#Just think of this as reference of what NOT to do when drawing a character

[archipithecus]

hey, by now i've listened to all of the main feed, so here's the good What Ifs from Spring, Partizan, and Palisade (including Roads)

SPRING IN HIERON

ART: What if the rock was shaped like a fish?

AUSTIN: ... what if Kermit could also make... his own choices.

AUSTIN: ...what if fire was made out of plastic or metal?

Art: Like a bouillon base, but what if there was no France.

Austin: What if you could get a croissant from like a twenty-five cent, like gacha machine?

Keith: Um, what if I made an animal out of mushroom?

JANINE: What if he fused with the flower fox? That’d be cool as hell.

Keith: Yeah. I mean, I definitely have thought of ‘what if I made a animal that kil- that just ate all the bad stuff.’ That definitely has crossed my mind.

Janine: What if we did a season of buff horse men and squatting frog people?

Janine: What if it’s like, a string of pearls that’s untied on one end?

Austin: What if in the core of the earth, someone was like, seeding the world? What if Johnny Appleseed was at the center of the earth with a hammer?

AUSTIN (overlapping): What if Family Feud but Jeopardy?

Austin: What if it Ric Flair had on platemail?

Austin: it’s built out of some material that almost looks like, ‘What if porcelain was metal?’

Jack: It’s like, ‘what if a branch crossed the Grand Canyon?’

Art: What if we had some sort of giant like, sap situation?

Dre: What if he’s Paul Bunyan?

ART: Yeah, business rain? Uhuh. [Austin laughs] [Art laughs] As we call it. Um, what if- what if that were made of pollen? And I think what that like, sort of, feels like, is- it’s like frozen orange juice? You know how like, you freeze orange juice-

PARTIZAN (and ROAD TO)

JANINE: What if it’s just like a very smooth deer face but it’s just like skin?

ART: You know like a mood ring? [Agreement from Dre, understanding from Janine] Like, what if that was a hat?

Austin: Well, it should look like a mech first, right? So, maybe draw like a — I guess, again, is it a humanoid mech? Is it a — like a hypercat? Is it a four-legged giant mech? Like what if it’s a four-legged quad-leg mech, but the top of the mech is above the house? Do you know what I mean? Like, the four legs are the four columns are the four columns at the edges.

Art: Um, what if Memphis Longhand, in the style of Ricky Henderson, exclusively referred to himself in the third person?

SYLVIA: Like, like what if lasers were coming out of— like, what if there was a flamethrower but lasers? Like, four of those basically got Integrity.

AUSTIN: Yeah. What if you stretched a hexagon wide? What’s a wide hexagon called?

Austin: What if my gun had eyes or whatever?

Sylvia: Yeah! What if you could like be a dropout from your fucking supersoldier fascist regime?

Art: Yeah. They’re like… At one point they were very powerful, militarily. I said it’s like, “what if the archbishop of this monastic order was Genghis Khan?”

AUSTIN: Okay. Like a giant- Like what if a mech threw a flashbang. [Ali laughs] Okay.

AUSTIN: I love how much your mech is like what if Heat Signature was a game about mech theft.

Austin: Right, you are an empath, you have empathic abilities, and so this was like, what if the Library of Alexandria was alive, and then you were there when it burned.

Janine: What if a radio tower could climb a mountain? And talk to a telepath?

Janine: What if we just like...what’s that thing called when you have a skateboard and you grab the back of a truck and you risk dying?

Austin: Skitching? What if you skitch the train?

Janine: What if we just skitch the train in our mech? [chuckles]

AUSTIN: I got it, I got it, boom. So imagine this spider- six eyes, kind of like a- this is the one, there's one that I think is grosser and it's not that one- yeah it's not that one that I think is grosser. It's this much- very friendly looking, big mandibles, six eyes that almost look like two arrows pointed inwards in like a… what is that actual character on your keyboard called? You know what I'm talking about, the greater and lesser signs, but made of three dots? And Gur Sevraq is like that, but what if that was an EXO from Destiny.

AUSTIN: ...what if you could buy just the hood of a hoodie and put that on.

KEITH: And, like, The Hobbit is a book. And then Lord of the Rings is like, what if I wrote— and everything else he ever wrote was like, “What if I did Wookieepedia, but for my— that one book that I did that was good?” [Austin laughs]

AUSTIN: What if Michelle Rodriguez was a fancy, black waistcoat wearing, ribbon tie, butler with hair slicked back?

AUSTIN: It's like, what if you knew Bruce Wayne dressed up as a something and beat people up and you knew that he had like a batcave or he had like a cave where he kept a bunch of gadgets and shit. (Ali laughs) But you didn't give a fuck about like Batman. Right?

AUSTIN: ... what if the newsies from Newsies remained radicalized instead of taking whatever fucking compromise Hearst offered them.

AUSTIN: So, in this moment, in this like, all consuming white of your mind that fluctuates, it's as if, it's as if it's both um, nothingness, it's as if it's the white room of the Matrix, right? But what if white, what if, what if, y'know, brightness could have texture, could be fluctuating, not in color or intensity, but like a curtain in your mind.

AUSTIN: What if it's a sewing machine as big as like, a seven floor building, or an eight floor— you know what I mean?

ALI: Everyone is obsessed with that idea of like -- I talked about this in the bird Live at the Table where it was like, hot plates that you cook meat on. What if you did that but it was, like, a cake pan, and you put steak in the middle of it --

JANINE: I’m just saying, what if you put a steak and some potatoes in a feedbag, and then put it on a pizza? (...) what if instead of doing big deep dish steaks, they do, like, deep dish steak pies now.

