#background is so good.... artists save me...

[castelled-away]

So now that we know the marriage market/schemes of the ton are not Benedict‘s cup of tea & he spends the better part of s3 running away from debutantes who want to marry him… I need Sophie (or whoever is going to be his love interest in his season) to be the incarnation of the word no. I need this lovely lady to be absolutely uninterested in this jokester puppy of a Bridgerton so that he HE has to run after HER. And she’s just like no thanks & completely uninterested & pragmatic/down-to-earth all the time until he like…cries & begs her to marry her I guess?

[l48yr1nth]

im going to make an emo anime wolf oc hes gonna be soooo edgy and powerful nobody can stop me

[insertdisc5]

📚 A List Of Useful Websites When Making An RPG 📚

My timeloop RPG In Stars and Time is done! Which means I can clear all my ISAT gamedev related bookmarks. But I figured I would show them here, in case they can be useful to someone. These range from "useful to write a story/characters/world" to "these are SUPER rpgmaker focused and will help with the terrible math that comes with making a game".

This is what I used to make my RPG game, but it could be useful for writers, game devs of all genres, DMs, artists, what have you. YIPPEE

Writing (Names)

Behind The Name - Why don't you have this bookmarked already. Search for names and their meanings from all over the world!

Medieval Names Archive - Medieval names. Useful. For ME

City and Town Name Generator - Create "fake" names for cities, generated from datasets from any country you desire! I used those for the couple city names in ISAT. I say "fake" in quotes because some of them do end up being actual city names, especially for french generated ones. Don't forget to double check you're not 1. just taking a real city name or 2. using a word that's like, Very Bad, especially if you don't know the country you're taking inspiration from! Don't want to end up with Poopaville, USA

Writing (Words)

Onym - A website full of websites that are full of words. And by that I mean dictionaries, thesauruses, translators, glossaries, ways to mix up words, and way more. HIGHLY recommend checking this website out!!!

Moby Thesaurus - My thesaurus of choice!

Rhyme Zone - Find words that rhyme with others. Perfect for poets, lyricists, punmasters.

In Different Languages - Search for a word, have it translated in MANY different languages in one page.

ASSETS

In general, I will say: just look up what you want on itch.io. There are SO MANY assets for you to buy on itch.io. You want a font? You want a background? You want a sound effect? You want a plugin? A pixel base? An attack animation? A cool UI?!?!?! JUST GO ON ITCH.IO!!!!!!

Visual Assets (General)

Creative Market - Shop for all kinds of assets, from fonts to mockups to templates to brushes to WHATEVER YOU WANT

Velvetyne - Cool and weird fonts

Chevy Ray's Pixel Fonts - They're good fonts.

Contrast Checker - Stop making your text white when your background is lime green no one can read that shit babe!!!!!!

Visual Assets (Game Focused)

Interface In Game - Screenshots of UI (User Interfaces) from SO MANY GAMES. Shows you everything and you can just look at what every single menu in a game looks like. You can also sort them by game genre! GREAT reference!

Game UI Database - Same as above!

Sound Assets

Zapsplat, Freesound - There are many sound effect websites out there but those are the ones I saved. Royalty free!

Shapeforms - Paid packs for music and sounds and stuff.

Other

CloudConvert - Convert files into other files. MAKE THAT .AVI A .MOV

EZGifs - Make those gifs bigger. Smaller. Optimize them. Take a video and make it a gif. The Sky Is The Limit

Marketing

Press Kitty - Did not end up needing this- this will help with creating a press kit! Useful for ANY indie dev. Yes, even if you're making a tiny game, you should have a press kit. You never know!!!

presskit() - Same as above, but a different one.

Itch.io Page Image Guide and Templates - Make your project pages on itch.io look nice.

MOOMANiBE's IGF post - If you're making indie games, you might wanna try and submit your game to the Independent Game Festival at some point. Here are some tips on how, and why you should.

Game Design (General)

An insightful thread where game developers discuss hidden mechanics designed to make games feel more interesting - Title says it all. Check those comments too.

Game Design (RPGs)

Yanfly "Let's Make a Game" Comics - INCREDIBLY useful tips on how to make RPGs, going from dungeons to towns to enemy stats!!!!

Attack Patterns - A nice post on enemy attack patterns, and what attacks you should give your enemies to make them challenging (but not TOO challenging!) A very good starting point.

How To Balance An RPG - Twitter thread on how to balance player stats VS enemy stats.

Nobody Cares About It But It’s The Only Thing That Matters: Pacing And Level Design In JRPGs - a Good Post.

Game Design (Visual Novels)

Feniks Renpy Tutorials - They're good tutorials.

I played over 100 visual novels in one month and here’s my advice to devs. - General VN advice. Also highly recommend this whole blog for help on marketing your games.

I hope that was useful! If it was. Maybe. You'd like to buy me a coffee. Or maybe you could check out my comics and games. Or just my new critically acclaimed game In Stars and Time. If you want. Ok bye

[seafoamsol]

The best years of my life...

... what I wouldn't give to have them back.

I had the great pleasure of working with @spiderscribe on a DeadCeptor work for the @tf-bigbang, which you can (and should!) read [ HERE ]!

Details and artist commentary under the cut!

Okay, first off, I just wanna say, thank you so much to @spiderscribe for picking up my very loose scribble and taking the jump. She's an absolute champ, and I IMPLORE you to read her writing. She did a knockout job on the fic, and guaranteed, these two pieces wouldn't have been so elaborate without her. If you're a fan of deadceptor, parallels, lovers to enemies to apocalyptic teammates to ???s, I'm sure you'll find that and more in there.

[ HERE ] is the link to that, if you missed it the first time around.

The background for the supermarket was a MASSIVE undertaking. I ended up blurring it in the final to keep the dream-like quality, but there is a lot happening there! Most of the time I spent on the background was (jokingly) complaining though.

Anyone who works retail will know the agony of customer-misplaced stock. The little canisters of energon additives seem like prime candidates to be placed willy-nilly.

The little warning sign... My favorite soda, apple sidra, has a carcinogen warning, so I'm familiar with it. It was slightly surprising to me that those warnings are not countrywide, despite the fact that they very clearly say "California Proposition 65", and well. Not something else, like "Federal" or whatever.

The bags of nuts and bolts below, I asked several people what flavor they would be, and I suppose I failed in my job, because I wanted the purple to be the "regular" flavor, and the green to be the "sour". But grape and lemon-lime work as well!

The tub is full of rust-sticks. I have no idea if that came across. My friends kept calling the individually wrapped ones slim jims, which I mean, I guess!

The car batteries... My idea was that they were similar to shots, in a way? So that's how I ended up with a battery with enough terminals to rival an international airport. It's also sunset-coloured, because, I don't know, that's what Party Flavor is to me.

Okay. The second illustration. This one was a headache, mostly due to my own lack of planning, and the fact that I lost the file for... basically everything I did, including the above illustration. So it was a bit of a rush job.

The background bots started off as these very vague silhouettes, which I'm a little proud of. Look at how nice and somewhat readable they are! Okay, now what if I ruined it? What? You don't like that? That's rather unfortunate, because that's what I proceeded to do. In fact, if I take off all.. 10 or something adjustment layers, they look like this:

My process went: Shadow block> Fill rest of form> Color randomiser> Copy and skew (to populate background)> Hue adjustment> Gradient map> Fill Light> Chromatic aberration> Vignette> Levels> Curves.

The.... Magenta cube is there because due to the nature of the color randomiser, the foot had a high value, and stuck out like nobody's business in the end.

Here's what it would look like without the cube. Begone, distracting white blob! (I didn't have to worry about the lava arm because Percy happened to cover it up. What a save! But if he didn't then... there would have been a second cube.)

Basically, it was a mess. But... at least it came out fine in the end! I hope!

I'd love to have speedpaints on hand, but I was switching between CSP and PS for a good majority of the work.

I'd say that's it for these two pieces! I actually have more, but those demand more time. I'm much slower at doing inks than I am at painting, but I hope you'll get to see them soon.

[whatsk-poppinhomies]

Pairing : Idol!Han Jisung x F!Reader TW : cheating ; breakup ; regret ; very angsty ; surprise pregnancy ; Word Count : 3.5k Request : it was the winner of the poll, does that count? A/N : Here we go!! Gonna make this one hurt!

You sat on the couch, knee bouncing, phone in your hand, watching as the clock at the top of your lock screen switched to 3 in the morning. Not a single text, not a call, nothing from the man whose selfie adorned your lock screen with his puffy cheeks and his adorable smile that you fell in love with every single time he flashed it at you. You had gotten nothing since he had left for the award show almost 9 hours ago, the award show that you had watched from start to finish, even catching the moment when all of the artists had gotten up to start heading out. He wasn’t there anymore… But he sure as hell wasn’t home. 

Maybe he just went back to the dorms… Was what you had thought at first, just a simple thought to try to ease your mind and keep you from thinking the worst, but if that were the case you were sure that he would have texted you to let you know instead of keeping you up all night waiting for some type of communication. Had something bad happened? No, you would have seen it on the news and you were sure that you would have heard something by now. No… He was just ignoring you… Maybe he was just drunk. 

Either way, you wanted to call him just to be sure, especially since you were tired of waiting around for him. You dialed his number and let it ring, and maybe you should have hung up after the third ring to save yourself the heartache that came once the phone was answered. Not by him though, by someone else… You wished it had been one of the guys, but it wasn’t… It was a girl, one that sounded drunk and flustered and… God, you didn’t even want to think about the sinful noises that were made between each word as you heard your fiance's drunken giggles in the background mixed with his own noises… Noises that you had heard on multiple occasions when you were the one sharing the bed with him. 

“Sorry… wrong number…” You had mumbled, trying to hold back the sobs that were caught in your throat, feeling like they were going to choke you completely. You couldn’t breathe, your vision was a blur, the room felt like it was spinning, but you knew that the nauseous feeling wasn’t from being dizzy… No… it was from knowing that the man that you had planned on spending the rest of your life with, the man that you were willing to devote the rest of your life to was lower than low… And the men that you had trusted to look out for you like brothers look out for their sisters had most likely cheered on that man when he took another woman into his bedroom. 

