#humans are harder to draw than skeletons

[flamebringer0]

[Image ID: Sketches of an original character, numbered from one to ten. He is a Nightwing, a kind of dragon from the Wings of Fire series. Each sketch depicts him posed differently. In the first sketch, he is using his forelegs to hold a spear while using his back legs and wings to walk. In the second, he is looking at his tail through his forelegs. In the third, he is sitting on a deck chair. In the fourth, he is standing normally and displaying the undersides of his wings. In the fifth, he is flying. In the sixth, he is standing on his back legs and looks uncomfortable, like he's about to fall over. In the seventh, he is standing on his forelegs and looks even more uncomfortable. In the eighth, he is laying on his stomach, looking away from the camera. In the ninth, he is standing with his forelegs braced against some kind of barrier, looking over the top of it. In the tenth, he is sitting on his haunches looking away from the camera. /.End ID]

Sketching random poses for practice.

Part [1] [2]

Some commentary:

1. Dragons in WOF are often described as moving around while holding objects like spears and scrolls. This usually looks weird to me in the graphic novels, where they mostly end up doing a strange three-legged walk that I imagine would get tiring after a while. There's also a part in The Lost Heir where Anemone apparently walks around with a lance jammed in her armpit... foreleg-pit... whatever. My headcanon is that this three-legged walk doesn't really happen, and instead the way to walk while holding something is to either hold it with your wing, or (as shown here) walk with your wings and hold it with your forefeet. I think this idea might sound weird and therefore not occur to people because they think that the wing is so thin that it must be too flimsy to walk on, but I feel that if it's strong enough to carry a dragon in flight it must be strong enough for this. Maybe. It makes sense to me anyway.

2. Originally this was sort of inspired by the pose at 0:34 in this video (cw for violence). I wasn't really satisfied with how my attempt looked so I changed the head to be doing something else. I still like that pose though and I might try it again.

3. This was inspired by Spyro sleeping on the deck chair in the remake of Spyro 2. I don't know if they have deck chairs in Pyrrhia. My friend told me the chair is about to get impaled and i guess he's correct. Maybe it's made of a very thick fabric.

4. This is how dragons T-pose.

5. What do dragons do with their legs in flight? This question bedevils me. When I was creating my Minecraft skin (this) I changed how the legs are posed during the flight animation several times, and I'm still not sure it really looks right.

6. Before I got into WOF I mostly only drew anthro characters, so something I want to understand better is how to draw a character standing on two legs without making it look like they have a human skeleton. My headcanon is that dragons can learn to stand and even walk like this, but most don't. You can tell an expert from an amateur because an expert will stand all the way up onto their toes, whereas an amateur will keep their heels on the ground. I think the main students of this technique are circus performers. If you do this in public you will be stared at. The only tribe where a lot of dragons can do it is Rainwings, because they think it's funny. The only major non-Rainwing character who can do it is Qibli.

7. Standing on your forelegs isn't really considered harder than standing on your hind legs, but it is considered a more advanced technique because you're much more likely to snap your neck if you fall over.

8. It's really hard for me to draw a tail curling away from the camera like this. I don't exactly understand what I'm doing wrong. The scales look weirdly skewed to me, like a Playstation game where the polygons are touching the edge of the screen. This happens regularly but I haven't figured out what to do about it.

9. Standing on two legs is a lot easier if you brace the other two up against the wall.

10. Wings look silly here. Wings are the hardest part of these sketches to make look naturalistic I think, probably because I conceptualise dragon bodies as like ... a dog with wings, as opposed to a bat with forelegs. Hopefully if I keep doing this I will be able to develop a holistic understanding of the anatomy of a body plan that does not exist. That's my ambition, anyway.

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

A couple random examples from the internet, artists in the 1800s were going crazy with it istg

1800s:

Renaissance:

I have trouble visualizing how clothes would fold when I’m drawing and then I see marble sculptures from the renaissance onward and am like “I’m gonna fucking cry”

[battlemaiden13]

Hey Hey! How would the skeletons be like if they were in the slave tale universe? Oh and can you include the mafia bois and the horror bois?? (Also how's your day goin?)

Sans -He becomes suicidally depressed. He fought so hard to get out of the underground only to be thrown into a worse hell. He is cold and distant with everyone and just tries to keep his head down.

Papyrus -He’s still trying to see the good in everyone but with each passing day it gets harder and harder. He was lucky enough to get a good master but even the good ones are horrible people at times and he will not escape unphased. 

Red -He has to be muzzled. Legally. Apparently if you keep biting your owners and being aggressive towards them means you may be a danger and gets you muzzled. He doesn’t enjoy it and it does not help with his violent outburst. Unless he gets a kind owner who he can at least somewhat tolerate he will be dust. 

Edge -It is just luck that he’s used to taking orders. He learnt pretty quickly that back talking isn’t going to get him anything but broken and bruised bones. He becomes a perfect little soldier. Holding his tongue and slowly dying on the inside. 

Blue -Is totally broken. Luckily he’s used to hiding behind his childlike personality so he uses this as a survival mechanism. He becomes so nervous and jittery that he’s a quiet ball of anxiety just hoping things will get better. 

Orange -Is very stubborn. He will find loopholes in every order given and because of that goes through owners due to ‘insubordination’. He has become bitter and distant, with his depression coming back full force. 

Berry -He is in constant work mode which is stressful. He’s never allowed to be his authentic self but he’s used to pretending and taking orders to survive and he will continue to do so until he’s dusted or this hell ends. 

Syrup -The only real downside for Syrup here is that the collars prevent him from causing harm to humans so he has to get a little creative with some of his dealings. He’s used to taking orders though. His personality is the thing that turns away most owners until he’s taken as a personal bodyguard. 

Axe -Can not be taken as a slave. His mental issues prevent him from remembering recent events and he is violent and dangerous. He killed his first owners and has been locked up ever since. Perhaps one day he could be sold on the black market as a killer. 

Crooks -Oddly unaffected. This isn’t any worse than what he had to endure underground. He’s just rolling with the punches at this point and doing what he can to continue to survive. 

Roulette -To everyone else it seems as if he's not affected by this at all.  He acts the same but is working behind the scenes with the resistances to get monsters out of the slave trade which he is taking very seriously. 

Sniper - This world has broken him. He speaks in a monotone voice and shows no emotions as he carries out orders in a world he would rather not be apart of. 

Colt - He is biding his time. He will bite his tongue, for the most part, and do his best to stay calm and collected so as to not draw attention to himself. Of course this means when things go wrong he’s not going to lend a hand to the humans who have imprisoned him and he will happily watch them burn. 

Musket - He becomes the perfect picture of subservient. Taking orders to the extreme in order to satisfy those in charge. He finds that the better he performs the better he is treated so he will strive for excellence. Don’t mistake this for loyalty however, he is more than happy when humans meet their demise and will not lift a finger to help his old masters. 

Carbine -Is much more irritable. He often grinds his teeth together and seems to have a constant glare. He will do what is needed to survive but he makes it perfectly clear that he hates everything that is happening. 

Rifle - Due to his clumsy nature, and the fact that he keeps messing with it in secret, Rifle's collar is often on the fritz. Sometimes this works out for the better and sometimes it can be so much worse. He has become more jumpy and cold during this whole ideal. 

