#but more so because i think it tends to give line art a sort of generic and lifeless feel?

[slashercult]

pick an image to find out how your future spouse is with you

reminder that not all of the messages in this reading may apply to everyone. so with that i urge you to take what resonates and leave the rest. don't force anything if it does not fit. this reading is mainly just for fun. don't forget to follow or reblog if you want to see me do more readings like this.

pile one

this person is obsessed w you, like they are in LOVE love. & i dont mean in like a creepy "they are never going to leave you alone" type of obsessed, more like you are their favorite person ever and they love hanging out w you all the time. some drake lyrics were coming thru while doing this reading: "everybody has an addiction, mine happens to be you." i feel like very rarely will this person ever not get excited to just be in your presence during your whole marriage. like i can still picture them looking at you the same way they did on your wedding day even when you're both old n grey. they also happen to be a huge romantic so it makes a lot of sense. whenever they have good news they rush to tell you bc they want you to be the first person to share their happiness with. they're overall very sweet, i don't see them being the jealous type - i think they trust you enough to be scared of you going off with some other person. and you'll never even think about anyone else when you're with them because they treat you so well.

pile two

this person's love language is deff physical touch and it'll show when you're around them. they love hugging you and being intimate and doing all that sort of stuff. they honestly do not care where you both are because nothing is going to stop them from giving you forehead kisses or hugs. they love the way that you smell, it reminds them of walks in nature and pieces from their childhood. they love teasing you as well, they're very affectionate w you. they're incredibly supportive and also humble. i see you both being on a ton of trips, particularly road trips, but normal traveling is also coming through. i feel this person may not be as outspoken ab how much they love you, like they won't outright say "i think you're the most beautiful person i know" to you but don't worry bc they definitely think that you are. they have a very unique way of showing their love and i feel that you are someone who tends to pay more attention to details than others which makes you perfect for this person because while others may overlook or misinterpret them, you see them for who they are.

pile three

this person is super fun to be around, like they have the best energy ever. & i dont mean in a "they're always the life of the party" way, more like they make even the smallest moments feel special. i feel like whenever you're having a bad day, this person knows exactly how to cheer you up without even trying. they're the kind of person who surprises you with little thingamabobs and trinkets all the time just to see you smile. like they'll randomly bring you food that you like without you even asking them. they also happen to have a great sense of humor (that's kind of subtle but you like it) so you'll always be laughing a lot together. they’re overall very supportive of you, i don’t see them being the type to criticize your dreams. you'll always feel appreciated bc they will never take you for granted. though his laid-back and relaxed personality are behaviors you see often, you know your future spouse better than anyone. they're very inspiring and honestly i feel like you both will work on a project together bc you share similar dreams (i'm seeing some sort of art form, probably like writing or smth along those lines)

thanks for reading! if you enjoyed or resonated please heart and reblog so i can do more of these readings.

[tibbycaps]

Do you know have any tips on how to draw a comic? As in simple style and easy to draw and consistent in redraw? I love your style and I can't help but wonder how you got here and if you could help. Thank you

okay sorry i left this in the inbox for a bit because. where to start lol! there's a lot of thought that can go into making comics i think. but i believe you're specifically asking about having a consistent art style and being able to draw the same character a lot over and over again, so i'll try to focus on that

i think a lot of consistency is just playing around with character designs and getting something you feel comfortable with. ill use grian as a good example because it took me a while to come up with a grian design that i liked. once i liked it, i was able to draw my grian a lot & very consistently. every time you draw a character, even if it's a little doodle, you gain that muscle memory for ur lines a little better, so you should doodle always as much as you can and never be afraid to try something new and experiment with your style

the pipeline

i think a good way to establish a character design that you really like to draw & can familiarize yourself with is by defining some key features about them. like in this image for example, my older grian designs don't really have anything about them that stands out to me. he wasn't rlly that fun to draw. but nowadays i think i have a distinct hairstyle & expression & glasses shape i give him, which are fun to draw. even if it's a tiny doodle with like, 15 strokes, you can still identify it as my grian design i think

something that i noticed (i didn't consciously do this but it just sort of happened as i was trying to make them all look different from one another) is that i assign different shapes to grian, cub and scar. these guys are good examples because 1. they're the three characters in my hotguy comics part and 2. they're the three guys i draw the most often

grian i tend to go for more rounded shapes, cub more squares/rectangles, and scar is more pointy and triangular. little things like this can help them stand out from one another and makes them fun to draw in my opinion. when i draw grian's hair i always have the hair come to a rounded point and is more neat/tidy. when i draw scar the hair is more spiky and wild. cub is sort of in the middle where his hair is more pointy, but is kept neat, which gives it those straight lines and right angles

TL;DR how i draw characters easily and consistently is make key features & shapes that make them fun to both draw & look at. and then draw them a lot

i hope that makes any sense, i like yapping about character design so hope you don't mind the long response lol ^_^

[cdlum]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[discount-supervillain]

Hey how exactly do these requests work exactly? there's no info at all on your patreon

I guess it's been a while since it's been brought up, and I figured it was relatively intuitive, but it's probably best to clarify.

Basically, people send requests of things they want drawn to the ask box (https://discount-supervillain.tumblr.com/ask). When I can, I dip into that box, pick out requests that seem fun and manageable, and I draw them. By manageable, I mean things I think I can actually draw in a reasonable amount of time, so there's a sort of equation of fun and simplicity that means a request will get chosen, and all of those are picked at my discretion.

Sending in a request is far from a guarantee that you'll have something drawn though. Even if your request is in line my somewhat arbitrary tastes, I get a lot of them, and I've only got the time to do one a day. I also tend to pick from relatively new requests, those sent within the last week or so--I'm also commonly dissuaded from choosing requests that are being spammed. But that doesn't mean you can't send a request again if I didn't get to it. If You've sent in a request that was passed up, but you think it's something worth drawing, you can give it another try after a few weeks.

As far as how the Patreon comes into play, the polls there are choosing from requests sent into this tumblr, then picked by me. Typically, these are more complex requests, or those that are outside what I would typically choose to draw for myself, so I figured it would be fun to let people pick out the drawings I try to put more effort into.

