#composition my beloathed

[inumbrapugnabimus-maybe]

For your art requests, could you draw Wars and Twi just hangin out? Maybe looking for cool rocks?

- crazylittlejester

Just two bros havin a good time

they also went fishing btw

[sunnfish]

[ID: A digital illustration of Tashiro Gonzaburou and Shirahama Kyouji from Sasaki to Miyano. They are sat on the floor of Tashiro’s room, next to his bed, holding video game controllers. Tashiro sits cross-legged and is leaned forward with a concentrated look on his face. Shirahama is relaxed in a half-crossed position with one leg up, and he is smiling while talking and looking over at Tashiro. Tashiro’s room is colorful, with many patterns and pillows and posters on the wall. It is rendered in vibrant greens, oranges, and blues, in a rough, painterly style. They are lit from the front, as if from the glow of a TV. The artist’s signature “sunnfish 2024” is written below the bed. /End ID]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TASHIRO MY FAVORITE CHARACTER EVER

[plein-air-on-gorkhon]

some stillwater refs, if trying to draw it gives you too, conniptions

[felinae-felidae]

Are you guys tired of seeing this wip already?

[quirkyfries]

Sneak peak at something I’m working on for Lambs and Slaughters

Under the cut, because this is a WIP and in its baby stages lol. These characters belong to @sinclairmaxwellao3 ‘s SAMS Mafia AU! Please check out her work at https://archiveofourown.org/works/54344629?view_full_work=true

I’m in the process of making a design for Moonrise— Our new dearly beloathed antagonist!

My main ideas behind his design is, since he’s a hitman for Fazcorp, I wanted him to somewhat parallel and at the same time be the opposite of the Celestial’s hitman— Ruin. Mostly in the sense of how they carry themselves; Ruin seems to always be proper, so Moonrise won’t care so much for things like correct posture, similar to Moon but not for the same reasons. Ruin is scary due to his physical appearance, so Moonrise will have a threatening demeanor. Etcetera. This is purely for design, these characters aren’t mine and I don’t have any say in their actual feelings or thought processes!

For me, the notes are mostly how I should consider Moonrise’s body language when thinking of compositions. The part about Moonrise defaulting to things like a slight slouch or a “fighting” stance as if he’s always ready to throw hands is how I can make a character’s thumbnail silhouette unique without changing their base design too much, because Moonrise is supposed to be a spitting image of Moon, who is a separate character.

Ft. My sound hardware notes lol.

[frenzyarts]

I just saw ur post asking if capcut is good for animation composition & imho i cant speak to any of that bc i never use capcut but i find the keyframing that procreate dreams offers to be pretty good. It is $20 i think (im not usamerican so i didn’t buy it with dollars) so it’s up to u if you feel comfortable paying for it when animating natively in it is. Cringe. (Lack of lasso tool & custom brushes my BELOATHED) but it’s pretty good for editing & tweening, albeit rudimentary. Moving backgrounds specifically is one thing ive found pretty easy to set up. & importing & exporting between dreams & procreate is a workflow that kind of gets around this, i do all my roughs in dreams but my polished frames in procreate anyways LMAO u can v easily make it work methinks. That’s just my two cents. Also the lurning curve for dreams’ functions is horrendous but its p solid once u have them down!

I actually have dreams and couldn’t figure it out 😭 like I tried several times and it just wasn’t working for me. If it somehow allows me to put one animation over a background that’s moving that would be dope. But last time I tried to use it, the app wouldn’t even let me have more than one video layer…? Why

[squirrels-are-sleeping]

Counter/Weight 27: An Animal out of Context, Liveblog

(It has come to this, I've got to do reaction posts, otherwise I shall explode)

We're in the past! Austin and Jack are building a religion/history/myth/origin story!

JACK: … And on this planet, things are very, very bad … because something is telling these people exactly how much timber they need to cut, and every day that number is going up, and already we have a name for this thing– JACK: … –and it is called Rigour and we built it. … It’s really, really bad, and we want more than anything else … we wanna chop down trees. We wanna keep producing, but more than anything else, we want to throw off the yoke that Rigour has us under.

