#but also i enjoy the process of making art

[cowbrain]

"You're wrong to think of it as work" sure is the take ever, huh

A huge part of the artistic process is doing something you absolutely hate. That's a pretty common sentiment! I personally hate doing lineart so I largely do not and that makes my process a lot more enjoyable from start to finish.

Art is different for everybody and everyone likes different things at different points in their lives. I right now am really liking the whole ' make this sketch look not like shit' phase. But for every half decent sketch there's 700 looser, messier sketches trying to nail what I'm going for and honestly? That can be pretty exhausting.

For example v

This kind of mechanical cycle exists in some form in every stage of art, it's just the process. And it can take a long time!

Personally, a big part of art is getting my ideas down physically, but once I feel like it's 'good enough' I lose interest in 'finishing' it, whatever that would look like for each piece. Sometimes as you go, you realize that something isn't having the effect you want and you gotta go in and fix that. That's the work part. That sucks.

I doodled this out recently and was happy with the sketch, but I realized that adding some form of shading would convey my ideas better and the process of trying to figure out shading was such a slog.

I went from a very organic, fun sketch process to suddenly a very mechanical, thought-intensive one to bust out something that added 2 hours to something I felt was 'done'. That was killer.

This got kind of long but tl;dr people enjoy different parts of the artistic process but sometimes you gotta do stuff you don't like and anything you don't like is going to feel like work, whatever that is. There's also the feedback loop of creating, posting, and having people react that hits parts of the brain good that probably plays a factor somewhere, and also there's a creative vs. technical aspect to art and a lot of people struggle with one or the other or even the switch in the same drawing.

Lots of artists lately talking about burnout and how they no longer find the process fun and enjoyable.

And I'm over here like........you guys EVER found that enjoyable?? Was I supposed to???

It is not fun to do the work itself. It's never crossed my mind that it could be. Having something finished is great and I can't stop making things but the process required to have made something is just arduous tedious labor. you do it for the result alone, not the hours of sitting still staring at the same surface.

It must be awesome to ever be capable of enjoying a form of "work" 😕

[narfin-frood]

Hi! I'm a big fan of your art, and I just wanted to know, did you study the WOY art style? I'm asking because the way you draw each character, Hater especially, is so expressive! Do you have any tips with expressions? Thank you!

thank you so much!! and to kinda answer your question: while what i do is, technically, studying, that's not what it feels like. i genuinely just enjoy looking at character sheets. a lot of the time they'll include little notes about things you wouldn't think about unless you're told to, like wander's eyes typically angling towards each other at the bottom or sylvia's eyes obscuring the full width of her neck.

(i have any one of these open in my reference panel almost always! not only are these full of tips & tricks for your everyday sketching, they're full of rules for each character, which are meant to be broken in interesting and fun ways.)

[im gonna pack a bunch of other, tangentially related tips and tricks and thoughts into the readmore, including my personal breakdown of hater's expressions specifically, so feel free to give it a click. long post ahead]

a lot of stuff can be picked up by just watching the cartoon as many times as you want. i have watched every episode (minus big fucking baby episode, which i hate) like 6 times over, sometimes more (looking at you the rager), and that has definitely solidified my wander over yonder visual library.

also, wander over yonder's art style already fits in with the way i draw, because i LOVEE long curvy lines and super crisp & clear silhouettes!!

as for why/how i get hater so expressive.... that mainly has to do with the fact that i think he's So Cute. He's So Cute and i wanna Squash Him. and his character design reflects that!!!

his hood is his eyebrow and his eyes may or may not be rolling around in their sockets, and his nose is a little upside down heart. but all of the lord hater emotion is stored in the chin. lord hater has a bunch of specific and VERY malleable options for mouth shapes, depending on what makes the expression and lipsync look clearest.

you can keep it super simple, with a clear divide between his top and bottom jaw, and do several round bumps for teeth, which they do a lot when tweening, like this:

this kind of seems to be his default state, depending heavily on the episode and when it was made and who was drawing him the most, of course.

you can also keep his jaw and skull distinct, but keep his teeth straight and flush with each other, which helps for sharper expressions, esp. anger or frustration, but can also work for a good "squee". he also sometimes pouts so hard his chin eats his mouth, which is, again, cute.