JACK: Yeah, it’s like basically, “what if a corridor was a long weird room connected to a smaller, rectangular room.”

AUSTIN: It's like, what if the character from Journey was like a dope, sharp, sharpened cloth Divine.

Keith: And I’m thinking about the synovial fluid, which I know that I’ve used before, but what if we replaced it with goo and I would just— leaked goo!

AUSTIN: So mood- what if like the trim on this instead of being gold, is like the mood shit? So it changes based on how excited Leap is? What else? God. I love it- I’m in love with pirate Leap.

AUSTIN: Um, so they're kind of like… What if Scorpion was a cool knight mech [chuckling] and also had a sword under his left arm, right?

ART: Yeah, well, let’s just get a— We can— What if you were a big cloak?

DRE: Okay. What if in addition to the back of the drill, it's just a U-Haul truck. [pausing] [laughing]

AUSTIN: … it is very easy to imagine everything is happening at Hitman level. But what if Hitman— What if Agent 47 was 12 feet tall? How would that change… [Dre laughing] [chuckling] How would it… How would it be hard to hide him… sometimes?

Janine: What if -- what if it’s just Splatoon now. This is just Splatoon. With a truck.

JACK: So I thought to myself, “What if Dave Batista was a massive birdman who takes down mechs on foot.”

AUSTIN: And the Branched were like, Yo does the principality have God on its side, we should find out we should genuinely find out, because what if there is, what if there is a God and that God is against us?

AUSTIN: But what if someone wants to be a sun? And you’ve activated their normal mode and now they’re the sun? And that actually is not as good for you.

Jack: The big inspiration for Kalar is, like, what if Dave Bautista at the beginning of Blade Runner was a bird person. Just a huge—

AUSTIN: ...it's like a long, um, rectangular, main holem thin, almost like a ruler. And then what if a ruler had a bunch of, um, like, uh, s- not like- disks basically attached to it on the left and the right? gigantic huge.

AUSTIN: What if you, and only you, switch the “g” to a “j”?

PALISADE (and ROAD TO)

JACK: Well, we know what it looks like when Hidetaka Miyazaki and his team make mechs, that’s Armored Core. But this is like what if him and his team made mechs while they were making Bloodborne or Dark Souls, right?

AUSTIN: “what if an executioner was a giant robot,”

Art: I mean, what if, what if the thing is just worse? We can just, what if we just keep dialing up the knob that says religious fanaticism, until...

AUSTIN: This for me is like: “What if Ocean's Eleven had mechs?”

AUSTIN: What if the way it works is that it has to go to the center of the galaxy to take a picture of the galaxy?

AUSTIN: It's a… I’m looking at my shock mount for my microphone, currently. What if that was as big as… a country…

AUSTIN: It's like what if you took all of the lines of a triangle or a pyramid, and kept drawing them for, like, [chuckling] twice as long as the pyramid is.

AUSTIN: What if there was a steel rubber? You know? Rubberized metal. [overlapping] And…

AUSTIN: [overlapping, half-chucklin] It is pretty cool! Don’t get me wrong! But it’s like what if a particular thing happened and then the way it got remembered was just like the moment in Bad Boys where [half-chuckling] Martin Lawrence and Will Smith their big guns up in the air…?

Art: Yeah, like, what if those little broom things in front of a street sweeper were little hover things?

AUSTIN: ... what if you built cyborgs out of statuary, you know?

Austin: But what if it was filled with really beautiful liquid?

Janine: I mean, listen, when Austin first pitched the idea of like, glass aristocrats, my first thought was like, what if a powdered wig was made of solid glass, and so everyone was just walking around shaved bald, wearing these glass lumps on their head? But we've gone in a direction —

Art: I do, I feel like, I feel like there's a little bit of — okay, this wouldn't work, but come with me on a little journey. What if you could like, attach a plow to the back of a motorcycle?

KEITH: Oh, but what if I did something really cool?

AUSTIN: I think the Fudgie the Whale does like a little frown face. It's like a, it's like what if Fudgie — y'all know who Fudgie the Whale is, right?

AUSTIN: We've got sort of, what if someone gave Scyther four legs, and a radar unit.

Jack: Um, but this is the Brink's answer to like "what if we had Siri, who knew everything and answered all our questions?"

KEITH: “what if we made fashion that could kill you?”

AUSTIN: I’m making it… I’m— “What if fashion could kill?”

Austin: Our ship, the ship we’re on, shakes and creaks as if it's like…it's like turbulence, but what if instead of feeling like turbulence, it feels like you've gone from being like a plane in the sky to like a submarine.

Austin: ... what if Kurt Angle became Jon Moxley, right? What if Kurt Angle went to the Olympics, and then when he got to the WWE, was like, “That's, I'm — because I didn't win in the Olympics, fuck pro wrestling — or, fuck professional, fuck Olympic wrestling.”

Jack: God, yeah, what if we do space LA

Austin: Yeah. What if an English garden had a French garden inside of it? [chuckling]

Austin: ... in my mind, March is like, what if a Motorola Razr was a Columnar, right? Uh, a slick flip phone of a guy, you know?

Austin: Uh, and I haven't fully placed Guilford, but I think she's like, what if — she's like, what if one of those old telephones from the 1920s was a Columnar. You know, right, the handset —

Keith: But what if the person that dumps you is Jamie Foxx? Or that you were dumping was Jamie Foxx.

Austin: It's like, what if the largest, lowest canyon you've ever seen has been taken over by a mall, or a high-scale hotel, or a kind of extremely arrogant, you know, architectural project, like the sort of like... hey, what if we built a city that goes across our entire country? Maybe that's a real thing that's happening somewhere in the world right now, who could say?

