#Kuruna will be super fun to do

[nymphrasis]

Haven't started the Kuruna blog yet because I have been focus on other stuff really ;;w;;

One of the two comms are in the lineart phase ( Yesterday I did receive the thumbs up on the sketch, after making a few minor changes nwn ). Since they are more detailed, I would rather finish those before I start the Kuruna blog ( Because once those are done, that means I'll have more time to create art of her. These two comms are more ok the complex side, imo. Which usually takes more time from me ;;w;; ).

The less art I have on queue ( 2 comms and 2 art trade. I can take my time on the art trade at least qwq/. Comms are paid, so they usually have my highest priority ), the more time I have to do my own fun art n3n.

Also because I am both excited and wasn't able to start the blog on last week, even tho I said I wanna try, I will show at least the beginning panel ( 1/4 ) n3n. Keep in mind that sometimes there will be color and other times the color design will default to this! Kuruna blog is moreso giving me more artistic freedom to do whatever style I wish :D! Since for that one, being half-story serious and half-silly, I feel that I will have more freedom with this one!

Plus, while the blog is more Kuruna focus, I will introduce other characters as well ouo. One of them is the Absol I have shown ouo. There are two others who already have completed designs as well. One is a very, VERY old character. Like her design is 2010 ( Or was it 2009 �� ? ) years old. Only a few people still remember her ewe. The other is just a shit chaos incarnate xd

Anyways here is the art mention xd. Will tag it as "keep reading" for those who would rather be surprised!

Also I do debate doing a pin post on her blog that links to everything or not 🤔. I have seen a few blogs doing this and I do wonder if it would be smart for me to do that to. I assume it is for mobile users? I don't often use the app and, when I am on Tumblr mobile, I do computer view because it is more pleasant to see Tumblr that way pwp. So I am not 100% sure.

Am still really hype to bring Kuruna to the community. Even equally hype for when a 2009/2010 OC is being brought to the community ( I have never brought her into the Pokeask community. She mostly existed on Flipnotes with old cringe rps and such xD )

[benisasoftboi]

Gushing time.

Rune Factory 4 Special arrived a day early, so my entire day has been consumed in nostalgia. The original Rune Factory 4 was the first video game I ever bought on release day - I remember saving up all my money and making my mum drive me to like three different shops trying to find one that had it. I was already a fan of the franchise - before then, Rune Factory 3 had been my favourite video game, across the board. Aside from a playthrough of the first game last year, I haven’t played a Rune Factory game in a long time, certainly not RF4. But just starting up the game and hearing the music again, it was like it was suddenly seven years ago. Running around Selphia and seeing all the characters again - I love JRPGs, have played a lot of them, and I can think of very few that have characters that have stuck with me this long. And the aesthetics - the best thing about the Rune Factory franchise has always been the aesthetics, the music, the scenic and character design, just the general world. It’s a beautifully whimsical balance of urban and fantasy, and it’s the only JRPG world I think I’ve ever come across that I would genuinely want to live in. Rune Factory may no longer be my favourite game franchise - but I don’t think there has ever been another series that has felt so much like home to me.

Here’s a very long selection of personal highlights from the art book (by which I mean photos of the art followed by my rambling opinions):

Yeah, see, here’s the thing - Rune Factory 1 is not a good game. I could write an entire essay on why it’s bad (I actually started and got pretty damn far before realising no one’s interested in my two thousand word review of a game that came out over a decade ago - the short version is ‘Misty Bloom-fucking-Cave’. Anyone who’s played RF1 knows exactly what I mean). Don’t get me wrong, it has good qualities - excellent boss fights, for one, and also, as with the rest of the franchise, it is aesthetically wonderful. But ultimately, it feels less like playing a video game, and more like playing a proof of concept for a game. Which I guess it kind of was - and I can’t hate it because we wouldn’t have the rest of the series without it.

