#i wasnt trying to make a tutorial or anything i just like talking

[rimeah]

The timelapse! I forgot to turn it on at first and only later realised its not a screen recording lol so I'll explain a little more here.

I used clip studio paint and the brush pack is Thick coating Brush Set (厚塗りブラシセット) & it took me 3hr since I had a clear ref and mental illness.

When practicing faces with a ref you can mark the edges of the ref or things like pupils to help with proportions and connect like?? Focus points to find the shapes. Connecting those dots, rotoscoping or drawing triangles and edges will help with learning.

Zooming out a lot, not erasing and instead blurring or going over it will also help with keeping focus on shapes ♡

If you paint base lines like I do you don't have to worry about lineart just base shapes. Set time limit to learn not to get stuck, it really doest matter if you end up painting over it, depends on style. Too tired to English rn but let me know if you have questions bye ♡

Oh I forgot, for some shading I used a multiply layer, rhe glowy thing is the add glow layer option (in sai I use luminosity) and I merge layers constantly bc I like how it blends when everything is on one layer BUT I save copies of the merged layers for backup.

When I use sai most is the same but I play around with the grit of the textures (bg more texture, important focus parts like the face = less grit), since sai brushes are so easy to customize

[ganondoodle]

random thought about the memory system

a big difference between why botws memories worked so well but totks didnt is mainly bc in botw, there wasnt that much plot, you kinda knew what was up by the time you left the tutorial, all memories serve you just as well as link, sending you around a hyrule you dont know, the few scenes of main characters do a good job of giving you an idea of who they are, but the majority is focused on zelda and link, why she acted to cold to him at first and later became friends, the characterization being not jsut in memories but also in how people remember them, their diary etc, when you meet their ghosts theres a familiarity to how they talk to you, they know and care about you, its like giving you late friend one last visit; getting memories out of order really doesnt hurt that characterization and overall it really just serves to flesh out the past and what made this world the way you see it now but mainly it gives you characters

in totk, its ... the main plot driving thing, you are here for the story now more than the world bc you know the world already, besides the sages stuff (that isnt much either besides some legends that apprently were always a thing but never popped up until now), its basically the entire plot and it all hinges on it, its trying to be both plot and character introduction AND characterization, which it simply cant do; we already know zelda and what shes like, but its like the game itself doesnt know what to do with her now, she doesnt do anything, she stands around listenign to strangers talk, whenever she says anything shes dismissed or it simply doesnt matter, the most she does is go around to faceless and nameless sages of old we dont know nor care about in a damn near copy paste scene begging them to help link of the far future somehow even tho they really have no reason to and then she swallows a stone bc she has literally no other choice; fleshing out the past doesnt work either bc this past is so far removed from anything of the world and people you know that theres simply no meaningful connection to make you really care, there are no characters alive that knew the people of old ...except mineru and rauru are still there, but then dont tell you shit, theres so much you dont know about them, their world or history and they dont tell you anything bc *gestures vaguely* ?? even ganondorf only says some standard villain stuff that tells us pretty much nothing about him nor rauru, no one in your time asking you who the hell that ghost powered robot is? no she sits in her robot somewhere deep underground (how does she even get out of there at the end, she needed you to drive her around to her own temple after all) given how straight up obsessed hyrules entire population is with sonau stuff they sure dont do anything with a literal person from that time and then at the end she jsut goes poof, welp, guess we will never, sure, fine keep your secrects; getting the memories out of order destroys literally any kind of story that was there, like it wasnt predicatble from like memory 3 to where it would go (predicable can be good but in this case its boring as hell) anyway

.. theres more i could talk about but this is already longer than intended and i want to do other things but this with my evening, you probably heard most of my problems with this game in my rants by now anyway

[mechagender]

do you have tips on drawing robots/mecha?

augh I really do wish i could have like a really good and thought out tutorial but honestly I don't even know how I learned WAUUHH ummm I think if I had any tips that I personally had to share which isnt a lot 1. try focusing on bolder geometric shapes!! it REALLY helps to sell the mechanical look. organic things tend to have a lot of soft irregular shapes, so deviating from that helps makes things look inorganic. also, try and picture things as a 3d model in your mind if you can! (if you can't, that's alright! people's imaginations work differently, some people can picture things, some people can't. that's just what I personally do)

2. exaggerate your parts and proportions to your hearts content!! robots and mecha are an excuse to really go crazy with things!! while something like drawing humans would typically have sort of a 'set' anatomy and proportions (varying on art style of course) mecha isn't really bound by any set of 'rules' especially if you don't care about being realistic!! (which i dont HEHE) 3. study and try and learn from some of the details of other mecha art. watch/play/consume media that focuses on mecha/robots like gundam or things like transformers, etc. other things that are good to study is real machinery, dolls, and real organic anatomy in general. i'd probably recommend searching some terms like "how to draw mecha/robots" on here and seeing what other tips more experienced artists have 4. PRACTICE!!!!!!! this should be like the tip ever for anything at all. im only able to draw like i am now because i spent a good few years drawing almost nothing but transformers which sort of forced me to learn. don't stop trying even when things look 'wrong' because fucking up is how you get better at Not fucking up

here's a snippet of like some of the first mecha art i can find in my files from back in 2021, you can tell i wasnt really confident in my shapes at all at the time, but keeping at it gave me the ability to improve (obviously none of these are concrete rules pls dont take them as such!!! i also HEAVILY encourage finding lessons elsewhere because beyond generic primary/middle school art classes i have never taken any sort of art education ever and I have no idea what im talking about. i'm entirely self taught, and i've also rarely done serious studies on my own. bad, i know WAUUUGH.)

[imflyingfish]

mm I just tried Genshin impact for the first time and like. I think its fine its just not really for me tbh. I didnt know anything about it before hand. like the thing that i liked most about Genshin was running around collecting food and shit... but other than that I just found it kind of boring and like I was being talked down on. I was going to play it on stream (and maybe one day I still will) but i'm not fully sure if its the game that I want to play.

Like the characters I found... mostly uninteresting, ive never been too into elemental gameplay systems and I think that the majority of combat is... really dull and repetative. theres no sneak button either! I was really looking forwards to the cooking mechanic (for.. some reason. I think i just like gathering the materials for it) But the actual crafting mechanic is also really boring with zero surprise in what you might make.

While and after playing I felt like everything around me was overly smooth and baby-like. I got the urge to watch a thriller movie just to find some stakes in whatever after. (I don't usually watch those ever). I felt like my own actions had no imapct on anything, I wasnt really 'discovering' anything like new weapons or recipes since when you open the cooking menu, everythings already there with the masterials you have, and the "minigame" is useless and just a 1 click timing. It didnt really feel like anything I did had any consequence on anything (Although this may have just been a tutorial stage thing) The characters were like. fine. Theyre pretty but that also makes them dull. It feels like the game is trying to force me to love them and get more and more and I just. dont care tbh

Anyway, none of these are actual drags on the game itself. I still think its like a fine game and its certainly very pretty, so it could work as a de-stressor or whatever for me. I just think I own other games that I enjoy a bit more

[syrupspinner]

nextfest demos in the order i played them!

except for 500 calibre contractz since i already talked about that

im not gonna spend too long talking about em, since theyre just demos and all, but! i like talking :3

this was great! ive tried some pinball games in the past, and out of them ive enjoyed demon's tilt the most. the progress system reminds me of mario pinball land, where if you fall down youve gotta work back up. it was kinda frustrating in that game, but i trust that this will work to make improvements like the checkpoint system. also, i like the abilities! it reminds me of wizorb in the way that i dont enjoy arkanoid/break-out by itself, and the magic lets you avoid stalemates and give the levels more freedom. so yeah, looking forward to the full game!

windows firewall defender moment. sorry, but im not really feeling this one. i couldnt progress after building the chocolate crafting table. im not sure if i was missing something or if the game just wasnt showing me new recipes. the menu sais thered be more pages if i scrolled, but there wasnt. also, i killed a ginger bread guy, but like... nothing happened? it didnt give me anything but the body just stayed there. next.

a little rough around the edges, but i respect the niche! i won my first match through attrition, but i can see myself really latching on to the gameplay if i gave the full game a shot. definitely one of those games that you leave lying around your library and launch when youre in the mood, not the kinda thing you focus on and grind out.

