#I'm out here having fun designing concepts

[delimeful]

I was wondering, do you ever play around in any of the worlds you've created without planning to write a story about it? Like imagining what-ifs or imagining if you were in that world? I've been really into the humans are space orcs stories lately and I have certain fantasies in those worlds I've been daydreaming for the past months. But even when I imagine a completely different backstory for them, I recently realized I usually imagine the races you described in WIBAR and YCGB and other alien fics. Still daydream of sanders sides characters a lot and now Ampen and Ulgorii just live in my brain as character concepts lol

it's hard to say that i play around without planning to write about it, because most of the time, if i roll an idea or concept for a story around in my head for long enough, i inevitably end up wanting to put it to words properly :'D but i certainly do like to imagine or daydream about my worlds so often that there's plenty that doesn't make it to my published stories

for "what-ifs" i even have a folder that's mostly a collection of spin offs/alternate POVs of some of my AUs! here's the placeholder titles of a handful of them, ranging from extreme silly to extreme angst lol

when it comes to humans are space orcs stories, i do love to play around with the setting + characters i already have (as my biggest universe, wibar has SO MANY of the aforementioned spin off/AU ideas) but i also love to come up with new alien designs + fun ways the designs can be juxtaposed with human deathworlder stuff, so i often end up branching out and making something new! i'm flattered that my designs have joined your imaginings though :D

as for lime in the wibar-verse... i've speculated on it a few times, and atm i think my wibarsona would probably be not a human, but a crav'on! spiky lime :) i have seen some very cute art/writing/speculation with other people's self inserts, mostly as humans, and i think it's so fun that others are playing in my sandbox too! ^_^

[hauntingjasper]

We need candy Marshall and vampire Gumball!!!

Waow okay anon imma give you a lil concept, sorry for making you wait too long 🥹

My current takes on Candy Prince Marshall Lee and Vampire King Gumball

[blujayonthewing]

so in juniper's campaign we've just found ourselves in a high-stakes situation that I as a player do frankly find stressful and am anxious about, but hey hi also the DM was like 'okay here are the exact mechanics of how this is going to work because I don't want to surprise you with serious repercussions, also here are all the options you will have to try to do something about the situation-- [affected player] what do you think? honest feedback, I don't want it to feel unfair, I want to be clear that I am not just trying to kill your character, and if it ends up being badly balanced we can revisit it down the road' and oh my god I could COLLAPSE and WEEP with gratitude

[xxcapybaragamingepic1337xx]

If they didn't want people sleeping during the day they wouldn't have made beds so comfortable

[chiropteracupola]

lady king and lady herald...

[quitedisastrous]

drew the most delightful fat anthro tiger because i had the idea to do a tiger pops themed design just to fumble around for a few hours and give up because i don't know how to deal with both the color mixing of the tiger pop and the tiger stripes. sucks but i can always come back to it later i guess. bigger issue is now i have to decide if i want to leave my beautiful lines for it or if i should just figure out another theme

[justanotherbirdbrain-blog]

A Workshop for Creating Magical/ Fictional Crystals: A Guide from a Geologist

Hi folks, its me, here to talk about fictional writing again! Today I'm just tackling the idea of magical stones/mana stones by looking at existing minerals today and some neat properties that they have, and how you can apply these things to a fictional world. The goal is mainly to help you if you are stuck trying to come up with a unique magic system, or a unique identification/characteristic of your mineral.

First Things First: Mineral Shapes

I am exhausted, petered out, down-right fatigued by seeing every mineral depicted with having the crystal structure of calcite and quartz. There are soooooo many cooler, more interesting crystal structures, don't you think you would stop and take a look at a perfect cube in nature? It is completely unsettling.

Second: Color

Color within minerals can either be really important, or not important at all! It is your choice to decide if color is going to be something that means something to your mineral. But what are some times when the color is important? Well.... there are some elements that are called chromophores, this classification just indicates that these elements, when present, will determine the color of whatever they are in. So, if you wanted to treat mana like a chromophore, you could say, "Oh everything that contains mana turns green!" This could mean that regardless of the mineral, if that mineral is a specific color, it means it contains mana. This concept is exciting because you can just stop here and use minerals that already exist! You can also use it as an indicator for a magical ore! Chromophores are typically metals, so if you are making a new metal weapon, making the ore of that metal a unique color would make a lot of sense!

However, your mineral can also just be every color of the rainbow like quartz and perhaps that's what makes identifying your mana stones elusive and create an illusion of scarcity that your character can solve.

There are other things that can change the colors of minerals, like radiation damage, and electron exchange, but I think that is beyond what would be helpful! So lets talk about some unique color properties that happen in nature that seem magical in the first place! Maybe you don't need to design a mana stone, but you want a unique gemstone that only the royal family passes down or something (IDK).

The first one is the alexandrite effect! This is where a mineral can change color in natural light vs. incandescent light. (the mineral itself is not changing, but the lights contain different amounts of different colors that then get absorbed by the stone). Even if you don't use electricity in your fictional world, you could have the colors change in the presence of light magic. This could create fun misunderstandings about what the mineral is reacting to!

Pleochroism

Pleochroism is something that most minerals have, it is frequently used to help identify minerals in thin sections, however minerals are usually not pleochroic enough for it to be visible to the naked eye! Pleochroism is just a fancy name to describe the change in how light is absorbed based on the angle of the mineral! So if you scroll up to the first image where I showed a lot of crystal shapes, most of them have angles where they are longer and shorter! This will effect the way light travels in the crystal. Tanzanite is a popular mineral that does this.

