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kozachenko · 19 days ago

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Shortly after that Zanmu drawing, I went on an art spree and made small little drawings of a majority of the current playable characters in Touhou (I've been procrastinating on drawing Aya and Ran) and finally gave myself refernce points for how to draw all these characters going forward! Also, don't mind the change in background colour, that's just me changing the background so the values are actually visible lol.

Artist's Notes;

So the first one I started with was Reimu, and the inspiration for her pose came from this pose reference on Pinterest of a girl doing ribbon dancing, and I thought "Damn, that's very Reimu-coded" and did a quick little Reimu drawing from that.

This was also the drawing where I finally learned what makes a Reimu drawing feel like Reimu. It's the shirt, it's literally just the shirt. I decided to try making Reimu's shirt have a stronger square shape and oh my god it's like I discovered some kind of secret sauce because it just feels so much more like Reimu. I also gave Reimu a tabard and loose pants because I felt like that also fit her very well and also tied in some element's of Yukari's design into hers. I also made her bow look more like a very geometric butterfly as a bit of a tie in to "Diochromatic Lotus Butterfly" and also because I think butterfly symbolism fits her a lot. I also left the hands unfinished because they are not the focus of this piece, Reimu is, I don't wanna cry over how I can't get the hands right and then never get to the actually fun parts of the drawing. Previously, I did some design experimentation with Reimu where I added a little ornament on her obi that was inspired by Yuna's design from Final Fantasy 10 (I can't remember if I ever posted that one lol, also FFX is so good you guys I love it so much) and I like it, I think it adds some fun assymetry to her design that I think makes it look neat. I also gave her some more traditional Japanese shoes (I don't know the name of them so please correct me if you know) since I've seen other artists doing it and I love that look so I added that to this drawing as well.

I also really like how Marisa turned out, I experimented a bit with her body type and outfit, though I didn't really go too off-model with her compared to Reimu. I liked the longer sleeves on her and I gave her a big bow on the back of her apron since I thought it looked cute. I couldn't find a spot for the bow on her hat that looked good so sadly that isn't present in this version of her :( I do like how her face turned out though, since I've also been experimenting with how differently stylized I can make faces in my art. I will always love mangas like Hunter X Hunter that can put two extremely differently stylized characters on the same panel and make it look cohesive, it's why I love the style so much.

I think the crulest irony is not being able to draw your favourite character well while you're hyperfixating on them, but then only being able to draw them how you picture them once they're no longer your favourite, and that happened with Sakuya here. I was initially gonna give her the flashiest eyeshadow known to man but when I removed the layer wih the eyeshadow rendering on it I ended up liking it more without it, so now she's just got some nice bottom lashes. I tried giving her more of an hourglass shape for her body type, mainly to differentiate her more from Reimu and Marisa, and I focused on making as many points in her drawing as sharp as I can. I also gave her some white gloves because I like the idea of Sakuya having fancy gloves, it fits her. To me, Sakuya has always been the most high femme of the main Touhou characters. Maybe this is just because she was my gay awakening, maybe it's just influence from the fandom, but it just kind of makes sense to me. Much like Marisa, I also emphasized the bow ribbons for extra oomph with the silhouette and when I added the red bows and looked at the overall design, I fixed the lack of red anywhere else by just... covering her in blood... I mean she does work for two vampires and she's exactly the sanest person in Gensokyo so please pardon my indulgence in edginess it couldn't be helped.

Youmu was really fun to do but also kinda challenging. In my mind I wanted to make her feel different compared to everyone else I've drawn so far, short enough to be somewhat accurate to canon, but not too childish looking since she never really acts all that childish in cannon and it wouldn't make sense for her to look like a child. I also had to make her look fast and speedy without her looking like Sakuya and potentially avoiding same body syndrome with Aya, who's whole gimmick is speed. In the end, I think her drawing is my favourite, mainly because of the shapes and silhouette. I also really like how I golden-ratioed myon. I also took a few liberties with her outfit and decided to give it some layers to add visual interest. I also like how the cuts in the clothing add more triangles, which adds to the shape language. For her face, I was wondering what to do with her eyes until I decided to just go for the simple, glowing, circular eyes she has in the final product. I was also listening to a bunch of Gorrilaz albums while drawing these (Demon Days is my favourite album btw, idk how basic of a take that is though) and my brain 100% was subconsciously influenced by some elements of the art style (it's so good omg). I also like the shade of green I gave her, though I am a certified green lover so I am 100% biased.

Reisen is where I let myself get a little weird with it, because as you can see, I turned her into an anthropomorphic bunny because she is a weird moon rabbit god dammit, why should she look normal? I was more excited about drawing her IN design than her modern design so that's why she's dressed like that, but I do have a sketch of her in my sketchbook of her modern design. I also had fun rendering her velvet suit jacket. This also helped me tie in some of the reds in her eye and ear, which is also a nice bonus. I also gave her pure white fur to create more visual contrast. Overall, I'm pretty happy with how she turned out, though I wish I didn't shade the legs too much because it's kinda blending with the skirt colour....welp, ya win some ya lose some I guess.

Sanae is also relatively on-model compared to everyone else here, though I did try to make some changes to her outfit to make her feel different from Reimu. First of all, I made her big sleeves (IDK the proper Japanese term for them, if there is one, so again if you know please correct me on this) more open than Reimu's, as well as making them more pointy to give her a different silhouette. I also tried out a new rendering style on her eyes that I also applied to Cirno (we'll get to her in a moment) to also make her face feel different from Reimu's. I'll be honest, I didn't really know what to do with her body type so she just kinda got the "basic slim girl" look in her drawing. I'm not too big a fan of the frills I added to her skirt though, I don't really think she needs them. I'm glad I gave Reimu pants and a tabard instead of a normal skirt because that does help to make the two of them feel different. I also kept her little frog hair clip the same shade of blue as her dress, mainly to economize my colour usage and limit the palette into something a little more tight-nit. I do like how her little hair snake looks though, it's cute lol.