Austin: And opposite your hill, on the other side of the village, on a different hill, there is a group of 4 Bilateral mechs, the ones that you felt, coming down that hill towards the village, while fighting what I can only describe as... what if a knife was a dragon?

Keith: Sorry, what if a — if a knife was a dragon?

Austin: Yeah, what if a knife were a dragon? What if there was a knife

Austin: Well, you know, it could also be, what if a dragon was a bunch of knives, right?

Austin: ...a Gueridon is literally like, what if a side table was a siege tower?

Austin: It’s like a Brian Eno UI sound. You know what I mean? It’s like a Windows 95—it’s not like the bump! It’s like, what if you could make a nice sound—I know that Brian Eno literally made that sound, but what if you could make an error sound that’s a little calmer than that? That’s a little like, ‘an error is happening right now.’ You know? And I think it says, ‘Memory limit reached.’

Austin: Like, what if Canada was a volcano, you know?

Jack: What if the top of earth, that is to say, the ice that's up there, could be popped off —

Austin: Wobbly person, uh, my, my note here to Annie for the art: what if a mummy could be a mech, shawled and wrapped and deteriorating?

Austin: Uh, to which, Jack, you said — I don't know if you have this open, you said, “oh my god, lol. What if a city was a city?”

Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But a, but a, yeah, gotcha. What if 7-Eleven made a chalice?

Art: What if 7-Eleven made a chalice.

AUSTIN: ... what if Nostradamus was basing all of his prophecies and predictions on the Divine Past/Crystal Palace’s last big, you know, transmission, basically?

DRE: Sure. It’s ‘what if god was one of us?’

AUSTIN: What if god was one of us and looked kind of tired, you know?

AUSTIN: So it’s like, you know, what if My Bloody Valentine was doing string quart—like, the op—you know how like, string quartet albums exist, and are miserable, and are just like, ‘what if a string quartet played this Radiohead song?’ This is the opposite, which is like, what if My Bloody Valentine was playing classical music, but like, had all the most fucked up pedals you’ve ever heard in your life?

AUSTIN: What if an idea could be undead and then you put it in a coffin and then you shipped it across the world to another person who’s undead, the Witch in Glass? I guess the Witch in Glass isn’t technically undead, but she kind of is. Perennial did just bring her back, right?

AUSTIN: They could be ‘what if Eugene Levy is a Columnar?’

AUSTIN: I think—but what if it has the ridge of a Triceratops?

AUSTIN: What if it’s a Triceratops minotaur? it’s important that it has three horns for lore reasons.

ART: Yeah, this is really ‘what if Wes Anderson made Ocean’s Eleven’? And—

JACK: Also, what if there were Tricerataurs?

Austin: What if a flower were a speedboat, you know?

Austin: “what if a Triceratops was a minotaur”.

Austin: What if Phrygian was a rise and grind TikToker? TM.

Austin: You hear the laughter of…it sounds like what if there was a— what if you made a machine— oh, what if you made— you know when they do, like, hard drive music? You know what I'm talking about?

Austin: What if you did that and then made it do, like, the sound of a fox laughing?

Austin: ... what if you took a more medieval approach to, like, British foxhunting gear?

Austin: You know, what if a soldier was a robot is truly the vibe.

Art: What if something creepier?

Austin: Uh. Some questions. Go ahead, walk me through the tags. This is like, in Metal Gear Solid, what if Snake only had to get one key card?

Austin: They are…what if you— imagine an animal, but instead of muscle, you had something that looked like the enamel of teeth.

Austin: Uh, what I said before was: they’re like what if muscle was made of tooth enamel.

Austin: These are the ones who look like tortured saints. They are posed— these are the ones that look like what if St. Sebastian was a mech.

Austin: ... what if America lost all of its nuclear weapons overnight? You know, I mean it doesn’t exactly work the same— maybe all their nuclear submarines or something, you know?

Jack: Right, right. Eugene Levy, but what if he was an elevator…

Austin: That’s the what if dragon—a dragon was made of blades? Do you remember that? What if a dragon was made of knives?

Austin: The first one is “what if a mummy could be a mech, shawled and wrapped and deteriorating?” And the second one is “a slowly moving statue whose features are always fluctuating under a stone shroud.”

Art: Like, what if a hundred Needlers were fired at once?

Austin: Uh huh. What if, when you went through puberty, instead of your voice regular cracking, it went, like, muppet mode? [Ali and Keith laugh]

Austin: There’s a real lost dog quality, except what if the dog could grow until it’s the size of the ship.

Austin: Yeah. “Kurosawa did it right. But what if instead of a katana, it was a laser sword?”

Austin: Yeah. Uh huh, right, exactly. [Dre chuckles] They are— they are kind of— they look like they are robots made out of like, what if you made a kind of medieval knight’s armour— specifically kind of like a bulbous knight you know vibes, but the armour instead of being made from metal, was made from like really hard tooth enamel. That’s what these guys are like.

Keith: It is a later one, yeah. It’s like, what if Waking Life was an X-Files episode?

Art: [cross] Like, what if—what if Steve Urkel was scoring 80 points in an NBA game?

Art: Yeah, like what if…what if the coke vending machine looked like it would kill you?

Art: Oh. Okay, what if it’s the opposite? What if it looked like it was going to kill you but didn't? [Austin laughs]

Austin: Are there any other—I guess it’s like, what if the CIA was hosting the NBA All-Star game that day and also LeBron James was there in a mech?

