#My art has improved so much since I drew this its crazy | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ygg-yiggles · 1 year ago

Text

Old Art: Inktober 2022, part 1

I have participated in Inktober since 2019, on Twitter up until now. To breathe some life into my blog here, I'll post my work from past years over the next few days, along with my thoughts and explanations where relevant, using the more long-form format of tumblr to its advantage. Please mind this small content warning before you continue reading: Some of what I drew for this quite odd and creepy, and in at least one case (day 14), arguably gory. Keep this in mind as you read and view the art.

Day 1: Gargoyle This one was fun. I did a poor job of making it actually look like it was perched on the wall and the wall itself was a pain, ultimately resulting in something kind of halfassed and iffy looking, but still, I had fun with it, and I think the gaping red maw looks pretty decent, all things considered. I used a grey ink--if I recall, it was Noodler's Lexington Gray--for this one, though only sparingly.

Day 2: Scurry Some of the anatomy is screwy here, in particular the catgirl's hands are all kinds of gnarly in ways I didn't intend. Ink is unforgiving. These aren't really meant to be any characters in particular, but I was probably influenced a little by Nazrin from Touhou Project and undeniably heavily inspired by Maekawa Miku from The Idolm@ster Cinderella Girls. You might immediately notice two things about this image: firstly that it is clearly more true to the color of the paper and secondly that the left edge curves away, gets blurry, and has a bit of a shadow. Day 1's drawing was simply captured by my phone camera, but I used my scanner for this one. That took time to set up (I have a bad habit of putting things on top of the machine and I have to reposition the whole thing because the USB-B cable I have is too short), so I didn't always use it. There's another scanner now, though, which I can use much more easily.

Day 3: Bat GAHHH why did I go right back to the phone camera? Oh well. The anatomy here is really poor especially around the legs, but I tried to be a little more dynamic with the pose than I usually would be. Evidently, I didn't properly plan this from the beginning, since the torso is on a somewhat different perspective plane than it should be. Oh well, not everything works out as you'd want it.

Day 4: Scallop I love drawing spooky little creatures. Here, we see a sea scallop, but with spindly arms and legs. This is only slightly more monstrous than what live sea scallops actually look like. Did you know they have like 200 eyes, all lined up in a row along the edge of the "mouth"? Crazy. There's also a moray eel in entirely imaginary colors here. It seems about as freaked out by the scallop creature as is appropriate.

Day 5: Flame Dragon girl! I should really put this under the scanner someday. Overall I mostly like how this turned out, though I clearly had no clue what to do with the breasts. Probably should have grabbed some references.

Day 6: Bouquet This time, the gnarly fingers were absolutely intentional. Here we see an elder vampire or something, perhaps some other kind of aged fantasy man, enjoying several flowers. I think they were based upon a couple specific real flowers, but I can't quite recall exactly what they were.

Day 7: Trip This is one I'm really glad I went through the trouble to use the scanner for. There are certainly things that could have been improved, but overall, I'm still quite proud of this one. Two girls on a road trip in an Autobianchi Bianchina, stopped on the side of the road for... I dunno, looking at the scenery, I guess. I don't know if that car was ever sold in this color, but it's what color I'd want one in.

Day 8: Match Matching outfit elves. The anatomy and basic geometry of this one was completely unsalvageable by the time I realized what was going on. Alas, at least it was properly scanned.

Day 9: Nest Sometimes you go into a drawing with an image in your head that's too complex to hold for long and when you zoom in in your mind to look at the details, you lose it. Ultimately, though, when I look at it now, that worked out better than if I had faithfully rendered every piece of trash in the garbage heap that this giant, mechanical bird-thing has built. Seriously, this looks way better than I remember it looking. I also used the grey ink here again, I think to much better effect than with the gargoyle.

Day 10: Crabby Crabby child, crab hat, "Feelin' Crabulous!" shirts. Not much more to say other than wow that mom character looks weird. I think I did a pretty decent job of depicting a child in the middle of a tantrum over god-knows-what here.

Day 11: Eagle A man and his concerningly large eagle. If I recall, this was meant to depict a Haast's eagle, an extinct species from what is now New Zealand. Or at the very least it was mostly inspired by that. In other words, it's completely nonsensical for a man in a heavy coat, fur hat, and snow goggles to have one as his companion, but somehow it just felt right. I used a bunch of different colors of brown micron and even fountain pen ink for this, and I think the effect turned out well.

Day 12: Forget Creepy creatures what take your brain out and make you forget things. The head being comically outsized compared to the rest of the body was actually intentional here--I felt the strange proportions would further bring focus to the point of the action and also just make the whole scene feel even weirder.

Day 13: Kind More weirdo creatures. I thought it'd be fun to depict kindness between alien things rather than more easily relatable humans or animals. This color palette also happens to be enjoyable to me. This is another one featuring some fountain pen inks, but I can't recall what they were.

Day 14: Empty Yeah, this one is pretty gross and freaky. Sorry about that. But hey, that was the idea. Mission accomplished, right? If I remember correctly, this one included Diamine Oxblood ink, to get that fleshy cavern look.

Day 15: Armadillo Yep, it's Tarkus. As in, the album by Emerson, Lake & Palmer. I guess you could consider this a gijinka? The nameplate thing bearing the day number and prompt is based on the colors of the ground in the album art.

..And that's it for now. I'll do days 16-31 tomorrow or the next day, depending on how much I can think of to write about those. If you made it this far, thanks for reading and for looking at my art.

#drawing #traditional illustration #inktober

1 note · View note

paradiselostbythedashboardlight · 4 years ago

Text

Quarantine, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Wrote 430,943 Words of Prose in a Year

As we are coming up terrifyingly fast on a full year of quarantine with no end to the pandemic yet in sight for most people, I’ve been taking some time to reflect on the last year of my existence in a state that most people now refer to as quarantine. Since March of 2020, I, like most other sane people in my country, have stopped traveling, going to stores, seeing all but a limited group of other humans, and begun having recurring nightmares about being in crowds without a piece of cloth over my nose and mouth.

Suffice to say, it has been a bit stressful.

The other thing that I have done since COVID-19 began rapidly spreading across the globe last year is write over 430,943 words of fiction.

The number seems insane to me still. That is (approximately) one Gone With The Wind, one entire Lord of the Rings series, or the first four Harry Potter books. That is still sadly not yet War and Peace (but who knows… the pandemic isn’t over yet).

So now that I am looking back, I find myself with one question: how did this happen? Why did I do this? What does this mean about my life this year?

Since apparently I answer best by writing a lot, let’s begin at the beginning. Let me tell you a story. I’ll keep it short, I swear.

Part 1: Blast From the Past

In March of 2020, I was still in the midst of an academic semester. There was a long academic document to write and a class to teach. However, as quarantine abruptly robbed me of most of my usual commitments, I was suddenly thrust into the position of having more time on my hands than I knew what to do with. Consequently, I decided to break out the Nintendo Switch I’d gotten for Christmas and revive a childhood interest in video games.

And boy did I. I played the games I owned for all they were worth. I played them during the evenings when I had no social engagements to attend. I played them during the Zoom meetings I was already struggling to pay attention to. By the end of March, I had finished one game, and it had set the wheels turning in my brain.

Here’s a fact about me: I don’t usually tend to write or read a lot of fanfiction about things that I consider really really good. Basically, fanfiction for me has always been an impulse born from incompletion or imperfection. I see no need to add to a perfect story (although I happily consume and create fanart). But for something enjoyable and yet slightly unsatisfying? That’s fanfic territory, bud.

So by April, I had developed a sort of epic fanfiction for this video game I was playing. It was one of those magnum opus kind of ideas, a grand retelling of the story with a huge sprawling plot and Themes (™).

At first, it was merely a thought experiment that lived only in my head, a sort of entertainment to ponder in the hours before falling asleep. What changed? Well, a friend of mine decided to also write a fanfiction on the same video game and she kindly consented to let me read it.

Suddenly, I was ravenously hungry to read and to write and to share and to consume. I wrote a hundred thousand words of this fanfic in April and into early May, sending each chapter to my friend and being spurred onward by her kind comments.

The fic became a gargantuan endeavor full of strange little challenges I set for myself. It was a canon-divergence, requiring plotting, worldbuilding, a darker and grimer tone. For some reason, I decided to write each chapter from a different character’s perspective, making the final product into a series of essentially short story character studies which together formed a plot.

By the end of May, the story was published for the world to see. It was well-received, although not particularly popular by fandom standards. And that was the end. I had gotten out my pandemic crazies, the semester was over and now I could move on. I had made my peace with the source material, plumbing all of the little details that I wanted to examine and creating a narrative that I found satisfying.

It was over.

Part 2: Summer Lovin?

Except that it wasn’t.

Confession: as I had been posting my giant fanfiction, I had also begun to explore the fan community itself, mostly curious to see some nice art and gather a bit of demographic info about what was popular within the community. As a result, I found a fanfic recommendations page. Among the recommendations was one author who kept popping up and i finally decided to give the fic a read.

Woah. It was good. Like, really good. Like, professional quality writing and themes that seemed designed to appeal to me. I devoured everything that the creator had posted in a week and then subscribed to eagerly wait for more.

As June rolled around, I realized that I had a problem on my hands. My great big gen masterpiece was finished, but this author had gotten me hooked on something else, something with a nefarious reputation online: shipping.

The term du jour for this seems to be “brain worms” so let’s just say that reading other fanworks had given me some brain worms. Inspired this time not just by the source material of the game, but now the fan community itself, my mind began to develop another idea.

I wrote the fic, about 11k, in a single afternoon of frantic writing. When I finished it, I knew it was one of my strongest pieces. It had just come together, a combination of all the thought that I’d been brewing up and a stylistic execution that just worked with the story I wanted to tell.

I posted it on a new account. Shipping seemed vaguely shameful to me still and my mom reads the other account.

To my surprise, the fic blew up. It got so much more attention than my long fic ever had. Even more significantly, a fan artist actually drew a gorgeous comic of the pivotal scene, completely out of the blue! I was essentially thunderstruck. Honestly, it was probably the first time in my life that I’d ever received so much positive reinforcement from a piece of writing.

While I’d written short stories for undergrad workshops, they’d never been particularly good and I’d never gotten particularly great feedback on them. I’d applied and been rejected by more MFAs and literary magazines than I could count. I’d pretty much resigned myself to writing for an audience of me and me alone (which I don’t mean to sound tragic about, writing for you is great and fun!)

But receiving so much support and praise and feeling like I’d made other people happy or sad or moved? There’s nothing better.

This makes my decision to write another fic for the ship sound vaguely cynical, the action of a person driven by an addiction to praise. I mean, no lie, aren’t we all a little addicted to approval?

But my next fic was another long one, an 80k passion project modern AU that I dreamed up while spending a slow summer alone with my books and only able to leave the house for long rambling walks in the woods. The premise was essentially about characters attending a five year college reunion, something that I myself had missed due to COVID in May of the same year. The fic quickly became a way for me to process thoughts on a lot of topics in my life ranging from relationships to politics to mental health to classical literature.

This fic was also received with far more attention than I was used to and, as a result, I finally joined the notorious Twitter dot com where I found people talking about my fic unprompted, eager to follow me and like my every random thought.

I can’t say that this process was not without its ups and downs. Fandom has changed, in many ways for the better, since my last engagement with it during the 2013 Supernatural days on Tumblr. While fan friendships are often idealized or demonized, they are pretty much like any other human friendship (okay, maybe a little bit more horny on main). There is potential for amazing connection as well as pettiness. But in a year where many people suddenly had no social spaces that were safe anymore, I’m glad that I found a new line of communication with the world.

So I kept writing fics for the ship, producing a lot of work that I am genuinely proud of and making connections with other people who enjoyed it enough to leave a comment.

To conclude this section, I was in fandom again. While I had not seriously engaged with a fan community since around 2014, I was back with a vengeance. And I had discovered an important truth about what unlocked my ability to write more than I ever had before: community support.

Not simply the kudos and the views. It was the comments. The discourse. The discussion. To add and contribute my thoughts and ideas to a greater network of thoughts and ideas that fed off of one another.

Often I had seen people complain about there not being enough fanworks for particular media or characters. Now I knew the secret. The comments and the community created the works. If I commented on other people’s fics, the more likely they were to write more. I made a resolution I have tried to keep, to comment on any story that I legitimately enjoyed reading, even if I had no particularly intelligent thing to say about it.

Part 3: A Novel Idea

By late October, I had produced a considering oeuvre for my ship of choice and was enjoying slowing my pace as I planned a few future projects.

Remember, though, how I mentioned not having engaged with fandom for the past 5 years? Well, that didn’t mean I hadn’t been writing.

For the past 4 years, I have won NaNoWriMo and completed 4 novels of over 100k each in length. These projects have been massively fun and improved my confidence with executing stories at the scope that I desire.

And so in November 2020, I settled down to write another novel. November is always a sort of terrible time write a novel if you work in academia, but this year, I had more time than usual. I set out to write a comedy fantasy novel, something mostly lighthearted and full of hijinks in order to pretend away some of the quarantine blues (which by this point were well established in my psyche).

This year in particular, I was reminded that writing a novel is… harder than fanfic. That seems like a very obvious point, but I’d written novels before. Suddenly, though, I was realizing how much a novel requires you to set up the world and the characters, while fanfic can be pretty much all payoff all the time.

While the fanfic flowed in wild creative bursts of energy, the novel required diligence of another sort. I wrote 2,000 words every day for two months. It was a grind. Sometimes, it was a slog.

And sometimes it just wasn't good. The thing about writing your own novels is that the first draft is way more likely to be not good. You’re balancing a lot and it’s easy to let a few balls that you have in the air drop for a chapter or two, with no recourse but to go back and edit later.

I finished the novel by writing a final speedrun of 6k on new years eve, ending my 2020 with another project under my belt. No one has read it. Not even I have reread it.

I’m still glad that I wrote it. I’ll write another one next year. No one will read that one either.

Sometimes, we write for ourselves and no external validation is necessary.

Part 4: Where are they now?

January of 2021 is somehow now behind me, which is terrifying. I’m still writing. Mostly fanfic, although occasionally I go doodle around with some original ideas that are more conceptual sketches for the next novel.