Oh, also worth noting that if you have a question you want to ask, you should send it non-anonymously so that I can respond privately. I'm sure I miss plenty, but I do try to answer questions sent in that fashion. I prefer not to answer anonymously sent questions mostly because I prefer my blog to be a solely art-based thing, mostly for aesthetic reasons. Actually, there's a decent chance I wind up deleting this later because it's a big block of text.

[wannabe-cartoonist-blog]

Last Game hair style fixes, in order of who needed it most.

I've never liked the canon hair styles in Last Game. They're either hideous, or just simply don't fit the characters/style of the main series. I get its a (mostly different) art department and meant to age the characters up, but most of the time, they simply just look off-model to me. I know I'm not the only one who's got issues with the hairstyles in this movie too, so I did my best to fix them up and give them styles that I personally think suite them. Originals below cut as well as my explanations! Important to note, these are my preferences/headcanons for them so take everything I'm about to say with a grain of salt.

**Akashi isn't here, because believe it or not, I actually think his hair looks the best out of everyone in LG.

I wouldn't change it. I like to draw him with neater hair/his bangs pushed out of his face when I age him up, but for the summer after the Winter Cup - when LG takes place - the canon hair is exactly the sort of style I think he would/should have. I like the allegory that the rough chop is something he did when his mental health wasn't good, so now as his mental scars heal, it's growing back out. ❤️

Midorima

A neater/shorter hairstyle does fit Mido's character/personality, but the LG hair simply just doesn't look like the same hair type we see in the main series. Mido's hair has got the slightest wave to it (which I tend to over-exaggerate whenever I draw him).

With this in mind, I went and gave his hair some more body/volume by extending the sides. (You'll see a lack of volume/body is the key issue with the other LG hairs as well).

Murasakibara

Mura's hair in this movie looks so so flat and greasy. Now I didn't do the best job fixing it up, but this is basically how you'd go about doing it; just add more flowy strands. His hair is pretty pin-strait in canon, but there's lots of flowing strands, even when he's not moving much, which give it a clean-look.

When it's all just one limp form, like the movie does, it appears unclean as opposed to just long and sleek.

Momoi

Another victim of the lack of body/volume. The style they gave her is also simply bad, like she just took a pair of scissors and cut in a straight line. There isn't even really any style to it. Its kinda just laying there on her head, which is not what her hair usually looks like in the main series. There's always strands/some lift to it. Also Momoi has always had some sort of bangs/framing pieces in her face, so for her whole forehead to be out was just a tiny bit jarring.

I think the style I came up with is a little more mature while still having personality and life to it. Plus, LG takes place in the summer, so a shorter hair style would be more comfortable in the heat.

Kise

Kise I don't think I did a good job of fixing to my liking either. It was hard to edit it without making it look bad in general, because I really don't think this choppy sort of style suites him like at all, so it was too much to change. Now his hair is one of the better drawn ones in this movie for sure, but it feels more like a Kagami hairstyle than a Kise one to me. I just don't think his modeling agency would let him have such a choppy, hard-to-style haircut. I also think a more polished look fits his handsome, princely sort of appeal that makes him popular with girls.

Aomine

Alright, now its time for me to be playful and silly with some out-there hair styles. Aomine (and Kagami's hair) in Last Game I don't mind. After Akashi, I would say Aomine looks the best. BUT. We have NEVER seen Aomine with long hair, even in flashbacks when he's a child.

So for him to finally decide to grow out his hair - in the SUMMER HEAT - just feels like a weird move to me. Feels out of character. He strikes me as someone who likes his hair out of his face when he plays ball and just wants to roll out of bed and not worry about brushing/styling it or anything. The animators also aren't consistent in this movie and sometimes his hair looks particularly long in the front and back, which again, I don't think he'd like. This picture below and the ones above are from the same movie/take place within like a week of each other, yet look so different.

He looks cute and it definitely gives him a more youthful look; which is a weird choice, because they want to age up everyone else but Aomine in this movie. So, I think a fade would really suite him (I don't think I drew it that well tho). Keeps his hair short and out of his face but also ages him up a little more with a mature style.

Kagami

Alright, Kagami's look here is pure indulgence. @knbposting said "Kagami with a mullet" and I haven't stopped thinking about it. Sue me. His LG hair isn't bad and makes sense for his character and the time of year. But its just sorta plain. Honestly, Kise's hair style in this movie would probably suite Kagami more. I always liked how in the main series, Kagami's hair is a little scruffy in the back so I really wanted to lean into that.

Is a mullet suitable for the summer heat/something he'd like? Well, maybe not but I think it ages him up while also seeming like something he'd get at some point in his life. So here we are. I will end this with saying this is probably the longest he'd ever let his hair get.

Kuroko

Finally, we have Kuroko, whose hair I've barely changed. Now, the animators/artists do a really bad job of keeping his face on-model (eyes too beady, features too sharp) but that's a whole 'nother issue, and I managed to find a scene where they kept him on-model lol. I think a shorter, neat style is good for the summer and suites him, but a main feature of all the hair throughout the main series is the spikes/strands of hair on nearly every character - Kuroko especially - so I just added a tiny bit more here.

And that's the end! If you read all the way to here, thanks for coming to my insane-person rant.

[pokeberry5]

do you have any tips for drawing dynamic poses? i always love the way you draw bodies!!

i know this has been said a million times but the way i draw bodies significantly improved after i started drawing more frequently from reference. if i cant find a reference for a pose on the internet, i'll just use myself or a friend. i spend an unfortunate amount of time just standing in front of my mirror looking at my own joints. pay attention to where your body curves!!

other than that though—honestly my anatomy/pose knowledge is a whack amalgamation of art tips i've accumulated over the years (i miss old school deviantart/tumblr style art tutorials). i also like to look at how artists i admire draw bodies—what details to they include, what anatomical short-hands etc

i think i'm still figuring out how to draw dynamic poses, but here are some cheats i've picked up (under the cut coz this got long again):

gonna use this stray!tim as a base

the easiest way for make up a pose is to start roughly with the head, collarbones, ribcage, and pelvis ��� you can build everything from there

here's a couple more of what i mean by the ribcage-pelvis deconstruction:

