#anyway i'm going for a simpler style this time

[tsuu-ki]

First kiss

[majouartings]

PLAYABLE ZELDA PLAYABLE ZELDA PLAYABLE ZELDA PLAYABLE ZELDA PLAYABLE ZELDA PLAYABLE ZELDA PLAYABLE ZELDA *inhale* PLAYABLE ZELDA PLAYABLE Z

[thewebcomicsreview]

I'm hardly the first person to notice this, but good god webcomics are the least time-efficient possible way of telling a story, aren't they?

I've been trying to figure out a better method of telling a story so that I could finish it before I die of old age (or, perhaps more relevantly, before everyone loses interest). It seems like no one really wants to read prose on the internet, but also people don't really like a comic that takes a year to go anywhere.

The main bottleneck is dialogue. You can only get 2-3 lines in a standard comic panel, so even a short conversation of character texture can take several pages. It makes me wonder if the Single Panel With Text Beneath It style (like ForEach) isn't just the Objectively Correct™ way to tell a comic on the internet. It's very efficient on the art, you can include narration if that's your jam, and it's very easy to make it work on mobile. (Also the art being separate is a boon if you want to make marketing materials). But everyone will correctly call you a Homestuck rip off.

Though the other thing Homestuck did was make these sprites of the characters that could be used to crank out a bunch of panels for scenes where nothing visually interesting was happening. You don't really see that copied as much

Not openly, anyway. There's a stigma. I've thought about rebooting Legend of the Hare as a visual novel, where that kind of thing is arbitrarily more accepted, but it does start raising the question of why you're bothering with the visuals at all. I don't think the kind of person who makes webcomics is usually looking for an excuse to get out of drawing, even if it lets them increase their page output dramatically. Making sprites that don't look like absolute ass is also really hard. Homestuck sprites have a really specific janky charm to them that I've never really seen any other comic pull off.

And, yeah, you could always just use a simpler art style, like Order of the Stick does, but it's super hard to get anyone to read a webcomic with great art, let alone simple art designed to maintain a high page output. And, again, why are you making a comic if you don't want to draw, unless you just naturally happen to draw that way and be really fucking good at it like Rich Burlew is?

It seems like the only really good way to tell a story in a reasonable amount of time as a webcomic artist is to make enough money off it that you can work full time, and, um, that's not really feasible either.

I don't have an answer I like. I guess just kill yourself in the content mines working webcomics as a second job that doesn't pay you anything.

I don't have a conclusion, capitalism is a nightmare.

[ruija]

Well I really love your art, may I ask how do u color? I struggle with coloring turtles and I wasn't to know how do u do that?

Hi anon! That's a very broad question, so you've given me a great excuse to ramble anything I want about my coloring, eehehehee~! This will be in two parts and I'll start with talking about my simpler coloring style.

As in, when I color characters on a white background, with a limited or light palette.

The driving force behind this style is me being lazy. My time, energy, and attention span are pretty limited, so if I want to finish anything, I gotta do it fast. And with fanart, I'm usually just doing it for fun and relaxation, so there's no need to push myself to polish it too much.

Despite that, I rarely post just black and white sketches or line arts. I always try to add at least a little bit of toning or shading, because that makes the image easier to read. The characters and their shapes pop out and catch the eye of the viewer better.

However, in this particular example, just the couple toning colors don't quite do the job. The way Don and Leo are entangled makes the center area of this illustration very busy and hard to read.

As a comparison; this pic has only one tone + mask colors, and it works. This is because all the characters are standing separately and their poses are very stationary and simple.

So for the Don + Leo pic, adding some shadows helps in bringing out shapes and depths. Also in general, if you don't feel like drawing BGs, it's good to at least add a shadow below the characters. It grounds them and makes them feel like they exist within a space.

Sometimes if the posing looks too complex and busy, it might just be best to color in the characters fully.

However, even if I do full flat colors, I tend to use a lighter palette. Putting characters in their neutral/default color on a white BG can look a bit jarring as if they're floating in a void. It feels less immersive and like the picture is unfinished.

Using lighter colors makes the image more cohesive, and fits the characters into the white environment a bit more naturally.

If I'm too lazy to draw a BG, I prefer using stylized and limited colors. It feels deliberate and that the whiteness is just part of the palette, whereas the character-accurate colors on white don't match as well, even if they're more pastel.

That being said, there's nothing wrong with just slapping the flat-colored characters on a white background. As you know, I do it too. I'm just exposing my 'fancy coloring style' for what it is; me being lazy, hah!

Limited and monochromatic palettes are a nice shortcut even when you do actual backgrounds. It's faster and you don't have to worry about clashing colors. And you can still convey atmosphere and mood.

Also, on the topic of conserving your time and efforts; I think it's very common among younger/less experienced artists to think that the amount of time you spend on your art piece = how good and well received that piece will be.

Which has some merit to it of course, but it can lead to putting too much effort into areas where it's not necessary. E.g. filling the piece with tons of details and clutter that don't serve an actual purpose, but rather make the image hard to read. Or doing really complicated shading for a meme/comic, where simplicity would deliver the joke better.

So whenever I'm drawing something I intend to publish, whether it's a quick doodle or a more polished piece, I try to follow these two principles: Make it easily readable and do the bare minimum that needs to be done to convey what I want to convey.

Putting time into practice is important, but if you draw for work, it's also crucial that you know how to prioritize and use your time efficiently!

Anyway, thanks for reading! In the next part I'll go into how I do my fully colored pieces, so stay tuned for that!

[merulanoir]

Ghost's backstory

Ok so, I have wanted to write about this for months but my brain has been fighting a war called the end of the fiscal year, so I haven't had the time. But I desperately want to talk about the OG Ghost backstory. You know the one, with the hook and the cartel and the. Yeah, the coffin, and everything.

(For those lucky enough to remain in the dark uninitiated, the original 2009 Call of Duty character Simon "Ghost" Riley had a separate awfully bad comic that claimed to be his backstory.

The reboot version of Ghost (which is probably better known to most people by now) has a sweet fuck-all in his bio, but even so it sort of implies that the original backstory never happened to that guy. The fandom ranges from taking the full original backstory into the reboot dynamic to just ignoring it completely. It varies.)

Also, to be clear: I'm not saying my interpretation is in any way better or worse than anyone else's. It's just going to go against the grain of what the fandom has chosen to treat as canon.

Anyway, to summarize: the comics are a straight guy power fantasy framed interestingly: We meet Ghost when he's being held hostage in Ukraine. We later learn he let himself be captured to stall the terrorists.

We have the gist of it here, already! He's going to tell a story! He even claims it's not about himself, but an "old friend of his" "the baddest motherfucker on the planet" (I wish I was making this up.)

Now, here's where things get actually interesting. I'm going to claim that the Mexico/torture/brainwashing/whatever the fuck that was probably didn't happen like that. Hear me out.

Who does the framing of being held captive and telling a story remind me of?

Ghost is pulling a Varric! He's buying time. I have discussed this extensively with a friend (hi @sorrelchestnut) and the, erm, in-house expert we have on hand verified our theory: for special forces guys, creating a fabricated backstory is the norm. They train to do that. They keep names, dates, anything that can be fact-checked, and the rest is probably more or less lies.

Ghost tells the terrorists about the mission in Mexico, where he (allegedly) first met Roba and where he got captured. Then the comic's style changes completely and it cuts to him going back to beat up his abusive dad, then back to Ghost in Mexico. It keeps going back and forth between his time in Mexico (which is clearly Ghost telling the story to his captors, drawn in the same style as the panel up there) and his traumatic childhood (drawn in a completely different style):

All the parts about his family are drawn in that same, more classic comic-y style (Ghost beating up his dad, him helping Tommy get back on his feet, Tommy and Beth getting married, etc.) UNTIL we get to the part where Ghost comes back from Mexico (after being buried alive in that fucking coffin, yes).