[imagine-shenanigans]

I'm getting back into the swing of things for writing, so here's some random safe for work headcanons because I've been reading an obscene amount of x reader content (Please go check out Aggre(g/v)ation by llama goddess, and Saving Three Ex-cell-ent skeletons by recklessly caffeinated on ao3 because I got brain worms babey.)

Also since its been awhile since I've written something on this blog, remember that these are stream of consciousness teehee <3

(General tws: references (but not explicitly said) to past consumption of humans, ED/Disordered eating and mental health issues, au-typical violence references, etc)

Word Count: 2.2k words ish

.

Horrortale!Sans (Skull) x Reader Misc SFW Headcanons

My favorite thing is when people portray sans in any light as either Just A Little Guy or as Fuckin Huge and Skull is a Big Boy <333 he's easily 7 feet tall, and Built Fucking Different.

Monsters can't like, completely and utterly alter the type of monster they are, so you won't see a Bunny Monster turn into a Moldsmal but its very widely understood that magic reflects the soul reflects the mind reflects the body - so its not really something where monsters experience dysphoria as much? Like if a monster is afab, but realizes they're trans and a guy, it may take awhile to transition - and they may need some help via magic other than their own - but it's really normal in comparison.

Unfortunately, the positive aspects of the whole "mind/soul/body" equation in that you'll eventually look how you want so long as you put the effort into changing every day can also be blocked by trauma and "scarring" to the soul. It's pretty rare in the canon universe, but for Horrortale monsters its damn near exclusive - when you have to do anything you can to survive, adaptation to your environment makes you a hell of a lot scarier in compenstation.

Skull is one such monster where if it weren't for his injury, he'd be a complete 180 from the typical monsters you see. But because of it, it makes it harder to control his magic because he can't think straight. It takes him longer to form sentences, takes him longer to process words sometimes, or even read. He gets light sensitivity really bad, and because his body change wasn't by his choice, but by an unfortunate way of being injured while in a traumatic situation, Skull, no matter how much better he gets, will never fully go back to what he was before.

He's extremely self-conscious about his size and his looks, not to mention his mental capacity. He knows and can think about what he's doing, his mind has never lost that sharpness or intellect. He can strip a machine down to parts and put it back together or put it to other use in minutes, but if you ask him to write it down or explain it he's going to have one hell of a time and he'll probably leave the experience worse than he went into it.

Similarly, if he does want to talk, in one of his rare moods where he's explaining what he's doing out loud to you, he could go on for hours, but suddenly hit a block where the words don't work right.

Be patient with him when this happens. He doesn't like it, and even though it can be frustrating at times, like if you're trying to decide something for dinner or write up a grocery list, he really is doing his best.

Sign language is a good alternative when the words don't want to come out but he's still able to communicate - writing can be one sided, but sometimes thats all he can do too.

When an idea strikes the both of you one day to just draw what he's thinking, Skull could fucking kiss you senseless when you hand him a white board and a dry erase marker. Words may not be making sense in his brain but he can picture what he wants in those moments so this is the perfect compromise between the two for communication.

Skull is his name now, so even though he was once Sans, Skull is what he picked as the reclamation of all that's happened to him. A name that he picked to get him through it day by day but its also a reminder of where he's been and where he'll go. That said... it's also a name he initially picked as a form of self harm to some degree, a mocking reference to his own injury that hindered him.

So while he'll probably never change his name again... he appreciates it when you call him pet names. It's a reminder that you love him enough to do so, while also giving himself a break from the constant reminder. He particularly loves when you call him your "Big old teddy bear" because... god he does not feel like it sometimes.

Get it its a reference to some of the fandom calling him Bear and I love that name for him a lot too

Due to the past, he has some Big Issues With Food, constantly bouncing back and forth between feast and famine.

He has some issues with meat at times - on bad days certain textures and tastes just remind him of the bad times in his life where survival was such a tightrope walk that just imagining eating it makes him sick.

A very "safe food" house, where the two of you stock up on your safe foods and have a cupboard dedicated to it for days you can't stand anything else.

Some days, Skull is content for the two of you to eat at the kitchen table or to watch TV in the living room while you two eat from separate bowls/plates, and he can eat fairly freely, not particularly caring who eats how much or in what order.

Others... other days he anxiously watches to make sure you've had a serving before he gets his, or, more likely, he brings the full pan/a single platter to the table, and the two of you share the same food, taking bites in turn so he can make sure you're getting enough to eat.

King of cooking. It makes him feel better to have full say of what goes into the meals, and honestly the man is an excellent cook. If you insist on helping him cook, it's a 50/50 on whether he gives you this smug little smile and sets you up on the counter top so he can look at you while he cooks, or if he actually lets you help.

He feels out of control if he can't cook, so even on special occasions he's still going to be cooking himself, unless you feel the Urge To Cook or you two order out.

Even then, please just go over with him what you did step by step and tell him what fully went in it - he trusts you implicitly and he's unlikely to outright ask... but it always helps ease his mind when you walk him through what you did just so he can feel less guilty.

Cuddler.

Big fucking cuddler.

Sitting on the couch alone? Not for long. Skull appears? Bam. you're in his lap, his claws smoothing across your skin and through your hair, purring up a storm as he settles his chin on the top of your head and closes his eyes.

If you're watching TV, he's only ever going to pay half attention if he's got you in his lap, half-snoozing in a very light doze as he basks in your presence, and half listening for danger/to the TV depending on the day.

He ADORES when you read to him. He loves it when you talk, and when he gets to listen to storytime while you talk? Best. Day. Ever.

Loves how small you are in comparison to him - something he never thought he'd be comfortable with at first, just based on the idea alone, but in practice he loves being completely wrapped around you and making sure you're safe. You're his personal teddy bear, no matter how many times you call him that yourself.

Jetpacking/Him being the little spoon is... unlikely. He's got some damn broad shoulders and chest, and he's not super happy with the idea of your limbs inside of him no matter if its on purpose or not.

If you want to hold him, he's definitely okay with that (although he does prefer to hold you) as long as you're touching him. You'll just have to let him set his head in your lap, or rest against your chest as he snuggles you chest to... well not chest, so more chest-to-skull and chest-to-legs with how he holds you. He's very beefy and has presence but he's about half the weight most people expect, despite the fact that it should be obvious because he's a skeleton.

He lets out the most broken whimper-whine-purr when you gently kiss the cracks on his skull, close to the gaping wound there. Don't actually touch inside or press too close to the wound itself, because that's genuinely very uncomfortable in the way it would be if he were human and had a missing eye and you touched the inside of the socket to see what it felt like. Just overall a bad experience so Don't Do That No Matter What The Intrusive Thoughts Say, although he'd let you do it in a heartbeat if you asked him

Absolutely whipped. Skull will do anything and everything you say if you just look at him just like that - just like he's your everything, like you love him without bounds and without exception. Puppy eyes also work.

He's a goddamn simp is what he is,

You'll just be minding your own business and you'll look over and catch him staring at you like you've hung the moon and the stars just to provide him with a small amount of your light during the nighttime. He looks at you with such adoration that it hurts.

Sometimes it looks a little freaky like, before you've come to automatically understand his expressions but goddamnit its so hard not to fall in love with him even just by a little more when he loves you so fucking much.

Kissies? Kissies for Skull? Please?

man FIENDS for kissies.

