#design ideas from pallet old pallets

[diy-pallets-ideas]

If you're looking for an economical, long lasting and sustainable way to protect your balcony from swings and other activities, then you should consider using a balcony fence woven with bamboo! Bamboo is a versatile plant that is able to grow quickly and create a sturdy fence that is resistant to rotting and decay. This bamboo balcony fence is a great way to keep your balcony safe and secure, without costing you a fortune!

[bi-badass-geek]

Hades 1 vs Hades 2 Designs

● Hermes besides Hypnos was first character that made me think when i saw him oh some time has passed since Zag's escapes indeed, makes you feel that time skip. In this particular debate between those i'm really digging both but if needed to say which i prefer would go with second. I feel it should be said he sure rolls nicely with longer hair i would say darker outfit too but that's probably because pallet that's used for levels.

Ps. I saw post that mentioned how his ring is the same as ones Charon is wearing in first game and if it's a hint at something i'm here for it!

● Zeus for this god specifically there is discourse about how his pose is less dynamic and oh boy if i don't agree with that so much. In first game you see him and his look makes you think yeah this is the king of gods while in second game man is just there with posture i take often because i'm useless gay that don't know what to do with my hands and feels like they took all this might and put it into chiseling his nipples & abs into his golden chestplate. Not to mention the detail of missing the iconic bolt! Don't think it needs to be said but 100% would pick Hades 1 design out of those options.

● Poseidon the King of the Sea another example in my humble opinion where they went with flattening that dynamic looks exchanging it for man that just standing there chilling which is good for him but where first screams cool uncle second one goes uncle that wants retirement. I really like how we can see the trident now tho and need to point out his outfit sure got more print on it. When it comes down to pointing out which one is the winner in my eyes it would be 2020 one.

● Aphrodite if she wasn't the one that got thrown into drama because people double standards and hypocrisy. Design from first game and the pose straight up makes you think of love, lust, seduction all the things that are associated with said goddess. As for Hades 2 version i have no clue why it feels like this considering it's actually the opposite because we can see armor on her legs now but she feels less covered for me, do i find it negative or in any way problematic? Not one bit let the woman show off all her assets all day long! Really love the adds of her weapon and shield makes you immerse in the store of oh fights are happening around these parts. From seduction to i stand here at the ready kinda vibe and i'm really digging it.

Ps. Another post i read was about fact that her war paint i will call it (not 100% sure if that is it or just line for the giggles) is reference to Ares and considering her myth i really like that touch!

● Hypnos was the first OG i saw and was like man not only catching up on his sleep but also got such glow up i absolutely adore the design. Not to say he looked bad in Hades 1 but there it was like okay nice to Hades 2 like Damnnn and his lil helpers that keeps him up! Love the fact that of all things they made him be tucked into his cape like burrito.

Ps. I really do hope by the end of the game we get to wake him up so he can try out that nectar that we all leave there waiting.

● Chaos so many things to say and at the same time silence says it all. Seen people focusing on fact some out there call them he or how it's a downgrade from previous but don't even elaborate why they think that because everyone has right to have their own preference but at least put it into words instead of going trash next..there was also notion how they resemble Meg and while i see where people get that idea from for sure before reading that my mind didn't went there at all. I think both designs really work with someone who is primordial originator and how time goes so can their form. I find it very fascinating that they put old skeleton with new one and adore galaxy under suit makes me think of Nyx right away and how they're connected. Can totally see how between those two gamers got major stance that left reminds them more of male and right of female beings but at the end of the it chaos is chaos. Gotta take chair routine from Meg while they at it! The face on the shoulder surely throws me in loop tho fits? Sure. Does it disturb me in micro scale? Yes. About frames and poses don't have much to say cause both caption the essence of i mind my business everything unrelevant until i say so.

Ps. I know it's about physical aspect but let me say Chaos roasting Mel about how her brother is amusing one out of two Hades spawns is living rent free in my brain.

[theangrycomet-art]

Drift's Jettrine AU

Crack at the Drift Fam + Jetfire but in TFP instead of RiD.

the trine need some tweaks; sharper detailing more muted colors, but i feel like this is a good start.

i love how cohesive the Drift fam's designs are in RiD, and i need to figure out a better way to integrate that with their "new" paint jobs without completely sacrificing their color pallets.

Random Lore/Backstory:

Deadlock's was one the Decpeticon's most dangerous

The minicons backstory with Shadow Raker is still canon, with Jetfire thrown in

(JETFIRE AND SKYFIRE ARE SEPERATE ENTITIES)

While all three are Deployers, they have aeiral altmodes as well transforming into jets, with their Earth altmodes are Bede Bd-5J's specifically

i guess this technically makes them triple changers??? but that doesn't seem to be as big of a deal in the Aligned verse (gestures to the Rescuebots' (+Rescuebots Academy) whole deal in mild confusion) so i hesitate to refer them as such so yeah

Slipstream was previously known as Jetstream before she transitioned (🏳️‍⚧️)

Has had the hardest time breaking her stealing habits, and is very protective of what she thinks as hers (this extends to her family as well as her weaponry)

Jetstorm lost his right optic in an "accident" before he joined ShadowRaker (no one would hire a "broken ugly" minicon when there were so many perfectly functioning cute ones ready for hire

still prone to reckless rushing and the subsequent overthinking and overcorrecting (feeling the need to prove he is useful and worth his mentor's time)

Jetfire is a slight pyro maniac which he shamelessly denies even as he sticks a shatterbomb to someone

he also has a terrible luck when it comes to weather, and gets easily lost without his trinemates

Deadlock split off from Shadow Raker after being mocked/baited one too many times

Pissed, he'd planned on simply stealing Shadow Raker's favorite ship and skipping town but he ended up stumbling across the Jettrine being when he was searching for supplies

it was easier just to take them then try and weasel his way out of it, and they surprisingly went along with it

struck out on his own after a while (and needing shanix for energon for the triplets he'd picked up) and caught Megatron's eye

Joined the decepticons as a mercenary and starting getting clean, rising in the ranks. Deadlock was no 'Wave but he held Megatron's favor

when Deadlock found out Megatron still worked with Shadow Raker, he didn't take it well

the start of the deterioration of their relationship- Deadlock being outraged that Megatron tolerated someone who saw his men as objects/tools/etc from one under his command and Megatron... really not giving a shit about the details

Shadow Raker's forces were damn good at their job, they were all treated well, and he was a proven loyal decepticon, so what did it matter if he gave out punishments and stole a few things here and there (SR is obviously not stupid enough to steal from Megatron or it would be a different story)

Megatron allowed Deadlock to storm out, assigning him the occasional mission as he blew off steam and meandered

Deadlock isn't happy with the direction the Decpeticon cause is going but has no idea what to do about it (because if it pans out to nothing then he killed and committed so many war crimes for NOTHING)

his newly acquired students, however they became such, aren't particularly bothered with politics and are far more interested in what this old man has to teach them

Eventually Deadlock gets orders to return to the Nemesis to get a personal debriefing on the chain of command

thinking Megatron's finally gonna address the issues he'd been seeing, he made it in record time

... to find STARSCREAM in charge

Flat out turns on his heel and dips out at THAT shitshow

Deadlock gave the Trine their headpieces/ ornaments about a year(?) into their training, though at the time they'd been unpainted

COMMISSIONS OPEN

Height ReF

[comikbook]

do you have any character design tips? all your characters look so cool and i struggle so hard with designing characters lol

hi yes !!!! okay okay so first off all of my characters are dnd characters, so i will start with going thru the list of races available and pick one that i think is cool or interesting.

the next thing i do is i come up with a theme. is this character based off of an animal ? does this character have a trope i want to explore ? is there a specific setting i want to make this character fit into ? these are all questions im asking myself

for example, this is my character mercy !!

i knew when i was making her my first idea was “i want a cowboy oc” !! I also knew i wanted a vampire character, i mashed the ideas together !