And finally, we have Cirno. I have been a firm believer of "long sleeve Cirno is best Cirno" ever since I saw the art of her in PMiSS because she's an ice fairy, I think it would make sense for her to want to keep herself warm, same reason she has little socks too. Now that I look at it more, her colours are pretty similar to her design in Great Fairy Wars, and honestly I like that, I think keeping her colour palette simple is a good idea so I'm happy about that. I mainly wanted to focus on rendering her wings though, mainly because rendering ice and crystals is fun even though I have done zero studies of them! I also wanted to experiment with rendering her eyes in a similar way to Sanae's, and I like how they turned out! I don't know if I'll continue with this style in the future but it will probably stick around because to me, any stylistically different way of doing eyes is another facial feature I can use to bend the rules of same face syndrome.

While I'm on the topic, I want to mention that the reason Hunter X Hunter's art works so well is because everything is kinda rendered the same. It showed me that if you do everything else consistently in your style (i.e. rendering, lineart, shading), stylizing each character's faces differently will be a lot easier, at least that's how I see it. IDK if I'm ever gonna do drawings of Aya and Ran in this style since I gotta think about them more as well as stop procrastinating lol.

#tw blood #touhou project #art #fanart #touhou fanart #reimu hakurei #sanae kochiya #sakuya izayoi #marisa kirisame #cirno #reisen udongein inaba #youmu konpaku

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sabertoothwalrus · 28 days ago

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your character designs are incredible! do you keep anything/any thought processes in mind as you draw fanart vs how you draw ocs?

OOOOOO what a fun question...

I'd say my general thought process about how to build a new character-- figuring out who they are and what they do and what they're like-- is all pretty much the same across the board. The main difference between designing fan characters vs original characters is how I answer those sorts of questions.

For original characters, it can be almost overwhelming because I get to choose everything. I can make everything perfectly suited to my own tastes, except I have a broad range of things I like, and my tastes change constantly FJHFHD so depending on the project, choosing a more specific direction helps narrow things down.

Here's some old ocs I redrew recently. They're from an old story I'm not planning on revisiting, but it was about an art student, her little brother, and some grim reapers. Can you tell who is who?

I wanted the alive characters to have a lot of Opposites from the reapers. Warm vs Cool colors. Round vs Angular shapes. I wanted the reapers to look skeletal and sickly looking, and it was important that they all had some kind of hood. They needed to wear black & grey, but their colors still needed to be interesting, so they're all tinted with a color (one is sort-of blue, one is sort-of red, one is sort-of purple).

The story is more serious, so it felt appropriate that the characters were more realistically proportioned compared to some of the cartoonier designs I tend to do. They're still heavily stylized, and I tried to push myself to go harder on the shape language and Appeal™.

For fan characters, it's actually a lot of fun because so much of the work has been done for you. The more source material you have to work with, the less you have to come up with.

So, an example I'm going to use is Hugh Dini, a character I came up with as part of a fan concept for a new entry in the Ace Attorney series.

Phoenix Wright's daughter, Trucy, is a magician. She was 17 in her last appearance, and my fan concept takes place 7 years later, so she'd be 24. I decided she'd have a boyfriend who is also her assistant, and went from there.

I knew Hugh was going to be a defendant, which according to Ace Attorney rules means that he'd be falsely accused of murder. I needed to create a guy who was sympathetic, someone that you'd WANT to help prove his innocence.

What I did was reference existing characters from the games who fit similar archetypes and took a lot of design cues from them. I also referenced characters like Fukuo from Kiki's Delivery Service, who is a delightful himbo wifeguy that looks a little intimidating but is actually just kinda shy. And then I looked at actual photos of stage magician costumes for additional inspiration. THEN I go back to the source material to compare design details I want to add (ex, Hugh's high collar, his cuffs, the collar, the cape being turned into fringe on his jacket) and see if it already exists somewhere. No point in reinventing the wheel if I don't need to!

I wanted him to be like a "sexy magician's assistant", which I thought was a funny contrast to his restrained demeanor. He needed to be flashy, but not TOO flashy that he'd upstage Trucy. And additionally, since this is a game series where the characters are mostly seen from the waist up, I tried to keep his most interesting details in the top half of his design (but honestly in hindsight, I could have given him more. like Zak Gramarye's thigh-strap belt bag, perhaps).

Some other things I like to do when creating fan designs is to "roleplay" being the designers of the source material. If concept art is available, I reference that. I like to find the design quirks the character designers favor, and use them to make my own designs more convincing. If I'm designing something for, say, a european tv show that came out in 2005, I'd refer to the fashion and design tendencies that were most prevalent in the culture then, because that's what the actual character designers would have been most inspired by. But I'm not perfect, I'm gonna have the biases of an american lesbian living in 2025 no matter how hard I try LMAO

Hopefully I was able to answer your question!

#art help #my art #character design

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bvrnesher · 14 days ago

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Jealous!Leo headcanons. NSFW or SFW

❝ Jealous headcanons ! ❞ ― leo valdez!

tap here for chb masterlist ! here for reqs info

warnings: nsfw/sfw content.

