#doof you draw right? 👀

[dragonjesterwrites]

Last Line Challenge ✨️

Tagged by the talented af @muzzlemouths!

Rules:

Create a new post with the last line you wrote/drew (I guess for my artist frens a segment of what you last drew? Or text if the piece includes it)

Tag as many people as your line has words! (Or however many you like)

Here is my last line:

Annnnd some tags!

@ficmachine @bitter-beanz @doofnoof @paris-23 @certified-handler

[ectoplasmer]

Roll it eight times! Two for each of the boys, maybe? 👀 🎲

— @amys-cringe-cabinet 💙

*snatches this up and runs with it*

!!!! thank you for sending an ask!! I’m apologizing in advance for the responses that may or may not be incoherent-

I’ll be going alphabetically by canonical names!! please don't feel like you have to read all of this, it’s basically all me just gushing, and I just now noticed how concerningly long some of these responses are on my part... oops ^^;

For Marik, I rolled…

6 ~ i s there a song or piece of music that reminds you of your f/o?

i could answer this in like fifty different ways; I associate Marik with obscure indie songs from early 2010s, i associate him with angsty as all heck punk songs, i associate him with preppy pop songs. I think he’s been through so much already that I want to associate him with upbeat songs because I think he deserves it, but it’s because of how much he’s been through that I’ll always draw back to slow tempo tunes. I think Marik would enjoy a lot of different genres once he gets the chance to focus on something that isn’t killing the Pharaoh; he’s spent more than half his life below ground, away from society and pop culture and media altogether. I genuinely believe he might even listen to static for fun just because he’s able to. I have a few different songs that actually remind me of him (and a whole playlist) but I swear they change on a day to day basis. I think the one I associate Marik the most (as of right now) would be Muddy Knees by Days N Daze (partially because i’m projecting). But along with that, Abbey by Mitski reminds me of him, Welcome Home by Radical Face, 12 Feet Deep by The Front Bottoms- I could go on. if anyone is curious, I have a public playlist for him on spotify!! it’s under his full name, posted by the account destinyboard!! (yes i name most of my accounts after bakura’s cards. i have no explanation)

5 ~ what’s your ideal date with your f/o? 

(this could admittedly apply to any of my f/os!!)

While going to a sit down restaurant or a concert or something does sound nice, I… don’t do too well in public spaces ^^; my ideal of a relationship is literally just being able to sit in silence and still feel comfortable, like I’m not letting things simmer in awkwardness. Therefore, I think my ideal date would just be us staying at home and finding things to do. Put something into the oven for dinner, play chess while we wait. Later on try to see who can get the farthest in a game of Minesweeper, bake cookies, maybe even do each other’s nails because of course Marik would learn how to do them, somewhere down the line. I’m a sucker for doing mundane things because I’d be doing mundane things with him, and being able to do anything with him makes me more of a hopeless romantic. Just being able to sit down and watch a movie with any of them makes me hopeless at the thought. I’ve recently been watching old Disney movies with Marik specifically, because I think it processed somewhere in my mind that he never got to watch them when he was younger. And he never got a chance to do a lot of things that I did in my childhood. There’s so many experiences and core memories that he didn’t really get to have since his role as a tomb keeper was more pressing. I want to find a way to make up for this (if there even is a way), so movies and these ordinary activities can try and fill the gap for now!! I think Marik’s favorite Disney movie we’ve watched so far has been Lady and the Tramp; usually him and yb will make snarky comments over how cheesy the story lines are, but he seemed more or less engaged in the story this time around. He kept making comments about the art and songs, smiled like a doof at the spaghetti scene, etc etc. Maybe it’s partially because it was late at night this time around, but it was really nice to see him so enamored in the story. I think he deserves it.

i just went completely off topic but—!!!! anyway yeah that’s. what goes through my brain. movie nights….. <33

For Ryou, I rolled…

10 ~ would you and your f/o ever dress up in a couples costume for Halloween or other events? what would you dress up as?