So the villain is actually the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism?? Or more precisely, something like if Taylorism (my beloathed) and the Protestant Ethic were taken to an extreme and had a very ugly robotic child

AUSTIN: … The relic is a mapping system. … See, normally, your maps are controlled by Rigour. You see where you can go, and normally … your personal lumberjack rigger only can have a zone of operation inside of zones that Rigour determines. … It automatically, like an automated car, drives you to a place. … Now you can move wherever you want. … [T]his is the Liberty in the Liberty and Discovery system. I am the Divine of Liberty and Discovery.

OK, so there's probably a lot to say about metaphors of divinity as they apply to Divines. It's not super clear to me to what extent the Diasporan culture at the time of the Chime imbues Divines with actual godhood, or whether religions even exist as the kind of cultural practices that we would recognise, separate from veneration of big-ass machines.

However, it's clear that, when the events of this Tower game occur, the only Divine that's existed up until now is Rigour, and he is not even called that. It would seem like the only thing framing Liberty and Discovery as divinities is the framework of the game itself.

And yet, one of the first actions that Liberty and Discovery perform is, in effect, world-making. The Pilgrim's world up until now was defined by Rigour, but now he has a map - and in a literal sense, the map doesn't simply describe a different place, it creates a new world for him. In this way, Liberty and Discovery do what divinities do.

AUSTIN: Okay. The Divine names the pilgrimage. This is the Pilgrimage of the Opposite of Alone.

Fuck, that's beautiful and weird, and a little sinister. What's the opposite of "alone"? It's not "together", because for the Pilgrim there's no sense of togetherness.

And in one room, you see a– a single… screen on with a sort of logo on it, an L and a D. The D is holding the L close. They are intimate for a logo.

First of all, what a descriptor to choose for a logo.

Second of all, are Liberty and Discovery separate selves? Or are they a composite self, Liberty-and-Discovery? Is AuDy going to be a triad when they wake up?

AUSTIN: The name, by the way, that it gives you, starts to feel good in your mouth. It’s Chital. C-H-I-T-A-L.

This is interesting. At first I interpreted this piece as him re-discovering what he was called before he was named for his Juggernaut. But no, actually. He doesn't claim a name, the name is still coming from the Divine. He is named, and accepts it.

JACK: [T]o pay off my saw blade… I have a detachable saw blade. So … my ability to chop down trees goes up significantly more. I chop down four times as many trees. … AUSTIN: And this is how you honor my– my relics. Okay.  JACK: I don't know anything about you. AUSTIN: You know a couple things. JACK: Well, you’ve given me a saw blade. AUSTIN: Mm.

Ooof, the world of disappointment and judgement in this exchange. If my deity said "mm" to me in that voice, I might lie down and have a cry

AUSTIN: I think that the way space months work– one of the ways they work here, at least– is that most people don’t know what all of the different seasons are on all of the different major planets. But everyone knows one or two special things about one or two planets, right? And so, you know, everyone knows about the beautiful winter month on the planet of Garden where, for nine months out of the 10-month year, it is this beautiful spring. And then there’s this one month of just fierce winter storms for a week, and then it’s just a beautiful winter playground for the remaining three weeks. Everybody knows the name of that month. No one knows what the third spring month is like, but everyone knows what that one is.

See, here's the reason I fucking love this show. You have to think deeply about human cultures to notice that a calendar is not just for marking the progress of a year, but is a collection of specific meanings entangled with particular cultural circumstances, and what the natural world is doing is only somewhat related to what a month is collectively understood to mean.

AUSTIN: [Rigour] comes across like austerity does now for some people. For those who already have a great deal of power, they hear it, and they go, “Oh, yes, those people do need to be more rigorous, don’t they?”

Let's take a short break to all say "fuck austerity"

AUSTIN: If you’re curious about what the inspiration for Rigour is, it is– JACK: Is it Henry Ford? AUSTIN: –Taylorism and Fordism. It is those practices. Scientific management.