2. push your perspective a little!! imo things look more dynamic if you move your sight-line up or down—the horizontal orange line here. if you look at the panels above, the sight lines tend to be a little low, at around the character's torso or waist. i did the same below with stray!tim

to do this i usually try to get a sense of the space im working in by putting in some sloppy perspective grids

3. S curves!!! exaggerate the lines of the body. the body naturally has parallel horizontal lines—an easy way to get a body to look less rigid is to tilt those horizontal lines which in turn curves the vertical line of the body

this is what a mean by horizontal lines—usually i use the eyes, shoulders, and hips:

i'm gonna use caterina as a better example—usually you want the horizontal lines to sort of zigzag:

i've also picked up a couple visual tricks that don't exactly add dynamism to a pose? but they do give a static pose a little more oomph. a lot of this is done by visually highlighting one specific point of the body

for our purposes, i'm gonna make the focal point tim's face

motion blur! there are a couple ways to do this. i actually dont like working with traditional motion blur because you have to mess around with selections, so i usually fake motion blur using postional perspective blur:

2. gradient lighting—you can add a lot of depth this way. usually i like setting the gradient in the direction of the focal point, e.g. tim's face

below, i added a layer above the base drawing, used an airbrush to get this gradient, and then set the layer to color burn and lowered the opacity. you can also clip the lighting layer to the base drawing and set it to multiply

below, i did the opposite—instead of adding a gradient shadow, i added gradient light. i set the layer to add this time (instead of color burn) and then lowered the opacity again.

this kinda serves to desaturate the parts of the piece that are less important (ish i was kinda sloppy here), driving the eye to face—the most saturated. the motion blur does a similar thing, where the only thing "in focus" is tim's face

the gradient also sort of adds a directionality to the piece—it starts at the bottom right corner and goes up towards the upper left, causing your eye to follow that same path, which drags your gaze up tim's body

here's what it looks like when i combine 1 and 2:

3. chromatic aberration's been pretty popular recently. it does a similar thing as perspective blur but with more eyestrain (although i went with a really exaggerated version below just to show you what it does) but it looks cool!

bonus cryptid tim as a reward for getting to the end :-)

[90shaladriel]

AI Manipulations of Rings of Power. (Longish)

Saw the AI edits of Haladriel scenes being altered by GenAI to make the characters* kiss. I have seen chatter about it and the negative implications of creating or interacting with AI generated content.

At the risk of being nuanced, (feel free to block or scroll past this) it interests me what exactly is the concern with it and why. To be clear, I do work in an industry that is both working to incorporate and profit off AIs while simultaneously my own job is increasingly at risk by the same products or we are forced to use them for productivity reasons.

Some reasons that make sense to me that you would not want AI content would be

1. Legal and copyright infringement of the ownership of the art or source material used to train the AI models. Stolen work, no credit or payment to artists

2. It’s generally shitty, sloppy, uncanny valley. Which aesthetically I think most people would be against

3. It directly competes against manual labor of a human, devalues work, replaces jobs, or floods the market so creators never can be separated, investment in a skill or art form isnt worth it.

4. It extremely energy intensive, the environmental implications can he huge with the climate crisis.

5. Its being shoveled in our faces by overhyped tech bros because they think its cool and can find gullible investors for, like NFTs and crypto curriencies

6. Deep fake abuse with AI, making up fake news, abusing a real person image in a degrading way without consent.

I think all of these are serious issues with AI.

The stuff that was shared about Sauron and Galadriel kissing does it materialize those concerns? I’m going to assume that it may for the first one, legal and copyright ownership of training data. Im not a lawyer, and there are also some AI models trained on legally owner content or public domain / open source content. I have no way of knowing what models were used by the GenAI that made those haladriel kisses, so we probably have to assume they may have questionable provenance, and I think by that alone we should boycott those.

Now what if someone used a more solidly vetted model or genAI service without those legal issues? What if the artists do get paid or some form of royalties?

The kiss videos themselves were ok, maybe halfway believable, there were obviously the weird uncanny ai artifacts and stuff. It’s objectively worse than if ROP had actually filmed a kiss with live actors in the show proper. But who am I to judge whether that slop is aesthetically pleasing to someone else or not? Sometimes I have found AI art that is truly bizarre in that this is too weird surrealness quality like looking into a dream while being awake. I’m not sure that this feeling is necessarily wrong to enjoy on its own.

Regarding the AI replacing jobs argument. I suppose it depends what we mean. They were never going to remake ROP Season 1 or 2. Morfydd and Charlie won’t be offered the same role if another company were to buy the rights and make Rings of Power reboot. We will never get those kisses on screen. Maybe you can say that if people were fed content for Haladriel you could give them that almost infinitely by GenAI and then those people would be less likely to consume or pay for some other newer media that might otherwise give a satisfactory ETL with backstory and build up equivalent to what ROP has done with Haladriel? I’m not sure how to weigh that, it might be true? I tend to think these AI kisses arent replacing any creative workers in the film/tv industry. I don’t think we say that fanfic reusing known characters competes with original written stories (or do people argue this?) although i suppose it does on some level. Do people boycott fanfiction?

Along these lines, what about the actors consent and deep fake aspects? Personally, I don’t see how the AI images are more offensive or harmful than fanart which uses the actors depictions to do all sorts of things, stabbing, killing, kissing, screwing and everything and everyone in between. Or fan edits which use clever editing and overlay soundtracks with pointed lyrics which completely change the artistic intent of the actors /creatives who made the original in a particular way, say make two characters have a romantic chemistry that wasn’t there in the original? Or even the old photoshop manipulation stuff? I thought we’re ok with this in the fandom world, is this that different?

I’m not saying I like AI or you need to. I probably wont interact with it and try to avoid it personally wherever I can. But I do wonder if the arguments people are making against ROP AI edits are actually in good faith? Because then i question why other kinds of fan creations are acceptable?

