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scoutception · 4 years ago

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Yet again ranking the 5 animes I’ve watched most recently

After losing the will to just sit down and watch it for quite a while, I’ve finally gotten through 5 anime series yet again, and, as is tradition for me by now, I’ve decided to just type out my thoughts and rankings of them, with my first two posts of this nature being here and here. As usual, this is just my personal thoughts, and the only other thing worth noting before I start is that, unlike last time, I do think everything listed here is at least decent on its own. With that, I’ll just get to it. 5. Robotics;Notes

Number of episodes: 22. Language options: dub and subs available. Streaming availability: Funimation. Robotics;Notes is an adaptation of a visual novel, which I actually just wrote a review on, which can be found here. Long story short, it’s the third entry in the Science Adventure series, the same series Steins;Gate is part of, unknown to most people, with Robotics;Notes technically being the sequel to it. Originally aired in 2012, the same year as the visual novel was released, and made by Production I.G, Robotics;Notes is in an interesting middle ground between the acclaimed and popular Steins;Gate animes and the downright awful and obscure Chaos;Head and Chaos;Child animes, and until 2020 was the only option those who didn’t speak Japanese had to experience it at all. Since I went into so much detail in said visual novel review, I’m mostly going to focus on how the anime holds up both by itself and as an adaptation. Ever since its creation nearly ten years ago, the dream of the Chuo Tanegashima High Robotics Research Club has been to finish Gunbuild-1, a lifesize recreation of Gunvarrel, the titular mecha of an insanely popular anime that’s credited with starting a “robot boom” within Japan, and the club’s current president, Akiho Senomiya, the little sister of the club’s founder, Misaki Senomiya, is extremely determined to see this dream achieved. Unfortunately for her, the club has fallen on hard times, with its funding being cut, its advisor being completely unreliable, and the few other members it has, namely Kaito Yashio, Subaru Hidaka, Junna Daitoku, and Kona Furugoori, aka Frau Koujiro, being quite difficult in their own ways, and often more than Akiho can handle. While Akiho puts her all into finally bringing the club to greatness, the otherwise apathetic Kaito finds himself involved with a mysterious AI called Airi, who exists within the augmented reality app IRUO. Airi’s creator, the deceased Kou Kimijima, turns out to have also created several AR annotations scattered throughout Tanegashima, titled the Kimijima Reports, which warn of a grand conspiracy that will utterly devastate humanity if unopposed. I’m not the most unbiased viewer, since I had played, and enjoyed, the visual novel months before watching this anime, but generally, it’s actually an enjoyable time. Some of Robotics;Notes’ biggest strengths were always its cast of characters and lighter tone, and for the most part, the anime preserves both well, keeping it mostly silly, but endearing early on. The artstyle actually matches up fairly well with the VN’s CGs, and the dub, which I watched just to spice things up, since I already knew the Japanese voice cast was quite good, is overall solid, with Clifford Chapin as Kaito, Lindsay Seidel as Akiho, and Monica Rial as Junna especially sticking out to me. As an adaptation, on the other hand, it falls short in quite a few places, namely when it comes to characterization. While obviously, no adaptation could feasibly fit in every detail from its source material, the Steins;Gate anime managed to preserve almost all of its cast’s characterization, whereas in Robotics;Notes, several characters lose prominent details to their backstories or personal conflicts, or act differently in scenes unrelated to that, making quite a few of them come off different. While instances of the latter case, such as Junna coming off as less shy and hesitant, don’t necessarily worsen anything for the most part, the former definitely does, as it makes the affected characters much less developed and interesting. Nobody suffers from this worse than Kaito himself, who loses most of his backstory, motivations, and arc, to the point of one of his best moments being changed from something intentional to completely accidental, with the end result making him come off as a completely different character, and an inferior one, at that. Additionally, around episode 16, the anime starts diverging pretty significantly from the VN, and not in ways that are improvements, to the point it even leaves a few otherwise preserved scenes in earlier episodes without context. Overall, I can imagine the Robotics;Notes anime still being a decent, if unremarkable watch on its own, and was certainly an interesting and fun way to reexperience the story, and definitely fares better than many visual novel adaptations, but I can’t quite say I’d recommend it. If Robotics;Notes interests you, the visual novel is very much preferred. 4. Nichijou

Number of episodes: 26. Language options: dub and subs available. Streaming options: Funimation. Here we have one of the most acclaimed anime comedies out there, an adaptation of Keiichi Arawi’s surreal sketch comedy manga series, produced by Kyoto Animation, a name that’ll be showing up here again later. Nichijou mainly focuses on two different trios of characters. There’s the ordinary high school girls Yuuko Aioi, a rather dim and reckless girl with terrible luck, Mio Naganohara, the most relatively normal one of the cast, whenever she’s not having explosive freak outs that involve beating people up, and Mai Minakami, a stoic girl who enjoys messing with people just for their reactions. On the other hand, there’s the far less ordinary Shinonome Laboratories trio of Professor Shinonome, an 8 year old girl who happens to be capable of building incredibly advanced machines, Nano Shinonome, a robot built by the Professor who desperately desires a normal girl more than anything, and Sakamoto, their pet cat who, thanks to a special scarf also made by the Professor, is capable of talking. The series focuses on their would-be ordinary lives, were it not for the seemingly daily chaos they get involved in, from witnessing the school principal wrestle a wild deer, to being trapped in an elevator for hours, to the school science teacher attempting to capture Nano for study. It also follows the antics of several other side characters, such Koujiro Sasahara, the seemingly upper class student who is actually just the son of a family of farmers, to Misato Tachibana, a very typical tsundere towards Sasahara, whose tsun side manifests as assaulting him with military-grade weapons, to little effect, to the equally quirky teachers of their school. Needless to say, it’s a very silly and chaotic series, and that’s exactly what makes it so memorable. The humor is pretty hit and miss in the first half of the series, but from episode 14 onwards, they thoroughly master it, with every episode having at least a few scenes that got me laughing. Beyond the silliness, though, the series actually has a lot of heart to it. There’s a few moments that change up the status quo, or even develop the characters just a bit, and some scenes are surprisingly sweet, if still played for laughs more often than not. There’s also a lot of continuity, which in later episodes often provide the punchlines to some of the best gags, which definitely encourages watching the whole series. The Japanese voice acting is fittingly crazy for each character, and the animation fits perfectly, as while the character designs are quite simple, there’s many would be mundane moments that have contrasting overly impressive and exaggerated animation that makes them very memorable. All in all, Nichijou is a very enjoyable series once it finds its groove, and about the only reason its not higher on my rankings is just because pure comedies aren’t really one of my favorite genres. Still, if you ever want a good laugh, you can’t go wrong with this. 3. Soul Eater