if you're having trouble keeping an expression clear while also maintaining the distinction between his jaw and the rest of his skull, it's pretty common also to forego most of the overt skeleton bits, save for a few hatch marks to indicate teeth (sometimes squiggles or bumps, when he's yelling about it). in my head i affectionately refer to this style of hater expression as the "peanut sans"

none of these convey the intensity of emotion you're looking for? fear not, you can also always just go Full Skeleting. and give his teeth a full outline. this is great for Pain and Strain and Nefariousness.

and then there are a million expressions in between and possibilities within these parameters beyond your wildest belief. nothing should hold you back from a really fucked-up lord hater expression. not proportion. not structure. ESPECIALLY not symmetry. please. make his chin bigger. make his head bigger. make one eye bigger. make him look in two different directions. scrunch his nose up. whatever it takes. by all means. i implore you to have fun

(honorable mention. his W face. the face when he says the consonant W. sometimes OO. i'm. obsessed. with it . he looks. kity)

anyway. lord hater tangent aside. i could also share my own process for expressions, but it really just hinges on what looks appealing/what i like the most/what communicates the emotion i want to communicate the clearest, and it varies between characters and people.

it helps to, again, build your visual library, and look at lots and lots of funny faces, both in real life and in cartoons you like. make funny faces in the mirror and try to focus on what parts of your face change shape or interact with other parts of your face when you do something like smile really wide or drop your jaw. your skin is taut, and there's a bunch of muscle and fat attached to your bones, so when one big bone moves, a bunch of muscles and fat under the surface will shift around too, and understanding that relationship is really helpful in the long run, both for drawing real people and for drawing cartoons.

and the easiest way to retain information like that is to have fun while you study. stop thinking of it as studying and start thinking of it as gathering information on this thing you like a lot and want to do more of, like when you scroll through someone's account to look at all their art, and just. do more of that. do more exploring and observing. since animation is my special interest, this part is pretty easy for me, but it does still take practice to get into that mindset, especially when you convince yourself you have to be super strict and rigid to make it in the art world. focus on drawing and observing what makes YOU happy first, and everything else will follow.

and don't worry about taking notes. don't worry about remembering everything you look at. just look at things you like, and think about them for longer than you usually would. think about the shapes and colors. what makes that drawing so darn appealing to you, besides subject matter and the vague concept of an "artstyle"? you'll be surprised just how abstract what appeals to you can be. for me, with expressions especially, it comes down to random shit like "i like when the edge of a character's mouth creates a tangent with the outline of their head" instead of "pretty eyes" or other, vaguer elements. and that shit i like becomes a part of my artstyle, but only when it fits in and looks appealing, because you can't do stuff like this in every single drawing & retain a full range of expression

ANYway. i hope this made some sense/helped at least a little. i like lord hater a lot. and i also like to draw

[vyl3tpwny]

genuine question: why is genesis so low on ur topsters?

also, if you can: could i hear why hawaii: part ii is rated 3.5 on ur rateyourmusic? (as opposed to like. anything higher)

(p. s. your music inspires me to be the sincerest version of myself, and for that i thank you. the impact you've had on my life is unforgettable.)

genesis isn't rated low. my number one album of all time is genesis' "the lamb lies down on broadway", for about 16 years running. my topster is organized by relative colour, it's not perfect but it just looks nice!

—

when it comes to talking about music, what i like and like about it, almost 100% of the time i NEVER want to discourage people, talk down to artists, or claim my opinion as fact. the only time i will actively talk down about art is if it's purposefully harmful (see artists like: Tom Macdonald, etc).

with that said, music by miracle musical - and by extension tally hall - often does this thing where there are a handful of really impressive, well written songs that just blow me away. but then the rest of the album outside of those handful of songs are either just ok/catchy or don't interest me very much. the tally hall gang's highs are very high, and equally their lows are just sort of pace-killers for the albums.