Photochromism

This is when a mineral will change color (in a reversible way) when exposed to UV light (or sunlight), I am not going to go too into the details of why this is happening because it would require me to read some research papers and I just don't feel like it. The mineral that is best known for this is Hackmanite!

Alright! These are all the really cool color effects that might inspire you or maybe not, but now I am going to talk about how you might find your minerals within a rock!

When I see a lot of magical caves/mines, typically I see them with some variation of a geode honestly, but most minerals are not found like that! Now I am sure most of you guys have seen a geode, so I will not really talk about those, but I will talk briefly about porphyroblasts which is when the mineral grows larger than the minerals around it, this happens in metamorphic minerals!

sorry random stranger, but this is an image of garnets inside a finer-grained rock at gore mountain in New York!

Another way you might find minerals is in a pegmatite! This is when all minerals are really large! This is a formed from really slow crystalizing magma!

But something else to think about is that your mineral might just be massive, it doesn't have to have distinct crystals, it may be similar to jadeite where small grains grow together which leaves it looking smooth and seamless! A note about all of these is that you would have to mine into the rock to find these, there would not be any natural caves in these rocks! Caves are only ever really formed in limestones and maybe marbles (rocks that react with acid).

How can your characters identify these minerals?

Typically when you are out in the field you will look to see what type of rocks the minerals are found in (The overall texture of the rock will tell you how it formed). If you know how the rock formed, it will narrow down the amount of minerals you need to think about by quite a bit! Next, you are going to look closely at it and observe its crystal structure, does it have an obvious crystal? if so what is the general shape? If it is broken, how did it break? Did it fracture like glass or did it break along uniform planes. Some minerals have a thing called cleavage (breaks along planes of weakness). If a mineral exhibits this habit, it will again help narrow this down. Next we can look at color. Color can be misleading, because minerals like quartz can be any color imaginable, but minerals like olivine will always be green! The next thing your character can do is test for hardness, minerals all have a specific hardness that can help identify it as well.

After you go through all of this, your mineral might have some special property! This could be magnetism, fluorescence, reactions to acid, or any of the color changing effects I mentioned above! Other than that, your character can take it back to a lab and do a number of things to identify it, but the most typical thing would be for them to make a thin section (very thin piece of the rock) and observe it under a cross polarized microscope!

On that note folks! I hope this helped in some way in thinking of new magic mineral properties! I have other guides that explore some different fictional worldbuilding issues you might run into, but if you have any topics you would like me to cover please that I haven't mentioned already, let me know!

[occudo]

An incomplete list of TMA fics I adore

-beacuse of this ask

(If you liked the fics I previously recommended/made fanart for, I think you'll gonna like these as well, but you know, read the tags, know what you are going into)

Yesterday is Here by CirrusGrey @cirrus-grey

Time Travel Fix-it! Slow burn! So good! So much sass from future!Jon- I doubt I have to introduce anyone this amazing author, but if you somehow missed them till now, this is your time! I highly recommend all of their other fics as well, for example one of a more recent one, The Stranger I Know Best is also a lovely read.

enthralling by Prim_the_Amazing @primtheamazing

Vampire!Martin!! I have no words of how much I love this concept, this story, everything about this. I think I'm going to repeat myself through this list, but I also recommend everything else they've written!

to fill... my heart with music? by godshaper @godshaper so their Martin and Jon design are different from mine, also they made a way better art for this- but still, I wanted to include this really good fic in this list.

Do It All Anew by inkfingers_mcgee or @crit20art

You know the feeling when you read a book that makes you cry, and after that you recommend it to your friend? Well- there is no reason I mentioned this, I'm just so normal about this fic. Or any other fic from inkfingers_mcgee... like Strange Manner of what I made another fanart way back. Also, check out their art!

Anyway, here is Aamal- she is not going to cause emotional damage.

And they were sidekicks (oh my god, they were sidekicks) by arthureameslove @arthureameslove

A lighthearted series where Jon and Martin are sidekicks of supervillains- it's just a really fun fic, also recommend everyting from this author - I previously draw fanart here for an other fic of theirs Like a Lighthouse, Call Me Home

neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well by saintbleeding @saintbleeding

To quote the aurthour: "Post-divorce Jon and Martin in a wedding-based romcom" It's such a comfort read, also has a Tim/Sasha wedding, and lots of cameos! I realised most of these authors I made fanarts for before- like this one for some kind of miraculous bind, this one is oneshot and a bit more serious in tone.

Give Me the Words by rakel @rakel-on-ao3

"Jon and Martin try to make the most of a bad situation in the Scottish Highlands. The situation is worse than they realised." You know that one post about wanting to write PWP, but it keeps turning into character study? Well, this one comes to my mind each time I see that.

i wanna find a home (i wanna share it with you) by heartshapedguy @transgenderboobs

So what would have happened if instead of the cot (tm), Jon offered Martin his own flat to stay? There is no way it's going to change their relationship, right? Such a good read, if you want some fluff, I highly recommend it!

Lucky Stars by magnetarmadda @magnetarmadda

Martin has a lovely family (except his mother) but still, he needs a fake boyfriend, and Jon comes to the rescue. It's one of the first fics I remember reading after I finished the series. It is such a comfort read of mine~

(+enjoy a rare tall Jon from me)

There are so many more fics that also deserve the spotlight, these are just the ones I read multiple times and/or didn't made fanarts for before. If you find something here you like, give them some love! Kudos and comments! They deserve it. (Also, just an extra disclamier some of these are PWP or rated T- just mind the tags)

I tried to link and tag everything, I hope it works.

