#Also I finally learned how to color the outlines

[int3rn3tb0y]

[dont-leafmealone]

Some art I did quite a while back...

[ID: a digital drawing of Zuko and Jet from Avatar: The Last Airbender in front of a blue background. Zuko stands on the left, facing right. He is smiling slightly and blushing, and wears his season two Earth Kingdom disguise. Jet stands on the right, facing Zuko and leaning forward slightly. He is smiling and blushing, and has two-leaved plant in his mouth. End ID]

And the redraw from last week-ish!

[ID: a recreation of the above picture in a sketchier, semi-realistic style. Instead of a blue background they stand in front of a light green one. Zuko's expression is slightly more shy, and Jet's more hesitant and hopeful. End ID]

[greeneyessmize]

Penolise analysis time!

Show Penolise had to break so we can get a healthy Penolise. Let's talk it out.

I think we really need to see how the dynamic of Penelope & Eloise's friendship was unhealthy for both of them.

- Penelope deferred to Eloise's thoughts and wants almost all the time. She might try to cajol Eloise to her way of thinking, but it was nearly always a gentle thing that she easily let go. She never fully contradicted Eloise and put her foot down.

- Penelope deferred to Eloise out of fear. Who was Penelope's one friend that she was able to be close to in a socially acceptable and public way? Eloise. As someone who as a bullied kid got down to only one friend at times? I sure did my best to always be on their good side no matter how I felt about things. No matter the cost or what hurt was still held.

- Eloise has been encouraged to have her voice, to have it loudly, and has been rarely contradicted in any meaningful way even in her own family. She thusly values her own opinions above all. She states herself that she just can't understand why others don't see the world like her. And her cutting comments to nearly everyone around her shows that if full HD color.

- Eloise is the fifth of eight children. Even as the second daughter in that brood, she doesn't have much say over things that matter in the home or in her family. So, she stretches for every scrap of individuality and independence she can find. She has to be different at any cost. And she must always be right.

These factors combine into what we have witnessed in the show so far:

- Penelope clams up to keep peace with Eloise as much as she can, she keeps LW a secret because she must have something somewhere where she is in charge and allowed to express herself freely and actually influence people and events. She gets that nowhere else in her life.

- Eloise runs rough shod over any dissent from Penelope because Pen is so mild in her disagreement that it can't even penetrate Eloise's ego. It's always Eloise's ideas, Eloise's adventures, Eloise's desires. And since they are hers, surely then must also be Penelope's too.

When Eloise discovers that Penelope is LW, not only does it feel like a betrayal for the scandals revealed by Pen, but it shatters the mirror she assumed Penelope was.

Eloise has to learn that Penelope was always her own person with separate thoughts and feelings and ideas and triumphs. She has to learn to listen. She can't yet, but she needs to listen to Penelope's story, all that she ignored and all that Pen withheld. Moreso, she needs to try to understand why Penelope has written the things she has. This will be the only way for Eloise to start to grow up. Eloise has to learn that her perspective is only a small part of her relationships with other people.

Penelope needs to show Eloise who she really is. She has to be comfortable showing when she disagrees. She has to give herself permission to be herself. This is hard because to Penelope, she is only loved conditionally. She is only loved by her mother for doing as she is told and for briefly having Debling's attention. Her sisters never even gave her that. Her dad? Pretty much absent. And the second Eloise found out she was LW? Gone.

I think when they finally manage to perform what I outlined above, that we will see Penolise 2.0 and it's going to be so much better. It can have balance, it can have understanding, and be a deeper friendship than either of them knew was possible.

[atopvisenyashill]

king bran

so i’ve lined up my theory on how bran will be king in harrenhal but i was a little lax on details about king bran foreshadowing. there’s the “bran in harrenhal” stuff i’ve outlined which includes-

bran’s connection to the weirwoods & the magical connection the isle of faces has

the whent connection

bran being a metaphorical heir to robb by ruling over the lands robb was born, fought, and died in

the importance of harrenhal as a symbol of both the wasteful excess and hope for the future

but why king bran specifically? well…

ATTEMPTED SLAYING BY THE KINGSLAYER

for one thing, bran is our introduction to the entire series (barring the prologue, rip to 3 icons). he introduces us to the brutality of this world, to the themes of justice, kingship, leadership, to the Others, and to magic. that very important lesson about how the person to pass judgement must swing the sword, and must be sure that the life they're taking is one that deserves to be taken? That comes to us not through Jon, or even Arya, but Bran:

Yet our way is the older way. The blood of the First Men still flows in the veins of the Starks, and we hold to the belief that the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man’s life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.

That last sentence in particular is a belief that really sticks in all the kids heads as they go about their journeys, and it is through Bran that we learn it.

But in his second chapter, Bran also introduces us to jaime, cersei, and the main plot twist of the first book which kick starts the war of five kings. before he's pushed from the tower, this is all we know about Jaime-

He’s blonde, he’s named Jaime, and he killed the king.

Then the first thing he does is attempt to slay Bran.

AEGON VI AND THE PISSWATER PRINCE

What’s most interesting to me regarding King Bran foreshadowing is that the story of how Bran survives the sack of Winterfell is very similar to Varys & Illyrio’s story of the pisswater prince. Here is Tyrion’s summary of it-

"And when the pisswater prince was safely dead, the eunuch smuggled you across the narrow sea to his fat friend the cheesemonger, who hid you on a poleboat and found an exile lord willing to call himself your father. It does make for a splendid story, and the singers will make much of your escape once you take the Iron Throne…

and some reminders about Bran, helpfully color coded-

It was not Bran we killed. It was not Rickon. They were only miller's sons, from the mill by the Acorn Water. "I had to have two heads, else they would have mocked me… laughed at me..."

Three times he had sworn to keep the secret; once to Bran himself, once to that strange boy Jojen Reed, and last of all to Coldhands. "The world believes the boy is dead," his rescuer had said as they parted. "Let his bones lie undisturbed. We want no seekers coming after us. Swear it, Samwell of the Night's Watch. Swear it for the life you owe me."

“Hodor must stay with Bran, to be his legs," the wildling woman said briskly. "I will take Rickon with me." “We'll go with Bran," said Jojen Reed. "Aye, I thought you might," said Osha.

Another interesting thing about Bran, the Reeds, and Aegon VI here-

“He has a song," the man replied. "He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire."

I swear it by earth and water," said the boy in green. "I swear it by bronze and iron," his sister said. "We swear it by ice and fire," they finished together.

BRAN, THE REEDS, AND THE FISHER KING

Now first of all, quick rundown with more color coding. The Fisher King is a character in Arthurian legend, involved in a story with Perceval and the Holy Grail (so you know we’re already cooking here bc Holy Grail stories are baller). The Fisher King is the last in a long line of kings tasked with guarding the Holy Grail. He is injured at some point, usually in the groin, and is rendered barren by the wound, and his land is a barren wasteland where nothing will grow because he is connected to the land. Only when a prophesied hero comes seeking him will the Fisher King be healed. Perceval, of course, comes seeking him, heals him, and gets the Holy Grail.

Now some of the beats of that story should sound familiar-

Thousands and thousands of years ago, Brandon the Builder had raised Winterfell, and some said the Wall. Bran knew the story, but it had never been his favorite. Maybe one of the other Brandons had liked that story. Sometimes Nan would talk to him as if he were her Brandon, the baby she had nursed all those years ago, and sometimes she confused him with his uncle Brandon, who was killed by the Mad King before Bran was even born. She had lived so long, Mother had told him once, that all the Brandon Starks had become one person in her head.

He was going to be a knight," Arya was saying now. "A knight of the Kingsguard. Can he still be a knight?" "No," Ned said. He saw no use in lying to her. "Yet someday he may be the lord of a great holdfast and sit on the king's council. He might raise castles like Brandon the Builder, or sail a ship across the Sunset Sea, or enter your mother's Faith and become the High Septon." But he will never run beside his wolf again, he thought with a sadness too deep for words, or lie with a woman, or hold his own son in his arms.

