#i tried really hard and had to redraw it a lot

[mushed-kid]

“you’re shoving too hard” “youre not shoving hard enough!”

@razatronz

[paruecake]

Practicing drawing Studio Ghibli characters.

[skyenish]

Twst mlp AU | thoughts behind the designs

I made Leona an earth pony with a thicker build. Hes a square with sharp angles! Hes one of the first drawings I made for this ‘series’ so its a bit lackluster, but I wanted him to be nice and hairy. I gave him a more lion-like tail, and some jewelry from his culture. His ears are nicked and he has long, slightly tangled hair. He also has a lot of hair around his neck becuase he’s a lion! I gave him a color scheme vaguely resembling a lion as well. Also nice and hairy legs, i love to draw those on horses. His cutie mark is three claw marks over clouds of dust. There are multiple different meanings to this cutie mark.

Vil covers up his cutie mark for personal reasons, but its a spotlight shining behidn some curtains. I tried to give him a more ‘feminine’ look while also keeping sharper angles. I love his color scheme, and i made him a unicorn because I thought it fit perfectly. I considered making him an earth pony to really show how he works hard for everything and doesn’t take shortcuts, but in the end unicorn won. I might change it later though! I had to give him some elegant white spots too, because aesthetically it just clicked in my head. He has a purple bow and has his unique hair accessory in his bun. I gave him longer eyelashes, and instead of making his hair a blonde-purple gradient I made some locks purple.

Jamil!!! He’s one of my favorite designs. I know the obvious choice seems to make him a unicorn, but HEAR ME OUT ON PEGASUS JAMIL! It adds a lot of symbolism and extra layers I think, it’s very tragic. Plus, he looks pretty with wings. I gave him darker and greyer colors to portray his darker and jaded nature, and it’s a nice contrast to Kalim’s design. I tried to vaguely design him off of Arabian horses but it didn’t come through very well. Did you know that MLP has a race of horses called ‘Saddle Arabians’? I didnt and i think its absolutely hilarious. Jamil is also supposed to have bags attached to the thing around his waist, but I’m too lazy to draw them.. His cutie mark is an eye with the world as its pupil, and a snake curling behind it. I put a lot of thought into his cutie mark and I’m really happy with what I came up with! To me it has 4 different meanings! I kinda want to redraw Jamil because he looks so small compared to the others!

Kalim is a unicorn for even more delicious angst. His whole family is unicorns. He’d much rather be a pegasus, but at least he has the magic carpet! Jamil thinks it’s bullshit that Kalim can use magic AND can fly. I made Kalim’s colors more vibrant and yellow and lively. He wears lots of jewlery, has tattoos and is my favorite design of these four! He also took me the longest. His cutiemark is a sun or a coin with gems on it, and it has wings. This too has multiple meanings. I think in the Scalding Sands culture the snake jewelry was something the sorcerer of the sands, an alicorn, wore around his horn. Maybe the original was a magical artifact? Well, Kalim, and other people from the scalding sands, wear fakes to honor the sorcerer. Anyways, I made Kalim slightly hairier then Jamil to show how he’s softer and wilder.

———

I’d love to do more with this AU, because my mind is already full with so many cool ideas! Thanks for reading my rambles and have a nice day :)

[cloudysarts]

All right I take the bait. Why do you believe Manel should have accompanied Pacifica at the party

AHHH THANK YOU IM SO EXCITED TO EXPLAIN MYSELF (in reference to this post)

ok. northwest mansion mystery is a great episode obviously. but HERES why i think the episode would've been even better if mabel was in dippers spot!!!!!! its kinda a lot so i put it under a read more

so this episode is sort of the middle-ish of season 2 i think, right before the ford reveal!! its not a super long show anyway so theres not a ton of pacifica appearances, anyway. BUT in EVERY SINGLE OTHER PACIFICA EPISODE, her energy has been bouncing off of mabel!!! from their meeting in double dipper, to irrational treasure, to golf war; they have been established as the main dynamic here. golf war is especially important here, because this is the very first step in pacfica's redemption arc! mabel saves her in this episode, the pines give her a ride home, and it seems like pacifica is going to start being a little more understanding of mabel because she had misjudged her, hence why she was treating her so poorly. it looks like theyre gonna establish a friendship between them!

