#essentially i think enjoying this media is about separating the art from the artist and all that

[mikescrustyassmullet]

was easy to let go of harry potter bc it wasn't autism food, i wasnt balls deep into the fandom and the extensive lore, even if i do still remember many facts from the books. meanwhile fnaf i consider to be hands down the biggest special interest of my life, ive been in that fandom since it began, waited for the movie this long, i remember watching lore videos, those hours long sfm movies. and like. on average twice a year I go back to watch markiplier play it bc thats how I got into both. and half the time it kickstarts the hyperfixation once again. My fnaf music playlist is hours long and full of bangers that regularly make it into my spotify wrapped. I can't explain how emotionally attached I am to the silly little robots and the silly little dead guys. They comfort me.

no like seriously, ive seen a few fellow lgbt folks and people in general still be into harry potter and five nights at freddy's like how do y'all do it. Like how is it possible to rationalize being invested into something where the creator is so hateful and bigoted?

ive tried over the past few weeks with FNAF after pirating the fnaf movie and liking it but like, it just feels hollow and wrong for me to do even if im not directly supporting it.

conflicted is the word i'd use so i'd really love to hear from either fnaf fans or harry potter fans on this topic

[felassan]

Dragon Age development insights and highlights from Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

Some really tasty factoids here.

Cut for length.

Dragon Age: Origins

The continent of Thedas was at one point going to be named Pelledia, a name initially floated by James Ohlen

“Qunari” was a temporary name that ended up unintentionally sticking, much like “Thedas”

Mary Kirby wrote the Landsmeet. To this day, nobody understands how it works, except possibly her. If she’s “really really drunk” she can explain how it works. There’s as many words in it as Sten’s entire conversations put together

Concept art for Thedosian art - as in in-world art - draws heavily on Renaissance-era portraiture, the Art Nouveau movement, religious styles and media like stained glass, and favorite pieces from the golden age of illustrations in the early 20th century

Andrastianism in-world (art-wise) is depicted in wildly different methods depending on who in-world made the art in question. “One religion, 3 different lenses”. There’s the Chantry take, the Orlesian take and the Fereldan take; each with its own different interpretations, different mediums and different stories

The stained glass images were drawn by Nick Thornborrow for DAI, to decorate religious spaces in that game “and beyond”

irl Viking art influenced Ferelden

Greek and Italian art influenced Orlais

The book also had other insights into and anecdotes from the development of DAO, but I’ve transcribed them recently as they’re essentially the stories DG has recently been relating on the awesome Summerfall Studios DAO playthrough Twitch streams. (On those streams he provides dev commentary while Liam Esler plays through DA. The ones with DG are currently once every two weeks. Check them out! Here’s a calendar where you can check when the next one is) Instead of repeating myself I’ll just provide the link to the first transcript. From there you can navigate to the subsequent parts. Note these streams are ongoing. At this point I will also point you to a related post which is cliff notes of the Dragon Age chapter in Jason Schreier’s book Blood Sweat and Pixels.

Dragon Age II

DAO had the longest development period in BioWare history. In contrast DA2 had the shortest

Initially DA2 was going to be an expansion to DAO. A few months in EA said “Yeah, expansions like these don’t sell very well, so let’s make it a sequel.” So it suddenly became DA2 and they had to make it even bigger, although they still only had 1.5 years of time in which to do this

Production of DA2 officially lasted only 9 months, and at the time the team was still supporting live content for DAO! They finished development that January after the design team crunched all the way through the holiday period that year. Then it went to cert 9 times

The limited time they had is why the story takes place mostly in and around 1 city, and over 7 years (so it was temporal, rather than over physical distance, because a more expansive world would have taken more irl time to make)

They had no time to review even the main plot. Mike Laidlaw pitched the idea of 3 stories taking place at different points in the PC’s life, tied together by Varric’s recollections of events. DG rolled with this and made 1 presentation on the idea. This presentation was then approved and off they went

As they were writing DG realized that there was going to be no oversight and that everything was going to be a ‘first draft’. “Because nobody had time.” He sat down with the writers and said “Look, here’s the conditions we’re working under. A lot of what we’re putting out is gonna be raw. We’re not going to get the editing we need. We’re not going to get the kind of iteration we need. So I’m going to trust you all to do your best work.”

Looking back, DG has mixed feelings on DA2. “A lot of corners were cut. The public perception was that it was smaller than DAO. That’s a sin on its own.”

Despite this he thinks DA2 has some of the best writing in the series, especially character-wise. The DA2 chars are his favorite

The pace with which production progressed may in some ways have helped. “When we do a lot of revision, we often file away [as in buff off] some of the good writing as well. Somehow DA2′s whirlwind process resulted in some really good writing”

The pace meant chars landed on the writers in various stages of completion. For example Isabela was fairly defined due to appearing in DAO. In contrast Varric at the start was just that single piece of widely-shown concept art

Varric was conceived as a storyteller not a fighter. His skills are talking and bullshitting. Hence the question became, so what does this guy do in combat? The direction was to make him as different as possible to Oghren, so not a warrior. He couldn’t be a dual-wielding rogue in order to differentiate him from Bela. But you can’t really picture this guy with a bow. “For a dwarf, it would probably be a crossbow. We didn’t have crossbows, or we only had crossbows for the darkspawn. And they were part of the models. We didn’t have a separate crossbow that was equip-able by the chars. They had to like, crop one off a darkspawn and remodel it. And that became Bianca” (quote: Mary Kirby)

“Dwarven mages are exceedingly rare.” [???]

If DAO was a classic fantasy painting, DA2 was a screenshot from a Kurosawa film or a northern Renaissance painting. (Here Matt Rhodes was commenting on art style)

John Epler: “In any one of our games, there’s a 95% chance that if you turn the camera away from what it’s looking at, you’ll see all kinds of janky stuff. The moment we know the camera is no longer facing someone, we no longer care what happens to them. We will teleport people around. We will jump people around. We will literally have someone walk off screen and then we will shift them 1000 meters down, because we’re fixing some bug.” John also talked about this camera stuff in a recent charity Twitch stream for Gamers For Groceries. There’s a writeup of that stream here

Designing Kirkwall pushed concept artists to the limits of visual storytelling, because it has a long history that they wanted to be present. It was once the hub of Tevinter’s slave empire, so it needed to look brutal and harsh, but it also then needed to feel reclaimed, evolved, and with elements of contemporary Free Marches culture

The initial plan was for DA titles to be distinguished by subtitles not numbers, so that each experience could stand on its own rather than feel like a sequel or continuation. (My note: New PCs in each entry make sense then when you consider this and other factoids we know like how DA is the story of the world not of any one PC). Later, DA2′s name was made DA2 in a bid to more clearly connect the game to its predecessor. For DAI they returned to the original naming convention. (My note: so I’d reckon they’d be continuing the subtitle naming convention for DA4)

DA2 was initially code-named “Nug Storm”, strictly internally

The Cancelled DA2 Expansion - Exalted March

This was a precursor to DAI

It was meant to bridge the gap between DA2 and DAI

It focused on the fallout from Kirkwall’s explosion, with Cory serving as the villain

Meredith’s red lyrium statue was basically going to infest Kirkwall and it would end up [with what would end up] the red templars taking over Kirkwall and essentially being Cory’s army

To stop him Hawke would have recruited various factions, including Bela’s Felicisima Armada and the Qunari at Estwatch, forcing Hawke to split loyalties and risk relationships in the process

It was meant to bring DA2′s story to an end and end in Varric’s death. DG was very happy with this because all of DA2 is Varric’s tale. The expansion was supposed to start at the moment Cassandra’s interrogation of him ended in the present. “And we finished off the story with Varric having this heroic death.” It tied things up and would have broken many fan hearts, something BioWare writers notoriously enjoy. But between a transition to the new Frostbite engine and the scope of DAI, the decision was made to cancel EM, work any hard-to-lose concepts into DAI, and in the process save Varric’s life. DG has talked about the Varric dying thing before

Concept art for EM explored new areas previously not depicted in the DA universe, with costumes that reflected next steps for familiar chars. Varric was going to war, what would he have worn? With Anders, if he survived DA2, the plan was to present a redeemed Warden

A char that vaguely resembled Sera in DAI was first concepted for EM. This fact was mentioned near this concept art (see the female elf) and this concept art of Bethany with the blond bob

The writers sketched out plans to end it with Hawke having the option to marry their LI. This included alternate ceremonies for party members like Bethany and Sebastian if the player opted not to wed. There was even a wedding dress made for Hawke. This asset made it into DAI (Sera and Cullen’s weddings in Trespasser). The dress can also be seen in DAI during an ambient NPC wedding after completing a chain of war table missions

The destruction of a Chantry was explored in concept art as it might have happened in EM. This idea ended up carrying over to the beginning of DAI. (My note: Lol, the idea that DA2 could have had 2 Chantries being destroyed in it 😆)

World of Thedas

Sheryl Chee and Mary Kirby started with “a disgusting little dish called fluffy mackerel pudding”. In the middle of DAO’s busy dev period one of them (they can’t remember who) found a recipe online for this, scanned in from a 70s cookbook. “I don’t understand why it was fluffy. Why would you want fluffy mackerel pudding?” MK says. “We loved it so much we included it in a DAO codex.”

This led them to create more food for Thedas, full recipes included, like a Fereldan turnip and barley stew from MK and SC’s Starkhaven fish and egg pie. The fish pie became Sebastian’s favorite. “To me it made sense for it to be fish pie because a lot of the Free Marches are on the coast”, SC says, “It was something that was popular in medieval times, so I thought, let’s make a fish pie! I looked at medieval recipes and I concocted a fish pie which I fed to my partner, and he was like ‘This is not terrible’”

For WoT the whole studio was asked to contribute family recipes which might have a place in Thedas. SC adapted these to fit in one Thedosian culture or another, including a beloved banana bread that localization producer Melanie Fleming would regularly bake to keep the DA team motivated. “Melanie’s banana bread got us through Inquisition”

DAI

It says part of DAI takes place in or near the border with Nevarra [???]

This game was aimed to be bigger than DA2 and even DAO in every conceivable way

The first hour had to do a lot of heavy lifting, tying together the events of DAO and DA2 while introducing a new PC, new followers etc in the aftermath of the big attack. DG rewrote it 7 times then Lukas Kristjanson did 2 more passes

DG: “Our problem is always that our endings are so important, but we leave them to last, when we have no time. I kept pushing on DAI: ‘Can we work on the ending now? Can we work on the ending now? Can we do it early on?’ Because I knew exactly what it was going to be. But despite the fact that it kept getting scheduled, whenever the schedule started falling behind, it kept getting pushed back... so, of course, it got left til last again.”