The stone is strong, Bran told himself, the roots of the trees go deep, and under the ground the Kings of Winter sit their thrones. So long as those remained, Winterfell remained. It was not dead, just broken. Like me, he thought. I'm not dead either.

What was he now? Only Bran the broken boy, Brandon of House Stark, prince of a lost kingdom, lord of a burned castle, heir to ruins. He had thought the three-eyed crow would be a sorcerer, a wise old wizard who could fix his legs, but that was some stupid child's dream, he realized now. 

No," said the pale lord. "That is beyond my powers." Bran's eyes filled with tears. We came such a long way. The chamber echoed to the sound of the black river. "You will never walk again, Bran," the pale lips promised, "but you will fly."

Now what’s interesting is in twoiaf we learn about some ancient rulers called the Fisher Queens-

From such we know of the Fisher Queens, who ruled the lands adjoining the Silver Sea—the great inland sea at the heart of the grasslands—from a floating palace that made its way endlessly around its shores.

The Fisher Queens were wise and benevolent and favored of the gods, we are told, and kings and lords and wise men sought the floating palace for their counsel.

And what do you know look at who Bran is traveling with-

“My father taught me. We have no knights at Greywater. No master-at-arms, and no maester.” “Who keeps your ravens?” She smiled. “Ravens can’t find Greywater Watch, no more than our enemies can.” “Why not?” “Because it moves,” she told him.

Jojen Reed was thirteen, only four years older than Bran. Jojen wasn't much bigger either, no more than two inches or maybe three, but he had a solemn way of talking that made him seem older and wiser than he really was. At Winterfell, Old Nan had dubbed him "little grandfather."

When they died, they went into the wood, into leaf and limb and root, and the trees remembered. All their songs and spells, their histories and prayers, everything they knew about this world. Maesters will tell you that the weirwoods are sacred to the old gods. The singers believe they are the old gods. When singers die they become part of that godhood.

I like to say this about Theon, when he sees Bran's face in the weirwood and thinks, "The old gods, he thought. They know me. They know my name." that this is partially true - Theon is beloved by the gods but what he doesn't realize is that the old god he is beloved by is in fact Bran Stark. When the old gods weep for Theon and Jeyne, it is Bran weeping for them! So similarly, the way the Fisher Queens in their moving castle were thought to be beloved by the gods the Reeds in their floating castle are beloved by the gods because they are beloved by Bran. This reinforces Bran's connection to the Fisher King imo - just as the old greenseers and singers/cotf are quite literally connected to the land because they have become part of the the weirwood hivemind, Bran has this same connection to the land.

AND what’s more is that the Fisher King story is likely to trace itself back to a Welsh story, of a magical King who gives his sister's hand away, only to learn that she is being mistreated, and musters a host to go save her. During a battle, the King is mortally wounded by an injury in his foot, and as he dies he tells his men to cut off his head and take it to London so he can protect their people from invasion, and for several years after he "dies" his head continues speaking. If that also sounds familair, do you want to know what that man’s name was?

Bran the Blessed.

MELISANDRE'S VISION

Now staying in the realm of magic, we also have this very interesting passage from Melisandre, emphasis mine-

Show me Stannis, Lord, she prayed. Show me your king, your instrument. Visions danced before her, gold and scarlet, flickering, forming and melting and dissolving into one another, shapes strange and terrifying and seductive. She saw the eyeless faces again, staring out at her from sockets weeping blood. Then the towers by the sea, crumbling as the dark tide came sweeping over them, rising from the depths. Shadows in the shape of skulls, skulls that turned to mist, bodies locked together in lust, writhing and rolling and clawing. Through curtains of fire great winged shadows wheeled against a hard blue sky. A face took shape within the hearth. Stannis? she thought, for just a moment … but no, these were not his features. A wooden face, corpse white. Was this the enemy? A thousand red eyes floated in the rising flames. He sees me. Beside him, a boy with a wolf's face threw back his head and howled.

THE REGENCY OF AEGON III

So warning this is part parallelism and part prediction

The Dance of the Dragons was done, and the melancholy reign of King Aegon III Targaryen had begun.

As he was still but ten years of age, the new king’s first act was to name the men who would protect and defend him, and rule for him until he came of age.

This was a council of which Septon Eustace heartily approved, “six strong men and one wise woman, seven to rule us here on earth as the Seven Above rule all men from their heaven.” Mushroom was less impressed. “Seven regents were six too many,” he said. “Pity our poor king.” Despite the fool’s misgivings, most observers seemed to feel that the reign of King Aegon III had begun on a hopeful note.

So many lords, both great and small, had perished during the Dance of the Dragons that the Citadel rightly names this time the Winter of the Widows. Never before or since in the history of the Seven Kingdoms have so many women wielded so much power, ruling in the place of their slain husbands, brothers, and fathers, for sons in swaddling clothes or still on the teat.

The smallfolk of the Seven Kingdoms speak of King Aegon III Targaryen as Aegon the Unlucky, Aegon the Unhappy, and (most often) the Dragonbane, when they remember him at all. All these names are apt. Grand Maester Munkun, who served him for a good part of his reign, calls him the Broken King, which fits him even better. Of all the men ever to sit the Iron Throne, he remains perhaps the most enigmatic: a shadowy monarch who said little and did less, and lived a life steeped in grief and melancholy.

There is also a big focus on the “tax policies” aspect of the story through these two child rulers. Much of Aegon’s regency centers around him butting heads with his guardians while Bran’s ACOK arc sees him as the ruling Stark in Winterfell and learning how to lead with mentors in Maester Luwin & Ser Rodrik Cassell. EYE also think it’s interesting how both Aegon & Bran get some focus on having a lil gaggle of companions around. Aegon has Gaemon, Jaehaera, Viserys, Daenaera, and Larra Rogare, while Bran has the Big Walder, Little Walder, Rickon, Jojen, and Meera. They both feel like very similar groups of kids that are thrown together & running amok with adult supervision that is more lax/not coming from their parents.

There's also just like, a lot of parallels between Baela, Rhaena, Jacaerys, and Aegon with Arya, Sansa, Jon Snow, and Bran. There are several good breakdowns of the Sansa/Arya parallels as well as the Jace/Jon Snow ones, so I won't dig into that here, but I think when you put all this together what you have between Bran and Aegon III is-

Two boy kings who will have a long regency

Both orphaned due to a brutal succession war

Both referred to as "broken" - aegon by munkin, and bran referring to himself

Younger - but not the youngest - brother coming into his seat after his older brother is killed

Both have names that are important in their families & frequently re-used - and in fact both share a name with their uncle

A very rare "winter of widows" where most of the houses are ruled by women due to all the men being dead and their heirs being babies is coming up in the main series

This anti parallel of Aegon being a very melancholy person & Bran being known to be “quick to laugh and easy to love.”

As for his relationships, we have-

His bastard born brother With Some Secret Paternity Going On, who is likely not going to be in the running for King at the end of the war (hopefully um, Jon Snow actually lives unlike poor Jacaerys)

His oldest brother dying at 16 during the war

One sister who is more adventurous and "tomboy"ish, who is associated with ships and travel

Another sister who is more ladylike, who has a largely political arc in the Vale

Both sisters are likely to take leading roles as political players in the aftermath of the war - I do suspect we will get some sort of “Hour of the Wolf” parallels here, just before or after Bran is crowned

SOME CHOICE QUOTES TO LEAVE OFF ON

Bran could perch for hours among the shapeless, rain-worn gargoyles that brooded over the First Keep, watching it all: the men drilling with wood and steel in the yard, the cooks tending their vegetables in the glass garden, restless dogs running back and forth in the kennels, the silence of the godswood, the girls gossiping beside the washing well. It made him feel like he was lord of the castle, in a way even Robb would never know. - Bran II, AGOT

Ahead he glimpsed a pale white trunk that could only be a weirwood, crowned with a head of dark red leaves. - Jon VII, ADWD

[comicaurora]

Hi! I finally got the chance to read Aurora a bit ago. It's a wonderful story--all I was expecting and better! I was particularly amazed and delighted by the artwork and visual mechanics used to tell the story, so I wrote a post to yell about how cool it is and break some of it down. (No criticism, just praise.) I'm mostly a hobbyist, so I'm hoping I've done it justice.