[usagifuyusummer]

"You're loved. Don't forget."

More ramblings and concept art below lmao.

I am devastated on thinking Timmy's fate in the series... I won't put my faith that they will handle it well, so I'll just indulge in fanworks to fill in this void. If they ever do it well one day, then I'll be there for the encore.

For now, I think you'll see a lot of somewhat depressed art on FOP for a while lol. Not continuous mind you! University is a bitch to get through. Whenever I'm free that is. Which is on long stretches of time unfortunately... Still, when I'm not posting trash, I'll be around observing quietly. You can guarantee that at least.

The work this time is inspired by @xblubotx (the adopted parents kissing Timmy one so cute omgosh) and @cubbihue FOP AU (sorry I have not memorised your AU yet). I admire that Blubot can adapt the FOP artstyle so well lmao. It'll be lightyears before I can do that 😭😭😭. Also, their Timmy fanarts break my heart, thank you. For the fairies design, I took inspiration from Cubbihue's AU. I think it's cute that they have tails, but there's not much I can say regarding their AU since its still developing. Take your time on that and have fun by the way.

The context for this one is just that Timmy is embarassed that Cosmo and Wanda are giving him the affection he is missing out from his parents. Poof is laughing from Timmy's embarrassment lol. (Not using Poof's new name because that is not that iteration of his character.) Timmy got a lot of fairy dust to remove from his face on that day...

Hm, are there side-effects to fairies kissing a mortal (on the cheeks hehe)? I kinda wish there was a comprehensive mythology book for stuff like that. There's some sources where I read that fairies kissing humans can actually result in their soul being whisked away to the other world (essentially dying yeah) and some sources say that fairies kissing you means its their way of marking territory or for good luck??? I wonder where those myths came from... but it is fascinating to think about. I guess Timmy will die young then /jk lol.

I got input from my younger sister that a darker color background is better than the dark blue one I used initially. I'm quite unsure on this, so I'll just post them all... I also don't think I nailed Cubbihue's AU on the fairy sizes... It's hard to accurately draw characters on a specific scale for me... Oh well, I can practice more. This took me 3 days at least. Also, here's a png version of the piece and two photos of the concept sketches.

I think that's all I want to yap about. Thanks for reading and have a nice day. See you when my homework isn't killing me.

[xamag-draws]

BBR thoughts 2024

Since I mentioned that I finally dusted off an old project of mine and was ruminating on how I'd remake it, I thought I'd elaborate a little, now that I've solidified some concepts. For funsies

This is gonna be a bit of a long and unfocused one, but I don't share my personal thoughts here often, especially the stuff about my projects I always marinate in. And for once it's something that people have existing context for, so hey why not

So for anyone who hasn't been following me for a gajillion years, The Black Brick Road of OZ was a webcomic that I posted around 2013-2015, back when I was in highschool going on college (which is kinda crazy to think about). It was sort of a darker twist on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, although I definitely leaned a lot more into dark humor more than anything in those first few chapters

I don't think it's available to read anywhere anymore, and I know people have been asking me about it. So here's the full proper archive of BBR, as full as it can be with deceased Flash

I totally used it as an excuse to shamelessly and self-indulgently experiment. It had interactive pages and GIFs and was wayyy too overproduced for what I could handle or what was necessary, but I did have great fun making it while it lasted

Unfortunately, that excess and the fact that I've changed too much as a person by the time I was in college is what ultimately killed it. The direction I wanted to go in was practically unrecognizable from the original idea started back in 2011, so there were many old hold-ups that I felt ruined it

At the time I kinda wished I could start/rewrite it all over, but considering that I pretty much had the entire script done at that point, it felt like a pointless sisyphean task. So I just put it on a shelf and didn't look back for about 8 years, because I didn't know what else to do

Now to be fair, the nature of my art has always been iterative and cyclical; when I feel like my creative juices have run dry I prefer to leave a project to marinate and move on to something else; cycle through other old things and bring in new skills and perspectives into the mix when I'm ready again. Not very productive, but it is what makes me happy to work on my OCs; I'm doomed to hit a wall with them eventually and I need some time to be able to find a new direction

So that said, I'm glad that BBR was left to marinate for that long. I don't think I was prepared, emotionally or intellectually, to tackle it again until now. The Wizard of Oz book (and the entire series of them, really) has always been near and dear to my heart, but there's a lot of context around it that I'm only unpacking now that I'm older

I think I always inherently feel negatively about the stuff I've made in the past, like its faults always jump out to me more than the positives, especially the more time passes. I've never liked that, and I do really appreciate the kind things people have to say about BBR to this day. The fact that it still can be recognized and remembered is very sweet

When I left it, I already found it "kinda cringe", and that feeling only deepened with years. When I took my first look back at it, asking the question "how would I rewrite it now?", at first I took a very cynical approach, as in "everything would have to be torn down"

But the more I sat on it, the more I found that I still see some merit and charm in the ideas I was putting out; I just didn't know how to execute them at the time (not to pretend that I know what I'm doing now, but I certainly know more at least). Turns out a lot of my old concepts could be changed substantially with just a few small tweaks. So I'd say that's a nicer way to think about my previous work

If you haven't seen yet, I posted a first draft of my new designs for some of the characters (the main group, the Goods and the Wickeds). Definitely subject to change, but more or less how I see them now

I'm just playing with these concepts; by no means would I attempt to remake BBR right this moment. Call it a pipe dream among my other ones. But just for fun, this is the direction I'd like to take:

Nowadays I'd probably make it a visual novel, with more emphasis on the visual part than the novel because I'm no English prose writer by any means. It'd still let me play a little with the interactivity while helping cut some corners on the drawing part (only some, I imagine I'd go hog wild anyway)