Then, everything about him going to therapy (truly the most unbelievable aspect of the story, I agree), Sparks returning, his family getting killed on Christmas? Back to this style:

So, to recap: If we want to go this route, we could say that the family parts of the story, told in the simpler comic style, could be true. Those could be Simon's memories about his admittedly fucked up childhood (and which probably aren't included in the story being told to the terrorists and the other hostages). Everything that's in the more realistic, shaded style? His made-up story he's telling the bad guys in Ukraine.

But Meru, you say, what about the bit where Simon is bringing Tommy to rehab and his junkie friends attack him? Simon is imagining (?) them as having skullfaces! Your theory doesn't hold water!

Well, as the comics tell us later, there might be a good reason for Simon to have some...feelings about the skull motif.

That's his father speaking with their mother in the first speech bubble. The boy in the skull mask is Tommy, his little brother. What follows is the gnarly piece of story where Simon's father takes him to a punk concert and makes him laugh at a dead prostitute. The whole thing with the skullface ties pretty neatly into itself, if you ask me.

So, if Ghost telling the terrorists a story about Mexico and the cartel and his family getting killed by brainwashed American soldiers isn't all true, which parts are?

I don't think we're meant to know, at least in the way the story is told in the comics. So in a way, even though the comics are so fucking bad, I'm glad I read them (more than once, y'all can thank me later) because OG Ghost is fascinating.

So, is his family really dead? I'd say it's likely (see the part about keeping verifiable facts when lying to bad guys), but we can't know for sure. If we want to treat the comic-style parts as true within this mini essay, then the last verifiable thing about Simon's family is that Tommy and Beth got married. I can't be arsed to check if her name is actually ever mentioned in these parts of the story. Ghost certainly refers to his nephew as both Joseph and Jacob during the story-parts, so. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Was he held hostage in Mexico? Who the hell knows. Judging by what the original MW games included in their storylines, I'd say it's possible. But we don't really know.

[on-leatheredwings]

i've found your account only a few days ago but ever since then I've been STUCK here rereading your fanfics, especially ones with damian. i wasn't even a dc fan (heard about some stuf, watched some films and cartoons, but that's it) but now im reading comics since im Obsessed and need more batboys in my life (rip my productivity😔)

Anyway, after Sleepover i'm curious what will Bruce (and maybe even Thalia) think of batboys strange behaviour towards reader. He's smart, so he definitely notices it early on, but how he'll react....

I can see him being weirded out (like he was by Jason's anger issues, before his death), but he also can be an enabler, since Robin (literaly any of them) had a hard life, so if those relationships can help him why not pretend that everything is normal? you'll be safer in a Wayne's Manor anyway

All in all, thanks for a new hyperfixation 💞💞

P.s. About games:

1. Boyfriend to death 1&2 - since you're into yanderes you might want to check this game out. I prefer the second game, but the first is also fun. But beware the trigger warnings!!

2. Long live the Queen - more of a raising sim than dating sim but you still can romance some guys and girls.

,3. Hatoful Boyfriend - mostly a comedy, but there is a yandere.

4. The Royal Trap - it's been a long time since i played it, but it used to be one of my favorites so i'll just mention it.

5. Higurashi - once again not really a romance sim, but its an interesting horror mixed with a slice of life

;A; AWWWW THANK YOU IM SO HAPPY YOU LIKE MY STUFF.... THAT MAKES ONE OF US GIJSDOFAFGHFOJDSD

and yes yes get into DC!!! (girl who hasnt even read a full run since like. injustice)

damn now you got me thinking and excited. incoming spiel

i agree entirely about bruce just knowing how Bad things can get, so to make things simpler, he's like "yes, your darling(s) can stay in the manor, boys. 🙄"

mmm yes..... when it comes to bruce noticing the batboys are yandere, i think it's always sinfully delightful to just have him be reluctantly okay with it. 😈 it's also easier narratively ngl but i also like the idea that the batfam is all just corrupted.

bruce's thoughts are that they (his sons) fight for vengeance and justice but this is where they could use some leeway.... we all need our vice... they fight so hard for gotham, they deserve a little treat (getting rid of your human rights)... it's very "Dad who wants his sons to have happiness even if its not healthy" of him. in fics where bruce is a yandere, well, he's the exact same way so he can't judge. although if that's the case, i like the idea of bruce just being like "yes what we do isn't right. let's not talk about it. just don't kill <3"

still wondering what i like more. a yan!bruce who's self aware what he's doing is wrong but he just refuses to think about it. or a yan!bruce that justifies it all because of his paranoia, Tower of Babel style (if you don't know, that's when it's revealed batman has plans to subdue/kill the justice league just in case they go rogue.)

for the batboys depends on their personality... for damian, he's so resolute in things that i prefer when he just believes 100% what he's doing is okay, if not actually righteous. ^_^

hmmm talia.... I'M STILL UNSURE HOW I PREFER THAT AS WELL... i think talia being a you-arent-good-enough-for-my-son mom is a little cliche but also. she kinda would say that. you'd have to prove your worth somehow but idk how tf darling would do that LOL. in the end, i think talia is just relieved/comforted that her son indeed feels desire and wants love and will continue the family legacy (regardless if youre afab/can biologically have children.)

no THANK YOU FOR THE ASK!!! AND THANKS FOR RECS!!!! heheh yeah ive checked out btd and im not averse to the warnings its more like im not that most of into the designs ngl. fox guy seems cute? AND LMAO FUNNY BC IM ON A HIGURASHI REWATCH (never played it tho)

[sombraconlangs]

I just had a thought I want to share: I don't think the conlang community is great at helping beginners to get into conlanging, and while the art form is kind of esoteric and requires lots of knowledge I also think there's probably better approaches for tackling the huge task of learning how to create an entire language.

I can't figure out a way to say it concisely, I'll just spew out all my thoughts on this so hopefully others can see where I'm coming from and share their thoughts, I'm curious to hear what y'all have to say.

First let's look at something that I've noticed is pretty common in other artistic hobbies and communities:

When people decide to learn a new skill there can be a lot of excitement that builds up initially, they may have never touched an instrument in their life but they have this burning desire to jump right into writing and recording an awesome guitar solo, just like the ones they hear in their favorite songs, or they may not have any drawing and writing experience at all but the first thing they wanna do is start working on an entire webcomic series drawn in a highly detailed art style because they came up with an idea for a story that would be amazing. Whatever the skill is, it happens often that someone sees a work of art that is so inspiring that they want to make something just like it themselves.

Of course, when people try a new art form for the first time the results don't tend to be very good, when you've never done a thing before it's unrealistic to expect yourself to be able to replicate the stuff that people with a few years of experience and practice can make.

And that can be a pretty frustrating experience because if someone tries their hardest to create that dream project of theirs with no experience it'll inevitably end up taking a huge amount of effort (due to the person not knowing how to do things in a more efficient way) and then it won't even be as good as they envisioned anyway, and some can walk away from these experiences with the impression that music is simply too hard or they're just not made to be artists or writers or game designers or whatever the craft is.

I think this is why when you take a class on the subject or you hear advice online people often try to get you to lower the scope of your first projects, they emphasize the importance of practicing your fundamentals first, because you may be super excited to jump right into painting hyper-realistic portraits, but if you don't build any familiarity with your tools and you don't train those basic skills you're never going to be able to turn the awesome idea in your head into a reality, and your expectations are going to be too high for you to enjoy the process because you just won't be able to meet those expectations.

Starting with a scope that is far too big ends up just being a frustrating experience that doesn't actually teach you a whole lot, you gotta work on a bunch of smaller, simpler stuff first before you move on to making more advanced things. In other words, you gotta build up to the higher levels, you don't start at level 100, you start at level 1 and then you slowly go up from there.

You may see where I'm going with this: we don't tend to do that in the conlang community.

People who become interested in making languages may be familiar with the concept of conlangs from hearing about Klingon, High Valyrian, Sindarin or similar works, and so they get excited to jump right into making a naturalistic artlang as their first conlang, or they may not even know what the term "naturalistic artlang" even means but they try to make a detailed, fully speakable language for a fictional setting, which is kind of the same thing, or at least it's in the same spirit.