I thought to myself about cowboy media I had seen and enjoyed, and decided she would be based on one of my favorite movies, true grit (the 2010 version)

you may see the resemblance to the two main characters !! i picked different things from each character that i liked, most of her being based on the character on the left, with some elements of the one on the right. this gave me my “base” to work with !

I then started to think about outfits, my favorite part !!

I will always always always reccomend searching thru pinterest when designing a character. look at runway/ high fashion pics to get an idea for interesting sillhouettes. what is your characters ethnicity or time period ? look at historical clothing associated with either. look at pieces made by fashion students, find different elements that you think look interesting and make a list of what it is you particularly are drawn to. heres some images i gathered when i was designing mercy.

while not exact the vision was starting to come together !! this is the point where i start sketching, trying out different outfit combos and cycling thru the elements i listed before. Once i have a very basic sillhouette/idea of the outfit, this is when i start embellishing !!!!

for example, i liked the tassles on the hat, okay done, where else can i include tassles ? i considered the vest, but ultimately decided on the cuffs of the sleeves. the cool thing about that is the tassles from the hat coming down to the cuffs creates a triangle shape in the figure. This enforces a sillhouette and creates a balence to the design !!

I also liked the idea of an embroidered vest, and embroidery in general that is seen in a lot of cowboy outfits, i embraced that and brought in more embroidered details in the bag and the gun holster.

At this point I had my outfit sketched out ! then I went onto coloring !!! picking colors for a design is typically the hardest and most time consuming part for me, however with mercy i had a clear idea. I wanted to create a sepia color scheme, very neutral, to emulate old western photographs !! so thats what i went with ! lots of browns, brassy metal, black, and cream. I also knew she was a vampire, and knew I wanted to draw a lot of pieces with blood and thought the red would stand out white nicely from the neutral tones of her pallet :) (another cool thing to consider which i did not do for mercy is color langage and using certain colors with certain meanings to emphasize the theme)

With all of this done now, i had my design !!! after this point is where I make a series of sketches of the character to really get the hang of drawing them, different poses to figure out personality, things like that !! Things evolve over time of course, but usually my characters i am able to do a one and done type approach and rarely have to entirely scrap and redesign them. its all about having fun and learning what it is you want to see in the design of characters in media !!!

I hope this helped some !! im not the best with my words but this is a pretty good run thru of what i do for each character !!

[what-is-love-babey-dont-hurt-me]

He’s a work in progress still but I wanted to share the first pass of his completed look so badly X)

I’ve had Sir Meteor in progress since August 2023, if you want to see the progress it will be under the read more!

Sir Meteor’s story starts with my fist kirby OC I made, Terra Knight! I won’t talk about him too much except that I knew from early on he had a older brother. TK originally has a skull mask in his very early concepts, but then I learned Axe Knight existed, and they looked too similar. I shelved the concept for a while until I had more ideas.

In August 2023, I started to sketch out allosaurus skulls because I had wanted to revisit the concept and thought maybe I would redesign Terra Knight to have a dinosaur skull mask. It did not happen, but that planted the seed.

In November, I had been struck with inspiration and started doodling. The name is very important to the lore of my OCs and is very deliberate, so once I figured out the name for Sir Meteor, a lot of elements fell into place instantly!!

This is the first time I gave Meteor colors, and I also put him next to his siblings so they would look cohesive. Me mentioning how he doesn’t even have shoes yet is foreshadowing.

In the following day, I sketched him more to get a feeling for his design!!

The most notable thing about this is probably 1.) here I cemented the twin-tail cape because it looks like the tail of a comet and 2.) since it looked like a comet, I wanted the pauldron to include a star somehow

Also fun fact!!! The shape of his horns is directly inspired by Triceratops horns!!

Which led to the designing of his pauldrons later in November!

I ended up combining elements of the first and third design because together they would look like shooting stars!

This is also when I decided on giving him the four pointed star blushing! Around this time I posted a sketch of Meta Knight with star blushes and I wanted to include more fun blush shapes. Also the four pointed star is a subtle Galacta Knight reference! Sir Meteor is genuinely old, prehistoric even, and he comes from that time period, and I wanted the star shapes to reflect that

After this I was stuck. I was extremely stuck and could not figure out how to design his shoes. Since everything else was so themed, it had to mean the shoes had to match as well. I wanted to keep the prehistoric/star themes, going strong. I tried a few times to give him plain armor but it did not look correct at all!

I took a few months to think about it. Another important thing is that whatever shoe I drew had to look good and cohesive with AND without his skull mask. It was hard to balance but yesterday (21 February) I began to cook.

On the sketch page, you can see how the thought process evolved from the top of the page downwards. You can see the “haha drawing smiles with sharp teeth- oh wait a minute hold on” happen in real time.

On the page on the right, is when I finally designed his shoes!!! THE EVIL IS DEFEATED!!!!

This character is so heavily themed and I thought about it so much. So. Much. If anyone actually read this breakdown you deserve a gold star thank you for listening to my insane, several month long thought process. I’m so proud of him for a reason. Now I need to finalize the colors and stuff but for now enjoy!

EDIT: while making Meteor’s reference, i also went through a LOT of altered color pallets.

[fuzzygraphics]

Let’s get on with some more hotel staff!

Husker

I wanted to separate him from the constant red black and white color pallets, so I went more green! While sinners aren’t residents of the other rings, I thought it would be a nice nod to greed.

You can find a lot of the card symbols in his design, as well as a special card in his hate for our ace in the hole. I based his outfit on 1970s club wear, as that’s when he died (according to the wiki at least)

I also gave him literal snake-eyes

Alastor

Now Alastor was difficult. But I knew right away I wanted to give him black features, since he’s mixed race. I also wanted to make the deer aspects of him a bit more clear. He’s tall and imposing, but with his constant cheery smile it’s easy to be drawn in…

I like the idea that no one knows where the chord of his mic goes or ends, it just always trails off screen.

I kept his red, but turned it into a monochromatic color pallet with some washed out grayer reds to emulate the black and white film. Because while he isn’t a fan of film, he certainly looks like he just walked out of one. I also just got rid of his horrendous bob 😭

He has a 1920s slick back style, with a mustache! I wanted him to appear a bit older.

Nifty

My main issue with nifty is how infantilized she is. So I made her an old lady. I think nifty lived well into old age and never stopped her killing (think arsenic and old lace)

I also based her off of colorful beetles!

She has 3 eyes now, one main one and two beadier ones. She wears a classic 1950s housewife getup with a common bob style. Complete with antennas!