It was hard to remember when you fell asleep, but you knew that you didn’t do it on purpose considering you woke up on the couch the next morning curled up in the fetal position. Your eyelids felt heavy and the sunlight that poured in through the open window burned your sensitive eyes that had been draining tears like a faucet the night before. “Looks like someone fell asleep while watching the award show. You’re so cute, shnookems.” Jisungs voice sounded out from somewhere close by, although your sleep and tear blurred vision made it hard to focus on where he truly was. 

You would have just thought that the night before was a bad dream, just some awful nightmare that you had since he wasn’t at home next to you, but when he let out that quiet little giggle it brought you back to the phone call and you felt sick all over again. “I hate you…” You said as flatly as possible, wiping the sleep from your eyes to finally focus on him, the way his smile faded to a look of shock at what you had said. “Don’t… Don’t talk to me… I hate you… I’m done with you.” 

Not even a good morning, nothing to start the day so that you could lead into the breakup. You went straight for it, diving headfirst into the conversation. “Wh-What are you talking about? Babe, come on… That’s… That’s not funny. Come on… You must have had a bad dream or something… let’s get you some coffee.” He stammered, pushing himself up off the recliner to walk over to where you were now sitting up on the couch, fresh tears already brewing on your bottom lashes. 

His hands were outstretched, waiting for you to grab them or maybe even take your place between his arms, but you smacked them away, shaking your head as you glared up at him. “You’re shit! You’re a lousy, no good, cheater! And don’t you even try to lie to me and say that you didn’t because I fucking heard you, Jisung!” You shouted, although your voice cracked on multiple occasions. You were devastated, heartbroken, but most of all you were pissed. 

So badly you wanted him to deny it, to tell you that it wasn’t true, but his hesitation and the look of guilt that washed over his features was enough for you to know that it hadn’t been a bad dream, that what you heard was real. “Babe… Let’s just… Can we talk about it?” He whispered, keeping his hands at his sides although you could see in the way that they were twitching that he wanted nothing more than to hold you, although you would have just pushed him away if he tried to. 

“Talk about what? I don’t want to hear lies or excuses. I heard enough last night. I waited up for you after the fucking show, I waited until 3 in the goddamn morning… And I called you… And some… Some other girl answered and I… I fucking heard everything. You disgust me! I want nothing to do with you!” You finally pushed yourself off the couch, trying to move past him, but his arms wrapped around you, trying so hard to keep you from walking away. “Don’t! Don’t touch me!” You screamed, pushing him away from you. 

It seemed so hypocritical for him to be crying right now, especially since you were the one that had been cheated on, but alas, the tears that flowed down your cheeks were perfectly mirrored on his face. “I was drunk! I was drunk and I know that’s not an excuse, but I really… I truly didn’t mean it! I swear to god, I didn’t!” He sobbed, taking tiny steps towards you, but for each small step that he took, you took two more back. “Baby… please… I love you so fucking much… I… I can’t breathe… I just… I need to know that things will be okay. I can… I’m sorry… If you need space, I can do that… Just don’t… Don’t leave me… Please.” 

“How…” You scoffed, shaking your head, laughing in both shock and disbelief at the audacity that he had to even try to plead. “How can you possibly be so fucking selfish? You don’t have the right to tell me not to leave after you cheated on me. I’m done. We’re over. You can…” You pulled the ring from your finger, the ring that you promised that you’d never take off… But that was before all this, before you knew how he really was. “You can have this back, I don’t want it. I don’t want any parts of you. I’m so fucking glad that this happened before I was dumb enough to marry you.” You threw the ring to the floor right at his feet, the diamond facets reflecting the light of the sun. “Don’t call me, don’t text me, don’t try to have one of the guys try to get in touch with me either. I don’t want anything to do with you or anything that you do once I walk out that door.” 

“Then don’t walk out…” The words rushed out as he swiped the ring off the floor and ran over to where you were standing. “I’m stupid… I’m so stupid. I don’t want to lose this… I don’t want to lose you. One chance… I just want one chance to prove to you that… That I didn’t mean to do it, I’ll never do it again. It was a mistake!” 

“Would you just stop already?!” You hissed, whipping around on your heel to face him as he followed you into the bedroom. “This is hard enough for me, and I don’t need you hounding me about how sad you are because you fucked up. You don’t deserve a second chance, you don’t deserve anymore chances because you’re a cheater, and once a cheater, always a cheater. So either help me pack my shit up so I can get the fuck away from you, or go sit and wallow in your self pity in the living room while I do it myself.” 

///

“So you’re not gonna say anything about it? You’re not even gonna tell him?” Soobin asked as he sat across from you in the little cafe. He had been your savior since you had left Jisung, allowing you to crash in the dorms at night until it got to the point where he eventually just told you that you might as well live there. He and the rest of the boys rarely ever saw the ones that you were trying to avoid unless they were on music shows, but Jisung was none the wiser that you, Soobin, and the rest of the guys had gotten so close. It made it easy to stay with them and practically hide out in their dorm until you made enough money to get a place of your own. 

“Soob… With all due respect, I haven’t even had the time to process it myself, and the last thing I want to deal with is my ex fiance coming back into my life when it’s been turned upside down once again.” You retorted, running your hands over your face as you let out a loud sigh. “I’ve got so much shit that I have to figure out, and I have less than 4 months to do it. I’m stressed enough as it is… I don’t need him to add onto that.” 

It was crazy, but you were pregnant, and to find out when you were already 5 months along was even crazier. You hadn’t gained any weight that you knew about, and even if you did gain anything, it wasn’t enough for you to think that it was from anything but maybe eating a little bit more than you usually would. You had experienced no symptoms at all, and you were so stressed with life itself that you hadn’t even cared for the fact that you might have missed a few periods, you even accompanied the lateness to the overload of stress. 

It wasn’t until you felt something weird, the movement in your stomach, that you asked Yeonjun to take you to the hospital because you had for some reason assumed that you had somehow gotten worms. “But it would be his kid, right? I mean… Doesn’t he have the right to know? I’m not telling you to do it now… But… I mean… it’s his kid.” Soobin tried to reason with you, and you hated that you had decided to confide in one of the two level headed ones in the group, but he was also easier to talk with and you were closer with him than the others. 

“I’m not going to hide it from him… I’m just not ready to tell him yet. Let me work this out in my own head first and then I’ll drop the bomb on him.” Although you weren’t sure if you actually wanted to tell him. Sure, it was his child, but you also didn’t want to have to deal with sharing custody of this surprise child with your cheating ex. It would be so much easier to just raise the baby yourself and if anyone asked, you could just say that it was someone else’s, although that felt morally wrong… But then again, what Jisung did was morally wrong as well. “I’ve got to figure out housing, I’ve got to tell my boss… It’s a lot… I don’t want to deal with him right now.” 

Soobin nodded, humming understandingly as he reached across the table, placing his hand over top of yours that was drumming nervously against the wooden top. “It is a lot, and that’s why me and the guys are going to help you. You can continue staying at the dorms, even after the baby is born if you don’t find a place soon enough. We will help you.” And maybe it was the hormones that caused it, but the kindness of his words and the softness in his eyes had you uncontrollably weeping in the tiny cafe. “Oh boy… Uhm… Come on… Let’s get you back home.” 

///

Jisung sat in the interview chair, his mind cloudy from lack of sleep. Promotional tours and mini shows had him exhausted, and working on the new album kept him busier than he usually would be. He was thankful for it though, unable to think too much about his mistakes, having no time to think about you and what you might be doing. He missed you, but it was clear from the lack of texts or calls back that you didn’t feel the same. Maybe you had blocked him, and he wouldn’t blame you if you did, but it would be better that way so you wouldn’t have to read the texts that he sent you daily about how sorry he was and how much he loved you. 

“Are you ready to start?” The interviewer asked, and all the guys nodded in unison, all except Jisung who was trying his best to just keep his head from falling forward and dozing off. “Great! So, my first question is for Han…” The sound of his name had his eyes shooting open, pretending that he wasn’t on the verge of passing out right then and there, nodding to let the interviewer know that she could keep going. “So, we’ve all read the headlines and, we’ve come up with our own conclusions regarding some recent events in your life…” The vagueness had Jisung lowering his eyebrows questioningly, waiting for her to get to her point, but a part of him had a sinking feeling on where the question was going. “How do you feel about your ex fiancee being seen out on dates with another idol?” 

Jisung wasn’t very up to date on current news, especially in the world of music considering he had his own headlines to make with the upcoming album. He hadn’t seen anything about you being out on dates with anyone, especially another idol, and he surely hadn’t heard about it in his little circle of other famous friends. He wasn’t even sure if what the interviewer was saying was true, but if it was, his genuine reaction would be heartbroken, but he had to play it off like he wasn’t. “Well, we’ve been apart for… For a while now and… Well, if whoever she’s with is making her happy, who am I to be upset about that. I want nothing but the best for her and whoever she may be with…” He said, trying his best to sound confident, but he was already getting choked up and he felt his eyes glossing over as tears threatened to fall. “Can we take a quick break? I’m sorry.” 

Minho was quick to follow behind the younger man who had rushed into the closest corner as he tried to cry as quietly as possible, which was quite hard, and it felt like all the eyes in the room were on him right now. “Hey… Hey, come on man. Calm down. We don’t even know if it was Y/N that was in whatever pictures that the interviewer was talking about. It could have been anyone, and you know that sometimes interviewers say things to try to get certain reactions out of us. It’s okay…” He tried to pat Jisungs shoulder in an attempt to calm him down, but when the younger man turned around he was an absolute wreck. 

“But what if it is her? I know it’s been months, and I know I fucked up, but I don’t want her with anyone else. I want to be the one to make her happy and take her on dates. I want to be the one that comes home to her at night and cuddles up next to her.” Minho grimaced at the cringy images that were being painted in his mind right now, but he tried to hide it, he was really trying to be there for Jisung even though he knew what had happened, and if asked to take a side, although not in front of Jisung, he would take yours in a heartbeat. “What other idol would do that? I’m so nice to everyone… Who would take her from me like that? Why?” 

Minho shook his head, taking a deep breath through his nose and letting it out slowly. “I think you’re getting way ahead of yourself. You need to calm down and finish the interview, and then we’ll go home and work things out after we figure out what is going on. Okay?” Minho offered, and in the back of his mind he was hoping that whoever it was in the picture wasn’t you because that would surely only make things worse, and Minho didn’t want to see Jisung worse than what he was right now. 

