#I'm still having so much fun breaking down these designs to find my style

[draw-ren-draw]

[vetyr]

hi, i ireally love your work and i don't know if you've answered this before but, what kinds of studies do you do or how did you learn color theory? i wanna get better at rendering and anatomy but im having trouble TT TT

Hi! Long answer alert. Once a chatterbox, always a chatterbox.

When I started actively learning how to draw about 10 1/2 years ago, I exclusively did graphite studies in sketchbooks. Here's a few examples—I mostly stuck to doing line drawings to drill basic shapes/contours and proportions into my brain. The more rendered sketches helped me practice edge control & basic values, and they were REALLY good for learning the actual 3D structure behind what I was drawing.

I'd use reference images that I grabbed from fitness forums, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and some NSFW places, but you could find adequate ref material from figure drawing sites like Line of Action. LoA has refs for people (you can filter by clothed/unclothed, age, & gender), animals, expressions, hands/feet, and a few other useful things as well. Love them.

Learning how to render digitally was a similar story; it helped a lot that I had a pretty strong foundation for value/anatomy going in. I basically didn't touch color at all for ~2 years (except for a few attempts at bad digital or acrylic paint studies), which may not have been the best idea. I learned color from a lot of trial and error, honestly, and I'm pretty sure this process involved a lot of imitation—there were a number of digital/traditional painters whose styles I really wanted to emulate (notably their edge control, color choices, value distributions, and shape design), so I kiiind of did a mixture of that + my own experimentation.

For example, I really found Benjamin Björklund's style appealing, especially his softened/lost edges & vibrant pops of saturated color, so here's a study I did from some photograph that I'm *pretty* sure was painted with him in mind.

Learning how to detail was definitely a slow process, and like all the aforementioned things (anatomy/color/edge control/values/etc.) I'm still figuring it out. Focusing on edge control first (that is, deciding on where to place hard/soft edges for emphasizing/de-emphasizing certain areas of the image) is super useful, because you can honestly fool a viewer into thinking there's more detail in a piece than there actually is if you're very economical about where you place your hard edges.

The most important part, to me, is probably just doing this stuff over and over again. You're likely not going to see improvement in a few weeks or even a few months, so don't fret about not getting the exact results you want and just keep studying + making art. I like to think about learning art as a process where you *need* to fail and make crappy art/studies—there's literally no way around it—so you might as well fail right now. See, by making bad art you're actually moving forward—isn't that a fun prospect!!

It's useful to have a folder with art you admire, especially if you can dissect the pieces and understand why you like them so much. You can study those aspects (like, you can redraw or repaint that person's work) and break down whether this is art that you just like to look at, or if it's the kind of art that you want to *make.* There's a LOT of art out there that I love looking at, probably tens of thousands of styles/mediums, but there's a very narrow range that I want to make myself.

I've mentioned it in some ask reply in the past, but I really do think looking at other artist's work is such a cheat code for improving your own skills—the other artist does the work to filter reality/ideas for you, and this sort of allows you to contact the subject matter more directly. I can think of so many examples where an artist I admired exaggerated, like, the way sunlight rested on a face and created that orange fringe around its edge, or the greys/dull blues in a wheat field, or the bright indigo in a cast shadow, or the red along the outside of a person's eye, and it just clicked for me that this was a very available & observable aspect of reality, which had up until that point gone completely unnoticed! If you're really perceptive about the art you look at, it's shocking how much it can teach you about how to see the world (in this particular case I mean this literally, in that the art I looked at fully changed the way I visually processed the world, but of course it has had a strong effect on my worldviews/relationships/beliefs).

Thanks so much for sending in a question (& for reading, if you got this far)! I read every single ask I receive, including the kind words & compliments, which I genuinely always appreciate. Best of luck with learning, my friend :)

[songwolfwildblogs]

Sup I'm about to infodump for 1000+ words about my admin au. It might turn into fanfiction halfway through again

Part 1

So let's go over some fun stuff first then we go into the angst

So as mentioned at the end of the last infodump post, Error and Fresh are Killer’s sons. Error is adopted and Fresh is somehow biological.

Lemme explain.

Fresh was created via killer (who was still just admin at this point) finding a clutch of unhatched parasite eggs and using some of his magic to make them hatch being unaware that it would give Fresh his DNA via parasite magic-consuming bullshitery. Fresh was the only parasite in the clutch to hatch, the rest did not make it.

Fresh sort of imprinted on killer/admin when he hatched. Killer/admin was the first thing Fresh saw so in his baby parasite brain that meant parent.

Killer/admin had to deal with fresh constantly on his shoulder and having to hide him since at this point the council had formed and he didn't exactly trust the council fully.

Fresh grew up in an au specifically designed to cater to Fresh’s needs made by admin/killer, Fresh before he got his first body was already a bit spoiled but now that he had a body? All bets were off Killer/admin was spoiling this parasite rotten.

As for the whole error being adopted by admin/killer, I have no idea how that happened but Error is killer's son now (If you have any ideas lemme know)

The au fresh grew up in was unpopulated For the most part unless fresh needed a new host which was when admin/killer would make a new monster for fresh to take over indirectly teaching that anyone other than family are just potential hosts.

Fresh grew up watching mostly kids vhs tapes getting admin/killer to fix them with God powers when They broke. Fresh was also taught to sword fight by admin/killer but he gravitated towards a wiffle bat he found on the ground (error also taught him how to use explosives)

Fresh is kept a secret for a bit until Ink and Life (reapertale toriel) noticed that a few things were off. 1 there was an au that not even ink couldn't access, and 2 life sensed that a new life was created that felt similar to admin/killer, meaning that he had a biological kid somehow

So

During a meeting life asks about it and everyone just kinda slow turns while Killer/admin tries denying it before after being pressured admitted that he had kids and when someone asked what he meant by kids since life only asked about one, he refused to elaborate causing an argument to break out since the council don't know what to do with this information.

Meanwhile, error and admin/killer just kinda sit there awkwardly. Eventually, the argument dies down because the council has other problems. Eventually, fresh is old enough to leave the au he grew up in, and he begins to do fresh things. The council quickly learns (minus error since he already knew since fresh is his brother) that fresh is the son, life sensed which uh ya was kinda confusing.

Fresh has been offered a spot on the council since he is powerful due to his heritage. But he always refused because “that ain't my style”

Speaking of the council, (we’ll get back to the family dynamic don't you worry) why don't we talk about them?

The council members include:

The reapertale cast

Error

Ink

Dream

Nightmare

Core frisk

And Admin

The reapertale cast is mostly the same minus reaper getting his skull broken open but life tried her best to repair it (didn't really work but she tried)

Error is extremely loyal to his father being the only council to be flat out against the revolt other than Admin/killer himself. Error has a big sense of pride about his family (well mainly about admin/killer not much about fresh) and when his dad is overthrown he convinces himself that admin/killer has been wrongly overthrown and continues to stand by him. When killer faces trial and shows guilt he convinces himself that killer has been pressured and manipulated into seeing his past actions as wrong.

Dream in this au is a punk rocker who just wants to make music and shit but he was forced to joined the council since you can't exactly fight against the admin’s call. Dream is extremely critical towards the current state of the multiversal government and is constantly trying to propose solutions that would actually help people only for it to be rejected. When the revolt starts dream is the one leading the charge since he believes it will be the best thing for the multiverse

Ink is uh interesting. When the revolt started he didn't pick a side since he didn't exactly know what to do so why not just let the multiverse do its thing. Ink also has a weird relationship with Admin. Like admin will pick him up by the scarf when ink is getting rowdy and ink it's just a friend thing. Like admin finds ink annoying but ink thinks their friends level of weird.