I think tons of conlangers start that way (myself included), it's super common, but I had the realization earlier that starting with a naturalistic artlang is actually kind of crazy, that's a project with a huge scope, it requires you to have so much knowledge beforehand that I'd argue it's the equivalent of trying to play a Paganini piece live in front of an audience on your first time playing the violin ever, of course it's gonna be seen as an impossibly difficult or complex hobby, you're jumping into level 100 right off the bat, no wonder lots of conlangers end up hating their first conlang.

I legit had a moment earlier today when I was thinking "conlanging is not that hard, you just gotta learn the basics of IPA, then learn about syllable structure and phonotactics, then become acquainted with the different mechanisms of how sounds can change over time, then learn what a romanization is and how to make one based on your phonology, then learn how words get grammaticalized.. then learn about all the different types of writing systems... then... huh wait a minute..."

I had this realization that the amount of knowledge you're expected to learn on your first conlang project is kind of ridiculous, it's easy to lose track of how advanced the stuff you're doing is when you've grown so used to it, it's like that xkcd comic.

Yeah this one. Like, the diachronic method of conlanging might not seem that complicated if you're using it for the 47th time, but for a newcomer there are a ton of things they need to learn first in order to even start using the diachronic method.

And even if you don't evolve your conlang from a proto-language there's still a ton of details and moving parts in a naturalistic language: the syntax, the morphology, the phonology, the different levels of formality and social aspects, writing systems, etc.

I feel like trying to capture all of the different nuances of a natural language on your first attempt at a conlang is just too big of a scope in the same way that making your first videogame an open-world RPG with multiple endings tends to result in people quitting game development because they get overwhelmed with the amount of new information that they need to learn and so they lose all their motivation.

All of this came to my mind because I was having a conversation with someone who doesn't have a background in linguistics and I was trying to help them figure out how to make their first conlang, and as the conversation went on I realized that even the posts aimed at beginners I write on my wordpress site are actually way too detailed and complex, like, my post that teaches you to read IPA- let me stop right there, the fact that I have a single post where I expect people to be able to learn IPA just so that they can start conlanging says it all.

And ok, you may be thinking that's just a me issue, but honestly I started to re-watch various youtube videos on how to conlang aimed at beginners and I feel like if I had zero knowledge of linguistics I'd struggle to follow along with the majority of them, in each video there's usually multiple new concepts being introduced at a very rapid pace and a number of things that you're already assumed to be familiar with.

No shade at people like biblaridion and artifexian, I personally find their content helpful, my point is that most learning resources for beginner conlangers (including the stuff I make on my website) do this thing where they infodump a ton of technical information and introduce a lot of new jargon fairly quickly and while that can work for some people I'm starting to think that that's not the best way to go about things.

This may seem kind of random, but I remember this very old video by extra credits where they explained how a good tutorial in a videogame doesn't front-load all of the information you'll ever need, they segment it into smaller chunks so you only learn the few bits of information that are immediately relevant, you get to immediately apply that knowledge, familiarize yourself with the concept at your own pace, and then once you've had some time to play with it you are introduced to a new small bit of information. I know learning an artistic skill is not identical to learning how to play a game, but I find that I learn better this way in general, the knowledge just sticks more, I think that introducing concepts in more bite-size, applicable chunks would probably go a long way to make this hobby more accessible to more people.

Maybe we should be recommending newcomers to practice with naming langs, minimal conlangs, personal conlangs, relexes, ciphers, codes, or idk something else to let people become acquainted with the dozens of concepts that show up in languages in a way that doesn't immediately become overwhelming.

Like, maybe this is a hot take, but I feel like in order to make your first conlang you probably shouldn't even worry about what a place or manner of articulation is, you probably don't need to evolve it or add any irregularity or allophones or any of the stuff we're so used to including as conlangers, you can slowly learn those later.

Think about it, in order to learn how to draw realism you practice the most basic fundamentals first; drawing circles and cubes in perspective over and over again, trying to break down complex images into simple abstract shapes, etc. I think we could do the same in conlanging and teach the necessary skills with projects of a smaller scope.

I just remembered about quothalinguist's choose your own adventure type book for teaching beginner conlangers and I think that's awesome, I haven't read it but I definitely will, we should probably get more introductory material like that, stuff that's more manageable and doesn't require a huge time investment in order to teach you a lot, I think that's a really good approach.

And for that matter I've been curious about the conlang year thing, maybe that'd also be a more manageable way to introduce someone to conlanging.

Just spitballing a few ideas here but imagine teaching about basic morphology by encouraging people to make a sketchlang where they only use sounds present in their native language. Without needing them to know any IPA or anything about phonology you can get them started on experimenting with certain things, like putting words together, compounding, affixing, etc. Remember that the results don't have to be naturalistic, that's not the point, the point is to avoid the situation where people need to learn a thousand concepts before they can even set pen to paper, they get to start experimenting and playing with different concepts in a more manageable way.

Maybe as a way to slowly introduce people to the idea of phonological evolution someone could make a small set of proto-words using a very basic inventory like /p t k m n s j w a i u/ and then you give people a set of pre-designed sound changes to pick from, and they can mix and match which changes to apply and in what order, so this could be an exercise to get acquainted with the way that sound changes work and the way the order in which they happen matters.

Y'all can let me know if I'm not making any sense or if my ideas sound weird or bad, the main point that I want to make is that the way we approach teaching beginner conlangers seems to require a lot of front-loading of information, which is not great.

I honestly forgot how long it took me to learn everything that I currently know about conlanging, I only stuck with it because I had actually consumed a lot of pop-linguistics content before getting into conlanging, so I already had a lot of the knowledge you're expected to learn as a beginner, meaning that the infodumps weren't as much of a brickwall for me as they can be for other people.

I feel like with the way things currently are there's probably a subset of people who have tried to get into conlanging at some point but then gave up and left with the impression that it's simply too complicated and nerdy for them when that may not be the case, I don't think making a naturalistic conlang is that much harder than learning how to draw realistic portraits of people; sure it's hard and time-consuming but it's definitely doable if you practice all the fundamentals first.

In the art community there's people who try to keep their sketchbooks all pristine and perfect looking, but that's not actually super helpful for learning, sketchbooks are meant to be where you practice and get to experiment, it's ok if it's messy or ugly or disorganized, it's not meant to be where your masterpieces come from, it's generally understood within the art community that in order to make drawings that are very well made you have to go through a loooot of crappy, low quality drawings first.

I think that essentially what I'm saying is that there should be a way to encourage beginner conlangers to do the same, make the equivalent of little sketches and practice basic doodles instead of jumping into a highly detailed complex naturalistic artlang right off the bat, that could demystify the wonderful art that is language creation for newcomers.

[spiderprincess-suffet]

⚠️ARTSTYLE RANT INCOMING⚠️

So for the past few weeks and honestly even longer I've really been struggling with my artstyle, not in the way that I don't like it though more so IT TAKES WAY TO FUCKING LONG TO FINNISH ANYTHING!!

Before my current one I used to have an art style I called the Hazard style, because it was basically stolen from an artist called Hazard Girl (They were a Frans artist so I figured they didn't deserve their artstyle lol) well anyways I original switched to that style because the one BEFORE that (I've had a lotttt of styles-) was like the current one IT WAS WAY TO COMPLICATED!

So I switched styles using a more simpler one because well

I have Hdhd like really really bad BUT I do have meds for it but those meds have a time limit..a very short one even taking it twice a day leaves me in a panic trying to Finnish the stuff I wanna draw because I know as soon as it wears off I'm basically useless any time I attempt to start or Finnish any drawings when it wears off all I end up with is like 25 more wips I'll never finish.

And so I switched to the Hazard style, it was soooo much faster I could get stuff finished and hell sometimes I coule even fet multiple things finished before my meds wore off!