I used to look at questions like this and shrug. I’m not big on costumes, and I haven’t consumed too much media where characters are in iconic duos or pairs. Most of them are really obscure, and “dressing��� up as them doesn’t exactly work, since they usually have every day clothing as their main or well known outfits. I did do some thinking on it a while back, and I think I came up with something after a bit. I think a big thing me and Ryou share in common is a love for the occult or traditionally “spooky” things, and although it isn’t as obvious on this blog that I have a love for horror movies (*glances at the stack of dvds in the corner of my room*), I believe that’s another thing we have in common! So if we were to do a “couples costume” for Halloween, I’m pretty sure we’d go in matching Ghostface costumes!!! It's as close to a duo as I could think of, since in all of the Scream movies (minus Scream 3) there were two killers. I could also, technically, try and convince him to let us go as Tommy Ross and Carrie White (ryou in a tux...... *falls over*).

14 ~ what’s one of the sweetest things your f/o has ever done for you?

existed /hj

It's not really one thing he's done, it's a thing he keeps doing and has made into a habit. Sometimes I get really carried away with things like writing debate cases and speeches, since they're responsibilities I feel like I need to constantly be working on or practicing. It's led to me staying up at somewhat unhealthy times and getting stressed over things that really don't need to be stressed over. I think I broke out in hives for three days straight because of it (apparently stress hives are a thing??? odd). Whenever it's late and I'm still working on these things, Ryou simply just walks over to wherever I'm sitting, watches, and eventually recommends that I should get to bed, because he knows how much harder everything seems to me when I'm tired. I guess the others do this too, but there's just a certain way to how he does it, always in a gentle matter. The way he phrases it, and how he waits until I'm at an okay place to stop working, makes me feel better in some weird way. He knows that I care a lot about these things, and even though he sees that it can get me really worked up, he still waits until an appropriate time to recommend I stop and work on it later. I just think it's really nice how he knows me and my habits, and how he tries his best to work around them with me. While it might be only a few words that he says to try and persuade me to get some rest, he almost always gets me to put down everything on the first try. (plus, he knows that I know the sooner he gets me to bed the sooner I can snuggle him into oblivion. his way of convincing is very effective. how dare he.)

For Bakura, I rolled…

18 ~ is there a height difference between you and your f/o? 

!!! yes!! it’s not a very big one though, only about five inches. I’m 5’4 and he’s 5’9 (and if we’re dragging tkb into this, he’s only 5’6). I don’t really think that height means all that much to me though. I don’t really expect him to be able to pick me up (I don’t think Ryou’s body has that ability-), and I could still glomp him even if he was shorter!! Though I suppose a plus of it is that whenever we’re just sitting on the couch or whatever, just sitting next to each other or holding each other or whatever other insanely out of character thing he does when we just hang out in silence, I get reminded that I’m really not as (metaphorically) big as I think I am. While I do have a decent amount of responsibilities and things I need to uphold (school…. bleh), I think I need to remember sometimes that I can’t always be on top of things 24/7, and that I can take a break sometimes. It’s nice to feel that there’s someone else who can take care of you, or hold you when you feel tired enough. It’s definitely something that comforts me at random times when I think about it enough <3

also i could totally topple him over if i tried hard enough AND getting to be held by him is really nice so yeah the (small) height difference is pretty cool in my opinion

4 ~ what’s your favourite outfit your f/o has ever worn? 

kicking my legs in the air and screaming into a pillow like a hopeless romantic brb

Bakura only has like… four different outfits throughout all of the series, two of which aren’t even that different from each other. While Battle City will always have my heart over everything in the series, my favorite (canonical) outfit yb has ever worn has got to be his outfit in Millennium World!! Like?? It’s the only outfit he has that actually attempts to bring across his edginess. How could I not love it??? Also some of the panels he has while wearing it make me skfjfkfnfkfn *falls over*

it’s also really fun to steal it occasionally, but don’t tell him I said that.