“The reveal of the story’s real antagonist, Solas, a follower until the end, when he betrayed the player”. “Solas’ story remains a main thread in Inquisition’s long-awaited follow-up” [these aren’t DG quotes, just bits of general text]

Over the course of development they had 8 full-time writers and 4 editors working on it. Other writers joined later to help wrangle what ended up being close to 1 million words of dialogue and unspoken text. While many teams moved to a more open concept style of work for DAI, the writers remained tucked away in their own room, a choice DG says was necessary, given how much they talked. All the talking had a purpose ofc as if someone hit a bump or wall in their writing they would open the problem up to the room

As writing on a project like DAI progresses, the writers grow punchier and weirder things make it into the game. This is especially the case towards the end of a project (they get tired, burned out)

Banter and codexes require less ‘buy-in’ (DG has talked about this concept a few times on the Twitch streams) from other designers. DG liked to leave banter for last as a reward because it was fun. Banter begins as lists of topics for 2 followers to discuss. These may progress over time or be one off exchanges. One banter script can balloon to well over 10k words. “The banter was always huge because we were always like, laughing, and really at that point, our fields of fucks were rather barren, so we would just do whatever”

The bog unicorn happened pretty much by accident. It was designed by Matt Rhodes and was one of his fav things to design. They needed horse variations and he had already designed an undead variant which was a bog mummy [bog body]. irl these are preserved in a much different way to traditional mummies. When someone dies in a bog their skin turns black and raisin-like. The examples we know of tend to have bright red hair for whatever reason. It’s a very striking look and MR wanted to do a horse version of this as he thought it’d be neat. 5 mins before the review meeting for it he had a big ‘Aha!’ moment, quickly looked up a rusty old Viking sword, and photoshopped it through its skull like that was how it died. “And I was like, ‘I just made a unicorn. Alright, in it goes!’” It got approved. “So we built the thing. It fit. It told a little story”

With the irl Inquisition longsword, one of the objects they tested its cleaving ability on was a plush version of Leliana’s nug Schmooples

The concept art team explored a wide variety of visuals for the Inquisitor’s signature mark. It needed to look powerful and raw but couldn’t look like a horrific wound. In some cases, as cool as the idea looked on paper, they just weren’t technically feasible, especially as they had to be able to fit on any number of different bodies

Bug report: “Endlessly spawning mounts! At one point during development, Inquisitors could summon a new horse every time they whistled, allowing them to amass a near infinite number of eager steeds that faithfully followed them across Thedas. “You could go charging across levels and they’d all gallop behind you,” Jen Cheverie says, “It was beautiful.” Trotting into town became an epic horse siege as a tidal wave of mounts enveloped the streets. Jen called it her Army of Ponies”

The giants came from DA Week, an internal period when devs can pursue different individual creative projects that in some way benefit DA. They also had a board game from one of these that they were going to put in but they didn’t have time. It’s referenced though. It was dwarven chess

Josie’s outfit is made of gold silk and patterned velvet, with leather at her waist. She carries “an ornate ledger” and she has “an ornamented collar sitting around her neck, finished by a brilliant red ruby, like a drop of Antivan wine in a sunbeam”

Iron Bull’s armor is leather. His loose pantaloons and leather boots give him agility to charge

On DAI in particular, concept artists took special care to make sure costumes would be realistic, at least in a practical ‘this obeys the laws of physics and textiles’ sense. “While on Inquisition, we thought about cosplay from a concept art perspective. Given how incredible a lot of [cosplays] are, I now am not worried about them. In fact in some cases in the future I want to throw them curveballs like, ‘All right, you clever bastards. Let’s see if you can do this!’”

2 geese that nested on the office building and had chicks were named Ganders and Arishonk (it wasn’t known who was the mom or the dad). Other possible names were Carver Honke, Bethany Honke, Urdnot Pecks, Quackwall, Cassandra Pentagoose, the Iron Bill, Shepbird, Garroose, Admiral Quackett, Scout Honking, HChick-47 and Darth Malgoose

Bug report: “The surprising adventures of Ser Noodles!” DAI was the first time the series had a mount feature, meaning this had a lot of bugs. A lot of the teams’ favorite bugs were to do with the mounts. There was a period of time where the Inquisitor’s horse seemed to lose all bone and muscle in its legs. They had a week or so where all quadruped legs were broken. It was a bit noticeable in things like nugs and other small beasties but the horse was insanely obvious. “The first time we summoned the horse [for this] and started running around, the entire QA exploration room just exploded with laughter.” Its legs flapped around like cooked fettucine, leading testers to lovingly nickname it Ser Noodles. At galloping speeds the legs almost looked like helicopter blades, especially when footage was set to classic pieces such as Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries

For DAI the artists were asked questions like “What would Morrigan wear to a formal ball? Can Cassandra pull off a jaunty hat?”

On DAI storyboarding became the norm. John Epler: “Cinematic design for the longest time was the Wild West. It was ‘here’s a bunch of content, now do it however you want’, which resulted in some successes and some failures.” Storyboarding gave designers a consistent visual blueprint based on ideas from designers, writers and concept artists

Quote from a storyboard by Nick Thornborrow (the Inquisitor going into the party at the end of basegame sequence): “Until Corypheus revealed himself they could not see the single hand behind the chaos. A magister and a darkspawn combined. The ultimate evil. So evil. Eviler than puppy-killers and egg farts combined.”

A general note on concept art:

In the early stages of any project, before the concept artists are aware of any writing, they like to just draw what they think cool story moments could be. It’s not unusual for the team to then be inspired by these and fold them into the game as the project progresses

– From Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

[starpeace]

separating the art from the artist? ☕️

OOF okay we’re coming out with the big guns

first of all i think the ‘death of the author’ concept is literature theory that’s been taken out of context. look, hey, i don’t want to read roland barthes’ original essay either, it’s a nightmare to get through your brain, but ‘death of the author’ was meant to service literary criticism and was never intended to be a way to enjoy literature without dealing with the author being problematic.

‘death of the author’, as it was taught to me, claims that there is no ultimate correct interpretation of a text defined by what the author intended. essential meaning comes from the individual reader, rather than the author. it means we can have interpretations of the text that focus on the text itself rather than interpreting it through the lens of the author’s experiences. it means we can have interpretations of the text that the author may disagree with.

it does not negate the content of the text, which always inherently contains the beliefs and prejudices of the author.

look, i’m a star wars fan. star wars has problematic creators that have made problematic content. and i argue it is impossible to separate the basic facts of the text from those who wrote it. for an easy example, the tusken raiders are characterised as brutish savages because of the author’s racism. this racism cannot be separated from the fundamental plot of the star wars films. if you engage with the text without recognising this, you engage with those beliefs without criticising them. this will inevitably have an effect on your internal prejudices.

ultimately i believe you will always have a responsibility to think critically about media you consume rather than engaging with it as art that somehow magically came into being, free of influence from or repercussions on the outside world. and with something as big as star wars, resources on its difficult aspects are always freely available for people to engage with.

[not-xpr-art]

Art Deep Dives #1 - The Value of Art ~

Hi everyone!

This is the start to another project I want to start on this account, a companion to my Art Advice tag, and each week or so I’ll be ‘deep diving’ into art history, arts & culture, society’s relationship to art, etc etc... (I basically want to make use of my history of art degree, and also because I genuinely love talking about this stuff... especially without the pressure of deadlines lol)

Side note: don’t worry about these being really ‘academic’ or ‘formal’, since neither of those things are in my vocabulary lol... this is a very casual, informal kind of ‘essay’ writing that I want to be accessible to everyone, regardless of how much you know about art! 

This first one is a kind of follow up of my Art Advice post talking about references, and I’ll be talking about the ideas of how we ‘value’ art.

(this is about 1600 words long by the way...)

The Value of Art

It’s no secret that art is highly subjective. Particularly when it comes to the question of ‘what is the most important type of art?’. It changes from person to person, country to country, and era to era. How we define ‘great art’ now is vastly different to how we defined it several hundred years ago. I mean, just look at the kinds of art in galleries in the modern era (Tracey Emin’s bed comes to mind) versus that of the 18th century (with the likes of Joshua Reynolds, JMW Turner and Thomas Gainsborough). Really, it’s clear to see that what we see as ‘the most important type of art’ is forever changing...

Or... is it?

In order to really answer whether the kinds of art we value now versus that of the past has changed, we need to first establish what ‘valued art’ even means. 

I think in today’s day and age, ‘value’ is often synonymous with ‘price’. So, a Banksy original chipped away from it’s original wall setting and having been sold at a Christies auction for £3.2million is, by this definition, what we as a society ‘value’ as art... Right? Or maybe ‘value’ is more to do with what kinds of works that are displayed in big galleries or public spaces? The Tate has an entire wing dedicated to the works of landscape/seascape painter JMW Turner, so surely that means that we today place a high ‘value’ on his work still? What about public sculpture? Architecture? Sculpture and architecture are often a lot more available for the general public, and even if most people wouldn’t be able to tell you who made the Statue of Liberty, they at least know about her and perhaps even enjoy to look at her? And surely the fame of buildings like the Eiffel Tower or the Taj Mahal mean that they, too, are ‘valued’ as pieces of art? And what of artworks from other countries and cultures? A Chinese man may find no ‘value’ in a painting by a so-called ‘Great Master’ of the Italian Renaissance, but instead will ‘value’ a piece of Imperial Ming Dynasty porcelain instead, does that mean his opinion is the ‘right’ one? Colonialism has played heavily into what arts are now called ‘valuable’ and what are not, so how do we quantify whether a work has ‘value’ without placing our own individual cultural bias on it?

Basically what I’m getting at is, what we value as art in this day and age is very complicated, in a big way because our society is complicated. But for the sake of arguments, and for my next few points, I will be defining an art’s ‘value’ predominantly by whether it has been featured in a big gallery... Which also means I’ll be focusing on painting and sculpture... And also focusing on the Western world of art, specifically Europe, which I want to clarify doesn’t mean I personally ‘value’ that art more, it’s just where I’m from and predominantly what I studied in my course... 

Art historians often declare the Renaissance (around the 14th to 16th centuries) the ‘beginning’ of what we know as art today. But for this essay, I want to instead start a little before this, in the Early Medieval period. People often know of this era as ‘the dark ages’, in Europe at least, because it was after Rome had fallen and taken all their so-called ‘genius’ with them. A particular note for why for years we’ve seen this period as ‘regressive’ is through their art. A quick Google search of ‘Medieval baby’ will come up with a plethora of results for a wide range of paintings depicting babies (usually the baby Christ) as scaled down versions of adults, complete with receding hairlines and strangely buff arms and chests. 

Now, is this because medieval babies actually looked like this? I think this is... highly unlikely... I know most things happened earlier in that era than nowadays (girls getting married and pregnant at age 14, for example), but I think it’s a bit of a stretch to think their babies had six packs... No, instead it’s more likely that rather than being direct representations of babies, these were purely symbolic. And particularly given how they often were of Christ, art historians often say that the weird adult-baby hybrids are to represent Christ’s divinity. 

Now... What’s all this got to do with art and value? Well, the thing about early medieval art is that the value was almost entirely placed upon the symbology and meaning of a piece. Later in the medieval period, paintings began to become more ‘realistic’ to some extent, but it still for the most part stayed true to this idea of symbolism over representation. 

That is, until we get to the Renaissance and all of that gets thrown out of the window because artists want to be able to paint babies that actually look like babies, thank you very much! And with the likes of Leonardo da Vinci championing for art to become a science, surely this means that the kinds of art that was valued in this era were highly accurate portraits or landscapes... Right?

Short answer? No. 

