#but they're very different couples so in the process of reworking it to fit these two i basically kept nothing

[bobfloydsbabe]

helena, my babe!

for talk shop tuesday, when do you figure out an idea is substantial enough to start writing? or do you just go balls to the walls with an idea? show us the process!

Morgan, I'm starting to think we're twins separated at birth because I asked you almost an identical question. This is insane.

Because my fics have OCs, I have to spend time figuring who they are, what they're motivations are, and how they'll fit into the story I want to tell before I can even contemplate writing it. I used to be a lot more diligent about that part of the process, but I also found it very limiting. For an ADHD brain like mine, that can kill an idea before I even get a single word onto the page. So I had to rethink and rework my process.

In trying to figure that out, I learned that I simply need to start writing. The characters are driving and I'm in the passenger seat taking notes, listening to what they're telling me and letting them guide me in the direction they want to take the story. They tell me more about themselves and how they fit into the dynamics of that world.

The first time I consciously did this was with my Hangman fic Turning Tables. The OC, Dr. Jas Lane, is a different character in those early fics than she is in the later ones, and as I'm working on the rewrite of the story, her character is more defined from the offset. Another example is the songwriter!Bob story. I knew I wanted to make it obvious that he and Piper are songwriters, so I started the story in the studio, but allowed Piper to take the reins and guide me through. It's incredibly effective and has made me enjoy the writing process a lot more.

Another thing I look at when writing fics is the timeline. Before I started writing for Top Gun, I wrote chronological chaptered stories, but I only ever posted a couple of chapters before I got bored. If it's not providing dopamine, I just won't do it. I didn't want that to happen with my Top Gun stories, so I decided to write anthologies. That way I could follow the dopamine and write the fics I wanted, no matter where in the timeline they took place. This approach has done wonders for my productivity, and the only reason my stories have as many parts as they do is because of this method. Learning to work with my ADHD instead of against it changed everything.

That being said, I still have stories that are full-length fics like my Rhett Abbott fic Linger. That story always felt like it needed to be told in chronological order, so readers can see the development of the relationship between Rhett and Lou. There are some ideas that go to places I could have never even imagined, like Mob Boss Bob and Eccentric Professor Bob. Both AUs were supposed to be a one and done deal to get it out of my system, but they took on a life of their own and I wouldn't have it any other way. Others fade into obscurity, never to be seen or heard from again like my 101 Dalmations!AU with Bob.

This was a lot longer than I intended, but I hope it makes a bit of sense, at least. Being sick does not make me particularly coherent, so forgive me for any confusion.

TALK SHOP TUESDAY

[kvetchinglyneurotic]

Do you have a process with your writing? It’s so good

Thank you! In practice it's not quite as neatly divided into steps, but the writing process basically looks like this:

Step 1: an idea approaches

I'm going about my day when suddenly I'm struck by a scene, a bit of dialogue, or — and these are usually specific to original fic ideas — a setting/magic system/historical event. Fanfic ideas can also come from questions about canon: The Hedgehog's Dilemma started with me asking myself 1) how Jamie would react to something like Wembley in season 1, and 2) how the relationship he's shown to have with Georgie in season 3 fits with what he says/is implied about it at the ghost bonfire.

Step 2: the world and characters

This step is definitely a bigger part of the writing process for original fic — this is where I flesh out the setting, the history, cultures, laws, and magic systems, draw the maps, create broad strokes character profiles, ect. — but it is also part of the writing process for fanfics, although it usually happens concurrent with or after step 3. The fanfic version is basically making a note of the timeline, coming up with or deciding on an interpretation of character backstories (depending on how much canon evidence there is), and just generally making sure I have a clear idea of who everyone is, what motivates them, how they see the world, ect.

Step 3: plot and character arcs

Before I start outlining, I let the fic percolate in my mind for a couple of days. If it didn't already happen during ideas phase, this is when I figure out what I'm trying to say thematically and get a sense of how the handful of scenes or the premise I have floating around would fit into a story. Once I have the main plot beats, and ending, and character arcs for the leads, it's outlining time.