That said: zero pressure to read it or respond to this ask. Normally I wouldn't send it since I tagged, but I know Tumblr's notifs are a mess and things get lost very easily. I've been in both the "one (1) word of praise will feed me for a year" and the "oh gods don't talk about my writing/art because anything that seems Off will break my brain" modes before, and I absolutely don't want to push or make you uncomfortable!

If you are comfortable, however, I wanted to ask about your use of what I'm assuming are Screen and blending modes in sound effect words. (I'm only guessing that's the technique, though, so I could be totally wrong about how it's done! I'm mostly experienced in image manipulation in Photoshop.) Making them semi-transparent over the actions is genius :) What inspired you to do that, and are there specific techniques you use to make it work?

Same questions go for using specific colors to distinguish different characters' words and actions. I really noticed it in the cave sequence with Falst and Dainix, since their colors are so vivid in the dark (ex. Falst's little swats and Dainix's swooping kick at 1.20.9). It lends excellent clarity to busy scenes.

Thanks! Have a lovely day, enjoy your break, and happy holidays <3

You're correct about the technique! "Screen" is the blend mode I use most often for sound effects. I stumbled on it mostly through trial and error - I love how sound effects add depth to a comic panel, but it's very easy for them to obscure the art in a way I find counterproductive, so "Screen" lets me put the sound effect directly over the origin of the sound while still letting it be visible through the word. Early chapters didn't have it as much-

Most of the sound effects in early chapters are just solid colors with reduced opacity if I'm feeling fancy. But I started figuring it out around chapter 8 and 9, because Falst is kind of a sound-effect-heavy guy, especially in his fight scenes.

In order to make sure they don't impede the visibility of the action, I'll often soft-erase the top or bottom half of the SFX to reduce its opacity while still leaving it readable.

I'll usually double that up with an outline on the SFX so it's still readable. This is an especially important consideration if the SFX goes over an area of the background that's very bright or glowing.

Color-coding the speed lines and SFX to the character or force causing them isn't a hard and fast rule, but I like using it (in part because it's a habit from the OSP illustrations, where every character has a single pop of color in their lineart) mostly because it sort of codes every sound to make it clear where it's emanating from, or the general feeling of the sound. Since I normally do character-colors for SFX, something like this stands out more jarringly-

Which it's supposed to, but a big lightning strike doesn't register as anything too worrying because it's just Tess up to her usual shenanigans.

It's also very useful for magic effects, because each form of magic has its own associated palette.

And when I had a very complicated fight scene in a dark environment, I used the texture pattern I'd already made for the monster to color its SFX, so when I Screened them onto the panels they didn't obscure too much while still communicating "this is something else."

Changing the weight, lined-vs-not-lined, and opacity of the SFX words also helps to communicate that not every sound has the same feeling. A strong motion is solid and aggressive, but a crackling, unstable sound is more ephemeral and staticky.

It's definitely been a process of learning as I go - looking back at the earlier chapters I can actually see when I first tried various tricks I now use regularly, like doubling and distorting an SFX to produce the effect of a camera-shaking impact. I haven't really seen any other comics that do it like I do, probably because most other comics follow a more traditional production pipeline where text bubbles and sound effects get locked into the composition early, before the inking stage, because traditional physical comics don't have digital-art layers to play with. Adding sound effects to a page is almost the last thing I do before exporting them, and that only works because digital art and layers allow for a ton of flexibility.

[obsessivelysweet]

Our Lovely Scorched Sun

Part 1

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello! Long time no see lol. I have just been busy with work and life, honestly, but I got some inspo and motivation, so here I am with this post. I wanted to do a different take on the SAGAU, but instead of normal creator, what if we had a presence of an Eldritch horror? Just being near us hurts them or touching our skin burns them, ya know? Like that kind of route. Reader is FemReader! Also, this is gonna be multiple parts! Also, sorry for any errors! I tried my best, hope you enjoy!

Warnings: Blood, gore, self h4rm, mental breakdowns, angst.

Story under the cut!

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

You were their god, their salvation during dark times, their reason for living. When you finally descended into Teyvat, you were stunning, breathtaking even. A white flowly dress hugged your form as Teyvat softened your fall with flowers beneath you.

Your (h/c) falling around you like soft leaves, outlining your face. You were sleeping peacefully.

It was so serene.

You were beautiful even as they watched you softly fall.

Your followers were kneeling before you when you awoke from your slumber. Everything was hazy as your eyelashes fluttered open, the sun blazing onto your face, the gentle breeze softly pecking your cheek, and the soft whispers of people felt so surreal yet warm.

You looked around to see the characters you loved so dearly look at you with admiration, waiting for you to speak. It was truly a blessing to witness their creator finally here, with them, about to be worshiped by them.

However, this serene scene soon turned into cries of pain. Everything happened so fast. One moment, the characters you loved reaching to help you up, and the next moment, they recoil back screaming in agony as their skin blisters from something boiling hot.

It wasn't just their skin, either. It was their eyes as they looked upon you. It felt like they were staring into the sun, like daggers stabbing their eyes countless of time. Eyes tearing up from the intense pain, bloodshot even.

However, amongst the chaos, your followers still tried to comfort you as you began to panic as the scene got worse. They just wanted to help and make sure you were safe. However, even those followers got burned. Without thinking you got up and ran away, scared from what was happening, you didn't know if it was you causeing it or something else, but your mind said to run. Your followers screamed your name to come back, and even as they were screaming cries of pain, they still wanted their creator with them.

Months passed, and everyone learned how to live with their creator. You in the lavish palace they made for you, adorned with the most finest furnishings, colors, and flowers. You don't see any of the characters or be close to them at all. You have to stay in the palace, almost like a bird in a cage, alone. The only company you have is the sky and the breeze of the winds outside from your windows.

You gotten used to the quiet halls and the echoing audeince chamber. This was the only way for everyone to be safe.

You kept saying to yourself, "No more pain or screams from anyone."

When its time to eat, get new supplies, or get letters they wrote, a trusted follower will come inside your abode. The follower will put everything where its meant to be, while you are on the other side far from them, so your presnce doesnt effect them. This took a while to figure out, but if you're a good distance from them, they're safe.

Once you hear a bell ring, that's your cue that you can go back. This is how yall coexist, their creator safe and sound, and your followers are safe and sound. However, no one was truly happy in this situation. You were lonely, touch starved for human interaction, while your follwoers wanted to be closer to you, help you, be by your side..to fully worship you. It was years when you finally snapped, sick of being truly alone, you wanted to end it all. You were tired of just existing.

God, you were tired.

You started thrashing around your room, throwing plants, pillows, perfums, candles, anything really you can get your hands on. Suddenly, you hear a crash, and like a sign, you look towards the noise only to find your vanity mirror. It was broken, some pieces fell onto the marble floor, while the rest stayed in the mirror. Walking towards it, you saw your reflection, your e/c orbs looking back at you. The night gown you were wearing was a mess, hair in disarray, puffy eyes shown hours of crying. This is you, as pretty as you were, you were disgusted at yourself. And it didn't help that this reflection of you was broken. Jagged pieces showed yourself as broken. Which is how you felt truly at this moment. You were exhausted, angry, and humiliated at the face, looking back at you.