And the same things happening now and honestly worse, my meds wear of so fast to me I've been trying to finnish stuff all week and ive gotten hardly anything because it takes so long by the time I even get to the coloring my meds have already worn off and I'm left unable to finnish it, or worse and the most frequent thing to happen lately it takes me so long to decide what I wanna draw or i do know what i wanna draw i just cant get it to look right and next thing i know my meds have worn off and i dont even have a sketch done!!

That's honestly why ive been debating going back to the Hazard style but like..I really like my current artstyle and yes I do like the old one to but the current one is what I always wanted ESPECIALLY for my Undertale comic it gives the exact feels that I want it to and it's perfect for that sort of art, but I literally can't do it i just it takes soooo longggguhh to the point I literally can't finish anything I start.

Not to mention I'm almost out of my medicine for the month and I don't usually get refilled right away i have to wait WEEKS until my next refill so I end up not drawing at all for weeks Wich I hate because I have so many ideas but literally CANT do them, so now I'm stuck

I can't Finnish literally anything

I don't wanna change my style because I love it

And I'm very quickly running out of my Hdhd meds

WHAT THE HELL DO I DO 😭

And no I can't just not take it for a day it causes MASSIVE headaches and dizziness if I don't take it twice a day like I'm supposed to 🫠

..anyways here's some Hazard art of clockwork i managed to do 🥲 sorry for the rant even if I don't get any answers I at least wanted to get it out there...

[ashadowwanderedfar]

I watched Arrival (2016) last night and have some comments about the language

Spoilers under the read more. If you haven't seen the movie, I strongly recommend watching it, it's incredible. Basically some big ol' aliens come to Earth and this linguist is tasked with trying to communicate with them.

The aliens in the movie (named "heptapods" because of their 7 limbs) have a system of writing that is nondirectional, as in their "sentences" don't have beginnings or ends. They write in very organic-looking complex circles forming each greater concept, which have individual "words" to represent the smaller linked concept.

Above is a screencap from the movie of one of the circular logogram's translation. The logogram is built from 15 different concepts, conveying meaning without using sentence structure.

I really like this concept. Not being limited by sentence structure makes it much easier to insert nuance into your communication.

If it were me creating a similar language, I might give it a more webbed shape to communicate the particular links between certain smaller concepts within the greater concepts.

Sometimes I already simplify my spoken language like this. I often do it playfully (or even just do it "jokingly" but I'm actually doing it genuinely), such as "I go eat", cutting out all grammar and extra words. I can't speak for other Earth languages, but at least in english you might sound like a caveman if you speak like that, so I don't do it all the time. (Nothing against cavemen, it's just the wrong impression for an advanced alien race. English is clunky for such a form of speech.)

They briefly touch on it in the movie I think, but this style of language that the Heptapods use is kinda like telepathy in that you can convey a much more complex concept with greater purity than with the sentences we use on Earth. I don't know how well it would work with technical things; perhaps it would require a longer grouping of logograms than it would take to convey a singular concept. I imagine if you needed some kind of instruction manual to build furniture or something like that where there are concepts that are time/order dependant, you'd need more logograms, and each would likely be simpler than a logogram used to discuss interpersonal or philosophical concepts.

Another tidbit I just thought of, the Heptapods basically write the logograma all at once.

This makes a lot of sense given that the language is nonlinear. How would you know where to start otherwise? It also seems difficult to connect the concepts to form the logogram otherwise.

In the aforementioned web-like alternative style, this would be especially difficult. Say you have several concepts in a logogram that are connected to eachother. You would need all of the concepts one has a connection to to be written before you can connect them in writing. If you could write them all at the same time, however, you avoid that issue entirely.

Anyways, I kinda want to experiment with this regardless of the problems. I like this a lot, and I low-key suspect my species had a similar type of language.

[ritcchamadayo]

Please, Part 3 of Punk Jade, you're giving me more of a reason to simp for this man-

I will honestly GLADLY turn into a Jade-fic blog i am so far gone when it comes to this man... Sorry for the wait guys! Uni had me in a chokehold (again) but LETS GET BACK TO SIMPING

A Look Into The Past (Pt. 3)

Jade Leech x Reader ;

On a rare day off, Jade found himself pondering Professor Crewel's fashion tips when it came to styling his piercings but couldn't decide for himself. Who else to ask for opinions other than you?

(we're back again folks!! again thank you so much for the love on this fic!! I'll be considering posting this on Ao3 as a full series after this one XD THANK YOU!!!)

Reader is a Sophomore in this fic, just like the twins!

Read Part 1 Here! Read Part 2 Here!

"U-Um, so that's what you called me out for?" "Yes, exactly."

When Jade had contacted you saying that there was a "disaster", you certainly didn't expect the disaster to be the eel-mer's own wardrobe. You were surprised at the amount of clothes he had, but a few of them are quite... distasteful, to say the least.

When Jade wore his ear piercings to school the other time, he was stopped by none other but Professor Crewel and was given an earful about how to dress and act when wearing such flashy accessories. Granted, they were at school so it can't be helped, but Crewel made sure to make Jade remember his fashion tips for days off like today.

"Did Floyd get you this?" You hold up a purple shirt with a drawing of an eel, and big blocky text saying "Mentally Eel". You grimaced at how tacky the shirt was. "Ah, yes he did. Floyd has the habit of collecting anything eel-related in the surface world, you see."

You had to stifle a laugh at the thought. "Ah, that's where he got those eel keychains."

You rummaged through Jade's wardrobe (with permission, of course) and pulled out most of his clothes, gently putting them down and organizing them by type. There were a few normal button-up shirts, a pair of pajamas, Jade's hiking clothes and equipment, and let's not forget the winter clothes he wore on his trip to Harveston. (You wonder why he wore shorts AND leggings with his hiking wear, but you're not gonna question it.)

"What did Crewel say about them anyway? And uh, why me out of all people? I'm pretty sure someone like Vil or Cater could give you much better insight?" You ask. Jade tilts his head, pondering for a second. "Why, I suppose it's because you were the first person to pop up in my mind. I couldn't hope to bother our seniors, after all. Besides, your sense of fashion is quite good."

Bullshit reasoning. Or so you say, but you feel your ears heat up from the thought of Jade thinking of you. "Oh. I-I see." Jade wasn't lying when he said you had a good sense of fashion though, your choice of outfits on days off were always endearing to him. You were wearing a blouse paired with black overalls today, which looked both comfortable and fashionable at the same time.

"What did Crewel say?" "Hm... He said that a relaxed, mature look would suit for a lesser amount of accessories, to put it simply. Either that, or something simpler to accentuate the accessories if we were to wear more amounts."

Perhaps it's time for a little fashion show, then?

You quickly look around and pull out a few pieces of clothing- A pair of white pants and bright blue and yellow short sleeved shirt, giving off a bit of a tropical vibe. Jade took the clothes gratefully, putting them on the bed for him to change into.

"Oh? Are you perhaps going to watch me change, or~?" "I-I'M NOT! I'M LOOKING AWAY!!!" Your face shone red, quickly turning around to look at the door instead. Jade chuckled quietly, unbuttoning his shirt and taking them off. You can clearly hear the sound of him unzipping his pants as well, making you wipe your sweat off your forehead. (there's the urge to peek, but you better not.)

"Alright, I've finished changing. What do you think?"

You nervously turn around, and closely examined Jade in your chosen clothes. "It looks pretty good! I think a bit of a messier look would look nice with lots of accessories on your ears, like if you unbuttoned a few from the top of your shirt."

Jade complies, messing up his hair slightly and unbuttoning his shirt to reveal his collarbone, and you feel yourself regretting your words.

"I quite agree. The colors of the shirt pop with the addition of the white pants, and the silvers of the metal can be clearly seen."

"A-Ah, yeah!" (remember to look respectfully, dear) "Can you lean down for a sec?" Jade kneels down to your level sitting on the floor, and you take out a few of his accessories from the little wooden box he kept neatly inside his wardrobe. You picked up a few unused piercings and tried mixing and matching them on his ears, laughing when Jade comments your fussing over his ears tickles quite a bit.

