was doing the right thing. Maybe he had an idea of "uuuugh maybe this is pretty bad maybe i should stop" but the self-destructive-fear-of-abandoment-everything-is-fine voice spoke louder. Let's not forget that what turned Erik into having such a violent mental breakdown was not "Christine doesn't love me and I must punish her" bullshit, it was when he heard her speaking not so many cool things about him and his appearance at his back (NOT BLAMING OR HATING HER, I love Christine, I'm talking about Erik's pov). If Erik didn't love Christine, or if he was a monster, he wouldn't feel any guilty for his actions. The most impactful thing in the ending of POTO is that Erik realized he had treated the woman he loved like trash and even still she showed him the compassion he needed

Ok ending this long ass text, I just wanted to state that I agree with a lot of your points specially how the Phandom tends to summarize everything to black and white even though most of the characters are all morally grey. I wanted people to stop dehumanizing a mentally ill abuse survivor like Erik while also stop hating on a poor woman who never asked to be put into Raoul's or Erik's bullshit lol thanks for having the patience to read, I'm really curious to know what your thoughts about this are 💕💕💕

I appreciate your courtesy, I understand where you are coming from but there are a few points i'm not sure I fully agree with. While it is fair to depict Erik as traumatized or mentally ill, I feel these are ultimately reasons for his behavior, not justifications. I agree that he is a sympathetic character and his story is a tragic one, I also agree that Erik had a great capacity for good under better circumstances. Leroux says "he had a heart that could hold empires but had to content himself with a cellar," or something to that effect and I believe that's true. But some of Erik's behavior cannot be written off as impulse or trauma response. He was still an assassin who built torture chambers and even when no longer in Persia he still had a torture chamber in his home that he made use of. He has enough agency that he can still be held responsible for all of the death and destruction he caused even as we acknowledge that he doesn't enjoy killing and feels remorse. How he deals with his remorse in particular is a bit of a sticking point for me. Erik's consistent ability to willfully "forget" what he does or completely deny the severity of his crimes is very likely a product of guilt but the presence of guilt is not a sign of virtue and after awhile it starts to feel like he is first and foremost dodging accountability. He never feels guilty enough to stop and prefers instead to alleviate his internal discomfort by emotionally distance himself from his actions. I also think it's important to acknowledge that Erik is a villainous character and he is violent with Christine. He does try terrorize her and coerce her into marrying him by threatening to kill her and everyone else. To be honest that's why I like his redemption, because he actually NEEDS to be redeemed. You can't redeem a character that never fell from grace. If we can't hold him accountable for his choices and acknowledge the full harm he did then his redemption is hollow. On the subject of Raoul, Leroux tends to write him as being kind of young and stupid and most of his boorish behavior the product of youthful impulse and the older I get the more I'm inclined to agree. This doesn't make Raoul right or even necessarily likeable but if we're giving Erik grace based on the author's sentiments towards the character we should probably give some to Raoul as well. Ultimately I feel Raoul redeems himself by proving he's willing to die for Christine. He throws himself into mortal peril to save her because he does love her. Yes, he has a lot of privilege compared to other characters and it certainly contributes to him coming off spoiled and bratty at times but at the end of the day he and Christine do love each other and he is who she chose. I'll admit I sometimes feel compelled to defend Raoul even if he's not remotely close to my favorite character just because the fandom tends to over inflate his flaws and hold him to the worst faith interpretation while making every excuse under the sun for Erik. The phandom will go to great lengths to see nuance and humanity in Erik's behavior but not in Raoul's and, while I have my own character preferences and Erik is certainly my favorite by a long shot, I try to be fair and empathetic to ALL the characters in the story, whether I actually like them or not.

[voidedaurora]

I just saw that Goatcatto made their stream on the situation public again, and one of their friends said it was because you implied that they were okay with children sexualising themselves (their own words) and that you were aggressive and dishonest during your conversation with them on Discord, did you knew about this or have you tried reaching out to them again?