— ✦ pairing: leo valdez ! reader.

a/n: I decided to make both nsfw and sfw. hope you like it ! ♡ + I opted more for my perception of Leo than for the concept of "jealousy" in general.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ꪆ ✦ 𑊁 ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

— ୨ৎㅤ˳ NSFW

Leo’s jealousy doesn’t explode—it festers. He’ll act chill, crack jokes, make a snarky comment about the way that son of Hermes looked at you. But that night? He can’t stop thinking about it. Obsessing. Touching himself with his jaw clenched, whispering your name like a curse, trying to come hard enough to forget that someone else might get to touch you.

He needs to make you laugh when he’s jealous. It’s his only weapon. He’s insecure as hell about being the “funny one,” the guy you hang out with, not the one you fuck. So he flirts harder. Tries to make you smile until your eyes crinkle. And if you kiss him mid-laugh, straddle his lap and grind down until he’s gasping? That’s when he finally believes you want him—and only him.

Sex with jealous Leo is desperate, uncoordinated, raw. Clothes half-on. Hands in the wrong places. He’s shaking while he fucks into you like he’s trying to stake a claim. Voice breaking. “Please don’t leave me. Please.” You cup his cheeks, tell him “I’m right here,” and he comes just from that. Doesn’t even last a full minute. He buries his face in your chest and begs for another chance to make you feel good.

He cries during sex sometimes—quietly, shakily. Not every time. Just when he’s been stewing in the fear. When someone else flirts with you and it confirms every worst thing he thinks about himself. When you whisper “You’re mine” while riding him and it breaks him. He gasps. Chokes on a sob. “Gods, I love you—I’m so scared you’re gonna find someone better—” And you shut him up with your mouth. With your body. You fuck the doubt out of him.

He never thinks he’s enough, so he overcompensates. Tries to finger you just right. Goes down on you like he’s solving a mechanical problem—what makes you twitch, what makes you moan, what makes you say his name like it’s gospel. And when you come on his tongue? He smiles through tears. Because he made you feel good. He did something right.

Leo’s obsessed with praise. Not praise for his jokes. Not even for his skills. Praise for him. Whisper “You’re so good to me” while you ride him, and he’s gone. Gone. Fingernails in your hips. “Say it again.” You stroke his curls and tell him he’s perfect and he comes so hard he forgets where he is. Because you saw him. You chose him.

After sex, he clings. He doesn’t even mean to. You’re catching your breath and suddenly he’s curled around you, face in your neck, fingers tracing circles on your back like he’s afraid you’ll vanish. You run your hands through his hair and he mumbles, half-asleep, “I’d burn down the world if it meant you’d stay.”

Leo gets physically sick when he thinks you might leave. The first time someone else touched your arm too long? He laughed it off. Said something dumb, bit his tongue. But when he got back to Bunker 9 alone? He threw up. Couldn’t eat. Couldn’t focus. He fisted his cock in the shower and cried when he came, whispering your name like a spell, like a prayer, like maybe it would keep you tethered to him.

His jealousy makes him reckless in bed. He doesn’t know how to be chill. He’s biting your neck too hard, rutting into you with a desperation that makes your thighs ache. He keeps saying “Mine” under his breath like a chant, like he’s trying to curse you with it. “Say it,” he hisses, teeth on your shoulder. “Tell me you’re mine. Tell me no one else gets this.”

He makes things with your name on them. A little brand. A stylized, hidden engraving on his tools, on his gloves, on the buttons of his jumpsuit. A ring with your name carved inside the band. He won’t say a word about it unless you ask—but when you do? His voice breaks. “I just… I needed something that made it real.”

He’s a switch, but his jealousy flips a switch in you. You grab his wrists. Push him onto the worktable. He stutters. Gasps. “Wait, I thought—” But when you ride him with your hand gripping his jaw, whispering “Don’t even think about anyone else touching me,” he shatters. Comes deep and hard with his mouth open, eyes wide, begging for you to do it again.

He jerks off to the memory of you marking him. Scratches down his back. A bite just under his jaw where people can almost see it. One time, you called him pretty boy while you were riding him—and he still dreams about it. Wakes up with sticky boxers, whimpering and guilty and so in love with the way you ruin him.

Jealous Leo is mouthy during sex. But not cocky—panicked. “You’re so hot—please—please don’t leave me—fuck, no one gets to see you like this, right? Just me? Just me, baby, c’mon—please—” He’s shaking when he comes. Buried deep. Gasping into your neck. He needs the closeness like oxygen.

Sometimes he goes quiet afterward. Just lays there holding you, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling like he’s counting how many ways he could mess it up. You ask him what’s wrong and he just kisses your forehead. Says, “Nothing. I just… I don’t know how I got lucky enough to have you.”

He’ll never forgive himself if he hurts you. If his jealousy makes you cry, if he snaps and says something cruel—he shuts down. Fully spirals. Doesn’t talk for hours. Builds half a dozen machines trying to distract himself. And later, he gets on his knees in front of you, palms open, eyes wet. “I’ll never be perfect. But I’ll always come back to you. Please… let me make it right.”

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ꪆ ✦ 𑊁 ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

— ୨ৎㅤ˳ SFW ㅤ

He laughs it off… at first. If someone’s flirting with you, Leo’s immediate response is humor. He’ll crack a joke, nudge your side, maybe say something like, “Wow, I didn’t realize I had competition today.” But his eyes are watching closely—too closely—for someone who claims he’s totally chill.