As for the fanfic, I think I still have a few more good ideas left in me, but I will probably leave it behind before the year is out. That feels a little bittersweet, a sort of temporary burst of fun and friendship that I wonder if I’ll ever experience again.

Coming to the end of this reflection, I suppose I should make a summative statement about what it all means.

In the end, it might not mean a lot. There are some small takeaways.

It turns out that encouragement makes you write more! Who knew? Also, more free time makes you write more! Wow!!!!

The point that I think this reflection exercise has shown me, the point that I think matters more than any other, is that writing is a way to process my thoughts. Even if it is through the lens of ridiculous video game fanfic or novels about sad wizards, my writing is my way to make sense of my own mind.

And sharing that is special. If you share it with online strangers, with your family on Christmas Eve, with your close friend who has become even closer and dearer to you since she let you read her work, or just with your mom (the one personal legally required to read your damn novel if you want to share it). To share writing is to give someone a little peek at your beliefs about the world.

And right now? When we’re still isolated and bored and scared and in desperate need of distraction? Binge some TV, play Nintendo, read a book. Take in other people’s thoughts.

But put down your own somewhere as well. It’s a conversation.

And for once, it’s a conversation that doesn’t have to take place on fucking Zoom.

#writing #personal rambling #fanfiction

5 notes · View notes

dailyorbulon · 4 years ago

Text

thanks for 2 years!!!

wow hi! ive been meaning to make a post like this since december 2018 (its still so surreal to me that ive been running this blog for 2 years) but i got distracted by a lot of stuff...

i just wanna say thank you! thank you thank you thank you all so much for supporting me all this time! never in a million years would i think i would get this much attention (or any attention at all lol) so... genuinely thank you all so much.

i just wanna ramble about some personal stuff about this blog but ill put it on a read more bc its... kinda long lol

but tl;dr thank you all so much for 2 years of orbulon! lets try to keep going!

my main blog is @sqlatoon, my twitter is @booparoos! im more active on twitter!

my art blog is @booparoos ! i dont post very often bc im still shy lol

its so mind blowing to me about how ive drawn orbulon over 700 times and almost every day (its been pretty hectic lately in my brain cause of quarantine) its crazy how this blog all started from a silly little stress doodle i did at 2 am. sometimes ill scroll through the archive of this blog and think, wow, IM the person who drew all of these??

running this blog has helped me so much! my art has improved a lot, and it gives some consistency and structure in my life, reminding me to post every day, (even when my sleep schedule is majorly messed up haha)

...but in all seriousness, running this blog helped me so much back when i first started in august 2018. during that time i was going through the most depressive period of my life. getting up in the morning for school was hard, and i struggled so much to stay awake after getting home because it was so hard just... being alive.

ive used media as a coping method for a very long time, and warioware gold was what i was currently hyperfixating on. my school notebooks and drawing software was full of little doodles of orbulon since he was my favorite character. i always wanted to make a daily doodle blog, so i thought, hell, why not make one for orbulon, so i swallowed up my anxiety, made this blog, and posted.

and i was amazed by the number of people who liked it. drawing something silly for this blog during class, coming up with silly scenarios to draw orbs in, and making myself stay awake so i could draw and post something, that really kept me going through the day. i could honestly say this blog saved my life lol

reading your tags, seeing the notes, getting your asks... they all brightened up my day and they still do. i really cant say it enough. all your interactions really do mean so much to me. some of my favorite artists have even reblogged my posts which is just... incredible to me. everytime someones says something nice or compliments my art i cry a lil bit ;w;

getting a little personal again, ive always been extremely insecure about posting my art/showing it to other people (i still am) but this blog has made me more confident! people have been asking since 2018 if i had an art blog and i finally made one! the url is @booparoos !

to think that my silly little doodles about this alien from a small nintendo franchise could make other people so happy... that they could inspire people to start drawing... god that just fills me with so much joy. thank you again. my warioware fixation is long gone by now, but i stlil love this little alien to death. im currently going into my second year of college, and i dont know how long im going to be able to run this blog. but for sure ill be on this hell site until it crashes and burns into the ground lol... you guys and our favorite little alien mean so much to me <3

#not daily #you dont have to read this!#its just stuff ive always wanted to say abt this blog #in all serious tho #thank you all so much

21 notes · View notes

goingoverthegardenwall · 5 years ago

Text

Chapter 8: Babes in the Wood

In this last hurrah of explicit homages to animation of the past, the most obvious discussion point is Merrie Melodies and its ilk: Babes in the Wood is essentially a full-episode reference to the bouncing musical shorts of yore, where everything can sing’n’dance and the villain is a blustery bozo who’s defeated with a sight gag. If we expand to children’s entertainment in general, as we did with Greg’s Beatrix Potter episode, then The Wizard of Oz is our logical next step: the song welcoming him to Cloud City owes everything to Dorothy’s introduction to Munchkinland, complete with the fact that our hero has just entered a dream.

And look, there’s nothing wrong with talking about the obvious. But as we near the end, I think it’s a little more interesting to instead explore the very beginning. So let’s go back to a newspaper cartoonist in New York—the one who inspired fellow New York newspaper cartoonist John Randolph Bray to become an animator, which in turn led fellow New York newspaper cartoonist Max Fleischer to become an animator, because it turns out that just like the birth of superhero comics a few decades later, the birth of American animation hinged on print artists who dreamed big in the city that never sleeps.

A boy named Zenas was born in Michigan on September 26, 1871. Or maybe he was born there in 1869. Or maybe he was born in Canada in 1867. He said one thing, and a biographer said another, and census data says another, and I wasn’t there. It’s similarly unclear when or why he started going by his middle name, but by the time he took his first job at age 21 (or 19 or 17) as a billboard and poster artist in Chicago, he was calling himself Winsor McCay. They sure did know how to name ‘em in the 19th century.

McCay began his newspaper career as a freelancer, but moved to New York in 1903 to work for the New York Herald, where he wrote a variety of comics before hitting it big with Little Sammy Sneeze. McCay’s art was always brilliant, but his gag work was formulaic to a fault: the joke for Sammy Sneeze was always the same, he would sneeze and ruin everything right before the last panel. That devotion to formula would continue in his second big comic Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, where a fantastical events would occur for ever-changing characters before the lead woke up in the last panel, revealing it was a dream.

That second formula was the basis of McCay’s masterpiece. Already a successful cartoonist in the two short years since he’d moved to New York, his fame skyrocketed with Little Nemo in Slumberland, which used the same “wake up at the end” formula but with recurring characters and a running story. He toyed with the medium like none had before, playing with panel arrangement and innovating the portrayal of motion in comics, and his art skills only improved with this full-color strip. His success led to the vaudeville circuit, where he turned the act of drawing into a performance, and this combination of stage entertainment and his continuing comic work led him to seek new ways to dazzle the crowds.

By 1910, the earliest animated shorts had already started to emerge, and McCay was inspired by pioneers like James Stuart Blackton and Émile Cohl to try animating the characters of Little Nemo. Under Blackton’s direction, McCay singlehandedly drew around four thousand fully colored frames to produce his first animated cartoon, presented at the tail end of a filmed short about said cartoon in 1911. As mentioned, animated shorts were already a thing. But none of them looked anything like this. (If you’re concerned that there might be racist caricatures in it, don’t worry, there definitely are, McCay had a lot of strengths but overcoming garbage prejudices was not one of them).

The sheer quality of his work, continuing with the legendary Gertie the Dinosaur, directly led to the invention of the rotoscope as a means to mass-produce cartoons of similar finesse. The influence of Winsor McCay over animation as we know it is hard to overstate (and let’s stress again that this was his side gig, and he was just as influential over comic art): as crazy as it sounds, it’s safe to say that Over the Garden Wall would not exist if not for a story about the whimsical adventures of a little boy who traveled across a land of dreams from his bed.

“Where’s Greg, Wirt?”

Babes in the Wood is delightful and goofy and lighthearted exactly once.

In the same way our fourth-to-last episode mirrored our fourth, this third-to-last episode mirrors our third: Chapters 4 and 7 focus on Wirt, but 3 and 8 are Greg’s. It’s not simply a matter of who the main character is, but what these episodes are about: Greg’s love of fun clashing with his drive to help others. Both times he's spurred by the desire to help others to go off on his own, both times he gets distracted by whimsical wonders involving funny animals and physical humor, and both times he ends up deciding to help out anyway. But despite switching his goal from making the whole world a better place to just helping his brother, the stakes are actually far higher now, so the fun has to be that much more fun if we want the full horror of the ending to sink in.

There’s no tonal shift in the series that’s more devastating than Greg falling prey to the Beast after nearly ten minutes of goofiness in Cloud City. It turns a moment of welcome relief from the growing tension of Wirt’s despair into a dagger in the heart, and the knife is twisted when we learn in our next episode what the Unknown truly is.

That despair is evident well before Wirt explicitly gives up. We get our second opening in a row featuring Beatrice in a hopeless search, and things aren’t much better for the boys. All sense of progression from the first episode feels lost, with Wirt reverting to mumbling poetry and Greg reverting to Rock Facts. Their boat is an outhouse and Greg uses a guitar as an oar, because (if you’ll pardon my French) they’re up shit creek without a paddle. When they land, Greg’s victorious bugle is a ridiculous sign of hope, but he soon drops it in the same way he abandons the guitar: in Schooltown Follies he takes instruments to help others, but this time he loses them.

Wirt’s frustration with Greg threatened to boil over in The Ringing of the Bell, only to be cooled when the Woodsman interrupts them. This time there’s no such interruption, so after Greg’s total failure to read the room gets to be too much, his brother finally snaps. It crucially isn’t entirely unjustified, as Greg’s antics might be funny to us but have not been appreciated by Wirt, and despite Greg’s age excusing his lack of emotional intelligence, it’s still gotta be frustrating for a teen to deal with that behavior nonstop. And Wirt’s “tirade” reflects his depression, because he doesn’t even seem that angry: he doesn’t shout or rave, he’s just openly irritated as he argues that they’ll be lost forever. This is apathy and fatigue, because he’s lost the energy to be furious.

But the most chilling part of the exchange isn’t Wirt cruelly blaming Greg for their mess, or abandoning their search. It’s when, after Wirt asks if they can give up, Greg responds with a chipper “You can do anything if you set your mind to it!”, a sentiment that the Beast will fiendishly repeat verbatim while tricking Greg. It’s such a generic positive expression that Greg hangs a lampshade on it, but it shows the darker side of the power our minds have over our well-being. Sure, it’s a great lesson that focus and dedication can help us achieve our dreams, but if we use that focus and dedication towards self-destructive behavior, there’s no limit to how badly we can hurt ourselves.

After a goofy sort of prayer (incorporating lines from the classic Trick or Treat poem, which will become super relevant an episode from now), Greg is whisked away by so-creepy-it’s-funny cherubim to the score of a so-overwrought-it’s-funny song. His flight aboard the bed/cart pulled by a donkey across the sky feels legitimately magical, but we soon switch to the surreal world of 1930′s songs and physics.

Cloud City is such a stark contrast to the tone of the episode so far that it instantly feels delightful, and such a stark contrast to the tone of the entire series that it lends a special sort of wonder to Greg’s dreamland. References to old cartoons are everywhere in Over the Garden Wall, and before we delve into the tension of our last two episodes, we get one last gigantic celebration of the past with a sequence straight from the golden age of animation.

The transition alone is enough to make this scene hilarious, but the actual jokes help quite a bit: Greg’s growing impatience with the numerous Wizard of Oz reception committees is my favorite gag of the night. Everything is cute to the point of being cloying, including our three angels that look and sound an awful lot like Greg, and the parade that he leads seems like such a fun and peaceful affair after so much time wandering alone. It’s easy to get as roped into it as Greg when we first watch it. But considering the events of our next episode, the scene destroys me every time I rewatch it, because there’s a very specific place Greg is being welcomed to.

Babes in the Wood gets a lot less cute when it becomes clear that it’s a welcoming committee for a dying child. Greg and Wirt are drowning, and this is the episode where the shock wears off and the cold sets in and the younger and weaker of the two looks into a bright light. Greg’s near-death experience is hammered in when we get to The Unknown, but for now it’s being rationalized in a way that brings him comfort.

The cold is Greg’s enemy, and the same childish tone is used to show that he’s willing to fight for his life: thus, the North Wind segment is ironically more hopeful to me than the parade’s warm welcome of death. This third song sounds enough like a Randy Newman number that I’m honestly still convinced it’s an uncredited Randy Newman performance, and it jolts us back to reality for a moment as we see the effect this bitter wind has on our babes in the woods. The boys are starting to freeze, and we again see Beatrice searching for them, getting so close before an owl that looks remarkably like the one we saw in our first episode scares her off. The episode doesn’t want to lose us completely to the sky, and this grounding helps keep the stakes clear as we complete Greg’s dream.

The Popeye-esque battle between Greg and Ol’ Windbag is a hoot, between the latter’s grumbling anger and the former rolling up his sleeve to get back into the brawl. Its conclusion is hidden from us, so we have no idea how Greg gets him in a bottle, but that fits right in with the weird logic of this throwback and allows us to meet the Queen of the Clouds.

I ought to bring up the theory that everything we see here is an illusion created by the Beast, even though I don’t really subscribe to it myself. The most obvious “hint” is that this sequence directly leads to Greg deciding to join the Beast with an off-screen promise, but we also have the old man in the welcoming march wearing an outfit just like Wirt’s and holding a lantern, perhaps a reference to the Beast’s intended fate for Greg’s brother. Plus there’s lines in the songs that seem like they’re luring Greg in, especially the assurance that the wonders of Cloud City “ain’t gonna lie,” which sounds a lot like what a liar would say. Both the Queen of the Clouds and the Beast pointedly call him Gregory instead of Greg, but so does Old Lady Mrs. Daniels (and Wirt when introducing him in Songs of the Dark Lantern).

While it’s a neat enough idea, I think the Queen of Clouds is pretty clearly on Greg’s side for real: she seems upset at his fate in a way that doesn’t make much sense for an ally of the Beast. I also think it’s more meaningful for Greg to truly have the choice between happiness and responsibility, between the possible peace of rest and the definite struggle of life, and for him to choose the latter right as his brother is giving in. But I’ve got no beef with folks whose interpretation of the show is enhanced by this theory, so believe what you want to believe about this ambiguous situation.