Nightmare was also forced to join the council, he was doing his spreading negativity thing for a bit but then when he had to join the council he had to follow multiversal law meaning he had to get government approval beforehand if they wanted continue going on missions which everyone in the gang (including nightmare) hated and they tried to object to it but it didn't go down well

Core frisk is mostly the same but is probably the most qualified member of the council

The council after the revolt are still in place but begin opening seats to allow new members to be elected (error is currently on trial for his role in being against the revolt but I'd postponed for now and he's on probation, Fresh is being Monitored)

The elections are still underway by the time Killer is caught.

let's get into an ending I mentioned previously but didn't go into full detail about

The ending where killer takes back his place as admin

I call this ending “It runs in the family” (warning this a bit edgy)

This ending Happens when Killer does not improve and remains the same. He sneaks out of the castle, finds his sons, and after some fuckery he proves he's the admin… and the group decides To take back the throne. there are two ways this could go, probable version where they lose and get killed. The other version is where they win and take back the throne after a lot of bloodshed, nightmare and ink are spared due to nightmare taking in killer and ink because he didn't participate in the revolt and core frisk saw this coming and closed off the omega timeline

when killer takes back the place of admin he decides he was too nice last time and becomes even more of a tyrant and makes his sons the new council causing a Never Ending cycle of the 3 of them agreeing and not changing anything ruining the lives of those under them. Fresh and Error get some aus to rule over which you can guess how that goes (badly, the answer is badly)

But yeah the runs in the family ending is uh… ya

If you have any ideas for this au lemme know, also thank you to the neverniko discord for helping me with ideas aswell as my irl bestie!

Also if you have any ideas let know!

[velvetvexations]

gender is so silly. i dont want to look like a girl because im transmasc but i DO want to look like a guy who looks like a girl. always fun when reading/watching something and they get to a crossdressing bit with one of the men and i feel some sort of way about it

This is exactly what TRFs would be down your throat about fetishizing transmisogynistic caricatures but I'm telling you it's okay and I'm the only person worth listening to on any subject.

I want to look like a girl who looks like a guy myself, but that's difficult to find. A vocal minority of the internet insists it's praxis to misgender cis men as often as possible but it's still considered a devastating and disgusting insult to say a woman looks masculine. I think Rhea Ripley is cool enough she'd be understanding if not entirely flattered that most of the reason I relate to her so much is that I was convinced she must have been a trans woman on sight.

But even with actual trans women, then it's even worse, which sucks because I do a happy little clap when I clock another correctly. Awhile ago I saw someone listing out signs a girl is AMAB to be a transphobic asshole but all I could think was about how ecstatic I'd be for someone to tell me those things, I'd just straight up be like "thank you for noticing!" like someone asked if I had my hair done.

I think that's what it means to me to be a male woman. Most trans women would obviously prefer to pass, and there are butch trans women, but I don't know if many of them conceptualize their butchness as being a feature of the body that got them AMAB or if it's just the same sense of style as butch-identifying cis women. For me it's very much the former. I'm loud and proud that my body is the kind that was assigned male. I don't intend to imply that must mean trans women who want to pass, or who don't center that physicality, hate themselves or anything, it's just a different path.

When I was younger I wanted so badly to look less masculine. The fact that I couldn't is, I think, a large part of why I eventually flipped the script and went all in on being masc, but most trans women who can't physically transition are either going to kill themselves or continue being miserable forever, and that sucks so much.

Even now, when I say I've been getting cooler with body hair lately, that doesn't mean I'm proud of or enjoy the hair on my actual body, but am more into the idea of my sona's design potentially having body hair in the future. I'm completely disassociated with this body entirely, which pre-dates me embracing masculinity. At a certain point, not being able to look the way I wanted to (feminine, then hyper-androgynous) made me snap and just fully break off from the physical world. This is especially true of Rally, the cis woman in our system, because the others feel themselves in this body but simply don't have a mental image of it at all, but she feels entirely removed even when fronting.

And as I noted before, my two examples of people I want to look like, particularly in regards to being visibly AMAB, were a clocky cis woman and a guy who the internet calls a faggot a million times a day, so there's still femininity there, androgyny.

Presentation sure is a thing.

[clambuoyance]

I really like your style. Was it intentionally designed, or did you just sort of fall into it over time?

I wouldnt say I intentionally designed it, as in I haven't sat down and Engineered a specific style, and instead it was more of me finding what I liked and wanted to incorporate into my style.

You could probably trace my style back to its influences. I used to draw really round shapes (I still do but like they were just ovals and circles...I guess i just like that shape) until I started watching How to Draw Anime tutorials in middleschool T-T (shoutout to Mark Crilley lol)

But when I first joined social media back in 2016, I found all these crazy artists with really unique styles that really influenced me. I was drawn towards artists like star_bite/prince_canary and rawrgyle/grassflu who have very dynamic expressions and character poses :0 (also they ended up working on a Batman and Superman project respectively and how wild is it that my icons from forever ago now work on projects aligned with my current interests!!!) And as you get exposed to different artists you get exposed to the many ways you can Draw things and along with your natural affinities towards certain things (such as me being attracted to Bright and Bold colors and Shaped styles) you kind of naturally build a style.

And part of that is also just having fun Trying things out? Sometimes I wouldnt even try to emulate their style as much as I tried to just...do what they were doing? As in making my ocs and putting them in fun poses, and doing color palette trends and such etc.

I hope that helped! If you're curious I can break down some of my style checkpoints over the years. As you can see there was still some major anime influence in my style back then when I first joined social media around 2015/2016

Around that time, I also discovered the fandom around the Cartoons popular at the time, so I drifted away from anime and drew things like gravity falls/steven universe/otgw etc etc so it got Rounder I guess. I really liked how stylized characters looked and got obsessed with Shape Language and assigning characters distinct Shapes (box vs triangle vs circle etc). I also read a lot of webcomics and stuff like that so those played a part I guess

And then around 2019 I saw more artists drawing anime fanart with really sharp angles, which was completely different but so cool to look at so I tried to incorporate more angles into my art. I still had that very cartoony style but tried to push the Sharpness a tad bit more if you can tell. (I think the name of the artist I liked was jeluto?)

I think around this time I also focused a lot more on color as well and did a lot of paintings then and whenever I did more Painterly stuff I tended to switch Styles into something Less Cartoony T-T

Then by 2020, I revamped my ocs, actually tried to break down and study my own style and how I would draw them, and my style kinda fell into a mix of round vs sharp edges I guess. I tried to give myself Rules which I would follow when stylizing a character to keep it more consistent and intentional.

Then in 2021 some of that Fun Part of stylizing characters into something more Cartoony kind of took a backseat as I focused more on Pose Work and Body Expression instead which I think helped a lot :0

And here's some recent stuff from the past year! Still very cartoony, but less so than 2016 I'd say, and still using really bold colors!! Still love my Soft Vs Hard angles B]

And overall have stronger pose work :) I'm sure my style will evolve as I learn more and experiment more, because one thing I want to focus on is backgrounds and environments :0

[spot-splatter-splash]

We all know I love the Storm E. era content for this franchise (Lalaloopsy Girls & We're Lalaloopsy). But! I'm willing to admit that it is flawed. As much as I put it on a pedestal for it's humor, It's only fair that I acknowledge the strong point of the Webisodes and Nick Jr. Series. The animation.