Once he's more comfortable giving affection unprompted you can barely keep his fucking hands off of you. He goes from "I Can And Will Nuzzle You And Pull You Into My Lap But That's It" to "No Kissies? No Snuggles? No Love For Skull? Oh! Jail! Jail For Datemate! Jail For Datemate For One Thousand Years!"

He straight up just hangs off of your clothing while staring at you until you give him a kiss or a hug. He'll come up to you and just bury his face into your neck while purring, or nuzzle your hair, but then moments later pout at you while wrapping his arms around your middle and burying his face into your stomach until you give up whatever youre doing and pay attention to him.

He doesn't do it often But By God Does He Get His Way When He Does.

He's also the type to just like, spend the entire day giving you small pecks on the lips and cheeks and forehead, and then snuggle you at night, and then the next day he'll be way less clingy. You take it in stride and then he just out of the blue dips you in the fucking moonlight and kisses you senseless.

The bastard.

Circling back to pet names, he thinks the nickname Teddybear/Bear is cute and he likes it, but call him My Love/Love/Dear Heart/something else dripping with affection and he's cupping your face in his hands and staring at you adoringly while he rubs your cheek with his claw.

Surprise him with new ones and he'll turn positively blue in the face while smiling like a fool

Surprise him with silly ones and he'll be even more in love while laughing. call him your little chicken nugget and he cant stop smiling and chuckling for a few hours. God. He'll dream of kissing you under the moonlight if you make a pun out of it.

(Brief aside here so I can avoid the text character limit "per block" but I prefer doing bullet point lists for these so anyway continue on)

Pet names always depend on the person, so whatever his one for you depends on you as a person (thats the easy way out for me) but he prefers just one pet name. (Aside from like. Babe being thrown in sometimes yknow)

He'll start with one pet name and see how you react to it - he prefers cute ones like Kitten, Bunny, Lovebird, etc. Something small and cute and adorable - though he changes it up depending on what you respond best to, because while the majority of the reason he calls you a pet name is out of affection, he still calls you pet names to see you get flustered.

On days he's feeling better, he gets more sassy he's gonna include more puns. Or teasing. Example - if he calls you lovebird, or some sort of bird-based nickname? Fuckin. He's calling you pigeon to see how you react.

Bunny? Hare-brain

Kitten? Fuzzball

If its an animal/bird/etc that he calls you in terms of nicknames, he might even refer to you as the scientific name of the animal, or a breed in that category because he thinks its funny to watch you fully stop in your tracks and process what he's just said.

Picks you up at any given opportunity.

Puddle? Oh dear, he should make sure your shoes don't get wet. Better princess carry you.

About to miss an appointment? Thrown over a shoulder.

Just feels like it? Get Scooped Idiot. Okay i have Way More Thoughts but I'm already at 2k because I have no impulse control so byeeeee come request more xreader stuff from me

[pomrania]

Shoutout to Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) for doing anatomical illustrations of skeletons in a pose, because otherwise “turning this picture of a human model into a skeleton” would be even harder than it already is, since modern anatomy-for-artists texts (or at least the ones I have at home) only show the bones of the feet at the “default” angles, instead of “mostly forward but turned somewhat lateral” or “standing on toes but also at a 3/4 view”.

At least I don’t have to draw the shoulder area.

[iztea]

hi! I saw your post about critiquing another persons art work and it made me realize i dont like my current drawing process

Mostly because I have shaky hands and don’t really like line art because it takes me too long and i still dont like how it looks so im trying to switch to a more painterly style

Do you have any advice? Particularly on defining 3d forms?

P.S.

(I love your art style! You draw so beautifully and I love how you stylize anatomy and hair particularly)

yeah i feel you, i think everyone starts digital art with a lineart heavy style in mind and then gradually drop it as it is pretty hard to master

i'm not sure i'm the best person to ask about defining 3D forms as i myself struggle with that, but i thing that i noticed is that if you don't have a stable base or foundation to paint over then the process will become exponentially harder. So what i do is i make sure i have a cohesive sketch. Not a clean one, not a pretty one, but one where i am sure where everything goes and one that helps me predict and better visualize how things will end up once i get there. If the sketch is so messy to the point where i can't tell a leg apart or i don't know the general form of the fabric then i'll have a much, much harder time rendering later on.. So i think making sure the "skeleton" of your art is set in place. Again it's not about it looking good or clean it's about knowing what you'll be doing with it in the later stages.

But let's say you do have a clean sketch, or even lineart. I think the easiest way to give form to your subject is by choosing a light source ( it doesn't have to be dramatic, it can just be ambient light ) and then paint shadows in the areas where light can't reach. It depends on your style really, but for me i use a darker (but still saturated) color under the chin, under the eyes, where the bangs/hair meets the face and for the nose area i kinda just make a blob (i don't paint noses that much as you might have noticed bdshj but you know,, check out other artists you like and examine how they handle shading). Just try to think of everything as oversimplified shapes. limbs are cylinders, the torso is like a parallelipiped or a box or a sack of beans or whatever you see fit, the head another box etc... just keep it simple, Less is more

Oh and also, for a painterly style, i suggest avoiding overkilling it with the rendering. Let the brush strokes speak for themselves and keep it vague/ abstract. Our brains are smart and they loove filling in blanks for us if they're given some general information so let the viewer do the hard work, don't explain everything.. this is also a good way to practice developing an artstyle but i'm getting off topic if i wasn't blabbering enough already. A painterly style is imperfect and messy and vague at times and you should let it be that way, don't force perfection onto it as you'll deprive it of humanity these are my two cents on the matter hope it made sense and helped in any way? if not you can always watch yt videos or listen to more qualified people than me

[drawnfromthedead]

In my head I can't imagine Underfell Papyrus having the same eyes as Undertale Pap.

I also can't decide how I want to draw his clothes so I took the opportunity to show off the bone tint I think all papyrus' would have. I imagine that because a lot of human trash winds up in the underground they have some human medicines as well. There are some human meds that will tint your bones different colors, like blacks or dark blues, and maybe the different Papyrus' where given some when they got sick as kids and no one knew it would effect skeletons like that in the underground. You can see patches where the tint has raised over time and a part of his skull that still has that bruised look bc of the tint. I put it on his range as well but it looks very similar to the shading so I'll try harder next time. Maybe.

Idk I thought it would be a cool idea to play around with and it lets me continue to draw his bones when he wears his various outfits! I don't know why I like drawing bones so much, I'm going to blame playing this game in middle school. Its also why my sense of humor is the way it is.

I also drew his soul with red in it bc I like to imagine it that way, its still supposed to be mostly white but to when I added the glow it turned more pink than anything.

Also now that I've typed all this out I want to draw a slightly younger Paps with his bones, skull included, fully tinted from the medicine. It would look so cool! Plus with Fell Paps soul being the way it is it might even look a little bad ass!

[bh-writingdump]

Oakland

Chapter 1: Easy Peasy Part 1

“I dunno about this.” your shorter friend backs into you. Bones rattling, teeth chattering and intakes whistle. If you weren’t watching the whole thing, you would’ve thought some experimental band came to town. Even eir nerves rattles to a beat. “I must confess, I didn’t study at all.”

“Bullshit.”

“not a single moment. Anytime I even thought about rehearsing.” Ey throws up eir arms at you. “What’s that for?! I’m dead serious.”

You scoff. “Yeah, sure, tell that to the joy you’re tutoring…. The kinda person who flips tables at math… you can teach and yet.”