THIS IS NOT ABOUT QUARTELZ

Oh trust me I'm aware of this, they pretty much threatened me when kicking me from a gc we had after I had a disagreement with them. Said disagreement was bc I boosted a post where someone had allegedly aged up a MINOR OC they had for Sexual/porn purposes and I obviously thought that was really gross and weird, they came at me ab how they disagreed with my take and hounded me for proof of that person I boosted actions, I did not make a callout on the person I replied/boosted, I simply went "hey this is really weird!" but despite this they hounded me for evidence I don't have and never claimed to have, coming down on me for the fact I'd made one opinionated post on my tumblr. Another part of the argument/disagreement was because they'd tried to convince me that I was like Idk, crazy? for thinking its wrong to age up characters for sexual purposes or use aged up characters for those period, they got really upset that I didn't have the same stance as them DESPITE the fact that my stance (that being: I don't think its morally right or correct for people to age up characters specifically to draw porn of them, or otherwise use previously ORIGINALLY child characters aged up forms for porn. I think its weird that people feel the need to make porn of a child character so bad that they age them up so they can, to me that's disgusting) and after a while of them arguing with me about it I'd gotten frustrated at them 1. trying to hound me for evidence I never had and never claimed to have (I never made a claim against the person I reposted/boosted) and 2. trying to change a like CORE moral belief I have that quite literally cannot be a bad thing, if anything It just makes me more careful than your average person. Anyway after getting frustrated I'd pointed out it makes them look really fuckin weird to be trying to defend all of this, at least to me, and they had started giving reasons why they COULDN'T possibly be weird (kyles was that they work with children and Goats was that this behavior is normal bc they drew porn of their 15 yr old oc but aged up when they were younger!) Yall can make your own conclusion on goat but this is exactly what they said ab that minor porn thing they drew (screenshot was actually used to try and go against ME on twitter by kyle, glad I have this bc they kicked me before I could get ANY screenshots)

Despite what they're saying, I was not dishonest about anything (though things could differ due to me interpreting it differently), and any rudeness was a result of them pushing me to that point with the way they spoke to me, when they don't agree with a take OR are trying to idk "interrogate" you about something they're very blunt, argumentative, and otherwise rude when talking. They take everything to the 100% , best example I can give rn is this 1. "that wall is a little blue"

Goat/Kyle: "Oh so you think that wall Is a deep blue? is that the bluest wall you've ever seen?" Obviously not the best example but I do not have access to the chats so I cannot grab an actual one unfortunately. At the end of our interaction it was either goat or Kyle that asked me smthn along the lines of "so you put an opinionated statement on your tumblr?" and I'd just replied "yes" and they both flipped tf out, going like "GOAT WE WERE RIGHT! both sides are hopeless!" calling me immature then telling goat to put their stream (where they did no prior research and didn't even know about my tumblr existing before despite it being a click n a half away, these people literally need to be spoonfed info or else they WONT look for it/have it period) as some sort of threat? and then kicked me :/ then Kyle vagueposted ab me on twitter and we had a short back n fourth where they tried to argue using the screenshot I provided. Anyway, just wanted to clear that up as best as I can since goat and kyle love their drama and do stuff like you mentioned, vaguelyshit-talking ppl that have differing opinions

[whataboutsimple]

Warning! Under the cut it's just Alex whining about his life and nothing more. So basically useless post lmao- oh, yeah, curses. Lots of. Curses. Yeah, I don't recommend reading this tbh

Now what the fuck, how people manage to live their life normally and than there's me. What is wrong with me?

No, no, listen. I get it, no human can be perfect, but it frustrates me so much that I can't get exactly what's up with me. You saw other ppl on this app? Three posts a day MAX, and what do I do?

Third of August the first very post, all the way to 17 of August.

Tham it's 9 of September and since than no breaks (well, maybe Little like for a day or two)

Currently I have 397 posts, and if math is mathing, than it's about ≈8 posts each day.

8 posts each day, and I haven't posted even half of what I wanted. Or the asks I'm getting (I love them though)

What I'm implying? I can't focus even for a second on my school, better shoot me than make me doing my English, all the homework I've done so far I've done in five minutes before the class itself started. You see it?