I've always intended for some events inspired by the sequel books to take place in BBR's past. Stuff like Jinjur's revolt or Ozma's rule preceeds the main events here. So I think it would be fun to follow the past of a few key characters alongside the main story. One chapter focusing on the present quest to see the Wizard, then one focusing on the past events (that are maybe reflective thematically); rinse and repeat

I'm also sticking a little closer to the original text in some regards. Not everything that I enjoy from the books would be translated here, it's still just a very loose fantasy on the material; but I'd like to be closer in spirit at least

I like mature, wise and powerful Glinda, I like kind and vulnerable Tin Man, I like the Wizard being a pathetic yet loveable liar, so I'm sprinkling in more of that for example

I'd like to keep some whimsy, but make it more grounded and a bit more serious to be coherent in tone. I think the original TWWOOZ book was a more realistic fantasy in some ways, even for the standards of the time; I like its simple but vivid tactile descriptions and details like bringing attention that Dorothy needed to eat and sleep

I find it funny that Baum specifically was averse to making his books scary or unpleasant, finding that unnecessary for telling a compelling kids story, but they still can get pretty dark and disturbing, at least for our modern sensibilities. Let's just say that I intend to use the Evoldo and Chopfyt storylines for my purposes. In that way, I feel like a "darker" Wizard of Oz retelling can still mostly be tonally in line with the original and balance it with enough heart and occasional humor

I slowly grew to appreciate the quaint old-timey quality of the original series, as well. The first book is both timeless and very much a product of the 1900s. Originally I tried to give it a little modern or at least anachronistic spin, but it was moreso because it's what I knew best, so these days I'd rather intentionally lean into the time period. Still not fully historically accurate by any means, but at least directly acknowledging the influence

The events of the story span across 40 years of these characters' lives, so I'm drawing inspiration from the entire so-called La Belle Epoque: the time period around 1880s-1920s. Basically I'm cooking, and my soup is old Victorian fashion morphing into Edwardian fashion and slowly inching towards flappers

Some new Dolly outfits

Lots of crazy things, political changes and innovations were happening at the turn of the century, which I think is noted and reflected by Baum in the books as well; the character of Tik-Tok might not blow any minds now, but he was one of the first robot characters in literature at that point; and don't even get me started on Jinjur, etc. Plenty of really interesting stuff one could lightly ponder in an Oz adaptation these days

Aesthetically, art nouveau has always been a big artistic influence for me, and it'd definitely be its time to shine here. John R. Neill's illustrations of the Oz books often keep me company as well. Nouveau architecture in particular fits that fairytale whimsy extremely well imo

I'd allow myself a little bit of art deco here and there, but ultimately its intimidating geometrical splendor is an antithetical to the flowery nature of nouveau and I associate it with a completely different era. Definitely fitting some characters like my Wicked Witch of the West, but shouldn't be overused

One of my main problems with the original BBR was that eventually I lost track of what it was even about; and the original ending felt too mean and unfulfilling to be worth it. Now I'd like to stick to the theme of home and family as my main theme, but in a different, more bittersweet way than in the book

An interesting connection I made is that a lot of my aforementioned older key characters (the Witches, Jinjur, the Nome King, etc) all came from the same reformatory as kids, that's how they know each other. In my recent research I learned that in those reformatories it was usually frowned upon to release the children back to the families, which were seen as the original corrupting influence regardless of the circumstance. The reformatory did everything in its power to cut that connection and make itself the only family those wayward kids were supposed to know and love. That's an unexpected tie into the theme of home that I'd like to explore as well

So yeah that's the current state of it. I have a bunch of outfit concepts I'm slowly cooking, although I'm now sure whether I'd post them... But I do miss these funny guys, and I'm glad some people still do as well :)

[officialspec]

can you pleeeeease post your dm sexuality/gender hcs on here.... 🥺 i don't have a twitter but i wanna know. it's like a pandora's box to me now i'm like scratching at the door. let me in

heres the link 2 the thread (mild spoilers btw) ill post a transcript under the cut for ppl who dont have twitter

first off i think laios relationship to sex is super removed for like 50 reasons without even getting into his actual sexuality

he grew up in a place with very repressed ideas about sex and has a lot of fear about asserting his presence in situations

his special interest takes precedent over any social interactions he has and the level of closeness he feels towards people

he has a hard time figuring out his feelings towards other people both bc hes autistic and bc he has freaky deviantart fetishes that make sex in his mind a very abstract concept <- this one is me projecting mostly

that aside, i feel like gender-wise hes attracted to ppl so infrequently it may as well be entirely case-by-case

the idea of him being gay appeals to me from the 'raised with traditional values he Does Not fit into/hasnt begun to question it yet' perspective, i lauve characters who put a lot of stock into performing a role thats expected of them and fail miserably for unknown (gay) reasons

from his perspective tho i dont think he would ever really label himself anything. hes going to pride parades in the shirt+shorts Ally Fit to clap for his friends

hes also 'cis by indifference' imo... i love tmasc laios hcs it just doesnt mesh w his personal history to me. i do think hes got some kind of therian gender thing going on (not trans or nb but a secret third thing) but i cant see him changing anything abt his appearance/pronouns to accommodate that post-canon. hes just doin his thang

falin is in a similar boat for gender. i LOOVE tfem falin but the village repression thing has been bugging at me so i dont think i subscribe to it anymore (canon purist sorry) BUT if u hold that hc i am clapping and cheering regardless