[zitrovee]

MH doodles and concepts

First just random fanart

I love sweet water lagoona im sorry shes so cute

Now then those are mostly designs i stopped working on for many reasons and i can barely find good images of them now cause theyre not even on my computer. Maybe i revisit them in the future but who knows

First something i tried together w the beach fan design- literally a gamer inspired line lol called gamer ghouls. i hate how drac turned out but the heart-shaped switch is something cool- i like frankie’s outfit and ghoulia is my fave here.  its funny cause something i always think when i make g3 designs is ‘’how can i include drac in this’’ cause realistically my line of thinking is ‘’would these sell’’ and drac sells. i also try to keep in mind materials and how well the items would perform as toys too. drac is hideous here tho.  the ghouls drinking monster was super funny in my head

drac in uniform sketch cause why not

this is a rough one. its for g1, i came up w the concept talking to an old friend, bonita and venus were her favorite dolls and i came up with the concept of a cybergoth inspired Bonita doll and a more slick also cyber inspired figure for venus (shes barely sketched there).

we had LOTS of creative differences (i came with a color pallete much, much different from that since i was inspired by cybergoth, focusing on neon and dark colors) and specially after some personal stuff i just gave up. i still like the concept but i cant really stand working with a concept in mind just to realize the other person isnt interested unless its their way. i wish i can revisit her in the future and apply the stuff i actually envisioned for her- but well, so far thats what we got. cant say im happy aside from the silhouette.

some other reaaally rough ideas for the beach line project for g3. i did most of those during my office work lol. those are for ghoulia. for her i wanted to keep in mind her 50s theme from g1 actually cause i love it so much. thats where the glam chill look came from. then i was like eh its nice but new ghoulia is way more rad and sporty so i tried to think of her doing surf (i also have sketches for deuce in surf attire so they would be fun) i have so many of those all over my house cause when g3 was barely launching i was so excited. and so bored at work. so i just got every paper note i could to sketch random ideas lol Also SILLY OC ALERT!!!

This was mostly a joke but i made her thinking of ET Bilu from a brazilian urban legend lol. thinking of her as a scary skinny legend w stereotypical and hilarious proportions common to old MH dolls was what inspired me at first but then also the whole 2012 pop diva look. Shes just a funny little gal. busquem conhecimento!

[nathilustra]

Bringing my fan adult design of Ayase back from the depths of my old artwork folder so I could test how much i've improved (and also showing my girl some love)

Basically the idea is imagining how she would look like if she showed up later in the series (either in Eternal Punishment in the ending alongside the rest of the cast or in Persona 5 where she becomes a cool mom who really likes to look expensive while she burns your rice omelette)

ANYWAY the main gimmick I went with this one was incorporating a bit of the Magician into her design (tho I will admit I'm a sucker how her color pallete resembles a classic harlequinn). And since Maya got the heart tiddies, Ayase gets to keep the rest of the suits on her butt :D

[skullytotheark]

Hi Hi!

I don't usually share my art here BUT lately i've been growing more comfortable w/ ppl seeing my art [as u can tell w/ latest creepyhornets entry]

So I wanted to share My some drawings i did for my fanfic series!

Click more for Art!

[i have alot of readmores on my post so i can navigate my account easier LOL]

Tobias Rogers / "The Colorado Axeman"

Age: 19 [current/present age in fanfic]

As you may remember from the last time i shared his design, His jacket is heavily inspired by the reboot buttt I did eventually change it to better fit his 'colour pallet' [or colours i associate toby with heavily]. Now having a slight 'foresty' colour pallet associated with him in this canon

Lore:

At this stage Toby is struggling alot w/ his own thoughts on Slender to the point he regrets Becoming a proxy in the first place. After returning to his old burnt down house Toby finds a old metal box that contained his sister's jacket. To this day Toby wears the jacket as asort of comfort and kinda like a pass me down jacket as memories of once were begin to haunt him, Along with 'unsuspected guests"

Age 16 / year one proxy: [Past Toby]

For a very good while i've been struggling w/ a 'year one' toby design but within time the og hoodie grew on me, So i gave him the og hoodie but I removed the blue hood. As you may know, Toby was much younger when he became a proxy in my au. Spending most of his time homeschooled within a tense household

Lore:

At this stage Toby had just killed his father and narrowly escaped, Unknowing hypnotized Toby believes that he owes Slender his LIFE to the point he's willing to serve Slender with every order.

Chernabog / 'Eyeless Jack'

Ever since Chernabog joined Slender as a proxy or servants of sorts. Chernabog or better known as eyeless jack dawns a somewhat iconic / original inspired design. A black jumpsuit along with a balaclava underneath his iconic mask [also i'm still VERY new to drawing plus size characters [im also kinda proud how it came out] and kinda hc him to be slighty plus size. Mostly cuz i wanted him to have a unique silhouette comapired to other characters. That and I also think it'd add to intimidation if you just see this 6'7 silhouette in the darkness watching you]

Lore:

Some time after agreeing to work for the Operator / Slenderman, Chernabog better known as Eyeless Jack. Roams inbetween towns collecting fresh meat not only for the Operator but for himself with his new boss's permission.

I know you've probably seen this but I really like how this came out for being a slightly rushed doodle, Featuring The Operator and my Oc Grimace! Grimace has his own little entry into my fanfic series and will have entries featuring him every now and then!

The Idea for The Operator's design in my au is kinda to be more tree like! In this image the tentacles Slender is known for comes from the roots at the base of his feet [at his feet?? I mean idk if he has feet or not at this current point. I mean he might] he also appears somewhat statue and organic like, As if a human was kinda made from bark, roots and what not. I also just really love drawing Slender like this it's funny

--

That's all I think i can share for Creepyhornets so far But i've been really happy with how some of these drawings are coming out. I dont say it much but i'm extremely proud of the process i've made with this year even though i only just started spending time on practicing how to draw. If I showed u before & after of my art you'd def see alot of progress

Anyway that's all for this post! I'll try to draw some more creepyhornets related stuff eventually! Hopefully draw more of these two since I'm happy with how they came out with my latest drawings

[descendantofthesparrow]

Hi I was wondering if you had any tips for redesigning the rise of red main characters? I have a really good idea of the core four and everybody else from the series prior ( tho I’ve only gotten to posting Hook and his son) I’m at a loss for how to deal with Red and her friend. (I’m not getting anywhere near writing for them yet but I want to at least have a visual) 😔🙏

i gotta be honest, im tired as fuck, just got off four 12 hour days of work straight so im gonna be honest, i have zero tips, my designs are purely based off vibes, i look or think of a thing and go 'oh fuck yeah' and draw it in...the vibes the character has i really don't know. a lot of how your character is going to dress, is based on how you write them, what their personalities are, you gotta at least write out-idk, their base personality before thinking of what they would wear. Harry is a chaotic gremlin fucker who doesn't care how ruined his clothes are so he fucks around with a barely held together hoodie tank top and his dads old jacket, Mal is a...fae/god thing that loves purple and leather, Evie is high fashion raised as a princess who loves heels and blue, Ben is the high prince/king who wears suits as pajamas, Uma is a sea witch pirate with no respect for those who don't earn it first who wears denim, you gotta know their personality and then apply a...style to it, idk, for me Red is a..."rebel" who wants to be more than what shes told so she...dresses the opposite than what her mother wants??? and chloe wants to be exactly like her mom, maybe she...wears the same color pallet and maybe even wears stuff her mom once wore??? idk