Number of episodes: 51. Language options: dub and subs available. Streaming availability: Netflix, Funimation. Soul Eater is yet another adaptation, this time of a manga by Atsushi Ōkubo, produced by Studio Bones, who also did the Fullmetal Alchemist animes, and is quite similar to the original FMA series in that it outpaced the manga and, rather than simply overloading itself with filler, decided to go in an entirely different direction by the end. The Death Weapon Meister Academy is a school founded by Death himself, dedicated to the training of Meisters, who wield Weapons, humans with the ability to shapeshift into weapons, for the purpose of destroying Kishin Eggs, evil beings who have consumed the souls of others, and pose the risk of transforming into extremely dangerous demons. Any Meister who can collect the souls of these corrupted beings, as well as the soul of a Witch, can transform their Weapon into a Death Scythe, the personal arms of Death. Among the students of the DWMA are seven Meisters and Weapons who stand out in particular: the teams of Maka Albarn, a kind hearted and responsible, though temperamental, girl, her Weapon, Soul “Eater” Evans, a laidback and snarky wannabe “cool” guy, Black Star, a prideful and loudmouthed ninja who’s seemingly always out to make a spectacle of himself, regardless of how it hampers him, his Weapon, Tsubaki, a humble and levelheaded woman, Death the Kid, the son of Death and one of the top students in the cool, held back only by a crippling obsession with symmetry, and his Weapons, Liz and Patty Thompson. While these seven gradually come together as a team, a Witch named Medusa begins to put an ambitious and destructive plan into motion, one involving her “child”, Crona, and the strange, insanity inducing black blood that courses through their veins. Soul Eater has a lot going for it. A likeable and crazy cast of characters, even the side ones, like the maniacal Doctor Stein, or the surprisingly goofy and casual Death, or the tragic Crona, or the hilariously egotistical Excalibur, to a lot of fun action scenes, to its great animation and overall unique visual design, including the sun and moon having giant, creepy laughing faces. It has a lighthearted, comedic tone that doesn’t detract from the serious moments, and the main characters get some pretty good development as the series goes on. The dub is also great, with Laura Bailey as Maka, Micah Solusod as Soul, Brittney Karbowski as Black Star, and Todd Haberkorn as Death the Kid especially sticking out to me. In general, I don’t have a lot of significant criticisms, besides how the story is handled once the villainous organization Arachnophobia is introduced, which is also about where it begins to deviate from the manga. Most of the villains part of it never really feel like a threat, and the story becomes much more simple and typical compared to how the manga went, and when the ending arrives, it just kinda, happens, with several notable subplots just kinda left unfinished. It definitely feels like an underwhelming ending, and is a big reason why I place this lower on the list, but Soul Eater is still a pretty entertaining watch that’s worth a try if you want a decently lengthy, but not horribly long shonen. 2. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Number of episodes: 28. Language options: dub and subs available. Streaming availability: Funimation. Here we have the big one, an extremely memetic and famous series by Kyoto Animation, based on a series of light novels by Nagaru Tanigawa, a series that was finally completed back in November 2020 after its start in 2003. Kyon is a lazy and down to earth high school student who wishes for little more for himself than an uneventful, normal high school life- a hope that’s abruptly shattered when, on a whim, he becomes involved with Haruhi Suzumiya, an eccentric, hyperactive, and thoroughly self centered girl, who claims to have no interest in ordinary humans, and instead wishes to discover things thoroughly unusual, such as aliens, time travelers, or espers, and forces Kyon to form a club, the SOS Brigade, with her to achieve this. Haruhi quickly pulls three other students into the brigade, those being Yuki Nagato, a stoic and quiet bookworm, Mikuru Asahina, a shy and passive girl often subjected to humiliation and abuse by Haruhi, and Itsuki Koizumi, a calm transfer student who acts extremely subservient to Haruhi. While Kyon initially writes off the club as an unreasonable use of his time, his fellow members reveal an unexpected truth to him: the subjects of Haruhi’s fascinations actually do exist. Yuki is an alien, of a sort, created and controlled by an entity known as the Data Overmind, Mikuru is a time traveler from some point in the future, and Itsuki is an esper, and member of an organization of similar people. All three of them have been sent to observe the oblivious Haruhi, who appears to have the unconscious ability to change reality itself according to her desires, and is at threat of remaking the entire world if not placated. With Haruhi apparently having taken a unique interest in Kyon, he finds himself taken along for all sorts of supernatural adventures spawned from Haruhi’s whims. There’s a lot I could go on about regarding Haruhi, but in the interest of not turning this into a full on rant, I’ll keep shortish. It’s more or less an insane mishmash of several different genres, from slice of life, to science fiction, to fantasy, just depending on what each individual story feels like being. The episodes are mostly adapted from the early light novels, mostly the multiple stories from the third and fifth novels, The Boredom and The Rampage of Haruhi Suzumiya, respectively. It’s not often you’ll have any idea just what to expect from each individual episode, which makes the series very chaotic, but interesting. The characters are likeable and memorable, including the side characters, and the sheer ridiculousness of what goes on makes for many amusing moments. At the same time, the series is surprisingly complex, with many possible interpretations of its characters and the events they go through, furthered by the antics Kyoto Animation pulled when it was originally airing, such as airing the episodes out of chronological order, meaning the plot would often jump from the middle of an arc to something else. The end result is a very unique and enjoyable product, helped by the fantastic dub, with the actors capturing each character perfectly, from Crispin Freeman as the grounded and snarky Kyon, to Wendee Lee as the aggressively energetic Haruhi, to Stephanie Sheh as the gentle, yet secretive Mikuru. That said, there is one pretty disappointing part of it all, and that’s the second season, mostly thanks to the infamous Endless Eight arc, an eight part arc that’s more or less the same things happening over and over, with only the first and last episodes having anything noticeably different. Regardless of its own uniqueness, more than half the season is taken over by this, and something that may have worked if cut down to three or four episodes instead singlehandedly killed off the series’ goodwill. About the only redeeming factor of the second season is the five part adaptation of The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya, which has some of the funniest moments in the whole series. Overall, Haruhi is still a very fun series, and I’m really gonna have to watch its movie, The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, one of these days. 1. Trigun