But his smile never quite reaches his eyes. You know that Leo can light up a room when he’s happy—but when he’s jealous, there’s this flicker of doubt behind his grin. It’s not dramatic, not obvious. Just a slightly too-tight laugh, a sarcastic edge to his jokes. And the way he holds your hand a little tighter, like he’s afraid you’ll slip away if he lets go.

His insecurity bubbles beneath the surface. Leo’s smart. He knows when someone’s checking you out. And no matter how much you love him, there's a voice in the back of his head whispering “They’re better than you. Cooler. Less broken.” He doesn’t say it out loud—but it lingers in the way he avoids your gaze after.

He gets fidgety when he's jealous. Playing with his tools, spinning a screwdriver between his fingers, clicking his pen over and over. It’s subtle, but his nervous energy ramps up when he feels threatened. He’ll start working on some random project just to keep his hands busy—and his thoughts in check.

He pulls you closer. Not in a possessive way, but a quiet reassurance kind of way. An arm slung over your shoulder. His fingers brushing yours until you're holding hands. His knee bumping into yours beneath the table. He doesn't say "you're mine," but he doesn't have to. His touch says it all.

He overcompensates with affection. Extra compliments. Silly flirting. Dumb pick-up lines. He’s laying it on thick—not because he thinks you need reminding, but because he does. If someone else is making you smile, Leo needs to prove he can make you smile more.

He won’t start a fight—but he’ll remember. Leo doesn’t get angry easily, but if someone crosses a line, it sticks with him. He’ll joke about it days later—“Remember that guy who was two seconds away from getting roasted by my flamethrower? Good times.” And you’re never sure if he’s entirely kidding.

When you reassure him, he melts. A kiss on his cheek. A hand in his curls. Telling him “Hey, you don’t have to compete. You already win.” It destroys him in the best way. He’ll blink fast, then grin like the sun just came out. And suddenly he’s leaning into you like gravity doesn’t work unless you're touching.

He’s fiercely loyal. Jealousy doesn't come from possessiveness—it comes from fear of loss. Leo loves hard. And when he finds someone who sees him—really sees him—he’ll do anything to hold on. Even if that means quietly battling his demons with a wrench in one hand and your heart in the other.

He tries to act unbothered… and totally fails. Leo’s first defense is pretending like he doesn’t notice. He’ll joke, mess with his tools, or suddenly get very interested in something else. But then he starts mumbling under his breath, tossing out little comments like, “Oh, wow, that guy sure talks a lot, huh?” or “Wonder how long it takes to build a personality from scratch.”

His pride gets a little bruised. Leo’s not cocky, but he’s proud of being the funny, clever one. If someone else makes you laugh in a way that rattles him—especially if it’s someone taller, buffer, more “heroic” in the traditional sense—he shuts down just a little. You’ll notice the quiet pause in conversation, the way his knee bounces, the silence between punchlines.

He becomes hyperaware of you. Where you’re looking. Who you’re standing close to. If someone’s hand brushes yours. He starts watching all of it without realizing, his jaw ticking subtly, like he’s working through a problem he knows he shouldn’t be bothered by—but is.

He’ll do dumb, adorable things to get your attention back. Like dramatically pretending to electrocute himself in Bunker 9. Or building you a tiny robot that throws heart-shaped sparks. Or randomly picking you up bridal-style and spinning you in a circle while yelling, “Best girlfriend ever! Science confirmed!”

He won’t say “I’m jealous.” He’ll say, “Do you even like me like that?” Leo’s jealousy doesn’t come out in confrontation—it seeps out in insecurity. He’s not possessive. He’s just scared. Afraid he’s too much, or not enough. If he’s quiet for too long, it’s because that little voice is whispering, They’re better. Why would they stay with someone like you?

Physical affection helps him come back to himself. If you notice he’s spiraling—if his jokes are a little too sharp, or he keeps pulling away—grab his hand. Kiss his cheek. Bury your fingers in his curls and tell him, “Hey, I’m right here.” That’s all it takes. He exhales like he’s been holding his breath for hours.

He loves when you get possessive for him. If you slide your arm around him, or lean into him when someone else is being too flirty? He melts. His eyes go soft, his voice goes quiet, and for once, he doesn’t make a joke. He just murmurs, “You picked me,” like it’s the wildest miracle in the world.

He builds when he’s upset. Jealous Leo? Bunker 9 becomes loud. Metal clanking, gears spinning, music blasting. He channels it all into invention—sometimes messy, sometimes brilliant, always a little bit sad. If you come in and wrap your arms around his waist from behind, you’ll feel the tension leave his body immediately.

He doesn’t need revenge—he just needs you. You being steady. You choosing him, over and over again. You telling him he’s enough. That’s all it takes to dissolve the storm behind his eyes and bring back your boy.

#bvrnesher #‧₊˚✧ s. posting !#pjo fandom #riordanverse x reader #pjo hoo toa #riordanverse #pjo x reader #leo valdez x you #leo valdez headcanons #leo valdez x reader #leo valdez fanfic #leo valdez smut #leo valdez #percy jackson

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swampjawn · 11 months ago

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Dungeon Meshi episode 21, being heavily dialogue-driven, was pretty straightforward animation-wise and let Ryoko Kui's stunning art speak for itself for the most part, but that doesn't mean that there aren't still some GENERALLY-INSIGNIFICANT-DETAILS-TO-SCRUTINIZE-AT-ARGUABLY-UNNECESSARY-LENGTH.

There was a strong emphasis on hands in this episode, particularly the second half, starting with this cut of Laios resting his on the Minotaur's snout.