[skybristle]

Is there anything particularly interesting that inspired you to make one of your iterator OC/their design? Like what got you to make them or heavily informed their design

im gonna be so for real with you i do NOT put much thought into my designs. i just rotate a guy for a bit think of a color pallete and then slop some shit on a canvas until i like it. its really all instinct which is why i suck so bad at giving design advice because i fr be making it up.

as for where they came from conceptually..... i forgor :broken_heart: OH! Fun fact: chimes was the last bending horizons iterator to be concepted. I went on a research dive thru old dms actually at some point......... the order was ash+whispers -> maw -> starlight -> aurora -> sparks -> ochre -> chimes [at least i think? funny how my favorites were all made last].

whispers being puppetnapped was one of the first plotpoints i came up with. originally they ascended but i decided agaisnt that later on [both for logistical and thematic reasons+other issues with consistancy with my sliver hcs]. ash was always banked on the neglectful senior archetype to go with that, and starlight and maw came about shortly after as the perpetrators.

aurora........ he honestly really didnt have much of a role until mac came along and got obsessed with him. i think i originally made her just for padding reasons since it felt like i was missing some poor fuck outside of the conflict. he was alwys supposed to be cunty and apathetic it just evolved

sparks is interesting. the whole "expanded structure" idea came from when originally whispers whole predicament was still being fleshed out. i thought it could be interesting to have a too large iterator find solace in splitting that power with someone in need. sparks was originally MUCH kinder and more helpful, with her relationship with ash being more of a grieving someone she can't help and less of a "being abused and abandoned and festering" thing. im glad she ended up how she did LOL i love angry women who do bad things because of trauma.

i completely forgot for ochre ngl. i think i just liked the idea of chill planterator. flor started really getting development when i made chimes i thinkkkkk?????

chimes is really silly. because. back in november 2023 when i met my friend localceilingdevil and he was first making his iterator ocs i thought it would be funny to make a little guy to be chill with six myths . And to make a tonnnn of weed jokes with. Which is how both he and gardeners initial concept came about. I just put him in bh for the lols and then started thinking and thinking and thinking and let him and ochre kiss and look where we are now.

[bumblebeeappletree]

Hannah visits a tiny yard in Melbourne’s inner-city that is bursting with ideas and productive plants.

Hannah's in Melbourne to visit an inner-city patch that's small on space but big on plants and style. Garden owners, Judy and Andreas Sederof, have transformed a challenging block into a productive patch that is filled with color year-round. Situated in Brunswick east near the Merri Creek, it's filled to the brim with plants and ideas in every inch of this 66sqm garden. Judy describes it as “pretty eclectic, pretty crazy... I just collect plants. I'll see a plant and I’ll love it.” The site has been designed with the house built on the back boundary to leave a bigger space for a garden out the front. The diversity of the garden highlights different types of plants, which take advantage of the various soil profiles. Judy says, “we have quite deep, productive soil here which was nurtured, adding compost and mulch, but it really was pretty good to begin with. Whereas this side of the garden is really all on rock, so it had to be built above the ground.” There’s a lot of colour in this garden and Judy says this is due to her background in design and interiors, “I just love color and I'm always changing the color pallets and getting it to work together.”

Judy and Andreas have been designing sustainable houses for 30 years and built their own with the aim of being light on the land. Andreas says, “the four critical elements are glass, mass, insulation and most importantly orientation. We chose this block because the house faces north which is the optimum angle for sustainable building design, often called passive design.” In this home, the ceiling has 2-feet of insulation which Andreas calls “super-insulation” as it’s double the standardised requirements. “Everything in here is double or triple glazed... and to get this house to 9.5 stars, we had to provide way more concrete or brickwork than this house was planned for,” says Andreas. The sustainable principles that underpin the house can also be found in the garden. Timber used in the wicking beds is Cypress macrocarpa, which is known to be a sustainable timber, and “things like not having any hard surfaces so that the land absorbs the moisture, and it doesn't heat up the building,” says Judy. Pipes direct grey water from the shower to the garden, as well as “two squat rainwater tanks underneath the deck here that are connected to a pump; they collect rainwater from the roof. We use that a lot in summer,” says Judy.

With no bare ground in the planting style, Judy says, “one of the things is to plant heavily so it keeps weeds down. They also provide quite a lot more moisture to the site, so I mulch, but I don't have to weed very often.” Much of the garden is edible, including flowers like nasturtium, marigold and viola. Judy says, “In summer I can grow some of the bigger vegies like eggplants and tomatoes. Over winter, there's more low growing brassicas and herbs.” Judy utilises tent structures and shed walls to grow vegies vertically, as well as wicking beds that were built by Andreas. “They're really high functioning wicking beds,” says Judy, “They store a lot of the moisture, and it wicks up in the soil. I just have to put a light sprinkling of water on top when I'm growing seeds but mostly the vegetables root down quite well.” Judy takes her love of designing interiors to the outdoors and uses a lot of recycled materials, including baskets from old vineyards repurposed as planters, and an eclectic mix of mirrors, sculptures and ornaments found in hard rubbish collections. “I do collect things... I do it innately, I don't think about it that much,” says Judy and in a cool temperate garden when many plants lose their leaves, having these elements really hold the garden together. Even though it's a small space, there's more than enough happening year-round to keep Judy actively planting, improving and making the most of her little productive inner-city sanctuary. “It's a connection with the Earth to me,” says Judy, “it really grounds me... it's very soothing.”

[spoilerqueen]

KUNG FU PANDA X WUXIA

K guys, have an idea here and i need some feedback if you know anything about wuxia, Xianxia or just a single danmei, y'know how Kung fu panda is actually based completely on not only Chinese culture but heavily inspired by the wuxia genre as well? You can even see the resemblance on some things, the qi being just like spiritual energy than CAN be stolen, like what happened with kai on KFP 3, the wuxi finger is basically a forced qi deviation, the power that you can cultivate by training, the way that oogway literally ascended to a heavenly realm as a god after years of cultivating spiritual energy, like we only needed Po to bleed from his mouth and we have literally everything for it to be an actual wuxia/xianxia story, so i was thinking, why not make a fan comic of the story of the movies as an actual wuxia/xianxia with human characters and a bit more blood and exaggeration????

You may be thinking "why tf would you want to do that with a kids movie" or even just "why?"