AND THAT'S even not the full thing, I can't focus even on writing or drawing, that's why I didn't upload all the stuff, because I can't make myself create it! I have the idea in the head, I want to put it on the paper, but I can't.

The hands, the brain, they work only in a stress situations, when it's either getting an F, or doing the freaking work god damn it.

Sometimes I don't even want to touch my phone or get up from bed. All I want is to, idk, nap until I'll feel myself as if I rested.

Don't even get me started on trying to look through my mental health, I've been doing it, and you know what? I can't normally say to myself "Hey, those symptoms are kind of remind me of ourselves. Maybe we are not as healthy as we pretend we are?" Nonono, because it always will end up in self doubting like "What if I'm lying? What if I just know those symptoms are implying this and try to adjust to them to look so "poor, poor child" like? What if I just try to convince myself that something is wrong with me or simply want attention?"

Okay, like, I've been searching for symptoms of autism and ADHD for so long, reading forums and what other ppl with such things say. God, I even went through thos dumb "online tests" out of boredom and you know what? It's like 90% that I do have both, but yet again what if I'm lying? I'm perfectly healthy, I should be, I'm just lazy and dumb to do the work.

I have autistic cousin for example, and I act a lot like them and a lot like not them. Even my family always compares us, but when it's me, they go like "Well, you're not autistic, so it should be fine for you, stop acting like that!"

Yeah, woman, I'm perfectly fine, I'm just dying everytime I need to interact with ppl in reality and have heartbeat over probably 500 because it beats so loud I can almost hear it.

I've been to therapist like twice after some tragic moment in my life, because I started having horrible panic attacks, so strong even my Mon got worried, and all they managed to diagnose is PTSD after what my mother like. Just stopped the sessions. And those times when I were there, I was too scared to ask them if I may or may not have, idk, ADHD, autism or depression or anxiety or whatever because I just want to know what is wrong with me.

Because normal people won't act like I'm.

You think the dog thing is a joke? Well, yeah, it is, but I'm really eager for any interaction and reaction I can get. I don't even care abt kudos and stuff as long as you commented or reposted saying something. I'm going to die on the spot and if I had a tail it would've 100% wagged.

But when it comes to ppl in real life, I don't want to have them near me, to be in one room with them, to hear them. I can chat, I love chatting, I love talking, but only with texts. There are literally only three ppl who I can call: my mom, my grandma and my online friend.

And online friend waited for 4 years before we had a first call, voice call.

That's not normal, is it?

And like that I'm lost in me thoughts. The point is that I want to know what's wrong with me really bad, but at the same time I'm doubting if there's something wrong and I'm not just a lazy sore looser who tries to hide from responsibility in the internet. And even that I'm doing horribly.

Dang it.

[lavendercrumbleshake]

Hello, My name is LavenderCrumble! U can call me Lav or Miss Crumble for short ♡

Some things u should probably know about this blog

*~▪︎☆°♡ This blog is a cutesy, semi-nsfw blog, so some the posts that I write, like or repost will not be safe for work, if u don't like this please block, not report, if u are a minor do not follow me please I will block u.

*~▪︎☆°♡ I am a plus size (kinda working on it as best I can atm) black girl who is 19 years old, & want to make friends & mutuals that are also 18 or older on tumblr, pinterest & on discord, I will link my discord server & other socials here for anybody that wants to join, if anyone has any fun discord servers or other social accounts that are sfw/nsfw u would like to invite me to then my asks are always always open♡

*~▪︎☆°♡ Any pictures that u see on this blog aren't mine and are from Pinterest, Tumblr, or Twitter unless stated otherwise.