The animators have taken this simple little panel (on the right) from the manga (btw, people who know more about this than I do, is there a name for this type of panel, which in film would be called an "insert shot"?)

and turned it into this highly detailed tracking shot that heightens the emotional impact of this moment for Laios. It feels very similar to the shot of Kabru bringing a piece of fish to his mouth that introduced him to the series!

The theme comes up again when Laios does a little bit of blair-witching in the corner after being rejected by house-kitty-pilled Izutsumi,

and once again a few seconds later with this added close-up of Marcille's hand when she tries to read the magical aura of the area.

This one clearly makes heavy use of reference footage, to the point that it almost looks rotoscoped until you notice little details like this line that warps unrealistically at the heel of her palm.

But with smooth, realistic motion like this, little details like that are much less important than the overall feeling of authentic shape and movement. This can be seen in a lot of Masaaki Yuasa's work, which often favors consistent motion and more frames over super polished individual drawings. Here's a thematically appropriate cut from Ping Pong for example:

(This one might actually be rotoscoped, I'm not sure)

If you pause on any individual frame, the lines look wobbly and inconsistent, but it comes together as a whole to create something that feels authentic - real.

The heavy detail in the hand anatomy and the way the skin wrinkles around the knuckles in these cuts feels like a hard departure from Studio TRIGGER's signature heavy stylization, but these realistic cuts have popped up here and there since the start of this show, and I think they fit Dungeon Meshi really well! It can be jarring go straight from wacky bombastic cartoonsmanship to realism, but while it is a show about the hungriest hungriest himbo and his family of weirdos, it's also simultaneously a show about anatomy, ecology, and the horrors of the human mindbrain.

This was expanded from an excerpt from this video where I break down the whole episode, so if you want to continue wallowing in the sludge with me, consider checking out the video!

Thanks for reading.

youtube

#I feel like whenever I take an excerpt from my video scripts to turn into a post on here it ends up more fleshed out and over all better #because I have more time to think about it but also because I know some people on youtube will get mad if I talk about hands for 10 min XD #dungeon meshi #animation analysis #laios touden #marcille donato #mini essay #youtube #video #original #Youtube

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cdlum · 1 year ago

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I just wanted to say I think your art style is awesome! I was wondering if you had any tutorials on how you draw anatomy in your style (hips and legs especially)? Sorry if there's already one posted and I just didn't see it 🥲. Happy New Year :>

thanks for the kind words. i tend to draw people pretty stylized and then some so a good bit of artistic licence gets used. these tips are just what i use so feel free to take them with a grain of salt. with anatomy in particular you can kind of talk in circles because human/animal bodies are that complex so ill just zone in on the points you specified. here's a little image with a bunch of pointers:

the above image condenses a lot of the points I'd make, but basically the key parts are to start with the bare essentials and build up that complexity. using a line of action is a good way to get a quick, rough start. you draw a line out in the general direction of the pose and do your best to adhere to it to give the pose a sense of flow.

you can also draw smaller, thumbnail versions that throw a lot of caution to the wind but capture the basic energy of what you're going for. even having a tiny little stick figure version of your idea can make for a good guideline of where to take it forward.

when it comes to actual limbs, you wanna consider how they integrate and work together, kind of like how chains do. you can see on some of the parts of pear i've drawn out these wireframes to kind of portray how the mass of her legs works in a three dimensional space. for aspects like the waist/hips, i use that X technique i highlight above a lot, particularly for the lower torso. a lot of the times, even when drawing a character totally naked, imagining them wearing things like skintight underwear can help a lot to guide you in the right direction.

its also a good idea to consider things like gravity and weight to a degree. humans are essentially big meat sacks and gravity is always pulling down on that, but theres all kinds of aspects that effect that, such as character build or clothing. pear technically isn't naked in this, but i've tried to imagine her as such and take that into account.

if you are drawing digitally, don't be afraid to take advantage of the convenience you get with that workflow. you can retry and iterate on things a lot faster that pen and paper, and do things that aren't really feasible at all when it comes to editing and modifying your existing work. things like resizing certain bodyparts, instantly flipping the canvas, or using selection tools to completely adjust the positions of parts of your drawing. to give you an example heres a timelapse with all the little edits i made just to this demo drawing:

you don't have to use these techniques linearly, either. sometimes ill have a really solid idea for a piece in my head, and go back to basics with certain elements if they’re not coming out right or i just want to brush them up a bit more. some of the tutorial-y parts i added in i didn't actually use during the drawing but often do use so they're there just for demonstration. not every drawing i do starts as building blocks or a really basic version, often ill just start with a face and build it out from there.

i always encourage liberally using references (this can include yourself) and trying out stuff like life drawing or looking at things like existing photographs of real people/places/things if you can, the more you use learning material the better you'll draw up a mental inventory in your head that you can rely on more and more. some of these tips are things i've learned from other artists over the years (the chin one especially i remember seeing a tutorial about lol), so this is a lot of knowledge i've amassed from other sources over time myself. there are plenty of times ill use all sorts of reference material and its all in service of arriving at the final destination as smoothly as possible. learn by doing, as they say. hope this helps!

#tutorial #2024

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meanbossart · 1 year ago

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i just need to take a second to gush about how much i love durge drow and astarion, they feel so fleshed out and perfectly written together in their fucked up wretched ways. They really inspire me to write more for my own tavs, hopefully one day ill be able to say im as happy with my own work as i get when seeing yours. I have to ask though, do you have any tips on drawing head shapes and faces? or maybe about wrinkles? i find i really struggle with that stuff when drawing and i adore how expressive and grungey all your art looks!