And my answers are: because i love Chinese fantasy and kung fu panda so i want to combine them further, and for the second question i would like to say that just because i want to...but that's not the case my fellow internet people... It is because the human versions of the furious five that i always come across on Pinterest i hate with a passion 🕴🏻

Not to say anything bad about the artists skills or to bash their designs at all, but i would love it if people weren't so forgetful about the fact the furious five are you know... Chinese I feel like people isn't taking advantage of that culture at all

And not only Chinese, we're talking about historical periods of old china were no one was allowed to cut their hair or show skin below the neck

Like why would po wear a tiny shirt? Why would po be bald? Why would monkey be black? (It kinda rubs me the wrong way how some people make specifically monkey the only dark skinned character i think it reads racist ngl 🤨) Why would tigress have a pixie cut? Why would viper show so much skin when she's the daughter of a respectable warrior and would basically be very close to being a princess? Like- things like that are completely fine, nothing wrong to the vision they have on the characters, but to the neurodivergent hyperfixating me, the fact that no one overanalizes anything about this kids movie about a panda eating dumplings is outrageous, it's not them, it's me 😔✊🏻

SO

I've spent a few months organizing ideas on how i believe a more wuxia/Xianxia design of the characters would look like

I've been trying to keep the design closer to the animals they supposedly are but it's kinda hard (◎_◎;)

For Po i keept his body shape and decided a bun or any kind of high hairstyle would be ideal for him since he was a cook and still cooks a lot, a ponytail or half up hairstyle would get on his way a lot. I decided to give him vitiligo to mimic the panda spots on his original design, crashing his weight, height and skin to add the unique factor that was present on the movie by him being the only panda on the valley, He's the only one I've actually drawn yet but it is still in development

For tigress or however tf you spell it, English isn't my first language. I decided to go for a sharp and serious look

To keep it simple, I'll be giving her a light brown shade of hair, i want to avoid giving them vibrant hair colors but still having some nods to their color pallets on the movies, giving her an almost reddish light brown hair and mostly red and orange robes with black accents and accessories as well keeping her original outfit with a few changes. I wanted to give her a ponytail since i don't feel like she'd put all of her hair up; and instead of claws, she will have a variety of knives at her disposal for battle

Next, for viper, my favorite gal

I wanted to make her look significantly more elegant and younger that the rest of the five since, like i said, she is from a prestigious family, i wanted to accentuate how pampered a girl from a good family could look, i also decided to keep her ribbon dance plot, the only reason to why i gave her arms, since i love the idea of her fighting with her legs but that ribbon dance so i decided to give her congenital hand differences as her disability, turning the "her family uses fangs to attack and she was born without them" to "her family uses pressure points to attack and she was born with mostly dysfunctional fingers", this way she would still be considered an exceptional warrior with ribbons that she can control with her wrists and arms. I also want to give her a really really dark forest green colored hair :D

M O N K E Y

For monkey i wanted to go for a little more adult vibe as well as for mantis; i wanted to give him some scruffiness since he started out as a prankster until oogway found him...yeah that family friendly story isn't going to work, let's face it, monkey was living in the streets stealing what he could for fun, my man was a criminal and homeless, he wasn't a good person and even po said so while telling his story to the kids, so, I gave him a style that would resemble someone who once was carefree and from a low social position that still doesn't care much about material things, but cares enough to not disappoint or dishonor his masters. I will be giving him a more yellow and light brown wardrobe to resemble his colors on the movie and as for attack, he'll use a long cane like he sometimes does in the canon

Now for crane (≧∇≦)/

Crane is very simple to imagine as a human so there's not much i can say about his design other than the fans, i decided to give him a pair of fans as weapons, using them to cut down enemies as if they were blades and also to give him the stability to fly, since i won't take away his ability to fly as it is something common on wuxia and or xianxia stories, i like to think he is the only one who trained this flying technique by watching real disciples on temples he'd clean, but still needs his fans for stability and to be able to carry and support the weight of multiple people hanging onto him

LASTLY ~mantis~

The mature vibes~ i wanted to keep him looking a bit more like a warrior since that was his job before training under shifu's roof, he had a reputation and prestige, so i thought he might look a bit more professional; I'll also give him green robes but i haven't decided if he'd use a weapon or not 🤔 I'm also keeping him a short king

So, what do you guys think? Should i go more bold with the designs? Have any feedback or opinions? Because I'd love to hear it! (≧∇≦)/

I'm prepared for this post to flop so bad omg

[caspira-writes-fanfiction]

Finding Family (Fizz's Found Family)-Chapter 4 pt. 5

The Rehearsal

Act One: The King

The address that Mammon had sent him had to be a joke. Greed wasn’t well taken care of by any means, but he’d thought that when he was invited to one of Fizzarolli’s rehearsals that he’d be invited to an actual rehearsal space. Instead, Lust found himself arriving at a dilapidated warehouse of Mammon’s back stock merchandise. This had to be a joke, Asmodeus thought again as he nearly tripped over a rat the size of a queef and stepped in a puddle of….he really did not want to know. Asmodeus hated the Greed Ring, but Fizzarolli had invited him to this rehearsal. He’d cleared his day.

Fizzarolli had been working extremely hard to become accustomed to the new limbs, it was inspiring He was making significant progress, and every time they met he seemed to have more ideas on how to improve. Good ideas, too. Creative ones. If Fizzarolli had been working hard to regain his fine and gross motor skills, Asmodeus had been working nearly as hard this past week going over and completing some re-designs to the back brace battery Fizz had sketched up during one of their meetings a few weeks ago. He’d finished safety testing this morning, hopefully the design would be right and could finally be helpful for Fizzarolli.

The large space Asmodeus stepped into when nobody answered his knocking was….interesting. The first thing Asmodeus noticed was how drafty it was. Some of the large windows vaulted high above them appeared to be stuck open, others broken and with no acknowledgment of repair. This had to be extremely uncomfortable for Fizzarolli. Asmodeus knew how the changes in weather, particularly cold and damp, impacted the ache in his bones. The King of Lust wondered how Fizzarolli powered through rehearsals six days a week in this place.

Other than being damp, it was…..eclectic. The stage in the middle of the warehouse was clearly one that had been scrapped from some old endeavor of Mammon’s. He wondered if it was part of an abandoned attraction at his miserable, off brand theme park. The lights looked haphazardly rigged and mostly held together with Mamm’s green webbing. There were no rooms and walls, just shipping containers and large stacks of boxes to create separate spaces. Asmodeus was surprised the floor wasn’t damp. A pleasant surprise.

“Hello?” He called out loudly, still halfway hoping that this was some sort of a prank and he was in the wrong location entirely. The signature cha-ching of Mammon a few moments later let Asmodeus know that this was no prank.

“Ozzie! How are you, you cunt?” Mammon’s voice boomed beside him. Asmodeus did his best to hide his displeasure as he made small talk with Greed. Asmodeus found himself thankful to have a reason to escape. When Mammon complained about Fizzarolli not being prepared yet, Asmodeus used it as a good segway to excuse himself to Fizzaroli’s….dressing corner. If he could even call it that.

The section was made up of shipping containers stacked in an L shape to create a corner, a wobbly looking card table, small standing mirror, and a work light. A somewhat functional changing space was made out of pallets of Mammon merchandise stacked together with a Mammon branded bed sheet functioning as a curtain between the opening he’d made. It was sort of a mess.

Fizzarolli had been hurting, Asmodeus could tell he’d been pushing himself but that wasn’t unusual for the jester. Fizzarolli had a dream. He had a determination that was admirable, inspiring even. And hopefully today’s revisions to their designs would be helpful to Fizz and his dream.

Fizzarolli was never one to be still, but Asmodeus could tell that there was nervous energy behind the clown’s movements. Such a simple fix had him worked up, too. Asmodeus found himself caught off guard yet again by the way Fizzarolli’s eyes lit up with amazement, and he got to see it twice in this meeting. The first time over a simple mess, as if Lust didn’t know a thing or two about messes. The second time he got to see Fizz excited was over the back brace. That had been less easy, but the challenge had been fun and Fizzarolli had come up with plenty of ideas for inspiration. The immediate ease it seemed to bring the Jester once everything was plugged in was more than worth the late nights he’d been putting in to make this dream a reality.