Long answer? Well, portraits and landscapes had their place in the hierarchies of art. Portraits were often commissioned by wealthy patrons, and were basically ways of the artist showing off how good their portrait skills are. And landscapes were less important, more seen as ‘nice backgrounds’ than anything else. But the art that was highly valued by most wealthy patrons and art connoisseurs of the time was... (imagine a drum roll here please) 

History painting! These are basically big biblical or mythological scenes, often with a lot of figures doing a variety of things (think Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel), often with some pretty landscape as the backdrop, and often featuring a couple of portraits in the mix (including one of the patron who commissioned it, probably being blessed by the Virgin Mary, and a cheeky one of the artist peeking out from behind a bush or something...). From the Renaissance era up until basically the mid 19th century, History paintings were seen as the most important works of art to be featured in galleries. 

And really, things only really began to change when we reached the end of the 19th century, with the development of photography. 

Photography, and film, both lead to a massive shift in not only the kinds of art that are produced in the 20th century, but also the kinds of art that are valued. For so long art had been the main form of representation of society, and the advent of photographs meant that art had almost lost that ‘purpose’. Not to mention the leading towards a more secular society which no longer had a need for symbolic or spiritual artworks. 

So, the only place art could really go was to become a form of expression instead. The likes of artists like Picasso and Braque pioneering cubism, being about new ways of representing the world. The Surrealists delving into ideas of the subconscious. Pop-Artists like Warhol looking into media and consumerist society, and the list goes on... 

Which brings us onto my most hated period in the history of art: Conceptual art. 

I’m not going to go big into this period, which is still around today (unfortunately), but all you need to know is this twat Marcel Duchamp flipped a urinal (which he didn’t even make himself) upside down and called it a ‘fountain’ and shoved it into a gallery and thus art that has no value beyond it being ‘concept based’ was born. And yes, yes I hate it a lot (I’m not even trying to be objective about this, I hate conceptual art with a burning passion... some guy put some sh*t in a box and put it in a gallery & called it art and I am SO mad about it lol...). And as much as I hate this period, what it does signify is how art began to be valued not through the craftsmanship of the work itself, but instead the ideas. 

And this idea remains today. Damien Hirst has forged his entire art identity on creating works that are based entirely on some ‘meaning’ that could be forced onto it, rather than the aesthetic or material value. And as mentioned before, Tracey Emin’s infamous bed isn’t about the work and effort gone into the piece itself, but instead about what the artists intends for the piece to ‘mean’. So, the ‘value’ of the work is what it says, and not what it is, essentially. 

(This is not to say that there are no artists who work today that get featured in galleries and are highly skilled at their craft. The one that springs to mind is Grayson Perry, who’s well known for his pottery and tapestries with some kind of social commentary bled into them.)

This ideology around art also bleeds into online spaces of art (which I see as distinctly separate from the world of art galleries and the Turner prize). I still see artists, and non-artists, talking about how much they enjoy work that is ‘original’, and oftentimes ridiculing and demoting ‘fanart’ as purely ‘derivative’ or ‘unoriginal’. 

And all this brings us back to history paintings. Because their ‘value’ wasn’t just in the immense amount of skill that went into them. A large part of their ‘value’ was that artists and non-artists alike saw them as feats of the artist’s ‘genius’ or ‘imagination’ at play. And in the same way that Early Medieval art was valued for the symbology of the piece rather than the representation, history paintings had the benefit of including both elements. In essence, they were both meaningful AND beautiful. 

In conclusion (just to remind you that this is technically an essay lol), a lot about art HAS definitely changed in the last few hundred years, particularly in what kinds of art is getting made now (and why we make art in the first place). However, what we as a collective society ‘value’ as art has remained surprisingly the same, often with a heavy preference for a work’s meaning and symbology, which can sometimes overshadow the craftsmanship of the work itself. 

I still hate that godforsaken Duchamp toilet though...

(images used:

unknown medieval painting (I just liked that he had his hand down mary’s dress lool)

mona lisa by da vinky 

detail of the creation of adam on the sistine chapel by michelangelo

a photograph by louis daguerre, often known as the father of photography

*clenches fist* ‘fountain’ by marcel duchamp

‘my bed’ by tracey emin )

I hope you enjoyed this informal essay about art, I will definitely be doing more of these in the future! If you have any thoughts on this, feel free to reply to this or message me, etc! I love having open and frank conversations about art! 

[shinahbee]

Premonition of future events

Hello!

so I wasn’t going to post anything this week since i’m currently working on something for next week, but this has something to do with what I’m planning to post next week so i thought I would share my thoughts.

so as you may be aware if you have read my monthly favorites posts for a while that I have been delving into BL- yaoi manhwa/manga and have been recommending some in those favorites. one of which I have not discussed yet, mainly because I have been saving it for Feb favorites so look forward to that when it comes out!

and I have been following some of the manhwa creators twitter just to see upcoming projects and updates on the current manhwa I am reading, I follow the creator of this manhwa called “ pearl boy” on twitter and she drew something today that really interested me and I decided to break down the symbolism within the art piece. If you have not read this manhwa, none of this will make any sense to you, but i’ll explain it in detail next week when I finish my art.

I love symbolism and foreshadowing within a story and this picture she drew is just that, given the events leading up to this point and I really wanted to take this apart and see what I can come up with.

if you have read this than please bare with me, these are my thoughts only and how i interpret the art from the creator and has nothing to do with how she portrayed her art work, so just a disclaimer. I'm just doing this for fun.

i’ll link her twitter post here: 

https://twitter.com/inking_zoy/status/1363278273476579329

 and i’ll post the picture here, this is from her twitter so all rights belong to inking_zoy, the author/ artist of pearl boy

like i mentioned above, if you have not read the story then this will not make sense to any of you,but basically the guy in the left is named doshik, the guy in the middle is thier boss...i forgot his name..they both call him boss so we will keep it a that, the guy on the right is named Juha, so i’ll refer to them with these names. It is a little hard interpret this picture without knowing details about the story which is still not revealed yet, we see glimpses of the events through juha’s flash backs, so before that, the story starts off with doshik apparently running away from people looking for him cause he stole someones money and fled to the country side, he ended up having spent all his money and didn't even have any to buy food, he then stumbled across a seafood hot pot place and wanted to try eating and running, there in the shop was the owner “ boss” and juha who is working as a server and cook. the boss noticed him being weird and told juha to keep an eye on doshik cause he might bail from paying for his food, and that honestly was going to happen until juha confronted him and asked to payback with labor, it wasn't addressed as to what doshik did as a living before fleding to the country side but he did work at pub so i believe he was a host / sex worker or just a host that does sexual favors, so when juha told him to pay back the money he owed with his “ body” he thought he meant sex. There was a series of events both very terrible and unfortunate to serendipitous that happened between juha and dooshik in their entanglement with each other and with the “ boss “ as well. 

so it goes Boss ----> sexual abuse juha by making him work as a sex toy for old ugly bastards -----> juha has ability to produce pearls from his body...guess how. lol. i’m sorry this seems so absurd, but it is how the story goes, which the boss monopolizes him -----> juha can’t run away because he is scared and owes boss money ----> juha was about to be assaulted by the ugly bastards ---> doshik shows up and saves him a couple times and ends up working at the shop as a co worker---->  juha and doshik get to know each other after doshik saves him a couple times -----> juha asks doshik to have sex with him ( in order to produce pearls for debt payment) ----> doshik discovers juha’s ability but thought it was beads coming out of his body...LOL. he actually thought he had kidney stones and was genuinely concerned ----->  doshik had a pearl that he found at the beach earlier on and used it to compare to the bead that came out of juha and found out it as an actual pearl after getting it appraised by the bank person ----> juha met up with doshik and wanted to tell him he wanted to be sex partners cause he liked doing it with him ----> juha and boss confront each other and boss is angry he didn't show up meet his business partners that night that juha and doshik were together -----> juha says that he’s only going to pay it off by himself with his one partner, he didn't tell boss it was doshik, but i think he found out later. 

alright that seems good enough as to where we are right now, i hope my summary made sense for the most part. Now getting back to the drawing let’s take it apart, so there is a body of water that divides juha and doshik, with the boss being in the middle. The boss is holding juha tight and some people may interpret this as him having feelings for juha. I don’t think that is the case, the reason why i believe he is holding him and not letting go is because he wants to monopolize him for his self gain, not for the sake of feelings, but to make sure that he is the only person he will be able to turn to.  juha can produce pearls and he owes him money and he is using that to gain profit, that’s honestly all i see since his interactions with people strictly revolves around business deals, so once he found out that doshik might know of juha’s ability he began to come up with ways to remove them from each other, because he thinks if doshik knows the money that can come from the pearls he will use it to profit himself.

of course us as readers knows doshik is not like that and that he genuinely cares for juha. so Juha is separated by the boss holding on to him and it is symbolic to the events of his past being forced into a situation he can’t get out of. if you have watched any anime or drama , there is usually a scene where a person drowns, what do you think  happens then when you drown? the obvious, you can’t breathe, you get light headed, your consciousnesses slips away, you feel cold, your surrounded by nothing but silence and darkness the deeper you sink. The boss is like a rock pushing juha further down the abyss and drowning him essentially, he made a comment in the newest chapter saying that “ you can never get away from me no matter how hard you try”. which says a lot about his obsession towards juha. This probably made juha feel like he will always be alone and everything he did will always be hopeless. 🤬

But as we all know there’s always a person who comes and rescues a drowning person at the last second before they become unconscious, which is why in the drawing juha is not completely submerged in water and his face is still on the surface of the water. And as we see doshik is on the other side of that division and is symbolic of life and living, where as when you drown only death awaits you. Doshik is also affectionately kissing and holding juha’s hand as if to say “ i’m here for you, we will get through this together” and is the only thing that is keeping juha from letting everything go and drown in his situation. This can also be interpreted as doshik giving air to juha as well which makes sense in the context of drowning. You can also use light and darkness as symbolism to this piece as well, the light being the surface and doshik who appears on the other side and in contrast the boss being in darkness beneath the water. Need less to say there’s so much symbolism in this one picture and it made me want write how i interpret this from what i’ve read so far and how it relates to how this is portrayed. I also find it ironic that in the early chapters doshik did actually almost drown and it was juha that chased after him and got him out when he fell unconscious in the water...and this picture here makes me believe that doshik will in turn save juha from drowning in his sorrows in the upcoming continuation of the story.

well that’s all that I wanted to say, I hope what I wrote made sense and that you understood for the most part why i believe this is a premonition of whats to come. Most people who don’t know this story will just think its a picture of three dudes having a threesome and that is not it.lol. I’m curious as to how other people interpret this, i’ve read one so far and she had a similar analogy to how i interpreted the art, so i guess i’m not too far off. 

hopefully you all enjoyed reading this, it was fun for me, since I’m currently bleeding out of my ass and procrastinating doing other things and a little pissy from having certain stupid memes flooding my Instagram.  I hope you all are interested in reading pearl boy after this if you have not...obviously be over the age of 18 since it does deal with mature themes!

hope you enjoyed reading! give this a like if you want to see my fan art for this series next week!

see you all then.

sheena

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social media:

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Deviantart: she-be.deviantart.com

Instagram: shinb_art

Tumblr: shinahbee

[dhampirbf]

just finished off my first issue of the new killjoys series, national anthem, here are my thoughts