CALLED IT

~Mako's interlude~

AUSTIN: Maybe this is the way you do that, technically you’re in your Larry form, moving around Mako’s memories, you know? I think Larry form just has his hair parted the other way. … KEITH: … Whatever color Mako’s hair and shirt are they match, but for Larry, they match in a slightly different way.

Hold your horses! Is Larry just here now? Hanging out in Mako's brain with Ibex/Righteousness's avatar/whatever that was? AuDy is two Divines (who are maybe one Divine), and Mako is hosting a friendly virus on top of his Evil MIT software?

I'm also extremely here for the Orth/Mako dynamic we discover in this segment, where Orth sets him Tasks and Duties, and Mako acts like a petulant child about it, and both of them are right, and neither of them is right. I daren't go on AO3 because spoilers, but god, I hope somebody has explored this.

Back in the Tower, Chital has installed Righteousness on the L&D mech. Is it now 3 robots in one? Or 1 complex robot?

~Cass's interlude~

AUSTIN: What’s Cass interested in right now? ART: Uhh… I mean, I think, on one sense, Cass is interested in nostalgia right now

…and

AUSTIN: So what’s the meal that Cass had that comes to mind while cooking. ART: I… I think there was a banquet at the beginning of the war … I imagine that [Cass's parents] look… just glorious, right? All five of them, probably. These are their best clothes. … The monarch is wearing a fantastic crown … and all of the family are wearing finery, and they sit and they talk”

The texture of Cass's nostalgia is so interesting. They're grieving for their parent, but the parent was a monarch who'd waged a war of conquest. They'd recently spent a fair amount of time watching a memory in which Sokrates works to prevent mass death from a weapon that their parent had deployed. When they wake, the parent is dead, and Sokrates has taken apart the monarchy and is reigning over its pieces.

Cass flies the mech bequeathed to them, and uses their hereditary cookware to make sad space pasta with fake squid ink, and reminisces about the last time they spent time with their parents and siblings, and it's a huge fucking state banquet.

I'm worried for Cass; they need a hug.

Back in the Tower, Rigour is here :-D The rest of the episode baffled the fuck out of me in terms of mechanics of The Tower. I went back and listened to it twice. Jack drew a Joker, and things became Bad? And then they drew another Joker?

JACK: Yeah. But I don’t think you can judge me based on the presence of the Adversary. AUSTIN: Is that what you think, or is that what Chital thinks? JACK: Oh, no, that’s what I think. I don’t think that you can judge me. I don’t– AUSTIN: Did you live up to your own laws? Did you find loopholes in your own laws? Did you break your own laws? AUSTIN: Did you honor my relics? Did you covet them? Did you disavow them? Distance yourself from them?

Ok but why is Austin so menacing, though

AUSTIN: Did you. Oh, Jack. Oh, Jack. Oh, Jack.

You know things are bad when Austin starts regretfully saying your name like a disappointed school teacher.

Anyway, RIP Chital, you disappointed your judgy mech suit one too many times.

[puppetchamber]

19 The Saint(Achievement)

must have redone the composition on this one at least twice.

Pipeyard my beloved! my beloathed!

[rpf-bat]

💻 Do you do research for your fics? What’s the deepest dive you’ve done? and ✨ Choose three adjectives to complement your own writing, for the fic ask game ❤️

💻 Do you do research for your fics? What’s the deepest dive you’ve done?

Yes, sometimes!

Castle In The Woods was probably my deepest dive. The fic takes place in 1897 AD, so I did a little research into Finnish history!

I learned that Finland didn’t gain independence from Russia until 1917. However, it was “given” to Russia by Sweden, in 1809.

So, the castle that Vampire!Niko (and his sire) lived in, was probably built by Swedish nobles.

I fell down a Wikipedia rabbit hole, and read a bit about a castle in Finland that still stands today, called Soumenlinna.

….Niko’s beloathed sire was implied to be Russian, so you can draw your own conclusions. 😐

Du Lügst is set in the same universe, and explores the relationship that Niko had with Aleksi, before he “died”.