Ey waves it off. “Learned that nonsense years ago. This is different.”

“uh-huh.” You smirk, stepping into em so ey can’t back away any further.

The grocery store towers over the adjacent buildings. Big blocky green letters read Peasley Easly Grocer. You can even imagine their theme song. ‘Come to Peasley’s Easyly, where you won’t feel measily~ Cuz it’s easy~’ Admittedly, ever since Oakland dropped off the map, the advertising department was never the same. Neither the design department, soon after the world forgot about Oakland, the new owner. Peasley’s husband, Easyly decided it was time to give the old grocery store a makeover.

Between its Corinthean columns and the paint job, it’s like you’re walking into somewhere important. Then you hear the sliding doors and the whole illusion is ruined. It’s only the one side too.

You shake your head.

You massage your friend’s shoulders. Waiting for eir rattling to drop a notch, savoring the way ey leans back into you. Fuck, somedays, you forgot how nice it was just to… exist.

The satisfying draw of smoother than smooth warm bones beneath your phalanges taking you into a whole other dimension. It’s just you, hands, and the most beautifully sculpted collar bone on the planet.

Sadly, oh sadly, reality always comes a knocking.

A scent of navel oranges invades your nostrils along with the familiar chill of an AC. You open your eyes, finding yourself in the home of your agoraphobic friend. “Dude… we talked about this.”

Ey steps away.

The two of you stand in the living room.

Eir back tall as if this meant nothing. Not even the local Ancient Greek themed Grocery Store could bring down the Great Mathematician. And yet, 50 attempts later, you still got eir groceries.

Each time your friend came up with the same excuses. No, not excuses, you’d seen em the one-time ey had gone inside.

Little joy nearly shook emself to pieces by the cash register. Back when you’d only known em as your tutor, you hadn’t even seen eir out of the profile of a computer screen yet you knew part way across the store that was em.

Few monsters, after all, could rock a cardigan and skirt quite like the mathematician could. Plus, the spiderweb of vine marks etched into eir skull helped. Dozen skeletons in town and not one of them had that distinct of a cranial design.

You remember that day clear as day.

The cashier attempted to talk em down while a general manager loomed over em. Tears gathered in eir vacant sockets. Words sputtered out but too soft to be heard.

“Yo, Teach!” You call, all three turn their heads. The little skeleton snapping harder than the rest.

You ignore the humans, kneeling beside your tutor. “Good luck comes to those with a pocket full of tissues as my nopa says.” You grin, revealing a seemingly endless line of tissues you pull from your wrist, somehow still attached to each other. A lite magic trick that always cheered up your younger siblings.

Though, your soon-to-be friend barely took notice. Staring up at you like the grim reaper had some to get em. “not supposed to see you until next week.”

You shrug. “I got stuck.” You plop down beside em. You write out a problem along your arm in sharpie Like a blood hound on the scent, eye snatches your arm and marker.

You must’ve been staring for a while because the cashier clears their throat. You stand up, your new shadow following behind you, scrawling on along your arm, only to raise a brow. A look you’d seen enough time to know what ey wanted without saying a word.

You sigh. Did you really have to go over this in a grocery store? You could make it up, couldn’t you. “see I know how to factor but all completing a square triangle stuff.. it isn’t clicking. Can’t I just get the vertex and be done with it?”

Ey nods. Though, you’re still not sure if ey heard you. Ey scribbles with renewed enthusiasm muttering, “your basic arithmetic needs some work.”

“that’s why we have calculators, old timer.”

“Lazy,” ey mutters.

Magic sparks from your other hand. You clench your fist, finishing up purchasing an assortment of vegetables, fruits and soup cans.  You toss them in a bag, walking out the door.

“You factored out the ‘a’ divided resulting ‘b’ by 2 and square it but you need to subtract it inside and outside the parenthesis. The outside one you need to multiply by ‘a’ again so when you distribute the resulting c inside and outside will cancel out each other.”

Just like that, it feels like your back in session. Your skin burning to get the fuck out. “I didn’t order alphabet soup…. Oh look at the time, I got to head to do things.. Looks like you’re good to go. Bye!”

Despite eir smaller stature it takes more effort than you would’ve thought to extract your hand from eirs.

In the low setting sun, shadows seem to stretch for miles. Your races ahead of you, soon joined by another. “Dude. Stop following me.” You sigh.

Eir gaze stops you in your tracks. The absence of eir eye lights. Ey always has eye lights. No matter how small. Eying the road around them, you notice the humans who usually kept to their yards, venturing out along the side walk. The strangers stall just long enough as if to remind them just who drove the lot of them under the mountain in the first place.

The mathematician nearly bumps shoulders with you. Hovering just within range that you feel eir magic react to yours.

“Stickers.” Ey tugs on eir coat. “Give them to me.”

 You grab eir hand, dragging em down a side path away from the suburbs. Only once you’d looked back several times seeing nobody following did you relax a touch.

Out of nowhere, the shadow shoves a hand into your pocket, extracting your stickers.

“HEY!”

“Factored GCF.” Ey puts a star on your original work. On your arm. “You divided ‘b’ by 2 and squared it, ditched the ‘negative’ correctly.” Star. Star.” “And…” Ey frowns. “Did something in and out.” Star. “4 out of 5. Better than last time.”

Chill the fuck out. You’ve been down her a million times, it’s just the burbs. You barely even process your shadow’s constant babbling, merely accepting that that’s just your life now. The idea of being alone, much less leaving a monster alone with them, even the annoying ones.

Once back into a better part of town, you ask, “anybody you want me to call? Think the taxis handle these sorts of things.”

“A maths lawyer.”

Wow, the sass from the joy. Rarey is ey this biting. The usual timidity entirely vanished.

Ey forces you to sit on a log, gesturing as ey writes equations in the air.

So in the zone, the usual faint scrunch to eir face eases Like this is just another problem. The only things you can’t write off is the faint tremor in eir hand. the dude could write for hours before without breaking a sweat.

After the fifth rewrite, you noticed ey isn’t all that different. Similar style problems. It’s all as if ey is reproducing em as a self-soothing technique rather than to teach. Not that you mind now. You’d upend the log and any nearby trees if you had to hear another problem you suck at but if eir’s just going to jabber, whatever.

Then your tutor looked at you. Even then you were stuck by the intense concentration the joy always made everything appear so effortless like ey conducted an orchestra of equations.

As the conductor raises eir hand, you notice a bead of sweat roll down eir neck. Eir mouth hangs open, ready to catch flies.

Ey frowns, trying again. this time ey tugs at your hand.

A spark jolts through your arm again as the magics intermingle. The strange connection stronger this time. You barely even notice how bright things got until it glared you in the face.

The scent of oranges draws you from eir hand. The ground below is no longer a gravel path but a matted blue carpet. You wrinkle your nose at the strength of the smell.

Rather than the familiar forest, the two monsters are indoors. The shorter hurrying away tossing back a few pills before slumping onto the couch. It’s one of the motel rooms, huh, you’d never taken em for the type to stay here long.

“Damn, didn’t know people still did porting magic.” No response, just a long belated sigh as the smaller skeleton pinches eir nasal ridge.

Taking it as your cue to sit, you plop down beside em. Judging form, the glare, that must’ve been another wrong.

Shrug, relating into the comfortable couch.

