#dreamwork techniques

[esperanzawagner01]

Explore the profound relationship between Carl Jung's theories and shamanic practices, including ayahuasca rituals, to deepen your understanding of shadow work and dreamwork. This article examines how integrating Jungian concepts into modern spiritual practices can enhance self-discovery and personal transformation.

[comet-cola-lite]

The only animated movie remakes I ever want to see are remakes of classic old CG movies, that keep them CG and just implement newer technologies/techniques to make them look more alive & visually stunning, without any major art direction or plot changes

[dennifreeman]

polyamory is a myth made by Big Mattress to sell you bigger beds to fit your polycule on

chaz, dennie (oc), and hickory

i'll probably look into improving my shading techniques later down the line too.

[wolfhoundwitch]

Grounding and Centering

If you haven't already, visit my visualisation lessons for the background info needed for this lesson.

Being able to ground and centre your energy is very useful in meditation and spell work. Using basic visualisation techniques, you can change and manipulate the energy you are putting out, raise your vibration, or bring yourself back to reality after spellwork. Let's go over the specifics and how to do them, but the TLDR is that grounding is connecting to the energy of the universe around you, and centering is aligning this energy with your intention.

Grounding

Grounding can be done before or after spellwork, and it depends on what feels right for you. The idea is to draw neutral energy from the earth and the universe, as the energy within ourselves can often be unstable because of our emotions or other external influences. It can also be used to send excess energy back into the earth, preventing feeling wired or unable to sleep after spellwork. Here are some easy ways to practice grounding.

Visualise tree roots spreading down from your legs, connecting you to the earth, and branches spreading up from your arms into the sky connecting you to the universe. Consider the energy of the universe being drawn into you through these roots and branches.

Consider your energy as running water, perhaps from a tap or a river. To prevent excess energy, visualise this tap being turned off, or the flow of the river being stopped.

When I practice divination or dreamwork, I sometimes visualise my third eye opening before and then closing again after to prevent using this energy constantly.

Eat something or take a shower after spellwork to quickly ground yourself.

You can try standing barefoot in the dirt or even rain as a quick and more literal way to ground.

Centering

Centering involves drawing energy inward before spellwork, allowing us to align this energy with our intention and the mentality needed to carry out magick. It prevents passing thoughts, feelings and distractions from making our energy and spellwork less effective. Where you feel your energy centering is different for everyone - it might be behind your third eye, in your heart, your stomach, or in the palms of your hands. Wherever it may be, the point is to draw this scattered energy inward. Here are some methods.

Visualise your energy fragmented around you, as shattered glass, water droplets, or whatever feels right. Consider drawing this energy towards your centre, as though you are a magnet pulling these fragmented pieces back into a whole.

As you are drawing your energy in, meditate on your intention and the end goal of your spellwork. Or why you are centering your energy - is it to have better control over the existing energy in your body, or to set an intention for the neutral energy drawn in through grounding? The aim is to have a concentration of energy with a specific intention.

Centering can be used for changing your vibration specifically for different kinds of spellwork - where a protection spell would require a different type of energy to that of cursing.

Note: Some people will use these terms interchangeably or to mean one overarching thing, and others will specify whether they mean centering or grounding as I have done here. The two practices are very similar and can overlap, so don't worry about getting them confused. The important thing is to do what feels right for your practice and whatever helps you.

As always, thanks for reading! If you have any questions or suggestions for future lessons, feel free to message or send an ask. Visit my tags for previous lessons!

[canmom]

Animation Night 189: Nonphotorealistic

There is a funny trend in animation-related terminology to define things by what they aren't. Animation is any technique for creating film that isn't live action. Limited animation is any style of 2D animation that doesn't follow the conventions of Disney's 'full animation' on 1s and 2s - a category that includes a wildly diverse range of approaches and techniques, as this wonderful history by Animation Obsessive describes.

In 3DCG circles, there is a similar term: nonphotorealistic. Which describes, naturally, anything that isn't trying to look like a photograph of a real scene. There has been a real boom in this of late, and just like the other terms, it really doesn't narrow it down very much. Other terms like 'hybrid animation' add a bit more hints.

Of course, if you've been anywhere near animation in the last few years, you'll probably know another term: 'Spiderverse style'.

There is no denying that Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse (2018) by Sony Pictures Animation was an absolute landmark for animation. (I wrote about it way back on AN21, focusing more on the cultural angle.) The ludicrously stylish film pretty much set the direction for animation in the 2020s - making a bunch of money and awards and thus finally throwing open the door to 3DCG animation that doesn't look like the style set by Pixar/Dreamworks in the 2000s. Its sequel, Across the Spiderverse (2023), was even more ambitious and successful (despite a troubled production involving a lot of needless crunch). We'll be showing that soon in a Spiderverse double bill so look forward to it!

So perhaps not surprising that when people see the use of graphical styles, 2D elements, limited framerates and the like in 3DCG these days, Spiderverse comes to mind. In its wake have come various films and series that apply these and related techniques: 3DCG animation is more varied than ever, and it's cool.