///

“What are you talking about?” Soobin asked, and you turned the corner of the hall to look at him, about to open your mouth to question what he was talking about or who he was talking to, but he quickly lifted his finger to his lips in a motion for you to stay silent, which you quickly obliged to. “Jisung, she’s not here. I don’t know what pictures you thought you saw, but I really think you’re freaking out for no reason.” He put his phone on speaker so you could listen, and part of you wished that he hadn’t because hearing Jisung put two and two together was making you freak out just as much as he was. 

“I’m not freaking out for no reason!” Jisungs shrill voice screeched through the speakers of Soobins phone. “I know what my fiancee looks like! I’ve had multiple photos taken of her and I like that! I know that’s her! Why are you with her?! You took her from me!” He continued shouting, and you could hear his voice breaking at the end of each sentence and then the heavy shaking breaths as he tried to catch his breath between crying and speaking. 

Soobin shook his head, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. Clearly Jisung wasn’t going to back down, and you didn’t want Soobins life to be made harder by Jisungs constant badgering, so just as Soobin was about to speak, you spoke up. “He didn’t take me from you.” You stated matter-of-factly, and Soobins mouth fell open as silence filled Jisungs end of the line. “You cheated on me. You caused this. And you can stop attacking him. It’s not like we’re together, I’m not with anyone right now because I’ve got bigger things to deal with and handle then finding someone else to be in my life.” 

You heard Jisung gasp, and then the shuffle of feet as he seemingly ran off somewhere, maybe somewhere more private, or maybe somewhere where all of the guys were, you weren’t quite sure. “Why… Why are you hiding from me? Why are you ignoring me? I just want to see you… I just… I need to see you. I fucked things up, I get that… But… Maybe we can be friends… I still want you in my life, Y/N…” He whispered, and it made it clear that wherever he went, it was far away from anyone and everyone. “Can we just meet up or something? I can even come over to their dorms if you don’t want to be alone with me… Just… Something, anything… please?” 

You looked around the dorm that was littered with boxes from nursery furniture, a stockpile of diapers, wipes, and baby bottles and powdered formula just so that you’d be ready. There was no way in hell that he’d be able to come over here and see you without figuring out what was going on. “No… I… I don’t want to see you.” You muttered, biting your bottom lip, and for some reason, foolishly waiting for Jisung to understand. 

“Well… I don’t care. I want to see you and… And I’m coming over. I’m coming over to see you dammit.” He said, and before you or Soobin could argue against it, the call had ended, leaving you and Soobin to stare at each other with panicked eyes. This wouldn’t end well… There’s no way it could. 

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[firewasabeast]

Okay, here’s a prompt: I know everyone wants to see Tommy’s helicopter crash and Buck go save him (I do too obvs), buuuuut what about Buck gets into a dangerous situation on a call and Tommy has to save him 👀

first, I didn't see the "on a call" so oops, but here you go! trigger warning: mass shooting, blood, reference to child abuse.

He couldn't stop staring at the blood that covered his hands as he waited in the hospital lobby. It had long dried, some of it flaking away when he'd curl hands into fists. Most of it stayed though. A harsh reminder of how their perfect day turned into a horror show in the blink of an eye.

His legs shook with anxiety. He was usually so calm and collected. Even in the worst situations he could hold himself together. He wasn't one to panic.

But he was panicking now.

“Tommy,” Eddie's voice was gentle as he sat down beside him, “you need to go wash that off.”

Tommy tore his red, wet eyes away from his hands to look over at Eddie. “I can't.” His own voice shaky. “I can't leave here. I have to... I need to wait on the doctor.”

“You're not going to miss the doctor. I promise I will get you if she comes out while you're in the bathroom.”

Tommy shook his head, his gaze returning to the blood. “No.”

Eddie sighed. He didn't want to push the issue, but there was a fairly extreme amount of blood still on the man, and there were certain people who didn't need to see it. “Tommy, Maddie and Chim are about to get here, and they...” his voice trailed off as a tear dropped down from Tommy's face and onto his shirt. “I'll, uh, I'm gonna go get some wet towels from a nurse,” he offered instead. “You can clean up here.”

It had been such a good day. They'd woken up early together, still wrapped in each others arms from the night before. Buck had heard about an art show that was happening at the nearby convention center so that's where they headed after breakfast.

They were supposed to go to lunch afterward, head home for a while, then to Bobby's that night for dinner.

Tommy would have been fine with toast or a frozen waffle for breakfast, but Buck had insisted on making him something special.

“I think I've perfected omelettes,” he said excitedly as he hurried out of bed.

“You've been making perfect omelettes for a while now, Babe,” Tommy informed him.

Buck shook his head. “No, these are on another level. I'm sure of it.”

He wasn't wrong.

It was the best damn omelette Tommy's ever had.

Unfortunately, it had all come back up after he arrived at the hospital. Now, he wasn't sure if he could ever look at eggs again.

While Tommy was more of an art buff than Buck ever claimed to be, he had done a lot of research on the artists that would have their work displayed at the show. Buck had led them into the convention center hand in hand, a wide smile on his face.

Tommy may have loved looking at art, but he enjoyed looking at Buck even more.

They took turns talking about each piece. Buck would tell Tommy about the artist, Tommy would tell Buck about the art.

There were certain pieces that would grab Buck's attention more than others. They were usually colorful, abstract paintings. He'd tilt his head, think about it for a second before telling Tommy how it made him feel.

There was one certain painting, a slew of colors and chaos in the background with two figures in the forefront. One was a deep shade of blue, holding on tight to a red figure. Their bodies seemed to almost melt together in the center.

“What are you thinking?” Tommy asked, wrapping an arm around Buck's waist.

“It's me and you. You're blue, I'm red.” Buck made no effort to look away from the painting.

“Oh yeah?” A smile rose on Tommy's face. “How so?”

“Our, uh, our lives can be a little crazy sometimes, but you... you keep me steady.”

Tommy stared at Buck briefly before placing two fingers up underneath his chin. Buck turned to him and Tommy pressed their lips together gently.

“That's the most-”

His words were cut off by a loud bang. Followed by multiple bangs going off one after another.

Gun shots.

It happened so fast. People were screaming, crying, running all around.

The man with the gun was brought down quickly. There were security guards nearby who didn't hesitate to respond.

But all Tommy felt was something wet on his hands, up his arms, splattered on his shirt. All he saw was Buck dropping to the ground beside him with a loud thud.

Eyes wide, it felt like his heart was pounding but his breathing stopped at the same time.

He fell to his knees beside Buck as soon as reality hit.

“Ev- Evan. Evan!” He put his hands to Buck's face, tapping his cheek.

Buck's eyes fluttered open, but he didn't do much else.

Tommy searched over him, tearing his shirt to find the bullet wound.

No. Bullet wounds.

“Evan, I need you to keep your eyes open,” Tommy said, trying and failing to hide the panic in his voice. He pressed down on the wounds, one near his lung, the other over his abdomen.

“Evan, babe, can you keep them open for me?”

Buck's eyes opened again. He reached up to grab at Tommy's shirt, but he was too weak. His arm flopped back down fairly quickly. It looked like he was trying to speak, his lips moving without any words coming out.

“It's okay, Evan, you'll be okay. Someone call 911!” he yelled. He knew other people had been hurt, killed even. He knew there was most likely multiple people on the phone with 911, but it wasn't enough. He needed them there now.

There was so much blood. No matter how much he pressed, with every labored breath Buck let out, more blood poured between Tommy's fingers.

He kept his focus on Buck's eyes. “Stay with me, hon. That's it! Stay with me. I've got you, Evan.”

The paramedics arrived just as Buck's eyes closed, his body going limp.

*****

Tommy didn't remember calling Eddie. Or maybe it was Bobby? He'd look at his phone later to check. Didn't seem to matter right now. But most of the 118 was in the waiting room, scattered all around with their own worried faces and anxious ticks.

He must've asked Bobby to please leave him alone at some point, because he was sitting a few chairs away, and Tommy could feel his eyes on him every couple of minutes.

The feeling of a warm towel being placed over his hands brought him out of his trance. He hadn't even noticed Eddie crouching down in front of him.

“Want me to do it for you?” Eddie asked. He was talking to Tommy like he was a child. In any other circumstance, Tommy might have laughed about it, but there was no laughing happening right now.

Instead Tommy nodded. He wasn't sure he could do it himself. Not without breaking down in front of everyone.

Eddie began working on his right hand, the blood slowly transferring from his hand to the towel. He watched as it changed the towel from white to pink. He worked his way up his arm, just below the elbow. Tommy wasn't even sure how that much blood made it that far up his arms. The thought of it made his heart ache even more than it already was.

Once the right arm was done, Eddie picked up a second towel and started on his left hand.

Tommy tightened his hand when Eddie began to pull at the wedding band around his finger.

“Just need to get underneath it,” Eddie explained. “I'll put it right back.”

Tommy relaxed again and Eddie resumed cleaning him up.

He'd just finished when Maddie walked through the doors. In his peripheral Tommy could see Bobby getting up, could hear Howie's voice, Maddie's sniffles.

Eddie got up with the towels, walking out of view as quickly as he could.

Tommy could feel someone walking up behind him. He knew who it would be.

He couldn't even manage to get up. His legs felt like jelly.

There was a hand on his shoulder, then Maddie came into view.

Their eyes met. Maddie's were dark, filled with tears. Her lip trembled.

He was sure he didn't look much different.

She didn't speak, didn't ask questions. Just bent down and wrapped him up.

He held her as tightly as he could, letting himself sob into her shoulder. He didn't even know he could make the sounds that were coming out of him. Each one a deep, desperate plea for this all to be some horrible nightmare. He hadn't hyperventilated since he was fourteen, after his dad found out he'd been tearing out posters of all the boys from a teen magazine. Tommy had tried to convince him, unsuccessfully, that he was deciding on a new hairstyle and didn't know which one to choose. He felt the sting from his dad's belt on his back for nearly a week.

Maddie cried with him, yet somehow managed to soothe him at the same time. She ran a hand up and down his back, telling him it was okay over and over through her own hiccuped cries.

It took a few minutes, but Tommy managed to calm down. Maddie took a seat beside him, keeping a tight hold on his hand until the moment Buck's surgeon entered the waiting room.