"But it's not really your style, honestly... A flashy look like this kinda fits Floyd more." You comment, but deep down you think it wasn't a bad change of pace to see Jade in something other than buttoned-up shirts and suits. Turning back to the clothes pile, you pick out another set of clothes- this time, it was a comfy white turtleneck with black dress pants. You also found a brown trench coat in the depths of his wardrobe, which Jade said his parents' acquaintances gifted him for his birthday and he didn't know how to style it.

You looked back to the door once again as he changes out of the clothes, putting the new set on quickly and gracefully. "Oh, this definitely feels much more my style."

You turned around to see for yourself, and your eyes shone excitedly seeing him in the new getup. "Oh! Definitely!!" You cheered, giggling while at it. "You surprisingly suit the more mature-but-comfortable look, Jade." The eel-mer chuckles, sitting back down on the floor. "I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks so. What about the accessory choices, then?"

"Hmm... Crewel said that less is better in this getup, so just a little..." Picking up a few ring shaped ones, you carefully put a few piercings on Jade's ears- a simple look, consisting of the double helix on top of his ears and a couple of silver studs along his lobes.

"There! Well it isn't exactly a little either, but..."

Jade looked at the mirror in his room, a satisfied smile on his face. A smile that is neither shady, plotting, or emotionless- a genuinely happy smile. "My my, I was correct in assuming you had good taste in fashion. I'm rather confident in this look, actually. It's comfortable enough for me to move in, and yet still maintaining the fashionable aura from the coat."

You had a grin on your face, proud of your handiwork. "All thanks to you being a good model! And for having a variety of clothes I can choose from, haha."

You had quickly put the rest of his clothes back into his wardrobe after making a few other suggestions, and dusted yourself off as you stood up. "I should probably get going now, I wouldn't want to invade for too long." You say, stretching your arms and getting ready to get back to your dorm. You open the door, stepping out from his neat room.

"Ah, before that." Jade called out, following you outside. He quickly (and rather smoothly) took your hand in his, closing and locking up his room. "Since we're already in decent clothes, what do you say I take you on a small trip around Sage's Island? Perhaps we can stop by and grab some food. My treat of course, after you've oh-so graciously helped me."

Your cheeks heat up, and you feel your gaze lowering to stare at the floor instead of the man in front of you.

"...Is this your way of asking me out?" "Perhaps. Do you accept?"

You couldn't bring yourself to decline his offer. (Your empty stomach also couldn't.)

"S-sure then. I'd love to, Jade."

"Splendid. It's a date, then."

[silent-raven13]

When Hobie gets drunk

The Spider Band decided to go to one of Hobie's kickback parties. Well, it's one of his bandmate's kick back party, there's alcohol, weed, and other crazy stuff for the teenagers to have a good time. For once, the Spider Band had their day off taking the opportunity to be teenagers. The group put on their best punk outfit to fit into Hobie's world, just so they avoid looks.

Gwen grins widely having to wear plaided cargo pants with many zippers, an oversize shirt with a vest, and thick combat boots: Man, this is gonna be fucking exciting! -she shakes Pav with excitement. Finally, she gets to enjoy partying with her friends after weeks of being Spider-heroes-

Pav being dizzy from Gwen shaking him: Ahahaha, ye-yeah! I really want to do fun beer games! -He wore a much simpler outfit; a black tank top with ripped slashes around and skinny blue jeans with chains. The outfit works with rock boots.-

Margo smirks at Gwen: Hahaha, you're excited to get shitfaced, huh? -wearing a more Androgynous outfit; a long half skirt that is over black buckles black skinny ripped jeans, her tube top with fishnets and a thick belt slanted to the side of her wide hips. Her hair in thick locs with neon colors to stay true to her Spider Byte colors.-

Gwen blushes at Margo's smirk: Huh, ye-yeah! Come on, we finally got to enjoy ourselves. -the two noticed short knotted locs with red dye under their noses-

Spider Zeros: Yo! -she holds her Spiderling as she wore more a Gothic Punk style; a huge over size t-shirt with rip hems and certain parts with an asymmetrical collar stitched fish necks, one long fishnet glove from her arm to her hands, and a black fingerless glove on the other. She had thick big black buckled platform boots, with uneven stockings of black and red. Her makeup dark and dramatic with purple lipstick- What's good!

Pav: I keep forgetting how short you are!

Spider Zero: Excuse you! I am older than all of ya! -she huffs- Anyway, i heard there's free alcohol and join in! Where's Peni?

Gwen sighs: She's busy.

Spider Zero arched her eyebrows: Wow, so boring.

Margo: Hey, she's always working on her machines.

Miles spotted them: Hey guys! -Everyone stares at his outfit being surprised. Miles blushed being shy, his arm rub his other arm- Is is too much?

They squealed: Your so cute, Miles!

Gwen: OMG are you wearing a skirt!

Pav: Look at the lipstick!

Margo: Damn, Miles! I didn't know you like to dress up like that! -she giggles-

Spider Zero awed: Awe, you got to show off your tattoo!

Miles' cheeks felt super warm: Really? Thanks! I wanted to impress Hobie, since he's hardcore and... I'm just simple! -He went all out on his outfit: a red plaided half skirt with a cut to show the black one pants/short and tartan around his reavealing left thigh. His right leg being covered by the ripped one pant. He had on a shredded Hobie's band crop top and underneath the top is one layer of fishnets covering his his right arm to his tummy. The left arm with ripped up plaided sleeve purpose to cover only the forearm and hand. His revealing stomach had a heart shape buckle belt with studs and chains as decor. Then he had a black leather jacket from Hobie with patches and paint on it with words and slang around it. The same goes with his messily painted sunflowers on the sides on his Devil Games Mismatched combat boots. His face being covered with black lipsticks, and smokey red and black eyeshadow with white wing eyeliner. Put on a fake lip piercing, but had his earrings on.-

Gwen: Trust me, Hobie is gonna be so happy!

Hobie: OI! OI! Peter Pan! -the group heard their friend calling out for him. They turned their head toward the voice is coming from through the thick crowd of the underground warehouse party. They saw him walking so sloppy, so drunk!-

Miles gasps with a cute pout: Hobie, you got drunk before we got here!

Hobie finally noticed his boyfriend as he got closer. His vision was blurry as he pushed people out of his way, until his vision came clear when he saw his beaming Angel, his Sunflower: Miles? -he kinda slur his words-

Spider Zeros: A DOY! No shit Sherlock! -she rolled her eyes-

Hobie scowls: Eh, are you being a Xenophobic -his eyes at Zero-

Zero: No, it's an expression for no shit! -she grins- Anyway, I wanna get shitfaced! Right, Spiderling! -her spider happily nodded- Come on, let's drink!

Hobie look at his friends: Ya'll look freaking amazing -he turns to Miles- You look amazing, luv! -he holds his partner's cheek having to stare deep into his eyes like he was the only man in the party-

Miles smiles shyly feeling his cheeks warm again: Heh, thanks, bae.

Pav: Yeah, we should start partying! I finally got the chance to get wasted!

Hobie drunkily slouch on his Miles: The alcohol is that way -he use his thumb to point the area where all the alcohol is at- Come!

It wasn't long till the party went hard! Gwen challenging Hobie into shots. Margo cheering on Gwen while Pav cheer for Hobie. Zero drinks her beer watching with Miles. The young man had a red cup filled with alcohol, he took small sip. If he's honest, he hates alcohol. The taste is too bitter to him, he hates beer the most: Luv! Luv! Were you watching? -Hobie called for him-

Miles laughs: I am, bae! Wow, ten shots! That's crazy.

Hobie grins widely until Pav shouted: Holy Shit, Gwen! -She chugged a bottle of Vodka-

Margo cheers: Hahaha, I never knew you can hold your liquor, Gwen!

Gwen grins wildly being sluggish and slur her words: Ye-yeahh, I ams am'zing...

Miles laughs: Shit, she's gonna feel that in the morning.