first impression, this needs better controller support, sometimes the menu just... doesnt work without a mouse, including the title screen. ive got a bit of a soft spot for marble games, i was inspired when i saw patricia taxxons marble blast video. but a lot of them just seem a bit unpolished, Sphero included. the foundation is there, i think the controls are pretty alright, but the presentation loses me

typo in the tutorial. the game was really polite about being a work in progress, so ill let it slide. especially since this was made by three people, wow? anyway, im kinda surprised by how well i jived with this game. i was expecting this to be a kinda mid ecchi game, but its actually surprisingly fun. the weird thing is, i remember trying viscera cleanup detail when i was younger and really not liking it. maybe this is more engaging because of the setting and style? either way, wishlisted. wish i had people to try the multiplayer with!

oh my god its so small. ew, up to jump?oh never mind this game is funky /pos as hell. i dig the music, and the npcs have such killer personality. the core mechanics are a bit simplistic but im hoping the full game fleshes them out more. i feel kinda bad that i dont have much else to say about this, the gameplay's pretty straightforward but the art direction saves it. wishlisted

last one for the night. full disclosure, i held off on this one because i knew id be into it anyway, but MAN thats a understatement! im so so into the combat here, i love being able to plan things out before committing to them, and its SO fun to play with the AP system! the writing is super fun, i already love all these characters, and i cant wait for a second to see where the story's going with the memory loss and the weird teacher, ugh i wanna play more! bar none my favorite game so far

tune in whenever my adult responsibilities are slightly less worrisome for the second part! homefully itll be the conclusion, im planning for it to be but oooooo viddy games...

[malevolententity]

WOE PROJECT 6 BE UPON YE

every day my patience with pattern markers grows thin. i can and will write essays about this franken pattern project that i Am calling done for now but i might do some more work on in the future. SO this is two patterns of the same concept that ive put together because i was not going to fully reset because the first pattern was absolute ass. i truly do not know if the issue was with me or the pattern as they would call for stitches and then tell you how to do the stitch and it was a different stitch! and i made sure it wasnt a uk vs us terms issue but i still had issues! the dud coaster is the darker blue one my mug is pictured on i like how after a lot of trial and error i got the flowers to look flowerish but idk not a big fan of it waaaay to much effort trying to make the stitches work that ill never work it up again. the basket is very pretty honestly but to actually hold the coasters ive had to stuff it with all my yarn scraps that m hoping to one day maybe turn into my own cobbled together yarn? because without the stuffing it just collapses from the weight of the coasters which is why! this project may not be done as there is another basket tutorial m looking at (that goes with the other 2 coasters i made) that based on how it looks is flatter and might hold the coasters much better. but that is definitely a thing ill work up down the road and Probably not tomorrow as i do adore the little basket i have now. AND SPEAKING OF THE TWO OTHER COASTERS i love the flower pattern the whole coaster was a time sink because of how the leaves must be worked but it was so very worth it. from project 3 (tarot sleeve) i still have a skein and a half of that red and purple that if i ever work up more of this specific flower pattern i might see what that yarn gives me! although most likely ill just find another flower pattern to try (theres a tulip one m interested in) so that every coaster is a different flower and looks the most like a bouquet as i can get. unfortunately i used acrylic yarn so i am loathe to use these with hot mugs but time shall tell with the shit coaster if i can use it with hot mugs long term!

also this project took roughly 6 hours with all the frogging trying to make the original pattern work and in generally learning 3 new patterns! (last hour and a half from episode 5 all the way to an hour into episode 7)

season 2 thoughts so far

dude can the lil guys just get a break? joui almost died AGAIN BUT LIKE A DEATH SAVE HAD TO HAPPEN LIKE BRUH LEAVE HIM ALONE FSDJKHFS arthur has had the worst fucking time and honestly i would not be surprised if towards the end of the season he does a suicide run because hes lost everything and everyone but ivete and idk if thats enough to keep him from going insane. i just. i dont know how to put episode 6 into words besides that i am soooo glad to have made it out of that episode because it was Heavy. episode 7 has been chill for the most part. they kept talking about sucking hoses. they kept saying various party members needed to strip to prove they were gonna start trying to shoot each other again. pretty normal table top hijinks and a good place to end for the night/the project.

i honestly have no idea what m making next. part of me Wants to try making a cardigan but all i have is acrylic which is itchy. and i def dont have the skeins for a whole cardigan plus cardigans i feel like would take minimum 22 hours? and i dont really. wanna have a 20+ hour single project. i like my current insanity of having done like 40ish hours of projects this past month and none of them going over 10 hours (besides the wretched bag). time to go through my ravelry in a few days time and see if anything jumps as being interesting or if m gonna have to spin a wheel to pick a project.

[not-me-simping-for-blasty]

bakugou thoughts pt 2001847471 :)))

- if u go to the park, and somebody is like, walking their dog n the animal barks at y’all??? bakugou is barking back. mans full on squares up, n barks at the dog until it backs off

- he rarely gets into shows/series, but when he finds one he likes, he’ll only watch the first few episodes and then make u watch the rest with him. he’ll always say sum “if i dont watch with you, then i gotta make extra time for your needy ass. ‘m prioritizing my fuckin’ time. it doesn’t mean anything, shut up.” ...... he’s lying. it does mean something. it means he wants to share the things he likes with u

- pls he’s so smart, and generally pretty aware, but sometimes he’ll just do something so duMb. like, u kno that thing that happens sometimes with hair?? like, when it sticks to ur fingers and no matter what u do, u can’t get it off?? bakugou is literally breaking his wrist a foot away from u, shaking his hand back and forth and cursing soooo loudly. u just gotta go up to him and gently remove the hair from him like “oh honey- no.”

- peanut gallery comments. lots of them. mans will sit fully dead silent, not talking for the whOle day, but the second u do something embarrassing?? like trip??? suddenly he has a LOT to say ..... smh men

- animals just always like him. its absolutely unexplainable bc he’s so loud n moves super suddenly,,, but the amount of street animals that follow him home is ridiculous. srsly. sometkmes he even has other people’s pets trying to follow him home

- respects absolutely no one n that somehow strangely makes him the most respectful u’ve ever seen??? like- he hates everyone the exact same so u won’t ever catch bakugou in an act of discrimmination

- he can’t draw at all but if u asked him to draw something, it’ll be the same skull every single time. it’s a good skull, but it’s soooo obvious he learned how to draw it from a tutorial in the midst of his emo phase

- will fully make fun of others for baby-talking around their s/o, n then just fully go home n look at you like “tired.” “hungry.” “kiss.”...... like okay baby man, maybe try putting a full sentence together before u start trying to run your mouth. hypocrite.

- probably sleeps like the dead. contrary to popular belief, i absolutely do not believe he’s up at every single noise. man’s could sleep thru an explosion, im sure of it. that being said tho, it’s probably actually hard for him to turn his brain off n fall asleep. he prob goes to bed so “early” bc he has to wind down for a good hr or two until he’s ready to actually sleep

- he’s got a vendetta against salespeople. like, if his phone rings with some bullshit about a product? if somebody, god forbid, tries to walk up to your door? fully frothing at the mouth annoyed. will chew out any employee who’s too underpaid not to listen to him

- eats like an absolute animal. no rlly, its bad. holds his spoon with a fist and digs at his meal like its the gold rush. the worst table manners you’ve ever seen rlly

- he gets sorts antsy if he sits for too long, so he’s always off doing random shit. like, u’ll look out the window n he’s just like, raking the .3 leaves from ur driveway, probably trying to guess where the wind will be so they wont blow back

- ik this with my heart and soul okay,,, bakugou has never had a conversation with u that wasnt from exactly .2 meters away. like,, if he’s comfortable, then he’s just close all the time. like he’s waving his hands around and yelling and you just have to take his face in ur hands and go “im literally right here. ily but pls tone it down for the sake of my hearing.”

- very much guard dog behavior when y’all go out. absolutely will not leave ur side for even a second, like, at a bar or during a concert. even if u go to the bathroom he’s like, leaning against the wall and waiting right outside the door

- gets absolutely bitchy about your phone blowing up while you’re hanging out. its not that he’s suspicious that ur, like, cheating on him, it’s just that he doesnt understand why u’d even leave ur phone on in the first place since he always has his turned off when ur around. if he gets annoyed enough he’ll fully take the phone out of ur hands, say sum “yeah, you don’t fuckin’ need this anymore. you’re done with this.” n toss it across the room while he kisses u senseless

- tbh his ultimate love language is 100% playfighting. v much would go heart eyes if u even seemed like u might try n wrestle him. obvi u dont win, but his favorite is how u laugh while he pins ur hands above ur head

- he sneers at other angry people. will fully, fully sit there like “jesus christ, they need to calm the hell down. annoying as shit- fuckin’ loud too.” ....... -i. who’s gonna tell him

- silent conversations with ur eyes. no rlly. if y’all are with friends and somebody says something questionable, bakugou is immeadiately turning to u, eyes hardly even shifting but u just know he’s hurling insults in his head

- he doesnt realize his own strength sometimes. like- he knows he’s strong, but if u ever open a door n ur like “woah, careful, this is heavier than it looks” bakugou is .2 steps behind u practically ripping the damn thing off it’s hinges. he’ll look at it, huffing like he doesn’f even understand the issue

- he rlly likes when u call him by his name. pet names are fine, but he srsly is super soft for the simple stuff. like when u look over at him, all excited, smile wide like “hey katsuki, u gotta see this! c’mere!”