Where I (personally) feel that the later pair adds more in terms of personality for the cast with the dynamic between Storm E. and Jewel being my favorite to watch and explore. The animation in those series does feel stiff when held next to the earliest set of media.

A lot of the time Its because of how sharp the joints are when they bend as opposed to the earlier series rounding them out. That created the ragdoll feel that the later series lack which breaks immersion.

This could have been a budgeting issue due to the declining popularity of the franchise. The puppet style animation bends at odd and sometimes sharp angles. Which breaks the illusion of them being rag dolls.

Mind you there is a way to make that style look good, if im not wrong the earlier series were rigs too. Just designed with more attention to the ragdoll feel. The bendiness of the limbs and squashing and stretching for emphasis when interacting with certain objects. Good examples that come to mind are Mouse and Pix E. In the episode Flight Plan And Peanut. In general Peanut has some of the cleanest animation.

While I hail the later series for the personality they give the characters that is not to say I think the eariler media is boring or does it poorly. I find the Webisodes and Nick Jr. Series really cute and pleasant to watch. But they also had more characters to work with and had to split that attention between them.

I have seen comments about the cast being boring in We're Lalaloopsy. A criticism which is subjective of course. But one I struggle to see. (I also see a lot of people shoot Storm E. down as being too mean. A rant for another post surely).

And while I acknowledge the subjectivness of it. I think Jewel, Storm E. and Spot are really well done in that series.

Spots is still an energetic artist who doesnt mind a mess. But added onto that she doesn't like conflict, struggles to voice her thoughts when frustrated, get attached easily, is eccentric and pleasantly weird, sensitive and forgiving almost to a fault. And yet still stands as her own person capable of putting her foot down when she reaches her breaking point. Shes lovable and I adore a weird girl whos just so comfortable being weird.

Jewel is clearly rising the ranks of favoritism. Shes still 'perfectly perfect' Jewel having a checklist for everything she deems important enough too. But now shes someone who can be easily frustrated, doesn't enjoy her schedule or plans being disrupted or altered, kinda of ditzy yet not entirely stupid. She focuses on herself to the point she talks over others and cant see that shes being an issue and has to be reined in. Perfectly perfect Jewel is actually wildly flawed. Shes not malicious but can come off as hostile or petty. Shes dramatic, a primadonna, self richeous and sometimes holier-than-thou and needs to have others correct her or to fail to learn and better herself. I am wildly enamored by this. She sucks shes my favorite. Her flaws are what makes her so fun to watch.

Finally Storm E. Shes polarizing and due to her being the most recent doll to make it into the animated series theres not much to compare her to. By design shes suppose to be the odd one out. A black sheep. I see a lot of critique about her being too different which is the point. Shes often yeilded as this unlikable asshole by some of the really critical fans but I feel that doesnt do Storm E. justice.

Shes different by design in both media shes in. Shes has a dry sense of humor, isn't as comfortable with affection as the other girls, isn't as open about her feelings as others, tends to fall to the back of the pack and a bit of a loner. But she's not a bad person. She does care about others she just has a hard time showing it. It does bother her when she hurts other people with her behavior.

We're Lalaloopsy handles this with her dynamic with Spot and Jewel. Spot is someone she has a soft spot for. Shes more open to Spot being in her space and feels like Spot kind of gets her as another artist. Spot likes Storm E. as she is. Her personality isn't the problem to Spot, it's certain actions that are. And that soft spot for Spot doesnt stop Spot from getting hurt. Storm E. (like Jewel) doesn't necessarily intend to harm others with her behavior. Intent doesn't negate hurting someone and Storm E. learns that. She does feel remorse and is apologetic. I like that shes never urged to be more like the others just corrected when her actions hurt someone.

Which is why her and Jewel work so well. They parallel eachother. Both of them have a tendancy to focus on and put themselves above others without any real malice behind it. Jewel needs to feel important and Storm E. feels she had to be independent. Storm E. is misunderstood and Jewel is melodramatic. Theyre polar opposites on the serface yet are so similar when cross examined. They clash but also relate to eachother.

The others get unique little peronality quirks too. Crumbs is very particular to an obsessive degree, Rosy will put herself last at the expense of her own well being and is anxious, Dot frequently fails, yet is excited by any chance to invent something.

Tangent oops, this post is getting long. The point is every bit of media for this series has merit and def worth watching for whatever it offers. Could be a good laugh, clean animation, fun dynamics, or a unique take on an old favorite.

Feel free to ask me about characters I can write essays about some of them. I know I haven't talked much about proper reboot stuff and thats because I'm in the process of watching everything I can to get a feel for the extended cast.

[s1llydr3amscape]

Here some ye olde Vanessa designs i managed to find sifting through my sketchbooks (pre sb!!!!) There's more but Its really deep in the trenches.

rip their 4head broo they have no brain 😔

I miss doing stylised stuff tbh but ppl bullied me for it so now whenever I do it I go 😭

very old art vs my current art style and oc's below + rambles :

this was right After the freaking posters released and oughhhh 😭😭😭😭 gurlll

top name cut off that Blaine guy are other human ocs I had for years!! They were in a comic with Vanessa and others heheheh I used to do comics 24/7!!! Ft my old fnaf ocs rival to fazbears who was better at keeping the safety aspect off their robots. I wanna ramble abt them too one day after a heavy rehaul. Vanessa actually switched jobs from my oc location to the Pizzaplex in it!!!! Because I hope Vanny and Vanessa were seperate!!!

Vanessa and Vanny were seperate people in my Rabbit City AU but idk if I still want them to be different or the same now. Also one of Glitchtraps workers who managed to break free from his control and he didn't like that and sent every piece of her crimes online on the Internet as this crazed murder. So now she's in a new city under hiding or face criminal charges she didn't commit willingly. She managed to dye her fur and change enough and became a roadie for this band that's not very good. (Ffps rockstars I love yall funky vibe I'm sorry yall died too soon). She wants to help people and protect them she knows there's others under Glitchtrap’s control and wants to put a stop to him. Sadly some off them don't seem like they want any help... She was a beagle dog because when I saw her I was like beagle!!!!

My longest one is my oc story that's bad and outdated which included 3 rap battles (i love rap sue me) and an orange cat with green eyes with wings mc who's name try and guess

Its Winger.... (yeah because he was based off Scootaloo having small wings so young me thought ohhh Winged but like Winger because unlike scootaloo he can fly and is a winner!!! 💀💀💀 he also had beef with nyan cat oc over a girl and could transform into different elements!!! Like nature fire ice and rainbow... the main main main mc tho is a brown green eyed cat who was half robot after an accident... God looking back what was I on (I got into mlp and had unrestricted Internet access)

then we had this off my old sona... I didn't know how to draw fat could you tell... dark times oughhhh I wasn't blind tho then win 💀 alot of my older older art is traditional so you may not see it unless I sift through 17 layers off hell. Wish I backed up more of my 2019-2020 digital art tho but those were the darkest times for me also wait eewwww no eyebrows

ive gotten better and fr be the change you wanna see in this world draw fat bitches!!!! going down the rabbit hole

that one barbie trend I didn't finish look at the hands boy ouggh insane sauce I drew that

I miss drawing like this lowkey but my hand hurty and god ibis crashes every 25 minutes u was gonna gonna feral bro

self love is drawing urself accurately irl after years of drawing a caricatures of yourself (My first human sona ever was a skinny white woman with long neon yellow hair and a purple streak </3)

Gremlin from earlier I learned color theory aswell but only for purple, green and brown oops <333

I figured I could give it an oval nose because I didn't know how to draw my nose at all. Big ass nose death off me real!!! I love :3 face so much and big ass ears!!!! I will make them have big ass ears they are fun!!!!