This body of yours was like posion to others, turning and twisting their faces into agnoy. That's when something inside of you erupted, sending your hands to your face. Tearing at your skin, you didn't feel any pain, too high on the aderaline to notice. Your nails dig deeper into your flesh, wishing this body, this flesh of yours didn't exist. Your once clean, beautiful nails were now coated in golden blood.

This was your fault.

If only you didn't have this body, you would be normal, be able to be with everyone. After what seemed like forever, the pain finally hit you, your raw flesh burned, golden hot liquid staining your gown, pooling at the ground. You gotten so deep that you saw bits of bone. You screamed in agony, trying not to touch your face, grabbing onto anything to squeeze your hands onto, to lessen the pain. While in this panic state, you saw your reflection one more time. This time, though, it was grotesque and feral. You looked non-human, almost like some kind of monster. Even though you saw the raw flesh, the bone, the veins, your mind told you this was your true form. The beauty you had earlier was an illusion, which made you sob from the realization. Soon, everything was turning hazy as your body began to shut down. It was all too much for you. With a loud thud, your body fell onto the same marble floor that was covered with your golden blood.

You awoke to the birds chirping outside, the soft morning light hitting your face to wake you. You slowly opened your eyes to see the marbled floor and the dry blood before you. In the same spot when you first fell, slowly getting up, you looked around to see the mess you made. Instinctively grabbing at your hair as pain surges from your head, the fall being to blame, you slowly pulled away to look around. You were still a bit hazy from sleep, so it was somewhat hard to focus on what's in front of you.

You were about to rub your eyes to wake up some more. However, you tensed up when you remembered about last night. Unfortunately, you realized too late, fearing for the buring sensation to come back, you closed your eyes to brace for the pain.

However, to your surprise, you didn't feel any burning or raw flesh in that matter either. Just your normal skin, like if none of what happened last night even transpired. It took you a second to snap out of your shock state to look at yourself in the mirror. Like a moth to a flame, you cling to the mirror, scanning your features from the jagged pieces.

You couldn't believe it.

There was no blood, no bone, no raw flesh being exposed.

It was fine.

You were fine.

You looked beautiful.

The only notion that something happened last night was the blood, the mess of the room, and the scars on your face. Like a reminder that you are stuck as you are, in this body, with this face, and with this flesh. Forever to be alone living like this.

Forever.

[herotome]

Devlog #142

Hi-ho, Wudge here.

Time to talk about these past two weeks worth of work. Haha... ah....... The good news is that there's quite a lot. The bad news is now I have to type it all out. 😭 The things I do for love (for Herotome) amiright.

Note to self I'm gonna have to carefully save drafts of post throughout because, again, it's A Lot.

Ok so, we'll start off with some Mia stuff.

Outfit concepts!! Some of yall may recall I struggled hardcore with her hero outfit, but I think it's finally getting somewhere?? After uh... I allowed myself to use black. :') I had it in my head that Dart is the only one who can wear black-- but how unfair is that?! There's a limited number of color families in the world, characters should be able to borrow colors from each other in accent colors! So, I'm much happier now that I've gotten over that mental hurdle.

On the right is a 'party'/gala outfit. I have a few events in mind where the LIs can dress up and look nice, so this is a concept for that...!

I also made a bunch of these... cut-out images, so highlight her injured hand in-game... ....... Then I realized I could literally just. Show her full sprite and pan it down. Then add a lil spotlight/vignette effect if I damb well want to. :| So uh. I'll be throwing all these out I guess....... It was a learning experience!!!!!! just a bit of a painful one hahaha.

Moving right along, expressions.

I got through a huge set of Griffin and made some new mouth shapes for Mia! Much to my dismay, Mia's lips are rather more detailed and thus take a bit more time to render..... but I'm getting the hang of it.

I also have been coding in these new expressions for the Mia and Warden scene in the federal center lobby.

Here's a preview! Maybe I can make a gif of a few branches to crosspost to Ko-Fi...

As for Griffin - I haven't started coding in any expressions yet, but I did set up all his PNGs and can show off the full set here:

The pictured tool is by Feniks - wonderful, wonderful way of seeing all the expressions at once and quickly converting a specific mood from image into code (which you can see in the lower rightmost corner). I highly recommend it for any renpy devs who are have an overwhelming surplus of character expressions!

And I experimented with a ghostly text effect (using altered code from Wattson's dripping effect). It's hard to read at the moment and I dont love it - in Herotome it will likely have a proper outline and I might use a special font. It's inspired by this one artist named Endling - back in my teenybopper deviantart days, he had this comic with a big bad wolf character who would talk like this--!

And of course, updated art of these fools (as seen in my last not-devlog last week)

I also wrote.. a decent amount... did a fair amount of outlining/plotting.... and Remnantation and I made progress on a new Griffin CG... I designed some other potential NPCs.......

...... You can tell I'm running out of steam for this devlog, I'm sure. I think that'll do it for now.

Stay safe and keep warm,

Wudge.

[cure-orchid]

So I know the show recently ended, but I ended up binging through TGAMM and loved it! The Ghost Friends are all mood and the Mollie ship is adorable. Then I learned about the Chairman Ollie arc for the scrapped third season and IT WOULD HAVE BEEN SO COOL TO SEE!

I ended up writing down how I would imagine the story arc going down, and I headcanon that several of the planned season 3 eps (minus the ones that would clash with the finale) happened between JVTHM and The End (Ollie knowing about the wraith memory loss and how he says it could have hinted that it already occurred.)

My Chairman Ollie plotline: It starts with what was outlined in the already written scripts, and Ollie keeps spending more and more time in the Ghost World rather than on Earth. He’s becoming a little more forgetful as the episodes pass and has noticeable headaches. Things like his parents having a Root Beer Bar or the plot of the latest Country Pumpkin movie seem to surprise him when he should already know about them.

He’s missed a few dates with Molly and slipping on schoolwork so she takes an episode trying to talk to him at school but he keeps getting pulled away to fix something as the Chairman. The episode would really drive in how his human memories are failing even when he reconnects with his body and there’s a whole musical number on how Molly feels he’s growing distant. She finally catches up to him in the end and he looks partway between normal and being an empty shell(his hair is even losing the swoop!). She asks him out for ice cream but then we get a wham line “Sure, but… who are you?” Molly’s heart literally breaks as she discovers Ollie has lost all memory of her. He excuses himself and leaves Molly crying with Scratch and Libby coming to console her.

Next episode the remaining Ghost Friends are trying to figure out what’s wrong with him when June comes to Molly’s house trying not to panic. Ollie’s shell came home yesterday but not his wraith and he’s still not back. Molly, Libby and Darryl go to the Chen’s while Scratch goes to the Ghost World to see what’s keeping him. He finds Ollie still obsessively trying to engoodify the Ghost World and his orange glow is much more faded. Worse, when Scratch calls him by his name he asks who Ollie is. Libby manages to discover a page in her pop-up book that was stuck to another and reveals wraiths can lose their memories the longer they spend away from their body and without the will to live they cannot fully rejoin the two halves. Scratch arrives and with all they know they make a plan. Molly, Scratch and the Chen’s go to the Ghost World while Darryl and Libby keep an eye on their bodies. They get to Ollie and he doesn’t recognize anyone but Scratch, but has no emotional attachment to him. Big musical number as they all try to help Ollie remember but it doesn’t work. Everyone is devastated and it seems like Ollie might be gone forever.