Everyone was up and surrounding him within seconds. Tommy felt like he was about to throw up again, but he kept himself together.

“He's being moved to recovery now,” she said, and Tommy felt like he took his first real breath since Buck fell to the floor nearly six hours ago. She continued talking, going over exactly where the bullets hit and how much damage was done, but Tommy would have to ask about that later because he didn't hear anything else past Buck being in recovery.

Maddie squeezing his shoulder brought him back to the present. “Can we see him?” she asked.

“It'll take a few minutes to get him transferred, and he will probably be out for the night, but I'll have a nurse come get you as soon as he's in his room.”

*****

It took a couple of days for Buck to wake up enough to have a real conversation. Tommy was in the middle of making up the extra bed a nurse had managed to bring in for him when Buck asked where his wedding ring was at.

Tommy dug through the bag he'd been handed after Buck's surgery. He ignored the bloody clothes and went straight for the ring at the bottom.

He held it up as he headed back over to Buck, sitting beside him on the bed.

“Put it on for me?” Buck asked, holding out his hand.

Tommy did, gently gliding it over his finger until it was back right where it belonged. Tommy brought Buck's hand up to his mouth, softly kissing over the ring.

“Perfect,” Buck said, a content smile on his own face.

Tommy sighed. He rested Buck's hand between his own. “You were wrong the other day, you know.”

Buck's eyebrows furrowed. “When?”

“At the art show, you remember that one painting?”

“The one I was looking at when-”

“Mhm.”

“I remember.”

“You said I was the blue one, and you were red. That I kept you steady.”

Buck nodded, unsure where Tommy was going with this.

Tommy kept his eyes on their intertwined hands. “It's the other way around,” he admitted.

He was met with silence, but after a moment Buck lifted his hand and pressed two fingers under Tommy's chin, lifting his head so their eyes met. “Come here,” he said, unable to raise himself up.

Tommy leaned forward until their lips met in a chaste kiss. Once they parted, Tommy kept his forehead pressed against Buck's.

“I love you, Mr. Buckley-Kinard,” Buck whispered in the space between them.

Tommy closed his eyes, letting the words soak in before whispering back, “I love you more, Mr. Buckley-Kinard.”

[liesmyth]

I'm always thinking about how G— was an engineer. A damn good one: the sole engineer of the cryo project, good enough that of all the ten billion, the FTL project chose him to inspect their work, back when the project was still a pipe dream. He was a man from an immigrant family in an underprivileged area who became arguably the world's best engineer, which is impressive in its own right, but it gets me thinking... Pre-Resurrection, John says they can't grow food on Mars (and for all John's unreliability, that's pretty believable, given that the high perchlorate concentration in Martian soil is one of the big obstacles to carrying out a sustained Mars mission), and as silly as this might sound, the engineer and scientist divide is real, and of all the nerds that John resurrected, I can't imagine it was the artist or the contract lawyer or the medical and chemistry experts that made the Mars installation viable. Gideon made a House out of it, and one that accepts recruits from across the Dominican system! "Saint of Duty" is said to fit him, evident in his loyalty and commitment to the Cohort and fighting the Resurrection Beasts, but I have to wonder, how much of that was his commitment to making shit work? I can't shake the image of a couple million people awaking to a ruined world, and someone had to get the other Houses settled, figure out spacecraft and space habitats using what little supplies they have left, and what better candidate for that than the man who canonically engineered spacecraft twice?

ANON I love this so much. You're SO right, and you put into words something about G1deon and John's shared background that I've tried to articulate for a while. In the very first chapter, John says, "It wasn’t that they didn’t have the money for a bigger team; we were simply the only ones capable of what they were asking."

This was an incredibly elite team. They were a brilliant bunch of hyperspecialised nerds. And, like, among John's squad, A- and M- and everyone else started out as colleagues — very smart people he probably met in academic circles, where being smart was kind of a prerequisite. It was their research that brought them together to begin with.

G1deon, though! He was John's friend growing up. John knew his grandparents. They spotted each other spare changes for snacks!! Then John went on to Dilworth, then to university and then overseas, and G1deon had his own (probably different) academic path, and maybe they only stayed vaguely in touch, but when it was time to look for an engineer that could help them build spaceships constructed to provide life support to the whole of humanity for centuries — and G1deon was the guy for that.

The fact that two boys from similar underprivileged backgrounds individually made huge breakthroughs in their chosen fields, and got to work together on a project that was meant to save the world... I bet at the time it felt like a miraculous coincidence. I think they thought, if they'd made it that far, that they could do anything.

(yet another layer to the tragedy of what happened etc etc. G1deon torn between John and P—. John stopping G1deon's heart)

Thank you so much for all your thoughts about the Mars space installation, also — I wonder how long there was between Mars becoming the Second House (founded by G1deon! he and Pyrrha did the bulk of the work!) and the institution of the Third House, which doesn't have a named founder and might very well have been a shared project built on the blueprint of what G1deon set up. "the man who canonically engineered spacecraft twice" — my god I love this so much. It's G1deon emo hours today

[doyoulikethissong-poll]

Commonly asked questions

How do I submit songs? Submissions are currently closed. When it opens up again, I'll post a message here stating rules and which specific info I require. If you don't supply that info along with the song, your message will be deleted.

I submitted a song when we were allowed. When will it appear? :) There's waaay over two thousand songs in my askbox. 😅 And I'm very slow at posting submitted songs because it takes an oddly more amount of time and energy than you'd think, that's why it's easier for me to go with the songs I already have. Please have a bit more patience, hopefully it'll be posted soon enough! 💖

I don't like the genres posted recently. 🤷‍♀️ I mean, you can tell me what genres there's a lack of and I'll try put more effort into adding more of them.

I don't like the poll options. 🤷‍♀️

Will there be an "Indifferent" option? No. People bitched and very rudely demanded it when the blog was new and it left a very sour taste. Also we're 250+ songs in, it's kinda meh to add it now, but I definitely understand why you want it because some songs are really hard to define if you feel anything at all about them. (also you know people would just click indifferent to see the results instead of listening to the song lol) If I were to ever add more options, it would be love/hate.

How do I vote on a song if I feel indifferent about it? Indifferent = don't like it ig. 🤷‍♀️ Remember, I'm not asking you if you LOVE!!!!!! the song, or if you want to buy it. Liking can be as good as only a "meh, it's ok / decent enough to run in the background". Disliking can be being indifferent instead of outright hating it, when it's so neutral to you that it doesn't give you any positive feelings. It is only a minute long clip that I'm asking you to form an opinion about after all; you can change your mind either way when you hear the full version. Sometimes songs have to grow on you!

How do you pick the songs used in the polls? Mostly like this:

I have a huge mp3 hoarding archive so the submitted songs are easier for me to pick if they're already in my possession. 😅 Songs that aren't in my collection (tagged as #new to admin :D lol. sometimes i search out songs specifically for the poll that are tagged this as well) requires a bit more effort to download/listen to/edit but i have discovered a couple of great new gems so don't think i don't appreciate them!

How do I search for a specific artist/song that you've posted? All artists are tagged a day or so after the song reveal. Don't forget to use the hashtag symbol when searching or tumblr will give you all sorts of odd results!!!! (or none at all, lol) Please also remember that tumblr finds simple easy tasks extremely difficult, so only search for an artist with the easiest type of spelling, like #beyonce instead of #beyoncé. All artists and songs are added to the Complete Song List once their showdown poll is finished, for a quick search of what's been posted.

The audio quality is too poor for my taste!! 😡 sad </3

This is just for you. 💖

Why are all the songs of such vast variating quality? ....i mean, you didn't think I've bought all the tens of thousands of songs in my music library, did you...? Pirating songs gives you variations of quality, hell even my own cd rips have variations. It's easier to get better quality files now than it was back in the days, kiddos, so yeah some songs in the archives needs to be updated with new files. I have some very ancient mp3's that are in really low sound, that i've instead downloaded newer versions of in better quality for the polls but y'all still give me shit about it because the artist have remastered the track to unrecognition or whatever so there's just no pleasing some people i guess lmao. 😂

Do you like all the songs you've posted? No, lol. All the songs that are in my archive are songs I've at least liked enough once upon a time to save them, even if I'm not actively listening to them much anymore. Everything tagged as #new to admin :D are new songs to me that I may or may not like, regardless if they're submitted or if I've scouted them out myself only for the polls. :) Songs that I hate so much that I can't stand them are very few, and I won't waste time on adding them!

Did you change the song in the poll?? No. Maybe you clicked on the wrong one if I posted them too close together or maybe (most likely) tumblr has screwed something up for you. Some songs don't even show at times because it's tumblr being tumblr, just wait it out for a few minutes and tumblr will eventually remember to play the audio. So far there's only one song that I had to re-upload because tumblr killed the file. I can change the clip to better audio or to another part of the same song, but I never replace it to a different one once it's out there for you to vote on, I don't see the point of doing that.

Why are some polls audio files and other video files? Again: tumblr being tumblr. They won't allow some songs to be uploaded as audio, but using them in videos is ok. I hate the audio-as-video format and it requires even more effort from me so I'm not doing it on purpose. :)

I don't remember if I've heard this song before or not. If you know you've heard it, like if you're a fan or a hater or the song has been constantly played on the radio, you know it. (this is why the phrasing has been changed again in the latest polls) If you don't remember it, or just vaguely, or just a specific tiny part used in a meme/tiktok video, choose first time. The only thing that matters is the yes or no, knowing it or not is just an added fun but don't take it too seriously. :) Look at it sort of like "old fan/casual listener/hater vs new listener".

The part of the song that you posted SUCKS!!!! You should have just posted this one specific famous part for people to vote yes! "don't post the actual song in this song poll" ...................................like, no. not gonna post just the meme-bits or the drops or the whatever. Yeah i saw all the comments how you all clicked dislike on "Out of Touch" because you voted before you got to the chorus 😂 That's an honest opinion about the song lol, because a song is more than just a catchy chorus or a big drop. But yeah, sometimes one verse of a song would've maybe been better to post instead of that other verse, I'm with you on that.