It isn't really a style, tho.

Here I'm indebted to youtuber Camwing who has made a nice video overview breaking down the animation of recent movies in this vaguely defined paradigm. Among them we have The Mitchells vs the Machines (2021, also Sony), Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022, Dreamworks), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023, animated at the French/Canadian studio Mikros animation), and of course over on Netflix you got the wildly popular League of Legends spinoff series Arcane (2021, Fortiche Productions), and the romance film Entergalactic (2022, DNEG), tying in with an album of the same name.

None of these films has exactly the same style, but they all pull from a related bag of tricks. The core techniques are animating on reduced framerates for a 'snappy', high-clarity feeling, the combination of 2D and 3D elements in some fashion, and taking inspiration from traditional media such as paintings or comic books.

For example, Arcane and Entergalactic both use the trick of 2D backgrounds/projecting paintings onto 3D geometry, inhabited by 3D characters with a stylised shader. Arcane is dripping with 2D visual effects. Puss in Boots drops the framerate during its action scenes - the opposite of the old paradigm of full animation, where fast actions would get more frames. Spiderverse draws 2D expressions onto its 3D models to push them further, and is full of all kinds of colourful stylised rendering - screentone effects, kirby dots, outlines, the works.

It's tempting to link this to 2D-in-3D animation, and certainly many of these films apply this technique - this is the major niche where Blender has found its way into industry pipelines. But using 2D isn't mandatory to count here. For example, TMNT Mutant Mayhem has an incredibly striking storybook-painting style, accomplished largely by clever shader work and a strong sense of graphic design. Genndy Tartakovsky's canned 2014 Popeye project was planning to use a ton of 2D-style posing and squash-and-stretch, accomplished largely with rigged 3D models. There are many paths to take!

And mind you, I haven't even covered one of the biggest angles here. Search for nonphotorealistic 3DCG on Youtube and what you'll probably find most is information about cel-shading - aka 'anime style'. This has also advanced considerably in the last few years, with the techniques pioneered by Arc System Works in Guilty Gear such as editing the normals of characters for more precise control over shading, and minute adjustments to break up the mechanical feeling of 3D, becoming widely copied in both games and films. (And particularly, animated porn.)

Vtubers in particular have really run with this technique, generally speaking using cel-shaded models with edited normals, inverted eyes, etc. etc. to try and get the feeling of an anime character come to life. [You can see a lot of these state of the art techniques if you download Pixiv's free VRoid Studio software and import the model into Blender using the VRM plugin.]

Naturally this kind of cel-shaded approach has found a particular home in Japan. In anime, the biggest champions of it are certainly Studio Orange, whose hybrid approach involves planning out shots with 2D animation before matching them with the rigs. We've covered their adaptation of Houseki no Kuni in great detail on Animation Night 97; their Trigun reboot was perhaps even more popular. But cel-shaded techniques, 3D previs and the like have also made their way into big films like Eva 3.0+1.0 (AN66).

Although this type of rendering aims to recreate the look and feel of 2D animation as much as possible, it always ends up being something new: character models that would be too complex to draw, an ease to 3D movements and camerawork that would be challenging in 2D, and generally a new hybrid style. This is good! 2D animation is already very good at being 2D animation - it's fascinating to see what 3DCG becomes with that inspiration.

So with that brief overview, where does that take us tonight?

I'm not quite ready to do a Spiderverse double bill tonight, so instead the plan is to check out a couple of recent American franchise films that are taking on the new suite of techniques. I've mentioned them up above, but let me introduce them more fully here.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is a sequel to a fairly unpopular spinoff about a side character of the Shrek franchise (AN75). Not, on its face, very promising - which is why it is all the more striking that I was told on all sorts of sides that I must watch this movie. I'm finally going to make good on that.

The title character is a kind of feline musketeer type, now facing the end of his swashbuckling career as he's lost 8 of his 9 lives. Not wanting to hang up his hat, he goes on a quest to restore them. What makes it stand out its the action scenes, which go all in on the anime-influenced, extreme perspective and lighting, limited framerate style that we're discussing above. Apparently it looks sick as shit.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is a fresh reboot of the venerable TMNT franchise, which pretty much describes itself in the title: four turtles (named after Renaissance painters, of course!) live in a sewer as ninjas, led by their aging master who is a rat. Starting as a comic book, it became one of the iconic toyline-driven TV shows of the 80s - but it's still going! Indeed, Turtles has been on a roll of late (at least going by animator scuttlebutt), with Australian studio Flying Bark Productions turning a lot of heads with their neo-Kanada School style (and for really stretching the definition of 'storyboard').

