#he doesn't have a lot of formal training but does have some. and decades of self-taught skills

[noamuth]

IN BATTLE [ … ] YOUR MUSE

fights honorably / fights dirty

prefers close quarters / prefers range

chats during / goes silent

low pain tolerance / high pain tolerance

attacks in bursts / attacks steadily

goes for the kill / aims to disarm / fights defensively / strikes first

is provoked easily / provokes their opponent / teases

gets visibly frustrated / shouts while attacking

uses strategy / focuses on the battle / experiences conflicting thoughts during battle / rushes in recklessly / tries to read their opponent before engaging

fights wildly / fights calmly / fights apathetically / fights with anger/ fights with excitement

fights because they have to / fights because they want to

fights without regard to wounds / runs away when wounded / hides wounds / takes a blow to protect another

prefers a blade /  prefers a gun / prefers hand to hand combat / prefers a bow/ prefers a shield / prefers a personalized weapon / prefers magic, alchemy or spells

their greatest weakness is physical / their greatest weakness is mental / their greatest weakness is emotional

transforms for battle / fights as they appear

relies on strength / doubts their strength / relies on speed

uses everything they have / proceeds with caution / hides their full potential / exhausts quickly / has high stamina

behaves arrogantly / brags after landing a hit / belittles their abilities

uses psychological tactics / uses brute strength

avoids civilians / strikes down civilians

damages surroundings / avoids damaging surroundings

signature fighting style / makes it up as they go

mastered skillset / learning their skillset

fancy footwork / sloppy footwork

messy fighter / elegant fighter

accepts defeat / refuses defeat / begs for mercy

compliments their opponent / insults their opponent

uses unnecessary movements / moves efficiently / barely moves

prefers to dodge / prefers to block

defends their blindside / has no blindside / leaves blindsides vulnerable

uses all available advantages / strictly uses one main method

plays around / holds back / fights ruthlessly / shows mercy

waits for an opponent to be ready / strikes when opponent isn’t ready

fears death / fears pain / fears killing

has ptsd / avoids fighting

has lost a fight / has won a fight

has killed / refuses to kill

wants to die standing / would succumb slowly

[stevelieber]

Thoughts on giving critiques to comics artists.

Seeing lots of discussion from students about sour experiences with an unhelpful art teacher, so here's a long, long post about giving critiques.

NB: I have no formal training as a teacher, but I was a student, and I've spent decades giving artists feedback on their work.

When someone brings me a portfolio, I like to establish my limitations & clarify my perspective. My work is firmly rooted in traditional US comics storytelling (i.e., not manga or art-comics.) I can give feedback on other approaches but they should know where I’m coming from.

“We've only got a little time for this, so I'm going to spend that time focusing on things to correct. That doesn't mean you're doing everything wrong, or that there’s nothing good here, but it’ll be more helpful if I identify some problems and show you how to fix them.”

Why? Because for many young artists their entire sense of self worth is wrapped up in being good at what they do. (It was for me!) In school they were probably the best artist in their peer group. But now if they're hoping to turn pro, they’re at the bottom.

Sometimes you know what’s up when you see page 1, but try to keep an open mind. Some build their portfolios by sticking new pages at the back & don’t weed out the old stuff up front, so the work gets better as you go. When it’s like that I ask: “Show me your best 8 pages.”

I ask questions: "What's the goal? Do you want to be hired to work on someone else's project, or to get the story you're showing me here published?"

If 1, I steer towards a portfolio that'll showcase hirable skills. If 2, I look for what tweaks will make that particular story more effective.

"Do you have teachers giving you regular feedback? What are they telling you?" Sometimes a student is getting bad advice. In cases like that, I'll do my best to be extra clear WHY I'm giving them advice that's 180 degrees from what they've been hearing.

“What artists are you looking at? Is there someone you admire or try to emulate?” This often helps me understand choices they're making, and I can sometimes incorporate things those artists do into my suggestions.

I ask myself questions about what I’m seeing. First: Is there a narrative? If not, I make it 100% clear I'm not speaking as any sort of expert. I'm good at critiquing storytelling, but don't have anywhere near as much to offer illustrators or designers.

Can I follow the story? Or am I confused about what's going on? Are the characters and settings drawn consistently? If not, is the artist at least making use of tags (distinctive clothing, hair etc.) to keep the characters recognizable?

Does the artist demonstrate a good command of basic academic drawing? If not, Do I think they need it? Do I focus on "how to draw" or on "what to do when you can't draw?" Is the artist putting the viewer’s eye where it needs to be to tell the story effectively?