*~▪︎☆°♡ Some of my current interests include:

drawing

coloring

anime

anime pop-up places (cafés, merch pop-ups, anime cons, ect) I wanna visit them when I get the opportunity xc

kawaiicore fashion, j-fashion, or just most alt fashion styles in general

makeup

maid cafés

sanrio (but notably kuromi, rilakkuma, korilakuma, hello kitty & my melody)

kawaii cafés

kawaii & sexy costumes/cosplays

cooking (especially asain food recipes)

kawaii bento boxes

cute kitchen appliances, cooking utensils, kawaii bento tools (like the hello kitty rice mold for example) pots, ect (preferably in pastel purple, or of cartoon characters like sanrio mascots)

asian snacks

kawaii food & drink recipes (I wanna recreate kawaii food plates from maid cafés or bento boxes like the ones on my pinterest board, or food from different animes)

super sonico & super pochaco(idk much but I love their mascots their sooo cute! I heard super sonico has an anime n i wanna watch it >v<)

cartoons

anime figurines

gloomy bear

sweet/dessert smelling perfumes & body products

games & gameplay videos(Mostly horror games, story games, visual novel games, RPGs or all of them together)

Tumblr stories/tumblr headcanons/tumblr concepts & prompts (particularly monster fantasy themed stories or relationships, & semi dark headcanons, like some Yan! headcanons for example, monster bf/husband, and Dom bf/husband (idk why I like these but some of them are just fun to read even if i don't resonate with them personally per sey, still trying to figure it out) among others, there really isn't any particular characters that i like for this)

Tbh that's just to name a few, I have a lot more interests than that lol

*~▪︎☆°♡ My favorite colors are usually pastels purple, pink, blue, yellow & green in that order, but I also like most darker colors too, like chocolate brown, black, or dark red, but my least favorite color is and will almost always be orange, idk why I don't like that color much

*~▪︎☆°♡ As is the nature of tumblr, I will also be putting my random thoughts & mentally ill rambling on here too lol, both sfw & nsfw. I love this chaos platform♡

*~▪︎☆°♡NSFW Interests/Kinks

(Plz note that I am a virgin so all of this are just fantasies that I want to try with someone who really cares about me & who I really trust one day)

Giving thighjobs

Giving Assjobs

Giving Pantyjobs

Giving Footjobs (to dicks specifically)

Cockteasing (almost anything that involves giving a guy a huge boner basically)

Humping/Grinding

Handjobs

Blowjobs(I wanna try to give one but I have a bit of a gag reflex rn ;< i need 2 get stuff 4 practice)

Cockwarming(wanna build up to this at some point)

Size difference(both in height & d size, im 4'11 rn due to spine compression from scoliosis but with improved stretching im 5'1)

Praise kink(I like being praised)

Praise & light teasing(it has to be light teasing mixed with Praise specifically, but im still exploring this too)

Worshipping kink( I want a group of paypigs to buy me all that I want & to worship the ground I walk on lol)

Possible Breeding/knotting kink (No Pregnancy or mentions of it) ( I kinda wanna know what it feels like tbh)

Possible dd/lg kink (not sure yet, but I found a lot of stuff that I like under those tags & it's variations)

Possible rope/bontage kink (I'm kinda exploring this one too bcuz I wanna be comfortably tied up & gagged but I have physical disabilities)

Degrading & Praising Simps/Paypigs

Army of cute paypigs

I'd like to be gifted some money, cute clothes,intimates, essentials, toys, & other stuff to take tumblr selfies in & prep for so paypigs & simps can worship & jerk off to them

HARD LIMITS: SCAT, GORE, PISS, INCEST/FAUXPLAY, ABCG KINK, PATRIARCHY KINK, SLAVEPLAY, RAPEPLAY RACEPLAY, HARD SPANKING, VOMIT, KNIFEPLAY, ect

Anything I haven't mentioned here u can just ask & I will update accordingly ♡

*~▪︎☆°♡ Links to my other socials: (if the link to my discord doesn't work then feel free to ask me for a link in the ask box)

DNI ON THIS OR ANY OF MY SOCIALS IF YOU ARE ANY OF THE FOLLOWING: homophobic, transphobic, racist, misogynistic, abelist, fatphobic, currently 55+ or Ana Coach; if u are any of these things I will block you. Do not send unsolicited nude photos of any kind without permission (simply just ask i really don't mind♡) or I will call you out, block you & report you.