These are my sonas I have like 4 rn and a million in thr vault (progress is progressing)

old oc his name is Jamie now and he's from a dream I had. Literally an incel too like he's studying magic got so fed up no one in his own world wanted him. Used magic to find his soul mate who existed in another universe. Made a portal to get there and take her back to his world because he wouldn't comply in a non magic world. When he arrived to her world almost died turning white and green. And like still managed to get the girl back to his world (Akuma's a goober who wanted to be isekaid) and yeah. Like huh my guy chill out 😭😭😭😭 no wonder you ain't getting any. He also killed me in the dream and is so dumb for being a prodigy??? Like he made a business selling illegal potions with the company name just vile.... his own initials... like bro how are you not caught. I can't with him. I pray opun his downfall and can't wait to see what other shit he pulls outta his ass. I feel bad for the Akuma she just wanted to escape not knowing this guy a freak.

heres him now!! He's much more dream accurate with the current events so far!!!!! If he appears next time I hope he croaks fr from the magic sickness like bro u a freak freak /neg

But yeah improvement is real!!! my art process is slower now (carpal tunnel) but I love to draw so much it is so fun if my bitchass ibis won't crash that is hehehehe (it crashed a million times trying to first time make a comic digitally I'm 💥💥💥)

[arthurn9]

Opal, Byroden, And a Sense of Mexican/Latino Culture in Exandria

Aimee Carrero is a treasure for bringing Opal to life. She's absolutely my favorite character in EXU, and it's not even close. (That is to say, I love them all, but Opal is just...she's everything. Charismatic, fun to talk to, friendly, a little ditzy and naive, full of herself, show-offy...I could only dream of making PCs like her (and I have tried lol).) And while the character is amazing in and of herself, what she represents actually means so much more to me.

A little backstory. Breaking kayfabe a little here, don't worry, it can still be real to you, damn it, but I am not, in fact, a blue-skinned tiefling with sky blue hair and a silly tail in what some would call "the real world". I'm of Latino descent, specifically Mexican-American, first generation. My parents are from Chihuahua and Durango, Mexico, respectively, and came to the US to make a better life for themselves, finding each other and bringing me into this world in the process. Spanish was my first language, and although it's long since been supplanted by English as my default language, I still speak it enthusiastically when with my family.

I grew up going to fiestas, celebrated several quinceañeras for various cousins and my own sister, went to misa (church service) every Sunday as a good Catholic boy, and took several trips to Mexico over the years to visit grandparents and family.

And at some point, I kind of grew ashamed of that.

Apparently, it's not entirely that uncommon, and kind of understandable. For me, it's hard to say what caused this change in my mentality. It might have been because all around me, everyone spoke English and lived the culture of America (which is a paradox in its own right, considering the hodgepodge of culture that is America). Maybe it was leftover resentment from being put into basic ESL courses in 1st and 2nd grade despite being one of the fastest-learning readers of English in Kindergarten. (I won the limo-pizza party prize from Dominos for reading so many books, damn it!)

Whatever the case, by 6th grade, I was almost exclusively speaking English everywhere, only begrudgingly speaking Spanish when talking to my parents because that's basically all they spoke. I rolled my eyes at things like Pinatas at birthday parties and going to Church (though that might have just been my growing agnosticism). Hell, even my name changed; Arthur is just the Anglicized version of my real name. I'll let you figure that out. And in high school it got really bad. I basically had to take Spanish classes to get back some semblance of speaking the language, and even then I wasn't super happy doing it.

Since then, after maturing a fair amount, I've recovered most of my Spanish speaking ability and patched things up, largely, with my parents. Turns out moving out is all I needed to get the ball rolling! How about that.

Part of that recovery journey has been connecting a bit more over time with my Latino roots. Movies like Coco and Encanto helped recover my interest in a lot of those roots, and I started to more and more gain confidence in those roots. Slowly but surely I started to weave those Mexican roots back into my own storytelling. My favorite Original Characters, Rhys and Uniqua Plateado (from a RWBY AU called AXUR I made with my best friend that I may talk about some day) were deeply entrenched in Mexican/Spanish roots (or the Remnant equivalent of same), with Uniqua in particular deriving her battle style/armor design from both Spanish Flamenco and Mexican Jarabe. More and more of my writing was influenced by the culture of Mexico and the American Southwest.

And then the bomb that is Opal dropped.

To quote Aimee Carrero: "My first question when creating Opal was: 'What’s the Exandria equivalent of Laredo, TX?'"

It turns out that through talking to Matt Mercer, Aabria Iyengar, and creative down at Whitestone Towers (yes I did just make another wrestling joke What Of It), Aimee had created a hub of Exandrian-flavored Mexican culture. Before, Byroden was just a town in the twins' backstory, the site of tragic loss. Now, it was a lively community filled with wonderful cuture, debutant balls, and so much potential.

Because of that inspiration, I was able to finally fill in the gaps for my most beloved player characters' backstories. I was able to find a home for the Cena family, now officially retconned to be their true form: Ex-icans! (please don't shoot me it's a bad name but it's got spirit)

I was able to integrate its culture into my own campaigns. Several prominent Latino wizarding/magic families now live there in my campaigns' version of Exandria. Spanish flows there, and you can visit La Purisima Panaderia for a sweet treat (definitely named for a wonderful Panaderia in my local area that popped one of my players, another Latino native to the area). My main OC family, the Cena's, has a set of triplets among then, two of them (the bitchy, bratty ones) named after two characters from a legendary meme-worthy telenovela (and yes, this was mostly to have one of them spout the funny catchphrase). The third was named for my most beloved Aunt Leticia, who resides in my soul even 13 years after her passing. (Also apparently also named for the protagonist of said telenovela but that was actually a complete accident. Also the elder sister was named for an alias the protagonist of that telenovela takes at one point you know what I'm just gonna say I'm the 6th remake of Betty La Fea and be done with it.)

I was even able to put some of my own mother's heritage in my games! In my version of Byroden, a family owns a toy shop (that has all sorts of cool arcane toys and gadgets). However, its biggest attraction is an arcane doll that supposedly was a human woman at one point...and she sits dormant, celebrated every year by the people of Byroden around the point of Harvest's End. This was inspired by a similar story of a mannequin supposedly created by an embalmed bride-to-be, a legend in Chihuahua.

While I could definitely have done this on my own in some way, having that inspiration come when it did, when my own journey to recover that identity was at its peak, did so much to help show me how cool it could be to integrate that into my storytelling. I'm more excited than ever to implement my roots into my storytelling, and it's all thanks to one cute girl with white hair, a pink jacket, and a penchant for tying good knots. So thank you, Aimee Carrero. Now please bring my girl home, spider mommy is scawy and I don't wanna say goodbye to my giiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrrrlllllllllll

also on another note though it's never been properly discussed Vax and Vex are a bit brown canonically and are from Byroden so um....maybeIheadcanonthatWeClaimThemokaybye

[acertainmoshke]

Happy STS! What are your go-to/preferred writing tools? Favorite pen types, notebooks, keyboards, etc, but it doesn't have to be limited to just those things. Writing programs, favorite reference books, thesauruses, dictionaries, TTS software, whiteboards, corkboards, flash cards, encyclopedias, anything goes!

Nooooooooooo Nopal you don't know what you've done! How could you know I have an actual special interest in this??