[chaifootsteps]

this is gonna be rambly, btw

anon who was talking about Brandon's sexism - I think you've got a point but something about Brandon's writing idk, bothers me less than Viv's?

it's hard to explain but something about projects where he did most of the writing like Class Acts feel less mean spirited towards the female characters than HB is? like Brandon's specialty seems to be writing over the top people or broad stereotypes (for everyone, not just the women) and then making them feel tragic and human. and everyone gets this treatment, not just the male characters.

it's been pointed out Viv's female characters tend to fall into a couple of repeating categories: bitch (Loona, GlitznGlam), shrew (Stella), or perfect wholesome angel (Charlie, Millie, kinda Vaggie). but from what I've seen of Brandon's stuff there's a bit more variety - Class Acts has a grandma who is bitter and grouchy all the time but she's attending drama classes for her grandson's sake and cares a lot about him, while Morgana's character is a more realized version of what Loona was probably intended to be - a goth who's abrasive and mean because she's disappointed with how life is turning out.

on top of that the female characters often give as good as they get - there's this sequence in a recent Class Acts that's basically the Apology Tour party but done better where all the female characters are having an actual support group (meetup where they talk in a circle sort of thing) from their experiences with the main character that Brandon plays, who is kind of like if you combined Blitzo's jerk tendencies with an acting teacher with failed dreams.

And the show lets them have this moment. It doesn't do what Viv does and use the female characters' pain as a vehicle for another, suckier male character to look better in a ship that's increasingly DOA.

I guess what I'm getting at here is the overuse of 'bitch' and etc feels a lot less pointed in a show where the male characters get insulted constantly too, but more importantly the show doesn't prioritize its male characters over its female ones, screentime wise. Unlike Viv's writing Brandon's female characters actually feel like people - I haven't seen it but I know he devoted an entire series to the Bryce Tankthurst character, who looks kind of like what Stella could have been if she was fun and well-realized (I think Bryce canonically doesn't have a heart or something?)

Also as you mentioned also Brandon never pretended his writing was high art, unlike Viv who acts like her swearing is sophisticated comedy and keeps jamming in embarassingly handled abuse storylines to make her writing look more mature than it is.

Speaking of Stella, I have a hard time imagining Brandon writing a storyline where a woman is forced to get marry young, get pregnant and then is villainized for being trapped in a life she never wanted in order to make a flawed male character look better.

And if just Brandon had been writing Stolas and Stol1tz, I think it would have turned out less victim blamey than it is now, because from what I can tell he doesn't have a problem with holding his male characters to account and calling them losers.

If it had happened in an episode that wasn't written the way Apology Tour is, Blitzo's 'I don't wanna be this way, not forever' probably would have landed and been impactful. I kinda sensed where things were going with the Stol1tz storyline from the trailer but that line made me sad because I could so easily imagine a scenario where it would have worked. But since Viv's writing of men hamstrings the story's ability to hold them to account - combined with the horror movie levels of gaslighting going on with Stolas - that line is completely wasted in the episode and context it's in.

I don't mean to sound like I love Brandon's work or it means a lot to me - I don't and it doesn't. But I can see a level of craft there not present with Viv's and his female characters are just better handled across the board.

(The Octavia thing was messed up though, idk if he was just playing to the crowd there - and it's not even true since canonically Blitzo has no problem with Via! He calls her sweetie for crying out loud!)

Thank you for putting it into better words than I ever could.

Brandon's an asshole, but he does have a solid understanding of craft. He knows what kind of story he wants to convey and how to do it, and in spite of said assholeism, he has a better understanding of empathy, of how to write human characters. I think that actually really bugs Viv, to be honest.

[noctilin]

hi jez!! i'm a tad kooky and go crazy over anything involving art studying, and finding out how the artists i look up to are able to achieve their effects in their artwork BECAUSE TO ME IT'S SORCERY!! HOW CAN SOMETHING BE SO BEAUTIFUL? I WANT TO KNOW MORE!!! sort of thing haha, but I noticed to me the most prominent thing that stands out from your artwork is the way you draw hair, are you able to describe how you get those beautiful curls and liveliness in your brushstrokes? i'd love to know!

i think the main way is how i exaggerate volumes. i draw hair more thick-looking than they’re supposed to be. visual aid:

realistically, keva’s hair sits and falls like A, but in B i exaggerate the volume and flow in my style. same thing happens to hamuko when i draw her. this is mainly influenced by 90’s anime i like, especially in ranma ½, it’s very obvious how exaggerated the volumes are which help it look even fluffier or poofier.

aside from the volume, i tend to use more curves than sharp lines and edges in the way i draw hair, but i also like to mix it up with a “rounded corner:”

i have no further explanation for my choice for this aside from it just looks more visually appealing to me.

another thing i often do is draw locks of hair in “clumps” rather than drawing every strand. not only is drawing every strand of hair tiring as hell, it also is too busy for my liking. this is also easier for me with my art style where i tend to use colors more than lines, so drawing too many strands like that ends up being lost anyway.

last thing i wanna say is i see hair as a mixture of ocean waves, ribbons and/or filigree. it’s not the exact same but i loosely follow it to give the hair i draw more life. always flowing and moving.

that’s all i can think of to share LOL hopefully this is helpful in some way bc this killed my brain. i am not made for teaching. all in all, hair is fun to play with! go crazy!

ocs used belong to me, @honshew, @hirumashadow, and @tsam__p

[nebulousmedic]

Hihi! Love your art! I'm quite curious though. If there a specific reason why you draw sniper the way you do? For instance you have more darker skin, is that perhaps to make him look Maori? Either way I freaking love the way you draw him! (sorry if this offends you any way)

I'm not Maori or even remotely dark skin (I hate the sun), I have nothing to be offended about lmao

About his skin color: I just imagine that he... Spends time in the sun, but I'm too lazy to draw the tan lines or I just think that they don't fit the drawing, so I leave them out unless I'm going for a more realistic style

His eyes: the most striking feature of his design, I think. Besides from me thinking that heterochromia is really cool, I find it would make quite a bit of sense, like why always hide your eyes (even indoors, god) from other people? it's my headcanon that he kind of got bullied for it on his childhood, and when he was gifted a pair of shades he not only found himself looking very cool, but he also found that people didn't really notice his condition, so he just decided that he'd wear them pretty much all the time. He uses his shades to hide that he's high as well but, yknow

Facial hair: not much to see here, really. giving him a couple longer hairs on his upper lip and chin just kinda makes him look more rugged and feral

Hair: Come on, how could I not give him a mullet? in the game and the comics he already has a sort of.... mullet-y thing going on, so I just like to make it way longer, it makes him appear even more rugged and feral in my opinion. I will usually vary the length depending on what I feel like drawing, no particular reason for that specifically