But it literally ends with a dragon spewing plant breath on a tank to make a turnip grow out of the gun. ‘Profound’, my arse. 

It’s Raguna! The “master sowrdsman!” (that is not a typo on my part that is a direct quote from the ending of Rune Factory 1 this game’s script had so many issues-). And Mist! My favourite of the ‘canon’ love interests!

Best girl! When I was a kid, my favourite love interest in RF1 was Rosetta. As an adult, it is Tabatha. I don’t know what it is about her that I find so likeable (she’s as lacking in personality as any other RF1 character), but... idk, I just like her a lot.

Camus’s big ambition is to leave town like even once. He will never achieve it

Fun fact about Melody is that she’s extremely depressed, a fact that comes up once in an optional side quest and is never addressed again. It’s incredibly dark for an RF game

Fun fact about Lukas is that he sucks (he’s one of those ‘obsessed with talking about how hot all the girls are’ characters, an archetype that thankfully doesn’t show up again in these games). But also, interestingly enough, thanks to one of RF1′s many, many script errors, if you marry Rosetta (the girl Lukas is the most obsessed with), he’s supposed to express disappointment that he lost her to Raguna - but instead, he implies that he’s disappointed to have lost Raguna to her. The translators typoed their way into giving him a sexuality change. Which is honestly kind of amazing.

LOOK AT THIS SLIME THIS IS SUCH A COOL SLIME LITERALLY EVERY OTHER JPRG SLIME GO HOME DRAGON QUEST GET FUCKED (jk I like Dragon Quest a lot and its slimes are cool too). Wish you could see in-game that this is what they’re meant to be like.

I just generally love the monster designs, they’re really charming

Rune Factory 2! The RF game with the most weirdly mundane protagonist name (Kyle. In the main four games of this franchise we’ve got Raguna, Micah, Lest, Frey... and Kyle). The two generations thing was actually very cool, but when they say ‘each chapter captures a different lifestyle’, what they really mean is ‘the first half is a weak Harvest Moon I’m sorry, STORY OF SEASONS game, and the second half is a pretty good Rune Factory game’  

lookit this little fuck

Yue Yue Yue! I love Yue so much, she’s great. She’s kind of like a much chiller version of Anna from Fire Emblem.

It’s really cool that we got to see grown up Cecilia (she was in RF1). I have this silly headcanon that if Kyle doesn’t marry Mana, Nicholas (her friend in 1) comes to visit Cecilia one day in the hazy-post game future, and meets Mana, and they get together. While Yue is my favourite, I do genuinely like Mana a lot, and I just want her to find love, I guess.  

Here’s original Barrett! There’s a reason he was popular enough to make a reappearance (well, aside from the whole grumpy pretty boy thing he’s got going on) - he was a great character in this game. His and Dorothy’s relationship is also definitely the most compelling of the rival romances. Bonus Max, who also has a little shout-out in RF4 (check the diary in what will become Dylas’s bedroom at the start of the game)

Ray is male, but apparently he was originally going to be a female character, as he has an unused portrait in a wedding dress. My friend and I agree that this makes him a Trans Icon

Monster designs remain excellent. Especially the goblins

Skipping over Frontier (and also Oceans later), as I never got to play it growing up due to not having a console, and still haven’t got around to it - might try this summer. Except I do need to point out that these guys should be memes. I don’t know in what way. But they should.  

Rune Factory 3! My first RF game. The transformation thing was very cool, even if it was basically useless outside the main story. My friend and I spent hours mucking about in the WiFi dungeon. I loved the desert settlement and all of the dungeon designs in general, and man, RF3 is just great. I hope it gets a remake one day.

Raven Raven Raven! I LOVE Raven (as do most). Her story with Micah is the first time I can remember getting genuinely invested in a video game romance. I’m so glad she cameos in RF4. I love her. She’s wonderful.