*~▪︎☆°♡ (*note) This pinned post will probably be edited with more stuff about me, my hobbies, interests, ect, when i get the time, but for now this will be it ♡

[st4rstudent]

tips on how to draw cogs?

truth be told, I haven't drawn many cogs (mainly just one or two), but I will try to answer this as generally as I can!

This is a long post so I'll post this under the cut.

my biggest tip, as well as for anything, is to break down the shapes. If you try to look at everything at once it becomes really easy to overwhelm yourself. Examples will be drawn sketchy, but hopefully the point gets across.

Our first test subject is mouthpiece which I've never actually drawn before [marketable plushies post doesnt count]. as you can see, I tried to break down a lot of the shapes into much more simpler ones. A lot of cogs seem to share some very obvious shapes, probably because a lot of them are object-related (normal cogs included- first that comes to mind are pencil pushers).

You can do this with really ANY character. Here's our second test subject DOPA for another example.

now these are mainly references from the pictures themselves, which are great as a starting point. my other big tip is just to practice. you don't have to do big full pieces every day, but even just little doodles will help you. i think its very rare for anyone do to super good their first time and this goes with anything, even if you're a highly skilled artist.

you've probably also noticed but I've left out details in my examples, such as the little dots on mouthpiece's eye borders. If you feel that adding all the small details would overcrowd your drawing or just not help it, then I think it's fine to leave them out (of course there are always exceptions to this but as a general rule, its ok).

along with removing details, i think adding details also cannot hurt [to an extent]. if there's something you think would look nice then add it. who cares its your drawing have fun. As an example I'll use prethinker. I always add the little line in the middle, which his model doesn't have. But this is also based off of the 1.3 promotional art as well. Another example could be that when I draw misty, I add a line that connects their eyebrows to their eye. idk just feels more robotic to me and i like it

and again as you notice, my drawings are not model accurate. your style is most likely not going to be exactly like the game and that's completely fine. adjust to your liking, interpret as you will. enjoy the process of creation.

And finally, I'll add my little tip for metal coloring. One thing about metal is that usually the lightest highlight is next to the darkest shadow

The gif goes as base -> shadow 1 -> shadow 2 -> highlight 1 -> highlight 2 -> cleanup + extra

I like to add a few light marks to indicate scratches. although if you wanted more depth, you'd take the darkest shadow and lightest highlight and put them together like this

often the metallic parts are not the focus of my works so I leave it without. As for the random black marks on the lineart, that just also gives it more depth.

And finally, look at other peoples art. Look at the way they draw and pick out bits and pieces of what you like and try to interpret that in your own style.

ok I think that's all. Hopefully this helped!

[jovenshires]

lowkey kinda frustrated by the lack of transparency from smosh idk if this is a common thing for all online content groups but this is personally jarring for me as someone who also is also a dropout fan :///

i totally get that. i've been a fan of smosh for like... six-ish years now so frankly im kind of used to their lack of addressing things atp. that isn't to say it's a good thing or even an excusable thing - im just saying it's something i've learned to live with.

i think it's easy to forget that smosh is a company. at the end of the day they are making decisions that they think are best for their business, what will make them the best monetary gain and what will keep the most viewers in their pocket. i can't say that i particularly agree with all of those decisions, but i also can't say that we as the fans should be allowed to dictate what they do. especially (and i say this knowing my perception personally revolves around the small subset of us here on smoshblr) when the fan base calling for transparency and accountability is a minority. as loud as smoshblr and smoshtwt seem, there are 26.5 million subscribers to smosh (and that's just the main channel - 46 million between the main three channels), most of whom aren't even aware of any of the things they're not taking accountability for. i've seen this happen with countless youtubers and online groups i've been a fan of. i won't name-drop them, but people often do what's best for their brand, not what's morally right. it's a hard thing to come to terms with, but we are just viewers consuming a product. they get to decide what to do with that product; we get to decide whether or not we consume it.

not to mention, it is a company run by real people. people whose relationships and friendships impact their choices. they may not address certain things and they may sweep things under the rug to protect people they care about. once again, i'm not saying whether this is morally good or bad or that it's okay (it's not), i'm just saying that it is a factor that they probably take into account.