First of all thank you so much, I love hearing what people think of the two of them together 😭

Honestly you've hit on something that's quite near and dear to my heart, I love developing and figuring how to draw and stylize different faces to get the most unique, interesting looking results - everything about the details is highly rewarding to me. What does x type of nose look like from this angle? In this style? How can this eyeshape best translate to my art? How different does a face look when its making this expression? What does that MOUTH DO? etc etc.

In fact you kind of inspired me to put a little tutorial/guide together the last hour lmao and what a blessing it is that the two current subjects of this blog serve as great models here, being that their faces are basically polar opposites!

When it comes to heads, you've probably heard it a dozen times before that you want to think of them in terms of geometry and facets; my process to drawing them is pretty conventional so I won't spend too much time on it, but it goes something like this:

Obviously I don't do every single one of these steps most of the time, which is just something that comes from practice/developing muscle memory, but it is helpful to start off this way for two main reasons:

By making these guide lines and splitting a head into pieces like this, you'll have an easier time seeing and understanding it as a multidimensional object, and in turn, facilitate It for you when you venture out into doing wacky angles and lighting.

Making different headshapes starts HERE. notice how Astarion's "face" slate is narrower and longer, how my durge's jaw pieces sit lower on the head, how all of the same pieces came together in the same way but we ended up with one real pointy elf and a real brick of a drow - making characters look different successfully begins very early in the sketching process.

The next thing you want to do branches out into every day life: start noticing yours and other people's facial features. How does an upturned nose look from a high angle? How does the size of someone's cheekbones affect what they look like when they smile? How about when the light hits them a certain way? Does someone's lip shape changes when they pout? When they laugh? How does a person's hairline change the shape of their face? You do NOT need to creepily sketch every stranger you see on the bus, but get into the habit of actually noticing what people look like when you talk to them - when you look at pictures, when you watch movies - make a mental list of interesting ways mouths, noses, and eyes can come together in a variety of different proportions to make completely distinct looking mugs, and how they change depending on how you are looking at them.

Light and shadow play a HUGE role in how faces look, too, basically as crucial as actual bone structure does. As you see up there I tried to rough out how natural, head on, and underhead light would look on these two very different looking guys, and while we can see definite patterns, there are small differences that come to be because of the sizes and shapes of their features.

Here is a very, very basic look at how some of these features come to look the way they do, how they interact with one another, and how they compare between a blocky, rather conventionally "masculine" head and one that's much softer and slimmer.

Note please that it is not one or two characteristics that give a chaarcter their "look"; you can reduce a face to eyes, mouth, and nose through stylization and still have them be recognizable, but if you want to do more than that, you have to consider the whole package! Chin, cheeks, brows, direction of the jaw, slope and size of the forehead, depth of eyes, ridge of the nose, etc - I know this is probably far more than you bargained for, but if you start making note of a FEW of these things now and slowly add on, this will eventually become second nature to you.

Similarly, understanding how these characteristics come together will help you with rendering light and shadow in a realistic way, and predicting what their facial expressions may look like - if no two people are alike, neither are their smiles. :)

Lastly, remember that I'm no expert - I have developed my own methods and semiotics and yours may look slightly (or vastly) different, and that's fine! I hope only that by sharing this it has given you a base to work off of.

Anyways, I HOPE this has been helpful and not just the unsolicited ramblings of a face pervert.

#ask #art #advice #tutorial #astarion #DU drow

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anewp0tat0 · 2 months ago

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Feb 13 2022 Feb 16 2025

hello again, feels weird having this be my first post of the year since it's not original but I suppose it's nice that I can finally upkeep tradition. back in 2022, I redrew an awful piece where I tried to render sebastian realistically, and so I decided it would be how I track my traditional skills. so now, 3 years later this time, I can add onto the challenge. this time around, I still feel like I didn't capture how I really think ge would look as a person, and he's maybe even more stylized this time? but that's chill, it's always fun, and maybe I'll finally get it in 3 years :D

I didn't wanna but here's the last post lol

#i could have spent more time on it to fully assess myself. and also probably push the expression more to rlly get him?#but welp with the time I have I'm very glad anyway to be able to touch it at all #now would be the time i would make some promise about an upcoming project that im currently working on. but by now i think I'll just let it #be a suprise :]#hope everyone's been doing alright so far in the year #kuroshitsuji #black butler #kuroshitsuji fanart #fanart #sebastian michaelis #traditional art #redraw #next time ill buy charcoal in advance lol. improvement will hopefully be obvious then

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dapurinthos · 1 month ago

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i was just looking for the symbolism i didn't expect star wars rebels to raise its fist and punch me in the face after seven years.

it was never kanan that ezra and ahsoka saw in the world between worlds.

it was always sidious. there was never any way to save kanan.

1) the border of the door through which ezra and ahsoka see kanan's last stand replayed through has the sith symbol the top and bottom. the symbol exar kun was branded with, to show that he was the dark lord of the sith. this is not a door to the past of lothal.

2) ezra came in through the lothal door.

it has has wolves around it, along with angular symbols that look an awful lot like the writing on the spine of one of the sacred jedi texts (personally, i believe that one is from the lothal sect of force users).

there are two other doors with specific symbolism around them: the malachor door that ezra drags ahsoka in through, which has the pyramidal shape of both the sith temple on the planet and the sith holocron discovered there; the other is two doors down from the malachor door and i believe it leads to felucia, one of the main planets from the force unleashed, where it is shown to be deeply saturated by the force and influenced by both the light and dark sides, with the indigenous felucian shamans being some of the most force-sensitive people in the galaxy.

this door is decorated with giant fungi and, importantly, stylized creatures with horns on their heads, exactly like the jungle rancors that are native, and exclusive in disney canon, to felucia. each of the decorations means something.

