#both are hard to draw i hate the second one but i also drew it on the bus so

[circusbythesea]

this is a cry for help (i need to talk about kenstewy)

[nerak-01]

Just...Pissed off Bestfriend!Ghost who can't get outta the friendzone...

TW: no direct smut ig, but its teasing and build up to smut. Ghost pinning over an oblivious reader.

This might get a second part if it does well, but who knows.

Imagine Ghost who prides himself in being subtle, unfazed, and mysterious. Except, he isn't around you. He'd been one of your closest friends since you both practically grew up together. Even when he joined to military, you made it a point to send letters and stay in touch. Ugh, that made it so much harder to not grow attached.

Ghost, or Simon, as you know him, would never out right tell you he was interested. Instead, he chose to drop hints. Maybe warding off any guy who looked at you too long wasn't the best hint, but it was crucial. Simon made an effort to keep his hands on you whenever he could. Whether that was a hug; a hand on your hips when he brushed passed you; or full blown cuddles on the couch when you guys watched movies.

Oh, he loved the cuddles. He had your whole body pressed against him as he occupied most of your attention. You were always so soft and warm. He always had to take a bathroom break half way through to relieve himself of a harder problem.

If you noticed how Simon began to change, you never mentioned it. This was now approaching your sixth month of this friends with cuddles non-sense. It wasn't like he wasn't your type! On a boring mission break, he might or might not have gone through your search history to find some enlightening Onlyfans subscriptions. He was both unimpressed and flattered when he saw how his body matched many of your most visited sites. Why pay to see other men's bodies when you could run your dainty hands over his? Simon Riley didn't get it.

Simon also couldn't fathom how you still hadn't taken the hint. He'd agreed to go clubbing with you as you chose to parade around in the sluttiest two piece he'd ever seen. Fuck. Why was your skirt so short anyway? Your top was basically lingerie with the mesh pieces and thin straps. Were you trying to grab his attention on purpose? Cause it...was kind of working... a little too well for his liking.

He hated how his eyes ghosted between your thighs before pulling away to look at the cock block who had you exhale an airy laugh. Your sounds were always angelic. He'd be lying to himself if he hadn't fantasized about the more sinister sounds he could draw out of you when you'd finally gotten the hint. Nevertheless, hearing it directed to someone else made his blood boil. Perhaps the other predicament was the fact that he knew that his eyes weren't the only ones lingering on you.

"Hey, darling, I think it's time we head out." Simon wasted no time, in two strides he was at your side with his arms wrapped protectively around you. He gazed down at the moron who looked a bit paler before the guy made an effort to wrap up your conversation. The idiot quickly scurried off into the tight crowd.

"No, I wanna dance more~" Your voice drew Simon's attention. You were being such a brat by subtly grinding your hips against him. Sure, you were wasted, but you had to know how riled up he was. You should be able to feel his hard on poking your back by now. He gripped your hips, forcing them to still.

"Baby, you're drunk, and I'm the one who's responsible for getting you home," he growled in your ear. There was a thick rasp in his voice as he tried to repress the urge to grind back. This wasn't fair to him at all. How could you expect a man to resist you? Simon had plenty of trouble doing that already, but this gave blue balls a whole new meaning.

[notzawzark]

hell yeah i love Gay Men In Greyscale!

its really hard tk tell whats happening in the first one but i spenf two hours (literally half of my WHOLE LIFE) drawinf it, so im NOT gonna change anything

in the second one theyre at a conference and neither of them are wearing lab coats cause i hate drawing lab coats

more art dump below

i literally spent THE WHOLE DAY drawing them, so a very tottally absolutely sosososososoososo productive day.

i tried colorinf one of the images above but i both got bored and found it to dificult so its really lazy

also unfinished portrait, theres a clef one too but looks really off and slimy, not even in a self deprecating way 😭, i realised about half way thru how uncanny it looked and just decided to keep going cause i was to lazy to start over.

i drew icwberg and gears too, but im still figuring out exactly how i want the both of em to look so i wont really be posting those till then

[emerxshiu]

FORGOTTEN LAND'S SECOND ANNIVERSARY :3

I AM SOOOO BACK

I started this drawing yesterday around afternoon and finished it just a few minutes earlier.

I went with a messier type of drawing instead of more clean like the elfilin one from yesterday, i find it fun doing it like this, mostly cause i dont have to worry about making it perfectly so i dont get as frustrated as normal. Id place this one as my second best digital drawing. im pretty sure i havent posted what i consider my best digital drawing here, tho i do have it in instagram, i might post it here one day, tho these two are way too tied up, i love how this came out, its not exactly like how i imagined it but its really close to it, and also itd say that since i dont tend to play around lighting that much, this was such a joy to draw and i cant help but stare at it a lot, at least until i start hating it because i made quite a lot of errors. i also changed my elfilis gijinka just a tad bit from last time, but its not that big of a difference, mostly.

ofc i had to draw elfilis for forgotten land's anniversary, i tend to deny it in my head but yeah they're my fave of the kirby characters even tho i hate them a bit. I wanted to draw some more doodles, like, elfilis eating cake, kirby car, a bunch of other stuff (not elfilin cuz i already drew him yesterday) but when i tried i couldnt draw anything more, guess this drawing burned me out a lot, huh?

you can definitly tell i spent all the efforts on him cuz if you look a bit closer to the bottom part you'll see its almost barely detailed, but i mean, they're the focus so make sense i guess for me not add that much detail there. um also, maybe because i dunno i had OVER 130 LAYERS jeez no wonder firealpaca was slowing down so much, i need to manage my layers better next time, tho i did do something i keep forgetting, wich is naming them (most of them at least) that was a real life saver

Also, antares (fecto elfilis' spear/cadaceus), as always, was a pain to draw, but this time its probably been draw the most accurate out of every other drawing ive made with it in it, i didnt notice it was like, a little curved when it reached the blade

some close ups since his face is a bit hard to see

silly :3

fun fact! actually, this is technically a redraw, somewhere around between february and march i started a fecto elfilis drawing for the first anniversary, but i couldnt finish it in time, and i never finished it

thats...quite the improvement! (i remember being so proud of it)

also his wings are like that cuz i did not want to draw the pattern, its way too hard, i literally copy pasted it, wait, i was talking about the 2024 version but i looked at the 2023 one and i just noticed it also has the pattern copy pasted, i guess some stuff never changes since i still abuse the ctrl+c ctrl+v to this day

Also i ended up making a huge error there, i was planing to add the phantom spears from orbital pulsar (the attack he does first when you battle them at lab discovera) but theres an innacuracy, when they do the attack, they always close their eyes, i had actually sketched him (well i mean both these drawings are basically the first sketch (2023) or second sketch(2024) with some color, shadows and lighting. i didnt do lineart in the 2024 one cuz i wanted to be a bit like the og i made (too bad i sketched that one with black since the og was sketched with white due to me drawing the bg first)) with his eyes closed but them decided to make them open for a reason i cant remember, maybe i thought itd look nicer? idk

ive had the idea of redrawing this for quite some month now so it was kinda already planned

background cuz i think it came out really pretty

doesnt have the little stars since without elfilis and the structures it looks fucked up. the actual sky in game is more blue, but the clouds have some orange, in the 2023 ver. i made the sky orange, and in the 2024 ver i wanted it more accurate, but i didnt wanna loose the orange sky, so i did a gradient. pretty...

also here's a screenshot i took when i was like halfway trough it, its barely noticeable but i changed his mouth in the final drawing

I really love katfl, like a buncha whole lot, its basically almost my first mainline kirby game. 100% the demo, finished the game in almost one day, i literally play it monthly, like, every month i put the card in my switch, start it up, get morpho sword, and go shred elfilis in lab discovera. i would probably not even be here on tumblr and the kirby fandom if it werent for it. and i love it so much i genuinly cannot express how much i like it and treasure it with words or anything

Thank you for reading my unnecesarily long rambles lol

I hope i'll post tomorrow and dont forget like usual

Jambuhbye!