Step 4: turn step 3 into an outline

If I already have a pretty good idea of the plot, I just get right to it and write all the scenes into a checklist, which is divided by chapters if it's not a one-shot. If I'm still working out some of the finer plotpoints, I write out everything I have so far in a list and then break that down into scenes. My outlines are usually general descriptions of a scene with notes on dialogue or the characters' emotions, and I'm not really strict about following it as I write, although I will go back and rework the outline if things are really going in a different direction than anticipated.

Step 5: write

For me, a lot of writing is about momentum: I enjoy it when I'm doing it regularly but I have a hard time getting back into it if I've taken a break, so I try to write every day, which I accomplish this by having a very low daily goal of 300 words. I'll often write more than that, but it's low enough to feel achievable when I'm busy or tired or just don't feel like it. Otherwise, my writing process is just to go through my outline in order and check off scenes as they're done.

Step 6: edit 😕

When I write fiction, I'll usually edit a chapter once or maybe twice before I post it. In my academic life, however, a solid 40% of the writing process is just editing, so here's how I do that in case anyone is looking for an editing process:

The read through: after I finish writing, I let it sit for a day if I have time, then read the entire thing. I'll usually fix minor grammar/spelling mistakes just to keep myself paying attention, but the goal here is to make note of structural problems. Is there a natural flow between scenes/ideas? Are there any parts that are repetitive or extraneous or, alternatively, is there anything missing?

Structural edit: fix the things I noticed on the read through.

Repeat steps 1 and 2 until I'm satisfied

Line edit: this is where I clean up the writing itself — spelling, grammar, making sure there's variation in sentence structure and word choice, ect.

[kirayaykimura]

Don’t Wanna Keep Secrets Just To Keep You

For Obiyuki Madness 2022 Final Round - Fake Relationship

The bar & grill closest to the pharmacy Shirayuki worked at also happened to provide some of the best people-watching in town. Or so she’d been told. She never could get the hang of being interested in speculating on random people’s lives, but Obi seemed to like it and, well, she liked Obi. 

The people-watching would probably be excellent that night, too. Though it was only six at night on a Thursday, the place was already half-full. Not so packed that she wanted to suggest another place for dinner, but enough that she had to wait a few minutes for the bartender to get to her. It was during those unfortunate minutes that she had attracted the attention of a very inebriated man who was insisting he buy her a drink. Why, she had no idea. 

“I don’t want to drink alone,” he said, leaning in close like he was confiding something in her. She held her ground, but only just. The hot breath on her neck was making it really hard not to shove him off the other side of his stool. But all he’d done so far was - rather forcefully - offer to buy her a drink. Nothing that deserved bodily harm. She merely took as far a step away as she could manage without knocking into anyone else.

He got the hint and pulled out of her space, but dove right back in with, “C’mon. Let me buy you a drink.” 

“No, thank you. I am perfectly capable of buying my own drink.” 

“Yeah, but it’s like the…” He trailed off and waved a careless hand, nearly knocking his own drink off the bar. “The principle of the thing. Or whatever.” 

She didn’t know what he meant and had more than a sneaking suspicion he didn’t either, so she said nothing. 

Undeterred, he asked “Are you waiting for someone?” 

“Yes,” she said. 

“A boyfriend?” 

She didn’t know what to say to that. What difference did it make? 

Apparently taking her silence as a no, he asked, “So what’s the problem?” 

“The problem is that I said no,” Shirayuki said firmly, trying to keep a tight leash on her temper. “Multiple times.” 

He grinned, apparently pleased with her answer, and said, “You’re feisty. I like that.” 

You cannot hit him. It would be a bad idea to hit him, Shirayuki reminded herself. Swallowing down her more feisty reactions, she thought about the situation logically. He wasn’t taking a hint. He wasn’t accepting overt denials. It would help to know why he was doing what he was doing. Maybe if she understood him a little better, she could fix the fundamental issue this guy so obviously had. And who knew? He might even turn into a friend before the night was over. She’d befriended less pleasant sorts before, after all. 

