#digital art and me: a very complicated story

[lil-gingerbread-queen]

~

Sometimes, you see a shit post on tumblr and it gives you an idea, for some reason.

(shitpost under the cut)

[alangdorf]

(sorry for leaving y’all in suspense I was grocery shopping) Surprise!! I accidentally got into Len’en like two weeks ago. Whoops! I got ideas for cool drawings to do with each of the BPoHC shrine team members (and you-know-who, ofc, but that one might be… weird lol), but Tsubakura gets to go first cause theirs is the simplest; just greyscale + red color scheme with a split background and the pose is mostly random (maybe they’re squishing Tsurubami’s little eye thing? Idk). Very pleased with how everything worked out; the line for the eye is exactly where the dividing line for the background was and the way I managed to make the vest corseted while not changing the ribbon placement is just perfect. Although I did make their hat smaller out of the aforementioned cowardice also that thing is hard to draw

[clovers-housetree]

Activities for Regressors Without Caregivers! (or just fun regression activties!)

(Although you're always welcome here if you'd like any form of comfort anyway! ^w^)

This one's kind of a long one, after the few tips I list, I've mentioned an app I use called Finch, which will be talked about below the cut.

Since that's the case, I'll put my little ending message here instead:

Knowing how to take care of yourself can take a lot of work and practice, but I believe it's worth the effort, because then you'll be a happier and healthier you! Especially if you can find ways to make it fun!

I'm more than happy to be here for you and offer my support in any way I can, anyhow! I'm proud of you for doing what you can, I know it can be very hard.

I myself don't have a caregiver for when I regress, so most of the time I end up taking care of myself! Here are some fun activities and things I do when I regress to keep myself calm and happy! ^w^

Paci mentions/pics not long after the first section for those of you who'd rather not see 'em.

♥ Arts and crafts! I absolutely LOVE coloring and making bracelets with beads, something not too complicated for little hands, but also something fun!

With coloring, you can buy coloring books, or draw something of your own to color in- even printing out a page you find online, coloring digitally, or tracing over something to color in could work! I prefer coloring more than drawing personally because I don't draw all the time, but I bet I could learn a little thing or two from the artists around here!

For bracelets (and other jewelry), strings can be hard to knot with little hands (at least they aren't those small, slippery clasps!!), but the beads shouldn't be too hard to handle if you're careful! Even just planning out patterns is fun!

Here are some My Little Pony bracelets I made, and the decorations I did for my pacis!

♥ Making playlists! Dancing is fun, and a good way to get the zoomies out, but you can just make playlists for any occasion! I have playlists that help me pet-regress, songs with sounds I like, adventure playlists... (Well- a lot of these are still in progress, but- you get the point!)

I also love those playlist videos on YouTube! Animal Crossing, Super Mario Galaxy, Minecraft and music box music are typically my go-to to help me settle or just make for comfy background music! Here's one of my favorites, shadowatnoon has lovely Nintendo music mixes!

♥ Playing with your plushies! You can take them on adventures, or make your own!

Like Toby, climbing The Great Pillow Mountain!

(This is Toby by the way, he's one of my best friends and a VERY good hugger!)

You can play games with them, too! Toby's REALLY good at hide and seek... Maybe you can find him for me? :0

♥ Finding shows to watch! I really like Paw Patrol and Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at the moment. Plus, you can look at agere content and fics from shows you like! People make really cool stimboards and moodboards, for example, and I like reading through all the fun stories people write!

Here's a silly picture of Rocky I found! :3

Finch

Finch is a self-care app where you take care of your very own little bird friend by taking care of yourself!

You can set daily goals, or for each day (or more specific ones as well I think.). By completing these goals, you give your bird energy to go on adventures! They usually come back with a funny little story or silly questions, because they're learning, too!

Through completing these goals (or daily, at least), you can get Rainbow Stones, which you can use to buy clothes for your bird, make them different colors, or give them furniture for their house!

They're also LGBTQ+ and disability-friendly!! :3

This is my little bird, Honeydew! You're welcome to friend me as well if you'd like, my code is: Z3E2T7VRK6

It's helped me learn a lot about taking care of myself and keeping track of my goals, and I get little rewards for it! I've used the app for several months now, and it's helped me out a lot!

"Fluttershy protects this blog! SFW interaction only, please and thank you! ^w^"

"Wouldn't show a kid? Doesn't belong here!"

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for correcting harmless misinformation?

I'm 20, my friends in this story are in their 30's-50's, genders irrelevant. Occasionally one of them will post something neat they saw on social media (facebook usually) and about half the time it'll be relatively harmlessly, but inaccurately, captioned. Examples include:

- that one picture of river outflow meeting the sea [captioned as "the line where the pacific and atlantic oceans meet"],

-some silly unsourced posts about X holiday being Secretly Wiccan Until The Christians Stole It (it wasn't. lot more complicated and nuanced than that!)

- very well done digital art of "rainbow galaxy visible from earth"

I don't want my friends to be tricked! They're all very smart people, just a little credulous sometimes when they're online (aren't we all?). I try to gently correct the information (ex. "this is actually art by [artist]!") and end it by giving a reason I'm still glad they brought it up (ex: "It's SO well done, though - absolutely gorgeous and really sparks my imagination!").

Thing is, none of the stuff they've posted is, like... particularly harmful misinfo so far? It's just people being Wrong, albeit sometimes intentionally, on the Internet. People are allowed to be Wrong on the internet.

Am I being a buzzkill for not just keeping my mouth shut? Am I letting my urge to be Correct overpower me? Should I just let people enjoy things? I'm scared I'm being rude to my friends, when all they want is to show the groupchat something cool they saw and thought we'd like! I'm not really sure what the social Rules are for something like this, and so I ask the jury:

Am I an asshole, folks?

(if mod's ok with it) please hit me in the comments with your favorite fake social media post. i really like the digitally altered red peacock footage

What are these acronyms?

Okay I was gonna leave mine in the tags--it's the blue watermelon photoshop that resurfaces every so often, claiming to be real and with some esoteric description about its flavor--but then I googled it to make sure I was remembering it right and found this absolute gem of an amazon listing:

Look at these extremely real and extant fruits that definitely aren't the same image over and over

[brokehorrorfan]

6 Things I Learned from the Lisa Frankenstein Commentary

We don’t get movies like Lisa Franeknstein often, which is a shame because it’s endlessly charming yet delightfully twisted. While it disappointed at the box office, it has "cult classic" written all over it.

The coming-of-age horror-comedy is out today on Blu-ray and DVD. Among the special features is an audio commentary by Zelda Williams. Here are 6 things I learned…

1. Catch Me If You Can inspired the opening credit sequence.

The opening credit sequence, which briefly depicts the Creature's love story from his previous life in the style of Victorian shadow box art, was inspired by Catch Me If You Can.

"We wanted to do something interesting with the credits in this bit. I was really inspired by Catch Me If You Can, which I thought the opening credits were particularly interesting and helped establish the story before we ever got to it. And because Creature doesn't speak this whole movie, I wanted an opportunity to show what his life would have been like."

2. The film was originally intended to be rated R.

Although Lisa Frankenstein pushes the PG-13 rating as far as it can go, it was originally intended to be a hard R. Williams cites the party scene, in which Lisa originally smoked a laced joint rather than drinking a PCP cocktail, as a difficult revision.

"This is where stuff got a little complicated when we were going from R-rated to PG-13. Originally there was a coated joint they were passing around. This is one of the only scenes that I'm not sure I'm as fond of in comparison to the joint stuff. Most of the rest of the changes were fine, but this one I find very strange. It's just a very different reaction and interaction than what used to be there. However, these are the things that happen when making a movie."

3. Creature is an homage to Day of the Dead's Bub.

Not only Lisa is seen watching George A. Romero's Day of the Dead in the film, but the Creature is an homage to its iconic zombie, Bub.

"Creature for me is definitely an homage to Buster Keaton, but he's also an homage to the zombie you just saw on screen, Bub, who was in Day of the Dead, a Romero movie that I'm very fond of. It was an incredibly emotive and a very intelligent zombie and ended up getting revenge against the asshole in the movie. It was one of my favorite monsters ever made, so when I could put that on screen during the movie, it made me very happy."