This new film takes a different approach to the bombastic action of Rise. It focuses on a new origin story for the turtles, telling a kind of coming of age story - but what makes it unique is the animation style and cinematography. Cinéma vérité is not a phrase you really expect to be associated with ninja turtles, but the film seems to really go all out in a way you wouldn't really expect from a franchise movie, shooting the young turtles in a handheld style and focus heavily on character. Marcel Reinhard's shader work, allowing the animators to isolate lights to specific objects and characters and introducing graphical elements of cross-hatching, stippling, etc. etc. to the lighting, gives it a uniquely painting-like feeling, augmented by a lot of 2D creativity in lighting and effects.

Turtles has never really been my thing, but this film looks unique enough that I really want to see it - and I hear it's a good film too.

So that's our bill for tonight! Puss and Turtles. Let's see what the big studios have been cooking of late...

Animation Night 189 will be starting around 10pm UK time (roughly three hours hence) and carrying on til about 2-3am same! We'll be on twitch.tv/canmom as usual. Hope to see you there!

[noctusfury]

The Use of Dragonskins (HTTYD/RTTE)

Hello, my fellow Furians! Welcome to another article! Today, we'll be talking about dragonskins and their usage.

In the HTTYD books, dragonskins are used to make fireproof items and are even commonly used to make fireproof suits. It's also meant to be worn as a type of body armor. Either it can refute arrows or cuts, or it was used to defend against dragon fire (since in this world, Vikings used dragons as hunting companions and steeds of war like how one uses horses and dogs). According to "How To Twist A Dragon's Tale", the Lava-Lout Tribe were particularly famous and distinctive for always wearing dragonskin suits to protect them from fire and heat, since they live on a volcanic island.

In the TV series, it's quite different. There are no scenes that provide evidence that dragonskin have anti-fire properties. At best, Eruptadon saliva does that. While Buffalord saliva is the only known cure for Odin's Scourge. However, it's also true that there hasn't been any evidence AGAINST the dragonskins used by the Dragon Hunters and Flyers having anti-fire properties. Considering their occupations, it's logical to assume that the dragonskins they wear provide some if not complete protection against fire.

Interestingly, though, in the last two films, HTTYD 2 and HTTYD 3, there are clear signs of dragon scales and dragonskins being used as direct fire protection agents.

Also, the dragonskin gear that Dragon Hunters and Flyers wear must have anti-dragon protection since they keep returning in following episodes like Stormtroopers. Though that could just be your typical DreamWorks Dragons cloning technique. 😂

That being said, though, it kinda defeats the purpose of fire protection if most of your skin and flammable clothes are exposed to flame. 😂

However, unlike in the books, in the TV series (and in the films), dragonskins also have another purpose: a statement of status and fashion.

Aside from the fact that they look aesthetically pleasing to wear, it's also a show of one's prowess and status as a man and as a warrior. As Hiccup had even said in the first film:

"Killing dragons is everything around here. A Nadder head is sure to get me at least noticed. Gronckles are tough. Taking down one of those would definitely get me a girlfriend. A Zippleback? Exotic. Two heads, twice the status. Then, there's the Monstrous Nightmare. Only the best Vikings go after those."

As such, in Archipelagoan society, even if we discount differences between the Inner Isles and the rest of the Archipelago, there is a hierarchy or meritocracy that is based on what dragons you kill, and how many of them. And it's also based on how difficult these dragons are to kill. Speaking of which, Mildew was mentioned to have been an excellent dragon slayer in his younger days.

In fact, the "Deadly Dozen" who pursue and hunt the Gang in S5's "Dawn of Destruction" and the two-part "Wings of War" episodes are all wearing dragonskins from these dragons, signifying their status and prowess as elites.

Hiccup goes on to saying this:

"No one has ever killed a Night Fury. That's why I'm going to be the first."

Night Furies were considered by many to be the ultimate prey — the coveted prize to fame, glory, and fortune. While no one on Berk had ever seen a Night Fury let alone slain one, Hiccup was desperate to kill one in order to be accepted as a Viking like the rest of his community. (Only for him to wimp out in the end and become friends with one. lol 😂😉) Had he gone through with it, he would've had a luxurious dragonskin that would've boosted his status among the many famous Viking heroes in Archipelago and Berkian history.

Interestingly, in HTTYD 3, Grimmel, the villain, and a contrasting portrayal of what Hiccup could've become, says this:

"When I was a boy and I came up on a Night Fury, I killed it where it slept. That simple act of courage made me a hero in my village."

Strangely though, he doesn't wear anything to show his prowess or achievements. For somebody who boasts about having practically slain every Night Fury in existence (a declaration that I doubt in itself since it's technically impossible in this era), he doesn't wear anything to represent that, like a Night Fury dragonskin cloak, or outfit, or Night Fury claws or teeth. Nothing. Just... boring old leather. 🙄

However, it's different with Drago from HTTYD 2. As you can see from the picture below, he's wearing a cloak of dragonskin which he uses as both a status statement and also as something to shield him from dragonfire.

Of course, as much as I'd like to declare that to be Night Fury skin, there's no proof of it being so, and could easily be some other type of dragon. But if it is, it could be the skin of an older Night Fury. It looked darker in the film, but whatever.