and then. they dont. they basically never interact again. because the next time we see pacifica, she goes straight to dipper in northwest manor mystery. the cold open implies that the northwests wanted dipper specifically because of his knowlege of how to deal with the supernatural but IN MY OPINION that DOESNT EVEN MAKE SENSE because we NEVER see dipper fighting these monsters on his own? hes ALWAYS with mabel. at the very least, i think it shouldve been BOTH of them??? we see a brief shot of a newspaper clipping where dipper is fighting a vampire bat or something and i just. when did this happen. where is mabel

that would be a fine argument for it being both of them instead of just mabel so heres one of my bigger points thats gonna come back a lot in this breakdown: dipper. does not like pacifica. he STRAIGHT UP HATES HER. every single interaction theyve had has been negative!!! its even massively negative at the beginning of this ep!!!! though mabel often dislikes pacifica, she TRIES REALLY HARD TO LIKE HER. mabel has a lot of love in her heart, and if she could, shed want to be her friend!!! its always been pacifica whos been rejecting those advances!!! golf war was the start of pacifica understanding that about mabel, and it nmm wouldve been the PERFECT time to wrap up that arc, rather than leaving it!!!

and i would argue that could STILL LEAD INTO A DIPCIFICA ARC, if thats what the showrunners/fans wanted? most of why dipper hates pacifica to begin with is because shes so terrible to mabel. he only agrees to go to the party in canon because MABEL wants to!!! imo, i think the lead in to them being a couple would be a million times better if that massive problem in their relationship was solved first

i dont PERSONALLY like dipcifica but im trying to stay unbiased about this if you cant tell

i would also argue that like. dipper just seems really out of character. the reason i picked some of the scenes i did for my redraws, was because they were scenes that i think his behavior would fit mabel a lot better. examples:

why do the northwests have a suit in dippers size anyway. he literally doesnt even like wearing it sjkfhkj in a potential re-write of this ep, i considered that mabel would come in wearing her super extravagent home made dress, and it would 'violate dress code', so she would be forced to wear one of pacificas we could still have that cute dress-up expo scene that we do AND have some fun commentary/symbolism about pacifica being nervous about having her in the dress because its NICE and TOO GOOD FOR HER and she looked FINE BEFORE ANYWAY

mabels empathy is a recurring theme in the show. shed WANT to give pacifica the benefit of the doubt, and would be VERY betrayed when finding out her and her family already knew about the ghosts and knew what he wanted. i understand that dipper was so upset because it seemed like pacifica was changing for the better just to find out that she wasnt, but i think this fits so much better with mabel, because shes always WANTED to believe that shes secretly a good person. she would be glad to see her turn a corner, and would be upset when finding out she was 'wrong', and that she really was mean deep down. whcih would obviously lead to her comforting her later/finding out the truth about her etc etc. on the other hand, dipper literally never believed she had good in her. from the first interaction we see of them, he thinks shes as terrible as her family. he ISNT as interested in giving her the benefit of the doubt and if it wasnt a life or death situation i dont think he wouldve forgiven her. IDK i just think its more in character for her

the dancing scene!!! honestly this works fine as is (i can see both dipper and mabel being excited to make a mess on a fancy carptet) but idk i just think it carries so much more weight if its these two girls. silly moments for mabel!!!! pacifica getting to really be a kid and not just a sparkly prop!!!!!!! pacifica finally indulging in her sillyness that she mocked in irrational treasure!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ok moving on. one of the bigger things that bother me about it being dipper here instead of mabel is one teeny tiny (honestly really irrational) scene at the party. in it, dipper is confronted by fiddleford, who tells him he has big news about the author/the laptop and the towns in danger and its vitally important and dipper just. shrugs him off???!!?!?!?! i cannot even IMAGINE. in alex hirschs words "the first season is about dipper being in love with wendy, and the second is about him being in love with the author" meaning that. those are the TWO things that dipper is completely and totally obsessed with. hes clearly not over wendy (as we see in later episodes) and this is not long after sock opera/society of the blind eye so youd THINK hed be more depserate for answers than ever!??!?! this child was willing to sell out his great uncle and raise the dead and stay up for several nights in a row for answers, and the second he is offered some (from a man who WORKED WITH THE AUTHOR btw) hes like like 'whatevr'?!?!?! it is so out of character and it drives me fucking nuts every time. i know hes starting to like pacifica now but as we see in the comics (if you chose to think those are canon) HE DOESNT EVEN SEEM TO LIKE HER THAT MUCH!??!?! hes STILL convinced shes vain, and mean, and selfish!!!! he DOES start to have a little arc with her but jksdfjksf IDK i just cant in a million years see him passing up the chance for answers to the biggest mystery in gravity falls to hang out with a girl he tolerates

but yknow who i CAN see doing that? MABEL!!!!!!!! mabel would be concerned when mcgucket comes up to her, and starts talking like this!!!! i can totally see her suggesting that he relax for a little while and enjoy the party like dipper did, and then forgetting to come back to talk/not running into him later!!!! ESPECIALLY since i can see mabel WANTING to spend time with pacifica where dipper just. really doesnt seem to want to MOST of the time

ok ill admit that this last one is sort of a personal opinion. but i just. i really dont like the B plot of this episode with mabel and the girls. IDK its just so annoying and pointless to me to have a plot where its just a bunch of girls turning against each other over a guy. im not gonna say its mysoginistic bc i know little girls can be boy crazy but i just. dont see why there was a need to make them fight/turn against grenda briefly??? even when they rekindled and it was all ok in the end its just. in comparison to the A plot its so. Nothing.

