#I'd only ever heard it in the incorrect context :(

[asphodelles]

Hi, I found your work on Twitter last year and I really love and look up to your art. If you have the time, I wanted to as if there are there any study topics, artists or techniques that have significantly influenced you :')

I'm at a bit of a complete loss on what to study presently so I thought I'd ask my favorite artists, thank you for reading and I completely understand if this is too open ended a question

Thank you!

This isn't the first time I have been asked this question and I suspect this won't be the last so I'll just lay everything out here. Go to a cafe or get a blanket or something because this will not be a short read:

Foundational:

Anatomy: A lot of my foundational anatomy and clothing illustration knowledge was gained from taking classes and doing observational drawing. Because of this, I'm not going to have the best book recommendations but top 2 books I can recommend for getting Started started are Andrew Loomis or RockHe Kim's books on anatomy (huge asterisk here: they're good at teaching you Basics basics like muscle groups and turning forms and extremely general proportions but will not help that much with making your figure drawings less stiff or how to draw fat or especially in the latter's case how to draw women not built like stick bug anime girls but uh I heard the Morpho books are pretty good. genuinely everything I know about drawing fat is from observational drawing/studies because at some point I got sick of my school for only hiring skinny models in their 20s-30s). I have some diagrams drawn by my friend who studied the hell out of these guys below:

Clothing: I don't know any books that can really help on this front I apologize if I find any I'll update this post but pretty much all of my knowledge on drawing clothes boils down to the following rules: Where are the tension points, how stiff or soft is the textile, how is the form underneath the section of clothing behaving, and don't make even spaces between fold groups

All of this is kind of moot though if it isn't applied through study or observational drawing though

Design:

I have to be really careful here because I don't want to deal in absolutes, the only absolute I'm confident espousing is that anyone who tells you there is only a small selection of methods you should follow to execute a specific type of design are objectively incorrect and just haven't figured out alternative if not more effective design solutions to a common problem. The only real Worst Thing I think you could do as a designer is create a pinterest mannequin devoid of a story, disconnected from its context in the world, and lacking in a clear purpose/personality but this too could be easily be disputed if maximising a character’s aesthetic appeal serves a purpose in its context, and my opposition to this design approach is my personal bias as a character designer for entertainment where emphasizing a character’s function and their relationship to said function is usually the goal

I think the 5 best pieces of advice I've ever received when it comes to designing characters are the following:

Try and follow the rule of thirds/general gestalt design principles of contrast

Always consider what it is you're trying to communicate with the character

Create believable transitions and reinforcements between points of interest

(Entertainment related) KISS principle/Keep It Simple, Stupid is your friend, the way a character wears or wields what they wear or wield will communicate their role in the world (who are they?), their relationship to their role (do they like their job? are they good at it? are they a part of an organization with the means to provide them things to perform their role more effectively?) effectively enough. Excessive information that bloats and conflicts with the communication objective weakens design (example: My favourite childhood toy for years was a pokemon plushie. Would I as a stay at home digital artist be wearing it as a keychain on my crusty paint stained polyester pajama pants when I'm at my desk working my job? is wearing it relevant to my character as a person who both no longer is invested in pokemon and is in this context focused entirely on comfort and doing my job? (no)). I think Elden Ring is an excellent example of a game that has visually complex designs but pretty expedient storytelling with its characters for worldbuilding

Study things that aren't just character design, to borrow from Lynn Yaeger borrowing from Sally Singer "If you're interested in fashion learn everything except fashion... Politics, art, painting- anything except fashion". Because people in different disciplines who work with different mediums or fields of study approach problems in different angles you may not have considered which can help give new ideas + often times the stuff you like was inspired by stuff that isn't at all what you would expect or enjoy yourself (To pull from a very popular example, Arcane is a League of Legends joint which was highly influenced by Warcraft which was highly influenced by Warhammer which was basically a giant response to western pop culture of the 1960s and the history of European warfare something something coconut tree).