So I am obsessed with notebooks but also REALLY picky about them. My handwriting is teeny so I don't like big lines, and I think it looks neater and prettier with smaller lines anyway. The covers can have a cool pattern or be plain if it's a nice color and high-quality enough. I do occasionally make exceptions; my current journal is fairly cheap with large lines, but it's a rare older Batman one in my favorite color with bat-tech designs on all the pages and a light-up bat signal on the color, so it was worth it. My newly discovered favorite notebook aspect is ones that are designed so the pages lay flat and it's easier to write. Oh, and I LOATHE spiral notebooks. The big school-style ones are ok for random notes or anything unimportant, but the smaller little ones that are normal book size are absolutely worthless. The spirals always come undone before I'm done with them.

I'm also picky about writing utensils. I keep a journal strictly in pen so it can't fade and I can't get embarrassed and erase it. I write stories strictly in pencil because I WILL need to erase and try out lines. But, although I'm using one currently for my big-lined Batman journal, in general I can't stand large ballpoints. By which I mean 0.7, which is pretty standard. 0.5 is ok, but I much prefer the rarer smaller pens. I used to have a Japanese friend who I would get to send me 0.35 pens because they are normal there but expensive over here. In pencils anything under 0.5 is impractical, but I like the fancy mechanical pencils with a nice grip and a dent that lets you dig out the eraser even after it's erased down. My current one is teal.

None of that answered your question but it was necessary anyway. And this is getting too long so the actual answer is going under a cut.

We'll see how long I can keep it going, but I like to write my stories on paper. Of course, it's not worth starting a nice new notebook if I'm unlikely to finish it and it's impractical if I don't have a clear idea of the basic story, because jumping around out of order is impossible. I like it though because it forces me to slow down and think about each scene; I can't rush the way I do when typing. It also gives me a built-in edit when I copy it up, so by the time I'm editing a full draft it's already technically a second draft. And it's convenient because I can take it to work and write on my breaks, or if I'm waiting in line at the post office, or anywhere I happen to find myself.

I do still write on the computer, of course, for fanfiction or just-for-fun things I'll never finish or stories I'm still figuring out. When I do truly long-form things I like to use work because I hate the way Google docs looks (controversial, I know). But for short things, or worldbuilding, or fanfic, I like to use Notion. I like that I can nest pages within each other endlessly. It makes my autistic organizing brain buzz.

I recently discovered that I enjoy using actual notecards pinned to a corkboard for initial plot planning. I can't always do this, and I make outlines too for more detail, but being able to physically move stuff around in real space helps my brain focus on what is actually important to include.

Thank you sooooo much for giving me a chance to ramble about this!!

[doubleddenden]

I got to play Indigo Disk a bit after some trials and tribulations.

MY opinions after a few hours: enjoying it but frustrating that things are still not fixed.

The good:

Environments look pretty great, especially indoor ones. Outside environments dip in quality but look much better than Paldea or Kitakami

Music is fun in all sorts of ways I can't spoil. We lost some dynamic music, but the substitute is worth it

The characters so far are a hoot and have some hilarious dialog and banter. I love how much of a piece of shit Drayton is, and new Kieran, imo, is way more entertaining than old uwu shy bean Kieran. He's ironically hilarious trying to act all badass while being like... 12 lol. I'm happy to see Carmine again too, she's toned down and a little more friendly but her fun bitchy side comes out sometimes and makes me smile.

The mid:

The difficulty is very refreshing. I was thinking that the pokeinfluencers were being led on because they were given awful teams, but the struggle is real. I fought 2 trainers with life orbs, a double intimidate strategy, helping hands, it's actually refreshingly difficult and kind of giving me Colosseum vibes.

Synchronization is also fun! I tested it out with my shiny Hisuian Samurott, and it's super neat. It's like a step beyond Let's Go mode imo, and it's fine until you have to stop because you- despite having a move with a type advantage- get folded after getting hit once by a Pokémon with a technical type advantage. But I did notice that Samurott swims really well, too, so its not just flying, and there seems to be no limit to how far you can go within the terrarium- although you can't go beyond it apparently to use it.

Maybe it's just me, but something about the new uniforms just aren't clicking. We get about 6 uniforms early on, which is refreshing, but for some reason it doesn't look as good in practice as it did in promotion. I can't really find anything I'm 100% happy with for my character despite knowing some of these designs have lots of merit.

Idk, I'm really missing being able to match tops and bottoms like the old days. Like if you gave me the track top with the winter pants, I'd be pretty stoked. Or maybe give me something actually like Drayden or Kieran's jackets. Idk man. It's not bad, I'll say that, but I'm not satisfied.

The bad:

Performance remains unchanged. I'm not joking when I say Game Freak really needs to give back that award for "excellence" they got a while back until they finish the damn game and stop publishing unfinished crap for full price and beyond, because this is beyond unacceptable, NOT excellent, and at this point and I'm tired of nothing being done about it. It is so immersion breaking when environments flicker and pop in and out during dialog and exploration, and the slow downs... ugh. Not to mention I had a game breaking glitch where I exited a store and couldn't move or open menus or anything- my first time encountering this particular glitch as far as I can recall, and I lost progress. Like come tf on Game Freak. You've had OVER A FUCKING GOD DAMN YEAR after launch to fix things. They really must have abandoned ship at this point, and honestly they should be ashamed that it's not optimized for the ONLY system the game and dlc are available for at the moment after all of this time.

World's Richest Franchise, TM

Minor nitpicks are the new hair and accessories which... suck ngl. Aside from an Electabuzz family themed backpack, nothing new here really sparks joy, especially the hair styles, which look boring, bland, bad, or not enough.

Overall:

I'm enjoying what I can, but the bad stuff still docks points, so 6/10 so far, which is just barely passing. May go higher, may go lower as I progress further.

You may think I'm harsh, but honestly it's deserved for a product that was paid for. You can enjoy a bad game, but the game seriously needs optimization on the fucking double.

[cidthesquid]

My First Look At: Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Mega Mix+

If anyone here has been wondering what's been eating up all my free time recently, it's been this game.. "Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Mega Mix+" I don't know if I've mentioned this here, but my three favorite game types are actually ARPGs, Fighting Games and Rhythm games! And now I've found a really fun Rhythm game with Fashion elements!

Clearing songs, and improving your scores gets you points that you can use to unlock new outfits for the various characters, and there are a TON of choices:

Not only that, but you can even mix and match outfits and hair styles, to find something you think suits the look better.

(This changes the hair, and some face features such as makeup)

You'll have multiple accessory slots as well, and you can attach one item in each spot to further customize your look:

(Some of these are very silly, But they're fun to try out!)

I'ts really fun to try out various custom outfits when playing songs! You only get 4 'Custom slots' but for songs that have multiple singers, you'll be able to edit all of them, still only taking up a single slot.

The game only has one standard 'mode', with a few difficulty options. But you'll also have the option to practice specific parts, or you can watch a 'music video' of the song, where it plays its self with the hud removed. (show in the above gif)

As for the characters... I was never much of a miku fan before, Only hearing a few songs in other games, I never sought out her content. And while I won't break down all the characters, I will talk about my impressions of Hatsune Miku.

One game is not much to go on, but she definitely feels like one of those “Universal Appeal” characters, I'm by no means bother by that. But it just means they can't really give her any kind of personality,

On the other hand, it is nice to know that means they don't simply confine her to sticking with one style for her songs.

The game offers a wide range of Vocaloid music, each with a (swappable) lead singer.

And even though Miku's song's are mostly cute and up beat, there are a few edgier and slightly darker ones too. So I'd argue my opinion of Miku has improved overall, as before, I'd really only hear her more popular hits in 'Taiko no Tasujin', and just seeing her posted everywhere as gifs and avatars, I'm not sure if I'd call myself a 'huge Miku fan' but I am enjoying this game.