4. Zelda hid a tribute to her father, Robin Williams.

Williams is the daughter of Robin Williams, and she included his 1983 comedy album, Throbbing Python of Love, among the records scattered on the floor in Lisa's living room.

"Oh, there's Dad! We used one of Dad's vinyl albums because we had to scatter some across the floor." She refers to it as "a little, mini Easter Egg for me."

5. The police officers are named after John Waters.

The police officers in the film are Officer John (played by Walker Babington) and Officer Waters (Sylvia Grace Crim) — named on a whim in honor of cult filmmaker, John Waters.

"They asked me to name the cops, because obviously they needed to have name tags, so I named them Officer John and Officer Waters." She thought no one would notice since they're so small, but a viewer pointed it out at a test screening.

6. The film is sprinkled with movie references.

Williams wore her influences on her sleeve with her directorial debut, and she pointed out several references on the commentary:

A Trip to the Moon (clip featured in Lisa's surreal dream sequence)

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (stylistic inspiration on the dream sequence)

Weird Science (the party scene)

Suspiria (red lighting during drug sequence)

My Boyfriend's Back (camera shot from inside a grave looking up at characters)

Kill Bill (weapon point-of-view shot)

E.T. (a boy on a bike — played by Diablo Cody's son — at the end)

Notting Hill (reading together on a bench at the end)

Lisa Frankenstein is available now on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital via Universal.

[maybe-boys-do-love]

Only Friends: BL's Parliamentary Tragedy

Okay, but Jojo's take-down on twitter of the person criticizing Thai BLs' gay representation because of their inclusion of sexuality + the fact that it's Only Friends one year anniversary is getting to me! Because, for Jojo and his team, the issue of sexuality in BL is at the very Only Friends!!! That's what the antagonism between Mew and Boston is all about!!!

Mew at the start is the very SYMBOL of BL history and tropes that the twitter commenter is admiring. He's pure and chaste, and he has the glasses to prove it. He loves romance books because they're about love that's deeper than sex. He's in for the long game, and doesn't want to waste his virginity on anything less than lifelong perfection and the happiest ending.

Meanwhile, Boston is the paragon of queer media's history. Just pure 'no day but today' immediate sensual experience and satisfaction. To show off that he knows his queer history, he's got his film photography dark room to develop all his artistic nudes, a regular Robert Mapplethorpe. If that's not anti-establishment queer enough, anyone in a relationship inspires Boston's lustful antagonism because that would mean they think that life should be deeper than the surface, and that's a sin against Boston's aestheticism. Beauty for beauty's sake only; sex for sex's sake--nothing deeper nor longer-lasting. A love story is a worst-case scenario.

But then Top and Nick come along and mess up Boston and Mew's perfectly amiable division. We should've seen it coming. The very title of the show tells us this is a show about inclusion and exclusion, who's in and who's out--in coupling and in friend circles. There's that random crown in the title sequence; this is a show of parliamentary political jostling of parties to claim power. The little motif of Boeing and his plane trinket sprinkled across the entirety of the series before his introduction in the last two episodes, hints about the coup that finally comes to send someone out.

Boston's name should have given it away that he couldn't stay, but that name's also his saving grace, a sign that maybe that beautiful slut actually escaped the prison of Thai BL branded partnerships. Boston, after all, is the kind of marriage that lesbian women practiced prior to any licensed gay marriage. The Bostonians is also the name of the novel by Henry James, an author whose queerness is the type that historians find it hard to put a finger on, for which Boston marriages are named. And The Bostonians was adapted by the non-monogamous gay film-making couple Merchant & Ivory (the team that brought, among other acclaimed films, brought the queer story of Maurice to the screen, whose protagonist gets his happy-ending by running away).

Yes, Boston was slimy and slippery, but he had a need to escape definitions that Mew, who grew up inside his own BL bubble with his supportive lesbian moms, never had. Boston's dad was a politician who wanted improvement for his country, according to his campaign poster, and was someone the youth could be into, according to his son (and for all his faults, Boston was never much for lying). Although he didn't know about what happened regarding the gender of people deeper beneath Boston's sheets, this dad accepted his son for his promiscuity and passion for the arts, in other words, for who his son was. Still, the political aspect limited who Boston could document himself as in Thailand (and Boston's 1998 t-shirt when we first meet his father speaks to political connections about the complicated emergence of Thailand's democratic state and the first democratically elected prime minister to serve a full-term who similarly went into exile). So Boston focuses on the feelings and experiences of queerness he can garner because naming it isn't something that's promised or even preferable for him.

In someone with digital savvy like Nick, Boston discovers the potential for the appreciation of discretion, someone who can help him integrate his love for fleeting moments with more long-term connection. (You know, how the internet transformed photographs into tools for social connection rather than just for private albums or high art?) Yet even Nick's digital tastes, boundary-crossing as they might be, can't find comfort beyond monogamy. Boston can't find happiness for his boundless sexuality within the confines of the Thai BL's settings.

Mew, our sweet BL cinnamon bun, would've been Boston's complete opposite if he hadn't have been persuaded to have his visual and emotional impairment corrected by the realities of queerness Boston introduced him to (a fantastic subversion of the BL boy no longer needing their glasses). Instead, Mew has to contend with feelings for a real gay man who has a sexual past, lust, and fucked up habits from a life that hasn't been perfect. Even then, Top's still a pretty classic romantic alpha-male romcom interest. But Only Friends, having removed Mew's literal and figurative blinders, let's him process that as well as any real-life, self-righteous, purity-ring wearing princess would. Mew as Harley Quinn is just short of digging his keys into the side of his pretty little souped-up four wheel drive, and he is reveling in using his bff Ray's crush on him to get revenge. The fluffy BL castle on a cloud comes tumbling down when it encounters actual queerness.

But Only Friends lives in a BL world. The branded pairs must remain the branded pairs, and Boston, despite his conniving gaze, always seemed more confused by the politicking than everyone else at club YOLO, anyways. Every character and every actor has played their roles to their purpose, giving us three theories of love and their allowance within a BL. Topmew's tenuous romcom energy persists by force, Sandray's addictive and codependent romance with all its desperate struggles and tears will remain (though everyone's concerned its unhealthy), and Bostonnick's queer tendencies, with their carnal, discrete, and digital predilections, must be banished by the final scene. But they haunt the Only Friends hostel (or should we say hostile) even when they're not there. They're the people behind the lens and behind the screen that frame everything. They are the queer urges that both make possible and, as another man walks into the room--in that undeniably provocative form of Mix Sahaphap--threaten the gay happy ending.

When I say Only Friends is one of my favorite series, it's because I think this commentary of BL is the story it was telling from the beginning, and Jojo's twitter rant just affirmed that for me. I see Aof Noppharnach as the romantic optimist of Thai BL queer possibilities. He saw how they could be utilized to tell utopic queer stories. His friend and collaborator Jojo is not cynical but his works often serve to question and prod the genre about its extents and limits. Only Friends performs this prosecution through Shakespearean tragedy ala Julius Caesar, and the contentious reactions of fans stands as a testament to its interrogation about queer sexuality's acceptability within the BL realm.

------------------------

I promised I'd tag my fellow Boston apologist @waitmyturtles when I finally posted this. I have a draft of this started that's more academic and thorough, but this is the basic idea of it all.

[juliametzgerart]

I have shared versions of this on other platforms before, so I might as well make a tumblr edition: here some tips for MtG portfolios I gathered and might be interesting for some people who follow me. 1. Since this is a trading card game, here comes the obvious one first: Always keep in mind that these are card illustrations, they have to be readable in super small. Which means that strong silhouettes and value structures are a must have. If you work digital, check the zoomed out version on regular basis, or even have some jpgs to check their thumbnails in your file browser. That can give you an idea about their readability. Traditionally you can of course take some steps back, or take some photographs to look at smaller previews on your devices. Also: print illustrations often come out darker than their screen versions, be careful with your darks! It's rather easy for things to go muddy, even if they look good on screen. In doubt, increase the brightness a bit. It's okay to have different versions for screen and print to meet their needs.