I have an odd fondness for Marian. When I was about twelve, I decided to do a playthrough where I deliberately romanced the least popular bachelorette. After poking around on forums, I determined that character to be Marian, and did a run with her. And... I actually came to really like her. I find her endearing. I get that people find her annoying and don’t like her... unethical medical practices, but doing that run has still made me a pretty protective of her. It’s been a long time since I played RF3, so maybe I’d change my mind if I replayed now, but currently, as far as I’m concerned,  Marian’s a good’un.

I think I also used to low key ship her with Collette lol 

Pia’s official art has always been super weird to me because it’s so not what her character is like in-game. She’s a ditzy airhead. This makes her look so serious

RAINBOW! Another character whose art makes them look way more serious than they actually are. Daria is great and would be a meme if this game was more popular. I think she’s also implied to be a relative of Margaret. 

I’ve always been super confused about what Kuruna’s skirt is meant to be. Is it fur? Is it part of her shirt? Is it even a skirt at all?

Check it out, it’s the guy everyone would ship Micah with if this game was more popular

I want Zaid to make a reappearance and interact with Doug. Pretty sure it’s canon that they’re from the same clan? Think it would be very interesting.

RF3 definitely had the coolest farm. Also, still love the desert settlement.

This is from Oceans, so I have no context, but it’s just so cool that I had to share

Rune Factory 4. Culmination of the series is right - when I was playing it for the first time, I remember being blown away by just how much it is a true love letter to the franchise. I have never come across another game series that so consistently grew and improved from entry to entry. RF4 was a perfect ending.

Not that I’m complaining about getting RF5. Quite the opposite.

But if it had been the end (as we all thought it was until about a year ago), well, like I say. Perfect. 

Well. Aside from soda can nipples. Can’t believe they didn’t fix those. Though in some ways, that would have made me sad too

Dolce has such a cool design, in both human and monster form. I’ve always kind of crack-shipped her with Margaret, for no real reason at all

Vishnal! I love Vishnal. Vishnal is pure as heck. Marrying him this time around.

Doug! My choice from last time around. Another character who looks more serious in his official art than he is in-game (well... most of the time)

And then there’s Dylas, who looks much happier here than he does most of the time. Kind of looks like he and Doug swapped bodies, actually. There’s a fanfic prompt for you.

Their ship name is Dyldo. I love them

Leon is nostalgic for me mostly because my friend and I used to get into a lot of arguments about whether or not he’s the hottest character in the game. She maintains that he is, because muscles. I maintain that muscles aren’t actually that attractive. It is a rift that divides us to this day

(He looks oddly... younger in this art though? Weird)

Sechs Empire is such an unfortunate name. Seriously. How rushed was RF1′s localisation team? All those script errors, and then this (the Sechs were the antagonists in the first game, and were only referenced in passing in the rest until RF4 - so it was a bit of a ‘sins of the father’ situation by then).

Seriously, try saying ‘Sechs Emperor’ out loud and tell me you can take this man seriously 

I??? Love??? Them???

I??? LOVE??? THEM???

Still confused as to why Kiel, Xiao Pai, Arthur and Margaret are on the cover now. Don’t get me wrong, I like them, but... Amber, Dylas, Dolce and Leon made way more sense? Even the Archival Cover makes more sense (Vishnal, Clorica, Forte), as those three are all kind of Lest/Frey’s servants (well, Forte for the whole town, but still). Of those first four, all but Arthur basically lift right out of the game with little-to-no impact on the story

NO HAT TABATHA NO HAT TABATHA

I’ve always really loved this Raven picture

And I am thankful for you <3

[crescendo-system]

Memory walked again, this time damara. 

-started out in the dream bubbles. My immediate surroundings were yellow and sandy, but the sky was multicolored and cracked in some places on the horizon. I took in my outfit - red skirt, white socks, buckled red shoes- i think i was wearing a seifuku but I'm not sure. As I looked up from myself a gust of wind suddenly blew my strands of hair sideways into my face. I grumbled, brushing my hair out of my face and glanced over in the direction it came from. Since air pressure doesn't happen organically in dream bubbles, I thought to myself that Lord English must have taken out another dream bubble.