[venomquill]

So, after reading @pixlokita's brilliant comic series (which has nothing to do with this above image) and finding they'd played with a winged AU, I had to as well. I just, I had to. It was required. Having written and then trashed a story about winged people (technically bird mutants???) and one with a human with wings, I'd already developed a lot of lore about winged humans. I won't upload my sketch at gunpoint, but I used their character sheet as a reference. I hate drawing humans. Kill meeee this took days. And I forgot the tail! Just look at the pretty wings and oooh cool mask! Ignore the awfully drawn child! Anyhow~

Crying Child (AKA, youngest Afton child, known in the fandom as Evan) Would be European Robin-winged. (Like this or this) Robins are aggressive, and CC is anything but aggressive. However, genetically speaking, he would take after his father, William Afton, who is robin-winged. He's currently flightless, even though he should be learning how to fly at this age. However, his lack of confidence and the bullying from his older brother has made it very hard. He fears failing now more an ever as he's scared it would just give his brother more ammunition against him. Also, in the back of his shirt, you can see those little strips? Those are straps built into the shirt that can be buckled/unlatched and buckled/latched at will. It's the only way someone with wings would be able to put on a shirt. He still needs help from someone to latch it on for him. His mom used to do it, and then William. Then when he forgot, he and Elizabeth would help each other. With Elizabeth gone, he just tries his best. He's learned how to move them around and just press his back against the wall to get them mostly on right. Michael will sometimes tug on his shirt. But Mike's done that to other kids at school, for reasons I'll list below.

Elizabeth Afton (AKA, middle Afton child, Dad's favorite) Would be European Robin-winged, as said above. She would still be learning how to fly by the time she gets turned into ice cream by Baby. I imagine she's William's favorite by the way he literally gave her an animatronic and modeled one after her. (It ended up killing her, but that's another matter) She inherits her father's more aggressive nature and bullies her older brother. Being Dad's favorite, she can get whatever she wants. Michael being an angsty teen and her being a sweet angel, she can blame whatever she wants on him and he can't do anything about it. So he has to do what she wants or else. So Michael takes it out on...

Michael Afton (AKA, oldest Afton child, Mike Schmidt) Would be a cassowary-winged! It took me a second to come up with this one, but it made sense to me. Cassowaries are incredibly aggressive, flightless, and seriously dangerous birds. They're also terrific fathers and the mothers don't stick around. So Mikey takes after his mom and gets to be a cassowary-winged. Mom's gone (Whether she left or gets killed or both is up to the imagination), his wings are so small he can hide them under his shirt by hardly even trying, and on top of it all his little brother will learn how to fly at half his height and his sister rubs it in his face. His wings are dangerous as he has a dewclaw and the quills on what would have been the primary flight feathers are sturdy and sharp. He doesn't need long slits in his shirts and has actually torn the shoulder holes with his dewclaws/quills before. So, as a teen, he's spiteful and lashes out. He has a huge fluffy tail that gets in the way all the time. But when he grows up a little, he grows into that more "protect the children" aspect of a cassowary's nature. I did sketch him out fully, but I spent literal days on CC. Instead, I drew his mask with the intention of a pre-withered Foxy look and referencing FNaF 1's crooked-jawed Foxy. I also found through Nightmare Foxy that he does indeed have a pale muzzle. (Withered, Nightmare, Foxy bro)

[tg-pilled]

touka for the character thing?

favourite thing about them: I love that she was allowed to be girly while also kicking ass. I feel like in anime and a lot of modern media, people don't allow strong female leads to be girly AND strong, it's always one or the other. I love that she likes pink and fuzzy things and that her mask is still cutesy. Like imagine being killed and the last thing you see is a cute rabbit mask. THAT is badass to me

least favourite thing: Through no fault of her own, it was just the writing Sui Ishida put her through, but I don't like how she became so reliant on Kaneki in :re if that makes sense? I understand that she became pregnant (which is a whole other arc I fucking hate but anyways) and that she really did have a hard time with trust growing up and through Anteiku she learned trust again BUT in the same breath I feel like she was robbed of kicking ass in :re? Idk if that makes ANY sense 🗿

favourite line: "You pretend you care about other people but in the end it's all about you. You're just afraid to be left alone." GET HIS ASS TOUKA ‼️‼️

brOTP: Touka and Hide! I think they would be really good friends after everything goes down and that they's have gossip sessions IDKKKK. Hide would absolutely hype Touka up to ask out Yoriko. I also really love Nishiki and Touka too like they are clearly besties.

OTP: Touka and Yoriko :) They are the lesbians of all time ever. I made a whole little drabble and headcanon post for them and everything. They are SO sun and moon. I don't hate TouKen but I feel like their relationship should have been better developed.

nOTP: Anyone that isn't Kaneki or Yoriko I guess? Nishiki and Touka make me physically recoil so DEFINITELY not them. Plus Nishiki and Kimi are the heterosexuals ever.

random headcanon: She used to draw on herself when she was younger because it helped her calm down. She also drew on Ayato whenever he allowed it and it became a sort of way to bond and take care of each other before everything went to shit. I like to think that the last design Ayato drew on her arm was her first tattoo :)

unpopular opinion: She never needed to marry Kaneki to prove that she had value in his life. I know that it was to wrap the series up in a neat little bow and because she was pregnant BUT I feel like it was forced. She had value to Kaneki outside of just their romantic relations.

song I associate with them: Found Heaven - Conan Gray and Primary - The Cure

favourite picture of them: I have two and both are from the anime (I'm sorry) but her expression when she's called beautiful :( Breaks my heart every damn time bruh. And the second one is her being just,,,normal? She's just studying and calm and her bedroom is SO cute

[pixelbytesquad]

Okay so- mistakes may had been made :'D

In the sense of I may end up slipping in another interest/fandom- tbf I don't see myself fully joining cause I'm still stuck in bakugan atm, but idk for how long (but even then I'm sure it will hit me back again, these stage don't fully leave, they hit back later on)

Anyways, recently I've got in my recommended videos about Happy Tree Friends and ended up watching the shorts on YouTube.

On one hand, I love the cute art style and characters... on the other, for those who don't know, Happy Tree Friends isn't a show made for kids. Despite it's cute appearance it's pretty much a gore fest (and I'm not that good on heavy gore).

I may draw some of the characters from time to time and post on here, mainly cause, again, the characters are cute, and I enjoy drawing cute animal characters (like, I literally have a bakugan AU where I turn the cast into cats, cure critters is like, one of my quirks/signature traits of my style).

And well, I did sketch some things- (including a silly crossover thing with bakugan since, brain's thinking about both of these shows)

First of all

Flaky! I think she's my fav of this franchise (gently scooping her up and placing her near my other favs- I MAY draw her interacting with them at some point)

Second, Flippy/Fliqpy- there are more, but these are the only ones I will show (I ain't proud of the first 2).

I don't really have much to say- I'll admit I do like Flippy on his own.

And last(-ish), Pop and Cub.

Pop is just- I kinda love-hate him??? Dude's sometimes unaware of the dangers his son is in, but at least he does sometimes show that he cares (and mourns) when something happens to his son.

Cub deserves the world he's just a baby- a itty bitty baby boy-

And since I mentioned bakugan earlier- ngl now I'm thinking about 2 dysfunctional families where the father is bad (but at least Pop kinda tries to be decent, meanwhile Clay is- yeah)

I want to punt Clay- so hard-

And since I drew the dads- here are the kids too

In case you can't understand the handwritting

Spectra: "Well, have fun babysitting!"

Mira: "W-WAIT- DON'T LEAVE ME ALONE-"

He left her alone- I mean, he definitely went after the milk- Mira is left alone at baby sitting duties-

Ngl I kinda missed drawing silly crossover stuff- I should def draw more silly shenanigans, esp including my favs.