As typical, Mammon soured the moment. He tried convincing Mammon that he had more than enough time to spend here. but he had come here for a performance and Fizzarolli seemed eager to see what he could do.

He was amazing, really. The performance wasn’t perfect, but with each loss, Fizzarolli rebounded and came back even stronger. He didn’t stop or break a single time, and by the end of his performance Asmodeus was roaring with laughter. Two months ago Fizzarolli could barely walk and now he was dancing and juggling and spinning plates and making creatures out of balloons. His resiliency was astounding. He wondered if he would ever tire of the other, he was convinced that Fizzarolli would never cease to entertain him if time would allow it.

Asmodeus had thought that falling from heaven had been difficult. His entire essence had been stripped; his energy had to reform, reconfigure, rematerialize into a new form, a new purpose entirely. He had to rebuild absolutely his entire life, his entire understanding of himself in a world so different from the one he knew. He’d never thought anyone other than his fellow sins could understand what that was like, but as Asmodeus watched Fizzarolli dance around the stage he wondered if he hadn’t been wrong. Fizzarolli had also had to rebuild himself, his life. His determination and creativity had been amusing at the very least, inspiring if Lust was being honest. Asmodeus was amazed by the jester who had wandered into his life a handful of months ago. Lust was honest; the clown took up a significant amount of space in his mind. He wasn’t quite sure what the feeling he had was, but it was warm and welcome. The idea that Asmodeus could be falling again, this time in a very different way, had yet to cross his mind.

Act Two: The Clown

The practice space Mammon had reserved for Fizzarolli was only eight stops away on the bus and another three blocks to walk. Fizzarolli could tolerate the trip without needing to sit on the bus most days now, but only if he didn’t have to work later. Mammon had been requiring Fizzarolli to spend most of his time practicing recently. Once he learned that Fizz could walk and drink his coffee with his hands he’d decided that Fizzarolli’s place was back on the stage. He only had to work in the little top two nights a week, with the agreement being that once he had more consistent skills, he would start working more days at the theme park. If he could draw a crowd, Fizzarolli could get a new pair of horns, or a new costume. He knew it would be a long time before he got a salary, but he could dream.

Fizzarolli was grateful for it. Mammon saw something in him! Enough of something that he was worth paying off his debt in rehearsals instead of whatever game or sideshow shift he could get at Mamm’s amusement park. He happily worked through the pain. It only meant he was getting stronger. That’s what he had to keep telling himself, that’s what Ozzie kept telling him.

He wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Asmodeus. Fizzarolli owed him a lot, more than he might ever be able to repay. He had yet to see an itemized bill from Lust, but he continued to meet with him twice a week, sometimes more. Therapy they called it, but it wasn’t often more than glorified lunch. Asmodeus would ask him things, but he didn’t make him work much harder than challenging him to more complex meals occasionally and gauging progress on a series of skills.

A lot of the work that Fizzarolli had been done at home in his apartment, or in rehearsals with Mammon. He was getting better. Good enough to host an audience. Today Asmodeus was coming to Greed to watch him rehearse.

The rehearsal studio was cold today. It was cold most days. It only ever really got a comfortable temperature if Mammon let Fizz rehearse with all the lights on, and even then it usually took at least an hour on stage before the lights really did any help. Fizzarolli sat at the card table he’d turned into his vanity and took a moment to just sit. But only a moment, he needed to rifle through his bag. It took him three tries to get the zipper undone. He’d been struggling with fine motor today.

Fizzarolli took a breath. It was fine, he could do this. Had he stayed up later than he meant to rehearsing for this? Possibly, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it now. Besides, if there was anything Fizzarolli knew how to do, it was to it was adapt and overcome. He decided that dumping out his bag would be quicker than trying to rifle through it to get his pills. One green sun, three purple eggs….and a pink heart? No, not worth the work of getting a third bottle open. Fizzarolli held the bottle in his hand.

Squeeze. Fizzarolli heard Asmodeus’s voice in the back of his head. Grip strength, he still had enough of that. Fizz’s tail slid up and around the lid. It wasn’t easy, but he’d done it before, and after a minute or so of practice, he managed the first bottle. Then the second. He’d nearly gotten the caps back on when another voice appeared from behind him.

“Fizzy! There you are. I was expecting you here ages ago!” Mammon’s voice was loud enough that Fizzarolli jumped, spilling the painkillers over his table. Fuck, that was going to be a bitch to clean up. Occupational Therapy Fizzarolli tried to reframe the scenario but it could only do so much. Fizz dry swallowed his pills and turned to the sin behind him.

“Mammon, hi. You told me to be here at 10?” Fizzarolli fumbled around in his mess pile on the table to find his phone and triple check the appointment Mammon had sent him.

“I told you to be ready by 10, Fizzy. Do you think you look ready right now?”

No, he didn’t. But he wasn’t far off. He just needed a few minutes to clean up his mess and touch up his face and he would be ready to go. He did as many of his warm ups as he could on the bus this morning.

“I’m almost….”

“That’s not what I fucking asked, you dumb cunt. It’s 10 and you’re not ready!” Fizzarolli’s heart started beating faster. His hand reached for his bag and his tail quickly started shoving his mess back in, loose pills and all. Mammon’s eyes narrowed. “Listen, just hurry and get yourself together. Your audience is going to be here soon, you want to look pretty for him, don’t you?”

Mammon was right. Asmodeus was going to be here soon, he needed to get his shit together. “Yes, Sir.”

“Good! Now I hope that you’ve been practicing. I saw your show at LooLoo land the other night. You popped five balloon animals, mate. And your juggling? Only three balls? You’re going to need to get up to five at least. That’s not going to inspire people, Fizzy. That makes kids cry. Not what clowns are are about, is it?”

Fizzarolli stuck his tongue out to keep from making a face. His hand had dropped the bag moments ago, and he couldn’t care to think about what had spilled on the floor. He busied himself with setting up his small mirror and fixing his foundation.

“No, Sir. It’s not. I’ve been working on it.”

“Good. You want to win this pageant, don’t you? I know you do, Fizzy. You’re going to be a legend, right?” The way Mammon said his name make Fizzarolli shiver, but he passed it off as the practice space. It was draftier than his apartment. “I want that for you too, mate, I do. I want to see your face on everything.”

Fizzarolli smiled. Mammon believed in him. Mammon wanted his success.

“Where’s your glitter?” Fizzarolli froze. Was there supposed to be glitter? How many memos had he missed about today? He was in so much trouble. Mammon’s laugh surprised Fizzarolli again. His arm jerked, getting foundation on his hat.

Shit

“You’re hilarious, Fizzy! You invite Lust himself here, show up late and unprepared, and without your glitter? I thought you wanted him to fuck you? You think you’re going to catch a Sin’s eye dressed like that? You think you’ll land a King without a little something extra? You’re a winner, right Fizzy? People want winners.”

Fizzarolli worked on getting the white grease out of his hat while Mammon went on. He could ignore him well enough. He was just teasing. His tone was different than Barbs was when she said similar things, but Fizz knew he was just joking. Mammon believed in him, otherwise why would he put this much money into Fizz’s request? Why would he give him a practice space? Give him an opportunity to be something again?

Fizzarolli didn’t have to think of a response. Asmodeus’s voice came echoing through the room. “Hello?”