I queued this song to see what it is but it's still stated as being Anonymous for me! Reblogs, drafts and queues will only show you what's there at the time, like a screenshot. It won't update automatically. All your reblogs, drafts and queued posts from when the poll is active will only show up as Anonymous songs. Always go back to the original post to see the song reveal. If the info isn't there, then give me a day or two to update the post because most likely things are too busy irl. 💖

I voted wrong/voted before I recognized the song! Will you change my vote? No, I'm not recounting anything wth. 😅

I'm embarrassed. I like the song but I don't want others to know that I do. I promise you that nobody but you can see how you've voted. Not me or your mutuals. Only you see what you've voted on. It's ok to like bad songs, and it's ok to like good songs by bad people. Don't let others shame you for that.

How do I vote on this cover/remix that was posted instead of the original? If you feel like this version is close to the original that you like, vote yes. If you don't feel like this version does the original song justice, vote no, even if it hurts.

This song that I don't know samples another song that I do know. How do I vote? I don't consider samples being used as being the same song, so pick first time. Unlike covers/remixes, the original song that has been sampled might show up at a later time, if it hasn't already been on here before.

How does so many people not know this song!!? Everyone is not your age/not from your country and your experience is not universal. 🤷‍♀️ That being said, I too get wtf-moments sometimes because some songs really do get wacky results, so, yeah 😂

Have you ever thought about-- Yes.

I demand you give me a rickroll!!!!!! Ask things nicely instead of demanding things from me. (This is the most common demand I've gotten, sigh. Thanks to those of you who have at least asked nicely and/or with a sense of humour!)

Please do a rickroll? It's already been posted in a bonus poll. It might show up in a "real" poll in years from now if this poll blog is still active but as of now it was added to a tumblr meme post where it was better suited.

I'm gonna ignore that submissions are closed and send you song suggestions anyway!!!! They will be deleted because they're not asked for atm. Unless you're the artist. Exceptions can be made in that case. :)

This poll blog doesn't respect my requirement to know who the artists are before I listen to their songs because of my need - that is very important that everyone else needs to acknowledge and follow - to know if a person is of a good moral standing according to my own views!! 😡 There's other poll blogs better suited for you. Not everything online has to be adjusted to fit *your* particular needs. 🤷‍♀️ (YES i've actually gotten this demand way too often. Sigh.)

Why was my reblog hidden from the notes where I spew hatred over an artist?! You are censoring me!!!! Did you mention the artist by name, or other obvious spoilers? Don't post spoilers. 🤷‍♀️

You hid this other comment I made with no spoilers!!!!! Sometimes comments show in dashboard mode but not in app mode and vice versa, or not even in the notifications. Haven't we already established that tumblr finds easy stuff extremely difficult? Also, sometimes you and I don't share an opinion of what a spoiler means. To all of you who have claimed an artist's name isn't a spoiler, yeah it's kind of a big one. As for the artist mentioning their own name or the song title in the song, you only hear that once you listen to the clip. Knowing it before even clicking to play the music is a spoiler.

Why have you turned off replies? I want to say things without reblogging!! I mean 🤷‍♀️ I'm sure you know why. Replies and anons have been turned off from the very beginning. The few times replies actually have been turned on, it's been stated as such and been very temporarily, like when we've discussed music in some post.

Turn on anon!!! I'm to shy to say thing off-anon! I mostly reply to things privately, or this blog would be nothing but q&a. Anons are off for a reason. Abuse and death threats are to be associated with the sender's account for all to see. I'm always nice to nice people so there's no need to worry about sending me questions or tagging me in things. :) 💖

I demand you to-- Pay me. :)

Shut up and take the abuse thrown at you personally because you're just a poll blog! You are aware that the poll blogs on tumblr aren't actually run by bots, right? Don't be an obnoxious twat. (and ughh yes, this too has been said to me several times. Sigh.)

I want you to add this song I want RIGHT NOW and/or i WANT these other options added now! Rich people can always break all the rules, just like irl. Just give me the $$$$ 😘

I don't like this song because I don't understand the language. Please only post English songs. Ok well, I mean, you can always learn other languages. 🤷‍♀️ Just like how I learned English.

If anyone feels targeted by these last questions without me meaning to, I'm sorry. These actually are the most common questions and comments and demands I've gotten in my askbox. Especially when the blog was new and people Demanded Their Rights to have me adjust everything to suit them. Don't feel like you can't state your thoughts in reblogs or in messages because as long as you're not being rude to me, my attitude on some answers isn't targeted at you, only at them. 💖 Remember to just have fun with the polls and hopefully you and/or your mutuals discover new music!

[sha-biest]

okay. OKAY.

The most logical thing for me to do would be to mash the Bodyguard AU together with.. Chosen Family.

LISTEN. LISTEN!!! It makes so much freakin' sense in regards what I had planned for the AU and ultimately will probably never do so the following WILL contain SPOILERS FOR CHOSEN FAMILY: • I planned for Splinter to have money reserves he still had access to from his former life as Lou Jitsu and he would have used that to buy a little house for Carol, April, the boys and himself • They mostly grew up away from harm besides some incidents of Draxum and Big Mama showing up, with some events leading to them siding with Splinter (Draxum kidnaps Mikey at one point and grew a soft spot for the little guy etc.) • Splinter was supposed to have a little working room with a sewing mashine where he would sew clothes for the kids but he would also sell them online with the name Sewer Rat • In the AU Splinter never turns as small as he is in the show because his outside influences are a lot better (not living in the sewers + good mental stability with Carol's help) • The kids still learn ninjutsu from Splinter, they still go on adventures together and save people left and right. The movie still takes place with some few differences • Big Mama becomes president and lets yokai trickle into New York to mingle and enables them to have a world OUTSIDE the Hidden City, basically giving them the freedom that Draxum tried to get through force • The boys become more and more famous. At that time Splinters brand "Sewer Rat" popped off and he's selling his clothes left and right.

• Mikey is an artist and model. Leo is an actor. Donnie is an inventor and tech specialist. I'm a little unsure what Raph would actually enjoy doing and I can see him being more in the background along with Donnie. April manages their PR • Despite their powers Splinter deems it still necessary to get a bodyguard/multiple bodyguards for them (maybe after some incident? who knows, certainly not me at the moment) AND THATS IT. I THINK. I PROBABLY HAVE MORE IDEAS BUT MAN, THIS IS ROTATING IN MY BRAIN RN.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

So, with the end of the Platinum Jacket series, what are your thoughts on it as a whole? Also, what would you want to see as a birthday series?

… Now that it’s all said and done, I can finally confess that I don’t like the Platinum Jacket series 💀 The suits are a lot of white and grey, so the designs don’t really stand out (especially on a similar colored background with similar painting frames). The silvery eyeshadow looks good on some characters while washing others out. It’s just overall not a good look to me. Honestly, I dislike that they tied the whole thing to Disney 100 too since 1) I do not enjoy super blatant references to The Mouse irl as someone who’s cynical about the corporation and 2) it dates the Platinum Jackets; by the time they come to EN, it won’t be Disney’s 100th year anymore www

I also find the vignettes so incredibly boring. I feel like we don’t get any substantial new lore or interesting opinions from them. I would LOVE to hear more about Twisted Wonderland’s distorted history and even more details about how the boys view certain historical figures. The paintings get to show characters beyond the Great Seven, such as Zazu, Pain, Panic, etc. and I wanted way more insight into the historical roles they played. I also wanted for them to show more variety in the paintings, not limit themselves to just the G7 and associated characters. We know figures (from other Disney 2D movies) like Frollo, Gideon, and Honest John exist in Twisted Wonderland, on top of stories like that of Mulan, so why not use this as a chance to expand on them?? The best we get from vignettes are slightly funny stories about mundane stuff the characters get caught up in when, really, they should have capitalized on the Disney 100 theme and talked extensively about history, its impact/legacy, and how the boys think about the past they were built up from. They sort of do that, but I felt like only in a very surface level way where every opinion reads as very similar to the last. Massive wasted opportunity, if you ask me.

The main saving grace of the Platinum Jackets were the absolutely unhinged (for the most part) Groovies 😭 I love how we get to see the boys pull all kinds of wicked expressions we don’t normally see on them; the artists’ skills really come through. It’s also just immensely funny to think about being a random ass museum employee or another visitor walking by and catching some high school student lookin’ like they’re about to commit murder on a painting.

I don’t really care what the next birthday line is, I just want it to do two things: be decent-looking formal wear and actually provide interesting lore 😭

[camberdraws]

I really like your art! Do you have any tips for drawing environments?

Ahhhh thank you so much!

I did some thinking before answering this ask... a lot of general drawing advice absolutely applies to creating backgrounds (such as using references, keeping perspective in mind, etc). But the #1 tool that especially helps me with environments is creating thumbnails!

I depend massively on the thumbnail process, especially for environments. I use them to resolve almost every major detail before painting the real thing! It makes it so much easier to experiment with colors, values, etc. and figure out the important stuff in your image. You want to keep them very blobby and sketchy so you aren't afraid to make big changes!

The thumbnail shown above for my shaymin drawing leaves very few questions about what the final should look like. It only took around an hour to create, and the time it saved me from making any mistakes is massive! This is especially helpful as someone who has immense trouble visualizing color schemes and has struggled numerous times trying to make color work after finishing lineart without a good thumbnail.

The more complex an environment, the more I suggest a thumbnail. Some of my recent zine pieces would have been impossible for me to complete without a detailed sketch to guide me.

Another big piece of advice, mentioned above, is USING REFERENCES! I think this is especially helpful for creating interesting and detailed backgrounds. Doing research on objects/props/scenes will enrich your drawing and make it more engaging to the viewer!

Here is an example of the reference I gathered for my lurantis+gloom drawing. I brainstormed different plants/items I thought would be fun to include with grass-type pokemon, and threw them together in a PureRef file! (I highly recommend using PureRef, it's an excellent software for making reference boards). Generally speaking, it's difficult for humans to conjure up exactly how a watering can/gardening tool/fence/flower might look like down to super specific details, so obtaining reference to fill in those gaps is essential.

Finally, advice that applies very broadly to all types of drawings: do lots of studies! Starting last year I have done 50 environment/scene studies, and they have been extremely helpful for improving my general skill and ability to compose backrounds! I can't recommend this enough to all artists!

And that's about it! I think it's easy for artists to be intimidated by drawing backgrounds, but it can be so much fun! Take it slow, do research, and create thumbnails for your drawing. And don't forget to do studies, they are good for you!