She wouldn’t count Obi as one of the unpleasant sorts, but she knew he would. True, they met when he stole her identity and tried to ruin her life, but now look where they were! She could absolutely turn this interaction around with some gentle encouragement and a friendly ear. 

*****

Ten minutes later, Obi appeared next to the shoulder the man - Bradley - wasn’t currently sobbing into. He placed a hand at the small of her back as he leaned around her to peek at Bradley’s tear-streaked face.

“I leave you alone for five minutes,” Obi teased her, rerouting her attention from patting this strange, sad man’s head to the person she’d been waiting for. 

“I don’t know what happened,” she whispered. One minute she was asking Bradley why he felt the need to pressure women into drinking with him, and the next he was tearing up and telling her about how he felt unlovable so he used money and persistence to get women to spend time with him. He was currently in the middle of a story about his childhood dog. There was probably a connection there, but she was thankful her job at the moment was to listen, not to understand. 

Obi simply laughed and slipped around her to duck under one of Bradley’s arms, heaving him up and off Shirayuki. Theoretically, she supposed, the move was supposed to put Bradley on his feet, but he looked like he was putting more weight on Obi’s side than his own legs. She watched Obi’s arm muscles tense under his henley to compensate for Bradley’s inability to stay upright at the moment. It was nice to see his gym membership was paying off. 

“Come on, pal,” Obi said. “Let’s get you a Lyft and away from the nice, pretty girl.” 

“She is nice,” Bradley agreed. “Do I know you?” 

“Nope. But I know her.” 

“You gotta protect her. She’s so pretty and single.”

“Single, huh?” Obi glanced over his shoulder at her, one eyebrow raised. Shirayuki sighed internally. He was going to tease her to no end for the rest of the night. There would be no normal conversation after this. 

“I tried to wife her, but she didn’t want to.” 

Shirayuki lost track of the conversation as the two plodded towards the exit. All she caught was half of Obi’s reply about better men failing something before they were swallowed by the crowd. 

The situation with Bradly hadn’t even cracked the top twenty weirdest moments of her life, so she shrugged it off, took his newly-abandoned stool, and finally caught the bartender’s eye to order. 

She was on her third (half) sip of her cider when she felt someone crowd into her space and reach around her to pluck what was supposed to be Obi’s beer off the bar.

“Excuse me,” Shirayuki said, gearing up to give the rude person a piece of her mind. The entitlement in this bar tonight was off the charts. When she spun on her stool and came face to face with Obi, all the fight left her at once. 

“Oh,” she said. “It’s you.” 

Obi raised his eyebrows at her over the rim of the glass.

“I thought you were stealing, well, your drink,” she explained. It didn’t quite make sense, but he must have gathered the gist because he nodded. 

“My knight in shining armor,” he said, grabbing her drink off the bar and nodding for her to follow him to one of the tables. “Thank you for guarding my drink so diligently.”

Oh. Okay. Maybe he wasn’t going to tease her mercilessly after all. Nice, but weird. She’d been so sure he wouldn’t pass up the chance to talk about her kind face that just makes people want to open up to you, Miss.

She realized it was too much to hope for when he casually threw out, “So you’re single, huh?” as they slid into the booth they’d decided to claim for the night. 

He watched her with an openly amused and slightly curious look as she tried and failed not to get annoyed all over again. 

“He asked if I had a boyfriend,” she said. “I thought it would be a good chance to teach him that no means no, not, I’ve already been claimed means no.” 

Obi nodded. “A noble endeavor.” 

“Clearly it didn’t stick.” 

“He did puke in the alley outside. I think it’s safe to say he was too wasted to function. I’m sure your lesson was presented very well. If he hadn’t taken up one of your arms crying on it, you probably could have whipped up a nice powerpoint, too.” 