- his road rage is severe. no rlly. bakugou drives like every day is a race n he’s one win away from going formula one. you’re pretty sure that the only reason he passed his license test is bc the instuctor was too terrified to tell him no

- bakugou probably does that thing where if you’re sitting on the counter top, watching him cook, he’ll stand between ur legs. hands on ur thighs or resting on ur hips while you tell him about your day

- can’t explain this one, but he doesnt kill spiders. he takes them outside. says sum “they eat ticks, idiot. what- you actually want a fuckin’ blood disease? Hah? ‘m not gonna kill it. motherfucker’s gotta earn his keep before dyin’ just like the rest of us.” while he v gently picks the spider up into his hand and walks it outside

- ik that his one cheat food is sugary cereal. like, he’s a health freak, but the one thing he can’t help but make a concession for is sugary cereal on the weekends

- he’ll sometimes get in this over-stimulated mood where everything pisses him off, n the only thing u can do is leave him alone. u learn this quick bc his anger doesn’t discrimminate and if u push him even after he tells u what’s up?? pls bakugou will lash tf out. at u. like, ik y’all like to write it but that whole “it’s okay- it’s just me. just look at me.” thing does not work with him,,, u literally gonna get merc’d if u try

- he’s probably a guy who’s gonna be super big on passing touches. like he drops his hand on ur head when he passes, or bumps his shoulder into urs when he laughs. no footsies tho. too sappy even for him- pls if u tried to initate that he’d crush ur toes under the table aHAHAHA

- feeds every street cat he comes across. is probably super fond of the ones with a bunch of scratches/scars on them. he’d die if u knew, but one time u caught him feeding a scratched up calico n going “bet u beat his stupid ass, right? that’s my girl. we always win, huh?”

—/—

surprise suprise,, my brain rlly never shuts the hell up about this man

[skeletalsepulchre]

you have not missed out on ANYTHING, i promise you. youre only 20, you still have so much time and YES, even to do all the "early 20s" stuff you think you missed out on. you havent even started your early 20s yet! you have time to grow and do all the things you want to do :) the internet might make you think your life is over at 20 but its not, youre young and people who say life is short are liars. life is long, and you havent failed (you never will).

yeah, its not that i think its like....the end of my life or whatever i know most people really only get settled way later...i mean hell, my dad only recently really started living, i think. i havent ever seen him this happy

its really more about iunno. like missing the tutorial or whatever. i regret not spending more time with other people as a kid, i regret not going to prom junior year (i was going to do it senior year, but...yknow), i regret trying to structure my life around whats "most pragmatic" and not getting to really enjoy things. the last three years have turned me into a neurotic mess if i wasnt already one, but unlike high school, i feel like my ability to be productive has gone way down (ive barely been able to draw for months atp...between strain injuries and the other health shit and just fatigue, i used to push stuff out once a week), im sad we didnt get to do our senior year art show, stuff like that

and i kinda feel like im making the same mistake-- don't get me wrong, i like my coworkers and the classmates ive met, but i barely spend time with anyone my own age. i barely MEET anyone my own age. i barely know anything about what there is to do in the town i live in. i dont know any campus events, and when i joined a club, i ended up being unable to attend because of work and had trouble speaking to anyone. ive tried shit like bumble and tinder, but even when i meet someone nice its hard to keep up. i know we all talk about being chronically online or whatever, but outside of my job, i really have trouble talking to people, even if it's just the cashier at the store.

sorry, this is a really nice ask, and i really do appreciate it-- its just not that im scared of losing my youth. i just dont want to live like this right now, and i cant rely on the promise of things getting better when i feel like all ive done is get even worse

[iobottle]

A Little Explanation On How I Choose My Colors

Ok so a while ago i was asked to do a tutorial on how i choose colors! im no professional or expert or anything but i do think explaining how i do things could help someone else! i wasnt sure if they meant picking colors for designs or just for like art and shading in general so ill go over both(this may get a bit long sorry)

-so for designs what i actually focus on the most in my designs appearance wise is color bc i love using it so much! since a bitch needs structure i give each oc a main or base color and base the rest on what just looks good with it i usually go with base+grayscale or base+colors right by it(ie red and orange)

-heres a few to get an idea of what i mean also i included palettes and while i dont use them myself it might be helpful for someone else

-its also helpful to change your canvas color to a color you want to be a base/mood

-now i usually have my sai window something like this:

-i dont make official palettes for anything i either color pick or wing my art bc i do think it helps alot with confidence in colors or something like that (just make sure you dont whitewash characters color pick the skin if youre worried)

-my personal preference is to not use full black/white or fully saturated color(bc most of the time i will be putting an overlay on so that will saturate my pics more) also for my insp swatches theyre from various media that i liked the colors on! if you find something with colors that standout to you color pick them and look how they relate to each other! it really helps to look at the color wheel and then then colors to see how saturation and where on the color wheel stuff is

-now for an image its very important to think that you arent gonna get your base colors right the first time!! when you draw characters more and more you get a feel for what colors you like best just slap on some colors you think will work and use the fill tool to make changes when you see fit!

-small process gif of me trying to pick colors (you can see my unsaturated color bias) but if youre stuck making things coherent for a certain mood like nighttime etc overlays can help!

-a little trick i like to do is put an overlay over the pic and colorpick the colors while the overlay is up then fill them on the layer with the un overlayed colors it will make it darker and weird looking initially but when you take of the overlay those nicer colors will still be there and now you can edit them

-anyways on to the shading! i wont go over form and light sources since that would make this Very long so heres me slapping a bit of colors down its mostly color picking the base and moving it around to get various colors i like its all very spur of the moment and i colors almost haphazardly because im trying to have a bit more fun with it

-a neat little trick i use is the zigzag color picking technique(?) its hard for me to explain so i tried to draw out how the movement of my picking goes and provided some palettes so ppl can color pick those to see for themselves now in shading i try to use more Non Realistic colors bc i think they provide a cool pop

-now hair is..even less easier to explain its mostly a gradient shown below and i hard blend it all and then add dashes of various other color using the same technique above

-my technique involves sort of subtle shading and if thats not your style you can definitely use what i talked about to make highly saturated art and if you do shade similarly and are not satisfied with how dark or noticeable it is

overlays are your best friend! just make note on using not very saturated ones because then you can make colors muddy and confusing

Thanks for reading I hope something in here was helpful! Always remember art is supposed to be fun and if you want to go wild with colors you should always do so!!

[shhh-no-ones-home]

practice makes patience connor murphy x reader

+++++++++

super short, still sorry if it sucks, i havent read it since i wrote it like two years ago

prompts:

120. "Can i do your hair"

117. "Hes pampering me, let him be"

57. "Dont talk anymore"

tag list: @cynic-spirit

+++++++++

I sat on the couch and poked at my stomach, laughing at connor peering over at me. I could secretly tell he was a little peeved that i was having way to much fun with this pregnancy. It wasnt like we planned on having a kid but ever since we found out he'd been spending a lot more time with me, which i think was just an excuse for him to get out of the house and away from his family. I ran my hand over my stomach a couple of times before he got up in a huff and left me to watch the tv by myself. I rolled my eyes in a play manner before checking the channel guide for different movies that were on.

I decided on one and not long after connor walked back out of my bedroom and leaned against the couch behind me. I reached up and haphazardly stroked his arm before resting my hand back on my stomach. He kissed the top of my head before resting his own head on top of mine. We sat like that for a minute before he opened his mouth.

"Can i do your hair?"

I was a little shocked and had to look back at him to make sure he was serious. He looked dead serious, and was definitely concentrating on something.

"I guess?'

"Well i mean, you always do mine cause i dont really know how to, and since we found out we are expecting a little girl i figured i might as well get some practice in right?"

I shrugged.