2. Be versatile about your topics and compositions. Zoom in, zoom out. Don't fall into the trap of your own comfort zone zoom level of showing things, or one way of doing things. It can be positive to offer purposefully unusual options.

3. Be aware of the focus. If you have a magician with a staff, ask yourself if the card is about the staff(artifact), the mage (creature) or perhaps even the spell. The composition and focus of the illustration should shift accordingly! Clear action is important for readability – since that is not just visual hierarchy here, but also storytelling. Which brings me to the next point: 4. Good narrative matters, but mechanics matter even more. So, again, be very aware of your illustration's focus. You can potentially add extra elements for the story to make it more fun, but it should not get too convoluted, and even less should it distract from what the card it actually about. If you come up with your very own ideas for a portfolio this is of course much more open than if you work from a description. But you can find a bunch of official MtG descriptions online which are super useful for training.

5. Show care. Plan the illustration, get the references in place. It's the best time to get good habits in place, and really finish the pieces. Don't make them weaker by going too fast, that is not convincing. It just lets people assume worse things for tight deadlines. This does not mean everything needs to be rendered to death - but shape design should remain thoughtful and purposeful even where soft and lost edges are used.

6. It's potentially okay to have your specific stylistic or thematic niche. It can mean less assignments at times, but can also mean more special ones. It's cool though for your voice to be visible as long as the other needs of the product are met.

7. Never stop using those references. Get them, make them, use them - take them seriously. (at least for any of the more realistic styles). It's one of the most repeated tips for any student to actually just use more references. They do a ton to get complicated things like anatomy and lighting right, but also cultural references and versatility. Many of the best Magic artists also make the best references – it's not a coincidence. Learn from the people who have already established themselves, they have great wisdom to share. 8. Your quality has to match the current roster. Yeah, sorry, no way around that one. You need at least to be as good as the currently "worst" artist in the roster to have a chance. And the ADs need to be sure that even on a bad day your art can meet their quality bar. Which is the reason why you likely need several art pieces at the required level, to prove it wasn't just some lucky fluke. Though once you're really there, that also means a bit less pressure to perform, since you're likely comfortable at your skill level and can only go up from there.

[vanitythevantropist]

DISCLAIMER: this account is 16+ as it may contain themes that are not suitable for children. Please use caution and always check the trigger warnings. Stay safe❤️

TWs MAY INCLUDE:

-Suggestive topics

-Blood and gore

-Body horror

-Scary imagery in general

-Swearing

INTRODUCTION POST:

Hi! You may call me Mod Snake/Snake Mod, or Ryn, if you want to :3

I’m a 16 year old furry (scaly?) from South Africa! I go by she/her pronouns and am Omnisexual :> I’m a Christian (and also a Satanist) (Shocker, Ik👀)

My disorders consist of; ADHD, autism (ASD), sensory processing disorder (SPD), alexithymia

Over here on this strange lil blog, you’ll find my random thoughts and interactions with other Tumblr peeps, as well as images of my pets! The main part, though, is my art😌 Yeah, I’m a digital artist and am strangely motivated🤣 (My tablet sucks so it takes a while cuz I gotta charge it after an hour-) (Le sigh)

MAIN SONA (+the roleplays aspects):

Along with art n stuff, this blog is a hybrid between a personal blog and an ask blog! Who are the asks for? My OC, Vanity, ofc :3 When addressing her, you may use the name Vanity (or Vanitealius if you wanna be fancy lmao)

Very quick explanation of who and what she is; she is the Goddess of Chaos and Imbalance in her world and is able to jump dimensions. She’s very physical but her body doesn’t follow regular physical laws :3

Ref sheet:

(None yet, I haven’t made one💀)

FANDOMS I’M IN:

-How to Train Your Dragon

-Wings of Fire

-Warrior Cats (never read the books lmao)

-Helluva Boss

-My Little Pony (haven’t watched the show lol-)

-Cobra Kai (unironically)

OC STORIES (Named):

-Stones of Gold (original)

-Wings of Fire: the Dragon Pact Chronicles (WoF AU)

-Eternal Twilight (original)

-The Wilds of Pernul (original)

-The Sky of Maroon (original)

-Eyes of Pure Silver (original)

-The Colonies (WC AU)

-The Tempest’s End (original)

-The Divine Deception (original)

-Chasing Echoes (original)

ASKS (n stuff):

Feel free to ask me anything! I’m quite open about anxiety and my disorders, stuff like that :3 The thing you don’t ask are obvious, like sexual things, cuz I’m, y’know, 16💀

BUT! that’s not all!! If you want, you can ask my OCs questions, as well! Whatever you want, really! Want an introduction? Ask em! Wanna ask about their food tastes? Ask em! Wanna know a little more about their toxic ass relationships? Ask em, see if they’ll like that😌 (They probably won’t but you can do it anyway!) (I may or may not draw art for it but probably mostly won’t but hey, who knows?)

COMMONLY ASKED QUESTIONS:

-“How do you feel about PMs?” Love em! I’m all about chatting with like minded people :D If you wanna drop a compliment, ask about commissions, whatever, feel free!

-“How do you feel about fanart?” I LOVE fanart!! If you wish to draw fanart for me, please make sure to credit the OC/design to me and tag me directly!

-“How do you feel about reposts?” I don’t like reposts. If you want to share my art, please reblog my posts directly. Thank you!

ART REQUESTS:

Status: Open !!

Terms of request (ToR):

-You may request art through my asks or in private.

-The art requested will be drawn as a simple sketch. I leave the complicated pieces to the commissions!

-I draw; furries, dragons, horses/unicorns/pegasi, dogs, cats, gore (artsy), robots, fanart, OCs

-I don’t draw; humans, fish, complicated designs, nudity, overly suggestive, vehicles, hateful art (homophobia, racism, etc)

COMMISSIONS:

Status: Closed

Commission details:

[ceasarslegion]

Anyone who's close to me knows that video games as an interactive art form is something I am very passionate about, and it's a shame to me that so much of it gets glossed over in the moment of playing, especially when it's within a popular, mainstream game. I feel like indie games get a lot more attention paid to the artistry within them while the very real creativity of the dev teams of massive A-list titles get reduced down to the mass market audience that does not tend to pay attention to the details.

I'm thinking of this since hearing Penny's battle theme in Pokémon Scarlet on my second run of the game. Admittedly I was also too focused on beating her in my first run to notice how well-constructed her song is. And then I downloaded it and gave it a proper sit-down listen on my commute.

I think hiring Toby Fox to compose for them was one of the best artistic decisions the pokemon company made in recent years. He's definitely known for his video game music, with his big flashy chiptune-esque songs that are fundamentally difficult for any human hand to play with how complicated their structure is, but still convey entire stories in their own right. The two main things everyone praised Undertale for back in 2015 were its simple but heartfelt tearjerker story, and its music. And you very rarely see music noticed by wider video game audiences at all.

I think that's because there's a certain auditory genius in what Toby Fox does. You can hear a lot of 8-bit and early digital leitmotifs in Penny's theme. It's harsh, angry, very quickly paced, but it's not hard on your ears either. It somehow sounds like a lonely, bullied kid at her breaking point letting all her pain and rage out at you in the only way she knows how. That part of the scene and her character culminate so well through the music that I feel the message could get across even without the context. Character themes are what Toby Fox has always done best imo.

Also love how he composes music that is nearly impossible to play on physical instruments. He really grabs the video game medium by the horns as a fully digital art form and relies primarily on his skill with computers to create music for fully digital stories.

[itsmeglycine]

Your art style is so pretty and you are so talented!! I love all of your Stardew fanart!

Do you take commissions? If you're okay with OCs x character shipping I'd love to commission you :3

Thank youuu! I'm flattered!!

Yeah I have no problems with Stardew OCs and self-shipping stuff. As for art commissions, I've only thought about it, but have not set up any. I could use the money actually... but there is this devastating payment issue.

Long story short, I can only receive payment via Steam digital gift cards. If it's not too troublesome...

More info under the cut. ↓

I am from Mainland China, and the only mainstream payment service that supports our region is PayPal, HOWEVER- Due to complicated bank policies and such, I will not be able to withdraw money from it, and I will not be able to spend the money via PayPal where I'm from. It will just remain numbers in my account, unless I go to some shady withdrawal third-parties that ask for too much of my personal information, and could very much be scammers...