Also posting these doodles on main (I want to keep the bakugan doodles account strictly for bakugan stuff, so crossover doodles will go on main, or I may make a separate blog for crossovers, I'll see)

[mcrmadness]

4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 20, 29 and 30 for the artist ask 👀

Thanks!!! That is so many (and I am delighted!) /gen

Also get some snacks or something because this is going to be a long, LONG post :D You know how much I love talking about arts!

4. Fav character/subject that’s a bitch to draw HORSES. They make no sense, the anatomy is fucked up, and they are impossible to draw well!!! I drew them sometimes as a kid, then I started actually practicing drawing them after the age of 11 thanks to the DreamWorks film Spirit: the Stallion of the Cimarron. (Or whatever the fuck it is how the name is written, I never remember the articles correctly!)

It took me years to draw them using references and I think I did reach a point where I could draw the legs semi-well without references, but honestly, I still don't understand the legs. AND I AM A HORSE GROOM. I have been STUDYING horse anatomy for school, I had to study and learn and be able to name the bones and tendons in horses' legs, and I have stared at images and photos of both horse skeletons as well as alive horses, and also photos of horses with a skeleton painted on their fur, and I have been looking at and handling real horses' legs from up close many many times - and I still cannot grasp how on earth the bones between the knee and hoof go when drawing. I don't know what is it, the second I see the skin and fur and hoof there (since there is no muscles from the horse's knee down, only skin and bones and tendons), my brain starts adding there bones and joints that are not there.

Here's my so far newest horse drawings, after over 20 years of practice:

And they are drawn without any references and I'm pretty proud of the legs even tho they're not exactly correct. But I guess I still have it even when I don't draw them that often anymore!

7. A medium of art you don’t work in but appreciate Oil paint and acrylic paint, or painting in general. I have never ever been a painter, but more of liked to work with pencils and markers and just anything that is capable of precise tiny details. As a kid all my drawings used to be so so detailed and tiny that it took me one water colour lesson in middle school to understand that hey, I possibly cannot finish this painting ever if the paper is A3 and I draw there objects that are less than 1cmx1cm in size, and I especially cannot colour them properly with water colour because it's not made for small details at all. I have always struggled with bigger sized artworks, my comics etc. are always quite small, but photorealism is usually on papers sized A4 cos there I then again suck at drawing e.g. faces that are smalled than a hand.

But yeah. Painting, it looks awesome and the paint (especially oil and acrylic, but also guache and in some cases water colour) blend in ways that pencils and markers are not capable of. They are great for landscapes for example, cos abstract brush patterns work great as leaves etc. for trees, but that is something that is difficult to achieve with my tools of choice that work with detailed images better. I did lots of acrylic painting in school and art school, and I never ever liked it because it's so messy and I was probably too young to understand how to work with them properly. I probably should give them a try again one day, because I have slowly been trying out water colours again after learning to hate them at school due to wrong supplies (too thin paper, or a rubbish brush for example), and it's not as bad as I remembered it. Maybe I could view acrylic paint differently too as an adult, and while having the power to choose my topics.

10. Favorite piece of clothing to draw Hmmmm. I'm not a fan of drawing clothes, all the loose fabric is very hard to imagine, but I also don't want to draw characters naked so I'm just gonna draw them clothes XD Back in the day I would have said: shoes. But my current drawings have very boring shoes - except for that one time when I drew Rod with his New Rock flame boots which were so much fun to draw as a New Rock shoes fan! :D It was this one:

But I think my actual favourite to draw is the blue 80s jackets Bela and Farin often wore, they are SO MUCH FUN to draw with markers! And this is why:

Okay in general anything coloured with this blue marker works - but I just LOVE IT how it reacts to the blender marker (lifts off colour very efficiently!) and how you get this texture that actually makes the colour look like the jacket was 3D! (This one is taken from my Richy Guitar comic from 2022.) I don't know why it doesn't work this well with other colours tho.

13. A creator who you admire but whose work isn’t your thing There is this one Japanese... manga? artist whose works I sometimes see on my dash or in videos about art. They are often in black&white, made with ink or something. I really like the technique in those and in a way it resembles it how I sometimes make my b&w marker drawings. All the art I have seen from him looks really neat and the topics are interesting, but it's just that manga/anime style that is not my cup of tea and what causes it that I haven't gotten into his works. I can't even remember his name but it's possible that someone might recognize whom I am talking about if someone else is reading this, that's how popular he is also among the western world.

16. Something you are good at but don’t really have fun doing I am gonna say: photorealistic portraits of people. I have many of them because every time there's been a while since the previous, I start to think about how I wanna draw another one but I have always forgotten about how the drawing process is actually not that enjoyable. It's so restricted. I have to draw a grid or my brain and eye will fuck up the proportions. My brain has temper tantrums even when following the grid because it claims I'm doing it wrong, but in the end the grid was always correct and I just can't SEE the proportions right. I can't improvise pretty much at all because then I will fuck up the proportions again. I need the faces to look like who they are supposed to be, or I will hate myself and feel like I disrespected the person I'm trying to draw. So it's stressful. It's lots of redrawing and erasing until the paper it so worn out the colour is no longer lifting off and there's nothing I can do about it.

The succesful end result always looks neat, but oh so boring. I can recreate a photo with a pencil, so what? It can't get any more boring than that. It's just boasting with "hey look I can copy an image with my hand!" but there's nothing else to it. There is no soul to the drawing. There was no learning going on, unless it was something for the tools or techniques, but no learning about how to draw something specific. It's just redrawing until it looks close enough and lots of blood and tears. People online really like photorealistic drawings because many non-artist people don't understand how it's done, but for me photorealistic drawings and paintings have become really boring to look at, and progress videos are boring because I know how that is done and I know how it's gonna end up looking like. There is no surprise to me, because I understand the key elements of drawing: shadows, midtones and highlights.

I really want to have a semi-realistic style that would look neater and less confusing with my shippy drawings, but I just suck at drawing proportions and faces so I'm unable to draw them so that they would look like my targets. That's why photorealism is not fun, because it just reminds me of how I can't draw human faces even without a grid.

20. Something everyone else finds hard to draw but you enjoy People often hate drawings hands and avoid doing that because they find it difficult to do, but I actually enjoy it. They're still difficult, but that's why I often use my own hands as a reference. And if I can't see my hands in a posture I want from my own POV, then I will just take a photo with my phone and use that. The easiest way of getting references ever, no need to google for the exact specific posture when I can just grab my phone and there I have it. This has also allowed me to memorize stuff in the muscle memory and especially with my comics I need the references less and less, which is nice. I think my style in drawing hands is evolving and I'm enjoying the results more and more. (Fun fact: people in my comics always have 5 fingers instead of 4!)

This is from one of my newest drawings:

I like so much how this turned out! Tho the cost was that the 3 other hands did not turn out that well - but at least this one did and I really like it :D (And also how it reminds me of my own favourite comics from when I was growing up - aka the French and Belgian comics such as Asterix or Lucky Luke!)

It's from this drawing which I have posted on Tumblr as its own post before:

29. Media you love, but doesn’t inspire you artistically Oh there are so many medias I enjoy but don't do any kind of fanart of, if this is what it's asking. My fandom behaviour is so weird cos usually I channel my artistic tendencies on just one media or hyperfixation at a time, and the others don't make me want to draw a single thing about them.

And then what comes to medias created through visual arts... such as cartoons, animations or comics. Well usually I am drawn to the visual side of them too. That is one big reason why I don't watch anime and don't real manga, because the art style is not my cup of tea at all, so I would find it hard to focus on the stories either. The same goes for most modern-day cartoons, I just hate the art style majority of them uses, and I'm so visual person myself that I just can't even think about trying them out cos I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to get used to them even if the story would be somewhat funny or interesting.