Clothing: I want to make him look like a cowboy most of the time, but his comfortable and very casual attire is more dad-esque, I think? I want all the outdoor vibes, honestly. The hat and the shades are always a must, but you may notice that I tend to depict him with a fang pendant, I just headcanon that it's a trophy he kept from a particularly arduous hunt

As for his body, I like to make him sort of... Sharp-looking? To make him stand out from the other mercs a little more. He's tall, and a little gangly, but not skinny, he has muscle and a little fat on him. I also like to make him the hairiest out of all the mercs, because he deserves it

Color palette: I really like giving him a very warm and cozy sort of color palette, it just kinda fits with his vibe, I guess? certainly fits with the "cowboy" theme that he has going on

I want to note that my style for him specifically is inconsistent at times because I just cannot make up my mind on how to draw his facial features, but the one thing that I do keep is his nose and his ears, long and sort of triangular

Overall I think I just kinda took the canon Sniper and exaggerated him even more? Cowboy-ified him, maybe? Anyway, yeah, that's it that's why I draw him the way I do

I have changed how I draw some of the mercs since I made this but these are my pseudo references for them, if you're curious.

[heyclickadee]

Because I have a tendency to get stuck in art blocks and s t r u g g l e badly with composition, and because I think The Bad Batch is a beautifully shot show, I’ve started doing rough grayscale studies of bad batch to unpack how line and value can be used to direct a viewer’s eye to where people want the audience to look. (I’m doing it with other movies and shows, but I do really like TBB, so….) That way, if I’m sitting in a period where I can’t draw, then maybe I can at least learn something. It’s not fan art, it’s just trying to break the composition down and make it make sense to me, but I think it’s interesting so I figured I’d throw them all here.

So! Potentially very boring things under the cut:

The thing that started this off was getting sent a gifset of the scene in “The Return” where Wrecker gives Crosshair his armor back. It’s a great scene, and one of the things that allows for the show to pull that moment off is the way that most everything in many of the shots is designed to draw the viewer’s attention to Crosshair’s face so that we’re paying attention to his reaction. For example:

It’s not a very high contrast shot, but if we block out the basics, most of the lines in the scene are directing us towards Crosshair. Both Wrecker and Omega make movements towards him in this shot, and then this movement is sort of carried over to Crosshair via the various lines in the background/Wrecker’s arm/even the crate. Additionally, our eyes tend to be drawn towards points of highest contract, which, in this shot, include the lamps in the far background against the pillars (forming a line from Wrecker to Crosshair) and the light hitting Crosshair’s face against the much darker background. Between all of this most people in the audience are going to end up automatically looking right at Crosshair who is, of course, the main person we’re supposed to paying attention to here.

This isn’t actually a full frame. I sort of grabbed a screenshot over the interwebs for this one, but The Bad Batch actually has a very wide aspect ratio. From what I understand it’s shot and aired in a CinemaScope ratio (2:39:1 or 2:35:1, though TBB is 2:39:1). It’s basically super ultra widescreen, an aspect ratio used when a filmmaker wants to make something feel more epic or cinematic, and as far as I know it’s the same aspect ratio used for the original trilogy before any cropping happened. (For reference, The Clone Wars was also shot in a CinemaScope ratio, 2:35:1, but was cropped to 16:9 for airing on Cartoon Network, and Rebels was shot and aired in 1:78/more or less 16:9.) So an uncropped screenshot of TBB would look more like this:

This is from “The Outpost.” It’s actually a fairly dark shot with Crosshair faced away from the camera and the value of his figure blending right into the rest of the foreground, which actually comes communicate a sense of someone who isn’t trying to draw attention to themselves (to me, anyway), but our eyes are drawn to Crosshair anyway by every major line in the shot as well as the highest point of contrast converging right over Crosshair’s shoulder. That, and the line of his rifle/shoulder and the support pole forming a big, well, cross-hair right in that same spot. Otherwise, he would blend right into the foreground and be easier to miss.

Unlike Hunter in this shot from “Plan 99”

Where basically you’ve got the exact same thing happening, every line in the shot converges on Hunter’s location, but instead of using just high contrast to draw our attention, we’ve got a fairly middle-gray scene with our eyes being drawn to the focal point by having one bright spotlight.

The orange cross mark I’ve drawn here is just to mark the center of the frame, which I wanted to point out since, at least as far as I’ve noticed, TBB has a tendency to save center and slightly off-center shots for really specific moments. I’d have to check on that and what the pattern is, though, since a few of the remaining shots in this post are center shot. (Filmmakers area generally taught shoot in thirds or, alternatively, on a phi grid or other away from center set of focal points, though you do get some center shot movies and shows. I think Raiders of the Lost Arc has a lot of center shots.)

In fact, a pretty good example of shooting in thirds (or on a phi grid—I laid it out and I think it fits the phi grid slightly better) is this shot from “Faster”

Where you’ve got Tech and Tay-0 placed on slightly close thirds on either side of the frame. If we’re just looking at line and value, with this shot we actually get this sort of interesting back and forth between where our eye is being drawn. A lot of the lines in the shot are directing us to look at Tech, but then you’ve got one of the lines going through, and the sweep of Tech’s arm and datapad pointing towards, Tay-0, whose face and body are outlined with a much higher contrast in value. And then we have that one very bold arc connecting the two. The result of this is that our eyes sort of bounce back and forth between these two characters as they get into their conversation.

Most of these shots have had just one or two (at most three) characters, and there are many scenes of TBB with everyone where our gaze is sort of directed to the group collectively, but sometimes you’ll have group scene where our attention is directed more towards one individual than others, like with this shot from “Battle Scars”

Once again, you’ve got most of the lines in the shot converging towards Rex as well as Rex’s person serving as the point of highest contrast while everyone else sort of melds into the background in terms of value. He’s also the first (and maybe only) figure who breaks fully above objects in the background to be shot directly against the sky. Line and value aren’t the only things directing the audience’s gaze towards Rex in this shot—there’s actually a lot of desaturation happening as we move from Rex, to the other characters, to the far background that helps as well, buuuuut this is a grayscale breakdown so that unfortunately doesn’t show up...here. (This is a center shot scene if we’re going horizontally, but Rex’s head, which is really the focal point, is right around the top third of the frame; it’s not exactly a low angle shot, but we are still looking up at him.)