"Is there anything you want me to teach you how to do or are you just gonna try to do something on your own?"

He let out a nervous laugh.

"Actually ive been watching some youtube tutorials on how to do certain kids hair styles and i kinda wanted to try those."

I was a little shocked, hed never really taken a big interest in certain things the whole time we were together and gosh darn it if he wanted to learn something new then i was gonna help him to my best ability.

"Alright cool, do you want me to sit at the table or anything or is here good or what?"

He looked a little like a deer caught in headlights at my question.

"Crap i hadnt thought that far ahead."

"Thats okay, youre new at this, just pick a spot where you think you will have the easiest access to what you wanna try."

He looked up and thought for a second.

"You know what i think you can stay right there, i just need you to sit up a little bit."

"Alright, sounds good."

I offered him a proud smile and gladly obliged. I sat there and waited as he ran around the house collecting the things he thought he needed. Pretty soon he got to work and i was loving every minute of it. No one played with my hair as often as id prefer but it was happening now and i was gonna revel in it; that is until he caught a stray hair and started pulling on knots and things. Thats when it became a little less bearable but i was still willing to work with him. An hour or so passed when my mom came home, she was holding bags of groceries and was a little shocked to see connor concentration on not only me but also my hair. After she put everything away she joined us in the living room.

"Your letting him touch your hair like that?"

I felt him stop and i knew he had that sad face without even turning to look at him. I gave her a stern look.

"Hes pampering me, let him be. Hes trying his hardest and im gonna support him because he wants to learn how to do hair before our little girl gets here."

She just rolled her eyes and i looked back up at him to see him smiling down at me. I heard her call back in from the kitchen.

"When hes done he can come learn how to cook your little girl a propper meal too."

"Hes trying his best, and we've been working on that now shush and dont talk any more!"

I looked back up at him.

"Youve been doing great baby, we have a good while before shes actually gonna be eating real food, i mean for heavens sake she isnt even close to being here yet."

I let out a soft laugh and he sent me a reassuring smile.

"Ill be sure to add proving your mother wrong to my to do list. But for right now i gotta finish this."

"Right, ill hush now and turn around."

Another hour passed and i was beginning to think he hadnt done much despite what i was feeling being done to my head. He clapped though which caused me to turn around.

"All done babe, wanna come look at it?"

I smacked my knees before standing up.

"Well of course i do!"

He covered my eyes and walked me to the bathroom, he turned me around, had me open my eyes, and handed me a small mirror to look at it from behind. When i saw it my jaw dropped.

"Connor it looks fantastic! Our little girl is gonna look like an elf or a princess!"

He smiled really big at me.

"You really think its that good?"

"Of course i do, i love it baby."

He gave me a big hug.

"I told you ive been watching tutorials, i didnt think it would be that hard but a couple braids here and there aren't to bad once you finally get the hang of it."

"When her hair is long enough to do stuff with i know she is absolutely going to love having you do it."

We walked back out into the living room and he kissed my forehead.

"Thanks babe, i cant wait to do it for her."

[drbriangay]

Hey, so a little bit ago someone asked me if i would do a tutorial type thing on how to achieve realistic drawings and although this would probably fair better as a video my voice is shit and i can make sure i get everything down if i type it out.

I think the best way to do this is take you through one of my drawings? My latest Brian drawing i saved a decent amount throughout it so i can kind of comment on each process of the drawing. For the this drawing i drew it on Photoshop CS5 which is important bc i do utilise a lot of the tools there so if you use smth different then im sorry but im sure there are alternatives! I’m going to talk you through this drawing:

Because i dont use natural skin colours in my drawings i start drawings in black and white because i find that easier to control the tones? and then i can colour the drawing afterwards in whatever colour and play about with it instead of sticking with a colour from the get go. 

I start with painting the entire background a light ish grey because 1) its nice to work highlights and shade into a mid tone and 2) having pure white as a background can be a bit uninspiring? even with my sketchbooks i always make backgrounds before i do anything on them.

I then take a large brush, i use a mid-dark toned grey for this, i don’t like going in super dark super fast, and kind of mark out where everything goes super loosely, precision and proportions really don’t matter at this point, it will probably look bad but that’s fine! you’ll refine it as you go on!  the brush i use for this stage is usually just a soft non textured brush, but i don’t think the brush you use at this point really matters. My drawing will kind of look like this at this point:

I then go in with a smaller brush with a darker colour and kind of refine the face a little bit, i really take in the shapes of the face i’m drawing and try and get a good base to then really work on the shading/highlighting. Again, although this is your base to work on the proportions aren’t super important, it may still look bad but whatever is wrong with it you can just draw right over it to correct it! This is why i try and not give up on drawings even if they aren’t going the way i’d like it to because you can always correct it! my drawings never look amazing when i start them but i like to work into them as much as i can and i usually end up with something i’m proud of! anyways lmao, this is what my drawing will look like at this point: 

This is when i start the proper like working into the drawing with highlighting and shading and things. I also change my brush at this point! Honestly any brush will do but i really like the aesthetic of having a super textured brush, I do sometimes change up my brush every so often but the brush ive been using more often than not is this brush:

Also at this point i try and not use pure black or pure white, if you’re trying to go for a realistic look then i feel pure white n black really don’t factor into a face.I also think if you use more mid tone colours then there’s more of a natural gradient? which looks more realistic i feel. Of course if you like the aesthetic of having a high contrast then go for it! this is just how i personally like to do it.

I know a lot of people work by gradually working the whole face, like do loose highlights and dark tones on the whole face and then refining it but i like to do each part of the face one by one and i usually always start with the nose, this isn’t important lmao i just enjoy drawing noses so it’s what i start with. i think the use of highlight is super important to utilise when drawing the nose because its what suggests form,, this is my drawing will look like at this point:

I do end up darkening the shadow on the right side of his nose and the bottom of his nose but i usually get to this point and then move on and then once i do more ill go back and try and bring more dimension to the drawing.

Also! one of the best tools on photoshop that you can utilise and in some of my drawings it’s my saving grace is the liquify tool. Basically if you do the drawing and get to a point it would be hard to paint over then u can use liquify, as i was doing other parts of the face i realised that the nose was supposed to be a little to the left and the eyebrows had to be lower down so you if you open up liquify you can just click and drag the nose to where you want it to be so:

it’s a super helpful tool that really helps you get the facial features exactly where you need it, i used it a couple times throughout this drawing. I don’t think sai has it but you can use the lasso tool and rotate it or whatever and just draw over the little break it makes in the canvas:

so the next thing i do is the eyes and eyebrows. I’m usually not the greatest at getting the exact eye shape but again, liquify is your best friend. An important thing to note is the angle of the eyebrows in relation to the middle of the nose, Brian’s eyebrows are quite straight so i tried to keep them that way. I also started darkening up the drawing, i didn’t quite go full black, the darkest colour i used is like just off black. This is what i have so far:

Also another important thing to remember is the lighting of the image, in the image the right side of his face is more shadowed so the shadow on the left side of his nose wont be as intense as the right side and things like the bags under his eye on the right side would be slightly more prominent. Also because of the brow bone, theres more highlight on top of the brows and usually a shadow underneath because the brows are more elevated and the eyes are sunken in a lil bit. There will be a lil bit of highlight on the inner corner of the eyes though. 

In the next part of the drawing i just add a little bit to the forehead and cheeks :

I think by this time i had adjusted a couple of things like the angle his face was at was a little bit too tiled in my original draw so i just free transformed it and fixed the angle and the face i think was a little bit too wide so i just pulled it in a little bit. I think another thing to remember that places like the cheeks and forehead wont be pure highlight, especially with like men and older faces there will be more subtleties, with Brian he has highlight on the top of his cheekbones but the highlight is kind of broken up with the line that comes down under his eye and the forehead isnt a smooth bump above the eyebrows, especially with the lighting of the image the highlights get broken up a little bit. 

The next drawing is a little fast forward, i forgot to save in between but ill try and talk through everything:

When finishing up I realised the left eye/eyebrow was a little too high so i liquified that baby up to bring it down just a little bit. Another thing i sometimes struggle with is getting the exact shape of the face and angle of the jaw but you can just keep on drawing on top of it until it looks vaguely right. 