-About Payment

We use Alipay and WeChat in China, but I cannot receive cross-border transfers when I'm not a registered vendor, and even if I did, I could still get into trouble.

-About My Art & Pricing Ideas

There is one workaround I can think of, which is having you add me on Steam and send me digital gift cards, so the money will be automatically converted to my currency when I redeem it. If anyone is actually willing to go through the trouble... please leave me a reply to let me know?

I am not professional, and have inconsistent styles and quality, as you can tell from my posts. I also do not have enough sample art. This makes pricing tricky.

I have, however, taken a few "name your own price" commissions from friends, which were paid after they evaluated the final result. Basically, I have no quality control and don't do revisions, so you can pay however much you think is a fair price. If you trust me enough with my skills, we can discuss more details in my DMs here.

Thank you for reading through all this!

[kideternity]

Okay now i've finished Adventure let me write up my full thoughts about the season. This will be less structured than the Tamers review and I apologise for that, I just kind of had a different watching experience with Adventure and thus sort of format my feelings about it in a different way idk. Whatever the case, here’s my full review of Adventure under the cut, and if you don’t care about that, then here’s the TLDR;

I liked adventure! I had a lot of fun watching it. It’s not a perfect season, but nothing is, and whilst I am going to take a break for now, I'm excited to start Digimon Adventure 02 in the foreseeable future.

-First, I do want to highlight things I really enjoyed. I really loved the animation and art style- I know its seen as very cheesy and dated and not the best animated (Most notable example that comes to mind is reusing the animation for special moves) but IDC, I love the cartoony style and I've always been very endeared to older styles of animation and how they make use of the medium.

-I liked the kids! I liked the kids a lot! They’re good kids! The cast of adventure is absolutely a highlight, and I can see why Bandai always goes back to them for use in future projects, whether or not that’s ultimately a good thing.

-Whilst I personally prefer the more Urban Sci-fi / Fantasy settings of Tamers and Savers, The Isekai approach lends itself to be a good way to immediately show off the digital world and the creatures within it, and to start exploring the worldbuilding within. I like the worldbuilding of Adventure! It felt kind of more purposely vague then Tamers and Savers, but it’s an interesting world they set up, and I'd like to see more of it explored

-I missed the global aspect of Tamers and even Savers. Though I can’t really fault Adventure, being as it was literally THE first season ever, for staying strictly in Japan. I just personally enjoyed how large and expansive things got in Tamers, and how people from all over the world were involved. I will say, I did appreciate Adventure also having more unorthodox or complicated family dynamics- such as Yamato and Takeru being the kids of divorce who aren’t able to 24/7 be around each other, or how Koushiro is adopted. It’s always a breath of fresh air to see media, especially for kids, tackle these sorts of things with nuance and grace.

-The soundtrack was absolutely gorgeous. Probably my favourite out of all of the soundtracks so far- there was just so much passion and emotion packed into each musical piece.

-Tone and themes were fairly consistent throughout, mostly due to the fact that Adventure doesn’t really have any sort of grand overarching messaging like Tamers or Savers did. I would assume, due to being again, the first season of anime, it cared more about plot and characters than trying to Say anything too radical. Hence, the themes follow pretty standard “good versus evil” tropes, as well as the power of compassion and community and optimism and hope that digimon usually utilises in each of its different stories across mediums, instead of anything more complex, like Tamers attempts at dissecting morality and violence, and Savers discussing the inherent value of lives that aren’t humans and trying to understand those not like you. Adventure plays it safe, and doesn’t get burned because of it, which I can’t fault.

-The villains are. Eh. They’re entertaining but none of them are necessarily very well written. The most well written villain was Pinochimon, and ignoring that i'm a biased party, most people seem to agree with me on this. Vamdemon was definitely the most intimidating and well built up antagonist. Apocalymon has a really cool and sympathetic concept, and I wish he had been focused on more. Generally, due to the nature of Adventure's “good versus evil” tropes, a lot of the villains aren’t really allowed any sort of nuance or are portrayed in a “They're Inherently Damnable Let's Kill Em” sort of way, which is unfortunate. Only Ogremon top of my head really gets any sort of minor redemption at the end without dying for it, ala Wizarmon, Gottsumon and Pumpkinmon.

-Like Tamers, Adventure is much more open to the idea of making horny jokes and talking about romance, which I do not enjoy, and it was by far the worst one when it came to that in my opinion. Why were there so many jokes about masc digimon hitting on Mimi. Stop that right this instant.

-Generally, I would say plot and character writing is a mixed bag. None of it is necessarily godawful, but you can tell that Adventure was very haphazardly and sloppily written. There’s a lot of inconsistencies in the writing- a lot of new characters or story elements are sort of abruptly added out of nowhere with no real build up and which sometimes ultimately don’t really matter all that much. It has definitely the worst pacing out of the seasons I've seen so far- Again, Building up momentum to then just suddenly stop and spill exposition on you. Savers and Tamers had issues too, but their handling of the plot was usually much tighter and the writing much more concise. Whilst I love the kids, and they do definitely get their own character arcs, none of them are written equally in that regard and often times it leads to situations where some characters get their arcs finished early and then stay stagnant for the rest of the season (Sora and Koushiro) whilst others only get major character writing near the very end (Yamato). It also definitely played favourites with some of them lol. Random things will interject in pivotal moments and the arcs for each different villain all have entirely different vibes to one another. Truthfully, it does come across as a much of mini stories hazily slapped together in an attempt to create a Larger Grander Narrative. Which, again, it was their first attempt ever creating an anime for Digimon, so I suppose I can’t blame them too much for this. It’s a miracle this took off so well in the first place.

Again, there’s definitely stuff I'm missing that i'd have wanted to say, but as a whole, again, I like Adventure! It’s not my favourite season of the digimon anime, and I can definitely understand the frustration for Bandai constantly milking it as a cash cow for the nostalgia points. But, I do think as a whole it holds up for the most part, at least for a kids anime from the late 90s, and Again, I don’t regret having watched it.

[thedogslegart]

Talking about art under cut

Im trying to see how to draw real people and within that how to go about fuigering that out. Also how there are some people that are reall easy to draw simplified and other so easy to draw complicated and others still who i can only just manage almsot realistically (not all examples here obvs lol)

I think ive just never bothered to draw older people so im stumbling that hurdle now. But its getting easier. As always the solution seems to be to loosen up and remember my pen is a pen and the permanance is not scary its a plus.

I didnt draw people at all for a while while doing uni work so i defaulted back to drawing OCs that have a clear and strickt stialization already but that presents a problem when my brain wants to draw real people lol

All of these pragraphs are arting with "I" lol. Its also kinda tricky to hm. Not find a style, i kind of hate that. But to find a consistency. When i was drawing people from rawhide i kinds had that no lower eye line thing but this doesnt even work for clitn east wood in other things hes acted in. I think maybe its the B&W flattens out that area under eye or something but it seems less distinct either way and my brain scans it as something not worth putting on paper

The oposit was true when i was trying to draw chrcaters from Sabata. It was digitally so not in this post but lee van cleef and whoever played Spengel (spengle? Spengal?) In that movie have such distict eyes that require alot of attention. Hm.

Reminds me how i drew Franca, an OC ive made up (visually) in the last month or so, next to Birdie, an OC i drew ALOT about two years ago now, and how i kinda see them both as lines/ruel to follow. I know Birdie is constructed of XYZ and Franca is ABC. The problemncomes from the fact that two years ago i was VERY focus on EXTRAMLY simple looking chrcaters but now the faces are more complicated and they stick out when next to each other.

I suppose its not relevent. Franca and Birdie are from two compelate different story lines and time period, but its indicative of a larger issue. My brain almost defaults tona slightly different "stlye" (almost) for different movies/shows/stories. The way id draw Bloodties chrcaters feels distinct (to me at least) to drawings of Office Party chracters even if theyre both from VTM stories by the same guy. Maybe that last one once again is just a difference in the time i started to draw these chrcaters.

Im going much off track. I like the sound of my own.......typing.