in my head i have a rewrite of this episode and how it goes is that pacifica approaches dipper and asks for help and he turns it down (like he does in canon). mabel suggests that they do it anyway, but he refuses, as he wants nothing to do with her. when dippers gone, mabel agrees to help (and pacifica begrudgingly accepts bc it seems like the only option) and so she steals the journal when dippers not looking. she goes to the party, and events go pretty much the same?? only major difference i can think of is that the B plot is replaced by one where dipper realizes mabel and the journal are missing, so he sneaks into the manor/sneaks around the house trying to find he rand get it back (and its so massive he has no luck). the reason i think THAT works is because we can even still have the scene where dipper turns to wood like shifty prophesied!!!! and i would even argue it makes more sense this way because wasnt shiftys warning that "if you keep digging so deep into the secrets of gravity falls, this will be the last form youll ever take" ?

OK IM SORRY THIS WAS SO LONG im probably forgetting points too so i might edit it later but THANKS FOR ASKING

tldr: pacifica and mabels friendship plotline was left on a total cliffhanger after golf war and if mabel replaced dipper in nmm it would've been a good resolution to it

edit: check the reblogs if youre still interested! i added another list of reasons i think this (mostly in response to people disagreeing)

[dailymarshmallows]

I FINALLY FULFILLED MY GOAL!!

Second half of Genderbend Tristan platoon (Tristan and Jade) as promised!!!

The second I realized I would post Tristan and Jade’s designs together I realized I had to redraw this scene from the anime. I did really change their height difference, Tristan’s really just taller though (thank you Elizabeth) for all those curious Chion’s height is like somewhat between them and Isolde is just… jack up the really insane height difference.

For the rest of Genderbend 4kota designs here’s what I’ve done so far: Isolde + Chion and post-timeskip Chion (not a lot but hopefully there will be more)

If I continue with this next update is probably gonna be either more Jade or Chion art, Aged up versions of platoon, or Donny and Edlin

I haven’t put this anywhere but if anyone wants to ask about the Genderbend characters and stuff my ask box is open. If you want to request a specific sds/4kota character’s Genderbend design I might do it, just expect it to probably take a while and it will probably be done in traditional art.

Design rambles about the art as well as some Genderbend Tristan Platoon (emphasis on Tristan) lore below the cut

Jade’s hair was a pain to design yall don’t even kno T-T I like the design better in traditional art but I wanted to post the digital version of the design for consistency.

What made Jade’s design so hard was that how to give her wing like hair to kinda come through, og she was going to have a middle part, then I thought maybe something like Arlecchino’s design from Genshin but I thought Jade would have short hair so I ditched that. So she ended up with this and I tried to keep the wing design there with the shape of her hair.

Tristan’s design was not what I initially had in mind but here’s kinda my thought process behind it: her hair looks more like what I imagine fem Meliodas would look like, and she’s wearing a full suit of armor cuz… do u really think Mel and Elizabeth are letting their daughter go out WITHOUT A SUIT OF ARMOR?! I don’t think so.

Neither of their clothes were what I initially imagined, Tristan was either gonna wear gold or silver and red, but then I put her in dark blue and I got a thought:

Since Jade, Chion, and Tristan tend to match I put them all in various shades of cyan/blue. Chion has light cyan, Tristan has dark blue, and Jade has both for Monochrome reasons.

Also when Jade dies her jewelry is then worn by each member of the Tristan Platoon. Tristan gets the choker and Isolde and Chion get the hair clips.

Also Jade’s hair clips and choker are made of actual jade (gifts from Chion and Tristan respectively)

Quick Fun Facts about them:

They are both tomboys

At some point Tristan had a crush on Jade (she was going through her romance phase yall and Lance was off on missions and stuff what’s a girl gonna do?)

Tristan really likes holding sleepovers (she has tried to do a full Tristan Platoon one but Mel and Elizabeth won’t allow it for Isolde)

My personal hc is that Tristan always wanted a younger sibling when she was younger and kinda projects that fantasy onto Chion. So from her perspective they kinda have an idealized older/younger sister dynamic.

To elaborate further: Tristan kinda sees Chion as this girl that she takes under her wing and dotes on and what not. This leaves her with a pretty wrong overall interpretation of Chion. She very much just sees the “Tristan (platoon)-exclusive part” which is very kind, very helpful, and someone that she needs to protect/look out for.