For the lips and mouth i think its kind of just a matter of trying to get a sense of the shape, look at the cupids bow and the length between the top lip and the bottom of the nose and how far the lips come out in relation to the nose as well, i think as well the shadow underneath the bottom lip is usually all you need to suggest the shape of the lip, it doesnt look all too natural if theres like a solid like to show the shape of the lip, the top lip though, because of the way the light is sitting on his face is almost completely shadowed, so the highlight on the cupids bow that goes down to the edge of the mouth is what helps give the mouth form. With teeth because they’re in his mouth so they’re not going to be super bright so i didnt add any highlight to them and just used a dark tone to outline the shape of them at the bottom and used a little bit of shading in between them to differentiate between them. 

For the eyes i usually just leave them without the pupils because it’s my brand but it wasnt looking quite right to me so i added a little outline of the pupils, i didnt want to do the full pupil because i like adding a lil smth interesting in the eyes but i like the way they turned out!  

The jaw you can usually bring out with the shadow of the neck. I didnt really feel like drawing the outfit so i kind of just did a couple of lines so show that he was wearing a shirt with a collar.

 Also for brian because he has so much hair i more often than not just use flat colour for his hair and because his hair is so dark it usually works fine but with people like Roger who has lighter hair is doesnt usually work out well? especially with a more realistically drawn face. I was originally going to keep the entire background that colour but it wasnt looking quite how i wanted to. I coloured first though, and tbh my colouring process really doesnt take me that long, the longest part is just working out what colours id like to use and what looks good with the drawing I've made.

So for colouring i use the gradient tool, you have have a gradient thats two colours that will make your drawings look like this

but recently ive started using the gradients with three colours so the highlighted sections will be a different colour to the base colour, i really like the way this comes out, without any other editing itll look smth like this:

I like to play about with the settings a little bit because i do enjoy the way this looks but it’s kind of a bit overpowering and i think sometimes the details of the drawing can get lost when you overdo it a bit? 

If you go through this itll give you many different versions of that gradient and i like to go through it and see which i feel compliments the drawing

heres a couple examples

The one i ended up going for was dissolve but it was a bit too intense so i turned the opacity down to 57%

which gave it a kind of static feel which i was in to, to finish it up i added a tiny bit to show some shoulders and then i wanted to add a tiny bit of a background so i used a flat pinky colour and put that around his hair and then on top of the background i added a little bit more into the hair.

and added so more vibrant pink into it as well just to spice her up a little bit.

[ganondoodle]

this isnt as long as before but i just cannot stop thinking about this, why i dislike story and lore boils down to these main point

--the ending feels unsatisfying as hell even if i ignore everything i dont like about how the game treated zelda and ganondorf, the ending itself just feels, despite being presented as super epic an touching, incredibly empty to me and part of it is that it feels like an unearned return to status quo of course i didnt think zelda would stay a dragon and i actually wanted to help her, which is why i kept trying to hunt down impa since she said shes gonna search for a way for us to help zelda, bc i wanted to!! i was eager to help her!

i fully hoped and kinda expected that thered either be some kind of dragon dungeon (think, the water dragon from okami) tho that would be difficult since you can get items from her so i ended up thinking before going into the end thered be a mission with impa (or at least given to you from her) where she found answers in ancient scripts (that she told you she would look through) and that you need to find a special lil thing that will help zelda undragonfy, like some sort of ultra secret forbidden enigma stone able to reverse dragon transformations kinda deal (golden opportunity to make you go and talk to the yiga bc they might know or even own some ancient texts) that youd keep in your inventory until the very end and after you kill dragondorf (pretty mortal for becoming an immortal dragon huh) you take it out and use it, undragonfying zelda and ending in a similar epic falling and paralel to the beginning way

... and instead impa stays in the house and only has a few repeating dialog boxes and does nothing and you cant do anything bc in the end you just get randomly teleported (and stripped of your clothing AGAIN) into some weird ethereal plane somehow?? with the ghost of long ass dead sonia and apparently not as gone as i thought rauru (seriously i felt sad when he went poof at the end of the tutorial but i guess i shouldnt have) awkwardly blasting dragon zelda with some magic tm and its all reversed no problem (heck me for caring i guess) turns out helping her was killing an evil guy we never really knew and mineru just kinda says lol its bc time and light magic i guess lol as an explanation

like i really wanted to go and help zelda! i was motivated to do it and spent HOURS trying to find impa again but i wasnt allowed to do anything bc zelda gets saved by some deus ex machina bs in the end anyway, what a fool i was, of course killing the evil guy is the solution to everything >:( (and no i dont care if its meant as in uwu sonia and rauru wanted to help one last time uwu bc it doesnt change how unsatisfying it was to watch it all just kinda happen)

--point two is just how much totk feels like its trying to REPLACE botw instead of being a sequel, its not building on anything of it its ripping out the fundation and building its own thing in its place, like i was so excited to see what happened to the titans, and all the sheikah tech what they mabe had done in all that time now that theres a tech enthusiastic girl as the head of the monarchy, maybe even find out more about them and instead its just all ... gone with not explanation? theres isnt even a LAME explanation, its just gone?? you never find out what the ancient energy actually was, and why there were concentrations of it in the regions with the ancient furnace (well heck it didnt even have anything to do with ganondorf actualyl bc that would have been too interesting) bc that was so intrigueing?? like yeah where DID it come from and why is it there ?? and oh suddendly hey look theres an even MORE ancient and even MORE advanced civilization thats way COOLER and BETTER than the ancient sheikah now, they also built stuff everywhere and have been here ALL ALONG cant you see its everywhere!! and its the only thing everyone cares about all of the sudden, all evdidence of the ancient sheikah tech was scraped of the earth so there literally only being some guardian parts on top of the hateno lab feels like an oversight now bc everything lese was to thourohgly wiped of the map- for no reason even?? like im totalls fine with it being useless and not working anymore but .... why remove it like it was wiped from history?? and then they have the gall to mention the happenings of botw like, twice in the entire game but still just give you the most basic summary of it mentioned on a sidenote with again not even a hint what happened to all of it

wouldnt there have been the golden opportunity to use it to access the new parts and map points that changed?? like a shrine thats fallen into the underground, an access to caves and the underground in the broken and collapsed elevator tube of a sheikah srhine?? maybe even a broken interior of an old shrine, like the room you get put into with the puzzle and where the monk once were broken and half overgrown in the udnerground? some left over construction site where you can see oh thats how the ancient sheikah got all that tech underground, bc they all had access to it and built it there to then rise up when its needed? maybe even making use of the old sonau sites since they frequnetly built their srhines within those ruins?? that the ancient sheikah found em and put the ruins to use? to research it and built their own stuff from it? it wouldnt have to have any focus, literally just part of the enviroment even

really everything totk does is like -forget botw ever happend, look how much cooler and better i am, who cares about sheikah stuff sonau are the new cool guys that came out of nowhere but now apparently have been everywhere all along actually-

i LOVE botw and with it feeling much more like its attempting to replace botw instead of building its story and world further every reference to botw i found felt like a slap in the face instead, oh look where the shrine of life used to be isnt even a hint left of sheikah tech somehow, and also right under it is the lake of healing filled with sonau structure bc ACTUALLY they were here FIRST bc they are so cool omg you guys

dare i say it feel a little like they wanted to make an entirely different version of botw basically, but wanted to reuse the map and models so they just said yeah uhhhh its totally a sequel yeah yeha that makes sense, its not erasing botw and doing essentiall the same thing again but bigger cooler and better (tm) its just uuh a ...sequel ye.

[comicteaparty]

April 3rd-April 9th, 2019 Reader Favorites Archive

The archive for the Reader Favorites chat that occurred from April 3rd, 2019 to April 9th, 2019.  The chat focused on the following question:

What webcomic inspired you to get into webcomics?  Please tell us about your journey. 

lonelytuatara

there were several for me but I think Sakana was one of the biggest inspirations for me! http://www.sakana-comic.com/ since Mad talks a lot about her process with the comic it really helped make it feel less like some kinda magic that I didn’t know how to do and more like something I could try myself

RebelVampire

honestly i find this to be a difficult question. im old enough to remember when internet wasnt a thing. so when it became a thing, there were basically always webcomics. and it was just kind of like...a normal thing to be read on the internet just as much as anything else. i never saw it as a lesser medium as some ppl have experienced. it was just always there along with the internet so it always felt natural to me to read them if they seemed interesting. that being said, if i had to pick the first webcomic that ever made me stick around for a long time, it was Bleedman's Powerpuff Girls D fancomic. Besides the fact it was super popular at the time, i just thought it was really different. like the art popped a lot more than other comics at the time (that i knew of at least), the story was way less comedy more actually serious material, and just in general i enjoyed the story telling. https://www.snafu-comics.com/swmseries/powerpuffgirls/