Keith: What if the Superbowl was done, like, at Raytheon, but only for Raytheon executives?

Austin: Yeah. I don’t—yeah, ah, mm… No, I don’t think that there is that style of worker here. I think—but, you know, there might be a big—a tall Roomba. “What if a Roomba were tall” is what you actually get here.

Janine: What if instead of the cat face it’s the barrel of a shot gun.

Ali: My immediate thought was what if it was the Yoshi sounds to the lizard videos, but it sounded creepy, so that’s the best that I can explain it.

Austin: So it is—it’s not even just like the Bridge to Terabithia, it’s like what if you—what if Canada was Olympus, you know?

Sylvi: Yeah, what if Canada was sucked into the firmament? Like…

Jack: Hey, what if the sun was evil?

Jack: Sorry, Austin. What if the sun was evil?

Dre: [overlapping] It's like: “What if… What if you just cut the shirt part out of a cover-up?”

Keith: It might be the opposite. It might even be, like, disturbing to—I mean, to go from, like, to go from having your sort of Divine origins be abstract to being, like, confronted with [Austin: Right] you know, the, like… being a sliver of something else, being like Adam’s rib, is such a weird—like, what if you had to live your whole life as a rib?

Art: And I want everyone to hear the apprehension in my voice as I say this. But what if everything’s just like, spookier?

Art: Yeah, what if the vibes were just a little worse?

Austin: Yeah, this is a little “what if a dragon was entirely teeth,” you know? Was made of teeth.

Jack: There’s a real sort of, like, what if Ethan Hawke—no. Ethan Hunt—no. Which one is Tom Cruise?

Art: You know, like, what if a ferret was the size of a greyhound bus?

Austin: [laughing] What if we kissed at Point Banana?

Jack: Yeah, what if the spacing Guild was the actual ships? Which they kind of are, but you know what I mean.

Dre: If anything, I see this group as like, what if Robin Hood and the Merry Men also did like guerrilla warfare?

Austin: What if everybody was a DoorDasher? What if everybody was on Taskrabbit?

Janine: What if it’s a gun that shoots good and fast and right?

Keith: Oh, god. It’s like, what if the wild west took place in post-apocalyptic Middle Earth?

Austin: ... before you DM'ed someone, what if Windows was like, “Are you sure about this? Are you sure you want to try?” [Ali chuckles]

Keith: It’s like what if a pinecone was from Spongebob.

Friends at the Table is a podcast focused on critical worldbuilding, smart characterization, fun interaction between good friends, and asking "what if X was Y? what if W could do Z?"

anyways here's a non-comprehensive selection of some times FatT asked good hypotheticals

(spoilers for Autumn in Heiron, Marielda, Winter in Heiron, COUNTER/Weight, Twilight Mirage, Sangfielle, and some Bluff City i think) (i know Spring, Partizan, and Palisade must also have good "what if X was Y?" but i'm still catching up) (this got way long so i'm putting it behind a readmore) (shoutout to Search at the Table at https://curiosity.cat-girl.gay/ for letting me do this) (also to Transcripts at the Table for writing this all down in the first place)

KEITH: What if I was a snow...hawk… ART: What if you're like, a Dr. Seuss animal? KEITH: Yeah! What if I was a star-bellied sneetch?

KEITH: (laughing) What if the bird was a can opener!

AUSTIN (as Zaktrak): It's like, what if a, what if a factory or train or a windmill could read a book?

AUSTIN (CONT.): And then he, he looks up, he actually has like a very… his build is kind of like, angular and… not thin in terms of like, weak? But he has a sort of… androgynous character about him, in terms of his like, what you would think of as like his body structure. And… very beautiful blue eyes. He’s sort of like, what if David Bowie was super black.

AUSTIN: And that's kind of like, the picture you get of her, is like, What if Fero was like, 30% less hyperactive? Still way more hyperactive than everybody else in-- the world? (laughter) but like, just a little more in tune, with the world.

AUSTIN: What if fire was matte?

ART: What if a—what if a 90s after school special needed some graffiti

AUSTIN: Yeah. He asks you, um... watching what unfolds, and there's, there's, it's--and this is the fuckin' nerdiest thing I'm ever gonna say; it's like what if A-ha's Take On Me was an AMV? Was an anime music video?

AUSTIN: Ali’s character, how did she describe her character, “what if Han Solo used to be Beyonce?”

AUSTIN: It’s like, what if the American government was just another American company?

AUSTIN: It’s like what if holograms did gifs, basically?

ART: You how like Han Solo’s always talking to the Millenium Falcon, but what if the Millenium Falcon-- AUSTIN: Could talk back? ART: Had a chance of, yeah, of deciding he was angry.

SYLVIA: For example. Like just p - yeah, what if they have psychic assassins there. Oh! What if this planet’s an alien? What if this planet is a psychic assassin? Which is a great sentence I just said.

AUSTIN: Yeah, I should note that this is also like "What if the Super Bowl was attended by high fashion models?", right?

AUSTIN: We don’t get a lot of elderly non-binary people. And so Saint Auger is like, what if someone you knew from Portland was 82?

AUSTIN: It’s almost like, what if a crown could be a dunce cap?

AUSTIN: It's like- what if there was a really enterprising twelve year old, who like, [laughs] made a physiology- uh, person- a physiology like, model, but with dirt and rocks and sticks. Also there's no face, the face is also just one of this solid black rock plates.