I love Chion but u see the problem with that interpretation of her

It’s also the reason why I’m on the fence if Chion’s hair is still getting burned off by Gawain if only cuz Tristan and Isolde 100% would throw hands (and I don’t wanna give Chion a hair cut pre timeskip too much work)

Additionally Tristan really likes Chion’s long hair and likes to braid it and play dress up with her at the sleepovers

Tristan gets a lot of flack for how she presents herself, lots of people think that a princess shouldn’t act that way and stuff

Tristan and Jade have a very similar dynamic to canon. Tristan sees Jade as her best friend. And Jade sees Tristan as… a girl she secretly hates… you’ve read her death scene

Tristan was the one who gave the hair bow to Isolde still, but after seeing how much he liked it Jade gave him some of her old girly things she wasn’t really into, and Chion “just happened” to pick up some new accessories and gave them to him.

Idk why I wanted to do this but here’s all there types(romantic)

Tristan - she’s into more masc women or more feminine men (there you go Trislance and Trisolde shippers)

Chion - says she’s into masc women but it’s not really a factor for her. Wants someone bold, and kinda like a knight in shining armor, prob reads Isolde’s romance novels

Isolde - wants cheesy romance, does not care if he is romancer or romancee he wants cheesy rom com romance

Jade - wants someone who needs her/relies on her since she struggles with feeling unwanted

Another random romantic thingy there are so many romcom hijinks with this platoon there are so many misunderstandings with who is and isn’t a couple:

People of Liones think that Chion and Isolde are a couple. Isolde was heavily convinced that Tristan had a crush on Jade (right conclusion but at the wrong time). Tristan was convinced that Jade and Chion were dating at one point. Tristan was convinced Chion had a crush on Lancelot at one point (I may actually write a fanfic on that for comedy reasons).

As for actual crushes: Chion likes Jade. Jade likes Isolde. Isolde likes Tristan. Tristan likes Lancelot

[roxtron]

I've gotten an absolute spike of motivation lately so I've been drawing a ton lol. I figured it might be nice to draw fanart based on the more recent events since they're pretty fresh in my mind, and others. This post might have a bit more words than I try to put on my art posts so I'll just start it off by showing the panel of @somerandomdudelmao 's comic I redrew.

Ok so the main thing I wanted to talk about more in this post is- I'm not great with backgrounds and stuff, working off the gray is hard for me, which is why the last fanart I posted didn't have a background lol. I thought about making the lighting more inspired by one of the screenshots of the Hidden City. (Since I assume that's where this scene takes place. Funny enough I tried to find screenshots of any trees for the leaves blowing but I could only find glowing mushrooms haha.) At the end of the day while I was getting ready to start working on the redraw, I clicked the link for the post that helped inspire the next update, too. And oh boy I was absolutely inspired as well. https://www.tumblr.com/tapakah0/722593112900403200/somerandomdudelmao-cass-sensei-this-is-the @tapakah0 Mayybe this type of ramble is better saved for a reblog but I absolutely fell in love with the environment she created in this scene, and that's why I chose to go with that color palette for the environment. Considering my initial plan was the bright yellows, oranges and greens typically used for the hidden city- I gotta say I don't think it would've come across with the same vibe it intended to. With the post I was heavily inspired by, it's just such amazing art, really. I struggle to put it into words but the bright blues really just help give it the calming atmosphere while also keeping the uplifted/hopeful nature of the environment I feel in the recent updates. If you can't tell from some of my votes I really like to work with glows and dramatic lighting lol, and the lighting in this was just amazing, I feel like it worked so well. Wished I could've worded my praise better but unfortunately I am not the best at describing things, especially when they get technical.. If you haven't already I highly encourage checking out Cass' AU and Tapakah's post I linked to especially. I plan to check out her AU too but I haven't gotten around to it yet, but the work I have seen from her is amazing as well. Sorry for getting really rambly on this one. I had a lot to say I guess lol.

[thsc-scattered-stars]

Hey @crown-of-roses-thsc, did a thing :3

Fun fact about me and my journey in the THSC fandom- before I started this blog, I mostly stuck to just watching a lot of things on youtube and just- being amazed at all the amazing stuff people did for THSC- and one of those things I watched was the Line Without a Hook Animatic for CoR- and I would watch that on repeat for HOURS- it was both just an amazing animatic, and I loved the song after watching it, too!

So after getting permission to do redraws, I just HAD to do these- so thank you Snickerz for your amazing au!

And side note I tried really hard to find your Henry's eye color but couldn't- so if blue isn't it I will absolutely go back and change that-

[emerxshiu]

FORGOTTEN LAND'S SECOND ANNIVERSARY :3

I AM SOOOO BACK

I started this drawing yesterday around afternoon and finished it just a few minutes earlier.