3) there are several doors throughout the wbw that have a similar, if not identical design. the one between the felucia door and the malachor door, i believe, is ossus. it's not a sith world. it's not even a jedi world any longer, either. the designs on the top and bottom are curvilinear and, importantly, mirrored. they balance each other.

this style appears on many of the doors, which probably lead to unaligned vergences.

4) if you look at the coruscant door, where sidious is reaching through, presumably in the sith shrine in the depths beneath the jedi temple turned imperial palace, the mirrored symbols flanking the sith symbol look like that curvilinear shape if you dropped something in the middle of them, cutting them in half, shattering them. it's like the symbols on mortis, except the symbol of the dark has broken through that of the light, of balance.

it also has writing around it. tentatively, i'm going to say this is the same glyph system in-universe as that on vader's chestbox, common sith in legends, itself a blocky hebrew font where the letters were chosen for aesthetics instead of any readable text. more about it can be read here, where it is referred to as 'sith prophecy font' (as it is at aurekfonts).

the coruscant door is located some distance away from the felucia/ossus/malachor trio of doors, and even more so from the lothal door. sidious used the replay of kanan's death to draw ezra (and ahsoka) to the coruscant door. if ezra had tried to pull kanan out, he would have pulled sidious into the world between worlds.

#keeping up with the skywalkers #star wars rebels #star wars meta #wow dave that was mean AND rude #this post brought to you by learning filoni made the star compass for tlj as something that would work for both the films & his own shows

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milkfordragons · 1 month ago

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Hannigram Post-Fall: A Realistic Analysis of Possibilities

There are so many post-fall fanfiction, but the ones that captivate most are those that feel like echoes of the unwritten season four, visions of what might have been, stripped of network constraints yet still faithful to the show’s aesthetic, its poetic script, its dreamlike symbolism. But what is the most realistic approach to their relationship after the fall? If we take Hannibal in its entirety, its stylized storytelling, its performances, its mythic undertones...what would their bond look like, unfettered and laid bare?

For this analysis, we begin with what has been confirmed: Hannibal and Will survived.

We need to first examine the wreckage left in season three’s wake: Jack Crawford abandoned, Francis Dolarhyde dead, and the ghost of Will’s domesticity with Molly fading into the ether. More importantly, we have to consider the state of Will and Hannibal themselves.

Hannibal, believing the Red Dragon had killed himself and the hunt had ended, resigned himself to his love. In his mind palace, he lit votive candles at the church altar, mirroring Francis burning down his shrine, a final ritual of surrender. He had refuted his insanity plea, knowing a retrial could mean death. Life without love, life without Will, was not life at all. But he was still wounded and furious that Will had tried to sever them, bitter at Will’s insistence on pushing him away even after orchestrating a dance only they could perform. He had sought to end Will’s family, and in a way, he had risked Will’s life just the same. Their love was a thing of madness, and together they were two boiling pots threatening to overflow.

Will, slipping further from reason, had been descending for some time. His hallucinations had become unbearable, his grip on reality increasingly tenuous. He had realized, perhaps too late, the terrible beauty of what he shared with Hannibal, and how impossible it would be to live without it. But Will, in his violence, is righteous. Hannibal is destructive. So Will chose obliteration, for both of them. And Hannibal, finding no color in the world without Will, followed him into death.

When they fell, they were not just dying. They were merging. A swirl of color, of bone and flesh and water, indistinct. But the shock of impact hurt, jolting Will back into reality, back to the cliffside, where he never truly fell. Pain throbbed from his wounded shoulder. He was still in Hannibal’s arms, still held, still claimed. His mind had yearned for the end, but his body had refused to let go.

Then he would fade into darkness.

When he woke, he saw his river. He waded into the quiet, half-certain he had died. There was peace in it, but also disappointment...Hannibal was not here. Had he lost him in death, or was Hannibal lost in his own mind palace, forever separated? Before he could follow the current further, he awoke to the sound of thunder, to the rocking of a small, swaying world. A boat.

His body ached, stitched and bandaged. The air was thick with salt, the sky a pitch-black abyss pricked with stars. Inside his head, the echoes of old sailor songs hummed like a lullaby. There was food, simple and warm. There was silence. What was there to say? Will wasn’t even supposed to be in this world anymore.

For a time, that was enough. But the quiet was borrowed, and reality would come knocking soon. Wherever Hannibal had taken him, it would not last.

When they reached land, time resumed its relentless pursuit. Guilt gnawed at Will. He needed to return to Molly, to seek absolution. And when he did, she gave it to him without hesitation...told him she believed in the goodness in him, that they would figure things out. Will wept. Not for her kindness, but because he wished she would die a painless death and set him free. And because he knew she would not. She would suffer, simply for existing within his orbit.

She let him go when he asked for time, and he went to Hannibal. There, blood was shared like communion, violence woven into their love. It intoxicated Will, descending him further. But Hannibal held him steady, as only he could. Kept him. Trained him, sharpened his palate, refined his senses. They built a memory palace together, doors opening between their minds like secret passageways in an ancient cathedral.

Inside Will’s mind, his mother lingered, silent and melancholic, her smile a ghost of things unsaid. Hannibal saw the resemblance, understood, perhaps, something Will had never spoken. Mischa was there too, frozen in time, locked behind a door wreathed in snow. They touched for the first time there, in a space without friction, merging in a way no physical act could replicate. Love, timeless and unbound, entwined them completely.

Jack was hunting them. And Will, in a moment of reckless indulgence, made it worse by killing Bedelia, taunting the hounds on their trail.