Iris

homestuck was the biggest one for me, but others like Witchy, Lady of the Shard, and Tuppence for Stardust are also big inspirations

€heshire777

I kind of networked out from online newspaper comics into actual webcomics and beyond, it's kind of hard to tell but I think Skin Horse (http://skin-horse.com/) was pretty much the first webcomic I got into.(edited)

RebelVampire

cause a true hyperlink comes with the http part. http://skin-horse.com/

also please wrap the hyperlink in < and > so the embed is prevented. it keeps the chat cleaner @€heshire777(edited)

yes sorry XD

im multi tasking and didnt notice the wrong tag

€heshire777

S'fine

I know that guy from a different server too

RebelVampire

@Iris please make sure to link the comics next time https://www.homestuck.com/ http://witchycomic.com/ https://gigidigi.itch.io/lady https://tapas.io/series/tuppenceforstardust

Iris

oh crud, sorry. I'm tired and absent-minded this morning

Respheal

I'm a keenspace child apparently, 'cuz my first introductions to webcomics were Saturnalia (https://web.archive.org/web/20070705042710/http://www.spacecoyote.com/comics/sat/) and RPG World (http://rpgworld.keenspace.com/). Both are dead now, although RPG World has a sorta-creator-blessed fan revival (http://rpgworld.the-comic.org/) And then I sorta fell away from them for a bit, mostly, until a friend threw Mokepon (http://mokepon.smackjeeves.com/) and The Property of Hate (http://tpoh.smackjeeves.com/) at me and now I'm back xD

kayotics

I started reading webcomics back in the early 2000’s so I was consuming everything that was available, but I think the first one that actually made me think “I want my art to be like that” was The Meek https://www.meekcomic.com/ Up until that point I read mostly video game comics and they were funny but not inspiring me to make a comic. The Meek was gorgeous and interesting in a way that I hadn’t seen before.

varethane

A friend of mine made a webcomic in the early 2000s and I will not link it because it baaad, but that was my introduction to webcomics-- though when I started reading Terinu ( http://www.terinu.com/ ) and Lackadaisy Cats ( https://www.lackadaisycats.com/ ) was when I started wanting to make one of my own

The Meek and Gunnerkrigg Court were also early influences for me

oh, and hero! I loved this comic back in the day http://invisiblecities.comicgenesis.com/story.html

there were a handful of others that are no longer around, like Vampirates and Goodbye Chains and Astray3, all of which have vanished forever

Delphina

Acid Reflux (http://acidreflux.ficwad.com/) was the first webcomic I really got into back in 2000. The humor was a great blend of anime and light fantasy, which is definitely my happy place. The forum/IRC communities were big for the time too (and of course there was no social media back then outside of what people hosted themselves). When I started my own comic, one of my goals was to have a community like that.

varethane

yeah I totally used to hang out on the terinu forums and shared fanart and stuff XD

(and on my friends' forum which shall not be named)

Delphina

Yeah, standards were different back then XDDD

varethane

ohhhh yeahhh.

Nutty (Court of Roses)

The first webcomic I got into was Looking for Group https://www.lfg.co/. I'm a huge sucker for medieval settings, so my influences revolve around core fantasy, like Legend of Zelda and Lord of the Rings, but I also LOVE for my fantasy to not be taken as seriously with a good sense of humor, like LFG, Discworld, Dungeons and Dragons, and even The Adventure Zone. Seeing them create a graphic novel was sort of a catalyst for me deciding to make my own. I hope I do well for myself to contribute to the unique fantasy/comedy genre!(edited)

Brodnork

I actually started making webcomics before I knew they were a thing

When I was super young I made comic strips inspired by Calvin and Hobbes all the time

And when I got a deviantart account I started posting them

I think Calvin and Hobbes was a huge inspiration for my early work

Although I really started taking comics seriously when I started reading Cucumber Quest

https://cucumber.gigidigi.com/(edited)

Cucumber Quest

gigi

Calvin and Hobbes really inspired me to make comedy comics, and I loved the variety of backgrounds that were drawn in it

Cucumber Quest has lovely colours and a well written story, so I looked at pages from it a lot when I started teaching myself how to make colour palettes

magusferox

Anybody here read Kill Six Billion Demons? Epic stuff imo https://killsixbilliondemons.com/

€heshire777

Now I am

mika

i should make a tumblr page with all my favs

rae

for my old comic I put a bunch of my favs in the links section because I wanted more people to read them. XD

varethane

That's what I did too XD

though it's gotten a little bit out of date and I haven;t made a new one yet for my new comic

ErinPtah (Leif & Thorn | BICP)

I keep my active reading list on ComicRocket these days (https://www.comic-rocket.com/users/SailorPtah/), and when they finish...or stop updating...I move them to the on-site reclist (http://www.bicatperson.com/links/references/finished-comics/).

Some of the oldest ones I remember reading are Venus Envy, Catball & Clown Girl, Boy Meets Boy, 1/0, Alternate Delusions, and girly. (So, also a Keenspace child, lol.) http://www.venusenvycomic.com/index.php http://catball.comicgenesis.com/ http://boymeetsboy.keenspot.com/ http://oneoverzero.comicgenesis.com/ http://altdelusions.comicgen.com/ http://girlyyy.com/

ShaRose49

The first webcomic I ever read was Michelle Phan’s Helios Femina, Just cause I was a fan of her makeup tutorials. I started reading it but stopped and then when I started making my own webcomics last year I got into it again, but the story turned out to be not my thing, but freaking gorgeous art. Then I got into Planet Ace, Shiori, and webtoons like UnOrdinary and Spaceboy, and The Villain. Just sooooo good brings back some great summer memories. http://planet-ace.smackjeeves.com/ https://m.webtoons.com/en/fantasy/helios-femina/list?title_no=638&webtoon-platform-redirect=true https://m.webtoons.com/en/challenge/the-villain/list?title_no=188266&page=1&webtoon-platform-redirect=true https://www.smackjeeves.com/comicprofile.php?id=143025 https://m.webtoons.com/en/fantasy/unordinary/list?title_no=679&page=1&webtoon-platform-redirect=true https://m.webtoons.com/en/drama/space-boy/list?title_no=400&page=1&webtoon-platform-redirect=true(edited)

RebelVampire

@ShaRose49 please wrap the links in < and > to prevent the embed

ShaRose49

Oh sorry!

Do you just stick the link in between <>?

€heshire777

yep

Make sure there's no space though

ShaRose49

Okeydokey!

I’ll definitely do that next time

ShaRose49

Oh can I edit?

I really don’t know discord that well

€heshire777

Hold click/press the message for options(edited)

RebelVampire

i think thats mobile only

on desktop you hit the three dots on the right

€heshire777

ah

ShaRose49

Fixed!

RebelVampire

thank you~!

ShaRose49

No prob thanks for helping me

€heshire777

sure

[sassycassie-s-writing]

One PM Pajamas

By: SassyShoulderAngel319

Fandom/Character(s): Final Fantasy XV/Prompto Argentum

Rating: PG/K+

Original Idea: Nothing. Just a cute scene in my head.

Notes: (Masterlist)(By Character)(About Me) Hopefully this reads as cute as it was when I imagined it.

^^^^^

When my doorbell rang at one in the afternoon, I really should have been prepared to answer it.

But was I?

Nope.

I was eating a Cup Noodle for lunch in my pajamas without pants on—just in my giant T-shirt and underwear. My hair had been brushed but that was it.

I crept to the door and peered through the peephole.

Confused, I opened the door just enough to peek around it, letting it get caught on the chain. “Prompto! What are you doing here?” I asked.

He beamed at me. “I need your advice,” he said.

“You sure that’s a good idea? Last time you took my advice you dislocated your shoulder.”

“I trust no one else with this question.” The seriousness behind the playful look he gave me convinced me. I shut the door, slid the chain to release it, and opened it again. I let it swing wide to let him in, pulling my shirt down to more securely cover my modesty.

“Well, if you’d called first, I could have looked like a normal person when you showed up. Let me put some pants on. Make yourself at home. Grab a snack and a drink if you want. Be right back.”

I headed down the hallway to my bedroom, still making sure my T-shirt was pulled down.

“Hey how come you’re in your jammies at one in the afternoon?” Prompto called jokingly.

“Buzz off!” I shouted, shutting my bedroom door to change. “Mimi and I stayed up till like three-AM watching makeup tutorials and trying to replicate them!” I shucked off my pajamas and pulled on a normal person outfit. Nothing fancy—it was Prompto. He’d known me since we were kids.

