#honestly i aspire to this

[please-attend-carefully]

WHO IS RUNNING THE BIG FINISH INSTAGRAM??

[tropicalcryptid]

Absolutely based Etsy review

[ultimateinferno]

If I was Lirin, I think I'd be more than a little annoying about the fact that my society and even pervasive religion dictates that the highest calling for men and young boys is to die and kill violently.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

A gift horse for @piosplayhouse

[arthursfuckinghat]

Take!!! A gamble!!!! That love exists!!!! And do!!!! A loving!!!!!! Act!!!!!!!!

[skitskatdacat63]

"We are not the easiest opponent for everybody else, let's put it that way."

[eloquentsisyphianturmoil]

Fingon: *Goes for a long walk with all his worldly possessions*

Fingon: *Climbs a mountain*

Fingon: *Casts a search-and-find spell*

Fingon: *Gets a miracle from god*

Fingon: *Encounters an unbreakable manacle*

Fingon: Time to get creative.

[themiracleofteddybearmanifestos]

I love MXTX cause she'll write the most intricate, heart wrenching, beautiful, insanely intelligent, well written stories and then write her own Wattpad fanfics about them and slap em on as extras

[sharpjay217]

Watching Pearl’s labyrinth run right now, and sometimes I think we forget how genuinely good she is at this game.

[shsl-box-worshipper]

I'm honestly surprised no one has attempted to make a Code Lyoko-inspired horror game yet.

Like, we literally have XANA!

A demonic, silent, eldritch artificial intelligence hellbent on destroying humanity. It regularly attempts murder against literally everyone, not just the main cast. It has done everything from attempting to blow up a nuclear power plant to literally possessing a Xenomorph ripoff animatronic to hunt people down.

Not to mention whatever the fuck XANA did to whoever worked at the Replikas it took over, who at best were turned into permanent slaves and at worst were implied to have had their brains removed and placed into robots!

Like, legitimately, XANA is a horror movie monster in a kid's cartoon and that alone has to deserve some kind of horror experience or smth.

[fatuismooches]

ITS ALMOST VALENTINES DAAY yippe!!!!

I know Dottore + the segments dont really care for holidays but I like to think Valentines day is one of those exceptions because they KNOW they are going to get spoiled. They all glance at reader (who is oblivious) discreetly as the day approaches.

And when the day arrives they're barely able to focus on their tasks because they can already smell the chocolates from the kitchen. Reader had to lock the door to the kitchen for OBVIOUS reasons.

sidenote: I just had the adorable idea that foxttore will claw/paw at the door like a dog😭 and the pufflings will try to squeeze under the door. Reader probably has to put a rag under the door to stop them.

When reader finally finishes baking and presents it to all the Dottys they are so joyous.... the older ones might be more quiet about their happiness but the younger ones are DEVOURING those sweets.

I like to think Reader also baked some trears for Foxttore and the pufflings... :D

(Sidenote:Reader baked a special batch for Zandy because he's spoiled)

ALSO im glad u like my ramblings 😭 I get very joyous when I see a new dottore post...

- 🐓

I LOVE THIS SO MUCH... Ah you've sealed your fate the moment you decided to spoil them on the first Valentine's Day spent together! You simply can't set the standards so high and then not go through with it, nope, unless you want a bunch of mopey and grumpy segments on this day of love. (You weren't planning on such a thing anyway thankfully. But somehow you don't notice how touchy they are before the day. Specifically the younger ones. The older ones are beyond that. But I guess they think they could possibly butter you up to give them a few more chocolates... Unfortunately, you're still oblivious and just return their kisses tenfold.)

Not only do you lock the door, but you have to threaten to never make them chocolates again if they dare break this rule... well obviously you'd never actually do that but apparently they're not willing to risk that possibility... very, very strange segments. If only they could behave themselves, they could hug you from behind as you baked... Though of course, Zandy is allowed in because he's a good little boy! Sometimes he helps you or he's just there to keep you company! (You have to keep Zandy's special batch in your room and have him sneak over so you two can eat it together in secret... otherwise, the segments would find out and that would not be fun...)