Molly doesn’t give up, she pulls down his hood and cups his face, (this is where the drawing is) telling Ollie that she loves him and gives him their first kiss. Her yellow sparks course through him and his orange glow regains it’s color… and he regains his memories. When they pull away, Olly says her name and he’s pulled into a group hug as he says everyone’s names. He leaves the robe and hurries back into his body. A few hours later it’s just him, Molly and Scratch when the ghost council arrives. I haven’t come up with what happens to the robe but Ollie does relinquish his title as chairman and Scratch pulls the council away. Now alone, Ollie didn’t get to say it back in the ghost world, but he loves Molly too. They have another kiss and lean their foreheads together afterwards… and then Scratch comes back complaining that they already sucked faces once today already.

Update 5/27: Yep, I’m turning this into a fanfic. I said I wouldn’t but I got the inspiration on how to do it! It’s called ‘Record of an Engoodifier’

Also bonus doodles:

[cal-kestis]

hi nik! i was wondering if you have different coloring settings for anime like jujitsu kaisen? i was wondering if you could do a tutorial for it?

hi!!! sorry this is 10 days late 😭 my coloring for anime is only two steps different from my normal coloring process, but what's very different are my sharpening settings! this won't be a lengthy tutorial since I ended up just making a downloadable action pack, but I'll still explain a few things below the cut. also, these actions work well for for any anime, including ghibli, or classic disney animated film with black outlines

Get the free action pack via Ko-Fi!

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: – My basic gif-making tutorial – My color manipulation tutorial via usergif – Anime gif sharpening tutorial by aq2003 – How to load and use actions

I should preface that I always gif footage that's 1080p or 4K. For JJK, it's always 1080p!

MY SHARPENING SETTINGS: Firstly, shoutout to the tutorial above by aq2003 where I learned the minimum and surface blur filter trick! My sharpening actions use some of these tips mixed with my usual sharpening (with some slight modifications)! Here are my settings (click for higher quality):

Also, I will very rarely increase the first sharpening radius to 0.4. I've only had to do that, like, twice when giffing anime.

Here's how I used these actions in the Nanami gif:

I typically only use Anime (Sharpen) since my usual anime gifs are small 268px wide gifs. But occasionally, depending on the scene and gif size, I'll duplicate the gif and use Sharpen + Thicker Lines set at an opacity between 40-60% if I want the black outlines to look smoother. I only use Sharpen + Thicker Lines at 100% opacity for chibi scenes (like the Yuji gif in the preview gif above) where the outlines are already very thick.

The differences between my actions and the tutorial I linked by aq2003 are my sharpening settings and that all of my filters' blending modes are Normal (whereas they used Darken on their sharpening filter).

MY COLORING AND DARKEN ACTION: I'm not going to go too deep into coloring since my basic gif-making tutorial covers my usual steps, as does my color manipulation tutorial. My goals for anime gifs are to accurately represent character skin tones (especially taking care to NOT whitewash or color-wash, especially pink-wash, their skin tones since many anime characters are characters of color) and to feature vibrant backgrounds/accent colors.

Two of the first adjustment layers I do for almost every anime gif are Levels (to darken) and Selective Color (to lower the white levels). I only do this for very bright anime scenes, which are many of the scenes I've giffed in my experience. Please note that my darken action won't suit every scene without tinkering with them yourself, and it definitely shouldn't be used on already dark scenes. You'll either need to lower the opacity of the layers or play with the sliders yourself.

For example, the Nanami gif was VERY bright (almost over exposed) and uses my darken action as is:

The Choso gif is also very bright AND washed-out; it needed both darkening and color correcting:

Notice the color sliders are also adjusted in Selective Color, Whites. This was to bring color back to Choso's skin which had been washed out due to the fluorescent lights in the Shibuya train station.

Here are some additional color-correcting adjustments I made before continuing on with my usual coloring process:

(Note that there were several more adjustment layers after these before I landed on my final Choso gif in the preview.)

The Yuji gif is already at a good level and didn't need darkening, and I actually even brightened it a bit and increased the blacks:

That's as much as I'll explain about the basics of my anime colorings! Everything after these darkening steps follows my usual routine as laid out in my basic gif-making tutorial, even for dark scenes.

That's it, hope this helps! :)

[swordsmans]

it has arrived!! I had the absolute pleasure of binding @veryqueerdraws zoro/luffy comic Diamond Tiger and i can't believe it's finally made it!!! this was such a fun and unintentionally complex bind, and i'm very pleased with how it turned out. the pictured iteration is actually the third case i built and the second textblock i printed, so at a certain point this bind became like... a theseus's ship kinda book. very entertaining to make.

this is a skinny three-piece bradel (flat spine) style, probably my go-to with books of this length (and books with more involved multi-piece cover construction.) The book's endsheets are black and gold marbled red lokta, and the covers are made from a combination of that same paper and a flowery white-core scrapbook paper. The cover isn't layered and is instead comprised of 60+ individual pieces; I used the same principle for the back, though there were fewer pieces.

as you can see, the titling on the cover is the doujin's title itself, which isn't a font--it's part of the cover art and was drawn by @ozo-blog!! i couldn't find anything similar, and honestly? it's very lovely. it was pretty challenging to do (and ultimately resulted in the death of version two, may it rest in peace), but in the end it made such a neat effect and i'm super glad it worked out. i spent a fair bit of time fiddling around with a portion of the cover image in photoshop until I had a couple of clean sections of the title and then (several iterations later) made a stencil out of it. the final version took three layers: heat foiling by hand, gel ink (to yellow the color a little and fill in some gaps), and an outline layer of machine adhesive foil.

i think one more iteration would have given me a chance to perfect the different processes (ive since stopping using adhesive foil because u can see the smaller letters have a tendency to slide off into oblivion if you breathe wrong), and overall i think i learned more during this bind than i have in any other so far. i have "gained exp" and "leveled up", as they say. (just a little joke for the gamers in the audience)

i also made a multi-layered longstitch blank book for ozo!! this one went through a few iterations as well, and i think i ultimately succeeded in my goal of making something 1) lightweight 2) that lays flat no matter where you open it. It features a green black/gold marble lokta to compliment the red marble i used on diamond tiger and 24lb fill in white, black, and "kraft" brown. this was VERY fun to make, and i was almost completely perfect save for a moisture warp on one side of the cover. as with diamond tiger, i learned quite a lot and am overall very proud of how it turned out :3 i'll be making more journals and sketchbooks like this in the future, i can feel it.

[taybatwo2]

Spelldon Monster High Custom

Once I saw that G3 Deuce had green skin, I knew I had to try my hand at making Spelldon Cauldronello. I re-haired him and flocked the sides of his head with yarn to imitate dreads. I sewed him a jacket, shirt, joggers, and socks. I made his little potions (out of beads), earrings (also out of beads), necklaces, gloves, pointed ears (I wish I could have gotten them smoother, but they were so delicate that I could not sand them without them breaking), shoes (out of paperboard and papier-mâché), and repainted his face (my first full face repaint and daaang was that difficult to try and make his eyes and eyebrows look related to one another).

He’s not perfect, but he was super fun to pose and creating him was a HUGE learning experience (like to start sealing all of my thread knots with fabric glue).

You’re more than welcome to draw fanart/make your own based on mine, just tag me- I’d love to see them. Feel free to comment what you like/dislike think I should improve on. :)

Edit: thank you for all the sweet comments in the reblogs guys. You’re all making my day. :)

More under the cut

Close ups of his left side (I like how this ear turned out the best).

And his right side. I couldn’t get this side smoothed out to save my life, haha. Hopefully his earrings distract enough from it. Keeping beads from old bracelets come in handy! These were just the right size for him. I repainted the lower earring in black, with a stripe of purple, and added silver Ancient Greek designs on either side.

One more close up of his left ear and earring (I added a purple pentagram in the center of the silver Greek designs and the color shift sparkle paint around the rim). His upper earring is the same as his right lower earring, but has an orange stripe.