now, once again, none of this is an excuse. i'm not going to say that smosh is the pinnacle, end-all, be-all of upstanding companies or that they shouldn't be transparent or that we should stop trying to ask for some semblance of change. this is a well-earned critique at this point. even with everything going on right now, this is not the first time (and i'm sure it won't be the last time either) that smosh has simply avoided addressing controversy. there used to be a master post that i had pinned to the top of my page of all the issues with smosh and who was addressing what and lemme tell you, it wasn't great. i've seen companies much more graceful and overall better at handling their messes. dropout is a great example, and try guys and starkid both come to mind as well. hell, even ogsog has been way better than smosh at this, and they spawned from them. this is a very real problem with smosh as a company and i totally understand frustration and disappointment. i'm with you, trust me.

i think this is something we all have to recognize, contend with, and then draw our own lines in the sand for. we can't dictate what the entire fandom does, and we definitely can't dictate what smosh does, as much as we may want to. all we can do is keep attempting to hold them accountable for their actions and deciding what we can and cannot abide by.

tl;dr: i think that's a very fair critique. i'm frustrated too. i hear you <3

[chibishortdeath]

Ok weird opinion of mine I guess idk how to start posts aaaa

I think Simon’s “barbarian” design really works story and character wise.

Yeah, it’s silly and absolutely not historically accurate whatsoever, but it kinda makes sense in a certain weird way.

We know from Lament of Innocence and Dracula’s Curse that the Belmont family is generally on rough terms with the public. Leon gets his title taken away and, even though he gets his sword back at the end of the whole Walter situation as confirmed by how Belmonts onward have that sword, he’s still generally kinda shunned for going against the church’s wishes and the tail end of the crusades happening at the time. And Trevor is straight up banished from the country for fear of his strength. He’s much isolated from other people off in the house in the woods until he’s called to help fight against Dracula and gets some friends on the way.

And this kinda sets up the situation that the family was living in during Christopher’s time. The Belmonts are social outcasts; their existence is acknowledged, but they’re not really associated with or thought of very highly at this point. So, it wouldn’t be unlikely that they just wouldn’t really care for or be caught up with social expectations like fashion. When people are going to be wary of you regardless of what you do, why not dress however you want? Especially if you know no one’s going to do anything about it! Especially if it’s practical; the longer, looser sleeves and pant legs of the time would be restrictive in a combat/acrobatic context. So Christopher probably just wore whatever he wanted, and to be fair he doesn’t really seem to interact with anyone besides family very much.

First I wanna mention that I am completely aware that Simon was designed way before any of these other characters. But these characters are chronologically before him and can explain where he gets these design choices from in universe.

So, what about Simon then? Well, Simon has a lot of themes of wanting to be like his ancestors. Christopher is directly mentioned as someone he wonders he’ll ever compare to. Judgment shows him looking up to Trevor as well, and even though that game is of interesting canon status lol, it’s an example of that character element being used again. And this is reflected in his barbarian designs! The cape he wears in the manual drawings resembles the cape Trevor throws off in the opening of CV3. The general light armor and skimpy clothing is reflective of both some of Christopher and Trevor’s designs. The metal armor in Simon’s Quest being reminiscent in shape to Trevor’s on the CV3 box art. It just makes sense that Simon would be trying his damnedest to emulate the guys he’s been looking up and comparing himself to his whole life.

And the sudden transition from the barbarian look the family had for years to the more with the times fashion that Juste has makes a lot of sense considering Juste grew up in a time when the family was highly respected and in the middle of town, somewhere where keeping social expectations and appearances would be expected of him.

Idk if any of this makes sense, but aaaaaa random stream of an idea I guess. I like Simon getting to being weird and out of place for his time period and country lol. Also I’m not saying that other designs are bad!!! I like all of Simon’s game designs tbh, Ayami’s is really cool too and works for some of these points cause it’s also kinda barbarian esque but just in black and red, I’ve cosplayed it before lol. Yeah idk that’s it and I am sleepy goodnight—