For that story, I researched the early life of Beethoven.

Niko, in this fic, is Beethoven’s classmate, living in Vienna and studying under Haydn. The fic takes place in 1794, one year before Beethoven released his first composition ! 🎹

✨ Choose three adjectives to complement your own writing.

Previously answered here.

[mikansei]

it's january 3rd and i have not finished a single kisuke but what i DO have is:

a hime cut, for some reason (that was supposed to be a warmup sketch but u will notice there is ink. Do Not Ask)

a desperate reckoning with the six arms of Nyoirin Kannon statues and my phone’s horrible camera (at about which time i realized the pose i have in mind has far outstripped my abilities. also i couldn’t draw the hougyoku so it’s a d20)

this sick ass benihime i looked up so many pictures of bjds for (and that i drew on the back of another drawing and didn’t mean to render. “it was only supposed to be a quick sketch" my old nemesis. my beloathed. worstie i did not miss u)

and

appx. half a kisuke and a composition mockup i spent WAY too long on considering i’m not actually going to draw it digitally, but at least i can rearrange his legs without erasing holes in the paper

edit: WAIT

ooh ahh perspective......

[mandoposting]

I want to give each Cresh Squad member a gentle and tender kiss on the forehead and make them pancakes also

that's very sweet of you :)

Taglist: @ct-9904, @xviii-themoon, @twisted-falcon, @findhimfives, @the-dreamy-space, @fake-fullbuster, @parkotedarasuum, @beckettsmeckett, @icanbringyouincold, @limeyartspinningtales, @persaloodles, @dilfyoda, @dagobahbound, @howie-ner-cyare, @a-disaster-named-milo, @moon-khat, @ahsoka1, @craziest-in-the-guild, @1-or-a-0 dm/send me an ask if you'd like to be added/removed :)

[cuppajj]

GODDDDD YEEEEEEESSSSS!!!!!!!!!! YES I LOVE THIS THANK YOU DRIFT SMMMM <3 <3 <3

"You're-" she started. "You're sick and twisted, Tandem."

...

Their smile never faltered, even as their voice turned icy. "the worst." they vowed. "and until I have what I want, you belong to me."

-----

Some art of an RP with @cuppajj and @doodlebug-808 !! <3 Featuring Tandem, and Scotta! I'm sure nothing bad will happen to either of them :)

[withinsnow]

Panel layout and visual composition: part 2

PART 1

One tricky thing with mediums such as comics and literature, is that you can’t manipulate the passing of time like you can in audiovisual mediums. So in moments where slow motion would be used in film to do just that, you’ll here have to find other methods to achieve the same effect. There are many such techniques. For example: a common trick in writing is to use a series of short sentences to convey a feeling of urgency and haste. Just like this, comics often use composition and panel layout to achieve something similar.

Disclaimer yet again: I’m not trying to «fix» the manhua or presenting an «improved version». I do this for practice. I also think the artist is genuinely skilled, and that anybody who’s able to produce consistent, good-quality illustrations at such a rapid pace should be feared. This is also why I decided to not make suggestion layouts this time, and instead tweak the illustrations themselves.

Motion lines, my beloathed.

The presence of motion lines isn’t an exclusively bad thing obviously. Like everything else it’s a visual tool we use to create an illusion of either speed, intensity or something different depending on how it’s used. It is, however, extremely easy to misuse. If I were to say what I think the nr. 1 flaw of the manhua is, it would be how often motion lines are defaulted to, sometimes to the detriment of the composition. I think that is the case here.

So let’s look at Wei Wuxian falling from a tree.

and the catch.

Here, motion lines are used in every single panel. What happens is a rapid-fire, staccato effect similar to the series of short sentences in writing. Additionally, the motion lines in the third and last two panels gives it a very dramatic feel. There are two possible intentions I can think of in this case: The above effect could be intentional, and it’s supposed to feel a bit dramatic in the sense that Lan Wangji has to rush to catch him. In that case it worked, though I believe cutting away the fifth panel would’ve been better for the overall effect (and I’ll get back to why later). The number of panels does have the unfortunate effect of extending the urgent moment beyond its necessity, essentially pulling us out of the emotional state we had when Wei Wuxian looked down at Lan Wangji from the tree. We’re then brought back in again with the embrace. It’s a back-and-forth that, in my personal opinion, is a bit too close to a jarring rollercoaster ride.