So in conclusion, dragonskins are used for their anti-fire properties (to protect them from dragonfire and from fire in general), as a fashion statement, and most importantly as a status symbol that showcases their prowess and accomplishments as warriors. Dragonskins make good tent material, apparently, as evidenced by the Dragon Hunters.

I hope this was somewhat enlightening. It certainly was for me. Thank you for reading, and see you in the next article!

Long Live the Night!

— Noctus Fury

[theladyheroine]

What are Team Sonic's favorite Dreamworks movies?

OMG This sounds like an awesome idea! Thank you for asking! 🙏

Sonic 💙

Puss In Boots

The action, the music, the cool boots!! I imagine Sonic is already a big fan of the Shrek films since they’re so funny, but they cannot match the charm of this orange outlaw.

Often quotes “Fear me, if you dare” whenever he or Knuckles get into a sparing match.

The movies were the entire reason he watched the old Zorro films, but now he keeps using the broom as a sword.

Tails 💛

How To Train Your Dragon

The historic elements of the film are what caught his eye at first, but then Tails fell in love with Toothless and his little grin! Loves all the gear and mechanics Hiccup made too.

Will sometimes play the soundtrack when he’s doing test flights in the Tornado.

Has thought of making some protective gear for Tom and Maddie if they ever have to go on missions with them. But now he carries a little sketchbook!

Knuckles ❤️

Kung Fu Panda

While at first he was reluctant to watch this film, he immediately fell in love with Po’s strong heart and will! He felt like he was watching Wade grow during his training.

The action scenes and kung fu techniques he incorporates into his training, and Knuckles will sometimes ask Maddie to look up different styles.

Denies it but loves to sing “Kung Fu Fighting”

Bonus! Shadow 🖤

The Bad Guys

This film feels perfect for Shadow! At first he was very confused about the title when he first saw it, but then fell in love with the cast and their desire for growth. Especially Mr. Wolf!

Thinks the heist scenes are all awesome and now won’t stop asking to drive Tom’s car.

While he enjoys all the characters since they bring such good energy, he respects Mr. Wolf the most for standing up to his friends.

[chaifootsteps]

Okay in my defense as someone who initially liked the Light Fury design, it was all before watching httyd 3 because I thought they were going into a whole other direction (now I hate the design and the movie, GG DreamWorks)

See, stupid younger me thought the Light Fury wasn't some subspecies of Night Furies or even a whole other species... No I thought that Light Fury was 100% a Night Fury that got leucism. A Night Fury that couldn't live as a Night Fury because their hunting technique or even their nesting area couldn't have worked on her because she'd be spotted right away.

Toothless can't live like other Night Furies because of his tail injury that make him require a rider or a prosthetic to be able to do what he could do before Hiccup injured him in httyd1. The Light Fury (let's call her Blizzard like the Blizzard of Olaf) can't live like other Night Furies because many things they do are incompatible with her, using "the cover of the night" to hunt doesn't work on her. She'd highlight a trait Hiccup noticed with Toothless : How great the Night Furies are adapting themselves to anything that gets thrown at them.

There are other Night Furies alive, they just moved away from the main places people hunted them at that since staying there would be too dangerous for the young ones.

You're not the only one who thought so! There was at least one official synopsis that called her a Night Fury, because this movie was just that much of a snarled up mess.

I have no idea why they didn't go for it, honestly, because her being an entirely different species is so deeply depressing and shoots down the whole argument that Toothless "needs to be with his own kind." She's a completely different species of dragon with different needs, habits, and expectations and gets upset when he doesn't meet these, and no matter how many offspring they have, Toothless's species is still doomed.

[bryan360]

‘The Old Switcheroo’ (Tumblr Exclusive)

So here’s my take for CNY artwork celebration and also my liking after watching DreamWork’s 2022 animated comedy film. I did check on Netflix few years back and it was pretty good that featured predator creatures as ‘The Bad Guys’ stealing and heists. Now I’m not interested of which the main characters are my favorite or least interested in; especially that guinea pig which turned to be the main antagonist later on. Nevertheless, I enjoy this movie with the animation technique that took inspiration from the Spider-Verse films.

Anyways, here’s my pencil sketch drawing with Mr. Snake and my rabbit ‘cousin’ character 🍫Choco; trading their different golden dolphin trophies while the other one made out of chocolate. I don’t know if Choco doing no good things again, but having a favor with a snake were red flags here. 🚩 The chief isn’t gonna like this, but hey! It’s still part of CNY celebration, right? 😅

(Also note to my secret friends: no ‘On This Day’ throwback for today. Especially to celebrate this year’s CNY celebration.)

Mr. Snake - ‘The Bad Guys’ (2022); DreamWorks Animation Studios, Universal Pictures

Choco (my rabbit ‘cousin’ character) created by me; BryanVelasquez87 (Bryan360)

Tagged: @murumokirby360 @shadowredfeline @alexander1301 @sammirthebear2k4 @lordromulus90

[rascalentertainments]

"What if the legend of Peter Pan you know, was more than one story?"