Number of episodes: 26. Language options: dub and subs available. Streaming availability: Funimation, Hulu. Finishing off this list is an adaptation of a manga series by Yasuhiro Nightow, produced by Madhouse and another adaptation that overtook its source material. Compared to how Soul Eater handled it, however, Trigun went down much, much better, to the point Nightow himself had nothing but praise for how the anime turned out, and the series is generally considered one of the best animes of the late 90′s. On the harsh desert planet of Gunsmoke lives a wandering gunslinger known as Vash the Stampede, the “Humanoid Typhoon” with a large handgun known to leave tremendous destruction in his wake, who amassed a bounty of $$60,000,000,000 after destroying the city of July, leading to an endless trail of bounty hunters out to collect the price on his head. In the middle of all this, Meryl Stryfe and Milly Thompson, two representatives of an insurance society which is often forced to pay for damages caused by Vash, track him down for the purposes of minimizing the chaos he causes. Upon catching up with him, however, the duo discovers that, contrary to his reputation, Vash is a kindhearted goof, and self proclaimed hunter of love and peace, who absolutely refuses to ever take another person’s life, even at great personal risk to himself. Vash continues his travels carefree, helping out whoever he can, with the occasional assistance of Meryl and Milly, as well as a traveling priest known as Nicholas D. Wolfwood, only to one day have an encounter with a mysterious and cruel man known as Legato Bluesummers. Vash soon learns that Legato has hired a group of assassins known as the Gung-Ho Guns to kill Vash, and leave a trail of bodies wherever they go, seemingly for the sole purpose of tormenting Vash. As Vash hunts down Legato, he is gradually forced to face his past, and consider whether he can truly stay committed to his pacifist ideals. In general, Trigun is just a very, very well made series. It has a likeable and developed cast of characters, with special mention going to Vash, who is a very compelling and sympathetic character, and Wolfwood, who makes a great foil to Vash with very interesting development of his own, with characters outside of the main cast being memorable as well, from Legato himself, to even some of the more minor villains, such as the varied members of the Gung-Ho Guns, or Brilliant Dynamites Neon, who makes an inexplicably strong impression for a one off villain not even important to the overall plot. The space western setting is quite good, and the designs are great, with many villains having distinctive looks that further help them make an impression. The action is great, and the animation is also quite good, and has that 90′s anime charm. The dub, while a bit rough around the edges, is generally solid too. From Lia Sargent as the ditzy but kind Milly, to Dorothy Elias Fahn as the hotheaded Meryl, to Jeff Nimoy as the weary Wolfwood, to Richard Cansino as the calculating and disturbing Legato, with special mention needing to go to Johnny Yong Bosch as Vash. Despite it actually being his first voice acting role ever, he does a great job in portraying the many sides to Vash, and absolutely sells many of the biggest moments in the story. Speaking of which, the series started quite lighthearted and wacky, with the first four episodes actually being filler, but gets gradually darker as it goes on. The earlier episodes are still quite enjoyable on their own, though, and manage to slowly reveal new aspects to Vash in each one, before finally setting his nature in stone in episode 5. What really sells the series and makes it so memorable, however, are the themes it explores, of the practicality of unwavering pacifism, and whether taking a life, whether for heinous crimes committed without remorse, or with the purpose of protecting others, is ever justifiable. While quite a few series have touched dilemmas like this before, what makes Trigun stand out with it is the emphasis placed upon it throughout the whole series, with many episodes touching upon it in some regard. It genuinely fairly looks at the different sides of it all, and the consequences of each, with many emotional moments coming from it as a result. While the manga did ultimately take a very different turn from the anime, the anime actually preserves several of the most important plot moments, and manages to come to a satisfactory conclusion of its own regarding the themes. Ultimately, Trigun makes for a very fun and interesting watch that I highly recommend. And with that, my ranking is complete. With the exception of Robotics;Notes, I can pretty confidently recommend every show on this list. Got some more shows I plan to get through soon, so another ranking like this may be soon in the making. Either way, till next time. -Scout

#anime #trigun #nichijou #haruhi suzumiya #the melancholy of haruhi suzumiya #soul eater #robotics;notes #long post

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kaiowut99 · 4 years ago

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The Gang Freaks Out Over a Cell Phone

Judai and the others are now in their second year when a quiet freshman comes to duel Judai. While the freshman’s deck wasn’t all too powerful, it was also an improvised 40-card deck hastily made beforehand out of eight packs in the store. But even then, Archangel Zerato gets Judai’s LP down to 1200. Mid-duel, he speaks with a mysterious man on his cell phone, feeling a lack of interest in this duel due to his prediction. Shou and the others realize this is the well-known Star Duelist Ed Phoenix...

And after a bit too long, here’s finalized!53! It’s fun to finally be getting back into Season 2, since, later plot pacing issues and... questionable moments aside, there’s quite a bit to like about it. One such thing being the dynamic between Ed and Saiou that we’re introduced to here (one of my favorites), as the concept of fate/destiny starts to become an ever-present theme. Also, hearing Takehito Koyasu again for a while will be great now that I’ve actually seen JJBA and heard him as DIO. 😂 The animation/artstyle in this episode is also a nice touch-up from what we’ve been used to, and there were some great shots of Judai and Ed there.