instead i was propagandised to a while back and i LOVEEE the idea that being fused w a male dragon and the residual traits she has after being revived have given her a type of gender euphoria she didnt realise she was missing. a little boygirl swagger if u will

sexuality-wise i also dont think she would care to label herself, shes a lesbian by virtue of only being interested in One woman and zero other people. without marcille i do think shes still exclusively attracted to women, and i like to imagine she might experiment around a bit during her travels post-canon (pre-relationship). hearing abt it might put marcille on the news though

marcille is very simple That is a transfem lesbian. she cant get pregnant, shes obsessed w being femme and all that combined w her half-tallman struggles to be seen as 'properly feminine' by elf standards reads very transfeminine to Me. also her bookboy crush REEKS of comphet its not subtle

i think a more comfortable marcy might have the space to experiment w being elf butch like her manga boys but thats mainly self indulgence for me. utena could have saved her

senshi is gay his whole thing is abt not being able to perform dwarven masculinity to a proper standard (soft hearted, not as strong or rugged as his peers) which is like gaycoding 101. also hes a bear. homosexuality be damned by boy can work a grill

adding onto this i rly think senshi got some type of euphoria from being an elf in the changeling chapters. he was feeling himself so much i think he was using it as an outlet to have fun being a little fem and fruity without needing to justify it. do u understand

i dont have any particular opinions abt him gender-wise beyond that. his bulge is an essential part of his character design but i also saw a transmasc senshi a couple days ago that made me nod my head thoughtfully so i could go either way

chilchuck is cis and bisexual this is just canon. not even just his old man crush on senshi altho i do think thats very funny but they put his ass on a cover themed like hes in a dating sim with all the men and women in the cast and then slapped it in front of a chapter called "bicorn". i simply cant pass up that kind of overt signaling. its so fucking funny what else is there to say truly

izu to ME is a transmasc aroace lesbian (this one has the least basis in canon i just know it to be true) shes a little genderfluid with it nd uses he/she i think. i like to imagine she consistently uses masculine personal pronouns to refer to herself either way tho (boku, ore)

i think izutsumis gender/sexuality is entirely secondary in priorities to her body dysphoria. she has a lot of learning and acceptance 2 do before that kind of self discovery is on the docket and in my mind eschewing gender on some level is part of that. get sillay

shuro is cishet but at least he feels bad about it. next listen listen to me i dont think he would ever actually examine this but i need u to put on ur tin foil hat with me for one second. i think estrogen could have saved her. i have more thoughts on this but im not gonna propagandise too much on this post just know that im right

kabru is a transmasc bisexual this is also practically text. his whole thing of being treated like a doll by milsiril to put in pretty dresses, plus i think it would be pretty easy for him to stealth in the west since tallmen are seen as inherently more masculine than elves

(i also think changing genders is just more common for elves. theyre androgynous enough that it wouldnt be hard and like who in their right miiiiind would be the same gender for 500 years. dwarves too)

i think he started presenting as male socially in the west but didnt need to consider medical transition until he moved to a more mixed culture where other races might see him as a woman

i dont have to explain the bisexual part. have u seen him

namari is a butch bisexual this is just canon straight up. shes not transmasc but i think the default settings for dwarven women is like 4 years of T regardless. shes a hit at all the local cruising spots despite her renfaire nerdisms i know this

and just bc im thinking abt em kiki and kaka are identical and kiki is tfem :} theyre both attracted to women but kaka is a sub so i forgive him

THATS ALL 4 NOW theres a lot of characters so i cant have thoughts abt all of them at once but i hope this was good. im right about everything forever as per usual

[uva124]

THE MOMENT WE WERE ALL WAITING FOR, FINALLY FINISHED THE DESIGN OF ASTER YESSSSSS ✨✨✨✨✨✨❤❤

This design belongs to the Wish rewrite called "The kingdom of wishes" (Written by @annymation and soon illustrated by @emillyverse and me)

Sorry for the delay, but this guy had so many things to draw and I also had a thousand ideas that it took me a while to capture them all (4 drawings wow, even I'm surprised lol)

Now after this introduction I will tell you the procedure of its design :]

2D MODEL:

-Maybe some don't notice it, but for the 2D drawing of Aster I didn't add many shadows, because in the classic Disney movies the animation doesn't have many shadows if we look closely, this is for several reasons (at that time they had to inking FRAME BY FRAME, can you imagine how much longer it would have taken to add detailed shadows? I really have respect for the animators)

(Here are some examples of what I'm trying to explain)

-As I said before, I didn't detach myself much from the concept art of the movie, I just added some other details that occurred to me, Anny and Emy.

-We decided that his cape would have the constellations of the signs of the zodiac (It was Emy's idea), which in the final result are on the cape, the constellations are noticeable more or less depending on Aster's mood.

-In the Wish rewrite it is mentioned that Aster's hair is like a candle (Reference to Hades) so I decided not to add the lineart in that part

His hair changes depending on his emotions, but not only that, but also his lineart, the calmer he is, the cleaner his animation will be, however with strong emotions (anger, sadness, nervousness) his details will be more neglected, especially when He is REALLY angry, by the way I made his hair look like a flame to give more drama to his design and also make a reference to Ember from Elemental

And as a final detail, the star-shaped gem that she has as a brooch changes color, just like her earrings.

3D MODEL:

-When Aster disguises himself as a human, his details on his clothes would disappear and the shape of his accessories would change to ones without a star shape, also the tone of yellow would look duller, you know so as not to draw attention (although he is dressed like a prince with a giant cape, the boy doesn't know how to hide the truth very well lmao)

-In general, it's just that the design becomes simpler, the only thing that changes is her hair that is no longer a flame, her freckles that are no longer little stars, her clothes no longer have so many details and her mark on her eye disappears(￣▽￣) .