‼️ spoiler warning lol‼️

instantly dragged me head-fucking-first back into my mcr phase from three years ago. i am ruined. there is SO MUCH i immediately love about this series, from the incredible, poem-esce beginning to the incredible retro art style. the characters are just perfect - on the same wavelength as the others we know and love from previous iterations of kayjay media. mike milligram is edgier than i expected, which is just perfect, because i always felt poison and the gang were a bit too cheery for being stuck in a post-apocalyptic hellscape after surviving a massive war.

as for the plot? amazing. the writing is just as stunning as it was for TTLOTFK and national anthem immediately leaps into the story without delay. the dialogue fits the aesthetic of what we know about the kayjay universe perfectly and the story gives us more insight to what came before the analog wars and what life was like right after. maybe it’s just my interpretation (and of course this is just the first issue), but id love more about what the wars were ACTUALLY like, what it was like to fight in them. i still can’t figure out who exactly the enemy was because BLI and the weird, unseen but ever-present, unnamed oppressor are still in existence after the wars. might just be me, so if anyone knows where to find more on that, hmu. but honestly while reading it, i don’t care about the pieces im missing. it’s THAT good on its own.

the first issue opens with mike bleeding out, which deeply upset me because i do not like to see my favorite characters die, but it was done in such a beautiful way. we get to see how useless he feels - how he’s literally been tossed aside like the garbage he thinks he is - and then our story begins.

we meet the rest of the original fabulous killjoys (i imagine this is a prequel to party poison and the other comic, in my mind poison and val are “generations” following mike) and BOY, they’re incredible. the codes, red and blue, are (i assume) beta versions of the red and blue we see in TTLOTFK. kyle 100%, whose name we don’t learn in the first issue, is pretty reminiscent of kobra but maybe it’s just cuz he’s blond and rollin’ with mike. his design is very new and i totally dig it. animax is probably my favorite of this crew, though. he’s very much new and his design ROCKS. a color changing suit?? for real??? amazing. animax strikes me as the dad friend of the group (he tries to calm down blue and mike at the playground scene with the a.k.as)

SPEAKING of the a.k.as.... holy fuck. adore them. all of them are SO COOL and offer totally new insight to what it might have been like to crawl around in the zones right after the analog wars. so many new faces! new concepts! new headcanons! once again, im in love with their designs and concepts (god bless shaun simon and gerard) and it’s times like these that i wish i was a more talented artist.

another thing i really enjoyed is that the identity of some of the killjoys is more revealed and accessible. blue is called maria right before her (sobbing) death in mike’s arms and we see about halfway through that mike was a grocery store clerk. i’ve seen that red’s name is sophia in some official character design sheets, but we haven’t heard her name in the book yet. but to know that these were normal, real people in the world we live in gives the story a different, heavier context. these characters had their lives uprooted and torn to bits by a war they had to fight in. no wonder mike is so miserable and “screwed up”.

national anthem also immediately touches on trauma more than once and, in my interpretation of the underlying message, points out how trauma is an important tool in shaping who we are as individuals. the pretty subtle thing about the pill marketed to treat the affects of trauma is something that really fascinated me. how the antagonist of this series markets a pill that treats trauma but the side effects essentially make a person lose themselves, navigating life like a zombie.

i also loved the subtle callbacks to the original kayjay universe we know and love, with an appearance of tommy chow mein and a reference to the phoenix witch. however, ive got some criticisms.

first, was not a fan of the romance subplot between blue and mike. blue (and red, for that matter) are characters we know to be lesbians and i really don’t think that should be muddled with. even if blue is bisexual, even polyamorus, and has romantic connections to both mike and red, id personally rather have her stay with red exclusively. maybe it’s just my heterophobia /j but im not a fan. apparently she was even pregnant with mike’s child before she died? ehh.

second, and this is probably just because it’s the first issue, but i feel like there are a lot of questions unanswered. is this an AU or the same universe as TTLOTFK? if it’s the same, what is the timeline for mike milligram and party poison? do they exist at the same time or is party poison inspired by mike, who came before him? or do they exist completely separate? i hope i get these questions answered.

honestly, i may write up something of a review for each issue i read (i have three). it helps me remember what i read, anyway. kinda like an english essay. but overall, i really love this series and this universe. i kinda fell out of kayjays for a few reasons, but a lack of content was definitely one of them. i never thought i’d see killjoys media again and then gerard goes and presents us with this amazing series with new characters and a new story to delve into and it ROCKS.

[caden]

To be clear, again, Joe Exotic abused his animals, he abused his workers, and he abused the romantic partners that he’d coerced into marrying him. He is garbage, and morally speaking, the people who said “hey we should make a show about this guy” are also already on thin ice. Finding out that he’s a big racist and that the editors cut that out of the show intentionally also sucks shit, but it shouldn’t really change anyone’s opinion of the people involved. They crossed the threshold of being shitty long ago.

From my perspective, these are all valid things to examine when analyzing the show critically. However, they aren’t reasons to just write off a critical analysis althogether. We’re allowed have interesting discussions about what the art is saying and how it affected us— I think people are even allowed to praise the show, if you want to put it sheerly in terms of “is this piece of media good or bad”. Praising the show still does not equate to praising the people involved. That just isn’t how media criticism works. If you force yourselves to consume art in such an essentialist way, the vast majority of interesting art will suddenly become unavailable to you.

However, that also isn’t a reason to shut down criticisms of the people involved, or pretend they don’t matter at all. Separating the art from the artist doesn’t mean that the artist is immune to criticism— IMO, it’s the opposite. It is the thing that enables us to enjoy a piece of media without ignoring the ways that its creators may be total douchebags. If we treated the content of the artist’s character as the sole way of valuing their art, we would have to love all art made by good people, and hate all art made by bad people. That just doesn’t seem like a sustainable way of producing or consuming art. I think my point is maybe best encapsulate by something someone else said, which is “If we really separated art from artist, people like Woody Allen and Roman Polanski would be in prison”. That’s exactly it. Viewing the creator and the creation as inextricably linked is an essential part of the toxic deification of “the auteur”. This type of celebrity worship is exactly what allows them to get away with abuse of power.

So saying “Marriage Story is heavily based on Noah Baumbach’s own shitty actions!” or “Everyone involved in Tiger King is terrible!” is valuable in terms of social justice and accountability, and even valuable information to have when analyzing the meaning of a work, but not in any way the be-all-end-all when it comes to actually critiquing the art itself.

[leavemeuntold]

thank you to @yadomik for tagging me, i love doing these! <3

1. Do you believe in destiny? definitely

2. Do you still remember your first childhood friend? yes, and i still see her around cause we live in a very small town

3. What does the word soulmate mean to you? a soulmate is someone who understands me on a level no one else can and essentially someone whose soul is connected to mine, that’s what i believe, at least

4. Do you think the artist/writer etc. should and can be separated from their work? i think this is quite a hard thing to do considering that an artist’s work comes from what they believe in (especially in writing) but then again, so many people, including myself, have managed to do this with harry potter and j.k. rowling

5. Have you ever seen the ocean? yes and i am missing it very much at the moment

6. Do you have a fictional character that you can relate a lot too? for sure, harry potter and also eva brighi from skam italia

7. Favorite social media page? tumblr 

8. What was the last dream you can remember? i hate having dreams and i hate talking about them so i’m just gonna have to skip this one i think

9. Guinea pigs, Rabbits or Hamsters? rabbits

10. Are you scared of the future? yes, especially now that i’m having to choose a college to go to and my life’s kinda turning around

and now for my own questions:

1. What is a book/movie/tv show the plot of which you wish you could forget so that you can experience it for the first time again?

2. Do you enjoy fashion/dressing up?

3. Who is your favourite person?

4. Are you a maths, science, art or language person?

5. Which languages do you speak and what is your favourite one (in general)?

6. Do you wish you were born somewhere else?

7. Assuming you believe in soulmates, do you think you have found yours?

8. What is your favourite activity to do by yourself?

9. Would you rather travel to the past or the future?

10. Is there a food you think you could never get sick of?

i tag @we-can-work-it-outt @hedgehogethesinner666 @grumpipeach (feel totally free to ignore this if you don’t feel like doing it)

[kylejourney]

Coping Skills Tips

Hello world I am strongly recommended coloring! You probably think it is stupid or lame. Whatever your opinion is I am strong recommended coloring. You probably wonder why because it is one of coping skills! It helps relax stress and help with boredom! I am glad I started again because I had stress relaxation and times goes fast so I do not get bored. It will benefit you a lot! Think about it you can give coloring papers to your family or friends. I do color pages in paper protectors in the binder to give my family members for Christmas. It cheaper honest but it is good present!! I enjoyed coloring. When you have anxiety or stress you should try coloring. If you find that is not helping you do not worry, I can recommend other coping skills. I suggest you write down on the list or cards of what coping skills. Also, I suggest you do with coping thoughts too. I do the index cards with the ring so I can look at them any time I needed to.

Ok I am also strongly recommended journaling if you love to write why not write in the journal? I am suggesting you have separated journals one for personal and one for your counselor. If you are in counseling, it helps your counselor understand more. You do not have to tell them anything that why you should have separated ones. I do that so my counselor understand me better. If you do better express in writing, then you should do it. If writing is not your thing then you can make a video of yourself then show to your counselor. I tried that but I did not like it.

Stress toys or stress balls. You can take it any time to work, driving, school, and any places. It easy to carry and can be in your pocket. Just try find one that do not do annoying noises. When I had fidget toy in class trip people who made a speech can hear it. So, I was bothering them. I think most hospital have them just try to ask!

Aroma therapy you buy the light. You pour a little water in it and do two drops of essential oils. Yeah then you need to turn it on too. Lavender is good for anxiety and pain. It is most popular people use. Try not get some essential that not good for cats and dogs. They have some essential oils that not good for dogs and cats. So, you should look it up online or borrow library book. Also, you can buy the bracelet if you do not want buy light. You do two drops on your bracelet and it get smell. If it gives you strong headache do not do it next time or use different essential oils. There some essential oils rolls for pain like headache. You can look it up more about that. Just try not near to cats and dogs.

Blogging! If you have a lot of ideas or stories why not share it? What about write a short book? Maybe write a poem? Maybe make up a joke? Being creative is fun! If you struggle with English like I do you should try do English workbook. Start with level 1 if needed. It is not harmed to teach yourself English! Amazon has these English workbooks. Also, you can google ideas but do not steal people’s ideas. So be creative! What about write a letter or write a email?

Play with bubbles! If its nice day I suggested, you play with bubbles. It is fun to me! You can get bubbles wand or whatever. You do not have to blow bubble wands but if you get to blow bubbles try deep breath slowly and blow. Try not breathing fast because when I do it will not blow. So, try slowing it down. Why not become a bubble artist?

Workout or move around. I suggest when you are stressed move around or workout. It helps you make feel good. Even if you are depressed too. You can even sit and move your arms and legs. There much yoga on YouTube you can try. If possible, you can go to swim and do exercise because it is low impact. Walking should help too. If you have watch or Fitbit, you can track your steps but not be hard on yourself if you do not do a lot of steps. You can dance around randomly like no one watching. It is silly but fun. Join in sports if possible.

Doodling, sketching, painting, etc. If you are a talented artist why not sell your stuff or share your ideas? My friend has her art page where she sells art things. What about set up account about your art? If you cannot draw just start and learn!