So, part of the delay in getting this going since finishing 52 was getting my usual bells and whistles worked on for the translated hardsub; you’ll notice that the OP is fully translated, and not just with the credits--I wanted to do a thing I originally wanted to do way back when my first go-around but lacked the skills for and translate the character names that slide in! If you check out my “subbing-rambling” tag, you can see some of the work-in-progress posts I made showing it off as I worked on it. As part of this, I also prepared textless versions of the OP’s V2 shots of Chronos and Ed, as well as made Shou in his Red jacket textless for use here; I’ll be sharing these new textless openings as I go through the season over on NAC. (It’s really a shame that we never got those versions officially released...) The ED credits were pretty much copy/paste from Season 1, with a change in karaoke coloring, since thankfully that stays the same, and I’ll also be translating the “Best Card” shots at the end of each episode (which for some reason I noticed Crunchyroll doesn’t include, despite them being on the DVDs?), though on a static screen with the card spinning into view since that moving background’s hard to get blank, lol.

But once those were all done, there were some 53-specific edits and fixes to work on! For the hardsub, I translated the article we see about Ed so that we can read what was visible in Japanese (ie, Ed making waves in August just before Season 2 at an event Kaiba Corp. sponsored!), while I also made a few card fixes. Breakdown below the cut, as usual.

(UPDATE [7/9/20]: I reuploaded the episode because I realized I didn’t account for the different cards Shou has in his deck shot in the Opening in 53-56 vs 57-104; Gyroid, Cyclone, and Trap Hole in the former become Submarineroid, Vehicroid Connection Zone, and No Entry in the latter (all used in 56), which is what was used in the textless video I was working with while working on translating his name there. That’s been corrected, and will be accounted for as I share the textless OPs on NAC. I’m nothing if not consistency-minded. 💁🏽‍♂️)

Enjoy, folks! With 53 finalized, I’ll be giving my 5D’s Dub-Uncut Ep. 26 a quick lookover to see if I have to tweak anything before I work on making the Dark Signer arc episodes’ dubs more bearable, and then I’ll start working on 54. It’s been a bit since Manjoume last dueled, and him dueling his mini-me in Gokaido should be fun, haha.

Fixes/Edits!

For the hardsub, as Chronos pulls out his issue of Monthly Duel!, I translated 月編 on it to “October” in Photoshop and spliced it in; this was an edit I’d already done for 52′s hardsub since it shows up in the preview for 53.

For the hardsub, the page Chronos has Napoleon stare at has been translated! The original text was vertical but I thought it’d make more sense to translate it horizontally for us; as such, I moved the text on the right about the “Exclusive” on the “Young Duelist Prodigy” to be above Ed’s photo, which I moved a bit more to the right to compensate. I also added a little “journalistic” fluff to the translation I’d whipped up to make it fit well both on and off-screen, since I wasn’t going to be filling the whole thing with just “On August 7th, KaibaCorp sponsored a Dueling World League” lol. But definitely made sure to keep the spirit and keep visible those little tidbits like the KaibaCorp nod and the date telling us when Ed started making waves that were visible in the Japanese text. I did that editing in Photoshop for both this shot and the later shot with Shou’s copy of the magazine, but I warped the text in this one a little to match the slight page warp that Ed’s photo had going. After that, I redid the zoom in Sony Vegas. The text is also slightly blurred here since it was like that for the Japanese text.

Later in the episode, after the commercial break, we come back to a pan/zoom-out from Sanctuary in the Sky to Judai’s field, where we see Clay Guardman has his card facing the wrong way compared to where we see it in every other shot after. I made a proxy for it, though it was a bit tough since we never get a good look at its card (thankfully, the card artwork was put up on the YGO site). Though the dubified card confirmed for the Wikia that he has zero ATK and, like with Neo Bubbleman, shared the same Level as Clayman. So, as I made a proxy, I recreated the Japanese effect text mirroring what Neo Bubbleman’s was and mentioning the burn effect as close to the game terms as possible--getting this in the end! Once I did that, I took a frame and placed it in in AfterEffects, masking in Clay Guardman’s feet over it, then took it into Sony Vegas, where I redid the zoom-out as it came into view.

Later on, after Judai explains Tempester’s effect, his face-down card goes away to activate it, but in that shot, Tempester’s not on Judai’s Disk! I made a new Tempester proxy (since here Tempester’s officially using the OCG art/text at the time), then slapped it on in AfterEffects (taking a cue from the dub about where to place it on his Disk). Thankfully, since Judai stood still here, that’s all it took, lol.

After the duel, Shou realizes who Ed was all along! He rummages through his bag and pulls out his copy of Monthly Duel! and opens it up; like with Chronos’s, for the hardsub, I took it into Photoshop and recreated the color scheme to blot out 月編 and put “October” over it for the nine frames it moves in, then I just put each frame into the video in Sony Vegas.

As with earlier, for the hardsub, the article Shou shows everyone about Ed is translated, only with no text warp and slightly different rotation, so a little more of the text is visible on the left and bottom. Recreated the less-rotation/more-zoom zoom-in on Ed’s photo in Sony Vegas.

As Judai thinks that Ed could use some more deck-building skills, Shou’s still holding up the magazine; “October” is there to translate 10月編 again, but because the “Monthly” in that shot of the magazine is inconsistent with its other appearances in the episode (we’ve seen it in black with white bordering, but here it’s just white text, along with the black 10月編 also being in white), I redid that as well in Photoshop so it matched. I’ll be including just the “Monthly” fix in the Japanese DVDRip I’ll release on NAC.

#yugioh #gx #yugioh gx #ygo #ygo gx #my subs

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l-loneybun · 5 years ago

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♡ 2019 Art Summary + updates/plans for 2020

(25/01) sorry for the late update,, I meant to post this on the 1st,, but,, stuff happened;; u_u

TLDR: I’m going on hiatus. I’ll also be privating a lot of my posts here if they’re text posts, or art I just don’t like. I really want this blog to look like a proper portfolio for when I come back;; Probably won’t be back until May or even later,, might go fuq off to a new account just to see how well I can do on my own for a bit,, Ty for support + have a nice year~ _______________________________________________________________

*big sigh I have to rewrite a lot of this bc my computer died and I was to stupid to draft this before*

So basically, this year’s art summary is surprisingly better than last year’s. I didn’t really notice since I’ve actually been feelin p shit about my progress until I put this together. Definitely more variation in style compared to 2018 (can’t believe I said that “I got to experiment a lot” that year haha guess I was really grasping). The second half of this is pretty much just me going over my 2019 (not just art), so feel free to stop reading here!! Thanks for all the new support, I hope you all have a good 2020. _______________________________________________________________ This is just me really wanting to vent/express my thoughts somewhere, and I just find tumblr the most comfortable place to do that since it’s sort of more hidden and people don’t really read personal posts!! So here we gooooo

I can��t really remember most of January - April, just that I was really stressed about not finishing a portfolio for one of my classes hgjfkdls,, I also quit my job near the end of April since management changed for the worse;; Little did I know how it’s harder to get a job while unemployed,, (seriously what’s up with that?? I get that many people need to work 2+ jobs,, but I would like to live too;; qxq) So I gave up on looking for work, since I didn’t think anyone would want to hire me if I would be gone for over a month right in the middle of summer.