You can see lots of influence in my art from the comics and cartoons I grew up reading and watching, occasionally I feel like you can even see the Dream Works (or Pixar) animations in my art because I, also, grew up watching some of those films. That is what I do, when a media is artistically appealing to me, as a tribute I will take inspiration and pieces of it to my own art but make sure to not base it fully on anything. My art really is a collection of all the art styles I like, and I feel like if lookng at them closely, you can see "cameos" of art styles from everything from Asterix comics to, say, Tim Burton characters.

30. What piece of yours do you think is underrated Everything? :DDDDDDD No but, every single piece that makes me go "OMG THIS IS PROBABLY THE BEST THING I'VE EVER DRAWN" and which always gets the most quiet response ever. Those I feel are the most underrated pieces. Often the ones that get the most feedback or notes/likes are the ones that make me ask "but why this? what's so special about this? " and I never get any answers.

Anyway, as of today, I still think this is the most underrated piece what I have drawn. I'm still so proud of this, the puns(?), and how much there is going on, and how no one can tell what my original idea was. Even I can't tell, because I'm not sure. It can be interpreted in so many ways, and I like each of them.

THANK YOU SO MUCH it was so much fun to answer to these!!! /gen I hope you also have fun reading these :D

[arctrooper69]

Enemies to Lovers: Tech

Few quick notes here: 1.) If you want to be on a tag list for this fic or for anything I write, shoot me a message! 2.) Just tested positive for covid so I'm stuck in my house but that gives me more time for writing so I'll probably be posting more often. I'm also trying to get a Masterlist up and going so keep an eye out for that if you want 😂

@zoeykallus @ttzamara

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5

Chapter 3: We've Got Company

Warnings: Violence, explosions - nothing you wouldn't see in any given episode

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

Tech’s pov

Tech regarded the woman in front of him fidgeting and rubbing at her wrist. He suspected the action was more of a nervous tick than an actual pain response. He cringed internally, he did regret hurting her.

But then again, she did attack you, snapped back one of his more logical thoughts.

There was something intriguing about the woman in front of him but he didn’t know what. Tech hated not knowing. He studied her intently, temporarily letting the current mission slip from his mind. Was it the fact that she had nearly succeeded in decoding military-grade top-secret data? Or the fact that even though she was obviously terrified, she tried so hard to keep her composure? Was it the way she looked shyly any when his eyes met hers or the way her hair-

No. Not going there. He abruptly stopped that train of thought in it's tracks feeling, stiffening his posture with resolve.

Tech shook his head.

Maker

What was wrong with him? Perhaps he’d caught some kind of illness from the last place they’d traveled. Clones were built to withstand most diseases but there were a small handful that even years of genetic manipulation couldn’t account for.

“Tech come in,” Hunter’s voice came through the helmet, interrupting his self analysis. He filed the thoughts away making a mental note to give himself a once over with the medi-scanner when he was back on the Marauder - just to be sure. Hunter sounded tense.

“What’s going on, Hunter?” Tech replied quickly through the coms.

“Are you almost done? We’ve got trouble”

“I’ve run into some unexpected…. problems,” he glanced over at the woman who was looking back at him frowning.

“You’d better solve them quickly. We’re about to have company.”

As if on cue, the low rumble of a distant explosion rocked the wreckage they were on.

“Osik” he cursed under his breath in Mando’a. Another explosion shook the ship harder than the last.

That one was definitely closer.

An alarm blared to life throughout the room and the console they'd been staring at flashed chaotic and red. The telltale creaking groan then crunch of shattering durasteel echoed through the hall they’d both come down, followed by heavy clanking footsteps.

Droids. B2 super droids to be exact.

Tech gulped but was glad he'd taken the time to study the specs and programmed behavior of most Separatist droids. At least he knew what was coming.

I thought they'd all been deactivated with the rise of the Empire. He frowned, tucking the inquiry into his ever growing mental stack of issues-to-be-investigated.

This is.... not ideal.

Tech glanced over at the woman who had by now returned to the flashing console, back facing the door and concentrating on the screen. She'd gone back to attempting to override the security firewalls that had just been reactivated. He'd almost forgotten she was there.

Almost.

He didn't think he'd ever be able to forget her entirely. The noise of droid against durasteel stopped as soon as it had started.

Strange

And most likely a trap

Not good

Tech cocked his head, listening for any sign that would indicate assault by grenade or disrupter or any kind of artillery made to draw him out of hiding. As if reading his mind, a single droid dropped from the ceiling landing silently in the hall right in front of the door. Without a second thought he protectively launched himself by the console where y/n had her back toward the door and drew his blaster. She looked up at his sudden movement in front of her. Her eyes widened in surprise and then in betrayal. Tech’s expression switched from confusion to sudden realization in a matter of seconds.

She can't see the droid behind her

She thinks I'm aiming for her

His eyes widened in alarm. The next few seconds seemed to pass in slow motion as she grabbed her blaster from the floor and aimed it at him.

“Y/N no!” He shouted, “I’m not -"

She fired and Tech ducked as the blast streaked past him just inches from the left side of his helmet. The blast hit the bulkhead above the door, wildly ricocheting across the room until it hit the console and exploded, filling the air with a thick grey smoke. Tech could only watch in horror as the ceiling caved in with another blast and everything went dark.

edit: There was a formatting issue and a paragraph from the middle got sent to the end of the piece. It's fixed now. Sorry about that!

[bibliophileiz]

I just finished a book called The Queens of Animation by Nathalia Holt, about women animators at the Walt Disney Studio. I cannot believe the shit I found out.

(Hopefully I got this all correct, I was listening to an audiobook instead of reading a hard copy, so I can't consult it for name spellings and the like. I'm relying on Google, and well, we know how that goes sometimes.)

Some things I learned from this book. -Walt Disney became a personal champion of women in the animation department, arguing not just that they were as talented as men but that they could bring something to storytelling that men could not. After his death, the number of women in the animation and story departments plummeted, along with the animation department itself. -But he also paid women way less. (Except Mary Blair.)

Not just women, but many animators had a hard time getting on-screen credit for their work. This was one of the issues that led to a massive strike in 1941 that tore the department in two, temporarily shut down the studio, and resulted in a lot of people, both union and non-union, losing their jobs when it finally reopened.

On the rare occasion women did get credit, they were sometimes ignored by reviewers.

The second woman to be hired to the animation department, Grace Huntington, was a pilot who held multiple speed and altitude records. She eventually quit the studio with the hopes of getting a full time aviation job, but died young of TB before her career could take off.

Traditional animation is apparently a terrible way to make money. Only a handful of the early animated feature-length films made more at the box office than it took to make them.

Women animators were drawing things for The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast as early as the 1930s.

Men thought drawing fairies was unmanly, so the fairy sequence set to Nutcracker music in Fantasia was drawn and directed entirely by women.

While the women animators were doing that, the men drew super gross racist and sexist centaurs to Beethoven music, and the reviewers all hated it. (Essentially they were like HOW COULD YOU DO THAT TO BEETHOVEN.) - Generally, male animators tended to like slapstick comedy in their cartoons, while women tended to be more about storytelling and character development.

Obviously there were exceptions to that rule, like Walt Disney and Mark Davis.

Disney hired an LSU professor to write Song of the South. When everyone pointed out to him this was a terrible idea, he hired a Communist Jew from New York as co-writer for "balance."

This went about as well as you'd expect.

When the LSU professor demanded his co-writer get taken off the script, Disney replaced him with another "progressive" white guy.

Apparently he never considered hiring an African-American writer.

Literally everyone, including the studio's legal team, told him not to make this movie, much less hire a white guy from Baton Rouge to write it.

The lead actor James Baskett, who won an Honorary Academy Award for the role, couldn't go to the premiere because it was held in Atlanta.

Meanwhile, the Communist got put on Cinderella. He interpreted the story as a worker rising up against her oppressors.

This is also known as the correct way to interpret Cinderella.

