#LOTS of behind the scenes

[kogarashi-art]

It's the last previews for Falling Into Darkness!

Important note before I go into some details on the pictures: I will, in general, not be doing this for other fanfics I post. The main reason I did this series of illustrations was as something of a treat for finally crossposting this 10-20-year-old story to my AO3 account. I don't really plan to draw a ton of illustrations for other fics I do.

That being said, I may do occasional images that will be posted with future stories on AO3 (I have a quick one for the first chapter of the next fic I plan on posting, for one), and if I do other fanart, related to a fic or not, I still plan to post art here.

But I'm glad for all the kind comments and everyone enjoying this series of illustrations with me. :D You guys are awesome.

With that, description-stuff (including more behind-the-scenes than usual) below the cut. 'Tis long; be forewarned.

First up, arguably the easiest illustration to do in the whole set. It's a silhouette, so the foreground wasn't really an issue (other than trying to get the edge glow just right, and I still don't think I quite managed but I'm definitely telling myself not to mess with it any further). The background was already painted for the second illustration in the whole set:

I just fixed up the paths and the treetops and added a little lookout stand to the building on the right, now that Sonic and Sally weren't blocking those spots. After all, it's supposed to be the same view anyway, so I figured I'd make it easy on myself and not have to completely repaint the scene.

The second image employs some little cheats here and there. Here's the original sketch from my sketchbook for comparison:

Very loose, lacking detail. Straight lines are more like suggestions. The robots are spiky blobs. I have a literal note next to a stick figure and a hollow shape telling me to get some references. There's the barest hint of the alcoves the robots are standing in.

I didn't show this level of behind-the-scenes off with other illustrations in this series (though I suppose if anyone's ever interested, I could do a process post about how I worked on these), but one of the first things I did with this series of illustrations was sift through the roughly fifty individual sketches I'd drawn to illustrate various parts of the story (not counting redraws of portions), ranging from vague shapes to much more detailed drawings, to narrow it down to the ones I was actually going to finish for this project. I ended up with 27 total images, including the two I'm previewing today, focusing on having at least one but no more than three images per chapter.

Once I'd determined which sketches, like the above, were going to become a finished piece, I then went through each and every one of them in Photoshop with a sketch pencil brush and filled out the sketches to a point where I could reliably ink them. That meant things like swapping out figures that didn't work with redraws of them or making size adjustments, like so:

The first image is the second illustration, and you can see I redid Sonic because his initial pose didn't work. The redraw was actually a pose of him I did to draw his post-Mobianization robotic elements from the end of the story, but the stance was actually good for what I needed, so I Photoshopped it in and then sketched the rest of the replacement drawing digitally. The second image is Sally watching Knuckles walk away, and you can see that I changed her left arm, and also reproportioned her body prior to inking (bigger head, smaller body).

And for pieces like the final one in this illustration series, I sketched in all the details that were missing from the initial sketch (which, as I said, was pretty barebones; in my defense, it was the last one I drew, and by that point I was pretty tired of drawing robot hedgehogs so Sonic was something of a stick figure in most of the last chapters' sketches).

And here's where one of the cheats comes into play. I drew one robot hedgehog. Specifically the one you see the most of, near the tip of Robotnik's cape by the drafting table. I drew it on its own layer in Potoshop, then copied and pasted it into all of the other holding bays, erasing parts that wouldn't be visible as I went along. I also went and found those references I needed for Robotnik and Snively and drew the two of them properly.

And then, because I much prefer physical pen-to-paper inking over digital (my tablet is not one of the fancy screen ones, and I've yet to really get comfortable digitally inking with it, despite owning it for nigh on twenty years), I colored all of the sketches red, assembled them in groups on letter-sized images, and printed them out onto cardstock (my preferred medium when I'm going to be traditionally inking). I inked them with my various inking pens (some Sakura Microns, some Faber-Castell PITT pens), scanned each sheet back into my computer, and cleaned up the lines in Photoshop (the reason for the red printout was to make it a bit smoother removing the sketch from the inked lines, though it wasn't as clean as I would've liked; oh well).

That left us with the above. Because I inked them each by hand individually, the robots don't look copy-pasted, because it was the underlying sketch that had been, not the ink work. The tables and holding bays also have straighter lines thanks to using a proper ruler for those (though I didn't concern myself too much with things like perspective and right angles), and after drawing the straight line, I went back freehand over spots to give them a bit of that hand-inked wobble.

From there it was a matter of laying down the flats in Photoshop, then shading, adding effects, etc. I like the cold yellow light I've got on the robots, and the overall shading on the yellow cape. Also that sense of satisfaction when I called this one done, because it was the last one. Huzzah.

I'll see you on Monday for the last chapter!

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

You keep telling yourself that Namari.

[originalartblog]

Unforeseen learning opportunity!

(wikitionary to explain the scar)

(bonus)

[skycowboys]

Ask and ye shall receive.