May - June consisted of trying to generate enough art pieces to meet my 1 piece per 5 days art schedule. I also started to fall out of the FE fandom while really getting in to Sonic again. I’m pretty sure I wanted to draw a lot of Pokemon and Zelda fanart as well,, but I was (and still am) at the point where I hate my human art, and being able to draw Sonic art — which I'm more comfortable with — was just much more appealing;; uxu I feel more familiar with these characters, and so many creative ideas just come to be (other than memes, like my FE stuff).

From August onward, though,, I just feel like things turned for the worse. I had (what I would assume was) my first panic attack during my exchange program. It’s feels so fucking pathetic that this would happen at 20 years old;; I thought I was so much better off compared to middle/high school when it came to keeping my anxiety in check, bu t guess not,, ahhahhahhahah,,,, and it wouldn’t be the only one this year;; :’)

I still wouldn’t have found a job after my return, but would still have enough money to pay off my first semester with some left over. Unfortunately, due to vet bills, I wouldn’t have enough to pay for a full course load for my second semester. This was also due to some poor planning on my part regarding commissions/adopts,, so oop;; I’m only taking one course this sem, so I’m looking for full-time work, but damn ! ! no job ! ! esp sucks since my mom is the only one paying for things atm;; soooo great

ugh;; I don’t want to talk about this anymore,, so I’ll just go onto plans/bucket list for 2020/2021, since I keep forgetting:: _______________________________________________________________

If you didn’t read the TLDR, basically I’m taking a break from all my art accounts and such. Even though I can see a lot of improval from 2018-2019, I’m still disappointed in my lack of anatomy/technical skills in my art, especially since I believe I told myself I would improve last year;; So I’m going to try avoid going online as much as possible since it’s really just too distracting,, I really want to dedicate all the time I have now to improving/adopting new skills, so my bucket list/new year’s resolutions for 2020 will be:

Improving human anatomy/developing a good artstyle for human art

Developing assets for RPG Maker XP games (???) (I actually forgot about the pkmn one I started in 2018 until I looked through my archive. I don’t think I’m actually going to make any playable games, just some nice things to look at.)

Learning how to use Blender + making many plant assets

Creating designs/inventory to sell at an anime convention for 2021

Saving up for a Canon EOS M50 Mirrorless Camera to document Artist Alley experience

Becoming ~ambidextrous~

That’s all I can remember for now, but I’m sure I’m forgetting some,,, um,, thanks if you read this for far?? I don’t really have much more to say;; ,,,,,, bye :x

#art summary #update

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badlydrawnjotarocean · 7 years ago

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Concerning the Design Drama

I’m really sorry that this has to be my first post after a long hiatus

I wanna thank everyone though who has sent me good vibes about this situation, it’s very touching

I've been seeing others have an opinion on this matter between Mod Jota and myself. I figures I'd personally tell my own opinions and side on the discussion.

First of all let me discuss the matter of the private conversation that was posted online.

Posting up a conversation that was put in the DM’s without the EXPLICIT permission of the other person on the other side of the conversation? Not really cool! Yes, I did block Jota, but he should have kept that as a private matter between him and me because I didn’t give consent on publishing at all.

Announcing to the world that he was going to post the conversation, even if I had said yes it’s okay, if he published without even asking me about it? I probably still would not be okay with that! I hadn’t even seen that post prior to getting his private message, and it didn’t seem like he was going to tell me that he was going to post this on public! I do understand trying to be transparent to everyone, but when you’re not as transparent to the other person on the other side of the wall as you are with the audience, that's not okay. I'm grateful he deleted the old design and started anew, but the public does NOT need to know our conversation.

In fact, whether or not I DID say anything back wouldn’t really have mattered on the factor, he still was planning on redesigning character no matter what! So why would everyone need to see my reaction nonetheless? It seems a little shady to me.

But since we are here talking about the conversation, lets dive into it!

In my reply, was I aggressive? Yes! Was I not very compliant and open to what he had to say? Definitely YES, I immediately blocked him before he could explain more on his factor. But frankly, I don’t want to hear any excuses after three times a design got stolen from me by the same person!

And frankly? His apology seemed more like he wanted to get it over with because he knew he had been caught and had to do public damage control. Not a very genuine tone in my opinion, however it’s text, tone can be easily interpreted the wrong way, so I won’t hold onto him on that too much.

Secondly, the three designs!

I never publically talked about them because this is NOT something that needs to be public. Again, I do really want believe they were misunderstandings, but 3 design misunderstandings from the same person? That sounds more like a pattern to me.

First time it happened, it was my initial Standswap design!

((The bottom one I gave a little update too but I’m posting this here for facial reference.))

After a few months of standswap being over, BDhumanstar was introduced, made by Mod Jota, prior to DailyKujos!

Also for time reference

And before I dive into why this design made me feel uncomf let me start by repeating what I said to Jota: We are basing off of the same concept and character, so of course we WILL have similarities. However, this does NOT allow our characters to look identical.

Again similarity is fine, gloves? The loin cloth thingie? Sure, the canon Star Plat had em, why not! However, it’s gotten to the point that someone actually interacted with Jota’s blog because they thought Jota had explicit permission from me to rp my Star Plat Gijinka design, there’s an issue.

So when I saw this initially I was really greatly unsettled, however I thought I was just being too overzealous and let it go. It’s Star Plat right? People will be similar! Its a gijinka of a concept that already exists, surely it’s fine if they look a bit a like, they’re on the same concept!