I went with a messier type of drawing instead of more clean like the elfilin one from yesterday, i find it fun doing it like this, mostly cause i dont have to worry about making it perfectly so i dont get as frustrated as normal. Id place this one as my second best digital drawing. im pretty sure i havent posted what i consider my best digital drawing here, tho i do have it in instagram, i might post it here one day, tho these two are way too tied up, i love how this came out, its not exactly like how i imagined it but its really close to it, and also itd say that since i dont tend to play around lighting that much, this was such a joy to draw and i cant help but stare at it a lot, at least until i start hating it because i made quite a lot of errors. i also changed my elfilis gijinka just a tad bit from last time, but its not that big of a difference, mostly.

ofc i had to draw elfilis for forgotten land's anniversary, i tend to deny it in my head but yeah they're my fave of the kirby characters even tho i hate them a bit. I wanted to draw some more doodles, like, elfilis eating cake, kirby car, a bunch of other stuff (not elfilin cuz i already drew him yesterday) but when i tried i couldnt draw anything more, guess this drawing burned me out a lot, huh?

you can definitly tell i spent all the efforts on him cuz if you look a bit closer to the bottom part you'll see its almost barely detailed, but i mean, they're the focus so make sense i guess for me not add that much detail there. um also, maybe because i dunno i had OVER 130 LAYERS jeez no wonder firealpaca was slowing down so much, i need to manage my layers better next time, tho i did do something i keep forgetting, wich is naming them (most of them at least) that was a real life saver

Also, antares (fecto elfilis' spear/cadaceus), as always, was a pain to draw, but this time its probably been draw the most accurate out of every other drawing ive made with it in it, i didnt notice it was like, a little curved when it reached the blade

some close ups since his face is a bit hard to see

silly :3

fun fact! actually, this is technically a redraw, somewhere around between february and march i started a fecto elfilis drawing for the first anniversary, but i couldnt finish it in time, and i never finished it

thats...quite the improvement! (i remember being so proud of it)

also his wings are like that cuz i did not want to draw the pattern, its way too hard, i literally copy pasted it, wait, i was talking about the 2024 version but i looked at the 2023 one and i just noticed it also has the pattern copy pasted, i guess some stuff never changes since i still abuse the ctrl+c ctrl+v to this day

Also i ended up making a huge error there, i was planing to add the phantom spears from orbital pulsar (the attack he does first when you battle them at lab discovera) but theres an innacuracy, when they do the attack, they always close their eyes, i had actually sketched him (well i mean both these drawings are basically the first sketch (2023) or second sketch(2024) with some color, shadows and lighting. i didnt do lineart in the 2024 one cuz i wanted to be a bit like the og i made (too bad i sketched that one with black since the og was sketched with white due to me drawing the bg first)) with his eyes closed but them decided to make them open for a reason i cant remember, maybe i thought itd look nicer? idk

ive had the idea of redrawing this for quite some month now so it was kinda already planned

background cuz i think it came out really pretty

doesnt have the little stars since without elfilis and the structures it looks fucked up. the actual sky in game is more blue, but the clouds have some orange, in the 2023 ver. i made the sky orange, and in the 2024 ver i wanted it more accurate, but i didnt wanna loose the orange sky, so i did a gradient. pretty...

also here's a screenshot i took when i was like halfway trough it, its barely noticeable but i changed his mouth in the final drawing

I really love katfl, like a buncha whole lot, its basically almost my first mainline kirby game. 100% the demo, finished the game in almost one day, i literally play it monthly, like, every month i put the card in my switch, start it up, get morpho sword, and go shred elfilis in lab discovera. i would probably not even be here on tumblr and the kirby fandom if it werent for it. and i love it so much i genuinly cannot express how much i like it and treasure it with words or anything

Thank you for reading my unnecesarily long rambles lol

I hope i'll post tomorrow and dont forget like usual

Jambuhbye!

[shark-train]

Adult John redesign because he deserves it

Also a follow-up on my threat of airbender John aka John is basically an airbender if you think hard enough about it.

See below if you want to hear my yap session on elements of this design vvv

Okay so, why have I done this?

I wanted to make my own take on his design because I hate seeing my boy get roasted so hard by his friends for his outfit. I tried to keep some elements akin to his child-self’s design for sake of identification. I specifically kept the appearance of a crop-top (as seen in hs2 when he wears his younger self’s outfit) but with the addition of a skin-suit underneath for some actual practical protection (as I assume he will be doing some fighting at some point in the comic). I also kept his hood (it would be a crime not too) but with the addition of a collar to make it more similar to Commander Karkat’s outfit.

I also had an idea to make his outfit inspired by a Blue Tang, as his original colors are blue and yellow. I liked the addition of darker, more muted colors to keep up with the idea that they’re adults and this world they ended up in did not end up to be all sunshine and rainbows. BUT I kept his brighter colors as accents to call back to his fact. But yeah, idk why but I really liked the idea of theming aspects of his design on this little fishy vvv.

As far as the airbending aspect, outfits from ATLA for airbender are dynamic and move with the wind, which I felt suited John’s original outfit well. I’d imagine his hood will blow with the direction of wind which he is bending. Additionally, the reason he has a thigh back (other than its a little bit slutty) is that by having it attached directly to his thigh, he’s less likely to have it get in his way while fighting/wind/airbending.