it's dynamics like these that prevent me from liking some of my other albums for similar problems! i think albums like queen of misfits and glitter are bogged down by an absurd amount of boring filler that could have just been left out or reworked to be more interesting, it makes it hard to ever listen to those albums front to back. ironically i don't feel that way about fairytails, my 40-song long ass album, almost everything in it still feels rather purposeful to me. i listen to my own music a lot, and once i've finished a project i tend to try and listen to it and enjoy it from an audience perspective rather than an artist one.

while i'm on the topic, i don't necessarily agree with even rating hawaii pt. ii 3.5 because in the past few years i've completely lost interest in the idea of weighing albums by arbitrary scores. nowadays i like to just give 4-5's to albums i like and then ignore anything else. it doesn't really make sense to me to assign a number score to something with good faith, other than to show that score to other people. interfacing with art is not a black and white process. despite the so-called 3.5/5.0 score i gave hawaii pt. ii whenever that was, the reality is that record has influenced me and i've enjoyed it. honestly that's what matters the most. we can sit here and talk album dynamics, technicalities, compositional proficiency, lyric profundity, and """""consistency"""""" (which is a word music critics love to throw around without actually realizing what the fuck they're talking about) all day, but what matters the most is:

Did you like the music? (Yes/No)

Did it inspire you in some way? (Yes/No) [Optional]

Does it seek to do harm? (Yes/No)

Do you respect the efforts and goals of the artist? (Yes/No) [Should always be the inverse of Question 3; i.e; if you answer No to 3, then you should answer Yes to 4]

honestly if you answer yes, yes, no, yes, then it's a good album. i really don't care. not every piece of art has to push the envelope to new heights and be the most innovative thing in the world - i mean wouldn't that be extremely fatiguing and overwhelming? everyone wants to be a critic and tear down shit that doesn't click with them within the first viewing/listen these days, i don't know why, it's probably an ego thing, bred by the echo chambers in the corners of the internet. but a lot of music criticism can be COMPLETELY discarded in favour of "this just isn't for me", and a lot of people go leaps and bounds, doing mental gymnastics over internal compensations, to just avoid saying the dreaded phrase of "this just isn't for me".

trust me, i'm someone who has immense experience with tearing other people down to compensate for my internal insecurities, it happens extremely often which is why a lot of art criticism makes ZERO fucking sense. it's never about making meaningful commentary about anything, it's always just trying to justify in the format of a dissertation - the subjective experience of "this just isn't for me".

so. do i like hawaii pt. ii? yep. is it a perfect album? no. why did i rate it 3.5? probably because at the time i wanted someone somewhere to perceive me as Very Articulated and Well Educated In The Realm of Discussing Art In Front of Other People, in Order to Appear Superior in Intellect and Refined in Taste, Because I'm Insecure Just Like Everyone Else.

[missarchive]

Okay, here's a fun plot! Hannibal x reader who has never travelled in a day of her life. Like all she's ever done is road trips and such. So when he wants to make plans to visit Italy again (I can imagine he likes revisiting his roots for reflection and just enjoying the art), it's a really daunting thing for her. Alternatively, he books the flight without telling her, maybe he knows about her lack of experience, maybe he does not, wink wink. And he can get that ego boost of helping a sweet S/O on her first trip.

Bonus points of the reader is scared of flying AHAHAHHAH

Thanks you!!!

I am also deathly scared of flying 😖 poor poor reader

cw; fear of flying, literally nothing else just fluff, hannibal being a gentleman

You loved Hannibal. You really did. But when he slid the sleek black folder across the breakfast table, his words silky and precise, you felt your stomach plummet as though you were already 30,000 feet in the air.

"I’ve taken the liberty of arranging a short reprieve in Florence for us," he said, his dark eyes locking onto yours with the satisfaction of a man who had just executed a perfect plan.

You blinked down at the itinerary, your pulse quickening as the words “First Class – Florence” stared back at you. First class or not, this was a flight. An international flight. Your palms began to sweat.

“Hannibal…” you started, unsure how to voice the jumble of fear and hesitation swirling in your mind. “I—I’ve never flown before. I’ve never even been out of the country.”

His brow quirked, the faintest sign of surprise in his otherwise serene expression. “Is that so?” His voice was laced with intrigue, but there was no mockery, no condescension.