Zero: Nah, she got white girl wasted, she can handle it!

Pav giggles having to get another round of shots ready: Miles! Come, join us!

Miles: Ohh, I dunno... I'm not that good with liquor!

Zero: Come on, man. Let's take a shot! -she nudges as her Spiderling slurps her cup with a straw as he rest on her shoulder-

Miles: Is he allowed to drink that?

Zero: Yeah, stop changing the subject.

Miles gave in: Alright. Hobie wanna take a hot with me.

Hobie already too drunk: YEAH! -being much hyper, more louder than his cool self- Let's do this! -The group got their shots to cheer and drink. Miles shudders at the vodka burning down his throat-

Miles: Ugh!

Hobie kisses his forehead being more clingy: It's alright, Brooklyn! You were great.

Gwen drunkly said: Ugh, ya two are always so lovey lovey! Makes me upset I got no one! -she slouches on Margo-

Margo: Whoa easy. Maybe you should take a little break.

Gwen pouts: Nuuhhh!

Margo: Yeeesss

Zero snorted: Oh brother...

Pav: Hehehe, will Ghostbyte happen?

Zero: A what?

Pav: Gwen is Ghost-spider and Margo is Spiderbyte. Ghostbyte.

Hobie chuckles still being drunk with his words: Wat's he talking' bout, darling? -he sat with Miles having his arms around his lover's shoulder-

Miles: Ship names! Pav, I let you watch one anime and now you're shipping everyone, man! -he chuckles-

Pav: Oh pfft, your just mad because I got to name Miguel and Peter, Spiderdads!

Zero: I like SpiderDaddies more.

Gwen hugs Margo being clingy: Ghostbyte!!! -Margo just laughs as she held Gwen to help her not fall-

Miles: And you couldn't find a name for you?

Pav snorted: Pfft me and Gayatri is easy! Pavitri! See! -he looks at Hobie and Miles- Hmm, I'll come up one for you two. It's hard since you got no specific Spiderman name.

Miles gasp: What? I have cool powers!

Zero: Hobie is easy. He's Punk Spiderman.

Hobie grunts: I don't call myself a punk, that's labeling me a-

Zero cut him off: Yeah, we get it. It's just that's how it is.

Pav: Hmmm, Hobie calls Miles, Sunflower- OH! PUNKFLOWER!

Margo listens: That's cute.

Zero nodded: Or Flowerpunk!

Gwen: I like -she burps as talks- that one! -still slouching on Margo-

Miles laughs: Okay, it's cute. Not gonna lie.

Hobie grunts: Who cares about labels, luv? It's not really us! You're my Sunflower! -he snuggle his partner- why should we care what others think of us?

Miles: I like it. -he chuckles- We got our secret ship names, bae.

Zero: Unless you're in Earth 1218, they already know your ships.

Pav: Oh, isn't that world where reality is soo real! Like their laws of nature is so powerful that their super-heroes don't exist- only through imagination! -He gasps with awe look on his face, and hands on his head-

Zero: Yeah! How did you know?

Hobie: This guy knows everything! He's always hearing the latest gossip at HQ!

Margo: And you can't tell him NOTHING! He's the first one to spread it!

Pav fake gasp: ME? How dare you!

Margo: It's true. You always instigating and being the first one to spread the word. Last time, I mention about Ben being in the pain in the ass and he quickly told everyone. Like, bro! -she laughs at Pam's expression-

Pav: To be fair, you also said to other Spiderpeople! -He laughs- Not my fault, Miguel got involved!

Zero: Man, that man is always up in everyone asses tho! He one time got mad because I didn't signed in or out.

Margo: But you go through multiverses?

Zero: I know!

Hobie: He's a control arse!

Gwen: Yeah, fuck Miguel! -being too drunk to care what she said-

Margo: Opp! I wouldn't say that.

Miles: Yeah, he's not all bad. He's like an old building that needs a clean up!

Pav: I see, FlowerFang happening! -Getting a dark glare from Hobie. Huh oh, jealous Hobie is back-

Zero: Ohhh, nice one!

Miles pouts: Nah, Pav. Now, you're being an instigator! I just think Miguel got some rough patches.

Margo: Before we continue this convo! Miles, I'm curious -she and Gwen sat down on chairs behind them. Gwen still cuddling against Margo- Like no offense, but- but would you?

Miles: Huh?

Pav laughs: And I'm the instigator, huh?

Margo: Oh hush!

Zero laughs: Now, we're getting to the juicy detail!

Hobie glares at them: Aye, are ya gonna disrespect me like this? In front of my face!

Margo hold her hands in defense: I'm just saying. Okay, let me be more honest. Would ya'll tap Miguel?

Everyone went silent except for Hobie with a scowl: No.

Margo grins: Why?

Hobie: Because he's a bloody bloke! A fucking pig within this whole society controlling all of us! What do you mean? Would you all do him! -his eyes widen in shock-

Zero: No! I'm Asexual and- that man got issues.

Margo: Paving is thinking pretty hard there, huh? Hey, you okay, bud?

Pav: What da fuck? I can't even think without you calling me out! -Zero laughs out loud-

Margo: It's like you're really thinking about it. Look, I'ma be honest. Miguel is a fine man... -she explains- We are not gonna sit here and lie about that, and he got some sweet cake. I mean, have you look at that man? -The group except for Hobie nodded with agreement. Hobie looks at Miles' who gave a slight nod-

Hobie: LUV!

Miles: What? I'm just agreeing that Miguel is handsome!

Pav: Look, I think I would if I wasn't in a serious relationship! -he spotted Zero about to say something to him- Considering- Considering we are all adults, so it should be fine! -he sips his drink-

Zero: So you would since your 18, now.

Pav: Ya! I mean, why not?

Margo: Lowkey, same. High key, only for a night stand, like have you seen that man's ass. Lord!

Zero: It's like two bouncing balls!

Pav: Gwen is all knocked out.

Gwen snoring in Margo's shoulders: Let her sleep. Anyway, Miles? Your opinion.

Miles: I'm in a relationship! I can't say that.

Hobie smirks: Yeah, he shouldn't think about it. -he slouch on his boyfriend-

Margo: Hypothetically speaking-

Hobie getting jealous: nah, fuck your hypo!

Zero and Pav laughs: He's mad mad, now!

Miles: Me and Hobie are in a great relationship! Why would I wanna think about another man?

Zero: Sheesh, loyal man.

Margo: But like imagine tho.

Hobie: Margo, your being a Pav!

Pav: Me! No, what da hell did I do?

Margo laughs: Relax, Hobs!

Hobie scowls having to go to his Miles: You know, I love you, right!

Miles blink surprised: Huh? Hobie, where-

Hobie got in front of his partner with his hands cupping his lover: I told you before I love you! I love you, mate! -his drunk self getting emotional-

Miles: I love you, too-

Zero: Wow, and three years strong!

Hobie being clingy to Miles: I love you, Sunflower! You know, that! I would fucking become a villain if you leave me or if anything happen to you! I'll fucking kill anyone who hurts you! I would be nothing without you, Miles! -kissing him on the lips and cheek-

Miles: Hobie, Hobie! Baby, you're drunk. Calm down!

Hobie: I love you, you're my baby! -he holds Miles in his arms- This is man is mine!

Miles never knew how clingy his boyfriend could get, even how easily tick off: Baby, I love you, too! -he hugs him back-

Hobie: I love you, MILES! You're my SUNFLOWER! -His arms wrapped around his Miles as they cuddle on the couch. Everyone laughs while Miles tries to calm his boyfriend down-

[mikuyuuss]

Waaaah~! Thank you for reblogging my ask game, Unni!

Since you're open to answering questions, can I ask 4, 18, and 20 for Akari?

AHHH thanks for the ask as always Erika!!