Oh! And Gino and Javier r there ^^

[natlacentral]

There's no better way to commence IGN Fan Fest 2024 than with an exclusive clip and deep-dive on Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender. Our reporter Alex Stedman chronicles her visit to the set and what insights she learned from the series’ creators and stars. She also provides a preview of what the cast told us in their upcoming Fan Fest interview streaming this Friday, Feb. 23rd. (Here's how to watch IGN Fan Fest 2024.)

It’s June 2022, and the Fire Nation is attacking the Northern Water Tribe. 

Or, at least, that’s what’s very much playing out in front of me and a gaggle of other journalists on the Vancouver set of Netflix’s live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender. Throughout the day, we watch the thousands of LED panels within the volume shift around the real-life actors, who twirl and jab and dance in various martial arts styles to bring to life the battles of the animated classic. It’s surreal and immersive – at any moment, a group of Water Tribe residents might get in the snack line behind you. Or, just maybe, Aang himself will pop over your shoulder to get a glimpse at your notes.

It’s something that’s noticeable throughout our visit to the set. For a lot of the young cast, this is their first time doing interviews about their live-action translations of these beloved characters, and there’s a sense of nervousness… behind just about everyone except for Gordon Cormier, who arguably has the most pivotal role in the show as the titular last airbender, Aang. If the 13-year-old (now 14) feels the pressure, he doesn’t show it – in fact, he seems perfectly at ease as he chats with the journalists throughout the day, his father always close in tow.

Plus, the kid just seems like he loves it here on the set. When I ask him what the most complicated scene he’s shot yet is, he can’t sit still while he recounts the story of filming his fight with Zuko in Omashu. Instead, he jumps out of his seat and performs.

“Zuko is like, ‘I'm going to get you.’ I jump over the table, I get over, he grabs a staff, he tries to swing at me,” Cormier says, miming a punch.

“Then I'm like, ‘Uh-oh,’ I duck under the table.” You guessed it – Cormier ducks under the table.

“Then I hop back up, I grab a bowl – and this took, I don't know how many tries – but after I duck under, I grab the bowl, I flip it, I catch it, and then he stabs into it,” he continues, acting it all out as he goes. “Then he has this staff, I kick it and it hits him in the face and I just run away.”

Eventually, Cormier sits back down, satisfied, if a bit frazzled: “I just lost my train of thought.”

And, as Cormier hops around in front of us, all childlike excitement and curiosity, it’s little wonder that showrunner Albert Kim and the bevy of other producers just couldn’t get their minds off Cormier after his initial audition.

“You see someone, and you realize they've somehow captured the essence of a character,” Kim tells IGN. “That's what it was like when we first saw Gordon. He just seemed like Aang.”

He revealed as much in a wide-ranging interview with IGN a few weeks ago, the culmination of a year and a half of coverage on Netflix’s live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender for this digital cover, anchoring IGN Fan Fest 2024. With various interviews with the showrunner, cast, crew, and more, we’re gearing up for the release of the eight-episode adaptation, hitting Netflix on February 22 – and hopefully giving you the most comprehensive preview, too.

For his part, Kim always knew casting on his Avatar: The Last Airbender “was going to be probably the biggest challenge of them all because you're asking a hell of a lot from some very young performers.” 

They are, indeed, asking plenty of this young cast. Aside from the complexities and growth behind each individual character, there is a lotof pressure behind the adaptation. Nickelodeon’s Avatar: The Last Airbender is not only one of the most beloved animated series of all time, but it’s probably safe to say it’s one of the most beloved television series period, animated or live-action. Plus, there’s no erasing the stain of the much-derided 2010 M. Night Shyamalan film adaptation (which Kim has purposely avoided, he revealed previously).

Basically, there are a lot of eyes on Kim, Cormier, and the entire production, and Kim knows it. He even reveals that his own son was hesitant about him taking on the project, given how protective fans are of the property. 

“He is in the contingent of fans that think you cannot improve upon the original,” Kim says. “So he was a little wary. And he was also probably a little worried for me because he also knows how ruthless the fans and the online community can be if you get something wrong, so he was a little bit protective of me on that side, but I think we won him over.”

The pressure increased, too, after original Avatar creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko announced in 2020 that they were leaving the series. Originally executive producers, DiMartino and Konietzko said in an open letter that “things did not go as we had hoped.”

“Having them leave was a blow,” Kim admits. “And we had to think about whether or not the vision that we had set forward really reflects and honors the spirit of what they had created. And we felt like it did, so we went forward with it. But it's not to say that when they left, we said, ‘Forget everything they've done.’ That was never going to be the case, regardless of their involvement with the project. So I think that hopefully we honor, like I said, the spirit of the show that they originally created in the version we made.”

And at the heart of that spirit: The Last Airbender himself, Aang.

Finding The Last Airbender

All that pressure and pre-established fame made casting even more difficult, too, given that the process would need to be shrouded in secrecy. Therefore, all the young actors auditioning couldn’t know who or what they were auditioning for – but Cormier pulled through anyway.

“He was acting as some character named Alan in a show about mathematics or something,” Kim recalls. “We saw in him something that was kind of an essential version of Aang there. And we kept coming back to him. We saw lots of other actors as well, but after every round of auditions, we were asking ourselves, ‘What about Gordon? I mean, they're not as good as Gordon. Can we go back?’“

Not that knowing who the character was would’ve made that much of a difference for Cormier. He admits, somewhat sheepishly, that he didn’t have much familiarity with the series before he auditioned. But don’t worry, that’s changed.

When I ask how many times he’s seen it now, Cormier won’t give me a straight answer – at least, not right away. He makes me guess.

“5?”

“I’ll give you a clue,” Cormier says. “It’s a lot more than that.”

“12?” I’m not even close.

“I’ve seen it 26 times,” he proudly reveals once he’s taken pity on my guesses. “It’s my favorite show.” Oh, and actually, 26 is just when he stopped keeping track – he’s seen it a lot more since then, too.

With a resume like that, Cormier knows Aang pretty darn well at this point. While the showrunners have been open about the fact that the live-action adaptation won’t be slavishly loyal to the cartoon – with Aang in particular, Kim says they gave him more of a “narrative drive” from the beginning – Cormier says the way he’s playing Aang is “as similar as it can get in a live-action.”

Cormier attended a six-week boot camp to perform the stunts.

Cormier relates to the character, too, in perhaps the most wholesome way possible.

“I mean, me and Aang, we are so happy,” he says. “I don't know, sometimes I might be too happy, but I feel like that's one of our similarities.”

And, despite all the fun Cormier is clearly having here on the set, he takes it seriously. Like the rest of the main cast, Cormier attended a six-week boot camp to perform the show’s stunts. Luckily, Dallas Liu and Ian Ousley, who play Zuko and Sokka respectively, were already martial artists, but all of the actors had to learn various styles during that month and a half of training.

“They taught us all four elements in that boot camp,” Cormier says. “We learned Bagua for airbending and Wushu for airbending. We learned Tai Chi and Wushu for waterbending. We had Shaolin kung fu and Wushu for firebending and Hung Ga and Wushu for earthbending.

Plus, it goes beyond physical for the young actor. If it seems like he really is Aang, that’s kind of how Cormier feels, too.

“Most people, they'll study the script and they'll read the scene a hundred times,” he explains. “Me, I'll read the stage directions once or twice, I'll memorize my lines. And once I get there and I hear the other person speak, I just sink into it. So when I do that, I am Aang. I'm thinking, ‘Zuko is coming for me,’ all these things. And that's all up there. So yeah, I think that I get pretty deep into the character.”

It helps that he speaks to the group of us in full costume, blue arrow painted across his bald head. To nail that Aang look, Cormier says he has his head shaved every morning, and he compares the arrow-application process as something akin to getting a henna tattoo, but with more medical supplies. 

Of course, Cormier isn’t the only one taking on a big role in Avatar: The Last Airbender. Hell, he’s not even the only one who has to have his head shaved daily.

Everything Changed When…

Up close, Zuko’s burn scar might look a little gnarlier than you might expect. Or at least, the Netflix version of it does, as Liu, who’s taking over the role of everyone’s favorite troubled Fire Nation prince, sits in front of me.