AUSTIN: And again, there’s just light streaming in through—I think this room is mostly, like, does not have a huge window, but it does have little eyelet windows at the top of the, towards the ceiling, that run horizontally along the room, and just like, bright—it’s almost like, what if colour could be shadow? Do you know what I mean? Like, what if instead of it being that a shadow crosses your face, it is this prismatic glow that moves across the group of you as this thing crawls around this space station.

AUSTIN: It’s like white and blue, there are stars, it- you know, I think that the- it’s, it looks like the way you might imagine like, what if the UN had spaceships?

AUSTIN: What if you mixed your- your selfhood, with the notion of wings. Or the notion of flight. Not just flying. That’s where we’re going.

AUSTIN: This giant battleship that’s like ‘what if a millipede instead of legs had guns and what if it was all around it’?

AUSTIN: This thing is like the size of like a major city. This thing is like, what if Manhattan was a battleship. And instead of buildings it had guns. Except now they’re made of weird black glass.

AUSTIN: The first time he showed up I described him as what if Canderous Ordo decided to have a robot body one day? And slowly began to replace it.

AUSTIN: There’s a little— Yes, it’s like what if a cow— what if Christian Slater was playing a cowboy from New Jersey, and also was Canderous Ordo. And also he eats through his hands.

AUSTIN: There is just this like… I think it’s just metal unfolding across space. Like, at some point Volition just kind of spat out a, a, almost, it looks like a cloud of ink but instead of ink, it’s metal. And it’s just unfolding indefinitely in space like a huge— like what if Akira, what if at the end of Akira when Tetsuo turns into a weird flesh monster? It was that but various types of metal, just like bubbling all over the place throughout space, and I don’t know how you deal with that! But suddenly in the middle of the Mirage there is just this, this ink splatter, this, this gaseous, you know, spread of metal.

AUSTIN: And it’s like — again, it’s like a pistol — it’s like what if a pistol was also like a curved sword, like almost like a scimitar or something?

JANINE: What if we do a live show, but the only live show we ever do is at Bakucon?

ART: Um, let me tell you, this is a nice coat, you guys. Um, I think it’s sort of like what if… What if a leather duster jacket was like an ephemeral idea.

AUSTIN: It’s like … I think the way I described it was, what if there was a Companion Cube that could have its corners pulled apart and in the middle is a weird glowing sphere?

AUSTIN: He has this dope, like, “What if the Millenium Falcon was a deep V?” Instead of just that little bit at the top, it goes really deep down. Or like, “What if Pacman was really long?” You know what I mean?

AUSTIN: Okay. You find him like, rolled under the bottom of his, uhh, or like on a, it’s not rolled under, he’s on like a little, like cart that has a pneumatic lift, or it’s like, it’s like a, it’s like a robot that walks around. It has like- it’s like a Boston Dynamics- like what if a Boston Dynamics, like four-legged robot was also a thing you laid on top of? Like one of those carts that goes underneath a car, to repair it. You know what I’m talking about?

AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): [exhales thoughtfully] Like what if milk was a solid.

AUSTIN: But it still has that ribbony-quality? [chuckles] It still has the sound of fabric rubbing on fabric? But is definitely amplified a great deal, probably? And also, we know it’s sharp, so there’s probably some… sharpness to it? You know… there’s probably, like… what if a ribbon could be a sword you pull out of a sheath?

AUSTIN: And also, Saint Sommer is a big lion man. Saint Sommer is, like… Skein. And is a big… a big… like, a big lion man. Not like Lion-o from Thundercats. Like… what if Scar could… had a big human body? Was, like… What if Scar was cut?

KEITH: And it sort of like, snap! Like, that, it's like… when we were talking about what the sound it makes, I was picturing… what if folding a blanket sounded like sheet metal?

AUSTIN: Yeah, yeah. I don’t know I think it’s like, I think this is very much like, what if the Venom symbiote was made of thread, right?

AUSTIN: So maybe it's like a- like imagine, what if a mop could just mop by itself.

AUSTIN: I won’t talk more about that stuff, but you already saw the big picture of “what if Connecticut was a space ocean,” so, you have at least some context there.

AUSTIN: It’s huge. It’s the size of a continent, right? It’s “What if South America was a big circle?” It’s “What if Europe and Eurasia was a big circle?”, constantly cast on this planet. And, you know, from space it kind of looks—not flat necessarily, right, because it’s a curved planet, it’s a sphere, or spherical, but, you know, it’s flat.

AUSTIN: It’s like what if Texas stood up.

AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): “What if cars brought things to you instead of bringing you to things?”

AUSTIN: It’s just like a very bright, colorful—like, what if Steven Universe did the Sailors of the Ark? What if that team did it? It’s very good.

AUSTIN: It’s like what if it’s a can opener that does that. Like a living can opener like. Grrrngaaah! I’m going fucking open holes in things! Grrngaah!

AUSTIN: Imagine that they're almost- in my mind they're like what if a martini shaker was a piston.

AUSTIN: It's like what if you could package a sunset, y'know? Into like a cube

AUSTIN: I can't believe we started this recording by looking at pies [KEITH and DRE laugh] that make me hurt and ended with ‘what if all foods could be jelly juice?’.

AUSTIN: I saw a big buffalo picture and I was like what if that was a person, that looks cool.

ART: But what if some of these skeletons are like, sick of this shit?

AUSTIN: I think I pitched this show as like: what if Ghost in the Shell but-but magic and witches instead of cyborgs and stuff?

JACK: So, out come this nascent organization who we’re calling Shapeknights. Who are -- I think the easiest way to say it is “cowboys for trains?” They are, like -- what if instead of the cowboy riding alongside the train on his horse, he was corralling the train? Or he was trying to understand the train, or was trying to --

ALI: I think Marn, herself is a little bit more like—like what if a capybara was a siamese cat?