(At this point I’m usually doing little doodles to go with my instructions. I scribble out ugly little 5 second diagrams that I hope will clarify what I’m talking about. Or they might make me seem demented. Hard to say!)

Is the artist making choices that are creating more work than necessary? Is there a particular weakness? I once spoke to an artist with a portfolio full of great work when he was drawing animals and monsters, but his humans were amateurish in comparison. I spent that critique talking about drawing people.

A crit can be a grab bag. In addition to big-picture advice, I'll point out tangencies, violations of the 180-degree rule, wonky anatomy, weird perspective, places where the artist neglected to do important research, odd choices in how they spotted black, whatever catches my eye.

I also try to make a point of defining the terms, so that jargon like “tangency,” “180-degree rule,” and “spotting black” don't go over their heads. Find simple, concrete ways to talk about these things, & clarify why it's a problem when they aren't done correctly. Draw diagrams!

Recognize that even a perfectly phrased explanation might not sink in. Some lessons can only be learned when a student is ready, and it might take a year or two of work before they can understand what you were saying. It's good to plant seeds.

Are there other artists who are particularly good at solving the problems the student is trying to solve? I steer them towards that artist's work. And I always recommend life drawing & the use of reference to give work specificity, variety, and authority.

Despite what I said earlier about focusing on what's wrong, I try at the end to find something encouraging to say. And if I’ve really piled on the criticism, I emphasize that I only spent the time and energy to do so because I take their efforts seriously.

If I've done my job right, they'll leave my table with tools to make their work better. And maybe in a few years they'll be looking at some younger artist's work, surprised to discover just how much you can learn when you're asked to teach.

[dark-lord-tom-returns]

I work security in a place that sees a large amount of public traffic. Which means I see some Weird Shit sometimes. But this interaction I had yesterday was the Weirdest

Now, there aren't a ton of "secured" areas where I work. There are a bunch of areas where the public shouldn't be, mainly because the general public shouldn't be playing around on loading docks and storage rooms but I digress. Importantly, not everyone wheres a uniform, name tag, or ID badge at this location so finding a random person in street clothes in one of these area isn't necessarily a tell that a person isn't allowed to be there

However

Sometimes, even people that can be there, shouldn't

Picture this

The sun is doing a good impression of a death ray, 102° freedom units, humidity level reads S O U P, and I'm 93% sweat by volume. I turn a corner to get out of the public area and see a man in what I want to call business semi formal. Sport coat, Rolex, pants that cost more than my phone, you get the idea. Not unusual so far

We're walking in the same direction, I'm in the middle of melting, and I just want to get back to my office. I don't want to have to stop and talk to this guy to see if he's supposed to be here, and since we're both moving along, I think that's probably not going to have to happen.

But then

This man stops, right under an AC unit on the side of this building and looks up. He just stares at it for a second. He examines the condensation. He gives that little trickle of water coming down the wall his full attention.

This AC is old. It's been there for years. That little trickle has been happening basically every day for a decade. A nice little ecosystem has sprung up around it. On the sidewalk where it meets the wall is a little patch of weeds and moss. Along the wall itself is a little greenish algae in and around that little stream.

This man looks at the wall. The AC. Back to the wall. He gets in real close. Really examining this little bit of water. Considers for a moment.

And licks it

I'm stunned.

I'm about 8 feet away from this man as he just full on tongues this wall. Gets right in that algae and has a big lick. I don't know what to do. I wasn't trained for this. I just stand there, now approximately 97% sweat which no longer has anything to do with the sun doing it's level best to give me melanoma.

He licked the wall. The algae. The bacteria. He considers it for a moment more. Looks back up at the AC, and does it Again

This is too much

"Sir?" I venture, unsure what my line of attack will be

The man startles, wild eyed he spins toward me. I can see in his stare that he's also unsure of what's about to happen. But he rallies

"It's not against the rules" he says

I nod cautiously. That's probably correct. I certainly wasn't told that people couldn't lick the walls

"Maybe," I allow, slowly, "however this area isn't for public use. I'll need to see some identification."

He starts to reach into a pocket and freezes. He looks up, I can see the nueral pathways firing. He squints.

"My identification?" He asks.

I nod. "If you want to be back here, then I need to know who you are and if you're supposed to have access."

He nods to himself once. Then again a little more surely.

"And if I didn't have access here?" He asks a little hopefully.

"Then I'd have to escort you back to the public areas."

"Oh!" He exclaims, visibly relieved. "Let's just do that!"

I stare a moment. I understand. If I know who he is, I'll know where he works. I'm going to have questions. He knows that. He can't stop it at this point. But he doesn't have to give me a name. Technically.