The second intention that I can think of, is that the amount of panels and use of negative space are there because the artist wanted the moment to extend as if in slow-motion. That intention doesn’t follow through into the final work, so I’m not sure how likely that is. Instead of lingering, we’re moving quickly through several snapshots of one scene. The impression I get is a bit like this videoclip here (cw. flashing images) (obviously I’m exaggerating).

Now, let’s say we want to achieve a slow-motion effect for Wei Wuxian’s fall. How do we go about that? Let’s look at a successful example and see how and why it works.

The manga «our dreams at dusk» is often praised not only for its exploration on what living in Japan as a queer person is like, but also because of its amazing visual presentation. Here’s a page of a character «falling in slow motion».

(From «Our Dreams at Dusk» chapter 1)

In this page, Somebody (the character) looks as if suspended midair, and part of the reason is the layout. The first panel takes up half the page, catching our attention and causing us to spend more time looking at it. The three panels to the side are arranged in such a way that as we read them, the panel with Somebody is still in our peripheral vision. It extends the time Somebody’s in the air as we read, causing a slow-motion like effect. Note how the lack of motion lines makes it look like a snapshot of a moment, yet the dynamic pose and weightlessness of the hair creates a feeling of motion in stillness.

I think this chapter could have done something similar. Say the panel with Wei Wuxian falling from the tree takes up most of the page. We could add small panels with details that overlap the edge of the larger one, like a close-up of Lan Wangji’s foot moving forward in the bottom corner. Like above, the fall being in the background as we look at the smaller ones extends Wei Wuxian’s perceived time in the air. A webcomic artist who often use smaller panels to «frame» bigger ones is Minna Sundberg, here’s an example:

(From «Stand Still Stay Silent» chapter 16)

The large panel is the central action, the before/after depicted in the smaller panels are all tied to it, since the central action is what cause the other actions to happen. The overlapping panels makes this clearer, as they’re directly connected.

Falling for you, but strategically

That «motion in stillness» quality I talked about is one the «catch» panel could potentially have if it didn’t have the motion lines. Without those, the way this panel leads the eye is actually quite good. As we move down the page our eyes first hit the top of the panel, and the first thing we see is the end of Wei Wuxian’s ponytail. Following the line of it we end on Lan Wangji catching Wei Wuxian. Our gaze essentially «falls» from above and «lands» in Lan Wangji’s arms (if we want to be poetic about it). When motion lines are used in a radial shape like this, our attention is brought to whatever is at its center. What that does here, is causing our attention to «snap» towards the hug. The effect of the composition is weakened by the motion lines. (Oh motion lines. My beloathed)

Because of this I opted to do a quick edit this time, to show how small elements make big changes. The first thing I did was edit out the motion lines in the above panel. I then placed the panel of Lan Wangi extending his arms before this one, removing the one between these two. Another neat trick I wanted to test out, is one where we again use the negative space to extend the «fall» in the final panel. I made the ribbon longer, so that it goes beyond the panel border. Of course it isn’t really that long, but we can allow ourselves many inaccuracies in the name of artistic liberty.

Here’s how that looks:

The top panel looks quite dynamic, and while motion lines are (again) one reason for that, the diagonal line of action coupled with the side-profile enhance it. To use my friend’s words: side profile indicates that compositionally, the person can theoretically move back-and-forth. Thus it often carries more urgency and/or suddeness.