YESSS FOXTTORE AND THE PUFFBALLS TRYING TO BREAK IN... no poor Foxttore would just give up and sit outside the door all huffy and sad... its favorite human has betrayed it!! but the pufflings, they would have infiltrated the kitchen already, they were there hidden inside the cabinets and under the stove the night before. The ones that weren't there yet just squeezed themself through some other crevice... eventually, you just get them all in and Foxttore is very very happy :3 Its fur coat unfortunately may get a bit messy with the chocolate... you will have to give it a bath later. (I can just imagine, you will turn your back for a few seconds, and then you turn back around to see Foxttore guilty with his paw in the bowl of chocolate...)

Reader would definitely customize the boxes of chocolates for the segments... they would make sure to note down the kind of chocolate they prefer, what kind of fillings they like, etc... and the older segments who have a taste for more bitter chocolates too... :D Not to mention the little notecard with to: and from: [name]...

And let's not forget about our dearest Dottie... he would want to taste more chocolates even after they're done, and to do so, he would simply kiss you repeatedly, savoring the lingering taste of the delicious sweetness on your lips. Yes, he's never cared for Valentine's Day, but when it's like this, he supposes it's not all that bad.

[nemo-of-house-hamartia]

ok, once more I realize that my own kindness and friendliness has been taken for implied consent, and as always, the troubles that are brewing now are connected to OCs.

So let me be clear and frank one more time, one last time, because I have NO INTENTION of going through what I went through in 2021.

While I am always immensely happy that my Original Characters are enjoyed and that they can serve as source of inspiration, they are NOT however a template for anyone to base their OCs on.

They are not something that you can take in their entirety, change whatever suits you, and then call it your own.

It doesn't work like that, especially because, and allow me to reiterate this once and for all, OCs are *immensely* personal.

They are an extention of the soul of the person that creates them.

So taking whatever suits your fancy and use it for the "aesthetic" or the "vibes" is immensely disrespectful and, dare I say, rather impertinent, especially when both characters happen to belong to the same fandom.

Now, I am not talking about certain tropes and subjects that are typical of certain genre, of course not.

We are all somehow reinveting something that's already there when we work with OCs and stories.

What I am talking about is taking certain specific idiosyncrasies that make a certain character unique, change them to suit your character, and then being SO IMPERTINENT to just call it your own and parading it around without even having the courtesy to quote the person that has inspired you, taking advantage of the fact that I am just a small creator with a small following.

This is a huge No No for me.

Huge.

I appreciate that other creators might have a different opinion or perspective when it comes to OCs, and while I do not share entirely in that, I sure as hell respect it.

But allow me to be crystal clear: if this happens to me, like it had in 2021, that's the *easiest* way to lose all respect I might harbour for you, and I seldomly get mad or angry.

I am always accomodating, always supportive, and I think I have proven it aplenty in the past few years.

But this is something that I cannot condone nor agree with.

And it's not just a matter of ethic, in this sense: it's a matter of also hurting me, and literally put my whole creative process into shamble.

It's a matter of having respect of others.

Now, you might say: who cares if they hurt you? they are characters that do not exist, just move on and have thicker skin!

Well, as I said above, for when it concerns myself, my OCs are an extention of my own soul, a way for me to formulate and explain feelings that sometimes I have a hard time let out; a way for me to actually face, fragmentize and analyze my own trauma through them;

and most important of all, they are OFTEN a love letter to both the world I am exploring with them AND my own husband and child, such as in the case of Jacob and Dorothea,for whom, as I said often in the past 5 years, I have poured A LOT from myself and my husband's own story.

You could say that it probably my fault for having bared my feelings so much and poured so much of myself into a character;

And you might be correct, because I have learned my lesson, and ever since Dorothea and Jacob, no other character has been infused with as much of my own being as they were.

but that doesn't mean that it stings any less when I see it unravels in front of my eyes.

I am tired.

[caterpillarinacave]

Hey guys do you think Ahk had ever seen snow before the ending of the first movie

[guardian-angle22]

911 lone star fashion -> every grace outfit

↳ 4.11

[poshgirlsstuff]

my professor unironically refers to the Odyssey as “the Iliad- Odysseus’ version” and to the Aeneid as “the Iliad- Aeneas’ version”

[herrscherofmagic]

i've spent nearly 47 hours over the last ten days drawing nothing but kiana (and hov)

yeah.

anyways, since I've had about enough of drawing Kiana for the rest of my life (/hj) I'm gonna put a pause on this project; but I'll turn it from a sprint into a marathon and try and work on it occasionally instead of all at once

I want to draw other things again x-x

Close-ups of the drawings below, as well as the reference image set, and some other misc. thoughts

.