4. Why did you give them the name they have? Whats the in universe reason for their name?

Im gonna be honest IM BAD AT NAMING THINGS 😭😭 So I happen to choose Akari because it's a common girl's name and it sounds pretty (surely if it's a common name it won't have a weird meaning RIGHT???!!!) At first I was scared bc apparently the "aka" in akari can also mean red which like, Akari's obviously not a red girly 😂

But her name actually ended up having a beautiful meaning to it (Thank God) The "明" in her name stands for "light" or "brilliance" I believe. Coincidentally, I also have "明" in my name too. I believe it's associated with smartness (at least in chinese culture) So I believe Akari was given that name by her parents because she is the light in their life, and they want her to grow up as a brilliant person.

18. Imagine meeting your oc what would you imagine you'd say to them or do with them

It's gonna be SO messy and complicated if she knew that I created her. In all seriousness I don't think Akari would like me at all. Anyways that aside.. If things were a little simpler, I'd love to just hang out with her, play dress up and do cosplays and other fun stuffs. I could give her words of encouragement about the things that I wish I could tell myself too, but in reality I think I will just go :

She can do it because she's fast and I'm as slow as a turtle.

20. Share a random piece of trivia about the creation of your oc (scrapped idea or changes you didnt expect to make)

This is her old design:

Initially, her vibes was a lot darker and edgier, but somehow she got softer and pinker the more I drew her.

Tbh Akari looks way cooler here, but her design feels a little messy. There were many cool ideas but nothing came out of it. In the end she's just kinda there. I originally wasn't gonna ship her with Giyuu bc I was a giyuu x shinobu shipper back then and thought they would be canon XD (I just prefer them as bros now) It doesnt help that I was so busy with school and its the pandemic, so my creative juices were little to none. But one idea that has always stayed is Akari having a good relationship with the girls, especially Mitsuri. After that I forgot about her...

Then I took a year off university, so more time to draw. I was on my way to moving on from kny, until I saw the swordsmith teaser and was like "Okay this show helped me get through pandemic, why not post some art to pay tribute at least." one art became more and suddenly I realized I wanna revisited Akari again bc omg this oc has so much wasted potential I need to fix this 😱 Guess I wont be moving on from kny soon 🤡

I thought about different breathing styles, illusion, star breathing etc. I decided that Akari is a battle seamstress character so I thought of silk breathing bc you know silk but I was like: "ok shes a seamstress who does seamstress powers?? thats it?? she needs something more specific" Eventually I settled for Camellia flowers bc I think its perfect for her in every way.

[incognitonio]

Finally found some time post here again. I'm gonna be honest, I'm not gonna promise to make more weekly posts here anymore since I clearly can't do it. Good thing barely anyone follows me anyway because they'd be upset at my inactivity.

Anyways, I've drawn some art in a new style that's inspired by the art styles of Bruce Timm (DCAU) and Jeff Matsuda (Batman 2004). I'm going for a simpler, sharper and cartoony look in this new style. I don't know if I can make more with his rouges' gallery next but we'll see

[sweetest-honeybee]

So my friend commissioned me to draw something... but I'm not really sure how to price it? I was wondering if you had any helpful tips! Also, love your art!

Sure! For the bare basics I personally go by a rough hourly wage and the time it took to draw the commission like I said in my general commission tips post. I.e. my wage is roughly $45/hour or something like that 😌 The maths a bit off now but it’s like 40-45/hour. At the very least, I’d go by living wage and multiply that by the time it takes to do what’s asked of me (busy/waist/full body) and add from there. Complexity, backgrounds, extra characters, and so on! And those are all up to you as the artist (because ngl I only kinda bc those prices and hope they make sense 😂)

So for example, my busts are $90 (they take 2 hours or so each or less at $45/hour because it’s more than living wage AND is a great value for my work!) but that would be higher if it’s a particularly complex character

HWOEVER I’ve also priced in such a way that I’ve kinda considered complexity anyways and I don’t typically charge extra for complexity unless I think certain extra details will add quite a bit of time to do

Now, alongside at least doing living wage (for wherever you are, it’s different for everyone), the value of your work matters. So yeah I can do like $22-24 an hour because it’s living wage for me here but I find my rendering work very appealing and satisfying to look at. I feel the product of the commissions are great quality and are worth charging roughly $45/hour for them to complete (and it actually used to be $30/hour)

Of course though, it just depends on what your friend is commissioning you for! Humanoid characters of most kinds can be divided up into the busy/waist/full body which are typically priced differently, there’s again complexity/backgrounds/extra characters, is it a full big piece, a simpler smaller piece, all those wonderful things

Tbh? It all comes down to your personal value of your work and what you think your friend may be able to afford as well. I wouldn’t go too overboard making things hella expensive but don’t undersell yourself! Your the artist :)

TLDR; Living Wage (specific to you) x Time of Completion (in hours, round up or down by hour) + Personal Artist Value (specific number or extra hourly wage) + Added Variables (multiple characters, complexity, backgrounds, coloring style, etc) = Commission Price (and then tweak and change til you’re satisfied with the number)

[eachuisge-cc]

How to make regular TS4 clothing compatible with DigiLegs: PART 2

This section covers long pants, as well as skintight and cuffed pants or other types of clothing that might require some texture/UV editing. For basic info on getting started and converting shorts/other above the knee clothing, see Part 1.

Mesh Editing For Long Loose Pants

These are arguably simpler than shorts in that there are fewer steps involved, but they can be more work intensive and may take some practice if you haven't done much blender modelling.

As with the shorts you'll want to be in orthographic side view (Numpad 3) switch the viewport shading to solid, and turn on x-ray view (alt+Z), but unlike the shorts those things are actually necessary here instead of just helpful. Once you've got the legs imported you won't actually need to touch them again, they're there as a visual guide.

select ALL segments of the pants mesh. go into edit mode and you should have a setup looking like this:

You now need to turn on proportional editing, which is the little concentric circle thing next to the little magnet thing on the lower toolbar

Choose Smooth, and make sure "connected only" is UNCHECKED. This will enable you to edit the whole thing a) without messing up the topology and b) without getting cracks in the mesh between segments. if you need to edit one vertex at a time, just scroll to decrease the radius of the tool and it will feel like working without it, the only difference being that you won't get cracks. Honestly this is a good thing to do any time you're working with sims 4 meshes due to the way they're constructed.

At this point honestly you just kinda. eyeball it. follow your heart. smush it around until you like the way it looks, then switch the viewport shading back to material to make sure it's not distorting the texture too badly. Instead of trying to explain how, I've just recorded my usual way of doing it and you can either copy that or do something else entirely that works better for you. The important thing is that at the end, the pants should follow a more or less natural-looking fall around the shape of the leg (one of the mesh seams frequently lands right over the hocks, which I choose to just let happen because I like the defined edge and feel like it makes a nice silhouette and fits TS4's cartoony vibe, but if you don't like that it's something to watch out for) and there shouldn't be any leg bits poking through. Once you're happy with the shape, go back to object mode and delete the imported digitigrade mesh, and you're done.

If you're having trouble lining the bottoms up with the feet, you can import some hooves or paws for reference and delete them with the legs at the end. This process will work for anything long enough that it ends below the ankle seam, and loose enough that the extra bend won't badly distort the texture or mesh.

Then just do the same with the other LODs and you're done with the mesh editing portion, and can refer to part one for additional steps. For capris and cropped pants you can often just combine this method with the shorts method, which brings us to...

So You Edited The Mesh And It Broke The Texture

There are certain styles that I prefer to shorten so they end at the hocks, like the second and fourth items in my werewolf edits, (the one between them, by contrast, was done with the long loose pants method above):

I don't really have any hard and fast rules for when to do this vs not but I usually base my judgement on "will leaving them long distort the mesh/texture awkwardly" and "if a werewolf transformed while wearing these pants, would they fall over the hocks, or be pushed up by them" (because the hocks are anatomically ankles, and digitigrade animals are basically standing on tip-toes with an elongated foot).

Anyway, sometimes you'll be able to do this just fine and move on with your life, but sometimes this happens:

I'm going to explain how to fix this as well as I can, but it's a process that's a bit less straightforward than the mesh editing and it involves some eyeballing and trial and error, so I'm sorry in advance. I'll edit this for clarity as needed, just drop me a message if you're stuck on something in the meantime.