[lucy-water]

Preußen's journal, September 1792:

L'Autrichienne, that was how they called her in Paris.

If I had arrived at La Force Prison a few minutes late, she would have shared the same fate with The Angel of Penthièvre, or maybe worse.

As I expected, the Archduchess was stubborn and initially insisted on staying, did not want to abandon The Royal family behind. She even begged me to help them.

I refused to do so. My hands were tied with the tumultuous situation in France. Saving her alone was already dangerous, I could not afford to play the role of a gallant Knight while risking my men's life.

The Archduchess tried to resist and thus, left me no other choice. I had to use force upon her in order to bring her outside. Thanks to the uniform I had stolen, the frantic mobs thought I were a guard carrying a prisoner's body to dump, my disguise allowed us to pass to safety.

The military physician had examined the Archduchess's health. Overall, except for being a bit underweight and having a bruise on her forehead caused by me, she was in good condition to carry on with the travel.

We will reach to Vienna soon. I have decided to be the Archduchess's companion during these time. Physically, she might appear normal but I cannot say the same to her mind. It's the best for all of us if I keep an eye on her.

-------------------------------------------------

Historical background and explaination:

L'Autrichienne: This was the nickname the French gave to Marie Antoinette during her downfall. Roughly translation means "the Austrian bit.."

At the end of August 1792, the news of the Prussian Army would be advancing to Paris after their victory in Verdun, had caused disaster chaos in the city. Fearing the prisoners of the newly established Republic would join with the enemy, there were people decided the prisoners should be got rid of. On 2 September, more than 1,000 prisoners in Paris (and later outside the city) were k*ll and the numbers would only increase including normal citizens until stopped on 6 September. Princess de Lamballe, a favorite of Marie Antoinette, also known as The Angel of Penthièvre for her kindness toward the poor was among the victims of this horrendous incident. She was still remembered as one of the tragic figures in the French Revolution.

A year before, on 27 August 1791 Prussia and the Holly Roman Empire signed Declaration of Pillnitz, to intervene if the King of France and his family's safety was in threat.

To honor the Declaration and strength the new alliance, Prussia decided to save Lady Austria during the time of the French Revolution and this was also the point they officially fell for each other. For him, she was his damsel in distress, the Martyr who would sacrifice for the people that she loved and cared for no matter the situation. For her, he was the hero of her life, the Knight in shining armor came to life, that she had long forgotten.

However, a love that bloomed in the midst of tears and wars would hardly have any happy ending.

---------------------------------------------------

Disclaimer

Please note that, this is my commission and not my art. Credit to the artist: ann_duong (twister: @ann_akii) for creating this for me.

[poisonous-honey]

Nahida’s Precious Tailor

The little lord of Sumeru calls upon your aid as she wishes for a wardrobe change.

Who’s Here: Reader/Player, Nahida, Wanderer, Kaveh, and Alhaitham makes a short appearance

Contains: Cursing, SAGAU (Self Aware Genshin Alternate Universe), Artist/Tailor Reader, Reader isn’t explicitly shipped with anyone so you can make do however you wish

Note: Inspired by @sunnysolaria. Not their exact ask, I just had fun making this (～￣▽￣)～ (i.e. this basically word vomit)

====

Time ticks by as you and Nahida sit in the middle of the Sanctuary of Surasthana. You can vaguely hear the sounds of children singing softly in the background which makes it a bit more eerie to be here, but you push it away to try and focus on the task asked of you. Nahida looks on in wonder as you continue to ponder, not noticing you’ve started to mumble out loud. 

“I knew you liked to waste your own time, but I thought you’d at least be decent enough to spare others from your terrible habits.”

Hearing Wanderer you’re snapped out of your thoughts and turn your eyes away from Nahida to see him arrive. Your mind, still a jumbled mess, can barely recall what he said to make a proper retort. You assume he insulted you so you open your mouth hoping to say any form of comeback.

“Sup.” 

Of course, you didn’t. 

Nahida quickly spreads her arms wide taking Wanderer’s scrutinizing eyes off your form, allowing you to collect your thoughts better.

“I’ve asked them to be my tailor! They’re helping me think of outfit designs! Some of the ones they’ve already thought of have been fascinating!”

You blank for a sec upon hearing that. You’re happy she liked some of the designs you thought of, but you forgot she could read your mind at all. Trying to shake the thought that she could read your mind whenever she pleases, you turn to Wanderer to shoo him away.

“Yeah I’m actually here for important business, so if you could skedaddle somewhere else for a bit that’d be great.”

He ignores you and keeps his attention focused on Nahida, which has you silently cursing under your breath.

“Why do you even need new clothes? Let alone asking the Player to design and make them for you. Their sense of fashion is atrocious.”

You gasp and put your hand to your chest. You’re about to tell him your clothes were for sure more comfortable than anything he could be wearing, but Nahida cuts you off.

“Before the Player landed in Teyvat, they would sometimes bring up pictures of everyone with different clothes. Some people looked completely different from how they are now.”

Your brow raises as you cock your head. You didn’t think they could see anything outside the game when you were playing. They were too good at hiding everything they were able to do to your device. Or maybe it was just Nahida, that would be better for your peace of mind.

“Oh, so you saw your beta designs? Is that why you asked me specifically?”

Nahida nods her head, “Partly. It’s why I wanted to try something different, but I haven’t actually seen my own alternative designs. I can’t say I’m not still curious to see them.”

Your eyes brighten just a little. “I can still show you if you want me too! It’s all saved to a photo album on my phone. I’d just have to find it.”

She leans in closer to you with curiosity and marvel on her face. You take that as a yes and take-out your phone to start looking for it. During the time it takes you to find the set of pictures Wanderer ends up sitting next to you and staring at all the pictures you pass by. As soon as you find Nahida’s beta designs and hand her your phone, Wanderer starts to come at you.

“Wow, someone’s obsessed.”

Your head whips to his direction, and you look at him with a mix of disdain and embarrassment. The sadistic pleasure is very visible on his face as he continues.

“Over 2000 pictures dedicated to us? And a lot of them seem to be of the same person. I wonder what they’d think if they knew you had sections dedicated to them in your photo gallery.”

Shame shimmers underneath your skin the more he talks. You’re glad he only saw the folder number. You stopped organizing your pictures in folders a long time ago so you can’t imagine how much you have now. If he knew the actual number you’d probably die on the spot. Even so, you don’t want to take shit from this fucking edgelord.

“Oh shut the fuck up! I didn’t know any of you were even real at the time I just liked the game okay.”

He arches his brow and rests his head on his hand, still carrying that shit-eating grin, “The fact you thought we weren’t even sentient just makes this more pathetic.”

Wanderer soon brings up the pictures he saw of himself on your phone which has you combusting on the spot. Nahida continues to stare at her beta designs, ignoring the “argument” going on between you two. She examines them for a bit longer before tapping your shoulder to get your attention and holds out your phone for you to take back.

You quickly take it and hide the source of your shame, giving Wanderer the middle finger while you're at it. You focus as much on Nahida as you can, with him laughing in the background. 

“Did you like any of them?”

Nahida stares at you intently for a moment before saying anything. “Player, would you have preferred it if I looked like one of these designs?”

You’re stunned for a sec before panic quickly sets in. Of course, she was probably reading your mind to see what you thought of them. You thought they were all pretty interesting, but you didn’t want her thinking you thought they were superior. You vaguely hear Wanderer tease you for managing to upset such a forgiving god and Nahida saying that she wasn’t upset, just asking, but it’s in one ear and out the other amidst your frantic state.

“Oh! No, no, no, no, no, no Nahida you got the wrong idea!” You take your phone back out before gesturing to the whole page of beta designs. “Yeah I think these designs are cool, some more than others but that’s beside the point! I like you Nahida even if your dress looks like a shuttlecock-”

“What are you even saying-”

“Stop focusing on the unimportant Wanderer.”

He scoffs at you and rolls his eyes.

“But you’re you. For a lot of these I think they had a different vision of you in mind when drawing these.”

Nahida puts her hands on yours and only then did you realize how much you were fidgeting. She smiles warmly at you, “There’s no need to be so nervous. I was just asking!”

You deflate in relief, “Thank goodness. I guess back to my last question then… Did you like any of them? If you thought one of them was pretty good I could make that for you?”

She thinks on it for a moment and ultimately shakes her head, “I did like a couple, but I’d rather you make me something new! There’s a reason these weren’t chosen, and you said it yourself they don’t make you think of me. I know you put your heart into the clothes you make, so a design made by you, for me, is perfect.”

You smile at her. Her faith in you to make something good for her fills you with pride.

“I’ll do my best for you.”

Out of the corner of your eye you notice Wanderer opening his mouth, probably to talk more shit, so before he can say anything you make a show of stretching and square him straight in his face. He roughly grabs your hand and pushes it away from him, staring at you with the fiercest scowl you’ve seen from him. You merely smirk in his direction.

“Oh I’m so sorry, I forgot you were there. I was just trying to stretch, no hard feelings yeah?”

You put your phone away again and get up to leave, waving goodbye to Nahida and ignoring Wanderer’s pointed gaze as you walk towards the door. Nahida cheerfully waves back and Wanderer silently seethes in his place. 

⭐⭐⭐⭐

On your way down to the ground floor of the city you continue to brainstorm multiple ideas to potentially make for Nahida. Dresses, regal robes, bejewelled shirts, and big pants. Should you try to lean into her godhood? Maybe go for a nature theme or add more computer-Esq patterns into the design. Should you give the poor girl shoes? You’re so deep in thought you don’t realize how close you had gotten to the edge of the pathway. A stray tree branch catches your foot, and you trip, snapping out of your mind to see houses and merchant stalls.

Luckily before you could plummet onto some poor person’s roof you’re caught by your arm and roughly pulled away from the ledge and into someone’s chest. You both fall to the ground and a small group of students that witnessed your mishap crowded around you.

“Oh my Archons, are you two okay?” “Do you need any help?” “Can we get you anything?”

“I’m fine thank you, but Player, are you okay?”

“Kaveh!?”

You get up and turn around to see it was indeed Kaveh that had saved you from cracking your head open on one of the rooftops below. He’s helped up by one of the others, and he stares at you intently.

“Yes it’s me, but seriously are you okay?”