Either way, we cut back to Wirt instead of Greg when the dream ends, and he’s still annoyed as he’s trying to sleep. Greg’s strange new seriousness is already cause for concern, and asking Wirt to take care of the frog is even more alarming, but even that doesn’t compare the horror of realizing where he’s actually going. Or rather, with whom.

This is another reason why I think the Queen is an ally: while it’s obviously dangerous for Greg to go with the Beast, that’s what it takes for Wirt to snap out of his funk. It’s a hell of a gambit, but as soon as he starts to awaken, he’s immediately concerned for Greg’s safety despite whatever anger or resentment he had, sparing no time or thought to the branches creeping over him as he runs after his brother.

The quiet distortion as we follow his frantic search is soon met by the Beast’s song, but even as he blames himself for Greg’s plight, Wirt is no longer content to wallow in despair. Because it turns out that these brothers are more similar than they seem, and neither is truly capable of letting the other suffer. In the folk tale for which this episode is named, two children abandoned in the woods eventually die and are covered in leaves by small birds (with some versions seeing them enter heaven), but as we’ll see in our next episode, this isn’t a folk tale.

The thrumming noise intensifies as Wirt slips on the ice, then we add visual distortion as he plummets into the freezing water. He’s saved, but this isn’t water that sees him reborn: the distortion finally breaks as Beatrice asks the episode’s terrible question, and we’re left in the cold.

Every even-numbered episode of Over the Garden Wall, perhaps by virtue of airing twice per night, ends in a mood-setting cliffhanger that grows tenser and tenser with every iteration (or at least it does until the end). First we got a leaf symbolically caught in a fence, then the Beast’s introduction, then the fallout of Adelaide, and now the capture of Greg. Getting trapped has always been a threat for these roving heroes, but the greatest threat of all, that of Wirt trapping himself, has been handled. Things look bleaker than they ever have, but despite the glee of Greg’s dream contrasting with the harshness of reality, Wirt’s ability to climb out of the pit of despair keeps hope alive: even in absence, Greg’s influence looms large.

Rock Factsheet

Dinosaurs had big ears, but everyone forgot because dinosaur ears don’t have bones.

Where have we come, and where shall we end?

Most of these were mentioned in the main analysis, but it’s great that we hear Wirt’s description of Into the Unknown right before the episode itself shows us what happened.

#babes in the wood #over the garden wall #otgw #steven universally #winsor mccay #little nemo in slumberland

116 notes · View notes

kenkamishiro · 6 years ago

Text

zakki:re translations, Part 3, Vol. 6-9

In which Ishida passive-aggressively-albeit-jokingly rags on Goubaru-kun and reflects on his artistic choices.

The zakki:re and interview translations take a lot of time and effort, so if you enjoyed it please leave a like or reblog. Thank you!

If you would like to start from the beginning, please click here.

Associate Special Class. A protagonist whose hair changes colours a lot.

Weekly Young Jump 2016, Issue no. 4~5, Opening colour page

The cover of :re volume 6. Furuta and an apple. Regarding its contents, this volume was a turning point that slightly changed the course of the story up to volume 5 of :re. Shirazu died in the line of duty, and Haise was dyed in black… I drew the story about a staff member (Goubaru-kun), which was unusual content for a volume omake. During my serialization, I went from Fukuoka to Tokyo every year for the Shueisha New Year’s party. On the first day of the party I’d talk to the other authors, and on the second day it became a tradition to hang out with the staff members. I was looking forward to it as one of the biggest events of the year since I didn’t have much opportunity to play while writing my series, but because of Goubaru-kun...I mean, thanks to him, it ended up becoming a field trip to the hospital for half a day. So as revenge...I mean as gratitude, I drew about it in the manga in the form of an omake. My series has come to an end, but because Goubaru-kun was next to me...I mean, thanks to him, it also became an event where I got to witness my true character. It was his fault that I really learned a lot about myself. Thank you.

2016, Volume 6, Cover

[T/N: You can read said omake here.]

The cover of :re volume 7. Kaneki, to match with volume 7 of OG. The theme of this cover was, “Can I beat the strength of the OG volume 7’s art?” I drew this side-by-side with OG volume 7 Kaneki. When I look at it now, it’s lacking a certain kind of impact even though my drawing skills had improved a lot back then. At the time, I was heavily relying on the anatomy portion of my drawing skills, which was why I may have gone astray in various ways regarding the art’s intentions. In OG volume 7, I wasn’t led astray due to ignorance, but rather because I felt so energetic (and therefore also fragile). For :re volume 7, I get the impression that I was thinking about that in my head. It somehow gives off an air of trying to distract people with anatomy. Nevertheless, regarding the quality of the cover art I feel like I drew it to the best of my abilities in those days. I think it’d be interesting to look back at my other drawings and think about my mental state and the theme of the drawing for each one.

2016, Volume 7, Cover

Kaneki going for a walk #1 Named as “Kaneki going for a walk series” by Chika-neesan of L.S.D. who was asked to do the design for zakki:re. I’ll explain why in #2.

Movie adaptation - major decision It’d be better to call it a “major decision” rather than just a “decision”. The movie had all kinds of stuff too.

Weekly Young Jump 2016, Issue no. 30, Opening colour page

Uh, what was this for again? I know it was a cover for a YJ issue. Maybe I drew this illustration after I finished :re volume 7’s cover art? That one [volume 7 cover] took up too much of my strength, and this one [current illustration] makes me feel like I’m out of breath.

Weekly Young Jump 2016, Issue no. 30, Cover

[T/N: It was for the July 30, 2016 issue of Miracle Jump. Came with 4 other illustrations of Kaneki, including an alternate version of the illustration above, and the “Kaneki going for a walk #1″ illustration.]

The blurb sounds very cool. I also like the placement design.

Weekly Young Jump 2016, Issue no. 32, Centre colour illustration

[T/N: Blurb says, “I’ve only severed off one side of the scenery.]

I also like this design. Illustration-wise, this volume is of course, about Mucchan and Torso. I thought from the start that Torso would meet his end by becoming a torso (literally). I feel like my work doesn’t have many characters that smell of gender, but I can sense it from Mucchan, or rather I think it’s coiled around her. During my serialization, I always got the impression that she was very different from the other characters. I don’t really understand her well.

Weekly Young Jump 2016, Issue no. 42, Opening colour page

[T/N: Ishida refers to Mutsuki as 彼女 (kanojo = she/her) so I will refer to her as such unless he states otherwise.]

Volume 8 of :re. I like how this Arima looks. It feels like the art in this volume was also right at the height of my anatomy phase, and it feels like very crisp. But gradually you begin thinking about something different. In the wrong direction.

2016, Volume 8, Cover

My thoughts about the colour spread I splashed on bold colours for the spread, I wonder if it was because I didn’t have time or something, I remember I was saved by L.S.D.’s design. I was bombarded by the obsessive idea of, “Do I always have to draw so much?” Because Jump authors’ colour spreads always have lots of characters on them, their colouring is meticulous, and they look splendid. In contrast to that, my spread gives off the feeling that I didn’t have time or any motivation. It’s not that I’m not motivated, it might just be that I’m not good at drawing a lot of characters at once. Sometimes I end up wondering if the concept of “One character only!” might be more powerful.

Weekly Young Jump 2016, Issue no. 50, Opening colour page

100 stickers The illustration of the stickers from the appendix of YJ magazine. There are a hundred of them. I wondered about how much the price of a sticker would cost, so I went to Incube (a general store) in Tenjin, Fukuoka, and bought a pack of clover stickers (30-40 pieces) and one gorilla sticker (why). Both cost around 300 yen, about the same price as Young Jump, so I thought, “Wouldn’t it be a good deal if reading a manga also came with stickers!?” Such a good deal. It was nice seeing readers use them to stick on top of a letter every once in a while.

Weekly Young Jump 2016, Issue no. 50, Special appendix

[T/N: Tenjin is the downtown area of Fukuoka. Also, these stickers were released with the YJ issue to celebrate the 100th chapter of :re. Ishida made comments about each one of the stickers in volume 9, if you want to read them go here and here.]

Cover of :re volume 9.

Transitioning from from full digital to half-digital From this point on, the idea of "How can I finish my manuscript quickly?" greatly occupied my mind. I think it was around this time that work for another series (the game) came in. If I remember correctly. I had been drawing fully digital this entire time, but for this volume I experimented by interweaving digital with analog. We live in an era crazy about speed. However, because I couldn't control the screen anymore, I had a rough time drawing this volume. I used a G pen to draw the characters. The line drawings were uploaded with the scanner, and I finished the final touches digitally. Since it doesn't take a lot of time to write the storyboard, during this period I could finish the manuscript in 2.5 days, and set aside 4 days for other work. Thinking about the manga now, it would've been better if I'd spent my extra time focusing on it, but back then I thought doing this would be the best. This volume is the only volume where the characters were entirely drawn in analog. Since then, it has changed to drawing in analog for quick things, and for things that need to be drawn with more skill, drawing it first in analog before going to digital.

2016, Volume 9, Cover

The Last Things There are a lot of arms entwined around Kaneki, such as Eto and Dragon Kaneki's arms.

2016, Volume 9, Cover sleeve

[T/N: The illustration above isn’t the full version, but the only one I could find. It was also used as the cover art for österreich’s song uploaded on SoundCloud, titled “Saigo no koto” or “The Last Things”.]

previous || next

#Tokyo Ghoul #zakki:re #Ishida Sui #Translations #my translations #zr translations #his comment about vol 9 surprised me the most

207 notes · View notes

sharonxzart · 5 years ago

Text

design nation: making a conference for makers

this past spring, I worked on my last major project with Business Today, the non-profit student-run organization in which I have been heavily involved in since my freshman fall semester. as I retired from my role as director of design for the entire organization, I took on the position as director of design for business today’s annual design nation conference. actually, I had been doubling as director of design for the conference and the entire organization for quite some time, balancing the responsibilities of creating an entirely new visual identity for the conference with the typical role of publishing the biannual issue of Business Today magazine. it was quite the time commitment, but one of my most rewarding college experiences thus far.

so what is design nation? in short, it’s a conference aimed at connecting undergraduate designers with leaders in the design industry. but Business Today takes a very holistic approach to design--the design nation conference was not meant to funnel art students into art careers, but rather to give artists, programmers, business owners, and anyone interested in creating something the opportunity to see how they could make a future in the creative industry. a phrase I came up with during the planning period of the conference was: “every company is a design company. you could be their next designer.” and I truly believe in this notion of a fluid creative identity. what drew me to work on the conference in the first place was the fact that I wouldn’t just be meeting students and professionals working in visual design--I would be meeting as many technologists and entrepreneurs as I would artists.

so what does it take to brand an event like this? there were a lot of moving elements, but there were three main influences on my final designs: the conference theme, bold visual statements, and the element of fun.

theme: the first touch

the 2019 conference theme, “the first touch,” aimed to explore the impact that designers have on a consumer’s first impression of a product, campaign, or movement. this impact could be visual, emotional, experiential, or something subtler. keeping that in mind, I decided to take the non-subtle route and incorporate very literal icons into the designs. in the past, the conference design had relied largely on abstract graphics, with no concrete images. this worked out very well for those iterations of design nation (then known as designation), because it was an extremely new (and successful) event that was still very much under construction. the 2019 conference was the third annual design nation conference, and I wanted it to represent something stronger and more established.

the hand is a quite literal interpretation of the theme. but I think that the hand also represents the power of design at its very core. designers are creators, and for many of us, our hands are our first tools of creation. this theme is not new either; I was very much inspired by the famous gesture between God and Adam in The Creation of Adam, and the lasting symbolic meaning that their hands have created. in modern day, the handshake has also become an indicator of a good first impression for some. clearly, the hand has earned its place as a symbol of creation, and I wanted to pay homage to that.

(above: some visual experiments I did as an exercise to explore graphic themes)

bold visual statements

as I mentioned before, the first two design nation conferences were very much visual entities of the Business Today brand. the original blue and pink were muted versions of their hues, giving the impression of a professional convention for professional creatives. I believe that this greatly helped make the conference a reality--the balance between business and imagination in the visual messages definitely gave the conference a level of legitimacy. I was lucky enough to be able to helm the branding efforts at a time when design nation was established to a degree of granting the organizing team much greater freedom.

(above: banner designs)

the most noticeable difference between the visuals for designation 2018 and those for design nation 2019 is the color palette. for design nation 2019, I turned the contrast and brightness of the signature blue and pink way up, to a point where they might almost clash. I wanted both colors to have strength and power, to make the statement that design is often hidden but beautiful when bold. I wanted speakers and participants to enter a distinct environment when they entered the conference room, and that could be accomplished by marking the space with these bold, contrasted colors.

I also worked on many iterations of the design nation “dn” logo. in the same vein as enhancing the colors, I went with the boldest weight of the original font, which emphasized the hard corners of the slab serifs. the shadow outline also served as a reinforcement to that strength and contrast. paired with the high-contrast colors, the logo aimed to encourage attendees to be loud and unapologetic in their ideas.

(above: gifs I made for the conference website)

having fun!

one of the things I discovered while working for Business Today is that bureaucracy runs deep in business. I savored the moments when I could make things on my own, such as illustrating for online articles or creating a magazine cover. I pushed my creative boundaries as far as I could in my other responsibilities too, such as redesigning the Business Today magazine and creating design guidelines for the weekly email newsletter. but in the end, there were many guidelines and rules of etiquette that I had to adhere to, understandably. and most of these guidelines had been established long before I joined.

design nation was an opportunity for me to break free from those limitations. the goal of design nation had been to serve creatives, and as a result it was much more casual and spontaneous affair than the other conferences that Business Today held. after all, creating is all about breaking from the mold, and I wanted the visuals to reflect that through a quirkiness that would almost disassociate from the larger parent organization. through the use of glitching animations, large crazy posters, and an unorthodox venue setup, I think we achieved that spirit. we also added a polaroid station, dn branded m&ms, and a plethora of stickers and swag to entertain our guests. in essence, it felt more like a tech conference than a wall street one.