KEITH: Yeah. So, I wholeheartedly recommend this movie, but if not, if you don't know what I'm talking about with the goggles, at least look at that. ‘Cause it's a good image. It's sort of like, what if you had a jeweler's loupe that had a jeweler's loupe that had a jeweler's loupe?

ART: It’s like, what if the antagonist won the Mummy movie right, this is what happens-

KEITH: What if instead of one, big, beautiful hat I have two small, beautiful hats?

KEITH: Like what if they made headphones just for being cool at a party?

KEITH: What if you make pizza by opening the box? That it was an empty box until you opened it.

AUSTIN: What if insects were made of teeth?

JACK: She’s the fuckin’ person of the train. She’s like what if a train could output a person.

KEITH: What if the train was a nice train?

ART: What if a Madame Tussauds came to life?

AUSTIN: What if fire could be a ghost?

AUSTIN: Looking through this here, sounds like what you wrote here was “What if a dolphin was like a velociraptor?”

AUSTIN: They’re hitched. Yeah, they've been hitched. Three of them have been hitched. And I said horse, but I want you to imagine is what if…what if a shrimp were a horse?

JACK: You sort of just like rise up the slope. It's a bit like what if a train was an escalator.

AUSTIN: What if Beyonce was Poison Ivy?

AUSTIN: All my cards on the table, Millennium Black is like what if Blade stopped being a vampire hunter and started being a casino owner.

AUSTIN: He's sort of like what if Alex Jones wasn't terrible

[narfin-frood]

Hi! I'm a big fan of your art, and I just wanted to know, did you study the WOY art style? I'm asking because the way you draw each character, Hater especially, is so expressive! Do you have any tips with expressions? Thank you!

thank you so much!! and to kinda answer your question: while what i do is, technically, studying, that's not what it feels like. i genuinely just enjoy looking at character sheets. a lot of the time they'll include little notes about things you wouldn't think about unless you're told to, like wander's eyes typically angling towards each other at the bottom or sylvia's eyes obscuring the full width of her neck.

(i have any one of these open in my reference panel almost always! not only are these full of tips & tricks for your everyday sketching, they're full of rules for each character, which are meant to be broken in interesting and fun ways.)

[im gonna pack a bunch of other, tangentially related tips and tricks and thoughts into the readmore, including my personal breakdown of hater's expressions specifically, so feel free to give it a click. long post ahead]

a lot of stuff can be picked up by just watching the cartoon as many times as you want. i have watched every episode (minus big fucking baby episode, which i hate) like 6 times over, sometimes more (looking at you the rager), and that has definitely solidified my wander over yonder visual library.

also, wander over yonder's art style already fits in with the way i draw, because i LOVEE long curvy lines and super crisp & clear silhouettes!!

as for why/how i get hater so expressive.... that mainly has to do with the fact that i think he's So Cute. He's So Cute and i wanna Squash Him. and his character design reflects that!!!

his hood is his eyebrow and his eyes may or may not be rolling around in their sockets, and his nose is a little upside down heart. but all of the lord hater emotion is stored in the chin. lord hater has a bunch of specific and VERY malleable options for mouth shapes, depending on what makes the expression and lipsync look clearest.

you can keep it super simple, with a clear divide between his top and bottom jaw, and do several round bumps for teeth, which they do a lot when tweening, like this:

this kind of seems to be his default state, depending heavily on the episode and when it was made and who was drawing him the most, of course.

you can also keep his jaw and skull distinct, but keep his teeth straight and flush with each other, which helps for sharper expressions, esp. anger or frustration, but can also work for a good "squee". he also sometimes pouts so hard his chin eats his mouth, which is, again, cute.

if you're having trouble keeping an expression clear while also maintaining the distinction between his jaw and the rest of his skull, it's pretty common also to forego most of the overt skeleton bits, save for a few hatch marks to indicate teeth (sometimes squiggles or bumps, when he's yelling about it). in my head i affectionately refer to this style of hater expression as the "peanut sans"

none of these convey the intensity of emotion you're looking for? fear not, you can also always just go Full Skeleting. and give his teeth a full outline. this is great for Pain and Strain and Nefariousness.

and then there are a million expressions in between and possibilities within these parameters beyond your wildest belief. nothing should hold you back from a really fucked-up lord hater expression. not proportion. not structure. ESPECIALLY not symmetry. please. make his chin bigger. make his head bigger. make one eye bigger. make him look in two different directions. scrunch his nose up. whatever it takes. by all means. i implore you to have fun

(honorable mention. his W face. the face when he says the consonant W. sometimes OO. i'm. obsessed. with it . he looks. kity)

anyway. lord hater tangent aside. i could also share my own process for expressions, but it really just hinges on what looks appealing/what i like the most/what communicates the emotion i want to communicate the clearest, and it varies between characters and people.

it helps to, again, build your visual library, and look at lots and lots of funny faces, both in real life and in cartoons you like. make funny faces in the mirror and try to focus on what parts of your face change shape or interact with other parts of your face when you do something like smile really wide or drop your jaw. your skin is taut, and there's a bunch of muscle and fat attached to your bones, so when one big bone moves, a bunch of muscles and fat under the surface will shift around too, and understanding that relationship is really helpful in the long run, both for drawing real people and for drawing cartoons.

and the easiest way to retain information like that is to have fun while you study. stop thinking of it as studying and start thinking of it as gathering information on this thing you like a lot and want to do more of, like when you scroll through someone's account to look at all their art, and just. do more of that. do more exploring and observing. since animation is my special interest, this part is pretty easy for me, but it does still take practice to get into that mindset, especially when you convince yourself you have to be super strict and rigid to make it in the art world. focus on drawing and observing what makes YOU happy first, and everything else will follow.