“Where is your roommate anyway? She gonna walk in on our secret discussion?”

“Decidedly not. She’s at work all day,” I said. “Hence why I'm eating a Cup Noodle in my pajamas at one in the afternoon.” I went back into the living room. Prompto was sprawled on the sofa, holding a bag of chips.

“What in Eos, gurl!” he teased, throwing a pillow at me. “You said you were putting on pants not a formal outfit!”

“Sweats and a T-shirt that’s actually in my size is not a formal outfit, Argentum,” I snapped, grabbing my Cup Noodle from the breakfast bar and plopping down on the sofa next to him. “Now what’s up?”

“I need your advice.”

“So you said. Carry on.”

“Okay. So. There’s this girl—”

“Ooooh! A girl! Prompto Argentum has finally succumbed to the endless stream of romcoms in his Chocoflix queue and fallen in love himself!”

“Shut up,” he muttered. His ears and cheeks were turning bright red.

I laughed and gave him a hug. “C’mon, Prom. You know I love and support you in all your endeavors. And that includes dating. I'm just surprised you’ve finally fallen for someone.” I crossed my legs and put some noodles in my mouth. “Now. What about this girl? What do you like about her? What do you want from your interactions with her? Are you going to ask her out?”

“Uh… she’s smart, funny, nice. Seems to actually care about me���which is, y’know, awesome. I don’t know. I’ve known her for a while and I just… well. I realized the other day that I was head-over-heels for her with no idea what to do about it.”

“So you came to me.”

“Well I would trust no one else with this information.” He gave me a mock-serious glance.

I laughed. “Okay. So do you want to ask her out?”

“Yeah… but I'm nervous that if I do, it’ll destroy our friendship. And I value our friendship a lot.”

I pursed my lips, jovial mood souring slightly. “That does put a damper on things. It’s a hard tightrope to walk, I’ll admit. Because feelings change things and knowing about someone’s feelings changes things. Like, if you liked her and kept it secret, you could just go on being friends and she’d never be any the wiser if you played it right. But if you told her how you really feel… well. There’s always the chance of rejection and then the awkwardness that comes after. Because you want to try to still be friends but she knows you want to be more.”

“So what do I do?”

“Honestly, Prompto, that’s up to you. I can’t make that decision for you. I feel like if you really like her and she seems favorable to the idea, you could ask her on a low-key, friendly sort of date. Which seems counterintuitive, I know. But, like, ask her if she’s seen that new movie and if she’d like to go see it with you. Or offer to grab lunch with her sometime to chat. If she agrees, you can try stepping it up. I don’t know, Prompto. I'm Miss Forever Single, remember?”

“Well… just tell me what you would want if some guy you’ve been friends with for a while suddenly asked you out.”

“Depends. Is he a creep that I’ve known for a while?”

Prompto sighed. “I hope not. Okay. Imagine it was me. You and I have been friends for… how long now? Twelve years? Since we were kids. What if I asked you out. Would you say yes?”

“Of course I’d say yes. It’s you. You’re like… the greatest, sweetest guy in all of Lucis.” I smiled and flipped some hair off my shoulder. “Any girl—actually, any person—would be lucky to snatch you up. Like, you are a catch, Prompto. And if this girl doesn’t see it… that’s her loss. Truly. You don’t have to start big, Prom. Just be casual. And be yourself. You’re awesome.”

Prompto regarded me thoughtfully, munching on some chips while I had another mouthful of noodles. “Thanks. I guess you’re right. Casual sounds really nice, actually. Like… less pressure, y’know?”

I smiled. “Oh yeah. And really, girls don’t always like fancy dates. Getting ready is a hassle and sometimes it’s awkward. I love chill dates. Like that blind date I went on a couple weeks ago. We literally went to the arcade in jeans and sneakers and stuff and played games. It was great. He smoked me at Skee-Ball but I beat him at Crossy Road. Like, that’s where the real fun and enjoyment is. To me anyway. Your crush might like being splurged on and pampered but ugh why.”

That made Prompto laugh. “No… I think she wouldn’t mind a casual date.”

“So go for it. We don’t get a lot of time on this planet. Sometimes we just have to shout YOLO while diving headfirst into the deep end.”

Prompto knew how much I hated the term YOLO for being annoying, but it got my point across and made him smile. He had such a bright smile. It always managed to make me happy just by seeing it. Which was probably why I had so many framed photos of the two of us in my room—though that was also because I got one every year on my birthday from him.

“You’re right. I think I will ask her out on a casual date.”

“Do it. And tell me how it goes!”

“Yeah. Yeah I will,” he said. He gave me a hug. “You’re the best dating coach in the world.”

“For being perpetually single?”

“Well, coaches don’t play the sport.”

I laughed. Prompto let me go and put the chips he got out of my cupboard away.

“I'm gonna call her on my walk home.”

“Tell me how it goes. Text me when you get home so I know you got home safe, ‘kay?”

“You got it, gurl!”

I ruffled his hair. He groaned and swatted at me like I was an irritating fly before heading for the door. We exchanged another hug and he left. I disposed of my Cup Noodles and went into my room so I could get some work done for Ignis before he started breathing down my neck. Mimi and I had a small study where we literally just stored books and the fancy desk my dad had given me when I moved out. I only used it when I was feeling really productive. I sat at the desk with my laptop and set to work.

I wasn’t sure how long I was typing up reports and council notes that Ignis had handwritten—thank the Six his handwriting was as neat as a computer font and perfectly legible no matter how fast he was writing—but I could feel the passage of at least a few minutes in a slight ache in my shoulder.

Out in the living room, my phone buzzed.

I sighed. “What now?” I muttered.

I got up and ran to get it.

Incoming Call: Prompto XD

“Hello?”

“Hey! Would you want to come catch a movie with me sometime? It doesn’t have to be anything formal.”

“Oh my word. Were you talking about me?!” I demanded.

All I got in response was laughter.

“Prompto Argentum! I cannot believe you asked me for advice on how to ask me out. I hate you so much that I love you right now. Of course I’ll catch a movie with you sometime. If I can get this stupid report of Ignis’ done, I’ll be free tonight.”

“That’s great! I’ll come pick you up at five-thirty?”

I laughed. “Absolutely. I’ll be ready.”

[youtubepoop2009]

Hi! I saw your YS remake designs and became very curious; does it have a full story? Introductions to the characters? Any fun facts? Sorry if this is weird but I love your designs !

hi anon! first off just wanna say thanks for the message! so my yansim "remake" does have a bit of story, though its not totally complete or anything. since im gonna drop a ton of lore stuff here im putting it under the cut

so to start off i changed the setting a bit from YS, while a high school setting has some pros (clubs, easier to research, uniforms so i dont have to design an outfit for everyone) the fact that this limited their age wasnt jiving with me, so most of the characters attend a yobikou, a type of school where students prepare to take university exams, many of them graduated from high school but failing the exams the first time. this setting has some benefits as well (justifiable low student count, school exams gives most characters a motivation). some of the characters are still high school students though. also i drew everyone with a school uniform but im not sure yobikos have that so i may get rid of that (still researching lol). also this takes place in the (real) city of shizuoka in japan (bc i dunno if i can make up a city in a place ive never lived in).

the yandere in question is miyako umehara, who's about 18-19 and pretty much failed her entrance exams on purpose to follow her high school crush. on the outside she seems pretty sociable and kind, but (1) does not like to be inconvenienced/things not going as she plans, (2) she can manipulate people pretty easily, and (3) only fears consequences when they "blow her cover". on top of that she's very sadistic, jealous, and possessive, but she can easily mask this.

as for the "senpai" (not sure if this term is appropriate for setting?), his name is hizashi amano and he's 19-20. hes actually quite smart but failed the entrance exam twice (because of weird circumstances i havent figured out yet lol) and is now worried that his parents are about to stop supporting him. he is not as able to mask him getting irritated easily toward other people so others have the impression he is rude, but he really isnt and is actually pretty empathetic.

i also made a male counterpart to miyako and a female counterpart to hizashi, so like in YS (sort of) you could have whatever couple. i call them counterparts bc i didnt make them exactly the same, they have some differences from the original. for their designs i was trying to go for a sort of night/day dichotomy?

the first "rival" (who is kinda supposed to be like a tutorial rival if this was a game) is hizashi's younger sister honoka amano, who is a 3rd year high school student (they can sometimes attend yobiko part time). she can be considered a rival because she is sabotaging her brother's chances at getting an s/o as revenge for something trivial probably. she's unkillable, it's probably best for miyako to get her on her side anyway.