Deep breathing! There some different ways to deep breathing like star and 4-7-8. Your counselor can help with that or you can learn yourself from the app. Try think about how you breathe not other stuff in your head. Focus how deep breathe you do and find a place that people cannot bother you. You should find comfortable place like on couch or floor. I saw the school once had place for stressed person to do deep breath. It hard to start but you will get it. You do not always have to close your eyes. Even if at school or work you feel stressed take a moment deep breathe. Be careful when you are driving!

 Talk to your close friends or family. When you feel need someone talk to. I suggest you find right person for that. I am thankful I have some support people you should try find one too. If they will not listen, you or not support you then they are not for you. Call the crisis line if you do not have someone talk to and you feel like want to hurt yourself or kill yourself. Like I said writing in journal also helps.

Make videos or take pictures. If you want to be a model or actor. Start practicing and small steps help. You can ask people for their advice. Follow people on social media. You can look up more about that I do not know much about that. But making YouTube channel is good step too.

Take a bath or shower. When you are depressed and do not shower or bath for few days. Do it and you will feel a little better. You will find yourself cleaner and fresher which is good thing! Maybe people said, “Ooh you smell so good!” Also, you should brush your teeth daily you do not want to have cavity trust me. When you have teeth pain it hurt like hell. The cheek gets swollen and ear hurts too. Try not eating too much candy because it delays your teeth from the chemical. I strong suggest you brush your teeth twice daily and floss!

Do whatever coping skills that help you. If you find whatever coping skill help you should do it, but smoking, drugging, drinking, and binge eating are bad coping skills. If you find good coping skills, then that is good! I made many coping skills tips and if you are in counseling and struggling. That is okay because it almost takes me almost two years to do coping skills better. It will happen for you too. You will depend on coping skills better. Also, I will explain about promise and motivated. If you want do workout today you promise yourself, you will do it. That is means you do it because you promised. Then you will feel better.  So, if you depend on motivated you may not do it and you may feel not good. If you broke promise with yourself just forgive yourself and move on. Try do more promise than depend on motivated.

I hope it helps and you enjoy reading it! 😊

[baconpal]

pokemon isn’t for us anymore

ya that’s right it’s time for a daytime juvenile rant cus i’m angry and finally think i can put my thoughts to words, 

if you like the new pokemon then this isn’t really for you, cus pokemon is still for you. enjoy it while you can. otherwise click that read more

i’ll start by making my opinion and background immediately clear, so you have something to compare to and such. I loved Pokemon as a child, and for a long while afterward. I think the series’ highest moment was black and white in terms of art and story, and the gameplay was at its best in black and white 2. Gen 5 is also the gen where I have the most competitive experience. 

And my opinion is that every single thing that’s been shown of pokemon sword and shield is really, really bad. Not even as a hyperbolic statement of “wow i hate new thing!” but as a fan who wants nothing but for the series to realize its potential, not one thing they’ve done has made feel anything besides disgust and disappointment. But this is not a normal thing, this isn’t what everyone thinks, i’m not preaching to the choir by saying i hate sword and shield. I’m the contrarian, i’m the one whose saying shit nobody agrees with, and I’m the voice who will be ignored. And that’s because pokemon is no longer being made with someone like me in mind. 

The question then becomes, what is pokemon now? What did it used to be? What should it be?

POKEMON AS A BRAND

Pokemon today is not a game series. It’s a brand, a franchise, something that has weight simply by existing. Of course pokemon has been more than just games for forever, the shows, the toys, the side games, everything about it is marketable and marketed. But the main line games were separate from that to an extent. They were the new bits of source material thrown out into the world without concern for how it would all fit together. A video game was made first, and was then marketed to whoever would buy in whatever form hey wanted.

Today pokemon games themselves are a tailored product. People of today don’t care about the actual video game, many wont play it, and many won’t even realize when it comes out, but gamefreak doesn’t need the game itself to sell (though it will), they just want everyone on earth to know about pokemon and to be excited about it, it’s advertising for their brand. As long as people know pokemon exists and is out there, it will make money. 

So instead of holding their cards and releasing a video game to let people mess around in, the entire game is drip fed to us on social media before it’s even out. The days of korokoro leaks and blurry photos of pokemon are over, the discussion of what they might be or do is over, and a joy in the exploration of the unknown is gone. Instead, a trailer will be split up in to a chain of individual tweets, all tailored to be as easily digestible as possible. Videos or photos that require seconds of attention, and descriptions of characters and pokemon that make it easy to form a shallow attachment, enough to repost it and say “oh that’s so me” or “love this kind of character”, and that’s free advertisement. the kinds of people who live on social medias will translate genuine advertisements into a form of speak their friends will appreciate and thus engage with the advertisements further. The job is done and pokemon is making more money than ever. 

POKEMONS ART DIRECTION

Again, something many disagree with, the art is fucking awful in the new games. But that’s because its not art meant to impress me, an artist with his own design sense and standard of quality, the art only needs to be serviceable, enough for someone who can’t draw to appreciate. The standard of what will be accepted is never actually very high, but pokemon no longer makes any effort to exceed passable. Fanartists will be essentially forced to draw better versions of all their characters since pokemon is once again the hot new thing, so the actual quality of the original art will not be reflected in peoples perception. The model quality as also awful, every design manages to look even worse in motion and in game. But since the goal is not to make an enjoyable game, this is again not a problem. 

POKEMONS SETTING

This extends to the clothing the characters wear as well, but pokemon no longer is its own universe. It is doing all it can to act as if it takes place in the real world, and making the clothing its characters wear bastardized versions of modern aesthetics, instead of the unique and simple sudo-sporty aesthetic the other games had, where clothing was cohesive and sleek, looked fit for various kinds of weather, and seemed generally comfortable. The new gym leaders for example, wear horribly messing and unneeded sportswear based mostly on real life soccer clothing, but without any of the benefits, as they are also loaded with unneeded accessories that go in direct contrast to what they’re supposedly doing. Nessa is the worst offender to me (and what do you know she’s the most popular), compared to misty’s attempt at being part time swimmer part time trainer, nessa looks absolutely ridiculous, and not prepared to do either swimming or pokemon battles. She wears a swimsuit, but not an actual swimmer’s suit, and she’s covered in jewelry, accessories, makeup; things that would ruin any attempt to go swimming even casually. And yet she doesn’t look like she could comfortably go on an adventure or catch and raise pokemon. She is a bland aesthetic mess of what people want a cute swimmer girl to be.

Custom trainers are a whole different problem in that no game with custom characters actually has good ones. The best result you can have is funny looking characters, which is actually a pretty good goal, but gamefreak still wants everything to be samey and appeal to broad aesthetics so people can post their own characters and share some feeling of attachment. 

POKEMON THE VIDEO GAME

the quality of sword and shield from a technical standpoint is clearly very low, and this is one of the few things people have been willing to call out. The model quality hasn’t improved, the animations are sparse and bad. The wild areas are a mess and run terribly, the game crashed trying to handle multiplayer bosses live on stream. The national dex has been removed for literally no reason. The gyms have been completely gutted and reduced to just the fights (which are still nothing but bland checks for type advantage) and the new gimmick is just “make your guy strong” and is obviously best used in response to the opponent using it. the pokemon wonder around the open area and yet wild grass is still there, there’s no option to approach pokemon peacefully and capture like in let’s go, so even the few out there things they’ve tried aren’t going to be used in any meaningful way. But repeat after me, the game doesn’t matter! As far as gamefreak is concerned, the game could crash 40 minutes in and they would have done all they needed to do.

THE GOAL IN POKEMON

so i’ll end this stupid rant with something the new pokemon games don’t have, even the ones I really like don’t have em. Multiple goals to achieve, multiple ways to approach the game. Even the originals didn’t truly have multiple ways to play, but they started you off by presenting you multiple goals, which were tangled together to start but by the end of the game would become 2 very seperate things, becoming champion and completing the pokedex. Johto did it best, to complete one goal, you had to make a pretty good chunk of progress on the other, it was impossible to not “beat the game” if you actually wanted to accomplish either goal, but after that you were free to tie up whatever goals you had left. It was primitive and mostly meaningless, but it was there. The shows and the manga also put a lot of emphasis on the fact that every trainer can do something different, and their own ultimate goal is completely different from everyone else. 

The closest the games come now to this idea is having your rivals go off and do something else other than fight the elite 4. Some of them aren’t even actual rivals and just like pokemon, like lyra from HG/SS. But there is no pokemon game in which you, the player, are presented a goal other than to beat the game, winning the elite 4 and defeating some evil plot along the way.

For me, an ideal pokemon game would be about giving complete freedom, start off with some explanations of what all the possible goals are, completing the dex, becoming champion, winning all the contests, defeating the evil organization, exploring the world, anything. And once the player gets an idea of what they want to do, they’re set free into a world where they can find pokemon and do whatever they want, working towards whatever goal they want. Other aspects will naturally come into play, battling pokemon and making them stronger would help you catch more pokemon, learn moves for contests, explore more dangerous areas, beat stronger trainers. So no matter what goal you have, you’d still interact with many of the systems and areas in the game, and make progress on all goals at the same time, but ultimately feel satisfied when you accomplish your own, personal goals, instead of following the straight line gamefreak set for you.

Obviously that sort of thing will never happen. That’s just what I think pokemon has the potential to become, but pokemon isn’t made for me, anymore.

Thank you for reading.

[rasoir-national]

Horror and format use

 @ghostplantss I don't know anything abt podcasts or horror and i'm curious what you think?

Right, so it took me a couple of days to figure out how I wanted to answer that, and it turns out I really want to talk about Horror and use of medium so I’m going to ramble about that.

So. I. Love. Horror. Note that I say horror and not “the horror genre” because while you can consider that horror has become a solidified genre, my interests go deeper than that. I think I’ve mentioned my mother is a psychiatrist, and so I grew up hearing the concepts of “ego”, “perversion” and such thrown around, but there’s one in particular that always fascinated me : the Id.

If you don’t know, according to Freud’s theorization of the human psyche, it can be fragmented in 3 parts : the “ego”, that’s to say, the conscious self, the “superego”, the learned (social) restrictions imposed upon one self, and the Id. The Id, or “subconscious self” is sort of the primal self made entirely of pulsions, both “good” and “bad” according to social standards, but absolutely unpoliced by them. There are two essential pulsions, “pulsion of life” and “pulsion of death”, that tug and warp around each other, forming both the basis of our survival instinct, and our primal penchant for annihilation (of the self and others). Unconscious desires, latent fears, dreams and nightmares, “appel du vide” as we say in french for the sudden inexplicable desire you can feel atop a cliff to jump, all these stem from the Id. I know Freud gets a bad rap nowadays, and his own application of his theories have been completely invalidated by modern psychoanalysis, but he was the first person to say that it was okay to have those pulsions, that they didn’t make you “wrong” or a bad person. And what’s more, they didn’t even define you. He was the first to put in theory the idea that there’s a part of us we aren’t entirely in control of, that we don’t entirely understand.

Why am I saying all this ? Well, I think everything we think of as “horror” ultimately comes down to this very idea : there is something within us that we do not understand. And I’m fascinated by that. I’m fascinated by the unknown, the unsaid, the inexplicable, the dark side of the moon, whatever you want to call it. I’m fascinated by both our fear and our desire to understand it. And what good horror does, is allow us to explore this “something” and our relation to it through metaphor, storytelling and catharsis.