and don't worry about taking notes. don't worry about remembering everything you look at. just look at things you like, and think about them for longer than you usually would. think about the shapes and colors. what makes that drawing so darn appealing to you, besides subject matter and the vague concept of an "artstyle"? you'll be surprised just how abstract what appeals to you can be. for me, with expressions especially, it comes down to random shit like "i like when the edge of a character's mouth creates a tangent with the outline of their head" instead of "pretty eyes" or other, vaguer elements. and that shit i like becomes a part of my artstyle, but only when it fits in and looks appealing, because you can't do stuff like this in every single drawing & retain a full range of expression

ANYway. i hope this made some sense/helped at least a little. i like lord hater a lot. and i also like to draw

[bug--png]

the fat reference sheet you posted has an image in the upper right that people have been upset with the caption of in other reposts of it — namely that people who aren’t pregnant can have fat sit that way as well and people have been hurt and it feels rude coming from even one person. having it spread around is misinformation even though the rest of the ref is pretty helpful which sucks.

there’s not one texture of fat and not one way fat hangs. not all fat is soft and compliant to gravity in the same way. for some people, it feels like body positivity is only reserved for certain types of fatness, or with the exclusion of disabilities or this or that, so this feels important.

some examples i can remember of other reasons people may be fat in the shape of “pregnancy” are endometriosis, testosterone-based fat distributions (beer belly sits forward and does not hang down). there are others. some of it is just body type (ie, not having an hourglass). i think every fat person can understand the potential humiliation about fatness conflated with pregnancy when it is unrelated. thanks for listening. your art is lovely and i do so much enjoy your fat characters, so please don’t stop drawing what you draw.

I should've clarified that the artist themselves had already addressed that issue and understands!

[quibbs126]

So because for whatever reason, TFA Sentinel has been incredibly prevalent in my mind today, I decided I might as well draw him

The first big issue was drawing that goddamn face. The big chin caused problems for me because it changes how I need to draw the face. So he didn’t really end up looking great on my first try (top left)

But by the second drawing I found a way, one that stuck throughout the rest of the drawing as I had the sketch on hand to look at. This is how I had it for that last one

But yeah, scheming Sentinel probably ended up turning out the best in my opinion

I still need to work on his body proportions though, the bottom left especially is pretty wonky. But maybe with some more practice I’ll get it down more

It’s the shovel things on his shoulder that get me the most, I feel like I make them too small but also they cover too much area at the same time

The bottom left I drew because one of my references made me realize he had some absolutely huge hands

Due to proportion wonkiness, I don’t think I made them big enough to convey the actual point, but at least there’s the ref to get what I’m saying

The bottom right meanwhile I drew mostly because I wanted to draw him with big shook eyes. Then I made it a reference to when I tried to draw TFA Optimus by making him shocked by TFO Sentinel

But yeah, I think it turned out relatively well, and I wouldn’t mind drawing him more. Should probably try drawing him with Optimus in all honesty, and maybe Elita/Blackarachnia

I really don’t know why he’s a favorite of mine, but he is. He’s a little bastard and I like seeing him suffer

Maybe it was the fanfic, maybe it wasn’t. I don’t know but he’s mine now

But I’m also really sad that he’ll never get the chance to have a proper character arc. I know I’ve spoken about it before, but I’m sad about it again. Granted, the show might never have given him one (and tbh I kind of lean more on the idea that he wouldn’t) but that’s one of the beauties of cancelled seasons, you can imagine anything was going to happen if it was plausible enough

I think he needs to properly suffer before getting a proper arc though. Or I guess have that be what drives him to change his ways. Not really sure what the suffering would be though, since I don’t think getting punished for his shadiness as acting Magnus would do that, it’d be more comeuppance than anything

I’m thinking it should deal with his organic phobia, like have him be made a techno-organic or something, if only temporarily. But even if temporary, he has to properly suffer like that for a while, maybe gaining more of an understanding of what Blackarachnia’s gone through and/or more of an understanding of organics

Honestly considering Blackarachnia was going to be the villain of Season 4, it probably wouldn’t be that implausible, I just don’t know if they would. And it’ll never happen anyways, so who cares?

Ah well, I suppose. That’s what fanfiction is for. So I need a multi chapter fanfic about a Sentinel redemption arc. Maybe it could be me one day, but I don’t have the commitment for that right now, just like every other idea I had

Anyways, I’m getting carried away now. Sentinel is neat and I don’t care if people hate him, he’s special to me, even if I don’t know why

[dzthenerd490]

The Malipherian Empire Reborn: Akitosu

Name: Akitosu

Gender: Trans Female

S.O.: Lesbian

Species: Human Noi-Bamc (Hybrid)

Job: Samurai/ Warrior/ 3 Star Exorcist

Class: Very Rare Class

Arsenal: The Witch Twin Katanas - two katanas forged with Elixualite metal allowing them to absorb and manipulate magical energy they come into contact with making the user the bane of any and all magic users. Furthermore the blades are coated with Elemental Soul steel, this and the Elixualite makes them able to destroy even the most powerful of demons and evil karma monsters.

Soul Flame Aura - Allows the user to coat themselves with Soul Flame, an element that enhances the user’s willpower and burns anything that tries to break them down such as distractions and enemies. Can be useful but also dangerous depending on the circumstances and thus should be used sparingly.