As he explains, it’s a two-hour process every shoot day. “I think it’s a rubber piece or plastic, something along those lines,” he says. “And it’s glued to my face.” 

“It's cool because I can totally feel it on my face,” he says, running his fingers over his pseudo-scar. “And with Zuko, the scar is a huge part of his identity, at least at the start. So with this scar, I think it also plays into how I play Zuko.”

Elizabeth Yu, who’s taking on the role of Zuko’s sister Azula, says her costume – “wearing leather armor that was molded to my body” – helped her get into character, too, especially since she’s much kinder than Azula.

"It was cathartic to be able to play that character because I'm so opposite in real life,” she laughed in an interview with the cast for IGN Fan Fest. “It's like therapy. It's very therapeutic to be mean."

Speaking of Azula, her role is decidedly heightened in this live-action adaptation, at least early on. Azula, as well as her and Zuko’s father Fire Lord Ozai (played by Daniel Dae Kim), don’t really show up until later seasons of the animated series, but fans can expect both to pop up quite a bit more in the early days of the Netflix version.

"We needed to know more about the background for Zuko."

That’s no accident, of course. Showrunner Albert Kim explains that it was a “conscious decision” to push those storylines more to the forefront, largely in service of Zuko’s character. In fact, he confirms we’ll even see that fateful Agni Kai (a firebending duel) between Zuko and Ozai, the one that granted the former that famous scar.

“I felt like we needed to balance out the storylines,” Kim says. “We needed to know more about the background for Zuko, and why he's doing what he's doing, and set that in the context of his family dynamic, and how he fits in with his father and sister.” 

“And that's something they get to later in the animated series, but we had a little bit of a benefit of hindsight,” he continues. “We knew where that was going, so we could pull some of those elements up front into the first season and make the first season a little bit richer and a little bit deeper in terms of character storylines.”

Plus, Kim admits, it’s a travel show with a lot of locations, so being able to return to the Fire Nation throughout the eight-episode first season helped from a logistical standpoint, too.

Liu, though, says he’s staying focused on those early days of Zuko’s character development. Basically, he’s not watching the entire series 26 times as Cormier did, but keeping his thoughts on Book 1, at least when I spoke to him on the set.

“I wanted to stay in that mindset where he's still fighting to capture the Avatar, and that's pretty much his only life mission, and that's all he knows,” he says. “I think capturing the Avatar is pretty much Zuko's identity at this point in the story, and we'll see where he goes from there.”

And, as fans know, where Zuko does go becomes one of the most beloved redemption arcs in TV history – but that’s later. For now, he’s a ferocious enemy, reserving seemingly his only soft spot for Uncle Iroh (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee). You can see Zuko and Iroh team up in an exclusive clip below.

That aforementioned redemption arc is why Zuko is a favorite among fans – and it’s also partially what leaves Liu with such big shoes to fill. The other part of that legacy is Dante Bosco’s lauded voice-performance in originating the character, but Liu makes it clear that he’s not simply just trying to replicate Bosco’s angsty teenage charms. In fact, that was Bosco’s own advice for him in the various conversations they had, Liu revealed during the Fan Fest interview.

“He said he was passing me the torch, and I don't think I really felt it until we finished the [season] and I got to really talk to him about my experience on the show and becoming the character fully,” Liu says. 

“He really wanted me to make Zuko my own,” he continues. “There's Dev Patel (from M. Night Shyamalan’s 2010 adaptation) and Dante Bosco, which are two inspirations. So actually, he was hoping that I could do my own thing, maybe grab some inspiration from him, some from Dev, just make this big mash-up my own Zuko."

Asserting some of that Zuko confidence, Liu proudly reiterates, “It’s gonna be my Zuko.” 

Of course, Aang isn’t on his own as Zuko chases him around the world. He’s famously joined by brother and sister duo Sokka and Katara, played by Ousley and Kiawentiio respectively.

Going with the Flow

Funnily enough, despite the aforementioned secrecy of the audition process, Liu eventually deduced who he was auditioning for – “I was like, ‘no one hates their dad this much,’ “ he jokes. Ousley, however, didn’t know he was auditioning for Sokka… at least, not for the most part.

By the time Avatar came along, Ousley was in the thick of searching for roles in general, estimating that he was probably doing about three auditions a week at that point:

“That's what you do as actors, is just self-tape, hope you hear something, self-tape, hope you hear something.”

Sure, he was aware that Avatar: The Last Airbender was casting – but for this untitled Netflix project to be it? Nah.

“I was flying to help my sister drive back to LA from college and I was like, ‘I don't want to say this, because there's almost no probability it's true, but the only thing I can think of is Avatar,’“ he remembers on the set. “‘But I can't even fathom that, because that would be insane.’"

If you couldn’t guess from that, Ousley, like the rest of the cast, is a fan of the animated series. But, unlike Cormier, he grew up with the show and even remembers being at the pool as a kid and running his arm over the water, trying to waterbend. (Ironic, then, that he’s playing the only non-bender of the main cast).

“(Sokka’s) kind of the more relatable one. I thought I was Zuko (when I was a kid), but in real life, I'm Sokka,” he jokes during our Fan Fest interview.

Sokka, too, is a big part of the comedic relief of the Nickelodeon show. That balance between humor and the massive stakes of the series, Kim says, was part of the “essential tightrope that we had to walk.” 

“You wanted to stay true to the original, which had a large component of humor, lots of action, lots of darkness too,” Kim says. “...So for us, it was about striking that right balance, of making sure you were true to the D.N.A. of the original. But at the same time, we had to make it a serialized Netflix drama, which meant it couldn't just be for kids. It had to also appeal to the people who are big fans of Game of Thrones. And so, it had to feel grounded and mature and adult in that way too.”

Ousley feels that balance in Sokka – he highlights the character’s comedic elements as the aspect he was most excited to bring to life. Somewhat echoing Kim’s sentiment, a big part of Sokka for him was finding that “happy medium” between the humor and the emotional moments, while always trying to bring comedy to the table.

“He's deadpan, he's kind of outrageously realistic at times, which is pretty funny,” Ousley says. “But yeah, he's always high stakes. A lot of times his comedy, I feel like, almost comes from this situation.”

“We see a lot of Katara’s traumas and a lot of her insecurities.”

Ousley also teases that a major part of delving into these characters more is exploring their relationships, and a big one for Sokka is no doubt the one with his sister, Katara. Hers is also one of Avatar’s most famous arcs, starting less sure of herself and ending the series as a much more self-assured warrior. She goes through a lot to get there, of course – when asked what future scenes she would most like to play as Katara, Kiawentiio mentions the dark bloodbending arc that comes much later in the series.

But, we won’t get to see that unless Netflix orders more Avatar: The Last Airbender. When talking about what we’ll see here in Season 1, Kiawentiio says, “We see a lot of Katara’s traumas and a lot of her insecurities.”

“We see her kind of struggle with that, particularly throughout the season,” the actress says. “Without giving too much away, when she starts to feel more confident in herself, there's an obstacle. And that really kind of pushes her to be completely confident in herself and not let anybody ruin that.”

Like the rest of the cast, Kiawentiio, too, points to the bonds she’s made with the other actors throughout filming. Ousley even mentions during the set visit that he’s roommates with Liu now if you can picture Sokka and Zuko trying to live together.

Throughout all the interviews, that’s one feeling that remains – yes, all eyes are on this big-budget production of a beloved property, but it’s hard to deny that it’s fun just to watch them have fun. 

During our Fan Fest interview, for example, Cormier, Kiawentiio, and Ousley struggle through laughter to share a story of Cormier filming a particularly serious Aang scene. As Kiawentiio explains, they got into the habit of yelling “slay!” at various moments throughout the production… and took the opportunity to do so while Cormier was trying to be very serious as Aang.

“We're trying to build morale,” Ousley says. “We're low-key in a rush at the end of the day. So Kiawentiio was like, 'Wait. Slay.' "

“So me and Ian are in the back going, 'slay!' And we're like 'Gordon slay!’“ Kiawentiio laughs.

Cormier’s response, through tears? “I can’t slay right now!”