(above: logos that never made it)

I faced a lot of creative blocks and struggles throughout the development process. a lot of ideas that I grew very attached to never made it, and one of the most important things I learned was how to scrap something on my own. even when creating, there are logical decisions that need to be made, and going with reason over emotion can be hard when the decision concerns something you made yourself. ultimately, I am glad that I made the choices I made, and although there is always room to improve, I am extremely proud of the work that everyone on the planning team put in. I hope that Business Today continues that tradition of holding a design conference, and I am excited to become involved in more design roles in the future!

below are some additional graphics I made throughout the months leading up to the conference.

(sticker ideas) (facebook profile picture frame)

(initial designs for banners, logos and badges)

(the first banner I ever made for the entire conference)

(pages from the conference booklet)

looking forward

I had a great time at design nation 2019. from seeing all my designs come to life in the physical world to moderating a panel with some of tech's biggest design thinkers, I took chances to do things that I could have never imagined doing two years ago. I met students doing amazing and inspiring projects, and listened to industry professionals tell their unconventional origin stories. most importantly, I learned just how many designers and nondesigners it takes to support a successful creative machine.

I will likely be taking a break from leading design initiatives in the next year, but I am hoping to spend some more time exploring more advanced digital storytelling mediums. I am particularly excited about the potential that ar/vr have in this space, and I know that many studios have already produced immersive animated vr experiences. one thing I will also be more careful to keep in mind in the future is accessibility. as I look for more ways to be creative, I want to make sure that I am also creating for as many people as possible, including those who might need to experience stories in a nontraditional manner. for now, I'm looking forward to the next exciting opportunity I get.

#design nation #conferences #graphic design #branding #creative #marketing #text #x #digital art #digital

1 note · View note

grammaticalmustaches · 4 years ago

Text

KETTLE KATCHERZ FEEL FREE TO READ

under a read more due to length oops

suddenly overcome with love for my players. its a constant emotion but im feeling it so big right now.

theyre just so invested in the world! and their characters! and theyre so kind!?! truly i think dnd brings out the best in people.

i gave them some kenku that are having trouble integrating with a community because of the language barrier and now my players are out of game diving into esl education to make a communication book to help them get basic ideas across.

it is an ongoing joke that they adopt every npc i give them and its not much of a joke bc no lie i think there are just as many npcs who travel with the party as there are actual pcs. actually i just counted there are exactly as many party npcs as there are pcs. three of those npcs are kind of just one npc who at one point shared a consciousness but are now separate(-ish) beings and one of those npcs is just a small horde of dust bunnies that occasionally either makes or cleans up messes so you could argue the numbers dont actually line up but it is still an absurd number of npcs to have adopted. i have to plan reasons npcs cant or dont want to go on adventures as one of the first character points i make otherwise their party would be triple its size. i am constantly forgetting how many npcs they have with them at all times but they Dont forget and make points to include them in conversations and decision making.

i just think dnd brings out the best in people!!!

also i lowkey hate making maps but maps are important for understanding the world so iv been doing research and shit and trying to get better at it but! my players literally help with that? not just in making it fun and rewarding but like literally help with the task of it?

as in we just came from a city that one of my players spent a few years at so he drew a map of the city and wrote me out a Huge world building document about the city and its culture and like, climate and neighborhoods and what was important to his character while living there and everything! and another player gave me a six page document that included maps about the territory their character grew up in like, almost at the very beginning of our campaign! i havn’t even had a chance to use any of that information yet because they come from a very far away place! they dont care they Had Fun making me this big old document! and now we’re visiting a player’s childhood home and They’ve offered to make the map for the area! that would be three whole maps all player made!!!

theyre just so invested and make things so easy on me!!! it is so easy to dm a group that is constantly focused on Working With the world and moving their characters forward!

and its a super homebrewed campaign partially bc i honestly think thats not only more fun but how dnd is Meant to be played, with some creativity and making shit up on the spot, but also my players are so good!!! about shit being homebrew!!! when something comes up we dont know the rules for or which rules dont exist for we work together to decide what happens!!! if someone knows a rule i dont they let me know and i can ask them what they think happens given the rules that do apply and we make decisions together on how it works with a focus on what makes the most compelling story!

its just so truly OUR game!!! my beloved comrades!!!

Also like, its been off and on and we’ve taken breaks but we’ve been playing since March 2019? and people have added and left and like i said we’ve had to take breaks but in the end this is not a campaign i can imagine not being in anymore. i cannot imagine this campaign ending just because, like, there’s just so many of them who are so invested!!! and Im so invested! to be honest this campaign is one of the most fun and rewarding things in my life and one of my favorite things about it is how confident i am that it is going to be a constant in my life for a long time. like im really able to just Revel in this campaign and sink hours of work into weird bullshit and plan out arcs and enemies and friends and plot hooks and aesthetic bullshit i dont expect our party to meet for Quite a while because i just! i have no fear that this is going to end!

One of my players got a symbol from our campaign tattooed onto their flesh body? art that i made for dungeons and dragons? it will be on their human body for the rest of their life? and another got a tattoo that (partially) represents what this campaign means to them? another has told me they would love to get a campaign related tattoo with me someday? there is a tattoo in game that binds (most of) the pcs to each other and there has been talk about us getting that tattoo together?

i cannot think about this for too long or i go insane. i made some shapes on canva and spent the whole time wishing i had ms paint because ms paint is my level of art and these are designs that are being added to bodies because we have collectively installed so much emotion and meaning into them.

i am losin gmy mind.

and like, iv already sunk lowkey a kind of unreasonable amount of time (esp for someone who just went back to school and has homework!) into making my kenku soundboard and mixtape but its been such a passion project already and the whole time iv been working on it iv had Zero fear of the reception because i Know and Trust that my players will think my first attempt at using garageband is sick as hell even if its kind of not because they are just crazy supportive and love our world like i cant even really call it my world its truly Our world and! we all love and contribute to it!!!???!!!

I just love my party so much!!!

i just!!! truly think!!! dnd brings out the best in people!!!

at the end of every session we do a rose/bud/thorn (thing we liked/thing we’re looking forward to/thing that could be improved or issue wed like to bring up) to check in with how the session went!!! we discuss things we didnt like and how wed change them!!!

they challenge me Constantly not just in pushing my capabilities as a growing dm but they also speak up and challenge my decisions when they disagree!

i jsut cannot get over how truly we are Working Together in all aspects to make this campaign what it is.

i have a tendency to move dnd at a crawling pace where every hour of every day is meticulously role played. and they told me they didnt like that and now we work together to make things move faster! and it doesnt always work and we still dont move that fast but weve brainstormed several options and tried a few new things to make it easier for me to go faster!

PROBLEM SOLVING INSIDE AND OUTSIDE OF GAME

dnd! brings out! the best in people!

and also also also theres like, Multiple players who really hate using technology and sometimes esp video chatting. and most sessions currently people’s thorns have been tech issues/being on video. but wer still all (mostly) show up every session! we still submit to the mortifying ordeal of being seen/heard on discord!

some of my players have an accented character voice and i love them So So So Much for this and it makes me feel confident and comfortable enough to try my best at (when i remember to) doing character voices for npcs but we are not critical role and we are certainly not voice actors so none of our voices are very good or consistent! and my players with accents get self conscious about this pretty often but like!!! they are TRYING!!! they are GIVING IT THEIR ALL!!!

what more could anyone possibly ask of them?

multiple players have come to me concerned and looking for advice/help because they dont think theyre very good at role play/staying in character. we’ve got people who so dedicated theyre stepping Way outside their comfort zone and then turning around and apologizing for how far a walk it was??? they are giving it Their All and their biggest concern is how to give MORE?

i had a moment last session where i realized that our current arc is literally exactly the kind of arc i Dreamed of dming when i was first starting out. like, not to toot my own horn but its legitimately open world and they have a mystery that they need to get to know a small community and find out what everyone knows and put all the pieces together to figure out what happened. i used to scroll through dm forums Endlessly looking for Any advice on how to plan a good mystery and i didnt think id ever be at the point where i could actually pull a mystery Or an open world arc off. but like, here i am. its going pretty great so far.

also this current arc is one of the First i ever thought up for this campaign. obviously it’s changed and evolved a lot since original concept but like. just a Bit emotional over, ya know. finally getting here and having it be even better than i imagined. how far we’ve all come, in and out of game. the fact that my players had so much fun talking to my prize npc kenku whom i have been developing for literal years now and adore beyond reason that they are learning about esl studies to help them integrate into the coven they are trying to join.

DND! BRINGS OUT! THE BEST IN PEOPLE!

COLLABORATIVE STORYTELLING. WORKING TOGETHER TO CRAFT MEANING. LOVING AND SUPPORTING EACH OTHERS CREATIVE DECISIONS. MAKING DICK JOKES.

THIS IS WHAT DND IS ALL ABOUT BABY.

#dnd #for anyone wondering what this super long post is: tl;dr i love my players and our campaign #kettle katcherz #thought i finished writing this very long post #then Went Off in the tags #to the point i got cut off #so i went back and added my tags to the actual post.#sorry not sorry that i just love my players beyond tag limit

0 notes

extradan · 7 years ago

Note

Hey I like your art a ton and I was wondering just how long you have been drawing and working to improve as an artist.

Oh my gosh haha thank you so much for liking my art!

I have been drawing for the longest time, I think ever since kindergarten, well at least the artistic dedication!

I used to draw my when i was in middle school, starting from fourth grade i have been drawing more and more frequently until fifth grade in which I was drawing on a daily base, back then I would also be sitting and making animations on flash, which unfortunately I dont have backups of

but from middle school, up to high school 2012, my art never improved, it was just all the same all the time, I was back then on ritalin and I decided to start my first pony blog, while updating my blog, I couldnt consider yet Tumblr being part of the effective social websites that I go on as nobody was following me and I had no one to intreact with back, tumblr would be the thing i would check once every few days, it was nothing to me but a mere another google plus, until i was sponsored by catfood-mcfly back when he was running the Herpy Derpy blog, and thats where I got recognized and I was determined to continue my activity on tumblr as an ask blog, and I have gotten to become more interactive with people, being inspired by the many of the art I have been seeing from following other people, I would adopt and experiment with what I saw mostly shines through their art, and 2012 was the year I have made the biggest change in my art throughout the months, whitin 6-8 months I have improved by a ton! tumblr was a very resourceful to the evolution of my art! and I also made so many friends and I have as well learned to become a better person! I am a better person of who I used to be in the past, and i am still improving! there are still a lot of things I need to work about myself as a person!

Also stepping out of drawing in flash and starting doing my stuff in sai was revolutionary to my art, flash back then wasnt recognized fully as an animators program by macromedia and neither by adobe, as they saw it an all purpose program for making goptimized ames and ads, only until all browsers and webpages grew out of flash and flash officially was blocked by all browsers since you could have implanted malicious codes into flash files, only then flash recognized as an art and animation tool for creators.

So moving to sai allowed me to build sketches and bodies easily and paint and yadda yadda and it was all great and helped boosting my art upwards

Flash limited my improvement as I wasnt drawing sketches on flash since you couldnt just lower the opacity of the layer you drew the sketch on, you would have to go through several actions to achieve that, but you would be lowering the opacity of your selected drawing and not the layer, I couldnt also paint on flash and flash ever since the stone age had those horrible vector tools that SUCKED DICK unless you do stretching and smoothing and fixing, in my opinion at least, they did improve the vector system a bit BUT IT STILL SUCKS, i prefer bitmap brushes more, which why I prefer Toon Boom harmony as a program for animators.

If you have been back in the days, you could have watched me go through a several phases! like drawing like atryl, raikissu’s shading and coloring styles, florecentmoo’s shading techniques and eye pupil style, and I uhh.. dont remember the rest, but theres have been a lot of artists out there whom I adopted artistic traits like:

theflyingtacoz, kittentoots(drunk fluttershy), w300, Santi, belaboy, dr idiot, inzergue (big impact on my current style), David (the guy who now works on mighty magiswords along with kyle), fungasm, colorlesscupcake (known as caek now), ahappypichu (a pretty powerful current impact on how i paint my art today), uhh, also “pinkie in private” which, to this day, drawing the way the draw the cheek for their characters, and some other artists I that I couldnt come up in my mind but I did adapt a trait or two from.

My current big inspirations are artists who work on OK KO and as fake as it might sound, my own fiance! yes!! they have been an inspiration for me for quite a while even back at 2012, but to how I viewed it, I never really dared to adopt anything from them because I was so out of their league, and my art was still shaping and i already had ideas that I wouldnt think would work if i mixed some of their’s, but now that my art have been developed and has a solid state of how it looks, they inspire me so much!!

Drawing ponies was probably the best practice I have ever had that thanks to that I have pushed so far in the art that I do, ponies are so simplified!! and easy to draw! it allowed me to produce more and that means that it allowed me to experience differently with each time!

It helped me improve with a lot of stuff like gesture, facial and painting and other other minor stuff! drawing ponies was such a booster seat for me!

But unfortunately, from drawing ponies alot you wont learn how to draw humans, which understanding muscle, action line, figure and bones is so crucial for drawing, anything really! understanding how the body works is extremely fundamental and its there for you to know how to manipulate the drawings your making, of any specie, its not there to just teach you how to draw the anatomy of the human body, that will only serve as a plus.

I have learned a lot from ponies but how bodies work and draw clothes lmafo, to this day I cant draw clothes for days

in 2014 I ordered a really good book and I have polished my anatomy and human drawing skills, I yet dont know some stuff because i stopped practicing because of varios reason like relationship, access and physical health.