Should she have done that? He was joking, but maybe she should make one to have on hand in the future. A bright, colorful pie chart might-

“So, Miss,” Obi said, bringing her out of her head and back to the present, “do you come here often?” 

She blinked at him. 

“I mean, you must not,” he said. “I think I’d remember a pretty face like that.” 

“What?” 

Obi draped a casual arm across the back of the booth and let a playful smile tug at the corners of his lips. Voice deeper than it was a few seconds ago, he said, “Since you’re single, I thought I’d try my luck.” 

It took her a moment to catch on. When she did, she said, “You realize you’re no better than Bradley, hitting on a stranger in a bar.” 

Obi laughed, delighted. 

“Of course you got his name,” he said. “Well, I’m hoping my attempt will be slightly more welcome. I’ve been told I’m quite handsome.” 

Obi had a specific way of looking at her when he was feeling particularly mischievous. His expression would turn sly and his eyes would cut to her like he was inviting her in on the joke. A secret just for them. Though she’d made many friends since her lonely teenage years, it was that look from him that made her feel like she didn’t have to take on the world alone anymore. 

But they weren’t taking on the world. It was just them. In a bar. Pretending to be different people for a while. And if she got to be any woman she wanted, she chose Kiki. 

Trying for bored and unaffected, she said, “I’m more interested in a man’s personality.” 

Obi clicked his tongue. “Can’t help you there.” 

“Yes you can,” she said, immediately breaking character. “You have a wonderful personality.” 

“And you are so bad at this,” Obi said on a laugh. “Honestly, Miss. We’ve only just met. How could you possibly know what my personality is like?” 

“I, um- I’m really good at reading people?” 

Obi let his chin fall to his chest in resigned disappointment. It didn’t do much to hide the curve of his smile, though.

“So bad,” he whispered to himself. Then, he looked up at her through his lashes and said, “I think I’m in love with you.” 

“Already?” she asked, trying to stay immersed and not get distracted by, as he said earlier, how handsome he looked in the low light, relaxed and looking at her like he wanted her six ways to Sunday. 

“I fall fast,” he said with a shrug.  

“That must make life very difficult.”

“Eh. It’s worked out fine so far.”

*****

An hour later, when they’d worked their way through names, jobs, and hobbies - about which Obi invented increasingly elaborate lies and Shirayuki failed at least three times to stop herself from calling him out because, well, she was actually pretty bad at the game - they headed out into the cold October night. 

“Can we stop by the grocery store on the way home?” Shirayuki asked before they were half-way down the first block. Suzu’s birthday was coming up and she wanted to make cookies. 

“You know,” Obi said, taking her hand in his, “the point of pretending to be strangers at a bar is to also pretend you’re taking a stranger home. If you act like we already live together, it defeats the whole purpose.” 

“You’re the one who insisted we didn’t know each other. I don’t want to take a stranger home. I just want you.” 

Obi went quiet in that peculiar way he did when she’d said something he didn’t know he was allowed to have. In the year they’d been dating, and the many years they’d been friends, she’d learned to just wait out those moments.

Sure enough, he heaved a very put-upon sigh after a beat and said, “Fine, I guess I don’t want to take a stranger home, either.” The hand that tightened infinitesimally around hers said, I only want you, too. 

[theintentioncraft]

To continue supporting content makers, this tag game is meant to show the entire process of making creative content: this can be for any creation.

RULES - When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag up to 5 people with a specific link to one of their creative works you’d like to see the process of. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours.

I've been tagged by @lordbelacqua (thank you Dea! <3) to talk about Backlead aka: that one Masriel fic I wrote where I got massively carried away...

Rambling/essay under the cut - fair warning, it's a long one!

Okay so first of all just a little disclaimer that Backlead did not follow my usual writing process - the idea was 110% borne out of self-indulgence and it was also both my first foray into HDM fanfic and my return to fanfic as a whole after a long hiatus from writing, so for me this was really a chance to just get back into the swing of things. Everything from Heavenly Guard through to Swansong and all of my current WIPs follow a more structured process and I'm happy to discuss any of them in a separate post!