By the way, I wanted to thank @the-autistic-idiot for giving us the great idea of ​​Aster having a star-shaped mark on his eye :D.

-Also, I think that those who have seen my other Wish redesigns are wondering why it seems like I had spit a rainbow at Aster's 3D drawings, what happened is that when I was painting my neurons said ✨Change your coloring✨ and well, The drawing in the end came out like this, although I honestly like it better, it better represents how I draw in a traditional way

Yes, basically the coloring of my drawings is as if a unicorn had spit on them lol

FINAL COMMENTS:

-It was very fun to draw Aster! The boy really has a lot of changes, but thanks to him I already discovered my digital drawing style so I am satisfied.

-Again sorry for the delay, I know that for many Aster must be their favorite character so I hope your wait was worth it :]

See you next time!✨✨

[greenflowerceo]

hii im suuper late to my own week ik (i'll post the rest of the days from time to time, college applications were a pain </3 but i've got most of it down

This piece is a redraw of my very first post ! This has been a wip since the start of the year so my art style unsurprisingly changed a bunch as i tweaked the lines and colors. it's not the best but it's looking as good as it can be!

as for the zine, people are free to draw up pieces for the week up until the end of september and we can compile it all together! it's not really the usual zine format but who knows.. we can maybe try to figure out a way to formally start a more structured zine project for these two

Anyway! I've decided to dedicate my greenflower week posts to my headcanons I've made up for them from the past 4 years.. I figured you guys could take a peek into my brain since I haven't really been good at that unless you catch me in a vc :") there's a buncha hcs and old ass art i never posted finally unearthing under the cut if you wanna take a peek

So, first thing: Body headcanons..

i took super long getting what i want with this waay back when I started posting cause I was still figuring out a lot with my art. i couldn't get in good details/features that would properly differentiate them or make them fun to draw. I wasn't striving to be really innovative with the designs or anything, I just wanted them to feel like characters I like looking at and thinking about

finally, i'm somewhat able to settle on these as of right now! It will most likely update as the time passes and my art changes, but this is what I got!

basically the main idea is that i wanted Lloyd to be bulkier but sharper. grew up fast and has all these edges, but then you get to know him and he's just a big ol dork. Mostly wears loose-fitting clothes that hides his figure, but he's quite built underneath

Brad's a lil taller and pretty lanky. my art style may not be able to show that properly but lloyd can snap him in half <3 he also seems hella chill but that's probably cause he got balls of steel after living through a million ninjago invasions

This thing below is an old outfit concept I have for a project that I've been working on. does not reflect my current headcanons with his physical appearance but i do like his clothes

I think he loves his role as the green ninja, saving the world and such. it came with lots of baggage and reflection but i do promise that he enjoys it for the most part. I think him wearing green is kind of like wearing work clothes so he tends to avoid it on days when he's free to keep from being too ready to jump into ninja mode

i do tend to keep him in green though cause the fandom sure does love their color-coded ninja

anyway .. that's about most of what i've got for this that looks good enough to post, so here's a bunch of other doodles/sketches, both old and new ToT

oh and a quick comic too cause why not

one more: bonus greenflower yuri

thanks for coming to read this far :) there'll be more soon

[vesperaink]

Friends, my necromancer!Tango/grimreaper!Jimmy, Team Rancher modern with magic apocalypse AU, Graveyard Shift, for @mcytblraufest's Reverse Big Bang is here!

But wait there's more--go read chasing crimson written by @aliferous-ly, beta'd by @dibs2win, my fantastic team for aufest. If you love enemies to lovers, unlikely partnerships, and the power of soul-bound magic weapon contracts, this hilarious + dramatic 22.9k fic kicks off from this comic!

chasing crimson

Jimmy Solidarity works for the esteemed god of Death, reaping lost souls and taking care of unsavory characters. He's recently finished his training, and is determined to do well on his first solo mission. Perhaps this "Tango" would be a good start. Only, the god of Death disappeared years ago, and Necromancer Tango Tek's long since discovered a way around dying. He can't say he enjoys Jimmy swinging through and killing him where he stands, though.

Thank you to my team for being as feral about this AU as I am, and kicking everything about it up to 110. I had so much developing this world with them!

Thanks to @onawhimsicot for helping me with the comic's dialogue, fixing my composition woes with "just add more smoke," and encouraging me to complete it in full color! Check out Cadence's aufest fic, I take it back (ill follow till I fly or till im dead), a Cult of the Lamb AU about follower!Tango and Lamb!Zedaph, the meaning of devotion, silly experiments, eldritch transformations, and...the most platonic slowburn ever?

Lastly, thank you to the aufest team for another wonderful event! I had a blast again, and was giggling kicking my feet at everyone's reactions during claims, I loved every single one of them. Graveyard Shift is definitely an AU I'm coming back to. As always, my askbox is open if you'd like to chat, and I'd love to be tagged if anyone makes anything <3

Timelapse / AU art chatter under the cut!

While Graveyard Shift is the amalgamation of many of my interests, the main premise for this AU is loosely inspired by the webcomic, I'm the Grim Reaper, in both its apocalypse themes and its aesthetics! Not a required read, but highly recommend if you enjoy this au, as well as the anime and manga, Soul Eater!

I came up with a lot of AUs for this event but necromancer!Tango and reaper!Jimmy have been rattling around in my brain in separate AUs since before I started brainstorming for aufest. So I smashed them together, naturally.