Been doing lots of work on the graphic novel behind the scenes! Apologies to this blog and to my Patreons for the dry spell but not to worry, the Discord is pretty active :)

–

Discord | Patreon | Art Prints

[shopwitchvamp]

I mean this gently but I have to say somethin' here- I've been getting so much "make your skirts cheaper" "I love this but why are they soooo expensive" etc lately and like look, I know a lot of this is because times are hard.. (otherwise why would I be hearing this more & more this year when prices haven't changed compared to last year) but I just wanna say that one of the only ways I could lower prices (if I was ruthless and didn't care) would be to cut sizing options. Like idk how to word what I'm trying to say, but just know when you shout stuff like this at other brands & they decide they need to find a way to cut costs to lower prices, being size inclusive is gonna be one of the first things to go. I have no plans to do this myself, but for example, a D Size Skater costs me almost twice as much (talking about only the direct from the manu cost, there are other factors too such as that they weigh more so that adds more shipping costs as well) as an A Size Skater. Say I cut D Size altogether.. and many companies would have by now while also not even lowering the price.. I could increase my profit margins significantly right away. Now lets say I cut both C and D and become a shop that only offers the standard range of SM-XL. Wow! Suddenly profits are up so much!! Or maybe going not full corporate greed, I could handle lowering skater prices by like $10 (random number not based on real math idk what things would actually work out to because I'm not gonna do it). But now no one over a size XL can order from me. I fear none of what I'm trying to get across is getting across but I just mean to say, in order to offer what I offer, the prices need to be what they are. They aren't set arbitrarily high & lowering them would mean needing to make choices that I will not make (becoming less size inclusive or making my business unsustainable in the sense that it would not survive long).

[boar-cry]

Gear Station is not haunted. No, Gear Station is alive and well.

A bit of an explanation below the cut:

I had this idea at the end of September, and it has had me in a death grip ever since.

I've always had a fascination with stories about haunted houses, of which aren't haunted by ghosts or demons or monsters, but are instead deemed haunted because the House itself is Alive. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, Anatomy by KittyHorrorShow, House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, just to name a few.

But after a while, it got me thinking; if a House could be Haunted, then what else could? What about other feats of architecture? How about ships or stations?

And if Houses learn to hate because they are abandoned by humanity, can other places learn to love because they are loved by humanity?

Anyways, this is a very VERY long-winded way to say that two of my special interests have combined into the idea of Gear Station itself being Alive and watching over the twins and its other inhabitants. Hopefully nothing bad happens after realizing an eldritch Being is possessing your workplace, and I hope nothing bad further happens after realizing it Knows you! 🫶 surely nothing can go wrong!

[demaparbat-hp]

Oh, Lala...

[herewegobebe]

TAEMIN | 'ETERNAL' MUSIC SHOW - Behind The Scenes [x]

[qiuing]

Secrets

[dailybloopy]

[liauditore]

i forgot what his ingame name was and had to scrub thru a bunch of videos looking for him like a cryptid and i think that's incredibly joe hills of him

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Ghouls night out

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[fredbydawn]

I’m sorry but their impressions of each other are everything to me

[nextimeiny]

[mayasaura]

one problem with a theatrical adaption of tlt is htn, where the reveal that Gideon lives on works because of the change of second person to first.

the only way i can think of it working is that the actor playing gideon works backstage, like the lights system (but is hidden from the audience aside from subtle hints)

the biggest hint is when when wake breaches pal's river bubble she 'breaks' the lighting system and the stage goes dark. harrow is ushered into the wings by pal so she doesn't see anything, but the lights flick back on just before the curtains drop for a scene change, and pal looks directly up at the light box in surprise and smiles. if the audience is quick to turn around they can see a flash of a black robe.

Oh boy my friend, have you come to the right place!!

So, fun fact about ninja. Bear with me, I am going somewhere with this. The image of a ninja covered head to toe in black, with a hood and mask, comes from Kabuki theatre. It was originally a stagehand uniform. Like stagehands in modern theatre, stagehands in Kabuki would wear all black to signify that they were not really there, and whatever effect they were causing (carrying a prop, creating a breeze, ect.) was to be taken as happening on its own. Basic stagehand stuff, a lot of productions in many styles around the world do it, especially if they don't have fancy rigging systems.

Someone (I don't remember who now, or in what play) had the idea to dress the ninja in a production up as a stagehand. In the convention of the theatre, this made them invisible. The audience was already so used to ignoring stagehands, they didn't know any more than the characters that the ninja was present, despite the actor being clearly visible on stage. Which meant when the ninja struck, it was as if out of nowhere. I can only imagine the uproar in the theatre the first time it happened. It worked so well as to become commonplace, and the rest is history. The popular image of a ninja is still a kabuki stagehand.

So, back to the stage play of Harrow the Ninth. I think you've hit almost exactly on how to incorporate the Gideon twist into a theatrical production. But not as a lighting tech. Gideon is a stage hand. Maybe there would be more than one stagehand, maybe she would be the only one, but she would operate in full view of the audience, literally setting the scenes. I think it works best if she's the only one, but if the production needs more, she should subtly stand out in some way. As the play went on, we would notice that this one stage hand... increasingly interacts with Harrow, though Harrow never acknowledges it. At first it might look like she's playing Harrow's necromancy, because that would be the main special effect she would need to help with. When Harrow is unconscious at the end of a scene, it's always the same stagehand carrying her out. But we all know she's not really there. Until Palamedes acknowledges her. Turns to look right at her, and speaks to her. I can see the scene clearly. He would look at her, stunned, until Gideon finally took off her mask. The line "Kill us twice, shame on God," would be addressed to Gideon, and then he would turn back to Harrow, kiss her on the forehead, and tell her to go. Gideon, always out of Harrow's line of sight, would guide Harrow away while Harrow looked back at Palamedes.

[clarkgriffon]

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER 7x22 | “Chosen”