It’s charming anecdotes like those that cut through the high stakes surrounding the series, but make no mistake – Netflix is investing a lotin Avatar: The Last Airbender. After all, it’s a fantasy series that’s built on travel, and none it works if it looks cheap.

Bringing it All to Life

The actual filming of Avatar: The Last Airbender is pretty innovative regarding tech. As Netflix announced back in 2021, it partnered with VFX and virtual production studio Pixomondo to create an absolutely massive virtual set in Vancouver that’s 84 feet across and 28 feet high, featuring 23,000 square feet of stage and more than 3,000 LED panels. It’s the kind of volume that The Mandalorian made famous and one that’s necessary for a show with as many locations as Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Or, as virtual production supervisor and Pixomondo head of production Josh Kerekes puts it, “Have you heard of The Last Airbender? It's effectively a travel show. It's a fantasy travel show, and every episode it seems we're almost in a different bio.”

“We're relying on a very new technology to build probably the most amount of environments I've ever done on a show personally within a TV budget, TV schedule,” Kerekes says on the set. “That in of itself is quite ambitious. We're going from the South Pole to mountains, to tropical seaports, to ships at sea, to flying on a sky bison, sometimes all within the same week. We're just rapidly changing between very different types of environments, very different feels and moods.”

To get more specific, Kerekes says Pixomondo built about 26 different set-ups, with almost 100 “different scenarios.” Take the Northern Water Kingdom, for example – sure, that may be one location, but it goes through various states throughout the first season. Kerekes says there’s a pre-attack version, then one where the kingdom is 40% destroyed, then 90% destroyed.

It, as Kerekes describes, is not a seamless process, but trust me – when you’re standing in the middle of the virtual set, it sure feels that way. At a certain point during our set visit, we journalists were allowed to wander the volume, experiencing first-hand as the LED screens surrounding us changed our location. At first, we’re in the Northern Water Tribe as it’s under attack – moments later, seemingly with little effort, we’re in the depths of Bumi’s mansion in Omashu.

“In order to be successful in that, everyone needs to be really collaborating seamlessly with each other,” Kerekes says. “In order to go from the South Pole to the North Pole, it takes a small army to ensure that all those pieces look and feel right.”

For scenes where Aang, Sokka, and Katara are flying about the world, there’s a mini set with a giant rig of Appa right in the middle.

It’s not all digital, of course, with physical props throughout the volume and elsewhere on the set to help the actors interact with them. One of the most notable examples of this? Everyone’s favorite sky bison, Appa.

For scenes where Aang, Sokka, and Katara are flying about the world, there’s a mini set with a giant rig of Appa right in the middle. It allows the cast to hop on the creature, yell “yip yip!” and truly be immersed across the world – and it helped them conceptualize just how dang bigAppa is.

“When you go back to the animated series, he varies in size throughout the episodes,” Kim says. “If you really pay attention, you go, ‘Oh, wow, there's not really a set size for Appa.’ So we had to do this process, where it was done with virtual reality goggles. I put them on, and we just looked up at our different models, and we had different sizes of Appas. And you just had to decide, ‘That's too small, and that's too big. That feels just about right.’ So it was kind of that process.”

The team, too, has plenty of other VFX concerns outside of the locations and creatures. Obviously, a big part of The Last Airbender is the bending aspect of it, and you can just ask Shyamalan – if that doesn’t look good, none of Avatar does.

Executive producer, director, and VFX supervisor Jabbar Raisani spoke in more depth about bringing the various styles to life in a trailer breakdown with IGN. Part of it, he explains, is even making the bending between various characters feel different, like in the above clip.

“We really tried to differentiate the bending as much as we could while making it feel like a unified event, as in all of our firebending should look like firebending, but Iroh's looks slightly different than Zuko's, which looks slightly different than Ozai's, which looks different than Azula's,” Raisani says. “And we also try to differentiate them with sound design. So if you listen really closely to when Iroh bends, you'll hear almost a dragon sound underneath all of that bending.”

There’s, obviously, quite a lot to it. Even though Kim says firebending might’ve been the easiest to bring to life, Raisani cautions that not even that was the least bit simple. The most complicated, though? 

Well, let’s just say water physics are difficult.

“When someone gets wet, we expect to see that amount of wetness,” Raisani says. “We expect to see it travel or track throughout a scene. So that was the thing that was a real challenge.”

This was one of the many balancing acts The Last Airbender had to juggle: where do they focus their efforts in a series that can be so difficult, logistically, to pull off in live-action?

“It's like, ‘Okay, when someone does get hit with water, how long does that water have to exist before the audiences will accept that it's no longer there?’ Because we're just literally just running up money on something that isn't really telling any more story,” Raisani explains. “That [is what] we're really trying to focus our efforts on. Where does the money tell the story? And after that, when will the audience accept that it's no longer there?”

And those are just the visuals; the story – and what liberties you do and don’t take – is just as important.

"This is a remix, not a cover."

Bending the Rules

Kim has been open about the fact that his Avatar: The Last Airbender isn’t a 1-to-1 adaptation of the animated series. After all, even the structure is different, going from 20 20-minute episodes to eight hour-long episodes, in addition to the switch to live-action.

“I've used the term that this is a remix, not a cover, in that you've got to hit a lot of familiar notes, but you can't forget that this is supposed to be a new song,” he says. “So obviously, there are story points and characters that you have to do fairly faithfully from the original. But at the same time, you're literally translating something from 2D to 3D, and that meant dimensionalizing the story, taking it into new places, filling in some of the gaps.”

“And when it came down to directing it or the visual effects on it, I mean, we were really watching the animated series, basing our sequences off of that, using as many shots that we could lift from that as it made sense within the context of the story we were telling,” Raisani says. “And that stayed true all the way through post-production and visual effects.”

It’s another sentiment that runs true throughout chatting with the creatives, cast, and crew: the foundation may be the same, but the journey will be a little different. It may be a controversial approach for a property as beloved as Avatar: The Last Airbender, but Kim and Raisani are confident – or, at the very least, hopeful – that it’ll be embraced by the fans.

“I think, as a fan of the (original) show, they're going to get the live-action version of the show they've always hoped they would get,” Raisani says.

“This is the version of Avatar that I would want to see as a fan,” Kim concludes.

And the fans will get to see soon enough.

[annwhiskers]

Portfolio Project 11 (last)

Deep

The assignment was basically to make a story where two people meet in a way that leaves an impact on both parties in some way.

Translation of my notes:

I definitely want to make a comic, maybe a short animation if I have time (spoiler alert: I didn’t). Or combine it into a moving comic, that a few panels move.

Clashing. Clashing of worlds. Land and ocean.

Land->diver and mermaid->life changes because now they know the other exists->this one has a bigger impact and is more relatable for the reader.

Ocean->deep and shallow->shallow merfolk learns deep folk are very different, that the deep is a completely different world->I like this one more, to show that even with tin the ocean itself, there are completely different worlds.

The ocean is terrifying, but also fascinating. How different it all can be. Most people, when thinking of the sea, they think of tropical coral reefs or open ocean, but there’s so much more than that. Forests, mountains, ravines.

Story

I’d played with this idea before. A young merfolk from the shallow sea who meets a huge deep sea merfolk for the first time.

The merboy gets pulled along a current and ends up hundreds of meters deep. The folk from the deep sea finds him and takes him back up.

The life of the boy changed because now he knows folk that big exist, and that there’s a whole different world so nearby, only a few hundred meters away.

The life of the big one changed because he goes to the shallows for the first time, but this story is mostly about the kid.

I want to exaggerate the size difference, that the kid fits into the big one’s hands.

Bo

A bit big for a little kid. Arms to long, tail too long.

Gils where humans have lungs.

Also has a nose and smaller lungs.

Kinda looks like he’s dancing (not important)

He lives in a kelp forest, so he has green and brown colours as camouflage.

Two sets of canine teeth to eat tougher food.

Varan

Bigger fins

Very big. Even bigger difference because the other is a child. "Deep sea gigantism"

In relation, longer tail

Fins a bit different to differentiate more

Bioluminescent in the dark

Non-human colours, he rarely sees sunlight

Red, because a lot of deep sea fish can’t see red

I did the rest of the character work digitally. This is Bo, the small one, with some expressions.