(Unfortunately I didn't record all of my process, but most of it is here! CW for flashing; song is Angel of Small Death and the Codeine Scene by Hozier)

I could go on forever about concept art and character design if anyone's curious but here's some fun bonus details about this comic:

Originally, Tango's outfit was going to be more like his Dungeon Master outfit but I wanted the setting to be more modern and Jimmy stole the fantasy cloak vibe from him already lol

Jimmy's entrance of lightning is my nod to the Life Series final death sound

The scarf Jimmy's wearing is designed to be a boneyard shawl

The panel of strange text reads "Protection Three" in Galactic :)

+ The name "Graveyard Shift" was thrown at me by Cadence in like 3 seconds flat after i spent 2 days agonizing over a name for this au LOL

[tomiyeee]

donnie had. SO. much concept art lol. i really enjoyed the whole design process though. his base design is very difficult to work with because of the battleshell, but it gave me a lot of chances to get creative and i'm happy with the results :)

(also as a disclaimer so i don't get asked about this: i don't have motivation to finish raph or the wish art for donnie, so i'm just posting what i've got)

i didn't annotate these as much since there'd be a lot to write, but i'll write out some of my thought processes and go into some detail about his final design below the cut if you're interested! (it's long. i'm talkative 😔)

1st row - first iteration; much more literal 1:1 translation of his design into a fantasy setting. very steampunk-y. ended up completely scrapping it because, simply put, he looked more like an npc than a playable character. obviously, several features did still carry over throughout the design process :3 also wanted to imagine his attack pattern cuz i thought it'd be fun to incorporate his spider arms.

this was actually the first design of any of them i'd come up with! i've definitely learned a lot about genshin's character design style since then and i think it shows 😂

2nd row - playing around with the idea of a floating battleshell (rather than a backpack-like one in the the show & first version), inspired by nahida's cape. also hard light constructs/attachments. was leaning too into the sci-fi and rectangular motifs with the design, but i liked the idea.

3rd/4rth rows - concepts for his final outfit and shell designs (the colored/more-detailed pics are the more finalized ones). took a lot of inspiration from sumeru this time around. it's a lot sharper, shinier, and less rectangular than his og aesthetic, but i think it's more in-line with genshin's design philosophies.

5th row - not entirely sure why i went through all the trouble of making a 3d model for this. i mostly just thought it'd be fun and good for reference. i was right, but i don't know what to do with it now lol. can't be bothered to be a perfectionist about it though, so don't look too closely at it 😭

6th row - incomplete thumbnails of his burst/wish art. not super sold on that "wing" design in particular, but i do like the idea of his shell splitting and deploying hard light weapons/rocket launchers/etc sort of like in canon.

battleshell/misc notes - i'm thinking his battleshell is controlled using the pink sensor on the back of his coat, possibly in combination with his headset. it floats behind him by default and is sturdy enough to protect his back, but he can also freely fly it around like a drone if he wants. the holes on the side are mainly for the spider arms and the banners(?) and handles(?) with the blue/pink gradient are made of hard light and only appear when the shell is in use.

i imagine like in the series, his tech here isn't necessarily very reliant on his vision/powers; much of it he likely made himself long before he received a vision and he just uses his vision to enhance it.

his burst is a barrage of missiles from his shell that lock onto an enemy and deal a large burst of electro damage in an AOE. not sure if i want his skill to be a deployable or some sort of electro-infusion/boost 🤔 maybe something that involves deploying his shell to boost his damage while leaving him vulnerable, like a glass canon? though i'm not sure he'd be that sort of risk-taker... 😅 dunno! his signature weapon would totally be his tech bo though.

that's about all i can think of. thanks for reading!

[otterloreart]

MLP-Takara generations: a design experiment

Takara MLPs are considered generation 1 My Little Pony; the original ponies look like little horses and the takaras are obviously very different.

But the standard MLP toyline underwent a lot of changes throughout the years... so, if the takaras had been successful, what would their changes look like?

Generation 1 year 2+ takaras.

Year one MLP was only a few ponies with a single color of body + matching hair... just like the takaras. It was year 2 that they introduced unicorns. pegasus, and seaponies.

You all know I've already been concepting these so it's not surprising at all. As MLP g1 went on, they ended up doing more and more gimmicks throughout the 80s which would also be kind of fun to see the takaras do... (hint hint if you want me to draw those lmk which gimmicks are your favorites)

I also think they should bring in markings like the normal ponies but that could be part of the gimmicks. Maybe on their cheeks, or on their bellies like care bears?

In the later years og MLP also had a lot of variations on the normal pony body type, so maybe you could also see the takaras with that kind of variant, so that might be cute:

Moving on!

Generation 2

If you aren't big into early gen My Little Pony you might not know that generation 2 didn't do very well; it was a reboot of a beloved franchise, it was new, and different, and all that jazz:

Main differences between them and g1: first, you can see they have a very late G1-type body, which is why I pointed out the thinner pony in g1. Their face is less detailed and rounder, but they have a little more expression, very smiley.

Their ears have a more horse-y curled in shape, they have fur around their hooves (in g1 only the boy ponies had hoof floof), and they have a gem in their eye.

Also they had a lot more moving-leg gimmicks where you could push one part of their body and another would move (eg push tail -> bobs head)

So you may ask, how am I could to g2-ify the takaras? After all, they are already much rounder than the g1 ponies. Well, I'm not going to make them just *look like* the g2 ponies, although I'll borrow more elements.

Instead: I am going to take and exaggerate all of the differences that I listed above and see what we come up with.