 I wandered a little ways, thinking about how there must have been alternate versions of my group there, and a part of me was thankful my group was all in one bubble - or at least I always assumed so. I didn't usually bother to check either way. But the idea of one reality's gang getting scattered into multiple dream bubbles seemed like a weird concept to me. The dream bubbles never really made sense though. 

 - I took a seat under a weird tree, perched on a cliff edge. I could see where I had been from there, and I decided to just let my feet dangle while I had a smoke. As I spaced out, staring down at the ground, I saw Rufioh passing underneath me and got an idea. I flipped my foot so that my shoe came loose and landed square on his head. He got startled, looking around as he grabbed the foreign object off his head before finally looking up at me. 

"Oi Rufioh, could you give me back my shoe, I dropped it," I sneered, pretending as if it was an accident. We both knew better though. Rufioh sighed at me and said 

"Damara, what do you want?" As he tossed my shoe back up. I caught it, grinned, and I don't remember exactly what i said, but it was the usual mix of insulting and vulgar with a bit of self-depreciation. I remember getting a kick out of his expression. He just frowned and sighed "why are you always like this," before stalking off in a huff. 

"Mata mite ne, Rufioh-sama"

(see you later, Master Rufioh), I taunted. I relaxed some, fixing my shoe back onto my foot before I decided to lay back and stare up at the sky, feet still dangling off the edge. 

 - I didn't get to lay there undisturbed for long, before Horrus suddenly leaned over my head, his sweaty face a little too close for suddenly being there. "Excuse me, Damara, but I was wondering if I could ask a favor," he started, as I scrambled to get away from under him and sat up. 

"Horuss, kuruna!!" 

(Horuss, stay away!), I shouted angrily at him. I wasn't in the mood for his horse shit. Of course as usual he didn't understand what I had said. He sorta frowned as he tried to understand through my accent. 

"You seem rather angry at me, Damara. I do wish I better understood what it is you're saying..." he folded his arms and tilted his head in thought, but i was just too upset for even messing with him. 

"Dakara omae wa mou iku wayo!!"

(That’s why you should just go already!) I snapped at him, jumping down from the cliff to get away from him. 

 -Something strange happened to the space then, though, and rather than landing at the bottom of the cliff among the sandy area i was in, I plummeted through the air until I landed in a pile of snow. Dream bubbles... weren't all that much fun to deal with. 

 Wherever I had landed was super cold, snow was everywhere and it was still snowing and i had no clue whose memory this was. It didn't look like it belonged to anyone i knew. Just about then, one of the human kids - a godtier Jade- approached me, and I made the connection that this was probably her memory, maybe even her land. "Hi there! You must be one of the trolls!" She smiled at me. I frowned a bit at her, arms folded tightly against me as I shivered in my seifuku. I sort of grunted an affirmative at her, trying to figure out her deal or place her- as Damara, I hadn't had any contact with the kids up to this point I don't think. 

 "My name's Jade, what's yours?" She inquired to me. 

"Watashi wa Damara desu," I replied, but she didn't seem to understand me. I started to repeat myself, but I reconsidered my words. I enjoyed using my accent to piss off my group, but I didn't like them that much for the most part. She wasn't one of them though, and I actually wouldn't have minded befriending her. So I decided to make an effort to be nice.

 "watashi wa -- My name, is Damara." My speech was slower, and I tended to pause or hold at certain times, but she seemed to understand me well enough and was pleased. 

By this point she noticed how cold I seemed to feel, and decided I needed to go with her elsewhere. She took my hand and led me elsewhere, and while the memory began to peter out from there I’m fairly certain she led me to where she’d been conversing with John and Rose and introduced me to them.