Character design is kind of a hard thing to Get Good at considering how much of the actual process is super psychological/not bound by a *ton* of absolutes and has to account for medium and function (you kind of just have to have The Sauce) so I don't recommend Just studying independently only (possible, just very difficult). If you can and are interested in learning more about the specifics take some classes taught by people whose styles you fw who both know what they're doing and are good at explaining their process. For design for entertainment you can always check out Concept Design Academy or The Workshop Academy and see who's teaching there

As far as artist inspirations are concerned I think looking up the artists who worked on projects you like are a good starting point to figure out how you want to stylize. Going off of that at least currently my favourite designers/illustrators for entertainment with The Sauce are probably Evening Monteiro, Sergey Kolesov, Mindy Lee, Tonci Zonjic, Sasha Tudvaseva, Claire Hummel, and Yoshitaka Amano

My favourite book currently for tackling character design at least from a narrative consideration is probably Talking Threads: Costume Design for Entertainment Art (one of the authors is my friend and an excellent teacher!) and a lot of the stuff they espouse really helps to take into consideration individual and external factors when designing a character/how they can be used as vehicles for both individual storytelling and worldbuilding, gigantic reference point for my most recent casual project

Besides that the only other way I can really recommend studying character design is to just look at art, history, architecture, nature (pretty much Everything) and think about how ideas and concepts from those things can be applied to or communicated through a design or figure out what it was about a design or designs you like made it appealing

uhh tldr this is just how i as one among millions of artists got to where i am today as of January 16th 2025 my word is not gospel the advice I espoused here may very well spell my downfall tomorrow

[thebrackishtank]

Back with another question and update-!

I had forgotten to mention, as part of the experimental nature of the Brackidarium, I had introduced that purple dragon goby, Grumbo, with a small fleet of Bumblebee gobies, spurred by first testing the predaciousness with acclimated feeder endlers, and finding him to be entirely neutral to small fish.

As of a year post introduction, Grumbo has not yet taken a soul (or sole, for that matter) and has, somewhat adorably, become the Bumblebee’s benificiary, them always following him in a close flock to snatch food particles exposed from his excavations.

Additionally, the horned blenny, stated by hobbyists to be territorial and aggressive to tankmates of similar or smaller size, has been overtly passive and inquisitive, going so far as to actively sharing a particular rock crevice den with the Mugilogobius Cavifrons “mangrove goby,”

Which itself is written to be a similarly semiaggressive and territorial species.

The reason I’m conveying these interactions is due to their shared aspect; defiance of stated “facts” from the hobby. Perhaps they could be exceptions, the individuals being abnormally friendly, or perhaps they aren’t, and the information is just plain incorrect- regardless,

This whole experiment originated from finding your profile, and becoming inspired to create the most varied community brackish tank possible, within reason of possible stocking density.

And as the project developed, it became a mythbusting endeavor for commonly stated but source-lacking information in the hobby.

WITH that context text wall out of the way,

What are some commonly stated things in the hobby you’ve found to be untrue, or case-by-case? And, is there anything you -suspect- to not be the case, or otherwise different to how it’s commonly written about?

For your perseverance through the word salad, please enjoy your named homunculus:

Brotato✨

Very cool! Thank you for the update! I loved my Dragon Goby for the several years I had him - definitely one of the oddest and therefore coolest fish I've ever kept. I highly recommend them.

Misinformation is a weird aspect of the hobby since it is so rampant in some circles, but I do find it hard to refute much of it just because, shamefully, my actual experience is limited (to a few dozen tanks over a few dozen years, but yknow it's still fewer data points than one might think). But below are a few things I think are pretty straightforward.

Aggression isn't well understood in the hobby. If I had a dollar for every time I've heard that Mosquitofish were unrelenting bullies and nippers I'd have enough money to retire - but I've never seen them cause any damage across maybe 30 individuals I've kept. Likewise - I've been told Yellow Tailed Damsels are placid, but every specimen I've owned has been a real pain. I think it's a product of tank size (nightmare fish in my 29 gallon were angels when moved to a 125) and tankmates. Sometimes it's just per specimen - I have a GSP that's an angel in a tank with snails and hermits, but that's by far not the norm. I think it all needs to be taken with a grain of salt, even with baseline generalities.