-- And, as for what character I played the most.. Well, If you've followed my content for any amount of time, You probably already know what type of characters I generally gravitate to:

It looks like Meiko is supposed to be the 'Cool Girl'/Mature Character, But much of her outfit selection feels a bit off to me:

(sorry for the small preview, it's just for reference) It looks like they wanted to give here the tomboy style personality, but they don't really have any outfits that match that, (...Okay, maybe I'm just projecting the personality I want on to her, but the But this game does not really give you a whole lot to go on..) Lots of 'cute' outfits, with only a few mature ones thrown in, (And some of the mature ones honestly feel a little generic) And then there's stuff like these, feels like the start of a good outfit, but then goes a little off the rails... (they look way too busy)

I have no problems with offering revealing outfits as an option, I've play games using some myself. But I just don't personally find these visually appealing. It really feels like they were too afraid to branch out with her outfit styles I really feel they should have given her better variety, or at least a specific style that stood out more from the rest. I'm not even sure what's going on with here 'modern' outfit (left) I feel they could have used some of the cool designs from luka (right)

But anyways, I really don't know anything about Vocaloid culture, maybe I missed the point, and this all perfectly fits Meiko's personality, IDK, (let me know in the comments) ..But I still work have preferred more options. --- Anyway, I've still been having a blast playing this game! and even though the fashion elements are fairly light, I still enjoyed them. Oh and just as a disclaimer, I was using a few QOL mods in this post, So be aware that some things (like having English subs) may be different from the vanilla game! Anyways, thanks for reading! (comments/constructive criticism is always welcome!)

[papirouge]

Do you have a fashion inspo blog?

Well, although I'm a millennial and technically from the generation that made blogging popular I have never been into fashion blog like that

Even when I was studying fashion I was more into reading magazines/industry news than blogs

It didn't stop me from digging a particular individual style though. And on that aspect, as far as I know, Toru Inagawa has been my biggest style crush. I discovered him because he was often featured into TUNE magazine (streetstyle magazine) and I immediately fell in love lol. I'm a sucker for everything oversize so I quickly became obsessed with him and his pants and knitwear

Fun fact: I am such a fan of him that when I went to Tokyo I was adamant in going to his second hand shop (he's the owner) and bought gorgeous oversize denim pants there. The same day I made an Instagram story tagging him and he looked at it 😳💗 Biggest "Sempai noticed me" moment!!! lmaoo

Toru in his younger/streetstyle days:

him lately (he's becoming finer tbh 👀)

he's super hot idc lol

For female inspo it definitely was Tsubasa Masuwaka. She peaked big time during her gyaru days ; her way of coordinating sporty items (beanies, varsity tees & socks) with more fashionable pieces (denim, cowboy boots) has always fascinated me

But beside her sense of style, the way she conducted herself, being so confident in her taste and how to properly convey it in the shootings she was featured in was very inspiring.

There's this documentary about her on youtube ; even if you don't understand Japanese you can have a glimpse of her style and allure (starting from the 4:00 mark). Keep in mind this was 15 years ago, so this style might come off as kinda dated but even today I think she still she had that visionary je ne sais quoi which totally explains why she is to this day the queen of a 10 millions yen empire lol Tsubasa has always been a smart businesswoman

I remember obsessively trying to buy that exact same kind beanie at New Look. Tsu chan really got young wannabe gyaru me on a chokehold lol

Today, now that gyaru fell off and she getting older, her style became pretty underwhelming (it a hit or miss really...). I'm currently reading her book "Tsubasa REAL" and the fashion chapter is okay, but it's nowhere as "WOW" as it was back when she got a big break as a gyaru dokusha model. It's interesting to see her rocking designer brand more than she ever did (in that documentary she's making a Shimamura haul - basically the equivalent of Primark in Japan) but....she never manages to pull it off and always looks like she's cosplaying

left: wearing Burberry and MiuMiu, right: wearing Prada and Gucci

Though it seems more like a global movement in the reiwa era, which is more beauty than fashion oriented(?)

I replied to an ask where I more thoroughly elaborated on the whole difference of era in Japan but to put it bluntly, reiwa is much more conservative and "safe" (styl & make up ise) so it makes sense that Tsubasa is going along and toned down her style?

I find fascinating how her makeup style perfectly represent the Heisei vs Reiwa aesthetic shift

Heisei: glamorous/big hair, tanned/glolden skin, heavy eye makeup & eyelashes, thin eyebrows, glossy lips, shimmer...

Reiwa: pale skin, little to no eye makeup, strong eyebrow, 涙袋/ namidabukuro (drawn or surgically enhanced tearbag to look more youthful)..

The last day I was (re)watching her video of listing all her plastic surgery and she admitted messing up her face with hyaluronic acid because she was so insecure about her big round shaped head, and used hyaluronic acid to have a sharper face, but the hyaluronic acid eventually migrated on her cheeks which made her face even rounder 💀 so now she's trying to fix it with HIFU (which is some sort of electrosound muscle treatment...). She lowkey sounds addicted but that's how far narcissism will get you.... (and it seems well ingrained in the family since she said her own parents told her when she was still in middle school to pinch her nose with a clothespin 1 hour a day to have a high nose bridge (which she did) 💀 and when people clown her for having weird shaped nostril she said it hurt her feelings because that's her "natural features"....like?? bestie, maybe if you didn't mess up your nose cartilage during your growth development your nostrils wouldn't look so weird. There's nothing 'natural' about it 😬)

This woman started getting plastic surgery very young (in her early 20s with eyelid surgery) and did so continuously up until now (she's in her mid 30s) so that explains why she's looking so uncanny when she doesn't have her pictures monitored/filtered to hell and back. Tsubasa has the same syndrome as Kylie Jenner, which is women trying to fit into a very specific beauty aesthetic that only looks good on Instagram but in reality looks super uncanny.

[risu5waffles]

EXCUSE ME? No one was gonna tell me it was TEN yesterday?

Honestly, y'all just left me hangin' out to dry there. i still love you, but i'm holding on to these cupcakes. [ed.'s note: risuko has no cupcakes]

It's like JplusK made this level expressly for me. Just look at that puppet! Look at it! Seriously, tho', the level is cute wivout being twee, and quirky wivout being overbearing. It's got that over-large, heavy angled build style i love so much. It's expansive, but moves along quickly enough it doesn't feel like it was overstaying its welcome. The power-up introduces a fun gameplay mechanic that can be a little challenging, but not so much you find yourself questioning why. i could have maybe done wivout the fart jokes, but that's just 'cause i'm such a classy gal. But that's really my only complaint, and it's not so frequent as to be too off putting. i tried another of JplusK's levels to see if this was a one-off, or their general idiom, and unfortunately that one, while it looked neat, was heavily focused on doing... clever things wiv jetpacks that may, in fact be clever if you're good at it, but mostly wound up being frustrating to me in the end. There might be a physics difference in there too, but i'm more than willing to say it just didn't click wiv my skill set.

We talked about this last week, and it continues to be what it is, tho' as of writing it continues to be what it is wiv the addition of a pink ribbon. It's nice to know i called it in my review.

This is just a giveaway level for some logic bits we got screwed out of in LBP3, because someone at Sumo forgot (i'm being charitable here) to enable the tutorials that would unlock them. It leaves me pretty salty, tho', seeing as they were part of the DC and Move Pack DLCs; like if you spent money on those, you should be able to get the lot of it, you know? Not that Sumo seems to really care.