Apparently the writer (so sorry, I'm forgetting his name) included a "violent" scene in which Cinderella goes after her stepmother and stepsisters.

I have no more details than that, but apparently the other animators made him take it out.

I'm now just picturing Cinderella stalking around her house with a raised butcher knife in her hand like in "Psycho."

Artist Mary Blair was art director for many of the classic Disney movies, including Cinderella and Alice in Wonderland. Disney loved her work so much that when she had to move to Long Island for her husband's job, Disney let her work remotely and fly back and forth from New York to Los Angeles.

She was responsible for the rich colors and design choices in the princess movies. She resigned part way through "Sleeping Beauty" but the art director after her used her designs for Maleficent.

Her husband, Lee Blair, was also an animator for the studio before he left to fight in World War II. He was apparently extremely jealous of Mary's artistic talent, and when he returned from Europe, he moved the family to Long Island, became an alcoholic, and started abusing her and later their children. Mary didn't feel she could go to Walt, or any of her other friends at the studio like Retta Scott and Mark and Alice Davis, because domestic violence and divorce were so taboo back then.

Even after the move, Disney let her work remotely, and she spent a lot of time flying between New York and Los Angeles. She eventually resigned hoping to work on her marriage (this didn't really work, though her husband did eventually start going to AA meetings after spending a year in jail for drunk driving) but was later rehired to help design the It's A Small World ride.

Everyone who worked on that ride hated the song btw.

The men apparently got over the idea of drawing fairies making their balls fall off or something by the time they were making Peter Pan, but one of them still asked why Tinker Bell "had to be so naughty".

101 Dalmations was the first animated film to be made using Xerox technology, which decimated the studio's female-dominated ink and paint department (their job was to trace over the animators' work). The Xerox machines could only make black and white at first, which is why so much of that movie is so colorless compared to the earlier Disney films Mary Blair worked on.

The silver lining was everyone got to play with puppies while they were making it because Disney ordered a whole bunch of them to just be there in the studio for the animators to draw.

Speaking of cute animals, the Burbank lot was home to a bunch of stray cats. Disney liked them being there because they hunted mice, so he didn't like when employees fed them.

Disney hated 101 Dalmations, because of the Xerox machines, but it made more of a profit than any of his previous films, because of the Xerox machines.

Julie Andrews originally turned down the role of Mary Poppins because she was pregnant, and Disney promised to wait on her. (Joss Whedon, take notes.)

After Walt died of lung cancer, the animation department was nearly killed and pretty much stopped hiring women. Mary Blair, who had been almost as influential to Disney's art as Walt, was edged out and by the time new animators started working on the Disney Renaissance films, they didn't even know who she was.

Many of the women who left the studio went on to work for Little Golden Books and other children's book publishing companies.

One of the few women animators at the company at this time, Heidi Guedel, who drew Tigger, left with Don Bluth when he departed to form his own company in 1979.

When The Little Mermaid was in production, there was only one woman animator--she may have been the only woman in the entire story department, I don't remember.

Disney then began hiring more women animators at the directive of then-Disney CEO Mike Eisner and head of animation Jeffrey Katzenberg.

One of the women screenwriters working on Beauty and the Beast (I think Linda Woolverton, but it may have been Brenda Chapman) wrote a scene in which Belle puts pins on a map showing where all she hopes to travel.

The animators changed the scene in the storyboards so that Belle is in the kitchen making a cake instead. When the screenwriter saw it, she apparently raged BELLE DOES NOT MAKE CAKES!

Pixar at this time had no women in its animation department.

Brenda Chapman became the first woman to win an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film for Brave. During her acceptance speech, she talked about her daughter Emma.

When making Frozen, Disney held a "sister summit" of women discussing their relationships with their sisters and other women. Men at the summit were not allowed to speak.

btw Brenda Chapman also worked on The Prince of Egypt. (I did not learn this from the book, I learned it just now while looking her up on imdb.)

If I have had a very bad day, and am very tired, then the mere mention of Howard Ashman's name will make me break down in tears.

[liches-covered-in-lich]

A bit late but *glares at tumblr* it's better be late than never ey?

But here is my 2023 art roundup! :D

General retrospectives under the cut per month if anyone is curious 😘

Jan: This was a gift I made for a buddy of mine! It was of his oc that the friend group collectively simped for and cultivated together, as a family. He's a great lad and a starting point for me to use stock textures for the general look of my art

Feb: An older design of my Miraak, but I really still like this piece. It was the starting point of me trying to learn how to draw characters interacting together. While I do think I can improve in some aspects, I still think it holds up really well and looks super cute!

Mar: Ah, gore. This was the beginning of me doing a 'soft' art style. It's of a melting Emperor Belos for the Tales of a Tyrant Zine (I believe the link is still active for access to the pdf? If curious, I should still have it around somewhere. It's pretty sick ngl). I really like this piece, it helped me deal with my imposter's syndrome in the group of Amazing artists as they really liked this piece of mine! And generally I love drawing gore

Apr: This was a commission for someone on tumblr! I used my softer style for this piece and had fun figuring out how to make the light imposing but not loose the main colors and details! Also fun fact - I had a friend pose for me holding a sign so I can get GOOD hand references as google was no help

May: Ah the first full drawing on Krita. This was a test on the art program as Autodesk Sketchbook was no longer working for me on desktop (tho I still use it for my ipad art!). It's of my HOK who I don't talk much about as they're just a Dude. Sorry Jhyth, I should do more with you

Jun: This bitch. Elyden I adore you, you're my favorite oc and one of my longest lasting ones but. . . It took so damn long to get a good design with him that showed his personality and wasn't a pain to draw. I really like his design here, I think he looks wonderful

Jul: A commission done for my Skyrim fanfic's editor actually! She's pretty cool and greatly improved my writing skills! And she paid me to draw a mudcrab in Sovngarde! What more do you want? I love this piece too as I learnt how to do backgrounds in my style that won't kill me in my detailed art style

Aug: Another commission done for a friend of mine! It was based off a doodle I did of his oc as a gift but he paid me to finish it as a full rendered piece! :D I got to draw a tiddy window and an evil throne!!!

Sep: An art collab I did with a friend of mine! Where we split the image in half and drew each other's ocs interacting! It's actually the same dude as the Jan's piece. I both hate loved working on this. His hands gave me so much trouble

Oct: My second favorite oc's revamped design, Lorelei <3 I love her a lot and I really love her design. I think it fits her perfectly and you can tell what she's about immediately by just looking at her. I adore this lady (also fun fact, she's the older sister of Elyden!). This drawing means a lot to me as it was me figuring out that I like drawing character references only in more fun poses in a sense

Nov: Funny thing, I finished that drawing yesterday. But it's a reference of my Rahgot! I chose this as my Nov piece as I feel like it was when I was getting better at character designs. In terms of practicality, function, aesthetics, colors, and visual language

Dec: A commission for an old friend of mine that I knew since...fuck me, I think...6 years? He wanted me to draw an antagonist for his body horror gundom ttrpg campaign! Even though he doesn't draw, his designs fuck so hard and I'm so glad I got to draw one fully <3 I love this piece and I think it was a great send off to the end of this year

I feel like I exploded in improvement this year. My skills and my methods for art became more practical and made my life a bit easier in general in the process (especially in the coloring department). And I cannot wait to see what I'll make for next year :D

Thank you all for coming with me to this journey <3 and have a blessed new year

[untitled-byler-blog]

You want prompts????