You hear some of the others murmuring questions, mostly asking if you’re okay. “Yeah I’m fine. Thank you, really.”

You, of course, take this moment to hug him which Kaveh immediately reciprocates. “Gods you need to be more careful. You nearly scared me half to death.”

He peels himself away from you when he notices the others are still worried about you. The few students around ask if you’re sure you’re okay and fawn over you a little before leaving you in Kaveh’s care. As you’re waving bye you feel Kaveh’s hand rest on your shoulder which has you turn to look at him, his gaze still filled with concern.

“Are you sure you-”

“Yes Kaveh. You saved me, I’m fine.”

You grab his hand and hold it in front of you. It looked like he wanted to say a lot more, but he eventually settled and gazed at you softly, tightening his grip on your hand just a bit. “I’m glad. So what’s weighing so heavily on your mind that you can’t look up to notice your surroundings?”

You fidget under his stare for a second, not being able to remember until you see Wanderer flying off somewhere in the distance. It feels like you were hit with a brick as you remember the important task that was given to you. As you turn back to Kaveh to explain, you stop to look at what he’s wearing. It’s his normal outfit, but taking it all in you realize you don’t know what makes Sumeru wear… Sumeru wear. You’re pulled into your thoughts again and about to walk off before Kaveh pulls you back a little, clearly confused.

“Hold on, where are you going??”

Oh yeah, you had forgotten he asked you a question. “Nahida asked me if I could design new clothes for her. I was thinking of ideas earlier, but now I see all of them were lacking. None of them really looked like Sumeru clothes so now I need to do research since,” You look over Kaveh’s outfit again and take a glance at the people around you, “I don’t even know where to start.”

His brows furrow, and his hand moves to his chin. You want to chuckle seeing him do the thinking idle animation, but you don’t want him to start overthinking his existence again over something so trivial. Suddenly, Kaveh grabs you by your shoulders and his face ends up really close to yours.

“I can help you! If you want me to, that is.”

You stare at Kaveh in slight surprise. You guess you should've known he’d want to help with your artistic endeavours.

“You know how to make clothes?”

He falters a bit, but is still as enthusiastic as before, “Well no, but I do know a thing or two about style. I learned more than just how to make a building during my time at the Academia you know.”

He playfully pokes your forehead, and you swat his hand away with a smile. “Yeah I wasn’t thinking. I’d definitely appreciate your help.”

“Perfect! We can start by heading to the Grand Bazaar. Oh, but first I have to drop off my materials. I was on my way to do that before I had to drop everything to keep you from falling.”

You look past him to see a ton of blueprints and rulers and a ton of other materials. Making your way over you start to pick everything up for him, Kaveh soon following suit. You hear him mumbling, hoping nothing broke in his rush. Guilt creeps up your spine seeing him fret over every item he picks up.

“... Sorry.”

His head snaps to your direction hearing you apologize and quickly tries to calm any guilt you currently feel. “Please it’s okay, besides it doesn’t seem like anything’s broken. If you still want to make it up to me then try taking better care of yourself.”

You huff and continue to help him collect his things off the floor. “That’s a tall ask, but I’ll try for you.”

“You better.”

You finish gathering all of Kaveh’s materials and help him carry them on the way to Alhaitham’s despite all his protests saying he could do it himself.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

“What are you doing here??”

“This is my house, or did you forget?”

You honestly weren’t expecting to see Alhaitham today. You were pretty sure you caught sight of him in the Academia on your way to the Sanctuary or Surasthana so you assumed he was working. Judging by Kaveh’s reaction, you guess that’s what he was supposed to be doing.

Kaveh scoffs, “Never mind. Player, can you hand me the rest of my things? You can wait here while I put them all away.”

Kaveh carefully brings his materials over to his room, and you decide to sit next to Alhaitham as you wait for him to put them away. He’s currently reading something you have no hope of ever understanding. You’re content to sit here in silence as you wait not wanting to bother him, when he starts talking, not even taking his eyes off the book he’s reading.

“You nearly had quite the fall earlier. You’re quite lucky Kaveh was able to catch you in time.”

It takes you a bit to register what he was referring to, but when it settles you gawk at him, barely believing what he’s insinuating.

“Wait, so you saw me nearly fall to my death, and didn’t even bother to check up on me??”

He closes his book with a snap and turns to look at you. Moments like this make you wish you were able to read him, his passive face making it near impossible to tell what he was thinking. You watch as he reaches for something behind him and pulls out a small heart-shaped gold and green box with a soft glow. He hands it to you without saying a word.

You take it and inspect it for a while, not being able to figure out what it is. You don’t see any clasps or hinges to be able to open it so you’re filled with nothing but questions.

“What’s this for?”

“Consider it my apology for not checking up on you earlier. Open it later.”

You huff and nod your head. Realizing you're probably not going to get anymore out of him you change the topic, talking to him about whatever you feel like as you wait for Kaveh. You’re in the middle of explaining the task Nahida gave you and the research you’re about to do when Kaveh finally steps out of his room.

“Everything's put away, we can head off now!”

You get up excited and skip to the front door, not realizing Alhaitham getting up as well. Kaveh does though and swiftly starts to question him. 

“Where are you going? Back to work I’d hope.”

That has you turning around right before the door.

“I have some things I need to acquire at the Bazaar. Since you’re also going I thought to simply come along.”

You smile, you appreciate the thought, but feel Kaveh won’t in the slightest.

“Oh no you’re not coming with us! Knowing you, you’d try to but in with your own ‘advice’ when you don’t even understand the first thing about art. The clothes our Player is designing are for Lord Kusanali. Any help that you could provide would only serve to make the design a disaster.”

Your face falls as Kaveh starts an argument with Alhaitham, exactly what you expected. You debate dragging him away, but decide against it, saying you’ll wait for him outside. The only sign that he heard you is the slight turn of his head before you step outside yourself.

As you exit you look at the heart-shaped box Alhaitham gave you. You’re far too impatient to wait until you get home to see what’s inside, but you don’t know how to open it. You fiddle with it for a while when you hear the door open and close. Turning around you see Kaveh step outside and shove the box in his direction. 

“Huh? What’s this?”

“Alhaitham gave this to me, but I have no idea how to open it. Can you maybe, help me?”

He complains under his breath hearing Alhaitham’s name, but does take it from you to inspect it. Barely any time passes when he realizes what it is and presses on the jewel in the centre of the box. You flinch as wings suddenly pop out from its sides. Kaveh hands it back to you, and you stare at it with glee. He gave you a Sumeru styled glider.

“What a coincidence.”

You roll your eyes and try pressing the jewel to get the wings to retract, which it does, and tell Kaveh to shush. 

“Give him the benefit of the doubt just this once. I’ll have to thank him later. Anyway, what was the plan again?”

A smile finally forms on his face, and he goes over the plan he concocted “Yes! First we’ll stop by the Grand Bazaar, the Zubayr Theatre will have plenty of costumes that we can look at. I also know a few market stalls that sell fabric-”

You listen to him go on for a while when your eyes start to wander, and it’s when your eyes land on someone rummaging through their clothes looking for something you remember Kaveh’s and Alhaitham’s shared idle animation. He had them earlier, but just to make sure you decide to ask anyway.

“Sorry to interrupt, but you have your keys right Kaveh?

Kaveh stops and turns to you. You see his face contort multiple times, like he’s struggling to decide whether he should feel offended or not, before sighing.

“Of course I do, they're right… Uhh.”

You cross your arms and stare at him with as much disappointment you could muster. You watch as his face turns red as he continues patting himself down. Soon he gives up and slumps.

“... I think I left them with all of my things.”

You raise an eyebrow. “How did you even-”

“I have no idea. Give me a sec I’ll go get them.”

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Nahida twirls around in front of a mirror much larger than her, looking at the clothing you made for her from all angles. Her green mantelet swirls around her, the edge covered in padisarah designs and her bell chiming with every movement. The coat underneath a darker shade filled with swirls and flowing behind her legs. The necklace you gave her thumping against the sleeveless white shirt. In case she wanted some type of sleeves you also made white add-on sleeves with golden cufflets. Where the shirt ends, beads were placed to separate the blue and purple scarf around her waist. It had pale yellow ruffles that flowed over her pants. The pants are fairly puffy, also white and stop right above her ankles. You also decided to make her shoes, white and the same green as her mantelet with gold accents and adorned with green jewels at their tips. 

You fidget in your place behind her and mindlessly twiddle your thumbs. She hasn’t said anything yet, and it was starting to get to you. You spent a long time looking over clothes and books with Kaveh to try and understand Sumeru design, but even after all the studying you were still nervous presenting it to her. You’re at least thankful Wanderer hasn’t said anything to spite you yet.

Not wanting to be stuck in suspense any longer you just decide to ask her directly. “So Nahida… Do you like it? ‘Cause if you don’t I can make something else-”

“No I love it!” She turns and lets you see the massive smile on her face, her arms still spread wide. “I especially like the scarf. I’m not exactly sure why, but it reminds me of something I lost. I appreciate it, thank you!”

You breathe a sigh of relief. The scarf is what you were most worried about since it didn’t match the rest of the colour scheme. Especially since Kaveh had quite a bit to say about it, but you felt it to be integral. 

She then turns her attention to Wanderer, who still hasn’t said anything yet. “What do you think?”

He stares at her outfit for a moment, looking her up and down, before sighing and reluctantly giving his own opinion, “It’s… Alright.”

You elbow him in the arm for that which he barely even reacts to. “Oh come on, surely you have more to say than that.”

His brow twitches, “It’s amazing you managed to make anything presentable.”

You scoff and back away from him, “Never mind I don’t want your opinion anymore.”

Nahida claps her hands and grabs both of your attention, “I’m glad you like it too! Maybe our player can design you some new clothes as well!” 

“As if.” “Fat chance.”

You both end up dismissing the idea at the same time. The thought of working as hard as you did for Nahida on someone like Wanderer makes you want to die. He probably wouldn’t even try it on.

You then remember Kaveh wanted you to tell him everything after once you finished up here. Knowing him he’s been letting this eat away at his thoughts, so you should probably head off now.

You relay this to both of them, Nahida nods in understanding before waving cheerfully and Wanderer just walks off, causing you to roll your eyes. You wave back to Nahida and as you turn around you suddenly trip and fall face-first into the floor.