His face-up took awhile, but it is very rewarding to finally give him a face. I tried to make it look like the factory g1 monster high face up and took a lot of inspiration from his older sister Casta’s pupils. I gave him darker purple eyes, with the yellow/gold zig-zags. I gave him three moles, instead of just the one that Casta has, to mix it up a little. I did take a little inspiration from G3 for his eyebrows to add some orange and purple streaks in the front and a cut in his left eyebrow (I don’t know if that is still trendy, but I think it looks cool). The eyebrows are still not super symmetrical, but I already sealed it. I went back and forth on what I wanted his lip colors to be (I know I wanted something two toned) but finally decided on a dark purple upper lip, with a green outlined lower lip.

Also G3 heads are SUPER difficult to try and reattach (and remove) and have to be VERY squishy to put back on their bodies (even after I had trimmed down the neck peg).

Okay, onto his wardrobe! I wanted to imitate Casta’s color pallet: black, orange, purple, silver (and sparkles and studs), while bringing in more “witchy” themes (the buckles, stripe socks, and pentagrams), and his scaritage from his mama Circe (hence the potions, boars on his shirt and shoes, the greek vase designs and the boar designs being black on orange -like the Ancient Greek vases). Even on the Greek designs, I put some teeny tiny pentagrams (namely on his jacket sand socks).

His jacket took the longest (his shoes were the second longest). It is fully lined (the sleeves have a white lining to keep staining to a minimum), and working pockets. I liked the sparkly material I found, but does it shed like crazy (I used it for his collar, cuffs, pockets, and the bottom of his jacket in the back, and wrong side-out for his sleeves -they still have silver sparkles showing though and it doesn’t shed…but it will catch on things). I used thin ribbon for the outside of his pockets (next time I will fabric glue the ends shut on all my ribbons and a thicker ribbon for the bottom of his coat), and bent some wire into buckles. I also used ribbon wire and looped black thread over it to make it look like a zipper. I used fabric paint for the pattern down the front and REALLY hope it stays on there.

I really wanted a mesh back to his coat (I love how that part turned out), and then added this purple sparkly ribbon to his sleeves. He was going to have another pentagram in the back but it was too much (but it left a cool shadow of the star after I removed it).

His gloves are made of mesh and ribbon (with glitter fabric glue continuously added on top of each other, and then painted silver, to make the spikes on his knuckles -same thing I did with his choker and shoes). His nails are painted black with the same color flash glaze paint as part of his earrings.

Okay onto his main outfit without the coat (he’s much more fun and easier to pose without his jacket).

“Spelldon, please move your necklace out of the way, so we can see your shirt better, thank you.”

Close up of his wild boar and Greek vase designs on his shirt (done in fabric paint). I REALLY love how the boar turned out as I was SUPER nervous I was going to mess it up. Having a boar/Greek vase design on an orange shirt was also inspired by @spookberry ‘s design of Spelldon. His necklace pendant was another bead I had (and it worked great for attacking thread too).

Side and back of his outfit (you can see some of that stray black glitter).

“‘Scuse me Spelldon, can you lift your shirt so we can see you joggers better? Thank you.” His joggers/capri’s and socks were inspired by @peppapigvevo ‘s Spelldon design. Once again I used ribbon, that sparkly material for his waistband and cuffs, and silver fabric paint for Greek vase design.

I attached a chain to his joggers and added these potion bottles (while Casta looks like she uses more magic spells and incantations through her singing, I like to think Spelldon uses potions -more like his mom). I made these potions out of wire, beads, thread and air-dry clay.

Onto his shoes and socks. I made the shoes out of paperboard and paper-maché. I wanted them to be boar themed while still having pentagrams and studs on them. They turned out a bit wonky (and a tad too long -but it helps him stand up, haha), but I spent too much time on them to redo them, haha. His shoe sole I also painted with that sparkle flash glaze paint too. I also gave him the striped socks, because I love striped socks and tights on witches.

“Thanks for holding still Spelldon, and being patient with me.” I’m going to make another post or two with comparisons with his sister, some of my other customs, and some vampire that claims he knows him or something, heehee.

Oh yeah! My sketches for him:

[azriona]

Doctor Who compilation bookbinding project

Okay, continued the bookbinding this afternoon, and this time paid slightly more attention to the signature order, so now it's all sewed up in the right direction. The textblock isn't quite done--it still needs endpapers and headbands-- but that's going to have to wait because I don't have the endpapers I want.

Anyway, I thought I'd post progress pictures for those interested, and because I realized I haven't taken progress photos of any of the projects thus far. This is the third of my own fics that I've been binding. I'm not doing too much new with this one, but I still haven't figured out the cover so I might try something with that. Anyway, this compilation is of my Doctor Who fics (Pages and Left Behind are the main ones, and then an assortment of shorter fics).

(Confession: it has been so long since I read Left Behind, and I have been so deep in the MCU lately, that I read the opening to this story and my first thought is, "Tony Stark is in this here?!" 😂😂😂😂)

So the first part of fanbinding actually creating the pdf for printing. This probably takes up the most time, because I'm doing a shit-ton of trying to coax Word to do what I want it to do. Luckily, I learned how to do this when prepping Pen's books for printing, and I've gotten a lot better and faster at it over the years. I don't know that I'm any good at it, really--I see some layouts that are frankly amazing and inventive and creative and I wish I could think of those designs, but hey, I think I do all right. You can't see on the above page (it's too light) but there's the faint design of Gallifreyen behind the chapter title there. I also played a lot with using backgrounds on the main title pages:

Okay, those show up better. I'm trying to decide if I want to trim the pages so that you don't have that blank outline around the title page decoration. (Word won't let you print all the way to the edge of the page, which I guess is the drawback of home printing? Eh.) The advantage of trimming would be that I get that nice flat side to the textblock; right now it's that choppy sort of look. Which I don't mind, honestly, but at some point I gotta learn how to cut those pages nice and even.

The deets: printed on ivory letter-sized paper, folded in half. The entire file is a nice solid 300 pages or so.

Anyway, with the signatures printed, it was time to put it together. This time, I had an awl-guide and cradle that I had 3-D printed at the library based on a design from Thingiverse. CHECK THAT BABY OUT. Mine is white and gold (because I told the library I did not care what color they used). I have to say, I love it. Made cutting holes soooooo much easier and faster and perfect and painless. Support your local library, folks, they have all sorts of cool toys.

Sewing it together: I'm continuing to use a kettle-stitch, because it's easy and fast and previously I had trouble keeping the stitches even and tight. I think I finally figured out how to do both now, both a factor in the holes being consistent (thank you, awl guide & cradle) and just paying better attention to the tension in the thread. This is probably the thickest I could go without those strappy thing I see some of the thicker tomes using (I cannot remember the name and you do not want to know what I found when I typed "strappy things" in Google; it sure didn't pertain to bookbinding).

FEAST YOUR EYES ON THE GORGEOUS, PEOPLE.

So that's where we're leaving it; I have a pretty good idea what endpapers I want to use, I just have to get back to JoAnn's to get them. I have ideas about the cover, but I'm not sure how to make it happen, so I'll let that ferment and switch back to one of the other projects. More later.

[bl0rbohandbag]

– more vampire the masquerade x changeling the lost concepts that will not leave me alone. (part 2)

continuation of this post: part 1. "but vtm and ctl are from different settings–" shhhhhh :) if you've seen this post before no you didn't

before i begin: i have been dabbling in vampire the masquerade and changeling the lost content for a while, i am not a fan of changeling the dreaming and vampire the requiem is unfamiliar to me. anyway! buckle up, enjoy the ride, this is another long post!!

trigger warning for obsessive behavior, abuse/unhealthy relationships because vamps again, i guess.

– you're a changeling. kidnapped into arcadia and trapped there for who knows how long. in your durance, you dream of going back home, of reuniting with your friends and family, escaping your keeper to finally, finally enjoy freedom in the world you were born in.