I've found most medications to either be actively worthless (like melafix) or limited in use and have a hard time really recommending any of it. I tend to think prevention by keeping a clean tank and not taking risks with livestocking to be the only reliable way to fight illnesses.

Brackish tolerance is likely much wider and harder to quantify than I ever originally thought. Every source I've ever seen states duckweed is a freshwater only plant, but I have a growing population in my 1.003. Orange Chromides I've found can handle more salinity than people tend to think and some Damsels and Hermits tolerate way lower levels. I'm not saying that goldfish or angelfish can tolerate half strength sea water or anything, but I think this subject needs more experimentation and experiences should be given some consideration.

I've heard lots of horror stories of glass anemones/aiptasia in aquariums, but I've never had any issues with stung livestock in saltwater tanks. I think the issues are more with competition with other photosynthetic life and aesthetic value more than issues with fish or invertebrates.

[stormblessed95]

Since someone was pointing out Jungkook's hot and cold behaviour, I have a question too.

How do you explain the LA vminkook vlive?

Tae asks for Jk, Jimin turns up. Later, Jimin talks about Jk visiting his room 3 times a day only for Jungkook to say he "only visits Jimin's room cause it's closer". And in the same breath he says he will stay in Tae's room next day, making it clear that him visiting Jimin's room meant nothing and that he visits and stays in all members' room. And then Taekook went off staring at each other, until Jimin got up from his chair and brought them back. Cause they were just lost in each other. Why would you go off looking into a friend's eyes, while your partner sits right there? Even if it's for a few secs.

The whole vibe was so weird. Jimin and Jungkook were talking different things there. Jimin talking about how Jungkook seeks him out and Jungkook making it seem like Jimin was just an option, and he could stay in another member's room next time. Maybe if Suga's room was closer he'd be in Suga's room 3 times a day? That's what Jungkook made it seem like.

It isn't the first time Jungkook has made it seem like anything he does with Jimin isn't special. Remember "Jimin is not the main model for gcf", "I film Jimin cause he is always around" etc?

If they are a couple, why does Jungkook have to speak the way he does? What are the excuses for? Why put your partner down that way? Please don't tell me it's cause they are a closeted couple, cause Jimin didn't mind sharing that information. Aren't antis using what Jungkook says as proof that Jimin means nothing to him?

If there are people who don't believe Jikook, it's cause of Jungkook himself.

I have never heard Jimin speak of Jungkook like that. He always let us know how special Jungkook is to him. What if Jimin says "oh I stopped for Jk's birthday only cause I was passing through SK from Paris to where ever"? Or "oh I'd travel from Paris to SK for anyone's bday"?

You don't have a question. You have demands, assumptions, weird takes on moments and incorrect opinions over a variety of moments you felt the need to share unasked for. Airing out the dirty laundry today clearly guys. Sorry.

I don't do ship comparisons here anon. And as a tkkr, you really don't want to push me to do them. Because I'd win. I also promise I'm 95% more likely to have seen more content with context than you. You don't want to pick this fight with me. But if you ACTUALLY want to have a civilized conversation, I can do that. But you gotta DM me. And I'll be willing to hash it out with you point by point and even feel okay walking away agreeing to disagree. But your move. My DMs are open. I'm actually a really nice person and very willing to think differently than other people.

I don't have the mental energy to sass you point by point here today on this ask. It's Legit not worth it. So instead I'm offering you GENIUNE conversation. If you actually want it. Show me you do. Improve my opinion of you.

This also shows me I should make a point to ACTUALLY do a vlive post over the vminkook LA vlives. They were so cute. I don't actually have one which is disappointing and that's a wonderful excuse to go rewatch them. But I'm not going to do under all this rhetoric either. They deserve better.

So...

1) vminkook LA vlive is on my posts to do notes.

2) Tkkr DM invitation is extended.

3) A post that addresses third wheeling jokes that did stem from that vlive and how inappropriate those jokes were, which *sort of* addresses anons weird "they were lost in each other until Jimin got up" comments.