Will Byers and Max Mayfield being besties, go

ahhh omg ok

-- After Jane moved in with the Byers family Max would be over constantly so the three of them would hang out and watch movies together

-- Max gave them both lots of advice on California (opposite energy of the theory that Max told Mike what to wear to Cali 🤭🤭)

-- and totally threw in a subtle hint that Cali was more accepting of "people who are different" in a way that wouldn't make Will feel like she knew

-- so one day Jane dips to go hang out with Mike on the fly and Will's like "you can stay... if you want" being like super awkward and they have some movie (probably the goonies) on in the background and no one else is home and finally Will's just like "I totally wanted you in the party btw"

-- and they talk about Halloween and he throws in something like "Mike was the only one against it"

-- The second Max realised Will had feelings for Mike (because of this conversation/her remembering how overprotective he is) she goes home and starts banging her head against the wall

-- They then go on and on hating on Mike/Mike and Jane's relationship then comics and stuff and boom friendship

-- Eventually Will is more open to her about what really went on with him, and he also tells her how proud he is of Billy for being able to break free long enough to protect Jane because he's been there. He gets it. It's damn hard. And she shouldn't blame herself for what happened

-- They wrote letters to each other. Not like super frequently, but probably like 10 letters each between October and March.

-- Like, even when she withdrew from Lucas and was being less present with the party in general, she would still send letters to Jane (to check up on her) and Will (to vent, because she knew he would listen without judgement, and without trying to give her advice – and he'd always draw little doodles on his letters to cheer her up)

-- Post apocalypse (Max is fine, but still has some residual stuff going on -- probably blind, still learning how to walk again) and she loves spending time with Will

-- He drew all over her casts (literal masterpieces, but he'll say they were just quick sketches) and she asks the doctors if she can keep them when she finally gets them off

-- She feels like everyone is babying her (Lucas and Jane mostly just feeling guilty) and Will can totally relate to that

-- They saw Tim Burton's Batman in theaters together alone

-- She teaches him how to drive before she even has her license and she blasts the music way too loud

-- Actually they sometimes go on platonic dates where they just drive around with the windows down. It's nice to feel free sometimes.

[neverkayzat]

This is the post where I go insane over every single detail I shoved into the Art of Scraping Through fanart I did recently! I spent around twenty hours on it so now you have to suffer my info dumping :')

Before I start ranting, I have to give props to Squaffle! They made me realize that I can make fanart of fanfiction by making fanart of fanfiction. Wow. I am really smart. Also, I used their designs as inspirations for what I used in this picture. Their art is phenomenal! Check it out! :)

First: The background!

There's something outside of each window! Each window is copy and pasted, but there is an outside. Even if you can't see it. Also, to the right is the Steelers flag (Pennsylvania football team) and a newspaper of the bar opening. You can barely see this in the final version.

Right above Frank's head is the map of West Grove (where they are)! Also, the second image is just a bunch of assorted photo's. I was trying to capture a really run down bar that has black and white pictures of the owners and old pictures of when their bar was a hit. Didn't reallllllyyy manage it, but hey, the pictures look nice :)

Second: The people

This is what the back, back ground people look like without any blur. Also, don't mind Frank. He was the last thing I drew.

These three are OC's of me and my friends, but humanized. Starting from the left is Eclipse, then Vas (who is conveying that Linen, another OC, is saying hi), and finally Arsonist, who is complaining about the humanization. I love sneaking goofballs into pictures they're not meant to be in.

On the left is my persona. It's me guys!! In the final, the only unblurred thing you can see is the fingers. On the right is Canvas, another OC, however you can just see her hair.

This guy in the background is also another OC (my word I'm fitting everyone in here). Not much to say, just that I was up at one in the morning drawing this goober. This is when I hit the ten hour mark.

This is a picture with only the middle people. I remembered that I didn't need to draw full people here. Also that they didn't need to be super detailed.

Fun fact! The guy on the left is someone you cannot see on the final because of cropping. I realized that this picture was not center, and centered it. These two are inspired by my brother (left) and father (right).

This guy is another OC, Bithal. I hate her.

Third: Overall Details

Every beer bottle has AST on the logo. For Frank, it's hard to see because his fingers are covering it up, but it's there!!

There are more drinks on Marc's side to show his drunken state. Also, his beer bottle is empty while Frank is still working on his, as seen in the final picture.

Marc's entire outfit. Oh my god.

The scratch thing on both of their skin! This is also seen basically everywhere but shhhh.

One final detail (probably will be multiple if I know myself well) to conclude this is that color theory is super cool. Marc is all warm colors. His outline is a mixture of yellows and oranges. These colors are associated greater with topics such as happiness and positivity. However, his outfit, demeanor, and outline is a contrast to Frank's deep blues. His outfit is mostly comprised of cool colors, those which normally resemble sadness, isolation, etc. Essentially, what I'm trying to get at with these colors are that Marc is more open in this scene (alcohol be like) while Frank is still the man we know.

Also, his laughter and bubbles are teal because in the comics, teal is one of the main colors that represent Moon Knight. Look at the Mackay run with its major use of teal. It's beautiful.

AANNNDD there are dots everywhere. I love the dots. There's so many of them. I constantly found myself asking "can I use dots here?" and the answer was yes. Yes, you can always use dots here. At the beginning, it was so the picture could resemble an old comic style, but I kind of gave up six hours in and went crazy without any motive.

I hope you enjoyed my very, very long rant on what this picture is all about!! I really enjoyed drawing this! See the final post here!

[nan0ka]

𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐇♡𝐏𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐄⁰³

summary. you two actually want to reach other a lot better. and it starts with a picture. the first one together.

content. highschool au, fluff, slowburn, childhood friends to lovers, umemiya may seem ooc, little angst.

wordcount. ~2.53k.

❨📁❩ ← previous. ❨🗂️❩ → masterlist. ❨📁❩ → next.

　“YOU'RE in the wind, I'm in the water.”

The music from your headphones blasted through your ears as you dipped the brush into the paint, drawing lines on your canvas. One line, two lines. You easily drew a rose as always. Whenever you began to draw, the first thing you can see is a rose. Now again. The same pink colored rose. But then you get a blackout. You don't know what to draw next. So you just let your hand do your thing.

"—Nobody's son, nobody's daughter. Watching the chemtrails over the country club."

And the moment you think you're done, you pull your hand away to see what you've drawn. "Oh." is the only word that escapes your lips while you were looking at the whole picture. You think you have drawn hundreds of the same picture. A rose being held by a man. White hair. Shining blue eyes. Bright smile. It's always the same thing you draw. It's hard for you to not paint him.

"—Suburbia, The Brentwood Market

What to do next? Maybe we'll love it."

You sighed out annoyed as you leaned your forehead against the canvas, causing your skin to get wet by the fresh paint. But you couldn't care less. After last night, you couldn't think straight anymore. The worst part is, you couldn't even sleep. You tried to erase the very existence of that man out of your mind. Yet everytime you closed your eyes, it was the same picture appearing in your mind.

"—White picket chemtrails over the country club."

Curse him. Curse him for everything. You closed your eyes as you furrowed your eyebrows. Hot breath. Hushed whispers. Warm hand brushing softly against your cheeks. The sweetest smile. This man. You're going crazy. You want to punch him in the face and just leave him confused on the spot. And then you'd still worry about how much it hurts. Was the punch painful? Did it even hurt at all.

"Because I honestly would never forget you."

You also wouldn't forget him.

"I'd be crazy otherwise."

How hasn't he gone crazy yet? You're already going insane because of him.

"Quit gawking at me."

"Can't. Too pretty."

Stupid white-haired man. What's up with him and his brain?

"Promise, I'll take good care of the rose."

He won't break the promise, right? Because he's Umemiya Hajime. And Umemiya Hajime doesn't break promises.

"...May I.. touch your face?"

Every word of his is engraved into your head. They are lingering thoughts. Your ears feel hot. And your face doesn't make it better. You're happy nobody can see you in your pathetic state right now. You think you can't look him straight in the eye anymore. What's up with you? You never had a problem when you both had accidental touches the years before. Now you're getting weak knees.

Sighing, you leaned back and saw the painting again. "I don't want to see you ever again." and with that, you just punched the canvas, making a hole in it. "Stupid dude." you muttered before standing up to wash up your forehead. And when you were done, you took your camera and left your apartment without giving it a second glance. Not even bothering to throw it away.