I’m finally off my first Hiatus, and people inform me that dailykujos has a really similar artstyle to my own, and tell me he’s trying to rip mine off. I didn’t think anything of it when I saw it, because I saw it more as he’s trying to draw inspiration from me. So that was a okay with me.

Until I saw his standswap Jotaro which looked a little too familiar for me.

Mine, posted around when I participated in the second Standswap

Theirs, around the third standswap, which I hadn’t participated in.

Again, similarity on same concept, is fine! But the fact that there have been so many Jotaro Stands out there so different, yet this one looks so similar to my own? Doesn’t sit well with me. So I didn’t want this to go on for a third time on accident.

So I told him in private dms about both the standswaps.

I unfortunately did not know that blocking someone makes you delete your message history with them, so I do not have the messages.

However, him acting surprised like this was the first time he had been told his design looks stolen doesn’t seem right.

He responded and apologized, which I’m glad he was very compliant and changed the Jotaro design!

Which hey! Looks different, looks cool, it’s good by me!

He however didn’t change Star’s design until the next Standswap had came up, However, perhaps this was a misunderstanding there, I said something among the lines of your standswaps look a little too much like my own, can you change them? And maybe he only misread and interpreted as one of them, that is my own bad for not being clearer on that matter. I should have said something again but again, I could tell I was hurting his feelings just by pointing out one of them so I decided to give him a break.

Fast forward to about last night? My friends AGAIN tell me to look at something from Kujos, and low and behold I see something sadly very familiar.

Unfortunately I don't have a screenshot of it because Jota did delete it, so forgive me for not being able to get the stamp.

It looked way too much like to a Star Plat I had reinovated for the former standswap, because small redesigns right?

I do understand headphones yes, he’s a DJ, Star Plat gotta listen to his hot beats right? But a lot of his attributes are the same. Again. And at this point, I’m tired of this pattern. Again.

And so, three strikes you’re out!

Now, let me address some arguments I saw.

Firstly, I’m sorry that this was the cause of someone else leaving this community. However, there are somethings that didn’t sit well with me. I’ve already discussed the design aspect, so I won’t get into it. However, the mentality of ‘because you are a popular artist it’s your job to be a role model’ really bothered me. Artists are human, and humans make mistakes, just because someone has a little bit more of a broader audience, does not suddenly make you get PAID to be a behavioral role model. Did I make him feel bad? Yes, and I don’t feel great about it, but I felt it was necessary for him to learn his mistakes. Did I humiliate him? No, humiliating him would have been me publically posting my opinion and scolding him in public. He decided to let everyone know about this and a public issue, not by my hand. However, I’m not mad at you for not holding my opinion and stance nor do I feel any dislike towards you, you’re allowed to think your opinion. Again, I apologize for being part of the cause you departing from this community, and I very much hope you the best of luck in the future.

I also saw someone note that since these are based off of Araki’s characters and so these are technically not our designs. Which can be semi true, for a couple events, I straight up used Jotaro’s design but put different clothes and bam I call him an event character. I won’t call someone copying me if they also draw Jotaro in the same set of clothes that I drew him in. However gijinkas are somewhat different from that. We use the concept of the character as a basis for a new character, and basically morph the basis into a new character. Stand Gijinkas and Human Standjinkas??? are a different territory in general because of this. There’s a difference between having inspiration for a character, and copying entirely. Is there heavy influence from Jojo characters? Yes definitely. Are we stealing from Araki himself? No, because we are making our own concepts based on another concept, designers do it all the time. Two concepts that look identical, not looked happily upon.

And because I see people jumping into this argument, even though they haven’t seen the image itself, please know the context of both sides before assuming otherwise.

And lastly, I want to address Mod Jota himself. I’m aware I blocked him but I’m sure he can see through anonymous, if he really wanted to.

I know you’re still young and you still will make your mistakes. And that’s fine, as long as you learn from them.

What I do not like is how you are avoiding the blame at this point. You said you’re distressed about the situation and don’t want to further discuss this in public, yet once one person praising you, you immediately discuss more about it and you don’t seem very sorry about this at all, and you seem more annoyed I’m not complying with you. Screaming and cursing is not feeling sorry. Shifting the blame on a 'coincidence' is not sorry. And then trying to be like Mango is over reacting and 'it should'nt have gone as bad as it went'? Not a very apologetic move. Not only that, there’s been other situations where you don’t listen to criticism and have this victim mentality. If you are at fault, look at your actions and try and see why someone is being this harsh, and how to correct it. Pouring more research into things comes a long way, especially when designing concepts. I don’t hate you Jota, I’m just tired. I hope you the best of luck in the future and I pray you grow from this, but I don’t think I’m patient enough to see it happen. This will be my final word on this stance, because I don’t want to prolong this drama with what I have already done, I just wanted to say my side of this discussion, and that'll be all.

Have a nice day everyone.

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zebracornzedragon · 7 years ago

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@nick-nocturn

I did this a while ago, but was too timid to actually post it anywhere. I’m a fan of your work Mr. Nocturn, and so I decided to make a piece of fan-art of you in the world of Don’t Starve, because it’s a rather creepy world and the artstyle is gorgeous. (Materials used were, a .5mm lead mechanical pencil, several different Micron pens, a Pentalic set of 12 colored pencils, and a white Gelly Roll pen.)

Featured above are my two personal Don’t Starve OCs, Wander Lost and Wakana(For those who don’t know, every canon playable character’s name begins with a ‘W’, and too often I’ve seen people just name their DS OCs whatever they want without any regard for following canon. Thus my two characters names start with ‘W’.), and @nick-nocturn ‘s four eyed cat form.

Wakana(the biped-dragon thing) primarily uses sign language to communicate(here she is signing one of the forms of “fear/scared”). Although she can also speak normally, she prefers not to because she has exceptionally large teeth, and she doesn’t want to scare anyone.

Wander Lost(the pony) can understand her sign language, though obviously can’t perform it himself, and often translates for those who don’t understand her. For those wondering about his lantern, it’s his “Starting Item/Special Equipment” that only he has. The lantern itself is an enchanted item that is a source of constant light, and was given to him by a Unicorn friend, who enchanted it.

This post is getting long, but I wanted to write a little story behind this encounter, so there will be a cut in which the story will hide. (also figure I should say this… Yes, I am aware that there are some issues with anatomy, pose, and perspective. I am pleased with how it turned out, given that I am unused to drawing other people’s characters. Also sometimes you just can’t get something to look perfect.)