We took a play through chairoCAT's CAT RESTAURANT way back in LittleBite-sizedArchive #137, but this one is a very different kettle of fish. Instead of a tightly contained series of minigames, we've got a quite expansive pseudo-underwater platformer that is a lot of fun (even if it gets a touch long in the tooth by the end). But the red thread between the two is the presentation. Highly detailed, wiv a lot of charm. All the little fish you interact wiv are just cute as buttons, and it really elevates the whole affair. Those porkypine fish, tho', gods but i could die. This one's really, really good.

i played this one for the old review show waaaaaay back in the day, and just fell in love wiv it. The gameplay really isn't much of much, but it's far more interested in showing off Kimuko's chops in environmental design and custom stickering. Seriously, the art here is just something else. i wish i could say the same about the music selection; i get what they're going for, and i don't not appreciate it, but gods i just hate every single one of the 50's pop tracks. Easily (personally speaking) the worst part of LBP3's story mode. Which is a total shame, because the Manglewood levels have some of the nicest level design in the game. Not directly related to anything, but i've played this level a bunch of times at some very different periods in my life, and not once have i been able to not make friends wiv the AI. It's just impossible. i challenge you to do it. Go ahead and break her poor heart. You monster.

This one'd actually been suggested by a viewer ages ago, and it just slipped my mind, and would have continued to slip my mind if they hadn't reminded me. i'm glad they did, 'cause i had a blast wiv it. Some really inventive mixing of gameplay and simple, physics/mechanics-based puzzles. This was definitely an unexpected gem for me.

Oh my gods, you can hear me coughing, because i didn't realize the PScamera had a mic on it. At least i wasn't swearing or anything. There were a couple of neat ideas in this one; the time slow-down was a cool effect, but ultimately it was just kinda ok? Like, not a bad level, i don't want to give that impression; but there's not much in the presentation to really sink your teeth into, and the gameplay is, for the most part, pretty standard for an LBP2 level. i certainly don't regret the time i spent wiv it, but i don't really think it's going to stick in my memory all that much.

i adored this level. There's just so much great detail work going on. The gameplay can be a bit fiddly sometimes, but it should be pretty clear at this point that a strong presentation will win me over almost every time. i hate that you can hear me coughing again here. i must have recorded this right after the last one. Also, holy crap, but am i loud on the controller. Like you can hear the button presses, and that can't be good for hardware longevity.

No matter how long it looked in the mirror, it remained Taser Temple.

It is super impressive that tyrew12 managed to pull off this animation in game, but it's such a shame that LBP's audio compression just takes a steaming turd all over the actual song. That's been a problem since 2, so i can't throw shade on Sumo for that for once. Still it's worth a watch because the level is quite a feat.

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

And that's our ten this go about. Some real good ones in the mix, that's for sure. i am so, so tired tho', and i need to sleep. Before i crash, some fun(?) useless trivia. i made some subplaylists for folx who're interested in stuff from just one game, and it turns out the 226 levels we've played so far 48 have been from LBP, 92 from LBP2, and 86 from LBP3. The LBP2 numbers don't surprise me much, but i honestly thought LBP and LBP3 would have been flipped. It just felt like i was spending a lot of time wiv the really old school stuff, but clearly that's not hardly the case. i'm going to have to do a binge it seems. Anyhoot, i really am beat, it's Sunday, and that's always my chores and errands day on top of a full day of work. Didn't even get my curry made, it's gonna have to be tomorrow morning, 'cause i just have nothing left in the tank, and i still got to get my head shaved up. Hope you're all taking care of yourselves out there and staying safe. Love ya!

[reksink]

how many ocs do you have ?

One would say too many, others may say not enough

Seriously though, I have a total of 34 over on my Toyhouse, but that's for characters I have have full body designs (For the most part. Hommbert have been in redesign hell for about a year, the poor winter child)

Like everyone else, I have a collection of OCs that I haven't drawn/don't have proper designs to yet, gift designs from pals I need to redesign to find with my current style & preferences, and OCs I don't use at much as I use to, but I still keep them around obviously

So I wanna say that skyrockets the number to like, a solid 70+

Luckily for me I'm breaking that habit of being not making refs, now I just need to manage my time properly and draw them up. I learned how to have fun with the process, so only time will when I get them down

[browzerhistory]

tips for beginning artists from someone who's been drawing since he could first pick up a crayon:

1. anything worth doing is worth doing poorly

scared the drawing you want to make will turn out ugly? nervous you won't do the angle/character/lighting/etc justice? do it anyway. do it scared. do it weird, do it anatomically incorrect, do it uncolored, but whatever you do, draw that thing. it's better to get the idea out on paper/canvas/etc than to leave it in your brain to eventually fade away. if you still really love the concept, you can come back to it later with better skills, and if you end up disliking it, well, now that you've drawn it you don't have to ever again!

2. get a little silly with it

experiment with your art. go to a color palette generator and make something with the first thing you get. make ocs with complicated designs and weird backstories. change things about your style just to see how they look. the more things you try out, the more things you'll find out you like (or dislike), and your art will start to really feel like yours. i'm not sure if the Youth of Today get as hung up over not having an art style as i used to, but if you do, there's only one way to get it: fuck around and find out.

3. always cheat

listen. there are many people who will tell you that tracing a reference or color picking from a photo or whatever is cheating. those people are lying to you. obviously there are limits (like don't trace/recolor art and post it without credit), but the vast majority of the time, tracing and taking inspiration from other people's art is how you get better.

(one way to stop yourself from plateauing is to trace a reference, then try drawing it by hand. you can also try breaking down a pose into basic shapes/lines; if this seems confusing, just pretend you're making hitboxes for it video game style.)

4. take a goddamn break

if drawing is starting to feel more like a chore than a hobby, or if you feel like you've run out of good ideas, stop for a couple days. pursue another hobby, eat good food, observe local flora and fauna. even if you love drawing with all your heart and think you'll never get enough of it, your brain needs a refresher every now and then to come up with new cool stuff to draw. trying to push past burnout will most likely just ruin the fun of it for you.

5. make a mary sue oc immediately

there's way too much hate on mary sue characters, especially when so many stories introduce protagonists by going "what if there was a guy. and he was the Specialest Guy Ever." having a character who's sexy and smart and powerful is not only fun, but good for the soul, and nobody gets hurt when you make one. plus, it's hard to overstate how good it is to have a character you love to draw in lots of different outfits, poses, and situations.

6. your art is good because you made it

now this one will probably be controversial, since a lot of artist memes are about feeling self conscious about or straight-up hating your own art. but you've gotta find pride in what you make. you've gotta look at your drawings and say, "this fucks actually and i did an amazing job." for me, even if i don't like how a drawing turned out, i try to find at least one thing i really like about it, like the shading or colors or emotion. making self-deprecating jokes stops being ironic the more you do it, and the same applies to jokingly tearing your own art apart.

7. keep your old art

a very good poster once said that throwing away/deleting your old art is like walking up a staircase and smashing every stair behind you. even if you're very high up, you won't see it because it looks like you're just on the first step.

personally, i have sketchbooks going back to early 2018, when i first started regularly using them, and i keep some of my first ever digital pieces in an archive on my tablet, but i get that that sort of record keeping isn't possible for a lot of people. the gist of this advice is just to have some reminder of where you've been, so you can look forward to where you're going.