Finally, the locket. I’m just a sap but I have a headcanon where he insists on fighting alongside his friends, BUT, that means he has to go off on his own a lot of the time, and isn’t able to see them or his son because of safety reasons. Thus, I think it is just a nice symbolic thing (especially because he is depressed) to have a reminder of people he cares about with him constantly.

I might in the future do a LOK screencap redraw from that scene where Zaheer uses airbending to take the air out of a person’s lungs, but I genuinely don’t know who John might do this to, other than random grunts.

[countesskaru2]

this took probably a year to complete, because I had no motivation and I was sad a lot, and going through all the MJ eras was really hard lowkey. I adored this man and when he died my whole world crashed. And for the longest time I tried to forget about him, but he's apart of me and always will be, so I did a redraw of one of my oldest drawings and I love how it turned out.

[quohotos]

I present to you, my Magnum Opus. The Underland Chronicles rendered in the style of an early 2000s flash based point and click adventure game (the MNOG)

I have spent so long on this. Inkscape doesn't log total project time the way Krita does, but it's the most time I've spent on any single piece of vector art. Even then there's still a million things I want to go in and change but... aaaaaa you have to cut it off somewhere. I have been copy pasting rats for hours, and don't even get me started on the shadows. The shadows look good, they are not physically accurate. I tried.

Here are some bonus features!

No text overlay. Clean if you want to print it or make it a desktop background.

Close up on Solovet and Ajax I've never actually drawn Solovet, or any underlanders really. I definitely am phoning it in by framing her from behind. When it came to designing what kind of armor they'd wear I took inspiration from both Greek and Roman designs. Ajax was originally much more saturated red until @paksenarrion-dorthansdotter corrected me. The books describe him as dried blood colored. (please don't look too close at the rats they don't hold up to scrutiny)

Close up on Ripred. He looks just a little bit small and fat in this one, but that's just because he's slouching. When he stands up it all stays in his hips and ass. I always draw Ripred like he appeared on my cover of Code of Claw. The scar on his face isn't really visible from this angle because it cuts left to right and he's looking left.

Lastly, here's Gregor and Ares. There is an official design for his armor as seen on the cover of my copy of Code of Claw. I redesigned it because I thought that version looked kinda pants, tbh. Little goofy and hard to take seriously.

The great thing about vector art is you can zoom in and obsess over tiny little details that end up only being like 4 pixels wide in the final export. Case in point, these rando flyers. Such minute detail that gets flattened out to a single pixel in some cases.

Sidenote: I always imagined the flyers as more microbat inspired, which is why I draw them with tails... but these ones end up looking very flying fox-like and have also some megabat proportions. This isn't really an intentional artistic choice, it's just a compromise I had to strike to make them look decent. I need to practice drawing microbats more.

Oh well. The author isn't that descriptive about their proportions so I guess it's up to interpretation.

Lastly, here's the original sketch that I traced over. A lot of features ultimately got cut, as well as the dimensions to the side being changed. Solovet originally was going to have a braid but then I remembered that line from the first book where Luxa explains that you have to cut your hair to go to war. Ripred also looked a lot more teddy bear like in the sketch, so I ended up not even tracing him. Bane was a redraw, and I actually did trace part of Ajax and then just frehanded the rest.

If anyone is reading this far and hasn't read the underland Chronicles, now is a great time to go to your local library and pick it up. These books slap and this tiny community would love to suffer our brainrot welcome you into our fold.

Fly You High

[missygoesmeow]

2015 vs 2024 (rambles under the cut)

I wanted to redraw this to see my improvement and while I wanted to change the composition I tried to keep it as close to the original as possible so I could compare it :) making art is hard, but it's something I have always done. I am 33 this year (god that sounds so adult) and art is something I've always loved - I've had periods where I didn't do any (mostly due to depression) but it's very much a part of me and who I am. I was always that friend drawing or painting pictures and gifting them to people. my art was on the fridge and the walls. and fuck was some of it BAD. the left is from about 2015 when I first tabled at SupaNova. I was happy with this and I can see what I was trying to achieve but I couldn't draw that, I didn't have the skill (my art style was also much "cuter"). It's fun to see some of the same choices I still use now. but yeah, I didn't wake up one day and was able to draw the way I do now. I am still learning and practicing. I struggle a lot with things and I wish I was so much better than I am (nobody can critique your own work better than ur evil brain just fyi) but I wouldn't be where I am now if I hadn't drawn those crappy artworks. I am very hard on myself but being able to see this undeniable improvement is really comforting and rewarding. anyway, don't give up. whether it be art or writing or another new skill you want to learn. you need to practice and you have to suck before you can get better (super unfair, I know). it's not fun but being able to look back and see improvement is so damn satisfying. if I could tell 24 year old me I can draw men, that bitch wouldn't believe me haha