In the begging of the year I acquired a cintiq and it been nothing but dreadful to me, but im using it because i spent.. so much money on it.. and i have been so concerned about bringing it to my home country as well.. but it has the adventage of a screen so...

its just, I dont have a low enough desktop or high enough chair to draw on it, its always above my shoulder no matter the angle and it puts so much weight on my shoulders, the thing is heavy too so its not something you could lean on your legs while you draw, neither it is portable, it made work much more harder and difficult and I wasnt drawing as frequesnt because my time wasnt so so enjoyable, my 2015 as well become a dreadful year to me and I was feeling guilty and shitty everyday, and it was my fault because it was all my doing and i let myself feel that way, and I had barely the stamina to work on my art ever over the year, I also lost my passion and motivation to draw and basically it dragged also to 2016, I drew a few commissions but I didnt produce much art neither, then I flew over the united states and I didnt have acess to drawing for 4 months as i was away from my equipment, my fiance had the equipment, but that means that I would have to use their computer for all the dedicated hours I use to work on my art and they would have nothing but a mere phone to entertain themselves, also our time togehter was really precious and every minute counted, so we rathered having fun other than doing work work work

2017 came and I still had the sense of drawing lost in me, I would draw whenever i would have a piece of paper available to me since I find fun in that, since im comfortable and cozy and i dont have to concentrate the entirety of my body weight on my hand and arm as i draw, but I would never draw on the cintiq unless its a miracle or if had a crazy comic idea in mind that i had and MUST HAD executed, i almost didnt draw anything in 2017, and neither in this year but the ok ko drawing i have recently created, but I found a new comfortable focus and its doing 3d, I am using my mouse to do everything and i dont have to feel my horrible chair scraping againt my butt like sandpaper, and I dont to feel like my shoulders are about to give up, I did try Tam’s 13hd and it was so much more comfortable and nice to draw on as i could put it on the bed or on my legs, but I cant afford another expensive piece of equipment, especially not in this generation of technology, wacom fucking sucks but no other brand is willing to be their competitive because tablet is not the purchase the average person would make.

Another reason why I have been so held on drawing and using the cintiq, which was probably the most major thing was it’s total, hot flaming shitty garbage diarrhea poopy stank abysmal horrible disgusting nasty dumbass smelly drivers which made every chance i had to draw a miss because i would battle myself from 30 minutes to over a hour fixing my tablet to draw a single thing, and its been like that every time i would turn my cintiq on! the situation was severe and everytime i would find a solution, it would be later suppressed, it was so harsh that i had a few months in which nothing I would do would make the drivers function, i was basically tabletless, so many, and a lot of opportunities for me to create a piece of drawing was flushed in the toilet with the rest, and so it was a deeper burden on my passion, determination and motivation to draw.

But yeah, now im doing 3d and it feels like a fresh hobby to me since I felt that im not going anywhere in and with my art (even though I yet have to learn how to draw bodies better, let alone drawing limbs, feet and CLOTHES!!)

and now the future has yet to be revealed!

#kawaii-corvid

1 note · View note

ikkydikky · 7 years ago

Photo

Here it comes! Time for an end of the year “Here’s what I drew this year” list. Mainly just to archive my art now for future’s sake and tell myself my thought process and how I felt about it now.

I’m skipping over sketches and going straight to stuff that was finished and polished and I’ll explain each image as we go. Buckle up boys its going to be a long one.

We’re going to go to the first image I did this year and explain how things went from there!

Drawing #1, Scrubbed off Katia Managan

March 3rd 2017

Art is actually kind of hard when you don’t know what form, line consistency, anatomy, or any of those things are! In fact I only know about two of them right now! And how to put into practice one of them! This image shows what its really like to start out with base-nothing. The idea is cute! And I’ll probably redo it later on when I am probably a years worth better. It marks however the first thing I really posted online. To me, that makes it special.

Drawing #2, Sigrid, but smug.

September 9th, 2017

BIG gap between the two! And not a lot of improvement, or maybe a lot of improvement? Who knows. I think this image was the first thing I did digitally that I put up for other people to see, and it was exciting! There’s absolutely no construction to this. Prior to this image being done I was basically drawing people’s heads and circles. Like, pages upon pages of circle grinding to actually know how to draw a circle digitally.

The main reason why there was such a gap between March and September was due to me graduating high school. I basically didn’t feel like drawing at all when I already had the work load of school ontop of me. But the art starts coming a lot faster now. Yes you can see there was a huge prequel influence.

Drawing #3, Blushin Bob

September 29th, 2017

Art is something that you can really do a lot of, but you can easily get burnt out on. Animal crossing is actually one of my favorite games out there, and to try to pay tribute I drew this. Not uh, not exactly my favorite.

This image has me trying basically 3 new things I’ve never done before. Shading, clothes, fur tufts, and bodies. Yeah. Not exactly my best job at any of those. The shadows are, very inconsistent and its clear I didn’t really know how to do it properly. The fur is atrocious with it looking like spiked tumors, and the shirt rides up way too high like hes wearing a shirt thats way too short! Also he might be a bit too skinny.

This is kind of an image that broke me. At the time I was trying to fix every error when I just couldn’t, from the arm in the first attempt being god awful, to how the shading and shirt looks. I genuinely think this is the worst image in my library, and I knew it at the time since I drew nothing for all of October. You know. The month that’s meant to be the most inspiring artistically?

Drawing #4, Gondola The Peaceful Giant

November 12th, 2017

This was actually just a shitty paint up I did of a sketch practicing perspective. It was mainly for a draw thread on 8chan’s /v/ and probably my only work I’ve posted to an image board. I think generally doing art for anonymous people is a bit thankless. Its great for practicing but it really gives back no validation.

Keep in your memory these clouds, I’ll be talking about those later.

Drawing #5, Bunny, The space mechanic.

November 12th, 2017

This character was a mistake, not the drawing but the character! This is my first actual tabletop character and boy I flubbed it. But this is art retrospective. Not roleplay retrospective. Anyway. A portrait done with a new pen style that I don’t think worked out too well. It comes off a bit too rough and gritty. But it makes for unique coloring when it comes to painting. I’ll actually have some more to say about that in a bit too! This also marks the point where I really got into drawing again. See. The table top group I’m in rewards you for drawing pictures of your characters, no matter how shitty it is, as long as you do your best, you get a reward in game. Its actually a really, really neat system!

Drawing #6, Oh dear god why.

November 16th, 2017

This is going to be a reoccurring character, so. Lets get to talking about it here. This character was as far as I know, a joke character made by a friend that got turned into a full blown character for a campaign, she is nonsensical, random, actually crazy, and worst of all, vibrantly colored. She is the Deviant Art Sparkledog as a character. Which funny enough, is her character name. This was my first attempt at really going ‘sexy’ and ‘nude’. And actually I think Sparkledog is a perfect candidate for it because its already cringy and god awful to look at! So it hides my bad attempts at a sexy lady behind an already cringy character. Thanks friend.

Anyway to talk about the art its self. It was done with no ref or pose. And I think it kind of shows. Everything’s proportionate to a degree but something about the perspective of the whole thing feels... off. Of course the background is just slapped together with glue but I mean on the character. She’s laying on the ground but not in a way that I think is possible or comfortable.

This also goes as my second attempt at fur, it’s, better. But definitely not good. Ontop of that this is probably my first attempt at an actual muzzle! Pic below related.

Muzzles are really hard to do. For some reason. If you ever read Loomis’ Fun with a Pencil it becomes slightly easier, but it also kind of isn’t. A month later and I still struggle with them, A lot of my joke sketches I often forgo any sort of attempt at drawing a muzzle and go for round head shapes, this works out if the character’s species is a prey type, as the eyes for herbivores are often on the side of the head, while for predators, its facing dead ahead. On another note, apparently I can just *do legs* with almost ease. I’ll touch on this more in a bit.

Drawing #7, A background for the end.

December 2nd, 2017

Tabletop is a wonderful thing, art groups are also an amazing experience to ever be apart of. The group I’ve been with has been an amazing experience for me artistically as I’ve learned to grow so much more. This is an image I did as soon as I woke up on my birthday. Friend A. did the character sketch. Friend b. did the coloring of the characters, and I got to practice something that I’ve wanted to do for ages.

Environmental art.

Ontop of character art and such, one thing that always draws my attention is environment art. Its something you can always get lost in. Your eyes can search to every corner imagining what it would be like to be there. Genuinely amazing works of art is often environment art.

Its also time we talk about the clouds. I hope you remembered them from the gondola picture. See. Clouds are all about layers, and layers, and layers. Especially when done in a thunder storm. They’re something I might recommend painting if you ever want to start out! I do however think the clouds in the gondola image work a lot better. But I think that might be from the several things I did to trick myself to think they look better.

And that’s all there really is to say on this image. Which is a problem. I learned a bit more about perspective and how floors work when under character’s feet... and how to do lightning kind of. But there isn’t much else. If I were to do this more I’d probably add another cliff to the background. A mountain, a landscape just beyond the fog, because it seems unfinished as it stands.

Drawing #8, Oh dear god why, Revengeance.

December 5th? 2017

Probably the only unfinished image that gets posted! So lets talk about it. I think fur is my least favorite detail to make ever.Yet it also is my favorite when its done. The tail also might not be the best but its league’s better than my first attempt! But lets talk about the main thing about this image.

PAWS.

I don’t have a thing for paws, or feet, that’s not my kink. I think footjobs are sort of appealing sure but I don’t care much for it. so this was my first attempt at paws, and I think I did damn well. However, digitigrade legs are something I still have an issue with, and I am working towards fixing that. I don’t think furry characters look great when their legs are humans, but with paws. As well I think legs are the easiest part of the body to draw in some ways, that might just be me.

The face also is a bit of a mistake? Its better than its.. original incarnation...

[NOT EVEN THE DEAD KNOW PEACE FROM THIS EVIL]

Animal faces with human features is the proper way to do things, but human faces with animal features is... Hell incarnate.

Also that ass took me like 30 tries to get right god damn.

Drawing #9, The last hoot for today.

December 18th, 2017

The last one for today. Some point after Christmas I’ll post probably another three drawings. But this is the final one. Lets talk about a few things about myself.

Art style is all about inspiration. You pick up inspiration from everywhere. Specifically from art styles you really, genuinely enjoy. You might have noticed the art style at first was I Wanna Be The Kazerad and then to something completely different from Kazerad but not distinct from anyone else. This is the process I think to finding your own art style. Emulation.

You might also noticed I ditched aliased (pixely) lines in favor of smooth lines, this was because I was having a tiny issue with drawing at large scale. For some reason I always liked zooming in real close on my 2000x2000 canvas and drawing tiny little things. The bunny picture is a really good example of this. He only took up the tiny corner of my much, much larger canvas. Speaking of his part of this post, lets get into color.

There’s been 3 ways I colored things, the first was plain flats, second was with a sort of homemade crayon brush (Ala Bunny and Gondola), and third was a unique way in how I did the eyes of this image. Looking at them closer you can see theres, actually a lot of rich detail in them!

This was a pretty easy thing to do and it has such amazing results that, I want to do a full image using it just to try it. For how I did it, I use krita, and how it handles gigantic brushes is like most art programs, by automatically raising the spacing between each ‘use’ (for a lack of a better term.)

Here’s what the blue part looks like with a white background behind it and the layer count to make this beside it. (Only one of them visible.)

It also kind of hits close to to another artist I’ve been following pretty closely as of lately. (And more recently on tumblr.)

You might not have heard of @jamdrawers , and you should definitely check them out if you haven’t. They are someone who, in my eyes, has such a wonderful art style. Other artists that do a style with pixelly, aliased lines don’t even come close in my opinion. I bring jam up here because of a few things, the art style he presents has thoroughly inspired me to pick back up trying to draw in aliased lines again, and because going forward I’ll continue looking to him for inspiration. Also if you read this jam tell winrarphile I said thanks for getting me into your art.

Now, when it comes to the owl its self. I regret not adding a thicker outline to all of her character, and instead kept it to just the head shape, as well I do think she comes out a bit bland. Of course color wise its to keep in theme with the rest of the table top groups color theme. But outline wise? Definitely needs work. I tried a ‘hair style’ for her but that didn’t really work out either. So I kept it to the three feathers at the top of the head. I also think I spent more time on this image than I did any other, to quote myself “I’ll finish this owl up in about an hour or two”, which quickly lead to 8 days instead, just through procrastination.

Don’t do something in art if you really don’t want to do it. You can easily, easily get fatigued and burnt out with out delay, but among this procrastination came other sketches that, I don’t think I’ll post here, but helped me learn hands somewhat. So there is that.

Thus ends this posts governing topic. If you read this whole thing, good job. If you didn’t and skimmed to the end. That’s fine too! I understand I got a bit wordy but, I genuinely wanted to lay out my thoughts about all this.

In conclusion, I think the rate at which I’m getting better is decent, Mistakes are being ironed out each new drawing I take on. Each study and figure drawing adds onto the many experiences I’ll use for later in my artistic career, and I think the rate at which I’m drawing is far too slow for my own tastes, as such its a goal for the upcoming year to get a lot faster with finishing each drawing so I can quickly move onto the next. Thank you for reading this.

Have a noid chewin’ some pizza as a reward for coming down to the end.

#art #my art #kazerad #prequel #long winded spiel

7 notes · View notes

kihocrystal · 7 years ago

Text

Summer 2017 - Final Impressions

I may have skipped writing opinions up for Spring season (due to computer issues...), but I’m back for Summer season! I even fell behind this season because of school (hence why this is half a month late), but nonetheless, here are my thoughts on the animes I finished this past season!

The list of shows is in the tags, and are ordered alphabetically under the cut!

Boku no Hero Academia S2 - 8.5 / 10 ( B+ )

This was another really fun season of Boku no Hero Academia! This season was twice as long as season 1, which meant double the action! Most of the action this season was actually more on the light-hearted side, as two of the main story arcs of this season were the School Tournament, and the Final Exams. These arcs got to see the cast work together and face off against one another, which helped us learn more about their characters in the process! Almost everyone had their time to shine (which was great!), but the one who had the most prominent character arc was Todoroki; we learned about his troubled past with his family, and how he changes his mindset and attitude throughout the tournament, which was great to see! Character development was definitely a big aspect of this season (as seen through both of those arcs), but there was also a good amount of overarching story set-up as well! The main arc showing this off was the Hero Killer Stain arc (which included the Internships), which was definitely my favorite part of this season! Seeing Midoriya, Todoroki, and Iida face off against him was super fun and interesting, and also kicked off some plot progression that should go towards future arcs! Midoriya has improved his super power usage over the course of this season, and we also learned about All For One, which will surely be the Big Bad of this series as a whole. The finale also teases more things about upcoming conflicts, which included Midoriya having an interesting interaction with villain Tomura (and a ship might be sailing with Ochako and Midoriya)! It’s a good thing a season 3 has already been confirmed, because an open ending like this would’ve been bad otherwise! As it stands though, it’s a really good lead-in to the next season! Season 2 was great set-up for things to come (and good fun action on its own, of course!); I probably would’ve enjoyed this season even more if there was more interactions with the villains, but that will surely come in the upcoming season 3!