Because the painting only had a hole beside his head.

─ ⊹ ⊱ ☆ ⊰ ⊹ ─

　You looked at the blue sky and you couldn't even spot one cloud. This is a crime. You were robbed. Where are the clouds who look like cats. You explored the town further to find your inspiration to draw. The people around you greeted you with the friendliest smile while you tried to return it, resulting into a rather awkward one. Gosh how could you only forget that you hated it to be alone on the streets.

"Come over here, boys!"

"—this is our thanks for always saving us!"

"Please visit us again, yeah?"

"You're doing the shopping for Kotoha-chan, right? Take those eggs with you!"

Curiously, your eyes went to the shouting and tumult. But the crowd was so full, you couldn't even see anything. It was probably furin again and you couldn't care less about that school. A sigh left your lips as you walked past them, the grip around your camera got tighter with every second passing. It was loud. Too loud for your liking. And unfortunately, you didn't go unnoticed by the pair of blue eyes.

"[name]-chan?!"

Oh. You should've known he was there when Kotoha's name was mentioned. You should've known. With that, you picked up the pace to avoid public attention and didn't even looked into his direction. But it got so bad, you heard how he literally yelled sorry's while pushing the people around him gently away to get his way to you. "Oh god..." you muttered and began to run away from him.

"U-Umemiya-san?!"

"Hah!? Where is he even going?!"

"[name]-chan!"

You could literally hear the despair in his voice.

─ ⊹ ⊱ ☆ ⊰ ⊹ ─

Silently, you hid in an alley while panting heavily. The sweat rolled over your cheek as you wiped it away with your arm. "That... crazy g-guy..." you mumbled and standing straight up again to lean your back against the wall. "He really did shout my name until he couldn't see me. He even tried to follow me." you closed your eyes and sighed out. "But I was enough lucky enough to escape..."

"Ma'am?"

A yelp escaped your lips as your head immediately turned the unknown voice. There stood a tall young man with brown curtained hair and eyes, paired with a leather eyepatch on his right eye and yellow tassel earrings hanging off a red gem on either side. He wore the Furin High uniform layered on top of a light-colored changshan, loose black pants, and flats in the same color for footwear.

"Oh, it seems like I surprised you a bit. I apologize." he gave you a kind smile with his hands behind his back.

"What do you want, brat." you couldn't even hide your distaste for those furin boys and talked like you were a lot older than them.

"Nothing, really. I was just curious why Umemiya-san wanted to follow you." you groaned at the mention of his name. "I assume you both are acquaintance?"

"Please just leave me alone. I have enough of him. And furin. What did I even do to deserve this?"

"I'm sorry for prying into private matters." he apologized again.

"A sorry doesn't make it up."

"Well, then..." he looks up for second, his finger on his chin while thinking. "Oh! Wanna know what he thinks of you and what he said just moments ago?"

Now you're listening. Your curiosity is going to be your death one day honestly. And the worst part is, you don't wanna act like you're dying to know. What does he think of you? What does he say about you? If someone asks you something like that, you couldn't answer, because you don't know. He could think anything about you. You could even imagine how he thinks of you like a sister.

"Tell me."

Do you even want to know from a complete stranger?

"He-"

"Wait, i'm changing my mind." you interrupted him, while still thinking about it.

The brown-haired boy sweatdropped and shut his lips again, his smile told you that he was rather amused by you. "I don't know if I want know." was your answer. "I don't know if I wanna hear it from you. I wanna hear it from himself." those questions broke your mind. You are dying to know. Does he think positive of you? Does he think negative of you? Does he see you like a sister?

"Who are you?"

"Seems like I forgot to introduce myself. How rude of me." now his smile was apologetic. "Hayato Suo, first year of furin. May I ask for your name, ma'am?"

"[lastname] [name]. I hate violence."

"Ah, I heard a lot about you-"

"[name]-chan, found you!"

Out of nowhere, two arms wrapped around your tensed body, restraining your arms, and his loud voice made you flinch. "H-Hey! Don't touch me, you-" your head turned to him. Oh. You closed your lips, holding yourself back to complain. His face was really close, but then he leaned his forehead against your shoulder. You noticed that he was out of breath, panting like you did.

Crazy, how he didn't even sweat.

"Let me stay like this for a while... please." he whispered.

Your cheeks were painted in a light red color as you stayed still. A sigh left your lips once again as you looked ahead to Suo, who chuckled. "You two are really close and that answered my question already. I won't pry anymore." a first-year was watching. How embarrassing. You could die on the spot. And he even thought wrong now. That adds more weight to the embarrassment.

"You said you heard a lot about me." you brought up his last sentence before he got interrupted by Umemiya. "Does he talk... good about me?"

"Curious, aren't we?" he chuckled. "How about you ask him yourself?"

And with that being said, he just turned his back to you and walked away, leaving you alone with the white-haired man who refused to let you go. "Traitor." you whispered blankly. "I hate kids. Kids these days are pretty rude." you're talking like you weren't rude at all as a kid. You're still rude. To people you dislike or straight up hate. And you kept your mean thoughts for yourself. Most of the time.

"Hajime?"

"Mmh?"

"Let go."

"Please let me hug you longer. I don't get to do it very often." he sounds like a defeated puppy to be honest.

"...fine." you sighed, going to your usual self around him.

"Why did you run away from me?"

"Because." ah. You don't have an explanation. Not a good one. "I just felt like... having a quiet rest day for myself. And you aren't the calmest one."

"You should've told me."

"It would've hurt your feelings." you muttered. "And yet... At the end I still told you."

"[name]." he lets loose, making you think you're free from his hold, only for him to place his hands on your shoulders and turn you around. "It saddens me it if you take distance from me. But I can absolutely not stand it if you run away from me. I thought my life was over."

Your eyes widened as he said that with a complete serious face. Since when could he make such a face? Oh gosh, you have a lot more things to learn about him. His ocean like blue eyes locked into your [e/c] ones. "I despise being away from you. Everything tastes so bitter. Even Kotoha's omurice. And I love her omurice. Like hell, it's my favorite dish on earth." he doesn't sound serious at all.

"Hajime. What am I to you?"

"The best part of my day."

While your questions accidentally slipped out of your lips, his answer came out immediately. Like he was waiting forever. He didn't waste or hesitate a second to answer your question. Now you feel silly. Silly for doubting him. Silly for not being aware of his answer. "I'm such a fool." you sighed out, closing your eyes and laughing out. Please. When was the last time you laughed?

"Me too. We can be both fools together."

"No, I thought I know a lot about you, but in reality. I know little to nothing about you. And this irritates me."

"Then let's start over. I'll begin to teach you what I like and you'll teach me. I really wanna know a lot more about you. The curiosity is killing me. You're killing me." he begins to ramble again with the most excited smile. "But it's fine if you do."

"You're insane." you insulted him and took his wrist. "I think you're the real fool."

"Let me be your fool!"

"Absolutely not."

His eyes went down to your camera. "Wait." he said and took out his phone to look at the back of his phone case which was full of pictures. "We know each other for... eight years and still didn't take one picture of us together. Let's take one, right not, shall we?" he suggested with a smile, while he was literally beaming at his own idea. Oh. Right. Have you ever taken a photo with him?

"Sure." you watched as his hands wandered to your camera. "But not here. We're in an alley."

"Doesn't matter. Every picture looks good if you're on it." he's still smiling.

You sighed with the smallest smile on your lips as you watched how he carefully took your camera. "How does that work?" he asked and fumbled with your precious camera before turning it on while you were watching him. "Oh... uh and now?" he questioned and pressed every button to test it out. "Oh! There are a lot of photos of childhood pictures of me!" his eyes began to sparkle.

"What." the smile dropped in seconds after you realised what he just said.