“Oh, sorry. I was just trying to stretch, you got in my way.”

Looking up you see Wanderer, dead faced as usual, but you can see the mirth in his eyes. Kaveh is instantly forgotten as you feel rage fill you and bubble under your skin. He starts to walk towards the exit, and you hop up to follow him, yelling and cussing him out as you try to catch up. Nahida watches on with a small smile, clutching the scarf in her hands.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 

Thanks for reading! 

Here’s the sketch I made to try and better describe her clothing. I’m terrible at describing clothing and wish I could just beam the perfect descriptors onto the page lmao.

I’m not exactly happy with the colour scheme (The cloak/mantelet reminds me too much of Collei’s), but this was the first time I’ve designed anything more complicated than a sweater and hoodie lol. I’m still proud I managed to come up with anything. As to why I gave importance to the scarf, it’s ‘cause I tried to make it look like a Rukkhashava Mushroom. 

“A fungus that grows in layers upon layers, like a sea of clouds, and which mostly grows on trees deep in the rainforest. Therefore, they are considered by the people of Sumeru to be the holy crystallization of Rukkhadevata's legacy. In Sumeru, those who dwell in the forest have a tradition of offering Rukkhashava Mushrooms to the Akademiya, but no one knows what these offerings are meant to be used for. Word has it that the Akademiya always performs a secret annual ritual at the Sanctuary of Surasthana, during which the sages will consume these mushrooms to commemorate Lord Rukkhadevata's sacrifice.”

And here’s her beta designs from Hoyo if you’re interested

[kozachenko]

(Click the image for better quality)

Yipeeee that Keiki and Mayumi fanart I posted the WIP of is finally done woooo- This piece was a very experimental one that I'm kind of OK on. Maybe because I've just gone insane looking at it for so long and I'm my own worst critic lol.

Artist's Notes;

So I've once again been playing around with my rendering style, mainly because I have been wanting to improve my lighting for a while now and as I was just scrolling through Tumblr, I saw some of the official art for that one webcomic-turned-animated-TV-Show Lackadaisy and was immediately inspired. I also have seen a technique a few times in the past where the lineart and shading are merged together, so I've been meaning to try that for a little while.

I did some experimentation on this one sketch of Keiki I posted in my sketch dump and I really liked the results of it, so I carried those over to this piece.

I ended up scaling up Keiki and Mayumi from the original WIP because I felt like they were both getting lost in the composition, and I'm glad for that because I think it works a lot better. I'm not a fan of how Mayumi's sword turned out at all, but it's not really meant to be the focus of the piece so eh. Overall, I think I could do better with my colours, probably because with Keiki and Mayumi's colours, I did them flat in greyscale and then used a brush on the overlay blend mode to colour all of them over, after which I changed the base layer for their colours from white to yellow and then lowered the opacity so it all went together better. I also decided to use gradient maps for a lot of the background elements, mainly to experiment with getting in my values first to make them pop out more. I ended up finding a really nice sky gradient on Clip Studio Paint that I really liked, and that kinda helped to establish the colour scheme of the background a lot. I think the whole "start in greyscale then colour" thing really works better with painterly styles rather than more illustrative ones, and while it is good at making sure your values are more readable, I honestly don't think I have the skill level to pull that off yet. Honestly, I think I've been looking at this drawing too long or maybe I added too much to it, but I wish I could've made the colours less monochromatic, but I'll just save that for the next piece I do.

I do love how the flame (...well it's more of a weird space rift than anything in this piece) and the lighting turned out, those were fun to do. I was initially struggling with the flame and how Mayumi is positioned in front of it before realizing "Oh wait! This is a weird abstraction of a weird creature! I don't have to follow the laws of anatomy!" and just dislocated it's flamey bottom jaw from the main body. I also changed the colours of it since I was really not liking how incredibly bright it was when it had lighter colours. Again, the gradient maps served the more painterly style of the flames well.

I also love how Mayumi turned out. I could do her sleeves better but that's more of just me needing to study how those types of sleeves fold in that position more. I'm also very happy with the posing, the technique I used for that was taking photos of myself in the positions I wanted, blocking in the silhouette and then modifying that by adjusting it to my lines of action that I drew on top of the original photos, and then sketching over the silhouettes and drawing in the shapes of the hands overtop of the photo if I needed to get the fine details right. As for what I do to take the pictures myself, I use a tall chair I have, prop up my phone with a phone stand, put on a ten second timer and scramble to get in position. Yes, I did have to use a bunch of thin markers I had to try and get the hand positioning on Keiki's pose right, yes I do have a fake sword that I used to get the positioning of Mayumi's arms and hand right, the sword was for an old Halloween costume from several years ago. I really like how both Keiki and Mayumi turned out in this drawing, I'll have to play around with these designs for them more in future drawings.

Also, if you wanna know why I draw buildings like that, when I watched Fantasia 2000 as a kid (One of the Disney movies where they make really beautiful animations to classical music) the way they drew the buildings in the first few sections Rhapsody in Blue segment (the jazz one with the cities) changed my brain chemistry and now whenever I need to draw buildings really quickly, I refer back to that. Since the buildings aren't really the main subject, I didn't put much thought into them.

As you can tell I am very tired of this piece, mainly because I made things harder for myself by overcomplicating the process compared to what I usually do, mainly with the whole "starting in grayscale then adding colour." I'd honestly just prefer having a black layer set to colour that I can just toggle on and off when I need to see the values, but it was good to experiment. And that was mainly the point of this whole drawing, to experiment. I'm definitely going to have to play around with this new style I'm going for, mainly because I liked how it turned out a lot in the augmented Keiki sketch, and also because I want to find ways of making it suit my style more. I also really want to keep experimenting with my lighting like this, it's very fun. Last but not least I am never starting in greyscale again because dear god I do not like the workflow it forced me into. I don't have a problem with the method itself it's mainly just a skill issue lol.

If you wanna read my headcanons for these two, I put them in my WIP post, so you can read them there if you want to. The more I look at this the more I prefer the simplicity of my WIP. I might go back to this and just take away the fancy colours and effects to see what it looks like without all of that stuff and reblog this post with that drawing, but for now, I don't think I can look at this drawing again for a while.

[thowawayuntilfurthernotice]

If I went up to a background artist and told them "Hey, I need you to work on a panning shot for 60 hours for peanuts" they would slap the shit out of me.

You don't need to spend an ungodly amount of time on panning shots and backgrounds Viv.

Also, the reason why all those Disney movies look as good as they do is because the animators were working with a feature film budget and time frame, so they have way more time and resources to work with when it came to that sort of stuff.

Working on a streaming service is different because you don't have a feature film budget to work with for each episode, that's why most shows end up having to cut corners to save money.

Her sense of entitlement is astonishing, like holy shit.

And another thing, am I the only one who's annoyed with the way she types? You're in your thirties, learn to write sentences and paragraphs like an adult for fuck's sake.

[yellow-py]

hello! you've probably been asked these before, but i'm here to ask how long it typically takes for you to make animatics, if you have any tips, preferred methods, and what you use? i saw your funger animatic and it looks absolutely gorgeous! i love all the detail that's jam-packed into the art and story telling, so i'm curious about your animatic process.

sorry if this is a lot! no need to answer if you don't want to. i love your stuff and i wish you well!

Hi! I don't mind answering some questions!

First things first, I'm not a professional storyboards artist. I've done a few things for some youtube channels. I wouldn't call myself an expert. This is to say that my method of doing things might not the best for people who actually work in the industry. 

Most of the time I work in Storyboard pro 7. But honestly, any editing software works as long as it can handle pictures and audio. For the disco elysium animatic I only used  clip studio paint and some random editing program called Camtasia. It worked alright but it takes a bit longer to finish stuff since storyboard pro is more streamlined. My go-to method right not is to draw the backgrounds in clip studio and the characters and editing in storyboard pro. That way, I get the best of both worlds. 

The funger animatic took about 2 and a half weeks to make. It usually takes longer, but the song wasn't that long so that saved me a lot of time. But as another example, my disco elysium animatic took +3 months. So it really depends. I did work longer on each frame for that one tho, so idk. On average, it takes me about 2 months. But that number keeps going up since my expectations of myself keep rising. 

Anyhow! I'll be bringing up my fear and hunger animatic as an example of my process. 

My animatics usually start out having the ugliest thumbnails known to man. It does let me experiment with framing and timing, which is absolutely crucial. I do not recommend that people start refining frames without having planned out things beforehand.

After that, I just save every thumbnail and import it to storyboard pro. I just scale it up to the current canvas size. Then I just line up every frame with the audio. It is a little bit tedious but you gotta do what you gotta do. 

After that, I begin to draw the backgrounds in clip studio. I do the same thing as in storyboard pro and just size the thumbnail up. And then I just sketch over that! Technically, I could have drawn the backgrounds in storyboard pro. But their brushes are pretty uggo so I prefer to not do that :)

As dumb as it might sound, it kind of stresses me out when my storyboards aren't "pretty". Which is pretty stupid since storyboards are literally made only to be a guide for what an animation should be. so in actuality, it's alright if they're kinda crusty. But since I never intend to animate my animatics I find it nice to spend more time on each frame. Which is sorta stupid because I'm shooting myself in the foot by working so long on every frame...

Either way, after that, I import the new backgrounds into storyboard pro and begin to draw the characters. Technically I could draw them in clip studio as well. But its faster to draw them in story board pro and it also allows me to do some semi-animated things and work faster. So, after a lot of experimenting, clip studio backgrounds and storyboard pro characters is the way to go for me! 

And just to note. This animatic might have only taken about 2 and a half weeks. Which sounds pretty good. But when it comes to animatics I can become a real workaholic if im inspired enough. So every day after school I would sit non stop working on this from the second I got home to when it was time to sleep. As well as every second of the weekend after I was done with my chores. So that is to say I work pretty fast and persistently, which i know is not healthy or realistic. So take my timing with a grain of salt. 

But that's kinda my process. I just draw backgrounds and draw characters until the thing is done. 

If I had to give any advice, I would say it's important to have fun when making animatics as a hobby. When I make an animatic, it's because I personally want to see that animatic, and if other people like it, that is a plus! If you're excited about an idea, it'll be a lot easier to add fun details and soul into it. 

But yeah that's it. I can't really come up with anything else to say. I hope I gave some good insight!