2025 is finally here, and I wanted my first new post to be something entirely new. Aside from making Wish Granted, I've been brainstorming a non Wish related project focusing on a reboot of Peter Pan. There's been so many versions of him over the decades, that I thought it would be awesome to create a story where nearly all the versions of him are combined into one trilogy of movies! Hence why I made a redesign of him seen above. He does looks a bit similar to the Disney version, but I wanted to add a little more modern parts to him, like having a leaf patterns referencing his original book counterpart.

The idea here is to have a three part story covering Peter's life from an ordinary boy getting taken by pirates, growing slightly into a teen and becoming a hero on Neverland, meeting Wendy and the Darling children, and going through a character arc of what it means to grow up by the end. Its something I haven't seen and want to tackle myself.

I don't have a full outline for this story yet, but I have gotten a lot of Story beats and twists on the characters I'd like to share.

•The three Titles are Peter Pan: The Starcatchers, Peter Pan: Neverland Hero, Peter Pan: The Last Pirate.

•Peter starts out as a 12 year old boy in the first movie, and turns 15 by the end and through the second and third film.

•Peter is voiced by Kaiji Tang.

•While he can't read, his favorite story he's listen to is Puss in Boots. The story later becomes his inspiration to become iconic version of Pan we know, and as a hero to the residents of Neverland.

•Additionally, this version is a combination of DreamWorks Puss in Boots, Gojo Saturo and Jack Frost all mixed together to create a new take.

•He's the first lost boy. The others boys become part of his crew after he rescues them from Hook, acting as an older brother.

•Peter was alone on Neverland for two days, until he uses stardust to bring his shadow to life so he wouldn't be alone anymore. Shadow and Peter grow up together and become inseparable on adventures. They consider each other brothers.

•People in Neverland don't age, unless they leave the island. Peter ends up only staying 15 because that's when he actually stays on Neverland as his new home.

•His mother is alive.

•His character arc will be learning what it means to really "grow up". He must make a choice between staying in Neverland and remaining as he is, or live a new life with Wendy.

•Wendy keeps getting nicknamed "Darling" by Peter. 😂

•He's from the 1930's and by the time he meets Wendy, it's 1990's. Its a shout out to Steven Spielberg's "Hook".

•He's very disoriented by the big city, especially with all the cars around and way more people than in his own time.

•Captain Hook is voiced by Ian McShane

•Hook was the one who took Peter as a child to work on his ship. In that time, he does show the boy a few pirate tricks and how to take things right underneath someone's nose.

•One Hook's crew members, Alf becomes a father figure to Peter by teaching some survival techniques, and eventually defects from Hook after growing attached to him.

•There's a different reason Peter cut off Hooks hand, and its not a practical joke.

•Tick-Tock the crocodile is in the second and third film, and is still an enemy of Hook. In this version, he's been fed so many clocks by Hook that the magic in them fused with his body, turning him into a walking, ticking beast. He's also anthropomorphic and can speak.

•Design wise, he's 8 feet tall, sharp claws and pointed teeth. He has small clock faces sticking out on his body, with his eyes looking like traditional clocks, with the little hands pointing in whatever direction he's looking.

•He's voiced by Jim Cummings.

•Tick Tock starts out as Hook's prey, but after Peter stops him from eating the Captain, he makes Pan as his enemy as well.

•Tinker Bell finds Peter when he's on Neverland, unbeknownst to her at the time that she and Peter were born at the same time.

•She has feelings for Peter as years pass on, but he only sees her as a sibling.

•Tink can be understood by humans, but she chooses to speak like a bell in front of Wendy to trick her, and it annoys Peter. .😂

That's what I got for now, and I wanted to share something non Wish related, like some of my friends. I haven't forgotten Superzeroes, its just that this has been sitting in my brain and I want to just tell it finally! There's definitely much more to develop cause it's a work in progress, but I hope you want to hear more or see more designs soon!

@your-ne1ghbor @tumblingdownthefoxden @snackara @chillwildwave @oh-shtars @jojo-ker06 @thesafireartist @uva124

@kenihewa @ishadow246

[path-of-grass-and-leaves]

Meeting The Fetch-Beast: An Exercise

Disclaimer: There is some debate within the community surrounding what defines a "fetch". All of this information comes from my personal belief system and I encourage new practitioners to research these terms and form their own viewpoints.

A common concept in traditional witchcraft and similar paths, the fetch-beast is best described as the animal-self, a preexisting extension of the practitioner connecting them to the spirit world.

The fetch is an innate part of the soul and is with us since birth. It differs from the familiar, a spirit that you would summon and employ, and a thoughtform, a spiritual extension of the self which a practitioner intentionally creates.

How does a practitioner work with their fetch?

Working with the fetch-beast often takes place during spirit travel and trance work but it can also be called upon during spellwork and rituals. My personal belief is that the fetch is the part of us most deeply connected to the underworld and proves useful in workings related to death and the dead.