Isekai Shokudou - 7.5 - 8.0 / 10 ( B- )

This was a cute little show that was a good pick for “comfy show of the season”! I enjoyed meeting the wide range of characters and seeing them try out different types of food. I also appreciated how the food reactions were very downplayed, in comparison to more over-the-top fares like Shokugeki no Souma. That being said, they go into just as much detail describing why the food is so good (at least in the earlier episodes). I also liked seeing the patrons interact with each other, including getting into fights about who’s favorite dish is better. Each character’s story about how they discovered the diner (and the occasional backstory) was enjoyable to watch; we didn’t learn much about them outside of that, but we learned more about their interests and relationships via how they interacted with others both inside and outside the restaurant. It was also nice seeing how the restaurant has been a recurring thing for years, going back to the chef’s grandparents! The story is episodic, but each individual story was a nice, occasionally heartwarming, and “comfy” thing to watch once a week. The art-style complemented the easy-going pace as well; it was warm-toned and drew the food quite nicely (even if the animation itself was standard fare). This may not be a super in-depth slice-of-life show, but it’s a good watch if you just want to relax and see some good food!

Kakegurui - 7.5 - 8.0 / 10 ( B- )

This was the most popular show of the season on MAL (in terms of amount of people who watched it), and it’s easy to see why: high stakes (and over-the-top) gambling, the extreme reaction faces, and VERY sexual characters who get off on gambling (with yuri overtones to boot!). The more sexual scenes kind of got old for me over time, but I enjoyed all those other aspects! The crazy gambling games and characters were fun to watch (as someone who enjoys YuGiOh so much, that’s right up my alley!), and the crazy reactions added to the over-the-top appeal. Yumeko was an enjoyable lead, since she’s got just the right amount of insanity behind her also-enjoyable sweet facade (plus her seiyuu, Saori Hayami, did a great job performing her!). Many of the other main girls got some time in the spotlight too, both student council members and eventual Yumeko allies (though some student council members got more time than others, for sure). The main male lead, Suzui Ryouta, was definitely just there as an audience surrogate though, since he’s pretty bland (though he had some involvement in some gambles too!). When you get down to it, the appeal of this show is the characters and the gambling events themselves; all the story in-between just feels kind of lacking in comparison. Even the finale, which to be fair was anime original, kinda felt like a non-ending; the outcome kind of made that final gamble pointless and didn’t leave me with a good sense of conclusion (but hey, at least it’s better than a full-on cliffhanger or abrupt stopping point!). This show was far from my favorites of this season, but it was still an fun time during the gambling parts (which thankfully there’s a lot of here!). If you enjoy over-the-top gaming action and don’t mind the more sexual aspects (which can get somewhat explicit at times), you might like this one!

Made in Abyss - 9 / 10 ( A )

This is easily my pick for AOTS, no contest! It’s just a great adventure show from top to bottom, with a great sense of adventure and mystery! It also helps that the setting is one of the most unique and mysterious we’ve seen in anime for a long time! The Abyss is full of many different elements that not even the in-universe cast know of, which lends itself well to majestic scenes, along with terrifying secrets (it’s a lawless place, after all). Not to mention that the background art captures it extremely well; the huge amount of detail is a good contrast with the more square and cartoony character art-style! The soundtrack is used wonderfully, as it really gets a grand sense of ambience, mystery, and scale all at once! (Especially that one insert song they use a couple times, but first in the premiere!) The Abyss has been a cool place to learn and see more about over the course of the show, but it can definitely rear its ugly dangerous head from time to time, too. Meaning, this show can be VERY gruesome at times; there’s quite a few scenes involving large amounts of blood, and even body mutilation. It’s definitely not for the squeamish. If you can handle it, these scenes just add to the raw emotion this show has, and will have you on the edge of your seat! As for characters, Riko and Reg were a really good duo to follow in their journey! Their personalities (plus abilities and awareness of danger) balance each other well, and I enjoyed seeing them grow closer over time! Riko’s definitely an odd case since she has no fear of the Abyss despite never being able to return home, though (^^;). My other favorite was Nanachi; she was (unfortunately) only in the *last four* episodes, but her character and story really makes up for it! I enjoyed the rest of the cast too, including the cynical and crazy Ozen and her maid assistant Maruruk (she was so sad when Riko & Reg had to leave ;~;). The only real gripe I have about this show is its… inappropriate jokes at times. Lets just say there’s quite a few penis mentions (and yes, they say that word outright). However, the (double-length!) finale was crazy good; incredibly intense, fucked up, emotional, and with a hope cherry on top (including the balloon scene! I just wish I knew what was written inside!) Just learning the full details of Nanachi (& Mitty)’s backstory was REALLY fucked up… and the whole buildup and execution (I’m sorry…) of Mitty’s death brought a few tears to my eye (and I don’t cry easily when watching stuff!). The story definitely isn’t done yet (which impacts its score as a standalone season a little bit), but it had as good of a conclusion as it could’ve had. It sets up an easy-to-hate antagonist really well too, all within the span of one (double-length) episode! This show is definitely the best of this summer season (and one of my top picks for this year!), so this is a very easy recommendation! (Unless you don’t do well with gore, of course).

New Game!! S2 - 8.5 / 10 ( B+ )

I really enjoyed this second season of New Game! It definitely took a slightly different approach, as there was a bit more emotional and dramatic moments (which personally, I think is a good thing!) I also can relate to this show quite a bit, as I’m now a game design student at a community college; so as a result, seeing the girls work on a game in a variety of ways (along with the working process in general) is very interesting to me! Of course, that’s not to say this show is the most realistic portrayal of the industry, per se, but it’s still cool to see more of this slice-of-life comedy about working in a game company! This season shows the team work on a new IP from start to finish, and all the trials that happen along the way. The girls are challenged a lot more as well, especially Aoba as she gets her first go at being the main character designer (with help from Yagami-san)! The concept art contest was definitely the biggest moment for her character arc; seeing her do her best on an art piece, despite knowing she’s going to lose by default due to a sales decision, was bittersweet to see for sure (but she came out much stronger in the end)! That even tied into Yagami’s character arc as well, since she realizes she’s holding back the growth of her younger employees (;~;). Aside from that, the programming aspect got a bit more spotlight this season! Watching Nene make a game by herself, then see her as a programming intern was great to see! Speaking of interns, we got two new girls this season: Momiji and Narumi! Both of them served as good “rivals” for Aoba and Nene, even if there wasn’t fierce competition between them; I just liked seeing their different (more cynical) viewpoints and how they interacted with the other girls (and learned from them + vise versa!). This season ended on a strong note as well; seeing Yagami leave for France and all the girls going to see her off (plus Aoba’s tearful goodbye to her!) was a great emotional end to the season (and heck, it could be a good end to the series in its own right!). I definitely liked this season even more than season one, as the increased emotional depth added a lot to this cute and fun series! If you like slice-of-life comedy shows, this is a really good one to check out!

Princess Principal - 8.5 / 10 ( B+ )

This show is my runner-up for AOTS, so you know this show is a fun time! It’s always fun to see a new spy anime, and this one really delivers on the spy action! The action scenes are really well done, with fluid motions and well-choreographed fight scenes! Add in the steampunk / early 20th century-style, and you’ve got a really cool spy show! The characters’ art style (for the girls) are definitely more on the moe-side, but they were fun to watch the whole way through! The main girls’ personalities were a good mix, and really interesting to see play out (especially Ange’s deadpan shtick). They all have their own skills to contribute too; even Beatrice, with no spy training, can use her mechanical neckpiece to perfectly imitate other people’s voices! The story is mostly episodic; while there is an overarching premise of an England-esque country being torn apart by war and regimes, each episode focuses on one specific spy case. I liked this approach, as each case told a nice little story than could range from action-packed & tense, to somber & heartbreaking. Each of the main girls get some spotlight time too in at least one story, meaning we get more insight into their personal histories and personalities, which is great! The main character focus though is definitely on Ange and Princess, as they swapped places when they were kids and reunite in the spy team during the present timeline. This story is kept vague (which added a good sense of mystery to these two!) until slightly past the halfway mark; it was great finally seeing their backstory when it came time! Their relationship had a big part in the final two episodes as well; speaking of that finale, it was yet another action-packed good time! But it also was very open-ended; The main villain hasn’t been defeated, and the anti-hero spy (Zelda) in the final two episodes got away as well. At least the main group is back together, and hopefully we’ll see them in a season 2, because the ending makes this season suffer a little bit as a stand-alone show. That being said, this was one of my favorite shows of the season for sure, and you should check it out if you like steampunk-style or spy stories!

Re:Creators - 8.5 / 10 ( B+ / A- )

What a solid show! It’s not every day we see a modern anime have a definitive and satisfying conclusion, but here we are! The first episode might not have won me over initially, but it definitely grew on me over time. Exposition was a bit more heavy-handed in earlier episodes as well (which is the most common complaint I’ve seen), but it’s not as bad later on. Re:Creators had lots of themes and messages about the act of creating things and what can come from it, which was really cool to see, especially since I’m an aspiring artist myself. This show may have had a lot of action, but the characters (both creations & creators) and how they interacted with each other was one of the most enjoyable parts for me. I definitely related to the main character (Souta) quite a lot, as he had a hard time creating things (& enjoying it) due to negative circumstances (albeit his reasoning was guilt-related, via mine being self-confidence). Not to mention he admitted to having negative bitter feelings towards his friend Setsuna due to her success (which I admit I also relate too…). Seeing this kind of character reflected in an anime, in addition to seeing a variety of different creators, was definitely great to see, since I could relate to it so much! The creative process is a big part of plot progression & magic-power-logic as well, which is super unique! Seeing a bunch of different genres being represented was cool as well, including a magical girl! (though I wish Mamika was the first to die & last only 8 episodes… at least she was a great character in that short time!) Magane was probably the other standout character for me, as she had a fun personality and was a real wild card in terms of what she could do (though she took a liking towards Souta, in the end). The villain, Altair, was also a great concept for a villain, since she was a Hatsune Miku-type who could use endless material from fan-works as her powers! Each character got at least a decent amount of development/screentime, and like I mentioned before, the conclusion to Altair’s story was really well done, and even left room for an epilogue episode at the end… I love when they do that! The ride that was Re:Creators was full of action, funny moments, heartwarming and heartbreaking moments. In the end… it’s a really good original action series that’s actually complete!

Sakura Quest - 8.5 / 10 ( B+ / A- )

P.A. Works does it again with another really good “working women” series! Like Hanasaku Iroha and Shirobako before it, this show follows a group of young adult girls working to try and revitalize a small rural town. As I’m getting older, I love seeing anime with characters closer to my age range, as they try to find their place in a working adult world, just like I am! The “revitalizing a rural town” aspect was also interesting to see play out, as there’s a lot that goes into that, like trying to get your name out there (either through the web or through TV) or organizing and planning events! The story plays out over the course of the year, but there’s lots of 1-2 episode-long stories that show off all these aspects, along with highlighting certain characters (which I always love to see!). It’s definitely a slice-of-life show that has a lot of character growth, and seeing the team accomplish things and the town slowly-but-surely come together was great to watch! The cast of characters was also really nice, both main and supporting! Most of the supporting cast were elderly or adults, so seeing them bounce off the young adult main group (& seeing their ideologies clash and work together) was cool to see too! Each of the main girls had their own realizations and journeys to make while working for the Tourism Board, whether it was learning the value of small towns (Yoshino) or finding your own way to do what you want to do, even if you fall short of your dreams (Maki). By the end, all five of them definitely show off some good insight towards adult life! The finale was nice as well, showing their classic festival finally coming together and the Dragon Song showing up again (which was one of my favorite mini-arcs back during the first half). While it’s left unclear whether Manoyama gets absorbed or not, it definitely ends on a happy, conclusive ending for our characters, and the town is definitely better off than at the show’s beginning. This was an enjoyable, down-to-earth show to watch, and you should give it a try too if you like slice-of-life shows (or if you enjoyed Hanasaku Iroha or Shirobako)!

Senki Zesshou Symphogear - 7.0 - 7.5 / 10 ( C+ )

This fourth(!) season of Symphogear was a big, fun action fest, just like the other seasons! The strong points of this series have always been the bombastic fight scenes, the insert songs, and the characters, which continues to be true here too. This was the first season that I stopped trying to focus on the story, and I think my enjoyment actually improved because of it! This series’ story has always been silly and tries to top itself with every iteration, which happens again in this season; it likes to pull explanations out of thin air, and have situations work out for our heroes at *just* the right time so the show can have a cool “badass” moment. I will give AXZ credit though for at least trying to pull elements from past seasons into this season’s weapon upgrades and logic reasoning, even though it still kinda feels like an ass-pull to me (then again, other people disagree with me on this, so YMMV!). The story is definitely this series’ biggest weakpoint for me (which is why I tend to rate these seasons relatively low), but its strongest aspects are in top form and a lot of fun to watch! The fight scenes and power-ups keep finding new ways to one-up themselves, and the main Symphogear girls continue to have an enjoyable dynamic together! The new antagonist group was mostly just okay, but the core three alchemist girls (Saint-Germain, Cagliostro, and Prelati) grew on me after they turn on their master (even though I liked Cagliostro the entire time, really~). The final episodes were a fun time, as always (including Hibiki being an evil god-monster at one point!); it’s notable though that they set up some things here for the already-confirmed season 5! Symphogear definitely grew on me this season, as I realized it’s the epitome of a popcorn-action show; just shut your brain off, and enjoy the spectacle!