It’s stiff but the litany of pillows makes it infinitely more comfortable than your mattress back home. No maneuvering required to avoid an arrant spring. “How do you ever get anything done?” You melt into your forever home. “Temp’s perfect. Got all this storage.”

You gesture to the walls packed with shelves. Shelf housing maybe 20-30 boxes around the circumference of the room. In one such box you spy a flashing light. Like a moth to flame, you investigate it. Looks like a DIY machine of some kind. There’s no label to what it is, just a bunch of exposed wire and circuits.

How hadn’t you noticed any of this during your sessions?

Only way would’ve been if ey covered the wall with a sheet. There’s not a single piece of exposed drywall.

In another drawer, you find compact robots while others contain an infinite array of circuit boards. Some so small they could fit on the tip of your pinky phalange while other so large they take up the entire box.

Hard to tell much else. Your expertise begins and ends with microwaving meals and smacking computers to turn on again.  

A force tugs you back from the drawers. The telltale blue glow covers your waist. “Touchy, touchy.”

The bugger already prying eir precious tech from you.

“I was just looking.”

Ey opens either mouth to protest but quickly thinks better of it.

Oh yeah, that’s still going on.

“Speaking of, need any help like… I’ not an expert in this…”

Ey raises a brow, glancing at the shelves.

“Oh! Hahaha… not that. I mean the other stuff. Mutism and stuff.”

Ey shakes eir head, setting aside the machines in eir respective containers.

You nod surveying the place again. “Cool..”

Pin prick glare up at you. You can’t help but smile. “So.. all good?”

It’s then you feel a tug at your arm and the dust of something blue on the smaller skeleton’s cheeks. Ey whirls around, dragging you into the kitchen before you can protest, a Tupperware of egg salad is shoved into your hand before you’re promptly shoved out the door.

You stare back curiously at the door.

Weird.

Usually when you go poking around, people rarely give you things.

You hold the Tupperware tightly. Huh.. that gives you an idea.

.

.

.

[Oakland, pg1] -->

[joshfmpyeartwo]

Poses

As I mentioned in a previous post, my concept art is going to be split up into poses, faces and then a finished concept sheet. I've done it like this because I'm not too experienced with figure drawing or anatomy so I figured doing these separately would be a lot easier for me.

I will be creating three poses for Dionysus as I'd like to add some spice to the art of the game.

My first step to creating a pose for Dionysus was a rough skeletal stretch using circles to identify the joints. I was originally going to create the hands in pocket pose first but it was most likely harder to do and less easy to use the skeleton sketch. I ended up doing the arms cross pose first.

The next step was to outline the rest of the body building off of the skeleton.

After that, I used a thicker brush to outline my previous sketch, slightly changed the proportions to make have a reasonable build for his character, and also added some detail around the muscles.

I then duplicated the layer I drew the final pose on and erased the arms, creating a new arms skeleton so I could draw his arms reaching behind his head.

I did originally add extra joints and messed up the proportions but nothing to bad. I also stretched the torso and redid the detail on the body to really make it look like he's stretching.

The last pose I made was the hands in pocket one. I used the same process as the last pose with different arm skeletons and then added the detail again.

And here's Dionysus' finished pose sheet.

I personally really like how each pose turned out, I think they represent his personality while still fitting in with the dating game atmosphere.

I now needed to create a pose for Aphrodite

It worked exactly the same as Dionysus with slightly smaller, closer joints and a more slim torso. I did end up having a lot of issues with perspective, I found it hard to make her proportions look human so I had to use a reference image for the last pose.

This gives a slight look into the process I used. Building muscles off the skeleton. I made sure to make the poses looked more animated and whimsical to mimic her personality. I these poses are going to be able to represent all scenarios for Aphrodite.

I then moved on to Alexiares and Anicetus.

The process was a lot simpler than the other I had created as I just had to duplicate Dionysus' arms cross pose, making it slimmer for Anicetus and smaller and wider for Alexiares. After that I based the next two off the first one, adding a skeletal arm to show the direction I wanted. I also needed the last pose to be uniquely Anicetus'. I went for a contemplative one to mimic his personality.

For Alexiares I tried to dull down the muscles and make all his poses very aggressive. The first pose I did for him was the one I wanted to uniquely represent him this time. I had a lot of issues drawing the new poses for him. As he was scaled from Dionysus his proportions looked all wrong. I did my best to try and fix it, changing the direction of his feet and adding some fat around his torso but I still don't think he looks quite right. I'm hoping adding clothes to him will fix the issues.

[wildcard4505]

New Art!!! (with hints about lore??)

Hey Everyone!! So I gave myself another big art project for this story and I'm really happy with how it turned out!

I might post another version if I find something to fix but who knows

Anyway it has a LOT to do with the current part of the story and things that aren't very explicitly explained (or at least won't be until a while later).

If you want to check it out with higher quality on DeviantArt along with some of my not strictly Undertale works you can head over here:

https://www.deviantart.com/wildcard4505/art/Locked-Away-880566063?ga_submit_new=10%3A1621923957

[zarla-s]

[Previous] [Next]

“BUT... WHY? WHY WOULD YOU DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT?“ “Does it really matter why? They are still dead because of me, and I am still alive. Any reasons or justifications for doing so would only be for my emotional benefit. They are still dead. The damage done by the act will not change.“

A few people have wondered about who it was that Gaster killed and how that happened. Now you know! Those EXP hunters have a familiar look to them, hmm.

It isn’t just the act of killing that sends Gaster into a state of shock, but the timing of it as well.

It’s probably for the best that the brothers have forgotten why they’re so scared of blue magic, really.

[index]

[sepublic]

            A while back, I had this concept of a Metroid fanon, which I typically do for series I really like; Sort of flesh out, entirely in my head with no intention of actually writing it down, maybe just drawing, my own sort of take on the canon. An idea for how a larger story would incorporate and flow between these different games or installments or whatever, stuff that would happen in-between, and stuff afterwards.

         Basically, I wanted to make a unifying storyline out of Metroid. Entirely in my head, of course. And I quickly found that one of the themes I stumbled across, an idea I ended up having a lot of fun with, was this idea of… the Niche, for sapient alien species.

         Think of it like this; Imagine you’re an alien with a body type more akin to Kraid, being huge and massive and capable of hurling projectile weaponry. You want to be an accountant, and so does this other alien beside you, who’s more human-sized. You both have the same skills as accountants and are both paid the same for it, except!

         You have much greater needs. Bigger body means more nutrition needed. Bigger body means more space to occupy, which means greater rent. You need all of your equipment to work at home with specially made for your body type, because sometimes companies prefer to work with a specific range of shapes or sizes amongst alien species. You ultimately make less than your fellow accountant, due to the particular expenses of your existence.

         Of course, a friend brings up to you that some people need help hauling stuff around, and they don’t want to pay a lot for a big crew, or maybe it’s just easier with you. You’re huge and strong, you can help! And you became an accountant, partly because you weren’t interested in physical labor. But you’re clearly the best for it, and will be paid for it, so… You don’t have much options but to do this side job. It’s fine you guess, but you still have to work two jobs to keep yourself alive.

         It’s the idea that some species have certain bodies better equipped for certain jobs, so even if they’d rather do something else, they’d probably be outcompeted by another species, and end up pointed back in their assigned ‘niche’ in society. It’s easier and simpler for the Federation to operate by this more confined system, where larger, bigger body types work labor and are compensated accordingly, while smaller aliens are expected to work in occupations that make the most of their small size, and are also paid accordingly.