Mamm’s eyes narrowed at Fizzarolli. A puff of green smoke and loud cha-ching! and Mammon was gone.

Fizz could hear the two sins speaking in the distance, but he couldn’t make out what either was saying. It didn’t matter. He had to fix himself and fast. Asmodeus was waiting for his performance, he was expecting a show.

Did he really need glitter? Fizzarolli wondered if it was Asmodeus or himself that gave the impression that Fizzarolli in glitter was something that would attract the Sin of Lust. The glitter didn’t matter if he couldn’t get this fucking white shit out of his hat, though. The more Fizz tried to scrub at it, the worse it made things both for his cloth horns and for his hands.

“Fizzarolli?” The familiar calm of Asmodeus pulled Fizzarolli away from his makeshift vanity.

“Ozzie?” Fizz turned to the other, his hands covering up the foundation stain. “Hey, sorry. I’ll be ready in a minute. I just….I need a minute.”

“Is everything alright?”

“Fine, yeah. Just getting ready.” Asmodeus didn’t leave, Fizzarolli’s heart continued to pick up pace. Maybe the caffeine pill was a bad idea. “….I glitched and stained my horns. I just need a moment.”

“What do you mean you glitched?” Fizz’s hand unclenched from the hat, much to Fizzarolli’s disapproval, to reveal the stain. Asmodeus was sitting next to him a few moments later. Fizz had sharp eyes, he noticed the briefcase that accompanied him. He knew this one was from his workshop. There were tools in it.

“Did you plan this?” It was a joke. Asmodeus had to know it was a joke. Fizzarolli flicked his tail towards the briefcase.

“No, this is for something else, but I’m glad it happened. You said you glitched?”

“My hand slipped.”

“Can I see?” Fizzarolli assumed Asmodeus meant his hand. Fizzarolli turned so that he was facing Asmodeus and rested his hands on the table.

Fizzarolli froze as Asmodeus’s hand reached past his arms. His eyes close as the hand reached out and nearly touches the stain on Fizzarolli’s hat. One of Fizzarolli’s eyes cracked open to peak at what the other was doing. Ozzie’s hand stopped about four inches shot of the fabric, assessing the stain. Fizzarolli heard a snap! and then Asmodeus’s hand was away from Fizz’s face and back on the briefcase. When Fizzarolli looked in his mirror, the stain was gone.

“What happened here?” Asmodeus’s gaze was on the mess on the floor. Fizzarolli turned away from it, returning to his face. Did he need glitter?

“Oh, you know. I just love making a mess.” Fizzarolli was uncomfortable, but he played it off as cheeky.. Had Asmodeus come here to remind Fizzarolli of everything he’d already done wrong today? His jokes weren’t landing, this was a bad sign.

“Is something wrong with your arms?” Asmodeus’s tone was concerned, not angry. Fizzarolli needed to remind himself of that.

“Fine motor is hard today.” Asmodeus pulled his toolkit out of his briefcase. They ran through the standard list of exercises, Fizzarolli allowed Asmodeus to tinker as he deemed necessary.

“Which pills are those scattered on the floor?” Ozzie made careful conversation as he played with a few wires inside Fizz’s wrist.

“Purple eggs.”

Asmodeus hummed. Painkillers, but not the strong ones. “Sore today?”

Fizzarolli shrugged. It was no more than usual. “It’s been cold the last few days.” Fizz kept his eyes away from Asmodeus as he hummed and finished up his work on the hand. The two of them run through their baseline exercises again.

“I have something I think might help” Asmodeus spoke again. Fizzarolli’s eyebrows raised and his head cocked to the side in interest.

The briefcase made its way up to the table after some careful effort to clear a few things on the table out of the way. Fizzarolli sat up straighter to try and peek inside.

“I made the revisions you sketched up.”

Fizzarolli’s smile grew and his eyes widened as Asmodeus pulled out the body brace/battery pack combo they’d been working on. This was the third prototype. This brace fit more like a corset than the previous two had been. It hooked in the front and spanned from the base of his back and came up to his nipples. An articulated “spine” edged up from the base at Fizz’s back and extended up his spine and out to his shoulders to connect to his arm ports. The connections for his legs ran along the front and back of his legs to look much like a garter belt. They’d reduced the size of the battery from the robots considerably. This was only extra energy, not the entire power source. The batteries largely fit in packs along the base of Fizz’s spine. He doesn’t mind having extra support there.

Asmodeus was courteous and respectful, he made sure to step aside and turn his back when Fizzarolli wanted to change into it, but he stayed close in case the demon needed help. There weren’t really a changing room in the warehouse Mammon was using as rehearsal space. Fizzarolli had a curtain held up between large boxes of backstock Mammon merchandise to change behind. He did pretty well with most of it. He managed the clasps with the use of both his hands, his tail, and his tongue but wasn’t able to get everything plugged in.

Asmodeus was gentle and clear and did his best to be quick. He told Fizzarolli everything he was going to do before he did it, taking a step back and covering his eyes to allow Fizzarolli to get his costume back on in completion after each of the connections to Fizz’s limbs were made.

“How does it feel?”

Much like the way that the honing beacon eased up the static in Fizz’s body and made everything easier to move, once Fizzarolli was hooked up to the battery pack back brace he felt almost…..electric. The brace helped to keep him upright and redistribute some weight. It took less energy to move. Fizzarolli grabbed his makeup palette, he twirled the brush between his fingers and let out a serendipitous croak.

“Toss me my balls” Asmodeus gave Fizzarolli a face that made the clown’s own grow warmer. “I want to try juggling.”

Three relatively lightweight juggling balls were tossed Fizzarolli’s way a few moments later. He caught each of them! Fizzarolli stilled himself and took a deep breath. Focus. Fizzarolli closed his eyes. He was under the big top, the tent he’d performed under thousands of times. Home. One more breath. Fizzarolli opened his eyes and his hands started working on what felt like muscle memory alone. Three felt easy. This morning it was the most he could manage to keep in the air for more than a handful of seconds.

Fizz ended his practice after proving that he could juggle for twenty seconds or so and smiled back up at Lust. He gave a thumbs up. “This is the best prototype yet.”

*Boom, Cha-ching!* Smoke filled the space, making Fizz cough as Mammon appeared.

“Fizzarolli, you fuck! Are you keeping your audience?” Fizzarolli’s back straightened to attention, his smile remained just as large as it had before but his gaze was duller.

Asmodeus stepped in. “Not in the slightest, Mamm. I needed to make a few adjustments to the arms. Should stop glitching now.”

The two sins stared at each other in tense silence for multiple moments before Mammon turned to Fizzarolli.

“Well come on then, Fizzy. Let’s see what you can do.”

Fizzarolli hadn’t noticed it at first, but by the time he’d gotten up on stage he could feel the batteries starting to warm and heat up along his lower back, loosening some residual tension. Ozzie really did listen to all of his notes. The light was bright, but it would be welcomed later. Fizzarolli took a deep breath. Remember the Big Top. Smile inside and out.

His routine went alright, all things considering. He started with a few jokes. It was harder to do a performance when there were only two audience members, both of them Deadly Sins, but he’d done more difficult things before. After joke he moved to juggling. He wanted an easy win and he had just done that. When he managed to keep the three in the air, Fizzarolli carefully scooted towards the basket on the floor that had more. He thought he could try a trick he learned years ago.