I experimented with how it would look if the characters didn’t have line art. I don’t think it looks bad, but I don’t like working that way. So, I gave up on that. The backgrounds are lineless. This way, the characters jump out more and the backgrounds becomes a bit abstract.

This is Varan, the big one. Also with some expressions, even though you only see his face a couple of times in the comic.

I also made a version of him with his bioluminescence.

Environment

I think kelp forests are gorgeous, not a lot of people think it them when thinking of the sea. Maybe because it’s in colder waters, so it isn’t as comfortable to dive.

When I started developing this world, years ago, I chose a kelp forest as the primary location because it isn’t used a lot and it seemed like a fun environment to draw (which I now know very much depends on how complicated you make it for yourself. The way I did the kelp in this project was quick and easy but I recently made an illustration where the kelp took me hours). I can also work in quite an abstract way with kelp, since it doesn’t have a super clear shape.

It’s difficult to find good pictures of the deep sea, largely because there isn’t much to see in the deep darkness. So, I mostly searched for pictures of underwater cliffs. They look cool but also a little scary. I think the ocean is beautiful and fascinating, but also scary. (Pretty sure I’ve said this before in this very project, but we’re moving on). I appreciate it from a distance.

When I searched for ‘underwater looking down’, I immediately felt a short, quick fight-or-flight reaction looking at the results.

This page is in English for some reason, so you can read it.

I’d given the first page painted shading. When I was working on page 2, I liked the flat colours better. I thought it was clearer to see what was what and that the parts blended together less.

Test

I showed the pages to some friends and asked if they understood the story. I got the same answers, that the small one gets pulled down and the big one helps him up. And that’s correct, so that part was a success.

One person said that they don’t understand what the purple thing on the first page is. It’s a sea urchin skeleton, but you’d have to know what that looks like to get that. So, I added some alive urchins to hopefully make it clearer.

[shadowaj]

Heya! Welcome to our creepy studio filled with oddities!

Hi and good mourning, it’s me Aj! I’m also referred to as ShadowAj, Shady and RealShadyGhost. I’m a spooky yet silly ghost who draws and such. Here, you’ll mainly see me post fan art of my favorite series, commissions, and OC content (scroll down for more info on this!), as well as memes probably. Most of the drawings I post here will be 2D digital art, but occasionally I may post 2D traditional. I hope you enjoy your visit here!

(Small content warning, although I won’t post anything NSFW, I may post drawings with blood and/or light gore, body horror, and disturbing imagery, so beware.)

Things I Enjoy!

Ok so here I’ll just list off some of my interests so you can get to know me better. Ghosts have interests too!

- General Interests -

Spooky things, which includes horror movies and games, the occult, Halloween, urban legends, things like that.

Mysteries (I love murder mysteries, detective stories, strange and bizarre internet mysteries, and stuff like that)

Coffee (I’m a big fan)

Video Games (I’m bad at them but I still enjoy them…)

Movies (I enjoy going to theaters and watching movies, especially animated films.)

Listening to music (I am a fan of Metal/Rock (Metallica, Pantera, Ghost, etc.) music, as well as Synth. I do also listen to OSTs of my favorite series. A band I recommend checking out is ‘Dance with the Dead’, they are an indie band and mainly do horror synth and synthmetal. (Well, then again, I like any music that sounds nice or is spooky so)

Anime (Which ones? I’ll list them later give me a sec!)

Drawing (This should be obvious I mean I post drawings here but ima include it anyway)

Character Design (this is kinda an extension of drawing but I do enjoy looking at different designs and taking notes on what I can do differently with my own designs.)

Writing (Mainly my OC lore and such)

Collecting Plushies (I have an addiction help)

Theme Parks and Roller Coasters (I love roller coasters)

Cooking (I’m well known for my evil pancakes)

For aesthetics, I am a fan of spooky aesthetics (Wow!), steampunk, gothic (i love gothic architecture…), vaporwave, neon, and others.

-Anime and Games that I really enjoy-

Soul Eater

Danganronpa

Master Detective Archives: RAIN CODE

Zero Escape

AI The Somnium Files

Ace Attorney

Mob Psycho 100

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure

Gurren Lagann

Persona (I’m a fake fan I’ve only played the P5 games and I still haven’t finished P4G)

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

Kaguya-sama: Love is War

Nichijou

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Pokémon

Sonic

Chainsaw Man (Again, fake fan, I haven’t been keeping up)

And others that I didn’t list here whoopsie

Original Content!

As I said before, I’ll be posting drawings of OCs, mainly from the webcomic series I’m working on titled ‘Shadow Realm’. I do have other original series and ideas as well, so here’s a little info…

Shadow Realm

Shadow Realm is a 4-part action horror urban fantasy series starring Sophia Alvarado, a Cuban teenage girl who lives in Miami who one day ends up in a different and strange world from our own, and ends up encountering ghosts and gaining powers of electricity. With her occult and coffee-obsessed friend Violet Bellerose and a friendly ghost she meets on the other side dubbed Shady, they encounter different ghosts and supernatural occurrences all across Miami. There’s a lot more to it, but that’s the basic gist of it for now. (It gets very complicated from part 2 onward…)

Kendall Convenience

A small game project that has the player take the role of one Katrina Diaz, a convenience store worker in Miami who works the graveyard shift. This takes place in the same universe as Shadow Realm.

Mystères de Lenoir

Mysteres de Lenoir is a series that follows the protagonist, Stella Auclair, a fresh detective who takes place in steampunk and gothic France during the Belle Époque era. Stella works with André Dupin, at the Dupin Detective Agency, and they solve a series of mysteries, most of which are murder cases.

I have two other series, but those are a secret for now… I will say though that one of them is a western, and the other is a single volume (One-Shot) comic.

Closing thoughts

If you read through all that wow good job you’re super cool and spooky methinks perchance.

Oh yeah, you can find me on other platforms like Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, Pixiv, and Twitch

Even if you don’t have an account there you should still check them out!!!!

ask me anything you have questions about or if you're bored and want to talk!

another thing, i speak English and i can understand Spanish (I'm hispanic and i still can't speak this language it's embarrassing i know )

(also i may reupload this post in the future to add custom graphics, update interests, etc.)

[enchantedanimal]

first off: i saw your mothman coaster art and it's very cool :D

second off: you mentioned it was for a class you're taking? is that part of like a larger major for attraction design? i have a family member who has always been interested in that kind of thing and i didn't know there was something like that out there!

Tysm!!

In short: Yes, it's what I'm studying! People's reactions when I tell them are so funny bc no one has heard of it

As for a better explanation, I'll try my best to keep it from being horribly lengthy but its kinda complicated rn so bear with me (I also do not mind answering more questions about it if I know the answer)

So, my major is technically called Computer Graphics Technology/CGT, which is a digital design based major that has multiple things you can choose to concentrate in, kinda like a major within a major! I chose to concentrate in Themed Attraction Design (sometimes I just say that I'm majoring in that bc CGT tends to go over people's heads more), which is unique from the other concentrations in that it has a minor and a certificate if you don't want to take the whole CGT major. You also don't have to be into illustration/concept art- that's the role I've fallen into, but just in my group for this project we also have modelers, story writers, engineers, graphic designers, etc! They'll push you but let you work to your strengths.

I chose IUPUI (Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis) bc it's one of the very few colleges that offer it! However like I said things are weird rn bc IUPUI is splitting itself into the two separate colleges after this semester (we're literally going through an academic divorce ✌️😞) so I'm on a teach-out plan of study which is likely different than students starting fall 24' since it'll be under Purdue Polytechnic and yada yada all that fun and confusing stuff. With the many changes, Purdue should still be keeping TAD as an option.

BUT ANYWAYS from my experience so far it's really interesting! You get a good amount of exposure to the themed attraction industry, such as yearly trips down to Florida for the IAAPA convention, WDW (we took some Imagination campus classes), and Universal in November (I went last year, it was really fun), as well as getting to listen and talk to industry professionals such as imagineers and ppl at universal creative (as well as museums, zoos, etc). It's definitely unique and going to theme parks with the excuse that it's for education is a bonus lol