-I remember thinking Jade was fairly pretty and cute, and John looked just weird to me (I only remember the subjective thought process, not what he specifically looked like.) I don’t remember thinking much one way or another about Rose. I also remember focusing on how Jade was holding my hand, and how nice it seemed.

-I had another brief memory, of fighting with Meenah before we all died. She was on top of me pummelling my face repeatedly, and it stung. I used my telekinesis to fling her off and away from me, and I slammed her hard into the wall as I struggled to sit up. I was pretty pissed, but I was also hyperaware that everyone around me seemed to be judging me hardcore, given that I’d injured Rufioh heavily and that it seemed like I just dealt a lot of damage to Meenah. But I felt justified in my actions, they both had it coming I felt like. I’m not sure if at the time everyone understood what both of them had done to me.

-I also briefly remembered scratching the Cardinal movement, just breaking it with my weapons (wands or needles, not sure which... I feel like they were wands tbh). It was so freeing to destroy it with my own hands like that.

The Japanese is pretty weirdly formatted, although better than google translate. I’m not sure if it’s because my brain refused to use google translate style on principle, or if as Damara it sounded more like human Japanese. But this is as close as to how I remembered it at the time I was seeing these memories, so this is how it is.

Some details didn’t feel entirely accurate at the time I was recalling things, but after processing it everything feels pretty spot on in terms of general accuracy at least.

[nymphrasis]

Now that I have caught up on your jaw-dropping art I missed, I have an important question.

*Holds out Bowl*

Please may I have some of your AMAZING SKILL AT ART. Even but a drop would be a blessing. Your art is so cute and pretty. You even can do animations and such so well. Nymph you are Godly!!! 😊

VALLLLLLLLLLLLLLL HIHI >w<! This is me when you made such a request!

I 100% WOULD BE WILLING TO DONATE ANY ART SKILL THAT I COULD, HAD IT BEEN POSSIBLE TT0TT!!! Thank you so much, ahhhhhh. Your words are super kind and has already made my day <3!!! I really try the best I could! As for animation, they are still practice but I am happy with how they've turned out nwn! I have already admitted this to a few people, where I have stated for mouth movements I use the example of my own mouth ( See what words cause what direction of openness my mouth goes, see how far the chin goes down depending on how short or long I open my jaws, ect. The thing I did forgot is cheeks being pushed slightly during certain speeches. But that is fine for next time! ). With the Kuruna lemon meme, when her paws was going up, I had to use my own hands to see how to make the paw be folded up and moved back to make it seem like it makes sense xd. I am not aiming for crazier movements yet! I do still need to continue to practice more with simpler stuff first! I do plan to watch animation tutorials to learn other movements! Like something I do want to do is a simple ear flick for Kuruna! But I admittedly am struggling on how to make that look ( Esp considering I have not seen an animated ear that has large inner ear fluff. This case being her soot ear fluff! ). I do want to make the eye on the ear fluff change expression, as a sort of reaction to the ear it is in being flicked! Animation is something I am not super consistent in! It is on and off, here and there. It really just stuck with me because I grew up with Flipnotes ( Like the old 2008/ 2009 DS flipnote release era ) ;w;

I have never been the greatest but I have done practices and used others flipnotes as a teaching system for myself :D! Hence why mouth movement is something I feel best at, but do still need practice on!

That and there was a point and time where I've wanted to animate cartoon! Doesnt matter what type of cartoon ( As long as it isnt incite hatefulness towards a particular group or encourage irl harm. Those sort of stuff. Oh and I dont want to do cartoons that gives out a heavy religion message because, well, I dont believe in those things xd. Funny considering my main story has angels and demons, heaven and hell existing. While I may not believe in them, I dont mind using them in just fun fiction x3 )

But, ah, I am rambling again--

Thank you for the ask, as I just woke up ( Real late ) and it has plastered the biggest of smiles on my face ;;w;; As mentioned earlier, I would love to donate a piece of my art skill, if it were possible ;3;