Unfortunately anon. I don't HAVE to explain anything to you. If you would like to ask nicely for my opinions, you may DM me and do so. And just FYI, I do fundamentaly disagree with anon here and I'll be deleting any further "hot and cold" topics of asks or anything similar going forward. Again, my DMs are open if you want more of an opinion though.

[uboat53]

The news of the last week regarding former President Trump's possession of classified and sensitive national security documents really struck home for me, as I'm sure you've noticed from all I've been posting about it, and I thought I'd write up a bit of context for everyone as to why that is.

As some of you may know, I worked for the first three years of my career as a defense contractor developing documents and doing training for operations and maintenance on an army radar system at one of the largest defense companies in the country. In that capacity I never held a security clearance, but I did work with documents that were considered sensitive for national security.

While I was there, the video of a 2007 helicopter strike in Iraq that had killed several civilians including two Reuters journalists was leaked through Wikileaks. It was a major event for us and a good deal of changes were made to tighten up control of sensitive and classified information in the company including a good deal of additional training in properly handling such information.

(I should briefly mention my personal opinion which is that, though I agree with the things that certain leakers like Mr. Snowden and Ms. Manning leaked, the government's response is also correct legally. In my opinion, what they did was morally correct and legally incorrect, which is exactly the situation for a presidential pardon if we could ever get a President with the courage to do so.)

That's how I can tell you with absolute certainty that, had I chosen to take any of the information I worked with there home with me, I would probably have been arrested and served many years in jail and rightly so. I was very aware of this the entire time I worked there as was everyone else I worked with and we were very careful to ensure that we did not do anything that would have risked revealing the information we worked with. We would travel for work quite often, and when we did we would be given fresh laptops with only the minimum required stuff installed on it. They would then be encrypted and we would be given the access codes which we were only to use when in a secure environment such as an army base.

I also recall that we had a contractor come by for a site visit. He stayed for about a week and had not been fully cleared even for sensitive information, so our information security was extremely strict during that time. If he entered a room or cubicle, we had to immediately power off any screens so that he couldn't see any information. While he was on site, one of our employees was assigned to shadow him, basically be attached at the hip. If the guy went somewhere, our guy went with him, if he went to the bathroom, our guy went too.

So I'm not sure exactly how clear it is from the outside, but the government really does not mess around with national security documents. And from the outside I'm sure all of that sounds crazy, but you have to understand the kind of information we're dealing with. The radar system I worked on was capable of tracking and plotting the trajectory of artillery shells (this information is public, don't worry that I'm giving away things here, I wouldn't do that). To the best of my knowledge, no other country has such a system and it's definitely something we don't want Russia or China getting a hold of.

As you can see, when I heard that former President Trump had not only had possession of documents with the top classification in the United States government but had, for some reason, kept those stored in a poolside supply room without so much as a lock on the door for well over a year… well… yeah… my eyebrows literally raised when I heard that.

There's been a bunch of excuses offered for why he did it and why it's okay that he did it, but they're so far from covering all the bases that it's truly shocking. I mean, even if he had somehow declassified the documents while he was still in office (though there's no record that he did) it wouldn't matter. These are clearly marked documents and, even if the markings had been updated, they contain sensitive national security information.

As President, sure, he absolutely had the authority to do whatever he wanted with them, but he hasn't been President for over a year and a half now. President Biden hasn't even seen fit to extend him a security clearance as former President, so his ability to view and possess such information is literally the same as yours and mine. If a private citizen has marked classified documents (regardless of whether they were declassified, a document must be treated as classified until the markings are updated) and especially if they store them in an insecure location, there are severe penalties for that, usually involving multiple years in jail per document.

I watched it happen with Sandy Berger, again with Chelsea Manning, again with Edward Snowden, and again with Reality Winner, just to name a few. The government does not mess around when it comes to national security and there's far less ambiguity with regard to the handling of sensitive and classified information than there is with most of the other crimes that former President Trump is suspected of.

That's why my eyebrows raised when I heard about this. It may seem like a small thing if you've never worked in the national security field, but this is easily the most dangerous legal issue that Mr. Trump faces and, if they're at the point of publicly searching his personal residence, the investigation is pretty far along.

Hope you enjoyed this or at least found it interesting.