Anyway, the reason any of this is important is because when you’re shooting with an incredibly wide aspect ratio like this, there’s a LOT of information being conveyed with every frame. You can fit a lot of stuff on screen at once. And while people generally going to rewatch and pay attention to background details (if nothing else, TBB is a goldmine for those background details), you do want to draw your audience’s attention to the most important parts of the frame—especially when an individual shot typically lasts only a few seconds. Or less. Like with this:

So this shot from "Faster" is up for less than a second before the camera turns to follow the speeders and then changes to another shot, and I had a devil of a time even getting screengrab of it. (Mostly because I was trying to grab it on my phone, but that's not really the point.) In less than a second the people making this have to communicate where Tech's speeder is, what's happening, what we're even looking at, while the objects in the scene are all moving incredibly fast. .

So, to communicate that, you've got multiple speeders moving in the shot, but only one (Tech's) standing out in terms of value against a fairly dark ceiling, as well as a combination of some real direct one-point linear perspective and the more or less arrow shape of the ramp pointing directly at the point Tech's speeder is going to be when it reaches the peak of its crest over the ramp. That way we're already looking at where Tech is going to be before he gets there and end up following his speeder as he zooms by.

[telekitnetic-art]

Hi!! Your art is so fucking cool! Can I ask what the process looks like for form line? Ex. What do your sketches look like when they are really rough? How do you go from idea -> final product. 💕

Hadih, thanks so much for your question!

Honestly, it's sort of hard to explain? I do have some sketches to sort of give an idea though.

This sketch I posted a couple days ago is a pretty good example of what my initial concept sketches sometimes look like.. As you can see, they're pretty chaotic and very rough, and usually these sketches are more about getting the idea down then actually making the formline itself. There aren't formline shapes just yet, although I do sometimes sketch out elements or shapes like eyes or bodies or paws/hands that will usually have an ovoid in it, because those elements tend to be a focus or centerpiece. The sketch is obviously not final, and things can change along the way to account for space and balance as well as what I'm trying to convey. (These sketches aren't entirely accurate of course because they're for pieces that are meant to be fusions of character illustrations and formline art, but they're the best thing I can find on my pc at the moment)

The rough sketch helps me figure out the flow of the piece, and once I'm satisfied with it I try and get to putting down the shapes and silhouette, and it's here where I try to find the balance with my rough sketch and how the shapes can fit and behave in the piece to the best of their limits while also still conveying the message I want to send. The most common shape I start with is the focus shapes, which are usually ovoids.

This rough of my harbor seal formline which I sent to my aunt for review sort of gives a better Idea of what I mean when I say I try and focus on where the centerpoints will be. Ovoids are usually a focus, so you can see them pop up a lot; in the body, the head, the eyes, the tail, etc. Ovoids are so important and probably the most common shape in formline art, and one of the most common feedback I get from my aunt is to adjust how the ovoid looks in any one of my pieces; she often compared them to a loaf of bread! You don't want your ovoids to look like a loaf of bread! (Her words, not mine). I feel like I've gotten better at drawing ovoids though, because she gives it as feedback less and less nowadays. Ovoids usually also have to have a bit of weight/perspective to them; it's hard to describe but essentially the top of the ovoid should usually be bigger/thicker/have more weight then the bottom.

From ovoids, the next shapes are usually circles, u-shapes and crescents, then usually y-shapes/trigons. It can be difficult, because the key is to make sure the shapes flow together and feel cohesive, as well as to make sure the negative/positive space balance feels right. Also a fun tidbit, trigons are most typically used to essentially fill space; it's always important to make sure that they are binding bigger shapes like u-shapes and ovoids and not stealing all the space and attention.

The lines in this stage tend to be very rough and messy, and I always try to go over the next rough draft with a smoother and cleaner pen.

Once the initial shapes are done, I'll usually send the piece to my aunt (sometimes I send them earlier on, when I'm in the middle of working out the shapes) for feedback! I am still a student in formline work after all; basically all of my teachings come from my aunt, who has a lot more years of work in formline art then me. She'll give me feedback and tips of what she thinks I should fix or experiment with. I adjust and fix and sometimes even completely delete and redo parts of the piece with her guidance. The list of things she tells me to change decreases with each piece, so I like to take that as a sign that I'm improving!

Once the black and white version of the design is done, I move onto coloring. Usually I already have a color scheme in mind when I go into a piece, so I'll mess around and put down colors and see how well they contrast before I color it. Typically, a piece will have about 3 colors; one for the background, one primary color, and one secondary color. I use a clipping layer to color the entire formline piece with the primary color, and then go in with the pen tool and bucket tool to use the secondary color. Adding in the secondary color is tricky but important because it once again falls into balancing positive and negative space/colors and the transitions between the two.

Once coloring is done, the project is basically finished! Unless there are some other plans I have for it, ie using it for an overlay in a bigger piece, colouring is usually the final stage.

And that's about it! I hope this helps you understand a bit; this isn't a perfect explanation as this is just from my own artistic POV and other nations and artists have their own process, but I hope it helps nonetheless!!

Edit: I forgot I posted other WIP formlines here before 😭 here and here!! You can sort of see me figure out the flow and balance of the designs in between the WIP and the finished piece!

[onetoomanyyy]

can you do a deep Namida analysis? you can include personal hcs i need her i need h < wants namida lore so bad orz

Namida. Naminami. Master Namida. Mida-Chan. The Girl From Planet Namik.

I’m much more of a headcanons guy than an analysis guy, so this will probably be more “headcanons slightly based on analysis” than the other way around, sorry 😵‍💫 (however, a little while ago fishhjuice did a compiling of all the canon namida facts)

Namida likes to present herself as the most orderly and put-together member of Squid Squad, but in actuality she’s probably the strangest one. She can be quiet around strangers, but once you get her talking you’ll never get her to stop. She knows all sorts of seemingly useless facts that somehow always manage to come in handy. She has insane spice tolerance and usually finds herself adding copious amounts of hot sauce to foods she thinks are too mellow. She likes photography and art, sometimes doodling her friends in her free time. Her lack of a complete eyemask is a mutation that she used to touch up with makeup, but later abandoned it after it started to become integral to her image. She’s willing to sing but is a bit embarrassed to, as she isn’t sure her singing voice is all that good.