From childhood, we are bathed in horrific stories. It’s common knowledge nowadays that fairytales are a way to allow children to confront their deepest fears and desires in a safe, metaphorical manner, and “exorcise” them in order to learn social constructs and become a functioning adult. But I think we never stop craving that feeling, the confrontation with the inexplicable in a manner safe enough for us to enjoy.

That’s why I love horror. More precisely, that’s why I love every form of horror. I think any art medium can be defined by two things : what it can do and what it cannot do. A book can put words onto a feeling, but it cannot picture that feeling. A melody can convey emotions through sound, but not words. We can talk and draw pictures about both, but the medium itself is limited to the very tools that make it what it is. Or, to put it another way : for every medium, there is something it cannot fully express. Does that remind you of anything ?

Horror is, I think, the most interesting way to study the differences between forms of media, precisely because it relies so much on what cannot be explained, what attracts us, what we fear, the very limits of our ability to comprehend the world and ourselves. Take movies, one the most multimedia form of storytelling : what makes a good horror movie ? If you’ve ever seen any, you know the fear doesn’t come from what you can see or describe but from what you cannot. There’s this common wisdom that whatever you can put onscreen, it will never be as scary as what the audience can imagine, or rather, fail to imagine. The unknown is more potent than the known.

So horror movies are great, and if you want I’ll make a list of my favourites on occasion. But what if we now take a medium that’s more constricted than movies are ? Now you have to work with the fact that something you could show, or describe, or put into music, or all three, onscreen, can now only be some of those things. In Art, I think we don’t give enough credit to the creative benefits of limitations : if I can’t draw something, I’m going to have to work extra hard to get you to picture it without images. The more you are not allowed to do things, the more you’re going to invent new ways to convey what you mean.

And that can go for limitations we don’t even think about. Take one of my favourite examples, comics and manga. What makes them different from movies ? They have no sound, but also, instead of an image moving into the next on its own, it’s the reader who’s in control of when or if they turn the page. That factor, the “page turn”, is a limitation, but that’s also something that’s unique to comics ; in written books, the effect is not the same, as we cannot process a page of written text as fast as we can an image on a page. And some artists have used that limitation to enhance the effect they were going for. The master of the horror manga, Junji Ito, is I think best known for his page turners. In horror especially, you have to deal with the fact that some images alone are capable of disturbing and shocking you. In movies, there images come to you, for example in the form of a jump scare. But in comics... You’re the one theoretically in control of the page. You can close the book. You can especially close it if you know, thanks to codes of storytelling, that on the next page is something quite horrific. But if the book is good... ? You’ll have to turn the page, because you have to know. The author puts you in control of the images you’ll see, then puts you in the situation where you willingly choose to scare and shock yourself. That’s taking a limitation, and turning it into a way to enhance the effect you’re going for.

So this brings us to podcasts, and the sort of horror revival they brought. Horror has a long history with the ancestor of the medium, the radio, for obvious reasons. If we again define a podcast via its limitations, what do we get ? This is a medium without pictures, only spoken words and sounds, and it’s an episodic medium. So what you have to work with are voices, music, sound, and, equally important, the fact that you’re in control of how much you give your listeners every time, and how much time there is between what you give. All of these are considerable assets if your goal is horror.

Take Welcome to Night Vale. Its shtick is pretty simple if you break it down, and is two-faced. First, it is, in-universe, a radio program, and second, it cannot be pictured. Let’s start with the second part : the genius of Welcome to Night, and what I think every story should aspire to, is that it couldn’t be told better in another format. The characters and stories in Night Vale cannot be pictured. They can only be described. Sure, you can make fanart, but “the glow cloud” will never be better represented than it can be described. You can draw “the faceless old woman that secretely lives in your home”, but it won’t ever truly be the faceless old woman that truly lives in your home. This is horror that’s entirely reliant on the non-superposition of words and representation : our language can express things that cannot be pictured. And if you think about it, that’s incredibly scary. The second part of the schtick is the magical realism aspect of the podcast, as in, the apparent normality with which all these “abnormal” things are described in the context of a radio program, creating for the listener a warped sense of perception : what are you supposed to fear ? When should you be afraid ? I should make a separate post of magical realism, remind me someday.

As for the Magnus Archives, I’ve now listened to the first season in its entirety so I have more of a grasp on it. I had a bit of a problem with the first season, which was that it had one foot in magical realism, and the other in the fantastical, two genres that are pretty much the opposite of one another, without really seeming to decide where it wanted to stand. It’s got more of a footing now, for reasons I won’t discuss in order not to spoil you. But one of the elements I like about it is its use of multiple layers of storytelling. The shtick of TMA is the fact that statements containing short horror stories are being audiorecorded by a professional archivist for research purposes on some old tapes. As the story develop, we learn more about their place of employment, their colleagues, and what might more largely be going on. Again, we take a limitation of the medium : you can’t tell when what you’re listening to has been recorded or if what has been recorded is all that happened. And you use this element of ignorance to play with your audience : when has the story you’re listening to been written ? When did it happen ? When is it recorded ? What happened in the meantime ? If the person who wrote it and the person who records it have different points of view, how does this come into play ? What else might be recorded onto the tapes ? As I said, I’m only a fourth of the way caught up right now, but I can already see them making use of all those elements.

So yeah, hopefully this gives you an idea of the way I enjoy horror, and gives you more of an appreciation for it yourself. Some actual recs if you want to get started while I’m at it :

- The Night of the Hunter (1955 movie) : not “technically a horror movie”, but absolutely a horrific one in its use of black and white

- The soundtrack to Suspiria (1977 movie) by the band Goblins : I adore the film, but listening to the soundtrack on its own is also an interesting experience

- The Silent Hill game series (especially Silent Hill 2 and 3) : video games is, I think, the most multimedia format, and taking into account the fact the player is in control of the character, makes for some of the most creative horror ever

- The Haunting of Hill House series : tons of things have been said about it, I’d say look at the way it uses framing and editing

- Francis Bacon’s paintings : a huge inspiration for the Silent hill series, probably the best example for horror that can be represented but not described

- Junji Ito’s Uzumaki : the masterpiece of horror mangas ; pay attention to the weight of a page turn

- Emily Carroll’s Through the woods : fantastic horror comic that uses the fairytale format

- Sarah Waters’ Let the right one in : one of my favourite horror novels, pay attention to the use of narration and subjectivity

Aight, I think that’s enough rambling for me. Hope I’ve answered your curiosity !

[saintmachina]

Do you have any resources or book recommendations for someone who is attempting to "brand" or market themselves effectively? You do it so well and effortlessly, and I've never been comfortable or good at it.

Hello! Thanks for saying that; I’ve worked really hard and long to get to a point where I feel like I present myself well, and while I still have plenty of growing up to do, I’m proud of myself. I’m going to repost an answer I gave to a similar ask here that outlines my personal philosophy of branding, particularly on how creators can present themselves on social media!

Cultural Context

Let me start by saying that “personal brand” is a concept that is being pushed hard right now on people, even very young ones. We live in a society where its not only possible but encouraged to curate your online presence into a recognizable essence, often with the unspoken aim of getting people to like and trust you so that someday they can invest in you financially or pick you out of the crowd for a job or project. This is not an inherently bad thing, and can be very fun and useful if leveraged in a healthy way, but it’s easy to fall into the trap of feeling like you need to brand yourself to exist and that you need to live up to the color-coded, curated, narratively unified version of yourself that exists online.

Suggested Reading

Before I continue I want to direct you to two amazing video essays about this issue, Lindsay Ellis’ essay on  the way creators manufacture authenticity, and Natalie Wynn’s Ted Talk on how performing a hyper-stylized versions of different philosophical opinions on her Youtube channel have helped her protect herself from as much harm as possible. They’re both kind of heady but they’ve both been really helpful to me in A.) branding myself and B.) learning to see myself as separate from my “brand”. Let’s continue.

Creator Identity

I am a creator in the age of the internet. To be specific, I am a writer and a poet and occasionally a public theologian. For me, my ~aesthetic~ is yes, a way to express myself, but it’s also the way I let potential readers get to know me, my vibe, and my writing, so that when I announce I have a new book out, they already like and trust me enough to buy it. I hope this doesn’t sound callous; I have a very meaningful intimate relationship with my readers that I see as having spiritual value, but I also know what I’m doing when I post selfies or chat posts that go with the witch-saint-loving aunt thing I have going on here. And I think that people who aren’t trying to connect the right people with what they have to sell, artistically or in terms of services or otherwise, have to worry about branding a lot less.

I’ve been maintaining a social media presence as a writer for almost ten years now, and my brand has become more streamlined as I have grown into myself as an adult woman. I love this woman and respect her enough to know that she may change tastes and change her voice as she ages, and that’s fine too, but one thing that I’ve been moving towards in my mid-twenties is having what I call a “partially opaque” brand.

Opacity

A non-opaque brand is one of total messy off-the-cuff realness with almost no boundaries between creator and fan (Amanda Palmer does this well) and a totally opaque brand is put forward by a person who seems so unified, so separate, so enigmatic, that the lines between creator and fans are quite stark (think Donna Tartt). I used to have pretty much the same aesthetic that I have now but a brand that was almost entirely non-opaque; I posted my feelings and opinions on everything, talked openly about every single update to my religious, mental health, sex, and social life, and was 100% accessible at all times to readers. In an effort to protect my time, energy, privacy, and art as I’ve grown, I’ve learned to have more boundaries, but I still post selfies and life updates (generally with a bit of an ~aesthetic~ veneer but not always) and encourage people to ask me whatever questions they have, because being warm and accessible is important to me. 100% opacity is not right for me because I want to be able to show up at book cons and hug fans and answer life advice asks and be honest about things like burnout or spiritual doubt or personal branding (how’s that for meta). I think if you are a creator on the internet it is very important to decide from the get go how opaque you want your brand to be.

For me, adding more opacity helped me distinguish my own life and value from what people on the internet thought of my work or my opinons, and it helped me to stop giving an excess of energy to places where I wasn’t getting it back. Being a bit more of a mystery at times has opened up space in my life for Sabbath and leisure. It’s also allowed me to gett back in touch with who I am when the lights go down and I am no longer on a virtual stage.

The Fragmented Self

No one out here, not even the most deliriously aesthetic dark academia blogger with a watertight color scheme, is just one thing. When we brand ourselves (and yes it can be a holy act of connection and self-revelation when done right) we bring forward things about ourselves that are important to us and have narrative cohesion, and we present those things in a beautiful way. When I do personal branding for small businesses like Fratres Dei spiritual direction, we do long self-exploratory sessions to determine which facets to bring into the light. But all of us contain multitudes and oftetimes our lives don’t have the sense of narrative cohesion the internet thrives on. Sometimes we can leverage that (I learned early on that there was no hiding my love of the Bible and of esoterica, my heavily religious life and my wildly doubtful faith. They were already so present in my writing that I stopped trying to hide it and Lo and behold I found the right readers) and sometimes we can’t, and that’s okay.

I suggest locking on to the things about yourself that you feel are most essential and have the most vitality. Then, put them into conversation with each other and try to find connections. If there are ones that don’t connect to the others, that’s perfectly fine, but it may not belong in your online personal branding. Maybe that’s a private thing for now to be enjoyed between you and loved ones, to germinate until it can find a place in your public life, or to stay blessedly secret.