         You’re a human, adaptable and hardy, so you’re expected to be a footsoldier in the Federation’s military. You’re a Ceratopsid, time for you to be a leader! Phrygisians are unique for generating ice, of course you’ll have an occupation related to cooling, like a firefighter or even just an ice cream maker! You arguably have a social responsibility to make the most of your species’ traits, to do the job better than any other species could.

         Of course, while the Federation DOES try to find a role and accommodations for every species it encounters… Not everyone fares so well. Some species, like the Urtraghue, are at an inherent disadvantage due to lacking any limbs. They NEED exo-skeletons in order to operate complex tools and machinery, so even if they do have the advantage of breathing in air and water, it’s still a lot harder for them to exist in a society designed around a certain body type.

         So there’s a lot of themes of ableism and accommodation here, I feel. The idea of cities and societies built around a particular definition of ‘abled’ and those outside of it have the onus placed on them to adapt, not the other way around. Most species tend to rely on physical expressions, so for a species that emotes more with scents or sounds or even lights, it’s gonna be harder!

         A lot of this just encourages aliens to keep within their own species. Stay segregated in societies built for people like them, and it’s easy for many to advocate for this. Federation supporters are alarmed because, hey, segregation is kinda terrible and merely encourages xenophobia!

         Some species are prioritized on the job market for certain behavioral attitudes. Others for their physique. Trafficking is a HUGE problem in the Metroid universe, for example Ridley’s species. They’re fairly few and obscure and not represented well by the Federation’s database, which already struggles to provide comprehensive info on every species. So it’s easy for them to fall through the network and be kidnapped and sold, seen as ideal and powerful weapons for their regenerative abilities, flight, fire-breathing, durable skin, etc.

         At some point, Samus has to team up with another member of Ridley’s species, Varyn, to save someone who has been trafficked for this purpose. And as they discuss, Varyn and Samus both have to ruminate on the inevitability of their roles; Ridley’s species feels built for combat, so of course that’s all they’ll be encouraged to do! Maybe that’s why Ridley ended up like that… And, Samus of course points out that people CAN make exceptions for themselves, and it hardly excuses his atrocities and evil. Varyn agrees, but she does bring up the inherent tragedy of it, the biological determinism.

         Likewise, we have Racklas, another member of Ridley’s species. She’s a judge and when Ridley is captured by the Federation at some point between Samus Returns and Super Metroid, for all his war crimes he’s still entitled to a fair trial. And Racklas is appointed because the Federation reasons that to make a trial as fair as possible, Ridley needs someone who could relate to him, it’s the same idea behind “a jury of your peers” and whatnot.

         Samus obviously does a double-take on Racklas and Racklas can’t totally blame her. But she does make a point that she explicitly does NOT want to be a fighter like her and Ridley’s species are expected, nay destined according to others, to be. But when Space Pirates crash the trial and successfully rescue Ridley, Racklas has to use her larger strength, fire breath, and durability to protect others. She’s hardly a fighter and has no combat experience, but her powerful physique compensates for that.

         And it makes Samus reflect on HER niche in society. She was trained as a warrior, she’s known as the hunter by enemy and friend alike. And then she becomes part-Metroid, a creature designed, meant to slaughter the X parasites. And while I wrote this back in 2019, it goes well with Dread and the revelation of Samus’ Metroid powers, her ability and responsibility to use them accordingly. And Raven Beak’s whole motivations and rhetoric, the Chozo are inherently evolved for war and should embrace that.

         Is that what Samus’ destiny is? Is that what her contributions to society will be? Killing and slaughtering? Sure people can justify she’s doing it to the ‘bad guys’, but she remembers the Metroid genocide of SR388. Is that the only way she can be a hero? Obviously people NEED to fight, people can’t always rely on peace. And theoretically, Samus could always just live a peaceful life, in a world where her Metroid powers weren’t particularly necessary; The X are (probably) extinct and there are other weapons for other enemies out there.

         I actually explored this idea a bit with my fanon on the Kriken Empire, who believe they have conquered these limitations of the Federation’s system through their alt-modes, eliminating any need for other species’ contributions. There’s the idea that individuals end up best-suited for certain roles and occupations, and are expected to dedicate themselves fully, permanently to those roles in the caste. 

        Ideally, the Kriken do not want any niche in their glorious empire to be looked down upon, because we ALL play an important part…! Still, it’s uncomfortable even if that did work out, because what if talent doesn’t correlate with passion? What then? And it’s part of Trace’s whole anxiety and his twisted coming-of-age arc that he and every Kriken goes through. The process to determine who fits where and the potential flaws in the determination, as well as the larger issue of its permanence and even general principle.

         Humans occupy an interesting position in that they’re both enforcers but also oppressed in their own way. Yeah, they have the weapons, they act as the main bulk of military. But they’re the ones sent to the front lines, expected to be the first and most common to die in the grinder… Doesn’t that suck? Some humans are fine because deep down, they still have some power over others! Others hate it, because regardless of how they feel about species lower on the list, they recognize they’re still being bossed around themselves. But most humans don’t want to threaten their guaranteed place in society, either.

         It’s basically an intergalactic ecosystem. A bunch of different species come into contact, and after years of working things out, inevitably sort themselves into certain roles, not exactly by intention. Survival of the Fittest, as it was called by the humans, or other names by other species, because they’re all familiar with the concept, without influence from aliens. Given the idea of predators and hunter, the Chozo’s connection with nature, and the discussion of ecology with the X and Metroids, as well as invasive species, I suppose this is thematically fitting.

         And as I brought up before, this is why some species prefer to isolate and group together, to stick to societies adapted to themselves. So there’s definitely themes of nationalism, community, and belonging going along; Trace’s fervor for his Empire, Spire’s search to find her lost people. Is Samus human or Chozo? What do various Space Pirate species fight for, or members of the Federation? The Mawkin are dedicated to a specific idea of Chozo culture, a particular memory they work to preserve. Can Dark Samus be said to have a ‘people’ she belongs to, what of the all-assimilating threat of the X?

         Obviously this doesn’t quite have its one-to-one parallels with real life; The difference between an Asian and a Hispanic person is nowhere near as drastic as one having wings and the other having echolocation. A lot of this is admittedly a thought exercise, hypothetical, on how different alien species would end up interacting and organizing themselves after a while.

         But there’s definitely correlations to racial stereotyping, as well as disability accommodations and the lack thereof. The discussions of ableism and societies built around a certain type of behavior, expression, and existence is DEF intentional. So, and forgive me if I’m patting myself on the back here, I guess it still has its applications to real life, as the arts always do beyond just entertainment.

        In the end, I guess I’m too lazy to properly write any of this in the form of an actual story. So I guess that’s why I’m going to write it as such here, better here than nowhere I say!

[tinyplanetss]

they definitely did not have world domination levels of plans without lbd. obviously the mayor was out with the skeleton key and could've given it to dbk if he had for some reason still wanted the mystic power source, but a family of three demons that have been around for centuries probably would have recognized that something was wrong? so yes, mk is definitely key to everything kicking off. not that this makes it his FAULT!!!!!!!!! [i yell this so loudly that fictional character mk can hear me] it is not his FAULT he is merely CURSED in his EXISTENCE. but yeah when lbd tells mk "a delivery boy to the end :)" she kinda slayed thats one of my favorite lines from her. but yeah without him i don't think any of this would've been kicked off!!