8. make furry characters

beyond the obvious (you're probably a furry and it's nice to be able to draw your fursona), doing furry art is also a great way to find community in art. whether you do commissions, comics, or just draw yourself for fun, furry art is a wonderful method of self-expression that has the added bonus of being basically limitless. my main fursona is a bug, my secondary one is a gastropod. follow your dreams.

there may be more i add to this list later, but these are the main ones i can come up with. obligatory disclaimer that i'm just one guy with one experience; this advice might not work for everyone; etc etc. i've just tried to base this off of what i wish i knew when i started getting into art seriously.

[bahamutgames]

AFTERTHOUGHTS - ROUNDUP ROUND 3

April + May 2023

NON Nintendo Switch Online Edition!!

Alright kind of a slow day today but I have a BUNCH I still would like to get done. So I'm taking a small break by writing some thoughts on some games I beat recently. I haven't been doing a TON of gaming this month cause I've been busy doing work or getting screwed over and in my down time I've been going out a lot, hanging out with friends, and not playing too much. I am currently chipping through my next RPG and I'm ALMOST done with it. As well as random small itch games I've been playing and tweeting about on my twitter. But hopefully when I break through this current RPG and finish up some work I can play more stuff more regularly soon.

Pizza Tower (January 26, 2023) - PC

So, something you may not know about me is that I am actually a HUGE Wario Land fan. Like, a MASSIVE Wario Land fan. I've played them all, and I also played and adored Wario World and Master of Disguise even though they're not exactly the same. But yeah I fucking love Wario. And lately I've been really really excited with the wave of Wario Land-likes we're receiving! This and Anton Blast (which looks SO amazing I seriously cannot wait.)

I wasn't able to pick this game up right away but thankfully I had a friend buy it for me which means the absolute WORLD to me for real. And I gotta say, I had a great time with it! It feels awesome to play, gameplay feels wonderful and additions to the formula like combos and parrying is SUPER cool! And of course traditional Wario Land fare like form changes and the general moveset feels great and while I generally am not crazy about beating levels as quick as possible I feel like the moveset is really good for speedrunning in a way that makes it feel nice to speedrun even for someone like me who isn't into it much.

Of course the sprites are so cute, I love the art style. The characters are cute, I appreciate there being multiple playable characters too that was also a great addition. Enemies are cute, the levels look great and colorful. Bosses are all very cool looking and REALLY fun to fight for the most part. The soundtrack is great, I loved the story. I loved the format and the context behind finding stuff like toppins and paying for boss doors. It's all very cool and feels like a wonderful return for Wario Land.

It's small but I also appreciate Peppino himself for being an old middle aged man with body hair as the cool protagonist who gets shit done and like has a huge hero moment at the end where he saves everyone. I ADORE Warioware but a big issue I had with it is that it kinda removes Wario's coolness factor and his strikingly heroic moments from Land and just makes him... yknow... a greedy fat guy and that's IT. So it's nice to see a fat character being more than that again.

It's been a bit since I played it so I don't remember a ton of my complaints. Off the top of my head the biggest issue I had was that the boss fights are WAY too long. They last forever, you have to do them twice. And then they end on a minigame where if you fail you have to do the whole fight over. It's so annoying and makes each one a total chore where otherwise they'd be REALLY cool. Also I know they're not meant to be scary but I did not care for the screamers in that one level at all. They did not do it for me lol. Lastly, this might be a weird way to start this post. But I know this game had a racist enemy design in it. If it's what I think it is, it's a stereotype of indigenous cultures which has been removed from the game from my understanding. But still. This sucks. It's something we see in indie games WAY too often. Too many indie games feature enemies like this. And I know a lot of old AAA games had this too. But it's not okay. And it's something that really really baffles me that indie devs STILL think it's okay to have enemies like this. Stop it.

Aside from that, great entry in the Wario-Land like genre. Was a blast to play (an Anton Blast aha) while also adding a ton of original stuff to make it stand out. I hope to see more and I hope its popularity leads to even MORE Wario Land type games and more games with cute scribbly art styles.

The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog (March 31, 2023) - PC

A much smaller april fools game that also took me a bit to play. But DAMN am I happy I did. This game was a TON of fun! You never see fake games made for April Fools that are like... yknow... actual games you can play! And this was such a cute and fun little game I really shocked by how much of a good time I had with it!

Usually I'm not super into point and click stuff but man this game was SO cute it didn't bug me at all. Fantastic writing, tons of Sonic characters who aren't written to be jokes (I love seeing this becoming a trend again), fantastic and silly references to the whole series (THERE WAS A FUCKING SONIC RIVALS REFERENCE!! THAT'S SO COOL!!!!!) The art is FANTASTIC, the music is nice, I was really surprised at how good and fun the story was? Like towards the end it becomes a real story with real stakes and a pretty moving ending which was SUPER cool to see! Also it had actual gameplay scenes with real timing and platforming? Which was SO surprising but totally welcome!

I really don't have much negative to say? It was free and it's a small april fools joke that ended up being really cool! I loved the outfits for each character (rouge is so hot) AND it introduced a new super cute and hot Sonic Milf! So I say, it's pretty fucking amazing, actually!

Rocket Knight Adventures (August 5th, 1993) - Sega Genesis

This was a game I didn't really have any intentions of playing, but a friend of mine has been asking me for a bit now to check it out. And after playing Ristar and realizing I've been missing out on a TON of Genesis games my whole life, and a total rando telling me I NEED to play this game. I just snapped, I couldn't not. How could I ignore it after all this praise? So here I am! After finally playing Rocket Knight Adventures!

And my verdict? Yeah it's pretty cool! I like the world it takes place in, I like the character designs (Rocket in particular is VERY cute), I like the sprites and music. This is all around just a pretty dang fun game! I liked the gimmick of being able to charge up your jetpack and dash around. And I feel like it does honestly make pretty good use of it unlike Ristar and Pulseman which I talked about before. My only real complaint is that I think the final bosses kinda suck and are a bit of a chore. But I am a sucker for like, edgy rivals who use the same powers as you.

I will probably check out the sequels when I get the chance, though I've heard they're not SUPER great. I would love a new entry eventually that really goes hard into the rocket stuff and maybe has even more shmup levels cause of course I loved those aha.

Super Mario Advance 2: Super Mario World (December 14, 2001) - Gameboy Advance

And last but not least for now, Super Mario Advance 2! If you know anything about me, you know that Super Mario World is one of my all time favorite games! I ADORE the SNES original as in addition to just being a great game, it's actually the first game I've ever played (or at least have memories of playing). And despite the fact the first time I beat Mario 2 & 3 was with the GBA remakes, I had never tried the remake of Super Mario World on GBA until now! But I gotta say, yeah these are great ports!

Super Mario World is just great on its own so of course it's a good game. I still love the sprites, they're washed out here because of the lack of backlight way back when it came out. But I think the new color scheme is nice and still works. I LOVE the music still and it sounds really nice in the GBA soundfont. And there's a lot of really good changes here too! Stuff like a serious playable Luigi, a more serious exit tracker, and having the Dragon Coins function more like Star Coins in NSMB are all GREAT changes that should have been there from the start. But even stuff like additional cutscenes, voice clips (which I LOVE), small sprite fixes on Peach and Yoshi, and the cute fun way enemies roll away with funny sprite rotations when Yoshi spits them out are ultimately not needed but are great changes!

I sort of rushed through this playthrough but I mean, it's Super Mario World, so I wouldn't be surprised if I end up playing more of it and play more levels that I didn't give a shot soon! This is a great port and I still continue to LOVE the Mario Advance games so much! I'll probably have to play it more to see but if I ever get around to 100% completing it I could see this potentially being the ideal way to play Super Mario World which is CRAZY to think about! Good port!