PLANNING: I tend to find with my fics that I either have a nice little timeline of events planned out pre-writing or I have a very specific event in my head and I just take that and see how things unravel from there and Backlead was 100% the latter.

All I had in my head initially was the ballroom dance scene and so a lot of my admittedly-minimal planning was around the technicalities of that particular section, as well as some of the more general details e.g Marisa's outfit, the setting of the ball, etc. Planning the dance was the most fun part because it was a chance for me to put a lot of my dance knowledge to good use and think up something that fits the back-and-forth way in which Marisa and Asriel frequently navigate their encounters. In a way though I'm actually very glad that a lot of this fic Just Happened instead of being planned out, sometimes it's nice to just run away with an idea!

MUSIC: This gets its own section because this is one of the most important things in my process. Every single fic I write is written to various pieces of music that just help me to put myself in the right headspace for whatever I'm writing at the time - sometimes its just a single piece of music (I wrote Swansong in one hour with just one track from the Unforgotten - a TV show in the UK for those of you not familiar with it - soundtrack on repeat) and sometimes its entire playlists. I do love geeking out about my music choices for fic writing so happy to talk more in a separate post about music for some of my other fics if anyone's curious!

For Backlead I found a couple of playlist-vids from the lovely raviolae on youtube that really worked wonders for my writing. This comes with a disclaimer that I did not necessarily attribute any of these specific songs to either dance scene and I wanted to leave that open for people's imagination - but it's still brilliant vibes for thinking about two once-lovers-now-enemies trying to one-up each other whilst ignoring how much they still find each other attractive.

The two playlist-vids in question are here: you're stuck on the dance floor with your rival and find out they're an annoyingly good dancer and you're dancing with your rival and both of you want to lead

WRITING: First step every time is to figure out who's POV I'm going to cover because that makes a major difference in the way I'm going to write. Characterisation is the big thing for me and there's nothing I love more than to really get inside a character's head and basically think like them, and figure out what makes them tick and how they'll react to the story I'm putting them in. With my initial idea for Backlead being basically about the subtle power dynamics of a ballroom dance, Marisa felt like the natural go-to for this one and I found it much easier in this instance to write in her headspace than in Asriel's.

I wrote this fic in a very out-of-order fashion. The first dance (the slower, waltz-style dance) was the first part I finished, then I did as hinted at above get very carried away and move onto the section in the hallway, then I went right to the start and covered the entire section leading up to that first dance. Then I revisited the hallway scene because I wanted to rework it (the initial version was planned to be more explicit and involved less dialogue - but I wasn't comfortable with writing out the former at that time and the latter got changed by way of me having a sudden burst of dialogue-themed inspiration). The second, more set piece style dance came last in terms of the 'major events' that I wrote purely because I spent a lot of time racking with my dance knowledge to try and make it work in a way that didn't feel forced.

My final major writing stage is to write the 'transitions' between each major part - small pieces where nothing particularly noteworthy happens but it helps the fic to flow from one conversation/event to the next and also sometimes allows me to sneak in a bit of characterisation that I couldn't fit in elsewhere.

Along the way I often leave sentences half-finished with a bracket indicator so I know to go back to it later or I make little notes if I've added something in that needs explaining earlier in the fic, and I make sure to sort those parts out before I jump to the self review/beta reader stage. A couple of examples are below:

Although sometimes this method does also annoy future me too 😂:

SELF REVIEW/BETA REVIEW: Whenever I finish a fic, it gets put away for a day or two and I stop thinking about it completely - if I'm using a beta reader (usually @thatlavanderbard but I sometimes enlist help from friends on discord), I'll send them a copy of my draft at this point so they can start going through and leaving comments for me to work on, but the idea is that when I go back to my work a few days later I'm looking at it with semi-fresh eyes and can properly sift through each sentence to make sure things make sense.