"OK, right this way sir," I tell him and lead him to the nearest public access point.

He's relieved. He's gotten away with it. He doesn't have to explain and odds are I won't be able to find him again. A lot of people work here, after all.

We walk to a public area. He turns to me.

"I appreciate this," he says.

I nod uncomfortably. "Yeah, about that."

I take his picture with the work phone.

"I have to send this to the rest of the security team," I tell him in the most neutral voice possible. "If we see you in a non public area again we're going to need to have a conversation involving my management team. Yours too if you work here. About you refusing to provide identification. And why."

He just stares at me. I watch as he does the math in his head. We both know he works here. We both know that to get into work using the non public areas is fastest.

"So about this, this incident," he starts.

"I have to do a report, yes," I say and point up. "You were on camera the whole time."

He looks up. He looks back at me. I've never seen a man more hollow.

"Maybe I can transfer," he says mostly to himself.

I give him what I can only hope is a sympathetic smile. I leave him standing there. Contemplative. Haunted.

I go back to my office. I regard the picture. I open the report system. I look at the picture.

I delete the picture.

There are some things I just do not want to explain

[randomvarious]

Phaedrus - "Tesla" Welcome to the Future 1993 Techno / Acid Techno

Plays: N/A on Spotify // 25 on YouTube

Got another pretty obscure dance banger for you all today, with this exclusive off of a 1993 compilation from Dutch techno label Djax-Up-Beats called Welcome to the Future. The song, "Tesla," is credited to Phaedrus, which is an alias of an eclectic London-born guy named Justin Billinger, who moved to the Netherlands at age 11. Billinger is a classically trained musician who graduated summa cum laude with a degree in composition electronics from the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, and that education has seemingly enabled him to have quite a diverse output of his own, with stuff that ranges from the avantgardist modern classical all the way up to gabber.

But Billinger doesn't appear to have ever had much of a solo career himself, especially in the dance realm. According to Discogs, most of what he's released was made with at least one other person named Michiel Marsman, until his 2018 solo album, Mindfulness, which isn't dance either.

So, that ends up making this song, "Tesla," a doubly rare one, because not only does it currently have just *25* plays on YouTube as I'm writing this post, but it also appears to be the *only* solo dance track that Billinger's ever released in his entire career. And with how good it still manages to sound 30 years later, it might have you wondering why he never released more 🤔.

This track is such an unforgiving, twisting-and-turning journey of early 90s techno intensity. And on top of that, it's a pretty chunky groove too, with deadly combinations of melodic acid—both roundly stabbed and flutteringly wavy—an acid bassline of jagged blurps, and a whole lot of percussion, including a foundational four-on-the-floor kick-drum and the things that really end up making this untamed beast whole: snares and open hi-hats that simply mash. Plus, some quietly placid string pads underneath it all to provide a light contrast to all the rest of the madness, and a little bit of very unexpected hand drum in the second half too.

So, a real foot-stomping, kaleidoscopic acid raver's delight in this tremendous and very unknown techno jam here, which turns out to be the only solo dance tune that this eclectic musician's ever had released. And three decades on, it still goes so satisfyingly hard 😤.

Always love to hear what a formally educated musician can do with dance music and Billinger absolutely dazzled with this one.

[ringneckedpheasant]

in canon, do Bull and Ehsaan still dance? If so, do either of them have formal training, you think? Does Josie teach them before the ball? Is it hilarous and adorable? Or is Ehsaan with Dorian at that point? Dorian knows how to dance obviously, so maybe he teaches both of them. Maybe that is hilarious and adorable. Maybe you should think about it a lot like I am right now. This is no longer a question. Thank.

I SHOULD think about it a lot,,,

tbqh I think Bull probably does have some formal training—he is a spy, after all, even if things like the winter palace don't usually come up. Ehsaan likes dancing, but has no formal training—or at least, he doesn't know the kinds of dances that are popular with orlesians. There are probably like. vashoth folk dances that he's familiar with though.

Ehsaan was with Dorian by the time I got to the winter palace but i think it WOULD be hilarious and adorable if Dorian had to teach both Ehsaan and Bull how to dance. Josie gives Ehsaan a bunch of step charts and he can't make heads or tails of them, and even if he could, learning to do them on his own wouldn't necessarily mean he'd be good at dancing with other people, so Dorian has to come to his rescue. And maybe Bull's too, maybe everything Bull remembers how to do is dances that were in fashion like a decade ago and he's rusty as hell anyway (and even if he wasn't, Ehsaan gives him puppy eyes like nobody's business, so he can't very well say no at that point)