Portraits drawn from imagination

Started the process by trying to draw Kiana's head from imagination; then after each drawing I'd pause, look at some references, see what mistakes I made, then put away the references and drew from imagination (and referring to previous drawings) again. I also took breaks at two points to practice drawing eyes & hair before going back to drawing Kiana

For the last 4 portraits, I'd draw a head from imagination as a warm-up to a drawing session, and then do another head much later on instead of doing it immediately. Around halfway through this "phase" I started the other phases at random points, and finished this portion of the process in the first ~10-15 hours of drawing time. The rest of the time was split across the other exercises

Also I gave her an angry expression because I felt it was the easiest for me to do from memory since I've drawn HoV more than just "Kiana" herself. I also used a boring level 3/4 view without much perspective because it forced me to really make sure I was doing everything accurately and with care.

Basically my thinking was that if I could make a boring level 3/4 portrait look good enough, then I'd have no trouble getting it to look good in other perspectives. That seemed to be true when I got to the stage where I was doing expression practice and had to deal with more head tilt and other perspectives, lol

.

Studies of still images from screenshots of gameplay, character art, and stills from animated shorts

Did rough sketches first, then drew with solid color over the sketches on a separate layer. not much else to say here, lol

.

Full-bodies

Started with an anatomy model loosely based on the proportions of Kiana's in-game model, and then two attempts at doing full-body drawings from imagination before realizing that it's bloody insane to try and do that much detail from imagination and I have much better things to do with my life than that x-x

.

Color studies

yaaaay color! yippee!

.

Action sketches/"gesture" drawings

"Gesture" is in quotes because I was way too slow with these for it to really count as proper gesture drawing, imo. But the intention was to start with gesture, and I got closer to that as I went on.

It's way too tempting to start adding detail so I had to metaphysically slap myself with a frying pan to keep myself from getting derailed by that >.>

To get references for this, I did screen recording of gameplay on the PC with OBS studios, then used DaVinci Resolve to play back the recordings.

On PC, when using the mouse controls you can hold the camera fairly still when doing an attack sequence, making it awesome for getting unique angles. For instance, when I recorded Void Drifter's attacks, I was able to get at least 4 different PoVs of her attacks: from the left, the right, behind & above, and in front & below.

Unfortunately, though, it was a bit of a hassle to get good recordings because I had to go into an actual combat stage to record it instead of being able to use an empty testing stage.

With DaVinci Resolve I could "split" clips to make cuts in the timeline that let me easily mark the spots where different attack sequences started, and I could also easily play it in .5x speed to help me figure out how the animations were going from one set of frames to another.

Plus if you close the program after saving, when you open it up again it remembers which frame you were last on and takes you straight there, making it easy to continue from one day to another.

I used White Comet, Herrscher of the Void, and Void Drifter attack animations here, but I also did recordings of Knight Moonbeam and Herrscher of Flamescion, and I might give those a try someday.

.

Facial expressions practice

Started with the set of rough sketches (first image), then did some expression practice from imagination (second and third images) to try and get used to how the proportions of the face change slightly with movement of the eyebrows/eyelids/jaw, since the shape of the eyes and mouth is especially important when doing stylized faces (like the anime style that HI3rd uses)

Then this morning I started working through the original rough sketches and developing them one-by-one, getting through 8 before I decided to call it quits and wrap up the project for now

So the facial expression practice pretty much the culmination of all my practice. All the practice with proportions, the contours & forms of the hair, monochromatic shading, line quality, shape design, etc.

This was also one of the few times I've ever taken stylized references and actually adapted them to some extent instead of directly copying them!

This is especially noticeable in the hair, where I used a more standard style for the hair, in contrast with the variety of hairstyles and shapes used in the various manga references (i.e. black-and-white Escape from Nagazora Kiana's messy hair vs the neat and solid hair in the colored Gratitude Arc, AE Invasion, and Moon Shadow Kiana)

.

Reference images