[jayskaiart]

oh to have another Blood Bunny summer …. 🐰🩸🔪 [ redraw of blood bunny’s cover art originally drawn by vewn ]

blood bunny is probably one of my favorite albums ever, not only because i love the songs, but because i rlly miss the vibes of the time i listened to this album on loop; so i decided to redraw the cover art in my art style ! <3… 2021 was a really hard year to me, but listening to this album always made everything a bit easier :’) idk, blood bunny makes me feel like i’m in a cute coming of age movie or something (¿?¿) and it never fails to make me happy!! ,,, thank u chloe, never stop making music lol ❤️🫶🌟

i also tried to recolor this with gradient map and i think this ones looked nice too :P

and for those unfamiliar with this album, this is the original cover !

i really like this cover (and all the blood bunny single covers, what a pretty art style), so i had a lot of fun experimenting to translate this illustration to my style !

[gen4grl]

a couple wips and pieces done over the course of this year that will never be completed but felt cute enough to post … yes i draw a lot of leaf she just never makes it outta procreate to tumblr 😭 here are my reasons for leaving them in wip hell:

1. this was half of the piece, other half had hilbert and cheren looking at the girls. hilbert looked really good but i couldn’t get the perspective of cheren to work. was meant to show the reunion of hilda and cheren after the bw -> bw2 timeskip!

2 & 6. kantrio alola trip!! orginally drew blues body for anatomy practice and because of that the pose came out looking too stiff? the 2nd half of the piece had red in it but literally couldn’t get his face to work no matter how hard i tried lol. 6 was just for fun the concept of instagram in the pokemon world makes me giggle. LOVE how i rendered leaf so RIP

3. just a fun leaf drawing!!! just hated the piece next to it! still love how leaf looks there tho! outfit was based off avril lavignes ‘he wasn’t’ mv and dialogue from blues route 22 battle in frlg!

4. my adult design of clem, my fan daughter of red! originally was going to make into a nicer piece but i accidentally merged all the sketch layers together and that demotivated me LOL this happens way too often but still want to redraw clems design bc i really love the pose & outfit!!!

5. based off a part of my very long kanto au! looks fine? just didn’t love the blue piece next to it and always get kinda shy to share my blue x leaf work.

[pyrorptrs]

Ben 10 Redesigns Playlist 1

Did redesigns of Ben's first 10 aliens awhile back.

I think Ben 10 designs as a whole work best when you have a specific color scheme to work with, so I tried to incorporate green as the primary with a greenish shade of black and white as the secondary's and highlights. I also made it a rule that unless the alien has some way to properly incorporate the omnitrix into the body, they need some sort of suit or device on them to house the badge

Ben - Honestly doing a design for Ben is kinda hard to do, most of the better takes you can do were done by the original canon and the fandom at large have pretty much filled out the rest. I think the soccer shirt with stripe down the middle is probably the most iconic part of his design, so I tried to incorporate that with his undershirt while messing with the colors. Took some inspiration from both the jackets he wore in the past for his hoodie. Coming up with an Omnitrix design was probably the hardest bit, I'm not a fan of when it looks like a normal watch, but addign too much detailing it can make it a pain to redraw, so I tried finding something simplistic but still kinda techy..

Heatblast - In terms of overall design I tried leaning towards Omniverse, but I also wanted to lean a bit into the 10,000 design from the OG series with the shoulder pauldrons. The reason why I gave him shoulder pads is that I like both the ideas that the aliens grow with ben and that they're the "peak of their species"; which isn't necessarily a good thing. so the shoulder pads act like kind of like "braces" for the shoulder pauldrons since the flames burn more intensely than on other Pyronites.

Wildmutt - Went with a mix of his OG and OV looks with a bit of 10,000 influence to make him look older. I feel his shoulder pad is kind of iconic to his design, so I tried to incorporate it and a similar one on his right shoulder into his suit. I also used the collar idea from OV to round out his suit, with the rest extending over his back since Wildmutt tended to be used as a mount a lot. Finally the stripes and tail are nods to his 10,000 design.

Diamondad - I honestly feel a bit bad for anyone that has to do a design for Diamondhead, because he has such a solid look. Nonetheless I tried to come up with a decent look for him. His OG split outfit look is easy his best suit design, so I wanted to use that as a primary inspiration, but I also liked the the collar that the reboot version had, so I wanted to call back to that. I also liked the earth look he sported in UAF and wanted to take some inspiration from that as well.

XLR8 - Similar deal to Diamondhead, XLR8 just has a solid design, so really was more about adding a couple personal tweaks here and there for personal taste. Did add the back spikes from the reboot version though

Greymatter - I always thought his suits looked like hazmat suits so I wanted to lean into that with his redesign, making it look a bit more techy. I also added some of those falangy thingies other older Galvans tend to have in order to make him look a bit older too.