For Melvin, I rolled…

2 ~ do you remember the first time you met your f/o? what was it like?

I’ve apparently been watching ygo since I was like. six. But I obviously did not remember too much of it!! So I might’ve already watched some of the episodes including Melv and they’ve been just completely buried in my brain, ORRR this summer was the first time I’ve ever “met” him!! Even then, I don’t really remember all that much, since I watched everything up to season four within like. A week. That’s me blowing things out of proportion but I still kinda just rushed through episodes!! I do remember not caring much for Marik in general when he was introduced to the show; I pretty much believed he’d just be another run of the mill villain that didn’t have a too intriguing reason for being one. It wasn’t until the Rishid and Jounouchi duel that I actually started caring at all for the character as a whole (still haven’t recovered from any of the flashback sequences). I think when the whole reveal scene happened, I don’t think I really reacted at all?? I mean I was obviously intrigued, but at the same time I’d downed all of season two within a few days of finishing season one, so I hadn’t even processed whether or not ym was a spirit like the other two or just some guy. I do, however, remember being low key annoyed with his character. like sir… please…. Take a chill pill. Does not help that I was watching the 4kids dub, so most of his “serious” lines were instantly thrown off by the voice effects.

However, I did eventually give him another chance while reading the manga. I think that gave me a chance to look at him with a different perspective; I could take my time and easily call back to certain parts of the story to see how he acts, the way he phrases things, how he interacts with specific characters, etc., and I did some thinking (as I always do). I sat down for a bit, and reread some scenes, and ranted to my friend about certain points that caught my eye, just to try and fix the kinks and knots in my thinking. I started seeing ym as more than some cheesy and over the top antagonist, and more for what he really was. And I guess that counts as some sort of first encounter. While I’m still kinda shaky on my feelings with him, and trying to find my footing with how exactly I see him, we’re taking it one step at a time and it’s been really nice so far. I hope that, eventually, I’ll be more confident in that :)!!!

15 ~ what’s your favourite memory you’ve made with your f/o so far?

so many of these just blur into the rest of my day; I day dream enough that I don’t remember too many specific ones. But I do remember one, back when I first started trying to connect with him. He was much more closed off than he is as of now; he kinda got thrown back into existence after being ultimately destroyed for a considerable amount of time, I don’t think I blame him for not wanting to talk too often. Usually, whenever I did try to spend time with him, it was a lot of just him observing things I was doing, or me trying to fill the silence by talking about random things. One day he eventually responded, but seemed more confused than anything. He asked me why I was even trying to get to know him, why I was even trying to be near him in the first place. I’ve seen the things he’s done, the way he’s acted and how he’s treated people. Why do I want to get near that? I still don’t have a hold on exactly why, but I took a moment to answer him. I told him it’s because I know he’s more than what he’s made up of, that he’s been through the same things as Marik had, that I wanted to understand him better because some of his actions never clicked for me. They didn’t line up in certain places, or he seemed so peculiar in how he handled things. While he was the manifestation of the frustration and upset and hate Marik had, stuck underground and tied to some destiny he didn’t even want, Melvin himself came into existence as a safety net for him, in some way. I told him it’s because I think he’s capable of exuding and expressing things that aren’t just what he was made from, that I know he’s completely different from Marik in many ways and maybe that’s why I want to know him, he’s someone completely different and so confusing and I want to get to know every part of that confusion. That I want to help him experience things he might never have gotten to experience and make him see that he is his own person, separate of Marik. He just scoffed at me, and told me in this tone that I still swear was affectionate that I must’ve really been hopeless.

That was the same day we decided to start referring to him as Melvin, I think. We had already been switching between Malik, Mariku, etc., and even though it’s a ygotas reference, Melvin was different enough from Marik that we settled on it for his name. Even though it’s origins are, admittedly, cheesy, I think it works pretty well for him :)

[jackgoodfellow]

THE DOOFENQUESTION, PART 2/2: The Answer

WELCOME BACK TIME FOR SCIENCE

Step 4: Try again. Draw the Doof, take 2.