When I'm self-reviewing I generally tend to follow this order of operations: spelling/grammar check (via docs') -> flow check (making sure any deliberate time skips/POV changes/etc in my fic flow smoothly from one part to the next) -> address beta reader comments (because they almost always pick up on things I myself would've picked up on anyway) -> general detailed final read through to make sure I'm happy with every single line and it all makes sense.

Backlead didn't get a full beta read because I had hit a point with it where I just wanted it up ASAP and my impatience got the better of me, but the rest of the above self-review stages still happened and I still spent a fair few evenings going through it properly and also running the occasional sentence or two by some helpful discord friends if I didn't like the way it flowed but couldn't quite figure out how to remedy it!

POSTING: First step was to reset my AO3 password because I forgot it yet again whoops

On a more serious note this part is pretty straightforward - once I'm ready to post a new fic I generally just go on autopilot for this part of the process (other than when I get to 'additional tags' and immediately get brain freeze...). As soon as it's up on AO3 I swing by here to make a post about it, then swing by discord to drop the link to friends who may be interested in reading it and then I normally nervously scuttle away from my notifications for a while out of fear that people hate it lmao.

That last part was especially true for Backlead because of it being my first trip into HDM fanfic and I always get extra nervous when posting my first fanfic for a new show/game/etc. Thankfully I got quite a few nice comments both on here and on discord that provided good motivation to stick around and post a few more things!

I always panic when asked to tag people lmao but I'll tag @fortheloveofwii for any part of the Onward, Onward series, @lyracordelia for any chapter in Hiraeth or the fic as a whole, and @glassrunner for this absolutely gorgeous gifset of beautiful game soundtracks. Please don't feel like you have to do this if you don't want to though!

[nighttimepixels]

Heyhey Night! I have a buncha questions after seeing all your animations and they're just so cool so! I hope this is ok!! Can u animate normally too, or only pixel? Not that that's bad, just wondering! What's ur preferred kinda animation? Do u prefer lipflaps or lipsyncs? What's the hardest part of the animation process?? What's ur favorite?? Any part u don't like? What's a thing people don't see that u put a lotta time into? Do u have a fave animation u've done? Thank u btw for all ur art!!

Oh stars, okay, yeah- I’m happy to answer all these!! I’ll break them up so it’s easier to read X) And awww geez thank you so much for your support, sweet anon! It really makes my day when people say they like anything I’ve made, and stars knows it’s all the more true with the sweet sweet time sink that is animation   (´•̥̥̥\\ヮ\\•̥̥̥` )

I’ll also put this under a cut since it gets a bit long :)

Can u animate normally too, or only pixel?

This one cracks me up a little, don’t worry about it XD I totally can! In fact I enjoy it a lot - and... gods, animation software is a nightmare and a half, to be honest. That’s the biggest hurdle.

I do just straight up love pixel art and the aesthetic I can achieve with it, but I do at times miss ‘normal’ (non pixel?) animation, heh. Especially sound-syncing! I do all my pixel art in Asesprite which imo is the best pixel art program, not to mention made by an actual pixel artist - buuuut it doesn’t have a sound file option. Which makes sense! Er, frankly, most pixel artists wouldn’t... use it to animate like I do? More for games, or for looping gifs? So I can’t complain much, it makes a lot of sense that it’s a low dev priority.

Now, when it comes to other animation programs... I’ve tried a lot. Unfortunately, the ones that are preferable for the feel I like are either way out of budget (stares at TVPaint in the distance) or... well, have too high a learning curve for my single-person workflow, really. (OpenToonz, sigh...) And a lot of the free programs are good for getting a start in animation, but once you get to a certain point you really feel the limitations (whether it’s workflow, sound import, exports, trying to make something more finished than a rough...).

Then... there’s animation programs I just don’t like, and a lot of those are angled towards bone-style animations (nothing wrong with those, they just don’t fit my style? and are too much time investment for a single artist to output more quickly...), or are, well, freakin’ Adobe Animate.