Spirit Flight

Some believe that a witch has the ability to shape-shift into their fetch-beast during spirit travel. The practioner will enter a trance state, cross the hedge, and assume the form of their fetch. They would then travel through otherworld seeing through the eyes of that animal.

Tasks and Spellwork

The fetch can be called upon and asked to lend its power during spellwork. It can also be sent to complete specific tasks in the spirit world while the practitioner remains in the physical world. The nature of these spells and tasks vary.

General Guidance

The fetch-beast can be asked for guidance in a similar fashion as a spirit guide. Communication can take place using divination, spirit travel, and dreamwork.

The Exercise

Introduction

Begin in a quiet, dimly lit room. You will need a candle, a black mirror or dark bowl filled with water, a pen or pencil, a notebook, and an offering. You can leave food, wine, fresh water, whatever you feel like.

Light the candle, place it in front of the mirror, and call upon the fetch, presenting the offering and asking them to reveal themselves. If preferred, you can write an incantation for this and repeat it as many times as desired.

Meeting The Fetch-Beast

Next you are going to need to enter a trance state. There are a couple options here: scrying, hedge-crossing/spirit travel, or a combination of both.

During this time you can wear a protective amulet, use shielding techniques, or call upon a spirit guide, familiar, or god that you worship for protection.

Scrying

After calling upon the fetch-beast, gaze into the mirror or scrying bowl with the candle placed in front of it until you enter a trance state.

After some time, images should start to appear. Pay close attention and wait for the image of an animal. Introduce yourself and speak with the spirit for as long as you like. When finished, extinguish the candle, thank the fetch-beast, and record your results. Leave the offering out for a bit and then dispose.

Spirit Travel

Sit or lie down with your eyes closed after blowing out your candle (for fire safety). The scrying mirror should be facing you.

Once you've entered a trance, walk away from your body and out your front door. Keep walking until you approach the nearest crossroad and wait for a doorway to appear. If you have a sacred space, plan for this to be your destination. If you don't, you can go wherever the doorway takes you or construct a sacred space prior to attempting this exercise. Once you've arrived you can find a place to sit and remain seated until an animal sits down beside you.

Introduce yourself and speak to the animal for as long as you like. When finished, thank the fetch and return to the physical world. Record your results.

Keep in mind that trance work can be difficult for even the most experienced practitioners. If scrying doesn't work, try hedge-crossing and vice-versa. You can also use both techniques in succession and compare the results.

If Unable to Enter a Trance

If after several attempts you can't get yourself to enter a trance-like state, try changing up the approach. You can use visualization, white noise or rain sounds, chanting, singing, or dancing. Research different methods and experiment until you find what works.

If you've tried everything you can think of and can't enter a trance or are uncomfortable with the idea of trance work, move onto divination.

To begin, repeat the steps mentioned in the introduction portion of the exercise described above.

Even if you don't plan on scrying, still place the candle and offering in front of a mirror or bowl of water. The reasoning is that the fetch is a part of us, or a reflection, and is best represented by a reflective object.

Divination Methods

After lighting the candle, leaving the offering, and calling on the fetch, move onto divination. My favorite method is cartomancy using an animal-themed deck. Some other options include but are not limited to:

Bibliomancy - Do you have a wildlife field guide or book about animals?

Tassomancy - A bit challenging in my personal opinion but it can be done. Read the images of the tea leaves, keeping an eye out for the image of an animal.

Shufflemancy - Turn on a random playlist or curate one for the divination session. Take note of patterns, repeating words, and phrases.

Asking for Signs - Ask for the fetch to reveal themselves through a series of consistent and obvious signs.

Conclusion

The form that the fetch-beast takes will vary by practitioner and may change over time. Personally I believe that your fetch will most likely appear as an animal native to the bioregion where you live or that of your ancestors.

This can be challenging work so if your first few attempts are unsuccessful, keep trying.

[sashasdoodles]

Rambling some thoughts about animated movies.

Watched some video about Spider-versication of upcoming animated movies and it made me think quite a lot how we are actively witnessing this medium go through many similar steps of evolution as art in the past had gone through.

What I mean by that is how artists, time and time again, did their best to approach realism as close as possible. With newer techniques and so on, artists today can approach hyperrealistic levels of this style. I think we’ve seen the same thing happen within the animation of industry, especially with 3D ones. I’m thinking Pixar, Disney, Dreamworks and so on.

Ever since its creation, 3D movies have gone from being able to count their polygons to being able to count fibres of a sweater in staggering 20 or so years. Tools have been developed to ease the production time and cost to create realistic effects better and faster.

Now, it’s gotten to the point that people have started to get tired of it, because all those movies, even from different studios, started to look the same. We’ve mastered realism. We want something different.

And out comes Into the Spiderverse out of nowhere with experimental style that changed the rules of the games for good. We’re getting stylized 3D animation because of its (and its sequel) success. Everyone wants that piece of cake, from Dreamworks’ Puss in Boots: Last Wish to the upcoming Ninja Turtles movie.