– and one day, you do escape. back into your world, never feeling completely safe with your keeper looking to get you back and huntsmen being a very real threat, but you're ready to rebuild your life and enjoy your newfound freedom.

– except...

after a series of events, you have been forcibly/begrudingly assimilated into a coterie. perhaps a tremere found out about your changeling nature and took great interest in the faerie magic you can wield, deeming it useful for their interests, or maybe a friend or relative of yours turn out to be kindred and are now dragging you into their messes.

(this is particularly annoying if you're more of a diurnal faerie, rising with the sun and going to sleep as soon as it goes down. your circadian rhythm sucks [no pun intended] now that you're up until 3 am running around with a bunch energetic vamps.)

(bonus points if the other members of the coterie don't know what you are, initially mistaking you for a random human and being confused as to why you're there.)

you're not very familiar with kindred, but at this point you're not as wary of them as you should be, either. after all, you've dealt with the treachery and cruelty of the fae, traversed goblin markets, escaped the hedge - you think you can handle yourself pretty well.

(... that's why you see no problem in making a pledge with that mysterious fanged gentleman, offering your blood in exchange for whatever you might need in return. when the pledge is over and they're no longer needed, you ghost them, unknowingly leaving behing a vampire who is now addicted to changeling blood, your changeling blood, and the rush of human emotions brought by being in contact with glamour, no matter how terrible the withdrawal feels.)

on another hand, purposefully letting a vampire drink your blood to torment them might be a fun little prank >:)

(note/context: there is a bit of a contradiction regarding how kindred reacts to changeling blood. some books mention that it doesn't do anything different than a human's, but tastes heavenly and causes no damage to the vampire consuming it, and it might even resurface human feelings or emotions long forgotten. however, changeling the lost: rites of spring, though establishing that changeling blood isn't directly harmful to kindred, still has a hallucinatory effect on them. it is said that the vampire suffers -1 penalty to perception rolls every vitae worth of changeling's blood they consume, because they suffer misleading visions that also plague the Lost of low Clarity, a.k.a it causes one hell of a bad trip ["faces sprout in the environment and babble nonsense rhymes, colors shift and bleed, the outlines of objects warp and shudder."] that lasts until the vampire sleeps it off, and even then they might be plagued with vivid nightmares. so i guess whatever works best.)

a kindred parent who has dedicated their life to finding their missing child after witnessing their kidnapping by an otherworldy, inhuman creature. it might very well be the reason they sought out the embrace, in the first place, after learning their child might still be alive even after centuries have passed, and to be strong enough to protect them from whoever tries to take them back.

using oneiromancy on your malkavian mother to give her beautiful, pleasant, peaceful dreams. perhaps she dreams of you, and picnics with food she can taste under a summer's day sky, and the sun on her skin doesn't burn or frighten her. and it feels so real, so much so that she is filled with a sense of warmth and longing she can never shake off. you do what you can to take care of her. from a distance.

traditionalist ancilla parent who naturally turns to you when they are experiencing issues with technology or anything related to the modern world because you are their child and therefore should know about this stuff, but they forget you were stuck in Arcadia for like three hundred years and you have no idea how to operate an IPhone.

if anyone remembers the ventrue dad using his ghouls as his changeling child's bodyguards, let me expand on that: you are an absolute MENACE to the ghouls babysitting you. if you have been isolated from the world, that means they're basically your social circle, so you talk their ears off and trick them for fun quite often. not only that, but they're the ones that have to run around to retrieve you when they notice you have succesfully escaped again.

(this might evolve into the ghouls becoming your sorta kinda motley. they figure that taking you out during the day won't hurt when you're under their supervision, as long as it means you'll stop running away. you end up dragging them into all sorts of changeling shenanigans, from seasonal court drama to trips to the goblin market, pledges gone awry and etc. they become quite involved in the whole changeling thing. and you STILL prank them when you're bored.)

now the dynamic between the changeling child and their parent's revenants far more removed from humanity might be... interesting.

alternatively, a fetch-maker changeling making a fetch of themselves in order to escape their captor, be it their parent, a partner or a just a kindred who got too interested in them.

(alternatively again, a fetchmaker changeling will continuously make fetches of themselves to throw off/escape their vampire, and said vampire just keeps noticing the differences every single time. it might take them a while, but they notice!)

a vampire who wants you but cannot have you going after your fetch and seducing them instead, maybe even in a conscious attempt to disturb you.

(drinking the fetch's blood will make them immediately regret it, though. fetch blood is just... Not A Fun Time).

a tzimisce's vicissitude is an all too familiar horror.

ancilla toreador who enjoys toying with emotions and sire their lovers just to abandon them after x centuries-old, manipulative fairest who spent their long durance in arcadia being revered for their beauty and talent = potentially the most toxic interaction to ever exist, so nuclear people grow extra limbs just from existing within their vicinity.

(tldr: toreador x fairest cunt off who wins)

"nice is different than good" is a lesson you thought you learned after years of dealing with all sorts of fae creatures, be it the gentry, hobgoblins or even your own changeling peers. but you're not in arcadia anymore, and isn't learning how to trust again a part of healing? ... and somehow that means ignoring the red flags your newly-acquired partner is exhibiting. point is: you didn't exactly sign up for a vampire making your strange life even stranger, but now they're becoming more and more attached to you. not that you're aware of this, or the fact that they're kindred, but you'll find out. oh, you'll find out.

(eventually, their vampire antics are bound to catch up to you. eventually, your changeling antics are bound to catch up to them. it's just a matter of which one will happen first.)

(unhealthy kindred relationship tendencies aside, it's not absurd a vampire lover or secret admirer would become obsessed with a changeling, without even knowing the changeling's true nature. there's just something about them. becoming the subject of obsessive behavior is possible, romantic, platonic or otherwise, born out of a spark of curiosity or a grudge. look at rose gonzalez and roddy van bastelaar, for example.

and if they are aware of what you are, it's all the better. you're like a fairy-tale come to life! but changelings can be a little too similar to their keepers sometimes, and it sometimes backfires. add an obsessed or scorned vampire into the mix and you'll have a recipe for disaster.)

alternatively, a good, healthy (as it can be) relationship with a vampire that absolutely embraces the whole changeling lifestyle. anarchs? camarilla? no. a nosferatu or hecata girlfriend would feel right at home at the moon court's freehold. a tremere boyfriend would love nothing more than to sit with their autumn court changeling partner and read through piles and piles of old books on fairy magic.

a spring courtier changeling helping a vampire acquire necessary information using memory of trees.

(vampire: so you're telling me that you know that one scripture i've been looking for over twenty years is buried underneath the chapel because a fucking tree told you about it?

spring courtier changeling: yes? :3)

when a malkavian surprises you with a cryptic prophetic vision about your life, surprise them back! tell them about the cryptic prophetic vision you had about them, and try to rope them into a pledge by telling them you can alter their fate with simple little spell :) for a price, of course :)

in true fairy-tale fashion, you return home to find that not only your parent has been embraced in your time away, but they have found a lover as undead as they are. maybe it's their sire, maybe someone they met after becoming kinred. but while your parent is overjoyed with your miraculous return, your new evil step-parent just sees you as a nuisance.

(there are so many ways this dynamic can be expanded upon!

not being aware of your parents and their partner's vampirism, but still feeling that something is fundamentally off whenever you're at their new fancy mansion/penthouse [maybe your live there. maybe you drop by for a visit, after they get you settled in a nice house or apartment close by]. your new stepfather is insufferable, eccentric and treats you coldly, perhaps outright shitty when your parent is not around, but your parent seems happy enough - or not, but they won't hear a word of concern from you.

and if you are aware, then... well. they'll just take it as an opportunity to further terrify you.)