“Say buddy… you don’t look so good. You should probably go find something to eat.”

Nick Nocturn blinked his four eyes open and sat up painfully. There did not appear to be anyone around to do the speaking… but whoever it was had a point. He was hungry… very hungry.

The four eyed, four armed cat-creature got to his feet, and brushed himself off, taking stock of his current situation. He still had his sweater, which was good, as it was a little cold. Nothing seemed broken, and he didn’t want to attempt to change his shape in this strange world.

The next thing was to figure out how and why he was here. As far as he could tell, he hadn’t been summoned here, wherever here was… not exactly. Had he been summoned, surely whoever had summoned him would have been there, ready to make a deal or contract.

There was little to do besides ponder on what little information he had while he did what whoever-they-were had suggested… finding food. He started walking, but after only a few dozen meters he was brought up short.

The land where he stood was much like a savanna… the grass was yellow and dry, and there were very few trees. The land only a few paces ahead of him was lush and green, and there was a positive forest of tall trees. The dividing line was clean cut, as though someone had perfectly pushed these two Biomes together.

As he stood there, confused but intrigued, he caught a glimpse of desaturated red and blue-ish-purple, and of near pure white. He did not sense any hostility, and he pricked his ears at the sound of a voice.

“-Don’t know what you’re talking about. Maxwell has his reasons for grabbing people from where ever and leaving them here.”

The voice wasn’t especially unusual, though strangely distorted, and Nick hazarded a guess that it was male… however there was no second voice, even as the first replied as if there had been. Someone insane perhaps?

“I’m sure we’ll run into them eventually… I mean… we’ve run into others before, right? Maxwell’s voice carries.”

That was interesting… the name Maxwell had been brought up twice now… perhaps he was the one who had brought Nick here. This other person seemed to know more than he did, and he could only hope that he wouldn’t scare them off.

It was easy to follow them… they weren’t exactly being quiet. The conversation wasn’t totally useful, though Nick did keep as best mental track as he could of possible relevant information, and possible topics to ask about.

At last they were out into a larger area, clear of trees. Nick could see that there were two… people, if you could call them that. One appeared to be a winged equine of some sort, and the other… he hadn’t encountered anything that looked like them before.

“Excuse me!” Nick called out and they both turned instantly to face him. He cautiously attempted to approach, and while both seemed a little uncertain about him, they did not flee… a good sign.

“I’m sorry that I startled you, but I wanted to ask you somethings… since you appear to know a something more about this place than I do. I should introduce myself. My name is Nick Nocturn.”

The strange creature was making a very distinct motion with her hands and arms, but Nick didn’t know what it meant. When the equine spoke, Nick recognised them to be the owner of the voice he’d heard.

“Hello Mister Nocturn… You must be the new person that Maxwell snatched. My name is Wander Lost, but you can wall me whichever part you prefer. My companion here is named Wakana.” The reason his voice was distorted was now explained… He held the wooden handle of a lantern in his mouth.

The other creature, Wakana, made a number of seemingly specific motions with her hands… sign language perhaps? Wander watched her motions out of the corner of his eye, and translated.

“She wants to know what your questions are… and also if we may ask some in return.”

Nick agreed, and asked his first question. “I wanted to know where I am, and how I arrived here, since the two seem connected.”

“Well,” Wander said slowly, “I don’t know that this place actually HAS a name, but we, and the other’s we’ve met, call it Maxwell’s world. As for how you got here, Maxwell himself plucked you from where ever you were, whatever you were doing, and plonked you down here. It’s all a game for him… we live and we die for his amusement, or at least, that’s what we’ve figured.”

“Hmm… what about this Maxwell person? Do you know anything about him?”

“Not much, but as far as either of us know, he’s just the person behind everything that happens here. And he’s kinda a jerk, as you’ll soon learn. speaking of… Wakana, when are the hounds supposed to arrive?”

Wakana signed something that made Wander say several expletives of varying intensity, though all seemed to revolve around two or possibly three beings. Presumably something from where he was from?

“Nick, we need to leave here now… You can come with us back to our camp, but we don’t have long until the hounds arrive, and the camp’s still a ways away. At least a day’s walk, and then the hounds will be here in another day. If you want, we can talk on the way, but we can’t stay here.”

Nocturn had little choice but to follow them as they started walking… surprisingly fast compared to what he had expected.

“What are these hounds? Are they on a schedule or something?”

“Sorta… They usually turn up every ten days… Maxwell sends them after us. They’re really dangerous… I usually end up running, since I’m faster than them, and I’m not much of a fighter… Wakana fights them if she has to… especially if there are fire hounds.”

They continued in silence for a while, Wander appeared to know the way back, since he was leading. Nick’s stomach rumbled, and wakana turned off from them and disappeared into the new tree biome that they were in. She returned moments later, carrying a large handful of berries, and offered them to Nick, who accepted them gratefully.

As Wander had said, they arrived a little before the sun set to the camp. There were berry bushes and little saplings in neat rows. They had a fridge, several chests, a couple tools in a pile, and a second slightly larger pile of what looked like makeshift armor and weapons.

Wakana had already knelt down beside the fire pit, and was trying to get it started. Already the sun was almost gone, and the camp was getting dark… though there was still a good amount of light from Wander’s lantern, it had limited range.

Wakana got the fire going, and threw a number of logs on to get it really burning bright. She walked over to one of the chests and started digging through it, Wander was sorting through the armor and weapons, when the sound of an eerie music box made both of them abandon what they were doing and stand beside the fire.

Nick trotted over to them, and looked around for what they were nervous of. The sight of a shadow hand creeping towards the fire, accompanied by more creepy music, made wakana leap forward and stomp on it, chasing it back into the darkness. A second hand was trying to do the same thing as Wander stamped his hooves down onto it, making it retreat, even as a third hand started creeping forward.

“Step on it! Chase it away from the fire!” The voice wasn’t Wander’s but had an edge to it that made Nick obey, and to his surprise the hand retreated from his paws… but only a little bit.