And it’s just fascinating to realize we are witnesses to one of the fastest style change in history of animated movies.

[madolecence]

One horrifying side effect I didn’t expect from AI is people not believing in creativity or talent anymore.

I saw The Wild Robot tonight, and the film had beautiful visuals inspired by classical art and was created by using 2D textures on 3D assets to make it look like a painting. I want to emphasize that this has been done before. The Wild Robot did not invent this technique. This technique also requires IMMENSE amounts of time and talent to accomplish well. When we left the theatre my friend googled the film to see how it was made, and upon reading the wikipedia article on the production, said that they “fed the images of the paintings into it to make the cgi look painted.” The wikipedia article in question didn’t even mention AI, let alone say that the film was created using it. This is a Dreamworks movie. And when I tried to correct her, she said that she “assumes AI was used somewhere in the film.” I have a degree in visual effects.

I’m sad.

Anyway go see The Wild Robot in theatres it was a religious experience.

[bistec-musings]

Bee Movie Game is a video game based on the DreamWorks-animated movie Bee Movie. The game was released on October 30, 2007. Beenox developed the Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, and Microsoft Windows versions of the game, Smart Bomb Interactive developed the Wii version, and Vicarious Visions developed the Nintendo DS version. As Barry B. Benson, players take on an adventure to save the bees' production of honey through New York City. Players get to experience Barry's life within the hive and navigate their way around the world from the feature film using many techniques. Players can drive through the city using race cars, scooters, taxicabs, and trucks. Players can "fly" Barry at high speed through the sky. Using the Pollinator, players can Blast through obstacles or they can Buzz to cause a chain reaction. Players get to Stop Time by using Barry's bee reflexes. The video game features 2-person multiplayer mini games. Jerry Seinfeld, John Goodman, Patrick Warburton, and Tress MacNeille reprise their voices from the movie in this game.

Only on 2x speed

@scar-lywarly

[nateascendingskies]

The Personal Experiences of Pixar and Elemental

Leaving a showing of the crew at Pixar and director Peter Sohn's latest film, Elemental, I was struck by how personal and certifiably unique the film was - no, not necessarily because of its story or even its characters (though the latter felt like a great inverse and even echo of the similar Zootopia), but because of how its themes of the immigrant experience, the duties and expectations of familial traditions, and even the feeling of multicultural love were conveyed or explored.

Much like how I have felt and seen myself in classic Disney and DreamWorks characters like Nick Wilde, WALL-E, and Hiccup Haddock, Ember and Wade spoke to me in ways I wasn't necessarily expecting or even considering walking into the theater some 2 hours earlier.

Like the literal flaming young woman that is Ember, I find myself in an interesting position in my life. While I have not necessarily found myself in the burden of following in family footsteps, I related very much to the idea of having to control one's temper in stressful situations. In the retail environment I have found myself in, I too have been overwhelmed by the constant hustle, bustle and flow of customers - all with their own wacky, weird and wild requests I probably wouldn't have even considered had I not stepped foot in a Home Depot for 8 hours every day. Oftentimes, I need a softer, creative, and often free-spirited side to awaken and comfort me when things get rough or tough sometimes. And, of course, that's where someone like a Wade comes in.

Like Wade, I do find myself easily crying at the most emotional of things - I do happily and readily admit. Yet, like the big ol' blob of water he is, I also find myself finding some clever solutions to problems I never once considered encountering. In addition, I do have a family and a creative community around me who have gone their own wacky and unusual ways, pursuing their own computer science or radiological techniques while I still try to find my own way around the world - living the dream as a writer for a film or motorsport publication or an archivist for a studio like Pixar, perhaps (funny, ain't it?).

Even then, it wasn't just the personal connections that I found in myself that drew me in. For the longest time, I had been longing for a Pixar film that felt like a true back to basics approach - the product of one voice guiding a similar creative team of thousands. Much like 2021's Luca, this was it - but on a big screen scale I didn't even think I wanted to see again. It felt refreshingly simple, pared back, even - which let the visuals carry the story even more than usual.

I didn't need any dialogue about butterflies, car windshields, code violations, blunt yet hard hitting racial allegories, games about making others cry, or depressed clouds trying to play visually trippy basketball equivalents (trust me, it all makes sense when you see the film) to keep me invested - all it took was a kaleidoscopic trip through a flooded old train station to find a flower that could survive in water and fire, some literal crowd waves at a sports stadium, and a literal familial flame to guide me through this weird world of living elements that Sohn and his team had created, showing more than saying what he had seen as a member of an immigrant family and perhaps even as a smitten romantic himself. Besides, as someone who spent a year in Oregon watching some of the best glassblowers in the world practice their craft, I couldn't help but smile watching that all come into play as a gift that Ember realized she had.