AND YES. WUKONG. he already tended to "overhelp" humans in jttw but only when it affected the journey. he delighted more in the fame of having a reputation (which he very much DID have. a few years in and everyone knows his name, spirits and gods are telling humans to expect him to come save them on his way west) but with the franchise stuff in lmk, i would imagine he's burnt out on all the fame and being known. at the end of the spider queen special, he actively runs away from the gang being hype fans of him, and of course when he's like THE FIREWORKS!! oh and people getting hurt i guess^_^✌️ like. he has grown so fascinatingly apathetic in the lmk timeline that i dont think he wouldve stopped any of this or maybe even known that the staff was pulled if he wasnt tracking mk? and same for macaque, mk really did bring them together with their co-mentoring........... really makes me want to rewatch the show with the mindset of Okay what would've happened here without mk. but that's really difficult because HE IS AT THE CENTER OF ALL OF THESE STORIES!! he truly is!!!!

i don't know if you've seen the most recent doctor who holiday special but they did a timeline thing where someone's adopted child was erased from the timeline and the way their apartment was darkened (no decorations, art, fairy lights), their fridge was plain and empty (just old coupons, rather than plastered edge to edge with family photos), and they just hated doing their day to day life tasks. i would have to imagine pigsy's life would've changed the most, followed by mei. pigsy is angry a lot, yes, but he loves mk dearly and mk helps in the restaurant! companionship and light into his life!! tang tells mk stories about the monkey king, so he certainly draws a connection between them and pulls it tighter than i think it would've been, even if they were already close (they were obviously close enough for the naming scene in s5, but who knows if pigsy had any other friends to talk to about it.) sandy i think you're right, he would've just kinda been. alone. and mei would've been still stifled by living under her parents and trying to be proper, with no outlet for who she truly is!! (sidenote but we still know nothing about how mei and mk met or how long they've known each other and i am DESPERATE. please)

we definitely did not intend to binge, but we were so scared-excited about it and ended up watching it in two sittings which made it harder to soak in for sure. same as you, i've enjoyed it a LOT more after breaking it apart and rewatching specific scenes and episodes.

and YES sandy is literally just so full of love ;~; his whole brain is just overwriting anger and frustration with love. as subodhi mentions, maybe he's too nice, but the way he got pissed at the turtle showed that maybe he's only too nice when it comes to himself. for his friends he would do quite literally anything, now that he has them. and yes yes yes mk needed those hugs and contact so so bad. i'm sure sandy of all people was perfect to have as the first person to hug/touch him IN his monkey form, which i didn't realize was a huge deal until just now. because he's so terrified of hurting them like this (when he flew off in s4 paralleling mei flying off in s3) but sandy goes in without hesitation AND sandy is strong and can handle most things so i'd imagine that's comforting on the "destructive" end of things. man i love this show rrraaaaaaa explodes into a million lego bricks

back on my s5 ponderings. losing the special means they lost nearly a THIRD of their normal season length. since every season has a special (whether it's before or after), they have 10 11min eps + another 4 11min eps (the 44min special) and you can definitely feel it. that definitely explains why it felt 1. rushed and 2. less immersive with the small moments. oh AND less balanced between angst and silly. because they had the time for it in previous finales!!!! they had time for cool camera angles and flowing hair and ominous lighting!!

[optimistpax]

@onewingedsparrow I hope you have fun designing some OCs! I love seeing ppls tf OCs they’re always so fun and cool!

 I’m no expert, but I do love character design so I hope you don’t mind if I over share just a little bit about my design process ahaha

TLDR: I like to think about personality, choose what shapes I want to use to convey said personality, and then mold the alt mode design to that rather than starting with the alt mode.

A small essay on tf and general design thoughts is under the cut though if you want examples and entirely too much detail

This is all entirely overkill u do not have to do this to have fun designing a cool character. This is just me dissecting how i micromanage my own design process bc I’m a massive nerd.

For a character design I usually start out by ironing out some of their key personality traits so that I can make sure to keep them in mind when I’m designing! 

For this example I’m looking at Diode (seen above and below), she’s stubborn, loyal, and holds a grudge. A very steadfast, hard to move character. Because of this I want to make her feel very square and bulky. I want her to look like it would be hard to move her physically as well as mentally/emotionally. This also informs details that might be added later (ex. using a visor rather than eyes to indicate her standoffish nature). 

This is the most important part of character design imo! You want the design to really showcase their personality so make sure their personality is solid!

I was mostly noodling for fun here, so I skipped a bunch of steps but I’ll just touch on them briefly here:

Research:

Normally if I was designing a comic character (a design I’d be drawing hundreds of times and want to be solid so i won’t want to change it half way thru the comic) I’d start out with research.

In the case of transformers OCs research would probably entail compiling a folder full of transformers designs. If you want your design to look functional, make sure to check out images of transforming toys in addition to designs from your favourite tf media. By doing this you’ll be able to take notes on what you do and don’t like about these designs, what ideas you might be able to incorporate to your own designs, and decide on what kind of style you might like to use or steal, how complex you want your design to be etc. Some people suggest making moodboards as well but I personally don’t love making moodboards so usually skip that step and just leave my refs in a folder i can refer to for personal projects ahaha

I did a little analysis of why all circle of light bots look the same (imo they should try harder to look different)

And here’s some doodles exploring how they can be shaken up to look different based on that research:

Depending on how familiar you are with human anatomy, research might also include looking up the human skeleton and musculature. I find thinking about how muscles and bones look and work (and then exaggerating them) extremely helpful for designing robots!

There was another post about designing robots i saw a bit ago by a person much smarter than me comparing mechanical joints to anatomical joints (and how those shapes might translate to a robot) so definitely check that out!

Sketches:

After your research, in theory it’s best to do some really quick low fidelity concept sketches to iron out what basic shapes and proportions you want to use for your character. I skipped that with Diode bc I just wanted to turn my brain off and figured I’d come back and do this step later. Most of the time i end up doing this step on paper just bc it’s easier to do wherever. Unfortunately it also means it’s easier to lose so I don’t have any examples.

The one sketch I did do is maybe a tad cleaner than I usually aim for? It’s important to be able to tell what the shapes are trying to do but you also want to be able to do a whole bunch of them really fast. Speed before quality in this case.

I usually do between 3 and 10 because I’m lazy and am drawing for fun but between 15 and 25 thumbnail sketches is closer to what I do for designs I want to be more polished and solid (like for comics). Sometimes it takes more than that to get it right tho. I designed a table for my grandma for Christmas last year and I did over 90 sketches before I landed on a design I was happy with (yikes!). Of course, this step isn’t necessary if you don’t mind your design evolving each time you draw your character but. you know. It’s an option!

Silhouettes are also a lot of fun to do if you’re making a cast of characters tho! I find them useful regardless, but they can be a really fun way to make your characters stand out from canon characters and from each other!

Here’s some silhouettes I did when @autothotsrollout just got me into tfp and we were tossing around the idea of rewriting exodus/exiles:

And here’s some silhouettes I did analyzing the drift mini series bc all the circle of light dudes look the same and I wanted them all to have different body types lol:

Details and Colour Studies

After getting the general shapes, adding the details is a lot easier! I usually make a base “doll” that I can “dress up” with different clothing or different iterations of mechanical details in the case of transformers.