My advice? Always leave a part of yourself at the end of the day for yourself. You don’t own this blue hellscape every ounce of you.

Tl;dr A successful brand is an authentic version of yourself, just a little bit more tailored, and part of that success is deciding up front how much of yourself you want to share with others.

[debaucheryandthings]

Fandom, Mental Health, and Jared Padalecki

Hey Tumblr, it’s been several years since I’ve contributed to you other than a reblog here and there. What’s up? Hope you’re well.

I’ve started this post in my head several times, but as it comes to type it out, I don’t know where to start. I was even going to hold off until I could articulate better, but the #SPNFAM’s troubled big brother went and got charged with assault. We’ve all heard it by now, and it’s brought up a lot of repressed feelings on fandom for me. Maybe I should just start with what fandom was to me specifically.

For me (and for a lot, if not most of us) Fandom is/was a place for escapism and community. My fandoms spanned bands, books, movies, and shows like many others. Given my mental health struggles in my late teens/early to mid twenties, I leaned heavily into fandom for escapism and distraction. At first, finding people into the same “weird” stuff I was into and making connections with them was brilliant. Then everywhere I looked fandom politics became more prominent than the media itself and it became toxic and I had to step away. I’m not going to name specific fandoms, but if you care enough, glancing at my tumblr will lay it out pretty clearly.

Now, I do still enjoy media and can occasionally become obsessive like that again when my illness flares up, but I try not to dive in head first. I still go to concerts and live shows for artists I support and am active and admin in a couple fan communities. It’s just not my life anymore.

In the communities I’m still in, there are hundreds of posts and comments about how the artists saved that person. At Q&A’s I’ve been to, there have been several people at each session telling the artists how they’ve helped their mental health, telling them how they saved their lives, crying at them because of this, and so on and so forth. I used to feel the same way about different people at different parts of my life and different phases of my illness. I’m not judging these people; I think it’s great they got to express their gratitude in person or in a comment online. I just kind of got over it when one of the artists pointed out that they (the artist) themselves hadn’t done anything other than provide a tool the fan had chosen to use as a coping mechanism at that time - simple as that. Nobody else can save you; you save yourself.

I bring this up because of the whole #SPNFAM thing. Jared himself has been extremely open about his struggle with depression. There are countless tumblr posts, tweets, and other fan-media expressing how much he’s helped the poster/creator with their mental health. And that’s awesome. It really is. There’s the whole Always Keep Fighting (AKF) thing and if it helps people, fucking awesome!

But Jared has always been problematic, and that’s dangerous because of the position he’s put himself in as a mental health advocate. Hundreds, if not thousands, of impressionable and, dare I say it, vulnerable people lean hard on him and his positive mental health message and his continued bad behavior puts them at risk. Whether it be publicly feuding with an airline (weird, but essentially nbd), publicly shaming customer service people when he’s upset (there are several examples floating around including this one), using his non-apologies to defend his actions and make it seem like bullying others is an actual defense, making rape jokes at conventions, or now getting arrested and charged with assault, I think he needs to step up and live up to the pedestal he’s had no small part in placing himself upon.

I mean, yeah, celebrities get themselves into shit all the time, but it just kills me to see someone looked up to in the way he is behave the way he does. He literally has teenagers reaching out to him for help, and his most newsworthy stuff is him being the BIGGEST jackass. I used to be a huge Supernatural fan until the rape joke thing and I couldn’t separate the art from the artist anymore and haven’t been able to sit through an episode since.

When placing himself into the position he has with AKF, he’s GOT to know people are watching and looking up to him. Like I said in the last paragraph, literal 15-year-olds are reaching out to him for support. No, it’s not his place and he didn’t ask for that. Yes, it happens anyway. That’s the nature of celebrity and the nature of finding support for mental health outside of the professional field and the nature of fandom and of #fandomfamily and the #spnfam itself. You end up idolizing someone. Then seeing them at their worst and publicly messy like this is heartbreaking. This whole thing really just reiterates the whole “don’t meet your heroes” thing. Only with tabloids and the internet, there’s no separation between the heroes and the fans anymore. You can’t help but meet them and get to know them in this weird one-sided relationship we all have. Sometimes that person ends up sucking or being a really sad human being. Be better than this, Jared.

[acaseforpencils]

Tips and Tricks: Watercolors Edition.

It always surprises me that more current cartoonists don’t use watercolors. I know that Will McPhail and Carolita Johnson use them, but watercolors haven’t really popped up much in the dozens upon dozens of interviews I’ve conducted over the past several years. Of course they show up more in interviews I’ve done with cover illustrators (Barry Blitt, John Cuneo, etc.), but I think a lot more cartoonists would find a whole world of opportunities in watercolor, if they were to experiment with them a bit. I’ve been painting a lot of watercolor pet portraits recently, and thinking of (and using!) some tips and tricks that I have found useful over the years, but that haven’t come up in any of the interviews that I’ve conducted on this blog, so I thought I would take the time to share them!

Here is some of my more recent work: 

You can find more of my art on my Instagram, here. 

-Watercolor has a similar look to ink wash, but is less permanent. You put down a layer of ink wash and you’re stuck with it. But if you use watercolor, you can take a wet rag and practically erase it! Plus, if you don’t feel confident doing linework with a brush, you can still use ink or a pen for that. Look at this landscape that I did a few years back. The shadowy sand was done by putting down opaque watercolor, letting it dry, and then scrubbing most of it away!

-If you have discovered the joys of lifting up watercolor mistakes, but have gone about it a bit over zealously, and caused your paper to pill up (but haven’t fully dug a hole through the fibers), I have discovered that the Cliceraser, a Japanese tool that Roz Chast recommended in her Case as an ink eraser, is your savior. If your paper is still wet, blast it with a hairdryer until it’s fully dry, and then gently sand off any errant paper fiber until it’s smooth enough to paint on again. Now, this would not work on printer paper (you shouldn’t be using watercolor on there anyways—I generally work on heavy cotton watercolor block), but this has helped me on more occasions than I care to admit. It is basically a grainy eraser. I haven’t tried using sandpaper, but I think the Cliceraser is more gentle, and would allow for more precision.

Image from Roz's Case

-Frank Cotham uses water-soluble crayons, which have a very unique look to them, but I’ve discovered that they can sometimes cause an unwanted glow in photographs. Say you spent ages painting a landscape, and thought it would be a great idea to use water-soluble  crayons to paint the leaves. Everything looks uniform and tied together, but when you try to capture an image for your portfolio, you discover that your subtle fall foliage is garishly glaring. Devastation. Use water-soluble crayons with caution, especially when you're doing mixed media, and perhaps take photos of your work as you go along, to make sure that what you see through the camera matches what you see in front of you (or at least to ensure that you won’t be faced with any horrifying realizations at the last second).

-Speaking of water solubility, a very versatile tool that hasn’t been mentioned in any Case interview is one of my favorites, and one that I think would make a lot of cartoonists’ lives a lot easier: watercolor pencils. They blend really well with regular watercolor paint, and work great for detail work, for building up an area quickly, and for outlines (though I sometimes like to have graphite peeking through in a painting, using it for initial sketches can be helpful, especially when using light tones, because you can seamlessly blend your lines into your painting).

A lot of cartoonists will use gouache straight out of the tube for highlights, but that can require extreme precision, and sometimes, watercolor paper will eat up the paint! However, if you use a very sharp white watercolor pencil instead, the highlights won’t get absorbed. If you’re feeling fancy (or using grainy paper), you can trace over the watercolor pencil with white gouache. 

Watercolor pencils can also be used for building up an area quickly. I find that if I’m using a thick cotton paper, it can be hard to get colors dark enough, so sometimes I’ll just lay down some watercolor pencil in whatever color is best suited for the task at hand, and then go over that with watercolor paint, which can lead to some interesting textures. I do that often with rocks.

-My rock painting leads me to my next tip, which is if you struggle with drawing something, that’s all the more reason to draw it. I used to struggle with painting rocks, so I sat down and said, “I’m going to paint a very rock-heavy painting,” (well, the painting itself is very light). Did I regret this decision greatly while painting all of those rocks? Yes! But I am now able to paint rocks fairly easily, so it ended up being worth the agony. This applies to many things in life besides watercolors, of course!

-Another tip (which also applies to the above rock painting) is to use the paint’s texture to your advantage. There are some really interesting paints with high levels of mineral separation, that can create beautiful grainy effects. You can do a light wash of a grainy paint over a flat wash of paint, and end up with a fascinating texture with minimal effort. This is an especially great technique for painting dirt. 

-Try to use shadows effectively rather than accurately. With portraiture, as with cartooning, you are telling a story. Such as writers use various devices (metaphors, etc.) to tell their tales, we do the same thing with how we use tones. If I’m painting a dog, I want all of the information in the image to go towards showing the dog. Part of this can be using background tones. In my average pet painting, I’m not going to try to make a meticulously true to life shadow, but rather use shading to either convey space or make the dog stand out from the background. If I am painting a pet with light fur, I am generally going to paint a more expressive background in darker tones that contrast with their fur. If I’m painting a chocolate lab, I will do a light shadow to convey that they are occupying space of some sort, but that won't cause them to blend into a dark background. I always want to make sure that the darkest (or sometimes lightest, if everything else is rather dark) color on the page is on the part of the painting that I want you to see first. Cartoonists do the same thing, but in a way that leads the viewer’s eye to the joke.

-If buying a whole set of watercolors is cost-prohibitive, I recommend buying a cheap set, and then buying a nicer tube here or there as you are able. That’s what I did. A lot of high quality companies also offer smaller sized tubes, that are often significantly cheaper than the large sizes with scary prices. Coupons are also your best friend. I’ve used a coupon on almost every single tube of paint I have ever bought. Plus if you work mostly in black and white, you only need two tubes! 

I hope this was helpful! I know people of many different levels of ability and knowledge read this blog, and it’s fun to be able to have artists share what they know, because the more we help others learn, the more wonderful art we get to enjoy! If anyone else has any tips or tricks, be sure to stick them in the comments! Also, if you’d like to follow my art, I have a fairly new-ish art Instagram here. Oh, and If you’d like to support the blog there is a Patreon and a Ko-Fi (essentially a PayPal account). And if you are hankering for some more art supplies on your social medias, consider following Case on Instagram and Twitter! Have a nice week!

[r0semultiverse]

Spicy hot take opinions time: Naruto to Boruto Shinobi Strikers wouldn’t have been as much of a hit had it’s 3D art style not been heavily influenced by the Ninja Storm Series.

No worries, we’ll get into the mess that is Naruto Online/Naruto Online Mobile later in this post, calm your britches.

As soon as I saw the first “Naruto Project” trailer drop a part of me was like “interesting little design differences from the previous Storm games huh? It’s not??? What do you mean this isn’t Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm 5???” These aren’t they best gifs as two different characters but I’m tired and felt like it had to be said.

There’s just something about it that feels way too much like Ninja Storm, but also not enough like Ninja Storm.

I’m just speculating of course, leave me links to any details you got on this if you do! It’s something I thought of ever since that trailer dropped and we didn’t see the 5 a lot of us waited so long to see. Not saying good or bad, but I do miss the hype and excitement around a new Ninja Storm game.