Shingeki no Bahamut: Virgin Soul - 8.0 / 10 ( B )

This was another fun and action-packed season of Shingeki no Bahamut! While I’m not sure whether I liked season 1 more than this one, it was still a very enjoyable watch throughout! One of the main reasons for this was the main new addition to the cast: Nina! She’s such a fun character to watch, as she’s strong, goofy, and jumps into action right away! I wasn’t the most fond of how “horny” she was for other guys, but that settled down a bit once she finds the guy of her dreams…. Which by the way, is also the main antagonist of the show, King Charioce. She falls in love with him when he’s in disguise, but even after his reveal, she still doesn’t give up her love for him (while simultaneously trying to stop his evil crimes). It’s definitely a unique approach to this type of romance for sure, but it was still a bit odd to me that she still stayed in love with him despite all the tyrannical things he did… At the very least, the execution of this subplot was pretty good, as were all the other story beats! This show has strong execution throughout (the prison escape arc was a highlight), with high quality animation (especially those dance scenes!), swelling music, and the right emotional notes. The problem for most people then will be some story beats themselves, mostly at the show’s end. A couple notable characters seem to get killed for no good reason, Charioce’s motivations try to spin him as “a good guy all along”, and his punishment at the end seems too light (as he merely just loses his eyesight); plus it feels like the people being oppressed by his rule turn right around and he gets praised as a hero for defeating Bahamut (which btw he himself summoned)! And oh yeah, Bahamut isn’t actually dead for good (leaving things open for a possible continuation). Oh well, at least the bittersweet aspect of a voiceless Nina and a sight-less Charioce being together is a nice touch. (I may sound mad here, but I didn’t hate these episodes at all ^^; ) In any case, the whole journey was fun to watch, and was full of engaging action the whole way through. I enjoyed seeing all the returning cast come back, and seeing them interact in both the upbeat and darker moments. Even though the ending won’t win over everyone, if you enjoyed the first season, you should have a good time here too!

#boku no hero academia #isekai shokudou #restaurant to another world #kakegurui #made in abyss #new game!#princess principal #re:creators #re creators #sakura quest #senki zesshou symphogear #symphogear #shingeki no bahamut #rage of bahamut #Final Impressions

6 notes · View notes

sargenthouse · 8 years ago

Text

Big Walnuts Yonder announce upcoming album, first track “Raise The Drawbridges?”

This year has already seen its fair share of mighty supergroups, featuring various members of At The Drive-In, Melvins, Grandaddy, and Franz Ferdinand. Big Walnuts Yonder is a collection of similarly talented veteran musicians — Mike Watt (Minutemen, The Stooges), Nels Cline (Wilco, Nels Cline Singers), Greg Saunier (Deerhoof) and Nick Reinhart (Tera Melos) to be exact — but the chemistry and creative process behind the new outfit are decidedly of a different breed.

“It’s worlds colliding,” Watt explains of the four-piece, which draws in elements of “proto-punk, free jazz, power pop, experimental music, psych-rock and your first teenage acid trip all in one.” Big Walnuts Yonder’s beginnings date back to a 2008 conversation between Watt and Reinhart, but because of hectic, overlapping schedules, it hasn’t been easy to sit down and polish off an official album.

“We had planned it for so long,” recalls Saunier. “Then several years passed in which nothing occurred due to everyone’s schedules. It was 2-3 years of warm, leisurely prep time, then suddenly made in a panic with time and money on the line.” The resulting effort is the band’s self-titled debut, due out May 5th via Sargent House.

The LP was recorded in just three days over the summer of 2014 with the help of producer and former Pere Ubu bassist Tony Maimone engineering at his Studio G in Brooklyn. Its collects 10 songs, eight of which started as “song forms” on Watt’s bass, then later fleshed out and added to by other band members; Saunier and Cline each contributed one track of their own to the final product. “I’m pretty sure the other guys didn’t have parts set before going into the studio,” says Reinhart. “But it’s interesting how a lot of the songs began as Mike Watt basslines, and everyone was able to pull songs and melodies out of them.”

The whole thing seemed to materialize in a way that was spontaneous, but also quite focused — a “concentrated sort of freakout,” according to Saunier. “We basically had to invent a new band on the spot. And, people might have a stereotype of what each person does, but we all showed up to do what we’re prevented from doing in other groups.”

As a first look at Big Walnuts Yonder, the group has shared “Raise the Drawbridges”, a track that captures an instance of police brutality. “He [Watt] takes the voice of an officer acting too tough and provoking conflict,” Saunier explains, “and then comments on the transparency of the officer’s fear and the futility of this dynamic.” Stream it down below.

To accompany the song premiere, Consequence of Sound is happy to present an expansive interview with Saunier, Reinhart, and Cline, in which each talks at length about Big Walnut Yonder’s formation, the importance of each member’s contributions to the album, and the newly released lead single. (Note: All questions were submitted by our one and only News Editor Ben Kaye.)

You guys all come from pretty disparate musical backgrounds. When you were first forming the idea for Big Walnuts Yonder, what was it that drew you to go a little outside the box and bring such different styles together, and how did you figure out what sonic direction you’d be going in as a unit?

Greg Saunier: I sort of felt the opposite. Playing with Nick Nels and Watt was a piece of cake. Like coming home to a band you’ve never been in. I can think of musical projects each member has done that seems like way more of a stretch.

Nels Cline: I live in the cracks musically and always have. “Styles” and “genres” are not really my thing, so all I know is that I respect the musicians I play with and that I will do my best to participate in any endeavor in which we coalesce. It’s been my way since the late 70s! The sonic direction presents itself and demands respect more than we direct it when there is true collaboration in my opinion.

All the songs began with Mike’s basslines and then were built out from there, starting with NIck’s guitar riffs. What are some of the challenges writing in that way present, and how did you guys all figure out how to pull together a song from such basic starting points?

GS: I contributed one song, and its garageband demo was emailed to the gang the day before meeting up. I played all the parts myself but when I say parts you must understand I mean I played them on the computer with electronic sounds, using something called the “musical typing” feature in garageband. The funny thing about musical typing is that if your RAM isn’t up to scratch, some of the notes you type come out late. Like every note is a different amount late. The result is woeful. I hoped that even though my demo was so out of rhythm and discombobulated that they would still somehow glean what I’d meant, and come in the next day saying “no problem Greg, bad RAM, happens to the best of em” but actually I think they were really worried that I had no idea what rhythm was.

Nick Reinhart: I remember being really excited and nervous when my email dinged and there were mike watt bass demos sitting in my inbox. I listened through the 8 tracks and initially felt overwhelmed about how to approach adding guitars and doing justice to these bass parts. Watt’s musical language is so curious and unique. that’s part of the watt legacy — he sounds like himself. Finding interesting ways to dance around the bass and add to the conversation was really special.

NC: This is really the same way I recorded with Watt on “Contemplating the Engine Room” and Brother’s Sister’s Daughter (Japanese project). As Daevid Allen once sang with Gong, “Imagination is the key!”.

It sounds like a lot of the songs came together in a rather improvisational manner. How do you go from that to performing the songs in a live setting? Have you ever had to sit and re-listen to a track and sort of reverse engineer the music for yourself?

GS: I wouldn’t quite call it improv but it was pretty crazy how quick everybody came up with their parts even if they didn’t know the song. Particularly Nels hadn’t prepared any parts before recording but within seconds of hearing stuff he was playing stuff that sounded etched in stone like it had always been there.

NC: In this case I will definitely have to listen to stems or something to re-learn my parts! How we end up playing this ‘live’ is still a mystery and will be a fun challenge. I hope!

There’s a pretty big age gap between members of the band. What was surprising or inspiring about working with people from different generations? Any tips or tricks you picked up from the opposite end of the generational spectrum that you weren’t expecting?

GS: When everybody is able to quote Buddy Rich bus tape insults, age disappears.

NR: The creative wisdom these guys possess is totally amazing and being able to make art with musical giants is a real pleasure. I had previously learned so much from them from a distance, so being able to see it all from the inside out was super inspiring. They’re still ripping and learning. For me it was like looking into a crystal ball and seeing my future. It’d be like if I saw a newborn baby today and said, “Hi, in 30 years we’ll have a band and do something cool.”

NC: I play with people from their 20s to 70s. I don’t really think about age unless someone mentions it or brings up a reference that I am unaware of that is of their generation, so to speak. But in this case I think we all like sound and rock music, so…”

Most of the album was actually recorded in 2014, after some years of trying to get everyone in the same room together. Why has it taken three years to go from there to here? How does it feel to finally have it coming out and what’s it like having to talk about a project that’s, in a way, three years old already?

GS: Well I mixed this record so even though there was a gap after we did it, that was kind of useful. Came back to it ultra-fresh. And just finished the mixes recently, like three months ago or something. Stuff takes time especially when you’re DIY.

NC: My massive record from last year “Lovers” also took forever to come out and I am performing it this year. I don’t know… In this case it was Nick’s lyric writing/vocal recording that seemed to take some time. But we didn’t do an “Obama Suite” or anything, so I guess time isn’t really an important factor, really. “No wine before its time”! The music sounds fresh to me.

Watt, you wrote the lyrics for “Raise the Drawbridges” — can you tell me a little bit about what the track is about? It sounds to me like it’s about people too afraid to take charge of their life and face down challenges or those who try to stand in their way. Am I far off?

GS: I’m going to answer this because who says the person who wrote it is the only one who knows what something is about? This vocal moved me deeply when Watt first sent it to me. In the instrumental version this is probably the goofiest one we did, but the meaning completely changed once this portrait of police brutality was recorded. He takes the voice of an officer acting too tough and provoking conflict, and then comments on the transparency of the officer’s fear and the futility of this dynamic.

In his own words, Watt offered up a very detailed account of how Big Walnuts Yonder the album came together from start to finish:

“Eight of the ten songs started w/ Watt composition via bass only and he sent these out. nick worked on his developing his parts in response. this all happened well before ever getting into studio g in brooklyn. what I presented the band for my compositions were bass only (deliberately, to let Nick, nels and greg bring in their own for the collab) but they are what I would call SONG FORMS and not just bass lines. what I mean by that is there’s this part so many times and then it goes to this part so many times and so on. it’s supposed to be a foundation for a song form which I guess is made out of bass lines.

all four of us together for first time in brooklyn, we first attack these eight tunes as a team. the only titles they had were letters like song a, song b and so on. I’m re-enacting what I did at my pad by myself but w/these guys, I’m using tony maimone’s bass. nick’s doing the same except I think w/some of his solos cuz he’s interacting w/nels in real time. I remember greg asking me for a tiny bit of direction explanation for what was to become “I’ve got marty feldman’s eyes” when I put out a statement like, “I was influenced a little bit here by doing stuff from the clash’s first singles and album” cuz yeah, I had just done a benefit gig for the strummerville foundation and had to learn some of those tunes but it was still just a pure musical ref – I ended up using that confusion (sorry to confuse you, greg!) for the gist of my spiel when laster nick asked me to do spiel for it… I thought that point was very relevant! it was “dreamed up by committee” but still very connected to the cats on this proj.

nels brought his tune and explained what he wanted from each of us and made out a brief sketch roadmap the piece. we all four acted on that in real time, being it our first time for all of us – no “demo” to hear beforehand. same thing ‘pert-near happened w/greg’s tune. so there was actually two processes used: 1) eight had the watt, then nick and then all of us together and 2) two had their composers show us (the other three in each case) in the studio and then we went at it. to examine further, here’s my take. we got ten tunes recorded the way I just described and then were given roughs. down the road nick asks me to get spiel for two of the tunes, he gives me which ones, I think they might’ve been song t and song u. then he starts recording from his pad his spiel for seven of the other ones.

nels tune he decided was gonna remain instrumental. greg decided he would mix everything which is what we all wanted from the git-go and were very happy excited. I sent my two spiels but screwed up somehow so he mixed my two as instrumentals ’til I got him my spiels proper. he had gotten nick’s spiels from him. he had a few runs of mixes, each run being sent to us all and then he’d hear our opinions and do another run of mixes under those influences. I think there were four runs maybe altogether.”

(via Consequence of Sound)

#big walnuts yonder #consequence of sound #raise the drawbridges #tera melos #the stooges #minutemen #nels cline #wilco #deerhoof #mike watt #greg saunier #nick reinhart

7 notes · View notes

teramelos1 · 8 years ago

Text

Big Walnuts Yonder with Nick Reinhart announce self-titled album, release “Raise The Drawbridges?” via Consequence of Sound

NC: In this case I will definitely have to listen to stems or something to re-learn my parts! How we end up playing this ‘live’ is still a mystery and will be a fun challenge. I hope!

GS: When everybody is able to quote Buddy Rich bus tape insults, age disappears.

In his own words, Watt offered up a very detailed account of how Big Walnuts Yonder the album came together from start to finish:

(via Consequence of Sound)

#big walnuts yonder #nick reinhart #consequence of sound #mike watt #greg saunier #nels cline #wilco #the stooges #minutement #deerhoof #tera melos #raise the drawbridges #sargent house

4 notes · View notes

hafsa-zaman-unit13 · 4 years ago

Text

Unit 13 evaluation:

I honestly couldn’t/ still can’t believe how fast this year went despite it still somehow feeling like a million years long. I had been thinking of the final project for a while and was pretty confident about what I was going to do. We also did some mini projects along with that which was different and new in comparison to last year. I don’t really know how I’m going to make an overall evaluation for three separate projects but I’ll try my best, and just start from the beginning.

The Graphic Notation project, unfortunately, was one of my least favourite group projects I did this year. That just came down to lack of programs/communication, and not being able to properly experiment and make it my own/having to sacrifice my own aesthetic tendencies for the sake of the group ultimately resulting in something I was not happy with. In terms of development each of the team members, myself included, did do a lot of useful research and successful experimentation. I particularly enjoyed filling up a bucket with soap and capturing different coloured lights hitting the bubbles. Rahems also had fun filming his brother dancing around with glow sticks strapped to his body. All of these clips were used for the background of our final video and I liked them very much individually, however when we needed to add the patterns in it was very rushed and left all to the one person that had After Effects who was subsequently very inactive in the group chat. If I had had the correct program or even one similar I believe we’d be much more satisfied with the result. I wanted to make the squiggly shapes move more fluidly and less like an animation made in PowerPoint. I’m not saying its the worst thing in the world, just nothing like I wanted it to be.