In blender, go over to your UV panel, set it to display the outfit texture rather than the body (generally this will be DiffuseMap) and switch on UV Sync Selection. If you compare the UV panel with the model, you'll be able to see what you need to do to correct things. Here you can see that when I moved the pants mesh up the leg to fit with the hocks, it ended up higher than the placement of the UV, causing the texture to bleed over onto the leg.

Take note of where the UV needs to end and where you'll need to move it to; find a visual landmark on the texture if you can (if it helps, make a copy of the texture and draw markers on it to give yourself a reference point), because you'll need to hide the leg part so that you can edit the pants UV without distorting it.

With the leg hidden, select the bottom row of vertices on the pants UV, and hit G>Y to move it only on the vertical axis. Mess with the proportional editing range until it looks right to you, for best results I've found it's good to set it so all the vertices below the knee are affected, but no higher than that.

This is what it should roughly look like once adjusted, it's better to shoot for a little above where it needs to be than a little below. At this stage it will look like you just made it worse but don't worry, we're fixing the textures next. Hide the legs again, select all, and export the altered UV.

Go back to the package and export the texture for every swatch as well as the normal map (as a png), then open up your 2D editing software of choice and import them all into one layered file so you can edit them all at once. import the UV on top of them (might help to lower the UV's transparency to see what you're doing better).

At this point you can see pretty clearly how much the texture needs to be adjusted (and if it's not clear, I suggest exporting an unedited version of the clothing mesh and looking at the UV in blender, and using that as your guide) In this case, that lower detached bit is what the cuff needs to line up with, the strip at the bottom lines up with that very bottom row and makes up the underside of the cuff, and everything else is very light on detail so I can more or less focus entirely on getting the cuff right and the rest will look fine. As with adjusting the UV, select to just the bottom of the knee for best results, and frequently all you need to do is hit transform and move the bottom edge up. There may be some textures you need to mess with more if they're particularly detailed or have lacing/patterns/cuffs in an inconvenient area or something, but a lot of the time you can get away with just lightly squishing everything below the knee. Once you get a feel for the process you can also plan ahead while editing the mesh itself to minimize distortion (in this case, I made sure not to change the size of the cuffs while moving things around because those were the only detailed part).

Now export one of the swatches, test it in S4S or blender, make further adjustments if they're needed until it looks right. Make sure you hide the UV layer when you export, and make sure to import the mesh with the updated UV if you're testing it in S4S (I say this because I regularly forget and end up having to re-do steps).

To adjust the different LODs, you can just import one of the new textures to the UV editor in blender and use it as a guide, so you don't have to do the same eyeballing process four times.

Sometimes you'll also need to adjust the shadow map. to do this, just export it from the package, load it into your painting software, and just scoot the lower shadow up until it's sitting right, again using the new UV as a guide.

At this point you should have a finished set of digitigrade pants!

From here refer to part one for further directions if you need them.

[iantimony]

tuesday!

hello again! another 2-weeker because I was in Washington (Da Capital) for a portion of last week for an academic conference and boy howdy did that sap my will to live/energy to post.

listening: I finished relistening to TANIS! season 5 felt completely unfamiliar so I either never actually listened to it or it was just that forgettable. which tbh, it was. very forgettable. definitely good background white noise but really nothing cooking in there. very clear to me that at the end there terry miles was way more interested in writing a book than an audio drama.

for the sake of completeness I also am relistening to the black tapes. definitely a more cohesive narrative happening there even though I know the "finale" is looming ahead. also has not generally aged super well, and some of the attempts at writing academic experts of things in make me laugh a lot, and the overlap in voice actors for side characters is also amusing. I think this universe of podcasts only work if TANIS is a fictional podcast in TBT and vice-versa but that's not news. also why did they make cuneiform on…parchment…as a plot point in s3…it's cuneiform…wouldn't it be on a slab of clay…anyways a reference to "current political discourse" in a s3 ep made me check the date and I didn't realize that this came out in 2020????? insane. way more recent than I thought (derogatory).

music-wise, saw Mahjong Crib live a few weeks ago at a local bar so I've been letting that run in the background. the bassist was incredibly high (as he should be) and very funny. the last song of the set he put the bass down and started going ham on cowbell. definitely in the family of freeform jazz which isn't normally my thing. still not sure this band is my thing, will probably not be purchasing this album for example.

reading: How Cheerleading Became So Acrobatic, Dangerous and Popular (David Gauvey Herbert): what it says on the tin. didn't realize how much of it came down to monopoly of an industry again. womp womp.

read these both on the plane back from the conference: By Proxy (Lise): mind the tags. really nailed a good dynamic between LWJ and JC imo. Wuxian The Ninth (spockandawe): was linked by the author in a server we're both in. the choice to just do the intro and finale is so incredibly valid. I should do that for my abhorsen/TLT crossover actually because I have the beginning done and definitely have a finale cooking in my head but writing all the bits in the middle seems exhausting and this has made it occur to me that I am allowed to just. skip all the shit in the middle. nothing is stopping me.

watching: fallow

playing: fallow

making: I have been speed knitting a pair of fingerless gloves for my mom! chose this pattern specifically to do them flat style because I was on the go and didn't want to think about using dpns, and I don't have the equipment for knitting in the round comfortably on that small of a scale.

finished carving the block for my holiday cards BUT printing them has proved. challenging. I have what turns out to be kinda shitty water-based ink that is a real pain in the ass to do more than one print at a time with because it dries so fast. it's also applying and printing extremely unevenly and patchy, and while I don't actually mind the texture that adds, the fact that I have to wash off my block & roller every 2-3 prints or so is really stymying my speed. I am abusing my boyfriend's amazon prime to get an oil-based printmaking ink shipped to me so I have put further printing on hold til today when that allegedly arrives. I miss living in closer proximity to a more professional art supply store :-( I've printed about 15 or 20 now and depending on how much nicer the ink looks I may restart lol… either way next year I think I will get thicker paper to mail postcard-style instead of in an envelope to save on postage and work? we'll see. I'm hand delivering around half of my cards over the course of the holidays as it is to make it simpler and cut back on the amount of envelopes and postage I'll need anyways so it's really not TOO bad…

I kind of want to carve a return label stamp as well but obviously the scale/detail of that is more challenging. the easier move is to order return label stickers obviously so maybe I will design some of those, not for this year at this time scale but y'know. I was thinking of putting up my holiday card designs on redbubble or etsy or whatever as well just for funsies.

eating: made deb smittenkitchen's lentil soup with sausage, chard and garlic! really good! my sausages are generic beef from the farmers market so I feel like I lost a little flavor in there by not using some sort of sweet or spicy sausage but it's still tasty and filling. according to comments it freezes very well so I made the full recipe and will be freezing about four servings. I am rich in frozen soups rn.

I was GOING to make her crispy cauliflower and cabbage salad as well but the half a head of cabbage I had in the fridge tragically finally went bad. so instead I did an improvization at her cauliflower with dates and pistachios salad. I did not have dates or pistachios, subbed in craisins and almond slivers, lmfao, but still tasty and has the same structure. I also got some salmon burgers from kroger that have TWENTY FIVE GRAMS of protein each and were very tasty.

misc: feeling very [horror movie scare chord] from networking at that conference. my advisor's previous student who I did not overlap with but am familiar because I have continued his work casually commented that he applied to over Four Hundred Jobs before getting the one he currently has that he. does not even like that much. (I think? unclear. he is kind of a hater at heart in the funniest possible way, bless him.) so I have the fear of god in me a little bit but it's Fine, I'm doing what I'm "supposed" to be doing that a lot of other people are not by doing extensive networking and looking for summer internships for what will hopefully be the last summer of my PhD program.

I gotta start thinking about my yearly roundup too!!! I did a bad job of keeping a spreadsheet this year for this to note everything down in an easy format so maybe I will do that in retrospect as a time-filling activity in the next few weeks…