If anything, the flaws and traditional story beats the film had only served to draw attention more to what made it work - as a romantic comedy about literal opposites attracting, an unexpected tonal blender of comedy, drama and romance, and as a beautiful reflection of never really giving up on the dreams you discover and find as your life changes. I mean, if you told me I'd find a home at a Home Depot as a job I loved 5 or 10 years ago, I'd call you nuts! If you told me I'd come out of a film as mismarketed as Elemental listening to its beautiful score from Thomas Newman and admiring it mere hours after seeing it in a way that even Across the Spider-Verse couldn't match, I'd call you insane! And, perhaps most importantly of all, if you told me that I'd have a renewed hope, admiration and appreciation for the team at Pixar after how critical I was about their position in my last post - well, then you'd probably call me an unbelievable hypocrite with something stuck in my head. But that's just the way things work - and I couldn't be any happier to be wrong.

Plus, it made me more determined than ever to chase my own animated dreams. Now, if you don't mind, I'm gonna see what I should doodle next…

[erigold13261]

Dumb headcanons

1. Eve, Zuke and West have hair care weekends both as a way to make amends (also have you seen these peoples hair) and because it's fun

2. Tatiana loves Hot sauce like a lot, like she'll just drink directly from the bottle

3. Haym is huge DreamWorks fan ( because they make more furry movies than Disney)

4. DJ loves painting thier nails it's free euphoria and sometimes Sofa and Dodo join in

5. To Everyone's surprise Yinu doesn't hate West, in fact she thinks his knowledge of nature is cool, she just doesn't like the way he acts (she also bit him once because he wanted to find out if the flowers on her head feel like hair or flowers)

6. Mama loves a series of unfortunate events and will fight people saying it's better than harry potter

7. Mayday loves hugs but only if the person she's hugging is Okay with them

8. West actually needs reading glasses he just refuses to wear them because he thinks he looks stupid

9. J and Eve are never to left alone with a fire extinguisher because the last time they were Tatiana had to bail them out of jail

10. 1010 love Danny phantom it's the first show they all watched

1). Zimelu, Celine, and Yinu join them at times! Sometimes Sayu and Tila too! They all learn how to take care of and properly style different hair textures. It becomes a gossip party and I can even see henna art and makeup/facials being done at times.

2). That is definitely something she use to do a LOT when she was younger. Now she tries to eat very healthily, but there are times she just takes a quick chug from a hot sauce bottle she has.

3). You better believe Haym watched Puss in Boots: The Last Wish on REPEAT once he got it. He has every DreamWorks animated film, especially the ones with animals.

4). I just love the idea that DJ, Tila, and Remi teach Sofa and Dodo how to properly paint their nails with fun techniques and stuff. Tila and Remi don't paint their nails anymore, but that doesn't stop the two from hanging out with DJ, Sofa, and Dodo when they are painting their nails.

5). I never even would have assumed Yinu would have hated West. Mama? Yes. But Yinu? Not really. She wouldn't really understand why he is hated/unliked by a lot of people since he seems so cool to her. She would love his shadow puppet along with talking about him on his farm.

But yes, she would have bit him if he just touched her flowers in her hair. Especially if he did it too soon after meeting her (which I do think he did). Mainly it was because he pulled too hard when touching and accidentally hurt Yinu, but thankfully she isn't venomous so West got lucky. Mama on the other hand made sure he knew she is venomous and willing to bite him if he messed with her daughter again.

6). I'm assuming you meant if someone said Harry Potter was better than A Series of Unfortunate Events. I don't really know either franchise well enough, especially ASOUE, but I can see her getting really defensive over media she likes and people trying to bash it.

7). Well it's a good thing both Haym and Eve are super okay with hugs and also very good huggers. Especially Haym. Eve once left a cuddling session with Haym and May to go to an interview/event and when she came back hours later the two were still cuddling.

8). Oh Purl would take so much offense to that if they found that out lol. They would be asking West if he thought they looked like a nerd with their glasses (and West would say yes but in an affectionate way). Purl would get West to wear his glasses, or at least get contacts (and then have to make sure West took care of them). I doubt West would ever get truly use to them, but he'd at least wear them/the contacts when Purl or Cyril are doing something important for him to see.

9). Honestly, yes and no. Like the two would DEFINITELY be making stupid plans to do some stunt, but also would be TERRIFIED to actually do it. But then a little push comes to shove and low and behold they did their stupid idea and now have to face their consequences and Tatiana.

I bet you one of 1010 told Tatiana. Because obviously Eve and Neon have enough funds to bail themselves out, but having Tatiana reprimand them would make them not do stupid shit again (the disappointment on Tatiana's face will forever haunt the two).

10). Hmm, maybe as MKs! But I would say their first SHOW would have been either the Lights Up show or some documentary of the Goolings that Neon showed them as kids. But as MKs I can them as not having watched a lot of TV on their own, at least until the Sayu Crew or Yinu came to visit/hang out with them for the first times.

One of the two would have asked to watch cartoons on their big TV and 1010 said sure, go for it, and that is how Danny Phantom got into their house, their brains, and their hearts lol. It was definitely liked by all of 1010, and though it may not have stayed their favorite show, it is definitely up there for all of them!