Wonderland Studios was a breath of fresh air after the last project and also my favourite of this year. I really enjoyed being a lot more free to mess around and throw ideas in the air for our fantastical studio to come together. We were all buzzing with thoughts in our group chat straight away and making up strange studios that we’d like to work in. I think something that made this one more enjoyable was the addition of another group member, Emma. She made it more fun and evened out the effect the absence of one of the other team mates had on our work flow. Individually, we researched studios recommended to us such as fruit arts club and type haus. We all thought about and merged all of our ideas for the perfect studio together. We had fun. That was what our studio was all about, work doesn’t have to be a chore, it doesn’t have to be boring, we want to give colleges creative freedom and an enjoyable environment as well as cater for their particular working style whether that be early in the morning or really late at night. In the end we made 5 posters of our ethos, 6 A0 posters of the Paula Scher interview, 6 pages of brand guidelines, a flag, a website, an Instagram profile and 3 studio design concepts. I think (mostly) everything turned out great. That’s not to say that we didn’t have any problems because, like in the last project, we were let down by one individual who barely contributed and gave us a poorly put together Instagram on the day of our final presentation and didn’t even show up to be there and give it with us. That was a shame. Back to the good parts though, I really liked how our final presentation was designed, by yours truly of course, the rainbow theme has a very playful vibe to it which is perfect for our studio concept. The gif I made is probably the best thing I did for this project. I like the balloon like logo, the silly posters, the revamped guidelines, the t-Rex flag, and the amazing studio architecture designs.

Finally, my FMP. I had a couple ideas initially, as you’ll have seen but I was thinking of illustrating my mother’s book for a good while now. The additional idea of the dream aesthetic exhibition was not something I came up with myself, but I am excited to see that come together hopefully.

Starting with Amanda Apple, I had to first familiarise myself with the book again. It had been a long time since I read it and we also spent an exorbitant amount of time trying to find it. When We did, and I finished it, I had a lot of visuals in my head for it. Then I did a lot of research into other illustrators and book making, such as Anoosha Syed who made a detailed video explaining her process when making a book, as well as a few of my personal favourite artists that were constantly inspiring me to draw like Baomii, Radia Rahman and Ellespazz. I had my mother there to interview for primary research if ever I needed it. She also approved my designs before I finalised them. Then I typed up the book, it took forever and got to see it in more detail... which provoked an annoying need to change some stuff for improvement, with my mother’s approval of course I drew up the character designs and decided that it’d be easiest for me to produce a b5 book so both my computer and wallet could afford it. Unfortunately, I have not managed to actually illustrate any of the pages just yet. I had a couple of really bad weeks during the times I was at home which ended up dragging me down severely. I didn’t want to work, I just wanted to disappear. Things are a little better now so I’ve been working nicely and will continue to work over the next few weeks to get everything done hopefully but I cannot share that on the blog as it is too late. I’m really sorry about that. From what I have done I can say I’m quite please with. I think the character design is really nice so I know what I want it to look like now. If I re write the bits I listed then I’ll be able to also be really proud of the story.

For the surrealization project, I also did a lot of research into surrealist artists along the likes of Beeple Crap, Leaf and Petal Design, and also a really cool movie which has a dream like feel to it, Mirrormask. I also drew out a couple things as well as how I wanted my exhibition piece to look. I think if that all goes well I’ll be really happy. There wasn’t much else I could do for this one because I don’t have the money to start building it and buying all the plants and stuff so maybe it won’t even happen but I like the idea and I enjoyed recalling all the crazy dream memories I have.

I think I’m way over the word limit now but I did want to talk very briefly about something that happened this year, I am proud of, aside from my work. That is my social anxiety. I was diagnosed with it two years ago after dealing with very constant and painful panic attacks. I was pretty much mute and didn’t want anyone to perceive me. This year I have stepped out of my comfort zone, found my style, and started feeling much more comfortable in social situations. I think it was the group projects actually, that nudged me in this direction. When I saw that I wasn’t immediately rejected I eventually allowed myself to try. This is something that needed to happen for a long time and will hopefully help me have a better life in general. This year was great actuall, aside from the issues at home, and I may almost miss it :’)

#FMP #evaluation

0 notes

tbhstudying1 · 7 years ago

Text

from for the dreams i want to catch http://ift.tt/2nxROc4 via See More

The Honest Guide on Preparing for College

I thought it’d be cool and useful to give you guys an “Honest Guide on Preparing for College.” It has all the things you may already know, and then also some things you perhaps don’t. And a bunch of tips that are helpful for preparing for college, but also during college. I’ve been working on this post for months, adding few new tips every now and then so hopefully you guys like it and find it useful! :) I may add more tips from time to time, I’m not sure.

Suffer from acne? Visit a dermatologist to get it under control ASAP. The earlier you start, the earlier you’ll see results! And trust me, you’ll be going bare-faced a lot in college. At least twice a day- morning & night. And you’ll always want to look and feel your best! It sucks to be self-conscious.

Figure out a rough guideline of your morning/ night routine. Your college routine is usually not going to be the exact same as your home routine. Ie: Make up will probably be done in your room, not in the bathroom. If you use makeup often, consider buying a vanity mirror! Very useful.

You won’t need binders. I brought 3 (1-inch) in case and I hardly use one. It’s more useful to have individual folders for each class. Or even those notebook with tabs inside to hold papers. The point being, the way you organize your work is different in high school. You’re not going to the same 5 periods everyday in college. You have classes that meet MWF, and TTh, etc.

Don’t forget to bring college essentials! Refer to my two posts here (”College Essential Hacks”) and here (”Things I Forgot/ Nearly Forgot to Bring to College”.

Invest in make-up. In high school, I never wore make-up but now I often wear mascara and light lipstick! I spent countless trips figuring out what shade was best for me and trying out different products. Would’ve been easier to just do this in the comfort of my own home than in college! I’m still a make-up noob though, haha. I can’t even figure out how to apply eyeliner confidently!

Bring clothes you’ll actually wear. 1/3 of the clothes I’ve brought to college were never worn… They just took up closet space!

Bring formal clothes too. You never know what events you’ll go to (including sorority rush, galas, etc). Don’t forget a good pair (or two) of shoes for the outfit!

Realize that the first month-ish of school is the prime time to make new friends. People are more open to making new friends and are more friendly and receptive. Make the most of this!!! I can not stress this enough! Remember that first impressions can stick, so be especially graceful during this period. I would even go so far as to say that you should try to go out to a party in the first few weeks of school for two reasons…. 1) You can see if you fit with the party scene and if you enjoy it. 2) When you attend events early on, people will assume you’re down to go for the rest of the semester and you’ll get invites. (Which you can turn down, of course.)

Keep in touch with old friends! Seriously. Don’t just make new college friends and forget about your old high school friends. Keep in touch! Message them regularly and keep them in the loop! It might seem like a lot of work to message them all the details about something, especially when they are unfamiliar with the people so you have to describe it a lot (Wait, who’s Jim again? What’s your roommate’s name again? etc), but it’s so rewarding to have an old, familiar friend with you as you both experience college together, but separately.

Know your schedule and be on top of this. Be organized. I recommend a planner and also having a print out of your weekly schedule that has your classes and other time commitments. I actually drew my weekly schedule and hung it by my desk. It not only helps me visualize my week, but also lets my roommates know when to expect me. I also use a calendar app very diligently. Whenever I commit to an event, I immediately put it into my calendars (the app, and also my physical calendar in my room). I also inputted the dates and times of my exams/ important assignments from the get-go so I wouldn’t be surprised about when they were. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND INPUTTING THE DATES OF YOUR EXAMS AND DUE DATES OF PAPERS, ETC INTO YOUR CALENDAR ASAP!!!!!!!!

Keep in touch with family. Similar reasoning with #9. But basically, your parents and siblings have lived with you all of your life. They’ll miss you. Text them, call them, facetime them once in a while. Send them a postcard. Buy them college gear. Do little things like this; they’ll really appreciate it!

Don’t be so uptight and remember to be grateful. I feel like I’ve matured greatly in college. I used to have these crazy-high expectations about friendships and stuff, and now, it’s not that I have absurdly low expectations, but I just don’t take everything for granted. I am grateful for anything and everything my friends do for me. They bought me Chipotle? Aww. They reminded me about the review session? So sweet. Basically, don’t take things for granted.

Don’t be that one annoying friend. You know who you are. College is a time where you can really ‘reinvent’ yourself and you should really try to be a ‘better you’ during college. Here are some traits I find annoying, personally… An annoying friend is one who does any or all of these things:

“Forget” to pay a friend back for spotting you. Seriously, we all hate that person who does this and we all really respect that person who is really diligent about paying back someone. So take note. Everyone is on a tight budget in college.

Rants all the time. If you’re ranting all the time and your friend is just listening, you have yourself a freaking awesome friend. Just remember that friendship means you can rant, and your friend can rant back. It’s a two-way street.

Tries to peer pressure others into doing something they like. Okay, I get that you drink and smoke a lot. But you don’t need to feel the urge to ‘convert’ me to doing the same. No means no.

Always bails or is flaky. Freaking annoying.

Takes things too far. We all have that one friend who takes things too far and doesn’t know when to stop….

Too sensitive… But we also may have an uber-sensitive friend who always holds grudges and is a grumpy cat.

Don’t skip class. Seriously. It doesn’t matter if the lecture is posted online, or if you’ll just get notes from a friend. Or if you already ‘know’ what’s being taught. Just go. Skipping class = lower grades = lower GPA = unhappy you.

Be willing to try new things. This can vary to an extent from person to person. It can be as crazy as asking someone out or trying new food. College is a time of growth, new experiences, and fun times. HOWEVER, don’t do anything that will harm yourself. None of this “yolo” mantra please.

Bring a lot of undies. Shirts and pants can be reworn more than once (within reason), but undies can’t. So save yourself from doing laundry all the time and bring a lot of undies.

Learn to let things go. I used to be that person who held onto grudges. But since starting college, I’ve really begun to realize that life is so much more fun and enjoyable if you don’t let the little things faze you. Learn to let it go. Don’t let what that rude guy said to you this morning stick with you for the whole day. Who cares if you asked someone out and it failed? You don’t need them anyway! You’re too fabulous for them to handle!

Learn to be confident in yourself. “Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You “- Dr Seuss. Over the years, I’ve found that I’ve grown much more confident and independent. I love it.

Learn how to socialize and be a great conversationalist. Smile and actually pay attention to what they’re saying. Remember what they said and bring it up the next time you see them. Hey, how was your lunch at Gypsy’s with John? It makes people feel special and nice. Use their names in the conversation as often as you can (without it sounding totally awkward and weird). People like hearing their names in conversation. [Btw, I read these facts on a Time article somewhere so its legit.]. People don’t remember what you say, but they remember how you made them feel. So make them feel loved and appreciated. Laugh.

Live and learn through your mistakes. No one’s perfect. So what if you bombed your first midterm? It’s the first of many. Pick yourself up and study harder for the next one. Don’t get all beaten up.

Consider bringing your AP study guide books to college. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve opened my AP Calculus review book from Princeton Review to review and look up things.

Keep track of your meal points. I frequently hear people saying they always have leftover meal points at the end of the year, but maybe it’s because I like to buy a lot of snacks, but I was actually behind on points for half the semester. It’s no big deal–I can easily add more points–, but just don’t be under the illusion that you have unlimited amount of points and can buy whatever you want. Be smart about rationing off your points.

Don’t let one midterm grade affect you. Yeah, you failed that midterm. So what? Just do well on the next ones. There’s nothing you can do about your midterm grade–you can only improve yourself for the future. Have a good cry, rant to friends, watch some Netflix–and then realize the changes you have to make and enforce the changes.

Pick classes that you’ll enjoy. Don’t pick morning classes (if you can help it) if you’re not a morning person. Don’t take a Drawing/ Painting class if you’re not an artsy person for your Visual Arts requirement–there’s classes like Art History or stuff like that. Be reasonable about the classes you take and how much workload you know you can handle. Not everyone is the same.

Go see your adviser from time to time. Just to make sure you’re on track! Work out a 4-year plan. You don’t want to have any surprises later down the road!

Be careful with labels. Like “best friend” or “favorite person”. Sometimes, these can lead people on unintentionally and you’ll get yourself in awkward and uncomfortable situations where they like you but you don’t like them or something. I learned that it’s just best to call people your “friends” and unless you are really bonded with a person, then call them your best friend. But honestly, if you two are best friends, you kinda just know you are each other’s best friend–it’s a mutual feeling and it doesn’t really need to be said or labeled. I think it’s just best to rid yourself of using labels, honestly. Terms that imply exclusivity can sometimes lead people on. I think you should have a self-check with yourself every month or two and go like, “Okay, where am I at? I really like where I am right now. I could improve on this… etc etc. Let’s see the friends I’m close to… Do I think any of them likes me? I don’t want to unintentionally lead them on.” Just stuff like that.

Understand your finances for college. Including scholarships, how much you’re paying, how much you’re working (if applicable), etc. Just be on top of all your money stuff!

Don’t go out and eat out a lot. I ate out a lot during freshman year. Too much. I had no regrets during the moment but now looking back, I just imagine all of the money I could’ve saved if I didn’t eat out…. :( You can save so much money by reducing how much you eat out.

Be financially conscious and be mindful of how much you spend. There are plenty of hangouts you and your friends can do that don’t require money or that much money. Examples: movie nights, picnics, checking out the campus botanical garden, going sightseeing in the city, cooking dinner together, etc. Just because it costs money doesn’t mean it will always be fun, memorable or worth it–something to remind yourself of! In addition, shoot for quality over quantity. Buy a $50 pair of Rainbows sandals that will last for years, instead of flimsy, cheaply made sandals that will break after a couple of uses. Splurge on that North Face jacket–you’ll be wearing it a lot and it’s versatile and will last you years. Now that I buy groceries and cook for myself, I’ve definitely come to appreciate the value of the dollar.

Realize how small the world is and how connected everything is. Don’t talk shit about people. Seriously. The person you’re complaining about may have a friend who is taking a class with the person you’re telling to. Or the person you’re telling it to may have a friend who has a friend who knows the person. If it’s one thing that keeps coming up in my time here, it’s that everyone seems to know everybody (or is a friend of a friend). So limit your shit-talking, secret-sharing, gossip talk to only your trusted confidants. Seriously, though. As you go through college, you’ll come to notice that many people will reappear in your classes because of being in the same major, and more. The world is small, y’all. Don’t be reckless.

#IFTTT #for the dreams i want to catch

0 notes