Finding a real life car/boat/plane etc to steal details off wholesale makes life 1000x easier I highly reccomend it. You could even frankenstein a couple different types of cars together to get a cool alt mode and a cool robot design! This is also where a lot of the research from eariler comes in handy. If you’re designing with a TFP lean, most robots tend to have their wheels in their feet/legs and either as a joint (shoulder or elbow) or rescue bots all have their cabs/windshields as their chests etc! Steal solutions shamelessly.

@autothotsrollout​ said it really well: “If you can figure out where the front of the car is, where the wheels go, and if they have wings where their wings go then you can usually just fudge it from there!”

Digitally that can be done by just copying and pasting a lower opacity sketch layer, but it can also be done traditionally by making your own lightbox!

If you draw your doll on a piece of paper, you can put your phone flashlight (or other bright light) under a glass casserole dish or large see-through tupperware container, and use the light to see your doll drawing while drawing on a seperate piece of paper. or if your shapes are really distinct you can just redraw them each time. But the lightbox is pretty nifty and can definitely save you some time!

once you’ve got a design or two that you like you can test out colours to see what you like and voila! You have a polished and finished character design!

Here’s two of the colour studies I managed to salvage (I am a fool and destructively edit/save things all the time) of my OC Wish!:

And here’s the colours I did for Diode!

I probably won’t stick with these colours, but I haven’t done a lot of transformer design before so i just colour grabbed from the reference it this was a lot of fun! 

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

Ive been thinking about how a more humanoid hippo face would look like going by your rules to create non-primate humanoids. Could you help me?

It's been long enough since I made that tutorial, I think I ought to make a new version of it. In the meantime, I've got some ideas about a humanoid hippo, though I also had trouble bringing it all the way over to a "human" look. Some animals are a lot harder to humanize without sacrificing their most recognizable traits.

(image description: four digital drawing pages showing my creative process to make a humanoid hippo. The first image shows drawings of a hippo skull in different angles and positions, as well as a full sketch of a hippo skeleton and a normal hippo from the outside. The second image shows a hippo skull in front view next to a human skull in front view, with a human face in profile below that also has a skull overlay. The third image shows a normal hippo skull, a modified humanoid hippo skull, and a simplified full body hippo anthro. The final image shows the anthro hippo face in profile with a skull overlay, as well as a colored hippo anthro yawning and another one swimming. further details below. end description)

So I think when I made the "how to draw non-primate humanoids" tutorial before, I may not have gone into enough detail about the process with reshaping the skull. It's more than just shortening the snout and giving them a round cranium. It's important to study the original skull from multiple angles and identify the most recognizable features. In the third image here, I have made note that hippo skulls have a prominent eye socket high up on the head, multiple sets of large teeth at the front of the mouth, and that really big bony anchor for their huge jaw muscles. So if you want to humanize it without losing those features, you have to think about how to reorganize them. I built the new skull from the basic shapes up. Circles, then blocky forms, then more detail. The teeth are smaller but still in the same arrangement. The jaw still has a large bony anchor. I rotated the eye sockets to face forward but kept them very prominent. After that, it's just a matter of applying the more human-like round braincase so they've got space for that highly complex calorie-burning people brain. It also provides a better location to anchor the neck, so the head can be held upright.

This hippo humanoid leans far more hippo than human, admittedly. I think adding hair and clothing would help a bit lol but one of the most human-like features out there is our uniquely shaped noses. It's kinda hard to make non-primates with the human nose shape without losing some element of the original animal you're using. That's why I have made changes to my own orc designs recently, to step away from the human nose shape and back to the pig-like snout. that's a matter of personal preference.

Oh, and also, another note I put on the third image was "sometimes it helps to try drawing the fleshed out form first". It can be really tricky to draw a fully cohesive anatomy from the bones up, so if you do some quick tests of the final figure first, it can help you visualize how the bones will look underneath, and then you can just redesign the flesh and the bones alongside each other.

the TLDR here is this: study the most recognizable features of the human form and the animal form you want to humanize. Decide which features of each you absolutely want to keep for your new design and then work out how to organize it all into a cohesive form. Make sure to do a lot of loose sketches in different angles and poses, so you can get a feel for how this new form works. Hope that's helpful!

[uncharismatic-fauna]

The Handsome Hagfish

Requested by @anxiouspuddle

Hagfish, of the family Myxini, are a group of 75 jawless fish species that reside in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans. Although they are vertebrates, they are the only known animals that have a vertebral column but no skull. Many scientists consider them to be an evolutionary descendant of the ‘stepping stone’ between fish with and without jaws. Their evolution and juvenile development has been the subject of much study, trying to determine the pathway of the evolution of jaws, skulls, and eyes in vertebrates.

Although they are sometimes mistaken for eels, hagfish have many easy-to-distinguish physical differences. For one, hagfish have a skeleton made of cartilage while eels have a harder bone skeleton. Secondly, Myxini species have open holes for gills rather than the slits more characteristic of eels and fish, and can also breathe through their skin if needed. Lastly, hagfish have no eyes or identifiable jaws; rather, their mouths are made of several protruding barbs and a set of horizontal cartilaginous structures that can expand outward. The main resemblance to eels is the body structure: hagfish have long flexible bodies and a paddle-like tail suited for smooth swimming. Hagfish species can be anywhere from 18 to 127 cm long, although the average length is around 50 cm, and their colors can range from pink to dark blue to brown.

Like eels, little is known about hagfish reproduction. The mating process in particular is a mystery, although females will lay eggs year round. Eggs are laid in batches of 30-40, and can take up to 11 months to hatch-- longer than many other jawless vertebrates. Freshly hatched hagfish are precocial, meaning they require no parental care or supervision. It is not known how long Myxini species age before they are sexually mature; however, it’s generally believed that they grow reproductive organs at around 35 cm. Evidence indicates that they are a hermaphroditic group. This means that at some point in their lives, hagfish change their sex from male to female or vice versa.

Outside of mating, hagfish are solitary. They are benthic animals, spending most of their time at the bottom of the ocean. They feed mainly on polychete marine worms, although carcasses like whales are famous for drawing massive aggregations of hagfish. When presented with large meals, hagfish will burrow inside the body and consume it from the inside out. However, they only exhibit this behavior on dead or dying animals, and generally only prey on living creatures smaller than themselves. Myxini species can survive for months between feedings, as do many benthic animals. Similarly, hagfish are nocturnal and hide in burrows of mud on the ocean floor.

Hagfish are preyed upon by many different animals, including sharks and harbor seals. To evade predation, they can twist themselves into complex knots or-- perhaps most famously-- produce large amounts of slime. This slime, or mucus, is produced from glands along the hagfish’s body. It’s protein-based and made of thick filaments that, when combined with salt water, expand into a thick membrane that doesn’t dissolve or dry out. The amount of slime produced seems only dependent on how much water is available and how long the hagfish perceives a threat. If ingested, the slime can choke a potential predator or clog its gills, giving the hagfish ample time to escape.

Conservation status: Hagfish are fairly common throughout the ocean, although some species are threatened. Although they are part of human diets in some countires, the main threat comes from the lack of food available; as larger marine fauna like whales and sharks disappear, the amount of carcasses for Hagfish to feed on also diminishes.

Photos

Andy Murch

Joel Sartore