Hannibal, ever patient, knew Will would never be his as long as guilt existed. So he set him up. Left no trace of himself. Sent Molly their location. When Will arrived and found her there, something inside him shattered. She stayed, and he let her. Told her she deserved better. She told him she loved him. He still could not say it back.

Then the murders began again. Will killed, and made it look like it was Hannibal. At some point, even Will wasn’t sure who was responsible. Their souls had fused, their consciousness blurred. Even Hannibal, drawn into Will’s untethered sense of time and reality, began to slip. They were not two men anymore but a single entity, fragmented yet whole.

When Molly died, Will blamed Hannibal. Accused him. But was it truly Hannibal who did it? Or had some hidden, feral part of Will, desperate for final freedom, struck the match himself?

Achilles or Patroclus...who was the one who wished all Greeks would die?

In a bathtub filled with thick, crimson blood, they lay together. Washing away the stains of separation, the sins of shame. Here, where skin met warmth and death met life, they performed their darkest sacrament. Bryan Fuller described season four as a lurid erotic intimacy. What could be more lurid than this? More fevered, more erotic than bathing in their sins, drowning in each other’s ruin?

Their love began in hunger, passed through starvation and torment, and reached its final peak: an unbreakable unity. All the Greeks lay dead at their feet. At last, they could conquer Troy alone.

#this was all inspired by things Hugh and Bryan said about season four :)#they said it was inspired by inception and angel heart and that the roles from season one would reverse #musings #nbc hannibal #hannibal lecter #hannigram #will graham #hannibal analysis #meta #hannibal meta #analysis #essay

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kozachenko · 19 days ago

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So here is the annual "New Year Keiki" drawing I did. Now we have another weird version of Keiki, this time in colour! These drawings aren't really meant to be finished pieces or anything, but are moreso just markers for how my approach to drawing Keiki has changed over the years.

Artist's Notes;

So you may have noticed the fucked up hand I gave her, and that was an experiment on stylizing hands. I do really like how it looks, and I want to continue stylizing hands in the future since it was kinda fun here. I do want to see how I can get away with adding some of the doll joints I added to her a while back, but that's for a future drawing.

I also took this opportunity to experiment with giving Keiki clay-coloured skin, and that is 100% a trait I am keeping going forward because I really like it. It helped to unify the colour palette a lot and it made the blue fit in more naturally. I also added some more cracks to Keiki's face, since I do like that idea a lot. This is also when I realized the joy in making more simplified designs and marked the beginning of my phase of experimentation. I also tried doing a new style of ear and honestly, and this experiment I did here carried over into some future pieces as well! Also, I didn't talk about this in the last post, but I also experimented with Keiki's hair and giving her shorter bangs. I think they look cute, and she'd probably keep them short so they don't get in her face while she works. I also kept consistent with giving her Kofun period earrings since I like adding small details like that in my drawings of her.

#touhou project #art #fanart #touhou fanart #keiki haniyasushin #touhou 17

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another-goblin · 1 year ago

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A little analysis of Ratio's owl symbolism. He's absolutely covered (and surrounded) with stylized images of owls. Here are just some examples (feel free to study him to find more). He was even (apparently) supposed to wear an owl mask in an older version of his design. But why.

1. In western culture, owls are traditionally associated with knowledge and wisdom, which indicates his connection with Erudition, as a scientist. That's the most obvious explanation for his owl imagery, and probably the only one intended by the designers. But why stop here. Why not overanalyze it.

2. Owls are known as highly specialized and effective predators. So basically, an embodiment of the Hunt.

Dr. Ratio (about the phase flame): Do you know what to do with cornered prey? Hunt it to the death.

Btw, considering that paths are not just a gameplay convention but the actual in-universe things characters recognize in themselves and others, it's even more ironic that the character who dedicated his whole life to science and education belongs to the Hunt. Because gameplay-wise, the Hunt is the opposite of Erudition. The poor guy couldn't have been further away from Nous even if he tried.

3. Owls are good at being unnoticed. They hunt by hiding, observing, and waiting for the right time to strike. It reminds me of that mission at Herta Station, where we first met him. Most people on the station didn't even know that he was there, even though he personally saved these researchers.

Screwllum (about Ratio's involvement in that mission): …and pulling the strings from behind the curtain is akin to laying down the gauntlet to a genius.

There is a theory that more or less the same thing is happening on Penacony, with most characters probably not knowing that he's even there.

4. The special structure of an owl's wings and feathers makes their flight practically noiseless, so they can approach their prey unnoticed. In addition to point 3, with him moving through Herta station unnoticed, it also reminds me of how he silently disappeared a couple of times in the middle of his conversation with Aventurine.

5. They gave him vertical pupils, probably in an attempt to make his eyes more owl-like. The problem is, I wasn't able to find a single photo of an owl with vertical pupils. They are round. So, if anything, it makes him look more like a cat.

6. And the last point, it's most likely not true, it's my little conspiracy/crack-theory.

But he's sometimes referred to as a Professor; he's as much of an Owl as Aventurine is a peacock. Game, please don't tell me he has nothing to do with Penacony's Professor Owl the origami birds often mention, whoever it is.

In fact, if he wasn't too young for that, I wouldn't be surprised if he had something to do with the creation of Dreaworld. Because he mentioned before that taking a bath helps him with going to sleep, and on Penacony you take a bath to go to sleep (what are the chances), and then you enter a world filled with images of owls. It's probably actually nothing, but what a coincidence.

#honkai star rail #my stuff #dr ratio

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