Namida grew up fairly wealthy and her parents fostered her love for music at a young age, sending her to a music school where she learned piano and picked up some jazz theory. Later, she began to grow bored with the prim and proper lifestyle, and was the first member to join Squid Squad after becoming fast friends with Ichiya.

Namida is the emotional core of Squid Squad. Shes the best at talking to people and has a way with words that make it impossible to stay mad at her (even if she just did something that definitely warrants it). She’s also the most affectionate member and is responsible for the most group hugs.

Out of all her bandmates, Namida is closest with Ichiya. She was the first person he met after moving to Inkopolis, and he was pretty much the first really close friend she ever had. However, this closeness meant that during the final weeks of Sqdsqd’s lifespan, she tended to brush off how much of an ass Ichiya was being out of fear of damaging the band further. This did not turn out to be the right decision and she went on to feel a little guilty about it, wishing she could have done more. She puts up with a lot of his shit, but is willing to give him another chance come Front Roe. She’s a little worried about it all, but she has hope that it will work out. (go read my fic for more on that 😋😋😋) (shameless plug)

Namida and Murasaki are partners in crime, two chaotic-good bundles of energy. They’re pretty much the only duo who never had any ill will towards one another. The majority of Namida’s nicknames were coined by Murasaki. They lost contact with each other after the breakup but happily reunited later down the line. In Front Roe, Nami wishes that Murasaki wouldn’t be so dismissive of Ichiya nowadays, because that definitely isn’t going to fix anything. Wow, finally a pair that isn’t that complicated!

Namida always respected Ikkan for his musical prowess and considered him the funniest (even though he cracked jokes the least often). They would end up sharing the quietest moments together, making easy small talk and sometimes exchanging personal musings they wouldn’t share with the others. However, even Namida had concerns that some of his criticisms of the band were a bit too harsh, but they were all in good faith, right? So it wasn’t a big deal, right? She misses having someone to talk to where she didn’t feel a need to be the bigger person.

that’s all I’ve got for Namida! I really don’t draw her enough for how fun she is to draw. Thanks for the ask!!

[amerricanartwork]

Current digital art process!

Acting on @shkika 's request because making my redraw for this post actually ended up giving me more confidence in my digital art process! As such, I'm gonna use it as a reference. And if this walkthrough of sorts turns out nice, I might do it again as my process evolves!

I started off with a quick sketch of sorts, trying to focus both on movement and volume, and get the general idea of where each element is located. I edit the image dimensions and placement of things a lot in this phase, as my ideas often tend to change once I actually begin drawing them. In this case, as I got it down, I decided I wanted it to look like some cheesy animal motivational poster, so that influenced where the text was.

From there, I began to clean and sometimes edit the sketch, mainly by thickening the lines to make the shapes more definite, and erasing what wasn't necessary and interfered with other parts. Volume is one of my biggest focuses in my drawings, so I try my best to get the volume of each character at least hinted at with the lines. This is something that will probably remain in my process for a while, as I quite dislike doing separate lineart and like the messy, sketchy feel anyway.

I also wanna mention, in addition to having references and such in other windows, I've recently begun having a second mini window of my current drawing off to the side so I can see what it looks like overall more easily, regardless of how much I zoom in on and flip the main window. It's quite helpful!

For reference, this is what the final sketch looked like:

Then, I went on to add the flat colors. Another tip: I almost always set my sketch layer to "Lumi & Shade" because I think it makes the line colors a lot richer, but since it's based on what colors are underneath, it colors the lines a lot more individually than changing the sketch color as a whole. Here's some comparison to a version without the effect (left):

Then, I add some shading using a (really nice) marker brush. This is honestly one of my favorite parts of the process, just trying to carve out all the volumes, especially since I usually use a pretty blue color for shadows!

Sometimes, I honestly just leave drawings finished at this step, because I adore the sketchy look so much, and because I really don't like the tediousness of more realistic rendering in the painting process; from what I've seen/experienced, it often involves having to basically paint the entire image over again, which I've realized I find REALLY boring (and is also why I clean the sketch instead of making a new lineart layer). As such, one of my hopes is to reach a point where I could almost completely avoid having to clean up the image in a traditional painting method, instead being able to lay down lines and colors so well that they convey nearly all the volume necessary on their own, still have that sketchy appeal, yet also look finished and professional.

Alas, I did do a bit of clean up on this image, but I think it still turned out alright!

Here's the finished drawing! I'll have to practice with this process a bit more to truly solidify it as my digital go-to, but nonetheless, I think this came out adorable! Thanks again shkika for the ask, and thanks to @mintscampi for the sweet prompt! I hope you guys like it!

[ghcstao3]

IDK if this thing I keep hearing about Soap being an artist is canon (bc I don’t actually play any shooter games, including COD, I just like the fanart & HCs) but Shkretart’s recent Ghost art study made me think of the classic “draw me like one of your French girls” AKA for some reason, Soap (who’s already pining over Ghost) convinces his crush to pose nude for him. Maybe things get a lil bit heated (in a sexy way, not an angry way lol)?

it is actually canon! from the original games, soap kept a journal that had sketches in it with his entries, if you’re wondering where that whole thing came from

now. i pulled a fade to black moment because i have no idea how tumblr guidelines work. so apologies hope this okay

-

It’s never been a secret that Soap has a knack for art.

It’s something he’s proud of, always seeking to improve, and it’s hardly unheard of for soldiers to witness him tucked away in his corners on base with a journal, sketchbook, or some other medium scratching away at whatever comes to mind in those moments.

It's no secret, either, that he's talented for someone who claims he "isn't any sort of artist," and it's no secret at all that he has a preference for portraits.

However. However.

Though he isn't ashamed of it in any regard, nor is he any kind of prude, Soap does prefer to keep guarded his anatomy studies. For fear of judgement or something else, he isn’t certain, but they’re kept in a separate journal tucked under his mattress for when the time so comes for him to work on it again.