Taking his que from the pair of them, he pursued the shadow hand until it vanished into the dark, but remained in the very edge of the light from the fire. He sensed that there was something worse waiting out in the darkness that would give even a shapeshifter like him trouble. Returning to the edge of the fire, more shadow hands were already trying to steal the fire, and the others were chasing them back. Nick joined in, making as many hands flee as he could, and with the three of them together, they managed to hold them off until morning.

“Whew,” Wander panted as the sun started to rise, putting his lantern down for the first time and wiping his forehead with a wing, “That’s not something I want to repeat… that was a lot more hands than usual…”

“Than… usual…?” Nick asked, looking between the two, “Who was that other voice last night?”

“That was… me…” Wakana said timidly, wringing her hands, “I don’t usually talk… people tend to be scared of me when I talk… so I use sign language.”

She smiled nervously, and even Nick had to admit, to a human, her exceptionally large and sharp teeth would be intimidating. Nick smiled at her encouragingly, displaying his own teeth to show her that she wasn’t alone in having teeth that scare humans.

(I'll leave off the story here, but if anyone wants me to continue, hit me with a message and I guess I'll write more!)

#nick nocturne #night mind #Wakana #Wander lost #Zebra's art #Zebra speaks #Zebra's writings

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gremist · 8 years ago

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Art Progression

After a discussion with one of my mentor at my school, I decided it would be interesting for me to see how far I’ve come since I started drawing again. Well, I also thought that it could be cool to show it too! And to prove that the more you draw and practice, the more you improve and change your artstyle! Let’s dive into my art journey as for now!

10 October(ishorsoIdon’tremember) 2016

This was the first time in forever I’ve drawn something. Okay, alright, it’s a shitpost, it’s not supposed to be a serious drawing. But this was the first thing I ever done after 8 years of not drawing at all :’D

15 October(ishorso) 2016

Those were my second tries. I did not drawn everything like that however, the first four faces of Hazy were drawn with the help of Cat Cat drawing of the character. And then, the last one was me using a reference in order to get things right. Bear in mind I had no tablet at that time so everything was done with the layer option of SAI.

30 of Octoberish and something like that 2016

I remember I was mind blowned by all the love and support I got from a message I’ve written about how, after years of not likind my drawings and what I had drawn to this point, I finally found pleasure in drawing again. And a lot of other complex feelings. I was so overwhelmed! I still can’t believe it. If I’m here, it’s indeed thanks to all of the people I’ve met on tumblr, friends or just acquaintance. Thanks again to all of you so very much <3

Novemberish 2016

This was my first attempt at a comic page. As you see, it was a bit...chaotic? Oh well, that was a try but I wasn’t satisfied, so I started all over from scratch.

Novemberish (But more near the end) 2016

And there is the first page of the comic about Hazy the mist monster : MisTTale! (Well, the comic is paused as of now cause I’m waiting to have a bit more experience to continue...like, wanted to start with a comic with no experience, I really was hard with myself. But don’t worry, one day the comic will return better than ever ;) )

Ah this! I did it when I wanted to send gift to the people who are important to me! I still didn’t send all the gifts I wanted though, there is a lot of people I still want to thank for making me want to continue drawing again and again!

This character is Fox!Chara, and belongs to undertale-cat on tumblr. Dear friend who was the one that got me into drawing again. I remember the post I did, I also kept all of my studies of the character and all! It was really something x3 Well, I realised that it’s easier to draw a face or a character in general with reference sheets. I tried to do characters without a reference like, wanted to draw the one hero of my story and...well...

(Decemberish 2016)

Let’s just say it was good enough :DIES: (Plus I got my tablet at that time)

Decemberish 2016

*Sweats* Wasting time with cat, what day it was to waste time by drawing a wasting time with cat drawing...don’t ask, I don’t know :’D

Decemberish 2016

...*dies on the floor* This was my first drawing with my new tablet. Dear lord :’D

Decemberish 2016

Shortly after many tries, I decided to work on emotions. I think it wasn’t that bad!

November/Decemberish 2016

Before I got my tablet, I also did this. I’m kinda proud of this one because it was my very first really serious drawing.

Late December 2016

I got better with my tablet. I really like this one too, got a nice feeling to it. And a little story hidden behind it. (Although well er...it’s kinda ruined by the quality when zooming q_q )

29 January 2016

I spent three days on this drawing. I think I did a good enough job with what I wanted to do. But I wasn’t satisfied at all with the character. Had no...life. No soul in my opinion >:(

29 January 2016

I don’t remember exactly how I did the wings on this one...and I’m sad, cause holy fuck those wings. As you can see my art seemed to have shifted a bit to...I believe? Also I was really inspired for some reason. It comes from the story I’m writing too. And a little short story I posted.

7 January 2017

By far the drawing I’m most proud of. Okay, the background was less detailed. There was some things needed to be done in order to make it more precise. But I’m proud of this because of the characters. I got them right. Finally. After tries and tries I finally managed to get characters and get them the way I wanted to. That is why this drawing is particularly important to me! Plus Undertale, like, da game that will stay in my heart forever. (And Goat kid and Human Kid, the best bros ever <3 )

9 January 2017

The background here I tried something interesting. Well, I didn’t know how to face so I went a bit surreal. Plus the clothes got no folds. THE FOLDS I CAN’T DO EM YET >:’( yet it was good practice)

12 January 2017

The Kylns, I love em, you guys too as I saw. I think, even though the background is a blurred one and the rock and butterflies are not detailed, it was an interesting one nontheless.

So here ya go guys! That is my art journey for now. I’ll do another one in some months...maybe year? Who knows! And we’ll see how much of a difference there will be then :3

The point is : Do not stop drawing. Even if you’re not satisfied with your drawing. You can decide not to show it to anyone if you’re not satisfied but keep it. Keep it and continue to the next one. Imagine, draw, draw again and again! You will improve. The more you draw, the more you work on your technique, your art, your style.

And then, little by little, you will improve, maybe change your style a bit, but it will always be an evolution. An evolution that will never stop. So go! Continue to draw, dream and do what you like! It will pay off in the end, no matter what comes with it ;3

#Grëmist #art journey #bad drawings #slightly better drawings #talking #drawings #date #chronological #ish #Kyln #anthro #hope you enjoyed faithful tag readers :3

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