Quickly, you grabbed the camera from his hands with a red face. How could you forget?! Gosh, this day couldn't get worse. You scrolled through the gallery and noticed how many pictures you had of him, while shutting your mouth completely. Aren't you a stalker? "Let's just get it over." you grumbled and gave him back the camera. "I hope you know how to shoot a photo."

"Right, right!" he chuckled amused.

As he hold the turned camera out with his one arm, he wrapped his other arm around your neck. "Three... two... one." he counted, but at the last second he twisted his face to you and placed his soft lips against your forehead. The flash blinded you, not giving you much time to react as he kissed your head. And when the flash came the second time, your small smile dropped.

─ ⊹ ⊱ ☆ ⊰ ⊹ ─

　"Please send me the picture." Umemiya plead liked a kicked puppy.

"No."

"But I need it, [name]-chan!" he whined. "I need it! I want to put it in my phone case."

"That's what you get." you rolled your eyes. "Besides that, isn't your phone case already full with other pictures? If you add one more, it'll explode."

While he was complaining the whole time, you both walked out of the alley towards town. On topic inspiration, you didn't even find anything you wanted to draw. The only reason you crawled out of your apartment. Yet you didn't even do what you intended to. How unlucky you are. But still, it was worth going out. Only because you met him again. That guy you didn't even want to see. He still makes you happy. Crazy, right?

"Yeah, I think so too." he took his phone out and looked at the pictures. "They all are pretty old. How about I replace them all with a new one?"

"You wouldn't lay all those pictures to the side for our picture." you chuckled lightly, knowing he only joked around.

"Oh believe me. I would for you."

- NAN0KA [ june 3rd, 2024 ]

[twinky-linky]

so it's midterms or smth and i have to turn in all* my drawings so here we go

these two were done with graphite and were both done with random still life. the first one was just a contour so no rendering was necessary. It think it's pretty strong but also boring. the second one I'm very proud of the angle and actually getting it to look right. i liked drawing the flowers until I got bored of it and then I didnt

this was our first actual homework assignment and i drew some controllers and amiibo because that's all i have in my dorm that's interesting.

*so inbetween the controller still life and these paintings we did charcoal and I can not stand charcoal I hate that it gets messing and it makes my entire body vibrate like mildly the feeling of nails on a chalkboard so basically I used the blending stump mostly and never finished the drawings because I hate charcoal rant over

these were really fun because i really like using ink. the first one is a still life and there was like a plastic torso and a roller skate and some other things that were fun to put detail into. the paper bag was fun and I liked doing the layering to get darker, but I think I started too dark. my professor is gonna tell me the background is too empty and it looks like its floating. finally the last one is supposed to be abstract so do with it what you will.

these two are from left to right, one point perspective and a two point perspective. the first one is just a random room I came up with and I kinda just kept adding things to show perspective. the second one is a rendition of the tesseract from interstellar because that's my favorite movie :)

and this is what i did yesterday. a face study of jenna ortega but its only vaguely jenna because not every face is the same and it was hard to show the proportions of her face with the guide we used but its okay I made it work and just drew lines randomly lol

[briannas-casebook]

ANIMATION CONTEXT: AI IMAGERY AND EARLY ANIMATION

In last week's Animation Context session, the teacher drew our attention to several articles, including one on the subject of AI-generated images and art. This sparked some discussion in the chat about the subject, and I was particularly active in it. I do regret not phrasing some of my points in the most professional way, so here are my thoughts on the subject now:

I believe that, much like CG and digital effects, AI generation has the potential to work with human artists in both traditional and digital fields in a way that enhances both mediums, rather than one outright replacing the other. With AI prompts, artists can create thumbnail compositions or even variations of a single idea to then sketch or draw by hand or tablet. A good example of this kind of workflow would be this video by the artist Vortney of the ProjectSNT Youtube Channel. They used AI art to make images of Sonic the Hedgehog's original characters and then used one of the images as a sort of base to then create her own OC organically.

However, while I do see the potential for AI generated images as a useful tool, I do not feel comfortable endorsing or using the software created for it for this reason: the plagiarism of human artists and the idea AI can or even should replace human-made art.

One of the most popular AI image generator programs used for AI art, Dall-e 2, is fed by a database of existing art on google images, which includes the work of digital artists who posted their work online but did not grant consent or receive credit for the use of those images in the AI generator. So much of the "art" that is generated by these programs is, at best, an amalgam of these human artists' work. which means not only would calling an Ai generated image on its own 'an original piece' by the person who put in the prompt be misleading, but it would also be blatant plagiarism of thousands if not millions of human artists' hard work. In a way, for Dall-e 2, anyway, this is by design, as the creator of the program, Elon Musk, seems to actively hate the fact that human artists have the ability to make what they do and receive credit and compensation for it. In a tweet from 15th of June 2019:

"I wish people would stop crediting artists on Twitter when any fool can find out who the artist was in seconds - it's destroying the medium"

There is also the problem of "tech bros" and some misguided artists being gung-ho about the idea that AI art is so "advanced" that it will outright replace human artists. Even ignoring how utterly ridiculous and unrealistic the idea of humans giving up on art solely because an image-creating algorithm can create what are essentially regurgitated images. These AI programs create images from word prompts by using human-made art as fuel. So if human art did cease to exist where would they get their image-creating fodder from?

So to sum it up; I do understand how AI generation may have some potential to help human artists. However, until problems like the plagiarism of human artists and the toxic culture that glorifies this as the next big thing are addressed and fixed in a meaningful way, I'm personally not comfortable endorsing or using AI art tools.

In the latter half of the session, we learned about several classic short films from the early 1900s. These films included Le Voyage Dans la Lune - A trip to the Moon (1902) by Georges Méliès, Fantasmagorie (1908) by Emile Cohl, and how a Mosquito Operates by Winsor McCay. We examined the many ways in which the movements of these pieces, particularly Fantasmagorie and How a Mosquito Operates look and behave radically differently to animations that would be released even just a few decades later. This was before the establishment of studios such as Fleischer Studios or Disney animation, let alone the era where Disney animators Frank Tomas and Olie Johnston established the now-famous 12 principles of animation. The early 1900s were the years when animation was starting to be more widely explored as a filmmaking medium, and many of the animations from this time were more experimental. As a result, the way these films look and feel may seem odd and even jarring to the eyes of a modern animation-viewing audience. For instance, the movements of Mosquito and Fantasmagorie are very linear and robotic, with very little natural timing or tempo. Also, in the Mosquito, eagle-eyed viewers may notice the repeating or looping frames and the rather drawn-out pace of the film in general. This is because back in the early 1900s, animators like Winsor MaCay were paid by the number of frames they drew in a film. Hence to get his moneys worth, MaCay, without spending too much extra time and effort, repeated some frames and drew out the runtime.

My favorite of the MaCay films we were shown this session was How the Mosquito Operates for the mosquito character. There's something about the insect that feels unlike any other I've seen in animation. It makes sense given this is probably the earliest depiction of insects in animation. In most animations I've seen, insects are highly anthropomorphised to the point of being unrecognizable as insects. With most cartoon insects looking like round goblins with rubbery mouths than an insect, losing a lot of the traits that made insects so unique as living creatures. With the titular mosquito of MaCays film, while there is some stylisation with the way the eyes of the creature are drawn, this mosquito looks very true to the look of an actual insect. With its six spindly legs, its long wings, and its abdomen, each rendered in realistic detail, which makes me think MaCay had to have studied the insects from scientific illustrations or even in the flesh to achieve this. Even in the movements, little details such as the way the insect occasionally rubs its legs together are remarkably true to the real subject. This minimal anthropomorphisation was likely intentional to enhance the unsettling nature of the creature and heighten disgust when the creature takes blood from the human character while he sleeps. My fellow classmates noted in the call chat that the mosquito's "nose" goes unsettlingly deep into the human's face.

Overall, I gained a lot of insight into the subjects discussed in this lesson. I'm glad I was able to share my opinions on these topics and see the opinions of my fellow students and my teacher.