And currently, Soap’s begun to feel that pull again. A certain fascination, perhaps, is what lures him. Or maybe it’s the big, fat crush he has on his lieutenant.

Either way, he’s found himself unsatisfied with what he’s been able to draw of Ghost—from afar, masked. Clothed in too many layers for Soap to make sense of much.

(A lie. A complete and utter lie. But Soap has unreasonable wants, doesn’t he?)

The thing that sets him off is incredibly pathetic. But it forces Soap to finally muster up the courage to try and warm Ghost up to the idea of being drawn—studied—so Soap supposes he can forgive himself for being so hopeless just this once.

It’s post a sparring match. Soap still loses most rounds against Ghost, but he’d say he’s gotten significantly better in the time they’ve worked together. Even Ghost might say the same, if Soap were so lucky. But it just happens that sparring matches are usually when Ghost tends to wear looser clothing, and when he stretches his arms his shirt rides up, just enough for Soap to catch a glimpse of the cut of his hips, the lines of his abs, his trim waist. He’s known Ghost is fit, but seeing it has Soap itching for his pencil.

The first time he blurts out his idea, Ghost gives him a very firm no. Which isn’t much of a surprise—just asking his superior officer if he’s ever considered posing for someone to draw is a little too forthcoming, especially when it’s the first Soap has ever mentioned anything of it to him.

But then he keeps asking, hinting, persuading, until weeks after the thought strikes Soap, Ghost miraculously agrees to let Soap sketch him.

His body. The curves of strong muscles, the sharp edges of everything else. Long limbs, graceful in spite of the destruction they’re more than capable of. Gentle hands despite their scars, and soft eyes despite the hardened shell of everything Ghost.

Soap is nervous, to say the least. When the day finally comes one unassuming evening, when Soap is led to Ghost’s quarters like it isn’t some big deal.

And maybe it isn’t, but it is for him. So he’s nervous. Beyond unsure.

Ghost is hard to read, more so than usual. He seems almost casual settling into his room, untying his laces and placing his boots neatly aside. Shucking off his hoodie and dropping it unceremoniously on his dresser. Soap watches from the doorway, awkwardly hovering as the door clicks shut behind him.

Suddenly Ghost pauses, glances to Soap with eyebrows raised. He then looks to a spare chair tucked in the corner of the room and gestures vaguely before continuing his undress.

When his mask is unexpectedly tugged off, Soap finds his way to the chair before his knees buckle underneath him. This has to be a mistake.

He’s dreaming, surely. Ghost never agreed and Soap is dreaming and why would he ever get the opportunity to—

“How do you want me, then?” Ghost asks. Soap’s eyes snap to the lieutenant’s.

He’s lost his shirt now, too. Soap isn’t certain why he’s taken aback—it’s exactly what he had asked Ghost to do.

Ghost isn’t looking at him anymore, instead pulling off his trousers and leaving them in a pile with the rest of his clothing.

“Uh,” Soap says rather eloquently, “however, ‘s fine.”

Ghost’s brows are furrowed, his jaw tensed. But he sits on his bed anyway, crossing his legs as he stares curiously at Soap, like the interaction is nothing as he’s expected.

Which is fair. Because Soap had hoped it wouldn’t be like this, either. He feels stilted in his own movements, tearing his eyes away from Ghost to adjust in his seat and open his journal to a blank page.

“We don’t have to do this,” Ghost says—and why’s he asking that?

“That’s meant to be my line, LT,” Soap teases. His face is flushed, he knows it, but he has to summon what courage had got him here in the first place, if this is meant to be any kind of worth it.

Ghost huffs, shifting his position. His legs fall wider, torso lengthening as he straightens his posture a moment before splaying himself more openly, sitting back on his palms.

“Pretend I’m not here,” Soap says. He forces his gaze back on Ghost and clears his throat. “Or don’t. Jus’… don’t feel like you have to pose.”

Ghost nods. It’s awkward for them both as they’re blanketed by silence, but once Soap finally begins copying life onto his page, the tension begins to ease.

By no means is Ghost’s physique something Soap hasn’t drawn before—so it’s simple, tracing out the basic shapes. It’s mindless, and Soap hardly has to spare Ghost a glance.

It’s the marks and spots and scars that cause him issue, as every pencil stroke demands more detail, more accuracy, more studying of Ghost’s figure. What’s presented as is isn’t enough, so on impulse Soap ventures to move closer, to adjust Ghost as he sees comfortably fit.

He stops a tad too close, a hand outstretched and well within Ghost’s space. His journal as been left on the chair, fanned out and face down on the seat.

“Do you mind?” Soap asks quietly.

Ghost peers up at him through his stupidly blond lashes, dark eyes wide yet clouded over with something inscrutable. He shakes his head.

Soap is finally hesitant despite the permission. Ghost’s skin is warm beneath his fingertips. He’s too easy to manoeuvre, for being the man Soap has always known him to be.

But then Soap makes the mistake of looking back into Ghost’s eyes. Makes the mistake of flicking his gaze to Ghost’s exposed lips.

They’re too close, like this. Soap should step away and return to his sketches. He should be maintaining some semblance of composure even in spite of the situation, the circumstances.

But he doesn’t. And he can’t.

Thinking he’d ever survive something like this without breaking was a mistake.

“Johnny?”

With great effort, Soap retracts his hand. “I’m sorry.” He rambles, “I’m sorry. This is—wildly inappropriate, sir, and I never should have—“

Ghost seizes his wrist. Soap doesn't get the time to process anything before Ghost is dragging him close again, pulling Soap down to meet his lips.

Soap falls easily into his lieutenant. They slot together naturally as Ghost moves further back onto the bed for Soap to chase after, suddenly craving the sharp scent of gunpowder and whatever eyeblack Ghost had washed off prior to the entire encounter, suddenly wanting to taste every bit of Ghost's lips, his tongue, his mouth.

Ghost's warmth feels more inviting, now. The solidity of his body seems far less intimidating as it had only as a spectator. It somehow takes less courage to explore every dip and curve with Soap's hands as opposed to his pencil.

Ghost is everything Soap has wanted, here and now. And he hadn’t ever realized Ghost had felt the same.

It’s safe to say that Soap's sketches never get finished that night.