You nodded, looking down at your lap. “I’ve only ever done road trips. The thought of flying… it’s just…” You trailed off, hoping he’d understand without needing further explanation.

He rose from his chair, moving to your side with a grace that only Hannibal could manage. His hand settled lightly on your shoulder, his touch as reassuring as it was firm. “My dear, it seems I shall have the distinct privilege of introducing you to the skies. Fear is natural, but you needn’t face it alone.”

His words were warm, soothing. But as much as you trusted him, the idea of hurtling through the air in a metal tube still made your chest tighten.

When the day arrived, you were a bundle of nerves. Hannibal, ever the epitome of calm, had everything prepared. He handled the check-in process with ease, and before you knew it, you were settled into the plush first-class seat, the hum of the engines already making your pulse race.

“I’ve taken the liberty of requesting chamomile tea for you,” Hannibal said, handing you a steaming cup. “It’s quite effective in soothing the nerves.”

You took it with a grateful, albeit shaky, smile. He leaned in closer, his voice low and intimate. “Remember, this is merely the beginning of a journey. Allow yourself to savor the experience. Focus on the discovery, not the apprehension.”

You nodded, clutching the tea like a lifeline. But as the engines roared to life and the plane began to ascend, panic bubbled in your chest. Your hand gripped the armrest until Hannibal’s found it, his fingers curling around yours with steady reassurance.

“Breathe,” he murmured, his thumb brushing against your knuckles. “You are safe.”

You focused on his voice, his presence anchoring you as the plane leveled out. Slowly, the tightness in your chest eased, and you dared to look out the window. The sight of clouds stretching endlessly across the sky was oddly calming.

“You’re doing beautifully,” Hannibal said, his tone tinged with pride.

The first glimpse of Florence took your breath away. Hannibal guided you through the city with the ease of someone deeply familiar with its every corner. He pointed out hidden frescoes and whispered stories of the Medici family as you wandered through cobblestone streets.

At the Uffizi Gallery, he lingered beside Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, his gaze reverent. “Do you see how her form embodies both vulnerability and power?” he asked, his hand lightly brushing your back. "She's much like you."

You nodded, the awe in your chest mirrored in his. For the first time, you understood why he loved this city.

As the days passed, your fear of flying became a distant memory, replaced by the wonder of experiencing a world so different from your own. Hannibal reveled in your transformation, his pride evident in the small smiles he gave when you tried a new dish or eagerly asked him about a piece of art.

On your final evening, you turned to him as the sun set over the Arno River, painting the city in gold. “Thank you,” you said softly. “For everything. For bringing me here. For being patient with me.”

His gaze softened, and he took your hand in his. “It is I who should thank you, my dear. It is a rare gift to guide someone through their first steps into a larger world. And I am honoured to be the one by your side.”

[zombeebunnie]

Happy New year: Future plans regarding Trembling Essence!

Hello guys, hope you all are having a wholesome happy new year so far! I want to start things fresh so here's what to expect:

Here's a TLDR if you want an easy summary: Game updates might be every two weeks - one month, the script for the game is being updated which includes removing some scrapped content to make sure the overall story gets a better opportunity to shine. I am also working on updating ko-fi/patreon + commissions.

Updates regarding Trembling Essence:

Game development posts: I enjoyed uploading weekly* updates during 2023/2024 but starting this year, I no longer have that much free time anymore. Depending on how everything goes updates might(?) be every two weeks to possibly 1 month(???). In lighter news it'll give myself time to process the script, answer asks, and miscellaneous things to avoid burn-out. :,] Script fixing: When I originally created this in January 2023, I was going for a survival horror-game. The 2023 demo isn't canon and I stopped referencing it since March/April 2023. Now that it has both horror and dating-sim elements I'm going over certain sections/new concepts and slowly adjusting them. The original lore isn't being changed but will be updated over time with my improved writing style and overall story telling. This also includes all the routes/paths that weren't in the [Extended Demo]. Scrapped content: I was extremely new to everything and when genuine interest was shown in what I've been creating, I got very ambitious . ((Those that have been here since the early days probably remember that one post I made about writing over 10+ routes.:,]))Now that I'm getting a better idea of what I truly want for the game, some content moving forward will be cut to make sure the true story gets a better opportunity to shine. :]

Other things that will be updated within the game:

UI/GUI update - I want to give the game a more distinctive theme. :]

CG update - Specifically fixing old art from the [Extended Demo].