Okay this is coming together a little bit more now...

No. No, that too "shippable twink." Walk it back some.

Hmmmmmm....

Okay this time I think I accidentally drew college-age Doof. That's closer but still not quite right...

Step 5: actually get the design right for real this time i can do this i know i can

Okay, reference, shape, trace, convert, iterate....

Aaaaaaand

OMG! There he is! There's the guy! Look at that well-meaning disaster dad! Now THIS is a guy who prepares a buffet for his nemesis just to be nice! This man cares just a liiittle more about musical showmanship than his evil plans succeeding! This is a fellow who has a daughter he loves very much, and who made him promise not to embarrass her in front of her friends, but he genuinely doesn't understand why offering all her friends prank almond brittle cans is embarrassing. ("What?? It's a funny joke! See, they're all laughing, Vanessa! I'm just a-- I'm a cool dad!")

Now THAT'S our Doof!

Step 6: Use the Doof design but this time with the human platypus man

I swear on my mother the line for this in the show is "Thwart me, Perry the Platypus." And I just thought you should know that too. I think I can skip the tracing step now.

Yeah this seems about right. This man is like 2 feet taller than Agent P and also cuts his own hair and appears to be unaware of anything in his actions that might suggest homoeroticism. Good good good.

Step 7: freedom at last from this terrible burden produce a final product

So I found something a little gay and went from there

And... voila!!! Viola! Violin! Cello! Horn section! Entire orchestra!!! There they are!!!!!

At last,

The Answer:

So we have our answer! That's what Heinz would look like in a more grounded style, specifically mine!!!!

Which leads us to the follow-up question once more:

IS Heinz Doofenshmirtz hot and is it possible to draw him hot AND true to his character?

Well. The answer is... really up to you! It sounds like a cop-out but it isn't - because beauty is actually very personal and infinitely varied! Surprise!!!!!

Man, science is exhausting.

Like, is he attractive by conventional western beauty standards? No. Marvel would never cast him as a male lead. But also are those standards bullshit? Absolutely. Is this a man who might be insecure about his looks, considering his difficult past? Probably. But is he a hideous monster? Certainly not! Certainly he is cute and pathetic enough to meet the requirements for Tumblr sexyman. I like to think that one might see what Charlene might have seen in him... and what the noncanon human platypus man might see too. I mean, a couple teary-eyed closeup shots and homoerotic moments and this fucker would be on the shipping MAP. And from there, he could take over THE ENTIRE TRI-STATE AREA!!!!!

Oh? What's that?

What do *I* think?? Well, I am an unbiased scientist, and so I really can't say...

But I WILL say that if I were a secret agent working for an organizing without, say, a cool acronym, I might check out this guy's inators......... 👀👀👀👀👀👀

Strictly scientifically speaking, of course.

Most importantly, I believe I have given him a face that is both immediately recognizable as Heinz Doofenshmirtz, as well as a face that one could learn to love!

Funny, really. Seems like everyone with a good heart somewhere inside them has a face that can be loved. But not everyone has a human platypus boyfriend so it goes without saying who's really winning here.

In Conclusion:

I... I don't know what we have learned today? Maybe that the real beauty standards are in the homoerotic friends we make along the way? Or that this was a really fun style challenge?

Perhaps what we learned is that I apparently ship specifically human!Perry and this weird pharmacist dad I drew??

Or maybe the lesson here is that Disney should hire me for the inevitable gritty and/or live-action reboot of Phineas & Ferb in 15 years?

I don't know!

What I DO know is that Karina Drawfee once said that "we don't choose what advances our art." And never has this felt so, so true.

[^ Heres a variation of the same image with different color settings]

And that's all, folks! This took many MANY hours and all the pics have alt-text and fucking no one is going to see this! So if you have made it this far I am mailing you a soft sweet kiss on the forehead, which you may accept if you so wish. Thank you for taking this deeply weird journey with me.