Diagonal lines carve interesting and dynamic directions through the picture, and using an X-composition creates dynamic conflict between those opposing directions. If you look at the page from «Stand Still Stay Silent» you may notice it’s used there. The line of action for the monster goes from top-left to bottom-right, while the lines on the ground go from bottom-left to top-right. The characters are placed where those lines intersect, drawing your eyes there. One can also say there’s a diagonal cross in the top panel. For those of us who reads left to right, our eyes will naturally follow that direction as we look at images. Lan Wangji’s line of action goes opposite to this. There’s also the trees in the background being slightly tiltet to the left.

Moving on, the reason I chose to remove the panel between those two is because evenly spaced out snapshots of a fast-paced moment can work against the flow of the action. It’s similar to animation in a sense.

The distribution of the frames gives an illusion of acceleration. The opposite gives an illusion of slowing down. When we have a panel of Wei Wuxian right before he lands in Lan Wangji’s arms, it gives that slowing-down impression. However, his fall doesn’t halt before Lan Wangji catches him; it’s continuously accelerating. The presence of the «right before» panel creates this odd pause, and is in my opinion unnecessary. In the case where we remove said panel, the use of dynamic motion in the top panel and «motion in stillness» in the bottom panel conveys how the action plays out: Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are in motion as they rush towards one another, and when he’s catched that momentum stops. It’s subtle but effective.

And that’s my thoughts on the «falling/catching» panels. I do have my thoughts on those following as well, but I think this is a good place to wrap up. Maybe another time.

[ash-and-starlight]

Gosh, I just found out your blog and I'M IN LOVE WITH YOUR AVATAR FANARTS! Principally the ot3 with Sukki, Sokka and Zuko 🥺😍🥺😍 they're stunning!!

If I may ask: what do you use for drawing? and how is your sketching process (like from sketch to posting)? I'm learning how to draw and the sketching part is so hard for me, so I'm trying to get some tips from artists I like...

aaa first thing first uh. are you sure you meant to send this to me? because I haven't drawn that OT3 yet (the first artist that comes to mind that had some stunning art of them is @/sebsketchs so maybe you meant to send this to her?)

ANYWAY if this actually is for me nvm, and you’ve come to the right place (I hope) because I do sketch a lot lmao, more details under the cut bc it’s gonna get a lot of process pics!

I think sketching is my favorite part of drawing, it’s about having fun and not worrying how things look, be as messy as you want and try to capture what you want the final art to look like

Im taking my last art as an example but this is how I usually approach the sketch part

1. The Very Ugly Sketch. This is the most basic stick figure thing you can think of, just to figure out the poses and the general composition of the thing, and then cleaning it up a bit and adding shapes (but still keeping it messy and ugly, bless)

2. The Less Ugly Sketch. Basically figuring out proportions and the proper composition, and adding in more details. Here I try to make things prettier and cleaner so the lineart step will be easier

3. The lineart. My beloathed. So boring. Here I try to make things as Polished and Clean as possible. When will I be free

4. Im pushing this all together bc you were more interested in the sketching phase, but basically here’s where I color/shade/put the silly little details/and the silly little adjustment layers, and then I hit the post button

and that's it! I hope it was actually useful lmao, best of luck with your art it's gonna be amazingg

[sanstropfremir]

I'm so glad that you mention BTS's collaborative issues because on top of that ARMYs (twt especially) are so hostile against anybody they collaborate with. In the case of Dem Jointz, they completely disregard his part in creating Run BTS just because it's their song. Like this man produced this song and there would be no Run BTS if Dem Jointz did not produce it (or at least in his way). And this hate(?) they have for NCT is out of line. They choose Sticker to sum up NCT's and Dem Jointz's music catalogs when they know damn well both of them have other music compositions. Hell, Dem Jointz has Grammys due to his productions.

DEFENDING DEM JOINTZ WITH WORDS IS NOT ENOUGH I NEED A GUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! seriously the shit that they were saying when the tracklist came out was fucking vile and shows just how braindead these people are. like the way that they completely ignore his influence within kpop but also OUTSIDE of kpop because he's not the 'artist' of the songs...................ugh. celebrity culture my beloathed i hate you so fucking much.

[emcapi]

OH NO.

This is Tamsyn Muir’s editor. Screaming, crying, throwing up, etc.