Art Gallery - For CG collecting, future easter eggs etc.

Route update - Fixing paths and keeping them balanced.

Ending's update - Fixing endings to line up with new/changed content.

Kofi / Patreon: I talked about wanting to create a Patreon a long time ago and I really would like to create a monthly-tip jar / possible game credit perk for those that would like to support the development of the game, this is still a work in progress though. And speaking of Ko-fi, I had been asked about doing commissions in the past and I wasn't ready to accept any but I hope to take in a few to help out behind the scenes especially since the battery to my computer is still dead and I don't want to risk losing game progress again from it randomly shorting out like before. :,]

Sneak peak into next week's game development post:

I wanted to keep the development post separate from this so it wouldn't make this post super long but here's a vague look into how things being updated behind the scenes! :]

This is all I have to share so far, thank you guys for all of the continued support throughout 2024! I hope 2025 will be just as great if not better! :,D

[ikjun]

Do you have any In ho and Jun ho headcanons?

thank you for this ask! putting these under a read more cause there's a whole bunch!

i can't remember if it was mentioned explicitly or only implied but inho raised junho more than anyone else. with their sixteen year age difference and the way junho has not only modelled his own life after his brother's but there being so much dedication and devotion to have inho there, because he has always been there, inho has been brother, parental figure, best friend and the closest person to junho through all of his life. with inho's very dutiful nature, it also makes sense to me that he looked after junho (and junho's mother) after the death of their father.

in vein with inho raising junho, i also consider him to have been extremely present in junho's life from being a child to the adult junho is now considering his one week absence was so unthinkable and out of the blue to junho that he upended the world (seoul) to figure out where inho went without telling him. that plot premise says so much about their relationship and how inho is the most important person in junho's life, even more important than his own mother. that devotion speaks tenfold of who they are without them having to speak about it (though junho does plenty).

one of the things that they share is a mutual love for baseball that inho instilled in junho to have something just the two of them do together. inho is a really good batter and junho is a really good pitcher. they used to do play catch a lot through junho's childhood and still met at batting cages in the city to spend time together (junho likes to act like his brother's batting is on par with the national league. he would be wrong but he doesn't care inho is his favourite baseball player.)

if you watch the show you notice that inho is left-handed. considering junho has wanted to be like his brother his entire life i love to imagine a stint of him trying to become fully left-handed too and ending up ambidextrous because of it. hence it coming in handy not only as a police officer but also when playing baseball with inho!

inho took junho to several operas to try and share a love for the arts with him. he took him to see un ballo in maschera (ha ha ha), queen of spades, carmen, turandot, eugene onegin, die zauberflöte, and rigoletto. inho likes verdi and russian composers. junho didn't like any of it but went along because he likes doing things that inho enjoys and to see his brother enjoy himself. junho as a person doesn't listen to much music at all, but classical music is something he immediately connects to inho.

junho got along really well with inho's wife. he liked having someone around who knew all of inho's idiosyncrasies in a way he did and for inho to finally have someone that took care of him (besides junho though inho refuses every direct attempt of junho's) and that inho could be at home with.

when inho's wife died, inho was, of course, chief mourner. junho never left his side during the entire funeral processions and mourning period, only did so when he had to run errands to make things easier on inho. inho didn't like junho taking care of things instead of him but he also was in no state to refuse him and internally a part of him was relieved to have his brother around.

it was a bit after that when inho moved into the dormitory, which remained an issue between him and junho ever since. junho wanted inho to move in with him, wanted to look after him and give back what inho has done for him his entire life, but inho never wants to see junho in a position of care-taking between them. when it is the two of them, inho wants to be the sole provider and protector, never wanting to burden junho like that.

inho is generally a gentle person. he was more so before the games, especially around junho and then later also his wife, but even the show displays junho was inho's moral achilles heel. the front-man could be ruthless and violent and cold, he could lie and deceive and be volatile to someone like gihun only to get what he wants, but even now inho has a deep well of tenderness and softness for junho alone.