Your brother in sin,

Jack

The Doofenquestion, a scientific experiment

because this is where I'm at in my life now I guess

Okay so the other week I finished watching Phineas & Ferb, and I did an art exercise redrawing screencaps with a human Perry the Platypus.

Which is already a lot to unpack on its own.

But then I got to looking at other people's fan art of human!Perry, and this of course led to me seeing a lot of human Perry facing off against Doofenshmirtz.

What struck me is this: anytime someone chose to interpret Perry as an adult human, they had drawn a sexy secret agent man. Simple enough. Makes sense. I did the same thing. But then, who's that cute little sexy anime protagonist 20-something twink in a labcoat next to him?? Certainly that can't be Dr. D!

No, no, I don't think so... I mean, it's nothing against those artists! If you want a sexy young twink Doof, you do that! I fully support it!

But it got me to thinking...

Is it possible to draw a sexy Heinz Doofenshmirtz and still have him recognizable as himself??

What would he look like in a more grounded style in the first place???

And am I foolish enough to try????

I had only the answer to one of those three questions. For I knew in my heart that I *am* foolish enough to try.

I have outlined my methods and my results below. I think you will find that my data is sound and my results even soundier.

Okay here's the deal:

The Question:

For the purpose of being thorough, the first question I must answer before anything else is "What would Doof look like in a more grounded style?"

From my findings there, I will seek to answer the Follow-Up Question: Is it possible to draw a hot and sexy Heinz Doofenshmirtz while remaining true to his intended character design?

The Disclaimer:

'Phineas & Ferb' is far from a perfect show and I'm actually not a huge fan of creators making characters canonically "ugly" or "repulsive", but that IS what they intended for Heinz in his design, and that interests me.

However, I'm less interested in declaring a certain type of person ugly and more interested in how a realistically-drawn Doof - or at least a Doof in my art style - might look. I am curious how that might compare with the versions of him that are drawn to align with modern "traditional" beauty standards (shippable-twink!Doof, if you will). I'm not here to call out other people's art so I won't post other people's art. And I am not here to make sweeping judgments on beauty standards. I am simply here to do something very pointless VERY thoroughly and hopefully in a way that is fun and not harmful.

The Method:

Step 1: devise a step-by-step process to convert the style of the show into my own style

Okay, to get the hang of this, I am starting from a completely non sexy lens to avoid bias in creating the conversion method. And also because the only other characters with features as exaggerated as Doof's are all children and we don't sexualize children here. I guess this kind of functions as a control group. Which is probably the correct use of that term. Trust me I am a scientist.

It goes like this:

Find reference pic

Extract basic shapes

Trace the pic

Begin working out more realistic anatomy placement and have a brief crisis about Phineas' weird fucking head

Iterate on that sketch to bring it closer to my style

Iterate again

And one more time to be extra sure

There they are! Not bad! And now I have an idea of how the most dynamic and exaggerated shapes of the show's art can be applied to my own style!

Step 2: test this process on other characters from the show

With a process now established, it is time to apply the same logic to a couple of the adult characters. And also to try and condense the process to fewer steps!

First let's try Ferb's dad Lawrence - for whom I have used the traditional "George Jetson" approach.

Hmmmm. Not exactly right. But close...

And of course Major Monogram! Doing this was like correcting the anatomy on a Picasso. Both will get you kicked out of the Louvre.

I'm not gonna lie this one turned out great. There are things I could correct with more iteration, but science is notoriously fast-paced, so it's time to confront our white whale!

Step 3: Draw the Doof.

The same process: Reference image, find the shapes, trace, convert style, iterate

Hm. This isn't quite right... I feel like this is Dr. D.'s horrible license photo or something. Still, it's a start.

And then we have--

Hey! How dare!!!! I have been cut off at the 10 image limit. CURSE YOU, WWW.TUMBLR.COM!!!!

Okay fine.

[To be continued.]