Seems like the closest thing possible is Naruto Online Mobile (and it’s likely originally planned PC version Naruto Online, the browser and app game) which came out in 2017-2018 and is still getting updates. Does anyone know the artists who made these games both look somewhat (and in the case of Naruto OL, exactly like) “Storm” in appearance?? I want to follow them on social media and see what they’re working on next if it’s even the same 3D artists who worked on Ninja Storm? Might just be fans who became devs and are keeping that style alive.

What did you all think? The mobile version of the Naruto Storm essentially copy game is exclusive to overseas and VPNs sometimes even cant get you through the bs because of this QQ program thing I guess. Then you got Shinobi Strikers and while yes I imagine it’s quite fun to play (I’m broke and socially awkward), I just feel like it holds onto Storm’s looks and just doesn’t feel the same when I’m watching people play it. It feels off putting almost?? The gameplay looks amazing though! Maybe the games look that way because that’s what “everyone expects” so they had the character design be extremely similar to appeal to that mindset of things.

I honestly really want to play both games! Even that third mobile one where it uses an almost 2D fighter system like the original Naruto Ultimate Ninja games, but the 3D models and animations from Ninja Storm! If anyone has an emulator not full of bs that can run that and Naruto Online Mobile, let me know!

Anyway I guess to sum it up, I feel like the Naruto game devs’ higher ups divided up the artists, programmers etc. from the Naruto Storm series and thought that making a bunch of separate games was a good idea and that no one would notice?? Not saying Shinobi Strikers isn’t good, it looks fantastic, but it pulls in the Ninja Storm style that has always been vibrant and colorful and puts it into this more realistic heavy colors type of situation and it just feels so off to me. As for Naruto Mobile, they really thought taking all the assets from Naruto Storm and setting up an RPG style grind mobile game as the next Naruto official game was a good idea (not that I don’t enjoy it though and it is, but they chose both of these paths potentially over more Storm games with memorable cinematic and battle sequences and boss gameplay that hasn’t been able to be replaced anywhere else as far as “same energy” is concerned. The perfect Naruto game would be for all of these devs to get together and create maybe like an optional RPG mode? (I’m Naruto OL, you still somewhat control the fight as it’s happening) but aside from the optional RPG part of it, just to combine their games all into one would be amazing.

And yes, part of me is still salty that Naruto Storm’s assets got turned into a a role playing game that was underfunded by higher ups and then later they saw the money coming in and were like “oh yeah you can make that nostalgic Storm game now the way you want to” to the devs.

Title of post should have been: Why Naruto games vaguely or in some cases extremely resemble the old games, but don’t play or feel like them.

[arecomicsevengood]

A YEAR OF READING ACKNOWLEDGED MASTERPIECES #3: E.C. SEGAR’S POPEYE

So, while the original idea behind this series was for me to read an acclaimed comic I expect I’ll like but had not yet actually read, or to read something I’d read a little of but not its entirety, covering E.C. Segar’s Popeye is something of a cheat. When Fantagraphics began their reprint series, a roommate had the first volume, of what would eventually be six, and I read that; I later ordered my own copy of volume 3, and I own a copy of The Smithsonian Collection Of Newspaper Comics, which reprints the “Plunder Island” series of Sunday strips covered in volume 4. I enjoyed all of it, but didn’t feel a pressing need to acquire more, and now Volumes 4 and 5 are out of print and command high prices on the secondary market. This motivated me to get a copy of the still-available volume 6, which might seem less appealing because it’s the last stuff Segar did before he died, and health issues led there to be periods of time where the strip was entrusted to his assistants, in sequences not included.

The editors say those strips aren’t good, I’ll take their word for it. Other people have tried to sell other Popeye product, and I’m sure some of it is quite good: There are some people who take pains to point out that the Segar comic strips are not similar to the Fleischer brothers cartoons, but I’m sure those cartoons are good fun, I generally like the stuff that studio produced. I have seen the 1980 Robert Altman movie, starring Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall, with a screenplay by Jules Feiffer and songs by Harry Nilsson, which is a notorious flop, but with some admirers: Still, it’s a slog, which the comic strip never is. IDW’s comic strip reprint line put out books collection the late eighties/early nineties run of former underground cartoonist Bobby London, what I’ve read of that stuff (just previews online) is unfunny garbage. I think they also were behind reprints of comic books by Bud Sagendorf, and a revival written by Roger Langridge, neither of which I’ve read, though Langridge’s work is always ok; good enough for me to think it’s good, not compelling or transcendent enough for me to spend money on it. It’s all work done by those who have rights to the license, which makes me view it as essentially merchandise, like a pinball game or something. The Segar stuff is where it all comes from.

While other masterpieces of the first half of the twentieth century comics page, like George Herriman’s Krazy Kat or Winsor McKay’s Little Nemo are definitely acquired tastes, Popeye was not only popular enough to make its creator a rich man back in the day, it remains functional as populist entertainment today. I feel pretty “what’s not to like?” about it, and would recommend it to whoever. It’s funny, the characters are good, there’s adventures. The humor is three quarters sitcom style character work and one quarter the sort of silliness that verges on absurdism.

This light touch separates it from the first half of the twentieth century’s “adventure strips” that didn’t age as well, despite having well-done art that would influence generations of superhero artists. Segar’s art isn’t particularly impressive, but every strip tells a joke or two, and even if you don’t laugh at every joke, you’ll appreciate its readability, especially if you’ve ever tried to read a Roy Crane comic, or even Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy. I don’t want to praise E.C. Segar by merely listing works his comics read better than, but it really is notable how many people today are basically trying to do what he did, but are failing at least in part due to not understanding that’s what they’re trying to do. If you want to do a comedic adventure story that becomes popular enough for you to be financially successful, it might be worth reading a volume of Popeye and observing its rhythms. When I was reviewing Perdy a few weeks ago, I was thinking “This basically just wants to be a R-rated Popeye.” I recently found 3/4 of the issues of the Troy Nixey-drawn comic Vinegar Teeth for a quarter each; despite that comic’s high-concept pitch involving Lovecraftian monsters, it would probably have been better if it thought of itself as being a descendant of Popeye, rather than something that could be adapted into a movie. I’ll just phrase it in the format of a popular Twitter meme: Some of you have never read Popeye, and it shows.

Lesson number one, which just sort of emerges naturally from the format of the daily strip, is you’ve got to make jokes, and they can’t just be the same one, over and over again. To that end, you need a cast of characters, who each have their own bit, and who play off each other in various ways. It is easy to see why people don’t do this: Large ensembles grow organically, and most people start telling a story with either a central character or something precisely in mind they want to chronicle. The comic strip, with its long runs originating from a practitioner’s ability to tell a joke, can be a bit freer to stumble onto something that works, without even necessarily having a title character to return to.  The collections might be named after Popeye, but the comic strip being collected in these books was called Thimble Theater, which ran for a decade before Popeye showed up and circulation sky-rocketed. For a while, I think the consensus on the early stuff was it was pretty boring and hard to read before Popeye came in and livened the whole thing up, but recently there was a reprint of this earlier material, and I know the dude who reviewed it for The Comics Journal liked it, though I’m sure it’s easy to find someone at The Comics Journal who will like an old comic strip even if it’s bad. Either way, modern cartoonists don’t have Segar’s luxury, or having their work run for a half-disinterested audience until something clicks so much word spreads.

The gag-a-day pace, built around getting into new situations and adventures, itself creates a pressure to be inventive today’s graphic novelists can’t really match. After Popeye is established as a good character, prone to getting into scrapes, Segar can show us the comedy of him caring for a baby. He can also introduce Popeye’s dad, Poopdeck Pappy, that this character looks basically exactly like Popeye but is a piece of shit is a funny idea that would not occur in the early days of planning a project.

One reason why you wouldn’t necessarily do such a design choice is because, if you’re thinking of different media as a way to success, having characters with the exact same silhouette runs counter to the generally accepted rules of animation. Thimble Theatre, as per its name, is based on theater staging, rather than the more expressionist angles of film: We’re looking at characters from the side, usually seeing whoever’s talking in the same panel unless one of them is out of the room. These characters tend to have the same height, basically. Someone once said that looking at Popeye, printed six strips to a page, is kind of like looking at a page of sheet music. It’s not a particularly visually dynamic strip, the amount of black and white on a page is close to unvarying.

This is why I don’t believe in prescriptivism, or a suggestion of rules: I’m pretty sure that Popeye works because it’s not working super-hard to be visually interesting. This would be the number two lesson of what there is to learn from Popeye. I think this transparency in style is what allows this comedy/adventure hybrid to work, though I know others would blanch at this. It’s going for a big audience, and while I think this visual approach serves that end, I know why others, especially those who’ve been struck by later superhero comics or manga, would see visual excitement as the best way to achieve that goal. The audience that read newspaper comics wasn’t necessarily adept at following visual storytelling, and the sort of relationship that newspaper strips could have with a wider readership is not going to be achievable now. The folks that ride for Segar these days are mostly alt-comics people, like Sammy Harkham or Kevin Huizenga, who aren’t attempting the sort of popular entertainment extravaganzas he trafficked in.

Reading Popeye feels like reading, basically, which is a nice, contemplative experience, that not all comics can capture. I read a few pages of it before bed. Obviously, this pace is not how people consumed it in its heyday, but the pace people took it in at, a strip a day, is even more deliberate and steady, and I think, was crucial to its popularity. For a comic to be popular, it has to have characters that are interesting, obviously; there is probably no better way for an audience to build a relationship with fictional characters than over extended periods of time. This speed corresponds to the pace it was created at, one that now seems insanely luxurious to anyone whose workflow is dictated by the internet’s demand for content. It’s a total crowdpleaser, but it existed at a time where crowds could slowly gather. Popeye’s a popular entertainment from an era of reading, listening to the radio, going to plays or movies. It holds up, owing to a basic pleasantness we can understand as low stakes, and that’s helped along by the restraint of the art. It’s telling a story. It’s not a farce, crowded with visual jokes, and it’s not dictated by characters’ emoting either. I love a visually expressive art style, but here it’s important that the visuals remain “on-model,” reinforcing the stability of the characterizations. This sort of thing is also evident in Chris Onstad’s Achewood, which I would argue is the preeminent 21st century character-driven comic strip, with an audience that feels relatively “wide” rather than pointedly “niche.”

Lesson number three to how to make a popular comic is the thought I find myself thinking all the time, which is “Everyone needs to chill out.” The number one impediment to making entertainment that just quietly works is the desire to stand out and make a name for yourself as quickly as possible. This is similar to how the number one impediment to a peaceful and contented life is the demands of a failing capitalism where we are all competing for a shrinking pile of resources. To read these books now is a luxury, an indulgence, and while I don’t much go in for those, reading older comic strips carries with it this sort of nostalgic appeal for an era where it didn’t feel like everything was screaming at you for your attention all the time. As broad as Popeye is, it now possesses a certain dignity, owing to this dislocation in time from its origin. I don’t know if this felt like a feature at the time. I do think that if you are an artist that wants to be successful now, you should do what you can for the sort of circumstances that allow for genuine, long-lasting success to build, which involves a certain degree of permission to fail. Mainstream comics companies, with their mentality of “we’re going to print hundreds of comics a month, in hopes some find a niche large enough to be briefly profitable we can then try to milk for their last dollar and they quickly become exhausted,” act against this. As in a garden, there needs to be space for things to take root and grow.