I... gods, I do not like Animate (formerly Flash). And I made a whole 2 minute+ animation in it a couple years ago! (It’s very rough and bad and doesn’t make sense, pfff, not gonna link it XD) It’s... clunky, and vector oriented, and freaking lines don’t go where I want them too, and it tries to predict too much?? It’s hard to put to words, gah. For me, my animation style would be much more... raster oriented. Flow, hand drawn inbetweens, yaddayadda. Animate’s great for... plenty of things, but not for that kind of animation. There are far better animators than I who make it work with freakin’ aplomb though! So really, it’s just my taste, haha.

.... Er, that got long! I’ll cut off more rambling about animation software and tl;dr boil it down to “I love animating period, but turnaround is something I have to keep in mind as a freelancer, as well as budget, and my current focus is pixel animations for a number of reasons.” X)

What's ur preferred kinda animation?

I’m not exactly sure what this one means! Between pixel and non-pixel? Er, they both have their pros and cons, so I couldn’t say! But if I have to break down my current animations into categories, I’d say I have cutscenes, loop environments, and the broad game-like animations...

The first would be something like this animation feat. teasing Edge, the second would be something like this one with skesgo’s Starlan and Cinnamon, and the third is... everything else! From headsprite loops to ‘small’ characters running and so on.

Honestly, they’re all a lot of fun for different reasons! Cutscenes are generally the most challenging, but they give me the chance to push my limits and try and pull off something cool, whether I’m having to conserve frames (to keep the cost of a commission down) or whether I’m going more all out (which is a pricey commission, or a fun personal project, lol).

Loop environments are their own challenge - it may not look like it, but I put a lot of thought into how to make them look as natural as possible! From timing of talking characters, to where to place a blink, to exactly how many frames it’ll take to ‘soften’ a motion (so people aren’t just snapping between major poses) and so on - it takes... a lot of time to animate even simple scenes well, so I do a lot of mental math on how I can keep things affordable when someone approaches me for a commission. And frankly, I totally undercharge;; but I do my best!

Game-like animations are just fun. They range, they’re silly, to intense (I’ve animated fight animations before for game concepts), to indulgent, and beyond! Headsprites are always a delight, especially if I get to push the expression X) and I love tiny things (I mean... I am a pixel artist...) so getting to make lil tiny babs even just walking can be fun - and also, a lot more time consuming than you might thing, esp if you wanna make it smooth, like this lil Frisk I did last month or so:

Do u prefer lipflaps or lipsyncs?

oTL

B... both??

Okay, lipsyncing basically is very time consuming. AND, I freakin’ love it. I love puzzles, and when it boils down to it, that’s what super fun & expressive lip syncing is (some Ghibli animations are the heckin’ best for this)...

and, I’m a pixel artist, without sound-syncing capabilities in her main art program oTL Yeah, I can export frames and line them up and check but... gods, it’s so time consuming. I’ve tried it out of desperation - but for even five seconds of sound (sayyyyy a lil Vine...) that’s hours upon hours of transferring back and forth just to check.

So even though I love lipsyncs, they’re too time-consuming (and ergo, if I’m being commissioned, often too expensive) to do often! Someday I’d like to get back to doing them more often, but for now, practically I stick to/’prefer’, in the loosest terms, to do lipflaps. For the layman, this is that ‘two frame’ (maybe three) open-closed style of animating mouths- however, I’m working on ways to keep that style, but make it more expressive! It depends on the project - and in commissions, I’ll pretty much always prioritize giving the client a little more body animation than mouth animation, unless it’d really fit what they’ve requested.

What's the hardest part of the animation process??

.... damn, this is a tough one! Sometimes I’d say it’s the initial concept work - but it depends on what I have to work with. Sometimes that parts a breeze - and honestly freeing, bc I can take the time to try and push what I’ll do with it!