Create Blade Nanobots - Highly unusual ability to create microscopic nanobots that each have blades. Though they are tiny they can still cut and with a massive swarm will cause massive amounts of damage in no time.

Martial Arts - user of martial arts, is able to utilize any type and combo of the following martial arts: blade, fist, kick, Fire Style, Air Style, Steam Style.

Regeneration - allows the user to regenerate from any kind of wound, though regeneration limbs, organs, decapitation, curses, and mutated diseases are out of the question.

[howtodisappearcompletelyand]

20/10 stars little guy

[asher-more-like-trasher]

They're so gay and sad and just need to hurry up and talk about their feelings

Kremy(thinking): Okay...this is fine! Friends hold hands all the time! No one will know I-... We're just a couple of guys, partners in crime, a... a group of the two of us! ...I wonder what Gid is thinking...

Gideon(thinking): Man... I want some gumbo...Kremys been real quiet..?

[ghoul--doodle]

What inspires/references do you use for your original designs? I'm always impressed with how unique each one looks!!

AUGHSSJD that’s really sweet of you to say thank you! But I unfortunately don’t really have any sort of process for my designs they sorta just

Appear???

Like genuinely I just

A guy pops into my brain and I have to draw them

I’m basically just coping directly what I can see in my mind’s eye- and I have no idea how my brain spawns these ideas they Just Happen

I get such a vivid picture sometimes that I don’t know what’s caused it or what’s inspired it I JUST have to draw the new cool dude who rotates in my brain

[bacchuschucklefuck]

as an artist who just wants to get to drawing the pretty clothes and is terrible at posing i am forever enamoured by your poses..... they have so much energy and movement!!!

was this via art study, a general knack for anatomy or do you just enjoy posing specifically? and do you have any tips?

(i was just wondering bc your pose work is always so dynamic :D (your lighting also slaps /pos))

this is one case where it's a secret fourth thing lol. I have never successfully studied a single thing in my life, I am not at all a naturally "gifted" artist (and as well I reject the idea altogether), and posing has never jumped out to me as its own task in drawing at all! the way I do anything art-related, and posing specifically, is a lot more mechanistic than how it's perceived I think; I've just assumed this came as a function of how narrative-forward I see art, and how much I focus on comic work.

what folks talk about as "posing" I usually think of in two terms: composition and character acting. composition is how the figures fit into the intended frame, and character acting is the actual motion that'll be portrayed. you can see how that logically works itself out! there are more words than stars in the sky written about composition already, I honestly don't think there's anything I can say that'd be more useful than words from artists like thomas romain. character acting is itself more a matter of writing than visual art to me; you've got a guy and they probably do things, you draw them do those things, that's really it. the rest of it is just, figuring out weights and accenting in a scene, shape language, line flow, discipline-specific stuff like that; since no matter what I'm drawing I always mentally think of it as a comic thing, I usually try to insist on the strong points of that medium, one of which is colloquializing shapes to imply the entirety of a movement through a single panel. I don't always succeed at this! I hope to do better in the future. but it's how I approach this matter.

I think sitting down with your art to think about like, how you're approaching it and what you're in it for would help with troubleshooting a lot of the times. it's helped me before! I'm a completely hedonistic artist, I don't draw what I don't want to draw. what is it exactly about posing that's giving you a hard time? is it something you can do without? usually it is. if it's the thinking up a pose part, you can copy poses from high fashion magazines and sewing pattern models and just photos you find. if it's the fitting a pose into a nice looking complete picture part, don't make it a nice looking complete picture, do it sketchbook style, collage a buncha stuff together. if you never want to think about posing ever again, that's what stock bases are for! make urself some or get some from an artist and just draw the nice clothes.

if ur committed to figuring out posing and wanna ease urself into it, I find prompt lists are pretty good for giving ur brain a ground to build on top of and start asking questions. it's also a good exercise to sit down before drawing a thing to ask urself what u want it to be like, genre-wise: is it gonna be a comic cover, or a family photo, or a professional photoshoot, etc. these things have their own visual languages, and keeping that in mind will direct u on how to frame and choose the movements for ur piece. or, if that's overwhelming, drawing characters running is always good! there's plenty of character acting involved in there, it shows off the physicality of the clothes nicely, and it's decently easy to frame.

(I am similarly mechanistic about pretty much every other aspect of drawing lol, lighting/shading included. fully a case of "if it looks alright I put it in, if it doesn't I don't do it". I still struggle with it every time I do colors, but what can ya do. if the piece asks for it that's what it'll get. thank you very much for the nice ask!)

[jacketpotatoo]

Hey @thehomelybadger , thank you for breaking my heart

[sysig]

He’s my little meow meow, my darling, my bbygirl (Patreon)

[sweetandglovelyart]

Knightfall in Dream Land - Page 4

Meta Knight shares what it was like to grow up being raised by Nightmare.

[averlym]

,,, little lemmings in line...

[princesjackpot]

One of the hardest parts of art for me is keeping the facial structure consistent - so that's definitely something I'm going to work on this year.

[spagheddiesquash]

oooh theyre looking at u… furrowing their brows…. im sorry that expression is like my own dreamworks face its just really fun to draw. drew this bc i wanted to test out these cool free procreate brushes that i found on pinterest.

EDIT. reblogs >>> likes!! if u like it pls reblog so more ppl see it tyyyy

[todayisafridaynight]

So, Ichiban’s mom isn’t Janel Monae (as in she’s not black)? If so saaaaaaaaad and missed missed missed opportunity.

if we're real with ourselves there wasn't ever really a chance ichi's mom would be anything but japanese- im more surprised at the fact she's alive lol