Fizz’s tongue stuck out as he concentrated on juggling and maneuvering a fourth ball out of the pile with his tail. Once he’d had one balanced along the flat spade, Fizz focused on his timing and with a quick flick a fourth ball is added into the rotation. It was a little bumpy, but he managed to keep them in the air for a bit longer.

Fizzarolli looked out to his audience and was happy to see that Asmodeus was clapping and Mammon looked amused. That was good. On to the next skill: Magic. All of his tricks involved some sort of fine motor detail, but the extra power that was keeping him upright and warm made him willing to try. It wasn’t nearly as smooth as juggling was, but he managed one or two tricks seamlessly enough and did his best to brush off what he’d messed up with jokes.

Fizzarolli’s balance wasn’t good enough to do any of those skills. Unicycling was his big goal for the pageant but he was still a far ways away from that. Fizzarolli doubted he’d ever be able to do acrobatics again, so he needed to focus on his other skills to support him through this contest.

Balloons then. You popped five balloon animals, mate. That makes kids cry. That was before the extra help. His hands were doing so much better today. Fizzarolli plastered a smile onto his face and began at his work. He started out easy: flowers and puppy dogs and horses. He was doing alright. The metal of his hands posed an extra challenge that he didn’t have with flesh. He would need to learn new tricks to make it go smoother, but he managed well enough with what he had. He only popped two, which was much better than he’d done since getting his arms. Fizzarolli decided to challenge himself.

He started with magenta. He concentrated as much as he could, his feet doing a little tap dance as he worked on his creation.

“Ta-da!” Fizzarolli held out his balloon creation, a rather accurate representation of Ram. Fizzarolli quickly got to work with his blue balloons to make an accompanying Bull. He managed to do it without popping them too! Fizzarolli took each of his creations and walked them over to his audience. All three of Asmodeus’s heads looked thrilled at his creations.

He wasn’t sure how it had happened, whether his claws had grabbed too hard or if Asmodeus’s was too warm or too pointy, but just as Fizzarolli was about to give the balloon creatures to Lust, they burst.

Mammon’s eyes narrowed at Fizzarolli. Not what clowns are are about, is it? Fizzarolli scanned between the two Sins for a few moments, trying to judge the situation. His heart had just started to calm before this.

“Ha-ha. Lesson learned. The King of Lust is too hot for balloons. Will cause…..explosions” Fizzarolli let out his clown laugh in confidence, but he felt like shaking. The explosion had surprised him, he could be better. Should he try it again? But then another sound startled him. Asmodeus’s laughter.

Fizzarolli’s worries cleared out of his head, the clown stood up straighter. That sound was warmer than the battery currently loosening a knot in his lower back right now. Fizzarolli felt safe. The clown smiled, joining in on Asmodeus’s laughter. He continued on, challenging himself in every skill he could think of until he was exhausted and panting, giving his bows. He might not have the glitter on to sparkle, but with Asmodeus’s reassurance, how could he not shine?

[dyad-of-fate]

Are Thorne and Kestrel's character designs done yet?

You have... no idea how hard this made us laugh, thank you X'D

And for the most part Kestrel is done, yes~ The only thing left for them is a few tattoos, and those will just evolve as I get to them. But since these are on Kestrel's back (most likely), I'm just calling them done. Really the only big thing I want to draw is Kestrel with their hair down but I know what that looks like.

Now Thorne's design may just continue to evolve and change until we get further in the story- or maybe it will just have small changes until we actually finish haha. But this is the most up to date version and there are key features that are locked in place: long and lanky, delicate, lil snaggle tooth fang poking from his mouth, monochrome pallet with dark skin, kinky-curly hair, heterochromia with one dark eye and a light eye, and freckles. His patterning may change a few more times, tattoos are a hope but those aren't designed, we knoe he has a few accessories but not sure what exactly yet, he has family scarification (cultural thing) but those aren't designed yet- we want to do our research and make sure we don't use a real culture's practices incorrectly... but yeah! Yarne is pleased with what his face and body type looks like. And he actually looks like his mom and dad's kid now, so that's a nice bonus.

Here, enjoy their canon height difference. For context, Kestrel's about 6 feet tall (183 cm). Which means their dog half is about the size of a large pony. Thorne's actually not terribly short for a wolf :)

Oh I guess that one thing will be redrawn on Kestrel, now that I'm looking at this. That shirt is not in line with the fashion of the Wall, so they probably wouldn't wear that unless they made it... overall fashion in story is more like 1920's meets 1940's - 50's era (from various places around the world). Clothing design isn't a strong suit though, so I just draw them in whatever my heart desires at the time XD

Thorne's jacket is canon though, it's his dad's old coat.

[frenzyarts]

Could you talk a bit about how you design your OCs from a visual level? I really love their designs. Only if you have the time and energy of course <3

Thank you so much omg 💕 I was trying to think of a good way to answer this question, but the truth is my methods are very nebulous and hard to define! I’ll do my best though 🥳

Some characters come to me very easily, some go through a few revisions, and some go through a meat grinder of revisions lol. Rune was easy, her design was just in my head right off the bat from years of drawing/thinking about demons. Yorick was a little different. Awhile back I played a ttrpg and designed this character:

Look familiar? This is prototype Yorick!! (I have this on my portfolio at a higher res if you wanna zoom in or something idk) She was a character who was kind of elfin and was a clown who controlled shadows. When I started pinning down the stories and characters of A Slowly Beating Heart I KNEW I had to put a demonic clown in there, and I thought of this design.

A phase I go through when designing characters when im not sure how they’re gonna look is doing a bunch of iterations based on vibes. Here’s some of the earliest Yorick sketches I could find, you can see how they don’t quite look “right” yet:

Like the vibes were there but that’s not our Yorick! Here’s what I think might be the first or second sketch I did where they look right:

I used the old Yorick I had designed but finally modified the outfit and design in a way that pleased me. I went with this design, and went through some minor edits with the colors, and boom, the demon clown was born! (Though even in this image they aren’t quite right, in the final comic I got rid of the lines on their horns and saturated the green parts of their eyes):

Melody is another story. Versions of Melody had also been living in my mind for almost as long as Rune, but never as a solid design. I have a zillion sketches of Melody that don’t look at all like how she looks now. It wasn’t until right before her appearance in the comic that I actually decided to refine her character design. Since I had never quite solidified how she looked in my mind, getting her on paper was quite the task. Her hairstyle was already on my mind, but I did a bunch of different versions of her halo and outfits. I put a bunch of designs together and sent them out to my friends to ask them to vote on their favorite outfit to help me decide 😂:

In the end Melody’s outfit didn’t quite look like any of these, because they’re all somewhat complex, and I need things to stay really simple for comics. Once I had designed the outfit the struggle still wasn’t over, cause now I had to do colors. Here’s just a small sampling of the color pallets I went through:

I guess if I was gonna break down my process into steps, it would be like this:

1. Sketch a bunch of ideas based on vibes

2. Choose my fav and then refine it further by tweaking the outfit/hair ect

3. Try out a lot of different colors and keep adjusting them until they look right

4. Give birth to my Art Child 💃✨🙌

I don’t always do all that, and some of the design processes for certain characters happen a little differently. But that’s basically it! Sorry this was super long, I hope it helped!!