during his childhood and teens, junho did judo and taekwando and was so good at the former that he could have become a national athlete if it weren't for his chronic kidney disease. he picked up both after starting university and kept at it as an adult, but to his dismay inho could never be a training partner for him considering their different weight. inho likes to go and watch junho train though, proud of his brother retaining a lot of his past capability when he picked the sports up again.

junho feels a sense of guilt for the kidney transplant inho gave him but just how he doesn't allow junho to take care of him in the material sense he took care of junho growing up, he will not allow junho to feel guilty for it. if it were up to inho, he'd give junho everything, even his own death, if it would keep him alive. he only stops at the latter because he knows it will break junho's heart and he never wants to be the cause of that (although he already was.)

and on a lighter note of the previous hc, inho would and could and has spoilt junho rotten to the best of his abilities no matter his salary and would for years refuse to talk about his income with junho to not make him worry about what he's doing. that backfires spectacularly once he wins the game and hides his insane wealth from junho for years.

[lotus-pear]

11/20

[masterofiodine]

i absolutely adore that photo of ben and i just had to draw him (/cap) like that

[terror-billie]

I feel like the AI art discussion really crystallized the philosophical distinctions between results-focused and process-focused approaches to art in a way that really hadn't come to the foreground before. Probably because results-focused people only really had the option to a) pay artists or b) learn art and buckle down enough to create what they want. Neither of those are going to be interrogated, as both are obviously good.

And it's been really interesting to see this discussion brought to the surface for this massive disconnect we've largely ignored.

I had a tattoo client ask if I ever used AI to design tattoos for me. Man I spent the better part of a decade doing shitty bit work as a graphic designer and now that I have the space to do whatever I want, I'm gonna let the computer generate random garbage for me? What next should I have a computer that eats my dinner and fucks my wife?

[essenceofarda]

Legolas and Gimli as Woodland Creatures au! Legolas is a squirrel, which made sense to me because he's a tree elf :) Gimli is an Elephant Shrew, which is because they are not only burrowing creatures, but fierce little buggers too!

Lord of the Wood(land) Creatures au for more! Hoping to continue this au and at least finish all the Fellowship characters :)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Happy very belated birthday.. I hope you had much time celebrating by digging for tubers : )

I'M DIGGING FOR TUBERS! AND NO ONE CAN STOP ME!

[destructo-range]

blorbo supreme

image ID under the cut

[Image ID: A digital drawing of the character Freminet from the video game Genshin Impact holding a Blahaj, a stuffed shark toy from ikea. The colour scheme is mostly blue. Freminet is a young white boy with straight blonde hair that goes down to his chin, with sharply cut bangs hanging over his right eye from the viewer's perspective. He has blue eyes and pale eyelashes as well as freckles. He is dressed in his usual in game outfit minus his beret, a short sleeved and short legged diving suit with a thick navy coat over the top. It has pale beige and gold lining with golden detailing. The sleeves are rolled up and the hood falls around his sholders. The coat is somewhat short, going down to his mid-thigh. He is wearing navy fingerless gloves that also have golden detailing. Freminet also has large shiny navy lace-up boots, with chunky golden soles with some more metallic details around his ankles (coming out almost like folds) and around the top edge. There is also a small pack strapped to his thigh coloured in neon blue and the shoes also have some neon blue highlights on a part of the top rim. He has a pensive expression and is looking off into the distance, holding the blahaj in his arms with one leg curled around it. w/.End ID]

[sketchtheinfinity]

the tv show percy doodles were cute, can you do annabeth ones as well? 👍

I'm still in the middle of finals and I didn't really have time to make more but here she is!

[arttlars]

Sanuso art I did for Valentine's day hehe

[lightbulb-warning]

so has anyone figured out WHY there is the Need To Share our Artworks™ or is it just the vibes and our Soul apparently

[fellamarsh]

RELATED to my last post i think we should kill the notion that you have to keep your writing or art or whatever kind of themed blog strictly On Theme. because of professionalism or whatever

like you are the artist (or curator). you are inextricably linked to that which you create. you are inherently on theme. also i like to hear about the weird thing your sister said or the really bangin sandwich you ate