Roughing is one of my favorite parts, tbh. It can be tricky, sure, but getting to go from keyframes to in-betweens & smears to adding the flairs of secondary motion (think hair swishing, or coats flaring, etc) is so exciting and satisfying.

From there it’s all refining, and tweaking...

Hm. Honestly, the hardest is probably the initial cleanup and lining. It’s cool to see it come together, but it feels so much slower, and it can drag - and then you find bits that actually don’t translate well from the rough stage, so you have to go back and rework, and oof it can just drag in this phase, heh. Plus, I’m always tempted to add more frames, but it’s not always realistic - I’m a perfectionist, to say the least, so I’m constantly having to leash myself back so I don’t turn a project into a half-a-year undertaking, pff.

What's ur favorite??

Probably gave myself away talking about the roughing stage X) It’s just loose and fun and free! But seeing it all come together is also damn satisfying too, so that’s not to say I don’t like the refining portions either...

Outside of that, I also really like the beginning of the color stage! .... Before having to translate shadows/highlights to each and every frame *shudders*. That gets tedious, but it’s so critical! Anyways, though, I heckin’ love colors. I always have a rough palette in mind at the start of the process, but I go ham and play with it as a little break and a true test when I get to actual slap together a full frame with full color, highlights/shadows included! It’s exciting, like a preview of the finished product, basically :D

Any part u don't like?

Heh, by the time I get to shadows/highlights, I tend to be getting impatient, I suppose. It’s not that I don’t like it - I definitely highly value it, and if it was the only thing I was working on in an animation that’d be different, but as a one-woman team I’m just raring to be done at that point; it’s very nearly the last thing I do, after all, so it’s a struggle to focus. X)

I suppose one that always gets me is more complicated backgrounds. It’s a work in progress, as I’m getting better and finding the fun in them for sure! But I’m still not where I want to be in translating ‘background concept’ to ‘finished background’ - it feels more stiff than my animations, I guess. So it’s a frustrating part... but hey, it’s part of it! And learning to embrace the challenge is a big help.

... I just always have to make sure I have a big cup of coffee and a good jam playlist going when I sit down to do ‘em, in the meantime.(=▿= ||||)

What's a thing people don't see that u put a lotta time into?

Definitely the coloring. This goes for both backgrounds and the animated characters themselves. It’s... never as simple as it looks? It’s time consuming, and while some parts of frames can be copy-pasted, I also put subtle work into the animations that mean that some pixels are off so it ends up being marginally faster to just recolor, but then there’s shadows, and working in pixels means that if I miss one then there’s a flickering pixel mid-animation, and sometimes there’s an unconnected line and then you bucket fill the whole damn thing, and gods know I’ve got colored lines so I have to be exacting with keeping the same ratios highlighted vs darker in shifting frames...

*deep breath*

... Yeah, basically the coloring is super time consuming. And balancing bg coloring with animated elements in the image itself is a whole extra challenge on top of that. For 99% of my animations, I can damn near guarantee I’ve spent at least twice as much time coloring it as I have animating it.

Do u have a fave animation u've done?

*looks at my goblin hoard of animations in horror like I’ve been asked to choose a favorite child*

... Stars above, I can’t choose! I love them all, and at this point a good portion of them are commissions- it wouldn’t feel right to choose!

*...carefully covers the hoard’s metaphorical ears*

... also, that said, I can admit a soft spot for any of them that involve humor. I tend to get to do extremely expressive faces and action there, even if I have to ration the frames, so it turns out really fun X)

And though rough and I’ve definitely done stuff I’m more proud of, I still crack up at this one I did a while back of the nonsense ‘ass’ joke between Red & Stretch... their faces were too much fun XD I’ve gotten waybetter since then though, Big Oof, I see so many things I can fix; might go back and redo it someday.

Honestly, though, I just freakin’ love animating! They all have their ups and downs andI always put a lot of love into them and find a way to have fun with it and try to push any emotion/theme (when applicable). I like to think it shows, but idk, that’s something I have to leave up to you guys X)