[hongtonie]

i finally hit 1k!!! (no thanks to tumblr glitching my follower count) i'm really glad so many people like the little images i make☺️ to say thank you i prepared a little something! i've put together all the overlays i have downloaded that i use in my gfx as well as the fonts i've collected over the past couple years (and an updated giffing "tutorial"!) love u all hope november is kind to you<33

for starters here is the mega folder with all of my fonts and pngs! below is my semi-updated giffing process along with some of my actions<3

my process is pretty much the same as my old tutorial but now i've changed how i export gifs! my basic process is outlined in the gif below and and i've added 3 of my actions i use almost every time i gif in this google drive! (explanations below) :]

so after i know what clip i want, i put it into vapoursynth (download tutorial) and once that's saved i screencap it. what i do for screencapping is open the mov in mplayer osx extended and hold down shift+command+s but i know there's way easier ways to do it that i haven't figured out yet lol (tutorial i just found here)

once the screencaps are all on my desktop i delete any extras on either end of the clip i want and put them in a folder just so it's easier to load them in to photoshop. to do that, on the home page of photoshop go to file -> scripts -> load files into stack, then from that menu browse -> select all the screencaps you want to use for the gif and click open then ok

after they're all loaded into photoshop this is where i use my first action which just shortcuts all the way to the sharpening being done. once that's done i go to image -> mode -> 16 bits/contrast. this can help if the background is super pixely or anything like that. then i mess around with sharpening if i feel like it's too much. usually i'll change the opacity of the second sharpen layer to 50 and/or change the settings of the first sharpen layer like 200 to 150 or 0.3 to 0.2, whatever i feel like looks best. something i've also learned over the years is that sometimes you let noise do the heavy lifting and don't worry about making it look too sharp. if the gif is still a little bit unsharpened (?), the noise will make it look fine

then i do coloring which is the fun part! like i said, my process is more or less the same as my old tutorial so i'll just skip over that part and if you want more details feel free to check that one out. once i'm done with that i combine it all to a smart object, add noise (usually 1-1.5 these days), and then use my second action!

after the second action does its thing, i select all frames and set the rate. i usually set it to 0.04 for youtube videos and 0.02 or 0.03 for ts files. then, because vs leaves me with duplicate frames, i run my action for duplicates which selects all of the unwanted frames and then go to the hamburger menu just above the timeline -> delete frames. then it's ready to be saved!

[firedragon1321]

How to Spot an AI-Generated Tai in the Wild!

Because I am insanely obsessed with the blorbo and AI art is a hot-button topic right now, here's a silly thing. I'm sure most artists can tell the difference between real and AI art. But my autistic brain wants to pick apart Tai's character design a bit so here you go. This applies to all seasons, touching on basic traits Tai has between them. So I won't go too much into clothing here (people like to dress him up in different cool outfits anyway- keep doing that).

Note that this isn't true to all models, but works 90% of the time. AI art is advancing so quickly that this may be obsolete by tomorrow. Also, real art might "fail" these little tests simply due to lack of experience drawing the character. If you suspect someone is posting AI art, just block and move on. Report if you want, but you know how Tumblr feels about AI. Most importantly? Don't use this post to be a dick.

WARNING: This post uses AI-generative images found from around the Internet for demonstrative purposes. No credit is given because if the "creators" wanted credit, they should've learned how to actually draw. :)

SKIN TONE

Tai has this nice, tanned skin tone that the rest of the Adventure DigiDestined do not have. While he keeps it in 02 and tri, he loses his color in Kizuna. A real fanart piece is most likely to reflect this, or even add color to his paler designs.

Most AI models have a generic pasty white skin tone for anime characters. This applies to any anime character, not just Tai. I believe this model might have gobbled up his Kizuna skin tone. But I've seen fake Tais even paler than this.

There are some AI models that combat this. But the standard AI identification tricks apply. Here, the tongue is mushy, and the highlights on his goggles make no sense.

HAIR OF FLOOF FLOOF

Ah yes- my point of expertise. Tai's hair is a difficult thing to draw. I don't blame anyone for dropping the ball here. But AI does have some notable, repetitive failings.

A "legit" Tai tends to have fluff, rather than spikes. The bangs consist of one stripe over the forehead. The few spikes present designate messiness, but the general shape is actually curvy (look at the top right side of the head for the most wavy lines). The size of the floof ranges between adaptions and even storyboard artists.

AI-generators are convinced that all "anime hair" is spiky. Notice this AI Tai has more spikes and less curved lines.

Then, there's this one, which drops the ball on Tai and Matt so bad that both characters resemble Bakugou from My Hero Academia.

WHO'S THAT DIGIDESTINED?

Eye shape and color has some leeway depending on the artist's style. Adventure/02, tri., and Kizuna supply three different eye styles. However, there are still some dead giveaways.

Revisiting this AI-generated image, the eyes look...familiar. No?

How about now? The modern Pokemon anime style has been completely absorbed by AI models. Sometimes, Digimon and Pokemon will be confused for each other, resulting in similar eye shapes and other traits (look at the noses, too).

HUMAN TOUCH

There's some times you can look at an art and know with confidence it was human-made, such as-

MS Paint blobs/sketches on lined paper/anything showing layers/etc. They're too unrefined for an AI image creator to want to profit off of, so why would they make them?

Some fetish art. A lot of kinksters are using AI, which is why deviantArt made good ammunition for this post. But many have distinct art styles that AI has not copied yet.

Western-cartoony art with hard or thick lines. AI is allergic to these traits atm. Notice the softer, thinner outlines on all three fakes.

Clearly attempting to master Tai's unique traits, even if they don't translate well (e.g.- a dome vaguely shaped like his hair is more credible than a "perfect" hairdo with too many spikes).

FINAL NOTES

All of this could change tomorrow, at the rate at which AI advances. I'm fairly good at deducing AI art from human-made art. But a recent piece almost tricked me (interestingly, it was Davis- not Tai- who looked off). These things are constantly evolving. But in addition to the usual tricks, knowing your blorbos can help identify AI images so you can freely block (or, when applicable, report) the idiots who made them.

[venbetta]

When you make a comic how do you make one as a beginner like is there a way that I have to do it or do I just do it normally how I draw (I just need some help with it because I'm making a comic series 🥲)

I'll try my best to explain it here (I'll have some videos hyperlinked at the end)

Drawing comics as a beginner definitely takes a lot of time, and there's a lot to think of when it comes down to making one. It's very easy to say "just do it," and in most cases, it really is just jumping in and just doing it.

What I will say is, if it's a series that has an end goal in mind, it's always good to figure out the story first and plot an outline on what's going to happen. If there isn't, and it's more of a slice of life/no overarching plot, don't worry about too much scripting or planning (and just have fun with it).

Writing a script also helps so you can plan what the characters are saying/doing.

Some examples of how i usually script (Freaky Friday and another original comic project I have planned)

(Doesn't have to look like mine, but it helps you get a visual for what you want said/done)

I found that making comics is that I kinda just learned as I went along, even if I wasn't 100% good with drawing certain things like perspective or backgrounds. You'll be forced to draw things you dont like or aren't good at, but with practice, you'll get there.

There isn't a specific way to make a comic at all since everyone's work flows are different, or they change based on what they need.

My usual workflow is basically:

Story plotting > writing > storyboarding/sketching > drawing > coloring > final rendering (optional/depends on style)

You might have a different drawing process, and that's fine. As long as you're comfortable with how you do your work, there wouldn't be much of a reason to change it. If it's causing frustration, it's always good to switch it up to find what suits you.

My advice is to just try to find a workflow that fits you best and see how long it takes to do a certain number of pages, like 5 pages within 5 hrs as an example. I watched a lot of YouTube videos on tips

Here's a pretty short playlist to introduce beginners to comic making tips