So! Here is my idea for g2 takara pony. I feel like its the exact balance of very cute and something that would upset collectors familiar with the original takaras, just as g2 upset the g1 fans.

First off, she's thinner, the iconic takara nose is removed in favor of a sculpt with a smiling mouth, the legs are more horse shaped with fluff and human fingers to match the additional foot detail. a lot of people find the g2s a little "uncanny" so I feel like this works.

The sparkley eye gem and ear shape are just straight off the original g2s, just to have extra gimmick to it (also the og takaras basically had the g1 ears)

g2 came out in the late 90s so I like to imagine the pony eyes would be extra shoujo too

Finally, a ball jointed head for more flexibility. (yes the arm would be posed like that in the doll, because its a more dynamic pose, and we can also assume that the larger size allows the doll to have a joint with more flexibility)

g2 had pretty similar gimmicks to g1 but also had some light up ponies, so maybe the takaras could have some with that gimmick too

fun fact, g2 MLP was sold for a longer time in Europe and performed better there.

Generation 3

Generation 3 ponies are a pretty clear return to g1 MLP style, kinda scrapping most of the changes g2 made, other than proportionally thinning out the ponies a bit.

g3 ponies have very similar face sculpts with bigger eyes, nearly the same legs, and their heads just a bit bigger in proportion to their body

They do remind me a lot of the g1 Petite ponies, which were 1 inch sculptures that also had those proportionally bigger eyes and chunkier legs.

I have here included the g1 so you can see the slight changes better! I think the main difference would be the g3 takara would be a lot rounder, smoother, and cutesy-er. While the original has the hello-kitty simple cute look, the g3 version would definitely have like eyelashes and big eyes.

The only other thing to note about the body is some bigger ears, a generally rounder face, and round feet.

There weren't many gimmicks super /unique/ to g3 but one I wanted to highlight was the Breezies. G1 did have the flutter ponys, which were ponies with butterfly/dragonfly type wings, but the breezies are like their own little species AND they have antennae. While the flutter ponies were sort of graceful and thinner than the other ponies, the breezies are like little chibi-er ponies.

A little bit Littlest Pet Shop-core, since its the early 2000s too.

SPEAKING OF

Generation 4 Generation 3.5

Before there was gen4 there was a subset of Gen3 ponies with a different and unique style. They were basically an exaggerated version of the Breezies with even bigger feet and tinier snouts. They are also VERY littlest-pet-shop-core.

So, pretty straightforward changes

Just an even more chibi, kid-ish style pony. I think the g3.5 ponies were even meant to be kids. So this is just an even more child-friendly, littlest pet shop type horsey.

Generation 4

So, obviously generation 4 ushered in a whole new era of My Little Pony with its unique and bright artstyle, which did need to transfer over to the ponies

Personally, while I love g4 in a lot of ways im not a fan of the toys in the same way I am the other generations, their little noses have shrunk to specks, they're skinnier and more big-eyed than ever. Well, g3.5 was pretty big-eyed but at least those ones were like little kids.

This is such a drastic shift from g1/g3 and even g4, I would be unsure about the takaras.

So: eyes, bigger. Snout, so tiny and so smooth. Ears, bigger. Hooves are flatter and parts of the legs are just kinda featureless. a longer neck. They released a decent amount of ponies with plastic hair this gen, too.

I was struggling to come up with a doll for this one, but I finally realized I was doing it backwards. The thing that makes g4 stand out, I think, is the fact it was fundamentally designed opposite from g1. Lauren Faust, an animator, designed the ponies and the toys had to be designed around her art.

So the primary difference was considering what a tv show- a tv show concieved in the 2000s and airing in 2010s- and I did look into some kids properties from that time period as I was designing

I think these Strawberry shortcake dolls are really close to the concept I'd want for a early 2010s mirror of MLP g4. So basically these toys but more anthro.

I ended up making a 3D mockup so I'd be able to plan the different angles and keep them consistent.

The eyes are kind of far apart but I think thats true of the g4 pony toys as well. Again, because of the way the g4 show was stylized as animation, there was sort of cheating with the anatomy, especially on the face.

Generation 4.5

Gen 4.5 was a spinoff of gen4, just like gen3 had 3.5 where the ponies are more chibi. More big eyes with even bigger ears and a face like... a cats? instead of a horse. Hoof fluff again.

I think this nailed the style without being as much of an outright copy. The bendy arms with fingers seem so silly but also I think that matches the vibe/artstyle.

G4.5 don't look like horses to me really at all though, they're like cats with hooves. Out of all of them we've seen so far they're suffering the most from "predator eyes" where they've gone so far as to make their eyes just face forward.

Generation 5

Generation 5 premiered with a CGI movie, so the toys that would be released are fairly on model with their movie selves except for the fact their heads are smack dab in the middle of their neck which i find extremely unsettling and dislike

We've gone full "predator eyes" (no the predator eyes thing doesnt 100% biologically hold up but I find them freaky and I get to say it) AND full human eyebrows stenciled in like a makeup vlogger in the same color as the hair.

The ears are back to cup shaped (more horselike) but again the face is round with a little muzzle (more catlike). The hooves have really detailed feathering on the legs. Otherwise the body is mostly just structured like the g4 body (except a bit longer) just with more specific horse details.

These continued the trend of having a lot more articulated versions with moving legs as well. I think given that most dolls these days have articulated elbows and knees, it is reasonable to expect the takara g5 dolls would too.

Again, I made a 3D model so I could keep it consistent from various angles.

ta-daaaa heres my takara pony generations 1-5 lineup! Tell me which youuuuur favorite are. if you want.