Fourarms - Another case where the OG design was just so good that it's hard really do another take to it that doesn't amount to personal preference. I obviously used the OG look as a base for the suit and face (mostly because I didn't like the ponytail on UAF or the Goatee on OV), but I also added a belt and bracers on his arms on the arms to spice things up. Finally made his spikes more prominent to make him look a bit older.

Stinkfly - I'll bring up the second design I did in a minute, but for the more classic Stinkfly I leaned toward OV in terms of general proportions and colors, but I also wanted to call back to his OG design with his head being a different color from the rest of his suit.

Slopfly - Obviously this is based primarily off of the design from the reboot, which I have mixed feelings about. Didn't like the almost exclusively humanoid look, so I tried to make him look much more insectoid with more prominent Dragonfly aspects and a bit of Hornet thrown in too. Lore wise, I like to think of his as being from the same planet, but an evolutionary offshoot; think of it like the difference of an ant vs a bee. Overall I tried to make them different, despite basically being the same character. My idea is that classic stinkfly is a bit hardier and can use his claws and stingers more offensively, while "slopfly" as I call him is a bit weaker, but can more effectively use his slime.

Ripjaws - I liked the way OV handled him and wanted to push that more monstrous look a bit further. In terms of his suit, I wanted to add a rebreather so he doesn't immediately start to suffocate, but still kept that weakness.

Upgrade - I lean very hard into Classic as far as my fav designs for him go and wanted to keep that sort of feeling. So I tried to keep his general body shape that same sort of gloppy look he used to sport before OV bulked him up. I also tried to keep the high contrast color he used to sport since I feel it helped his circuitry pattern stand out more.

Ghostfreak -Honestly both easy and hard to come up with a ghostfreak design; their are good aspects in every design, but something also holding them back. I did ultimately lean more toward OV in terms of the overall look, but I also tried to streamline some bits and included the claws from his unskinned form

[herotome]

Special Informal Devlog

Hi-ho, Wudge here! Aaaa. I missed the update last week... as we crawl closer and closer to release, it's become harder for me to write devlogs. I'm making progress every single day, and that makes me so frustrated that it isn't done yet, you know? 😭 Something something curse of perfectionism...

Anyway.

I thought I'd try something a little different with this post by chronicling a specific screen I've worked very hard on, from start to finish!

(Pictured: a preview of where we're gonna end up)

It all began on... August 2021?! Yowza, two years ago! When I posted a poll on tumblr and on itch about how I should handle flirt indicators. The votes were split 50/50 between two popular options, and I was able to surmise that yall would really, really love an option to toggle between the two.

It didn't take me long to figure out how to implement the toggle itself.

The following year (September 2022), I came up with the idea of putting in an illustrated tutorial on how my flirt indication system works - after all, poll participants had told me that they loved the idea and had never seen it before in other games. I was on a treadmill at the time, so I quickly doodled the idea on my phone. It looks like this:

Then when I got home, I did a rough pen draft to solidify the idea...

I worked on the digital version over the next 2-3 weeks, and asked my friends for help with editing the text to ensure clarity.

.... Then I took a looong break from the infographic to, uh.... write, edit, playtest the game, draw expressions for Griffin CG, draw expressions for the landlord, work on a new Clammy Lady sprite, playtest the game again, make all the characters blink, make the first glowing animation for Jade's powers, code in Griffin's CG expressions, stress about paypal making changes in my country, do concept art for upcoming npcs, write some more, playtest some more, draw a birthday picture for Dart, write devlogs every single week, make sure all my files were safely transferred to my new laptop before my old one completely died... etc.

So it was February 2023 by the time I came back around to try implementing the infographic in code :')

... It was functional, but no matter what I tried, I didn't like how it looked with everything crammed into one page.

... Then I got really sick... but after I recovered and did some more work (drawing, writing, playtesting, etc) I came back to the infographic with the intention to learn how to code pages in renpy.

Still didn't look phenomenal, but there's a whole lot more breathing room! This was in April 2023.

I took another "break" (worked on a million other things) and then... FINALLY... in late August 2023, just a few weeks ago, I had an art breakthrough!

I had garnered a better understanding of color and poses, and as a result my chibis became a LOT cuter! I was able to redraw most of them without too much hassle - whereas when I first started, it would take me all day to draw a single one.

I also drew custom heart icons (a plain heart, a golden heart, and a broken heart), figured out how to make text buttons look more fun and intuitive..

And here's where we're at now!!! I still need to draw eyes for Dart.... but I researched and absorbed a lot about screen compositions, and had a rather late realization that I could re-use backgrounds and assets I already have in the game.

That's it for the special edition. I'll update with more soon!

Stay safe and keep warm,

Wudge.