The rest of the rivals are romantic:

momoka amari - former cooking club leader (and shes godlike at cooking), sweet caring onee-san type, unfazed by hizashi's brashness. not really the academic type, loses track of time and naps frequently.

masami kanze - aspiring actress, relates to hizashi in that she feels she is soon to lose her parents' support, uses a haughty and conceited persona to cover her insecure and fragile inner self, despite this she doesnt look down on other people and those close to her say shes actually pretty nice!

ameya kurogiri - socially awkward, shy, and low confidence exterior that melts away when talking about her interests - the occult, supernatural, and sometimes religion. has a tendency to stay home for many days in a row

minato iwatani - avid photographer, funny, gets along with others easily, but seldom serious at the right times, has a strong sense of justice. usually distractable but unmovable when fully focused (male rival bc we need that tbh)

nami tsumura - ball of energy, always expressive, mastered swimming but enthusiastic about many different sports, can never sit still, studying is very boring to her but she is trying to make an effort recently

azami mutou - grown up high school delinquent, still gets in fights often, doesnt usually follow rules, constantly looks pissed off, did not use to care about school but was recently instilled with a fear of the future, bullied in middle school

yua shimizu - nursing student, job shadowing local/school(?) nurse, so focused on studies she can seem absentminded on all else and seems clumsy because of her nervousness, but still does her best to help out

sayami sakurai - hizashi's childhood best friend, recently moved back, receptive and kind, but deeply troubled by something, her scarf was actually given to her by hizashi, likes fashion and is very pretty

noriko tamaki - high school 3rd year, student council president, heiress to family company as her older sister was deemed a failure, overachiever, can kill someone with just her gaze probably

the older sister in question is yuka tamaki, sort of like info-chan in YS, harbours great resentment for her family and therefore sister so shes willing to help out miyako if her sister has *something* be taken away from her for once. she has a very plain and unassuming look, so she can blend into crowds and eavesdrop and sneak around easily

theres still some other characters, like the equivalents to the "dlc" yandev proposed, but the only concepts i took from that was the shrine maiden and other yandere bc the other ones were just too much lol (though early on i kept the twins lmao), i also had an idea for a non romantic teacher rival that is threatening to fail either miyako or hizashi (which would be like a sort of "game over") but thats pushing the limits of unrealism that i have going on already.

BUT YEAH THIS POST IS LONG ENOUGH so that was a kind of summarized version lol. thanks for sending the ask it legitimately made my day, love talking about my ocs so feel free to ask anything else!

[tumblunni]

Oh yeah I TOTALLY FORGOT to talk about environmental monsters lol

Okay well what I mean is.. in games with enemies roaming on the map, why don’t we ever see them doing anything? They only ever home in on you when they see you. Everyone in the entire world does nothing except run screaming at you to initiate a battle. No matter what the enemy is, no matter what the story is, no matter the genre. its even rare to see minimal differences like some enemies running and hiding, or whatever.

And like.. i can understand this in some genres, at least. In some genres ‘creating a vivid world’ isn’t really a priority, or there’s an actual reason for all the enemies to attack on sight, like if its a stealth game infiltrating a base. or it might just be hardware engine limitations of the time. i think the majority of this trope used to be because it wasnt possible to do anything else on those consoles, and its stuck around even on more powerful consoles just cos its “a tradition”... I think this idea could specifically be very useful in monster-catching games, where the goal is to find them and gain their power. Having ones that appear on the map and run away or hide would be a better form of challenge than some of the bullshit in pokemon where there’s a 0.5% of fishing up a certain fish only on five tiles out of 140. And like.. the weaker more basic ones could just stand around doing cute animations instead of chasing you down. Chasing you down is only a challenge instead of an annoyance when the chaser like.. actually poses a threat. For minor monsters where the aim is literally just “allow player to enter this encounter” then.. do that. They can stand still in a predictable spot so its easier, and they can have cute animations so it doesnt draw attention to the fact they’re just standing there. Plus there’s loads of other ways you could make it difficult to get them! like ones that camoflage with the scenery or have different movement patterns for their escape, or only appear under specific conditions!

but BASICALLY the concept i mean here is that... I want to run through a field and see monsters everywhere I want to be able to run past ones that don’t attack I want to see them interacting with their environment as if it’s real I want encounters that’re possibly completely optional I want to be able to find little secrets of monsters being cute that i can take a screenshot of i want a world that’s memorable as if its a travel trip i want all the fun of actual animal-watching!!! ^_^

IDEAS!

* Peaceful grazing herbivores in a field. * Shake bushes or flip over rocks to find smaller bug monsters. * Flying monster that can only be caught during a brief window of time when it swoops down to eat smaller monsters. you have to find which small prey is marked as its next target, by seeing a shadow overhead. And then when you engage that prey in battle, instead you get the rare flyer! kinda like the shaking grass that gives you audino in pokemon BW? * Monsters hiding up in trees who only emerge when they cant see you, and jump back up when they can. So you have to avoid their line of sight and wait until they appear, or set traps for them. * Similar sort of thing with monsters in burrows? But you could perhaps get a shovel item to bypass this restriction, at the cost of permenantly destroying that monster spawn spot. You’d get a horde battle with all of the rabbits at once and they’d be angry and harder to catch.

* Possibly having to balance ecosystem stuff like that? you can only fight a certain amount of a certain monster during a single adventure, and have to wait various different times for them to respawn. Perhaps areas have sorts of levels for the ecosystem too, so stronger monsters with higher chances of rare abilities would start appearing if you favor a certain area a lot. And maybe a few choices at certain levels where you could kinda customize it? like go on a quest to improve one part of the ecosystem which will increase the amount of one monster and decrease another. Or there’s two rare species that have just been sighted but theyre competing for the same territory and only one of them will stay- you get the choice of which side to help out.

* Possibly monsters who have rivalries! If you happen to initiate a battle with one monster while its predator is within eyesight, it’ll join the battle and help you fight against it. or you might have certain monsters that’re rare because they spawn near their predator and you have like a time limit to catch it before the other monster does. or maybe lesser rivalries instead of eating each other- like two different patterned variants of peacock who do elaborate dance battles! Thei AI could switch from peaceful to aggressive whenever there’s more than one of them together.

* Possibly monsters could have schedules? like, a time-based system of changes for this ecosystem. More than just only finding certain ones at night, they’d all have their own set walk-routes of being available in different sections of the area depending on the time of day. Figure out the brief time window for a very rare creature, and enjoy that satisfying feeling of pulling off a successful ambush. And maybe different cute idle animations that make you feel like they have a life outside of when you’re there. See the wildebeast herd making their daily trip to the watering hole, see birds digging up worms, see baby lion cubs playing chasing games together while mama and papa watch~! This would work really well with having an integrated screenshot system, and maybe some achievements for getting certain rare photo ops? * Maybe this could also relate to the rivalries? like, have two monsters whose schedule runs on wildly different timescales, and only matches up once in a full moon to have them both competing over the same food source in the same area.

* A good hints system would probably be necessary if we’re gonna pull this off. Or at least a logbook that keeps track of details you’ve already found about each monster. Encounter it at a certain time of day and its written down now, etc. And have a general idea of how many different times and different behaviours you havent found yet. * Could have various npcs who reward you for different things instead of just for catching X monsters or defeating X monsters. Like ones who just want you to find out what time you can find that monster, or what its favourite food is so they can lure it. these could help give you the hints towards finding rarer secrets!

* Hoarder monsters. A rare archetype which can reward you for finding their nest during a time that theyre NOT there! Like squirrels burying their nuts or magpies stealing shiny and potentially valuable things. You have a chance of scoring a bunch of useful items, even if it makes you feel like a bit of a jerk. * Monsters who’re sleeping on the world map and you have to sneak past them to not wake them up (if theyre dangerous) or sneak up to them instead (if theyre ones that normally run away) * Possible ability to lure in monsters by throwing food, or chase them away with stuff like smelly salts or items theyre scared of. (Giant cat: *no like banana*)

* Pet button. not many monsters are tame enough to just accept it immediately, outside of the ones in the basic tutorial area. But it can be super rewarding to win a monster’s trust and be able to do this! It’d be like a small chance of capturing them without a battle, and be boosted by taking various actions that particular monster likes. * Maybe not all of them are as simple as just giving them food they like and being unthreatening? There might be monsters who respond positively to ‘bad’ actions, like ones who respect you for seeming tough and simply think you’re too boring to deal with if you seem unthreatening. Maybe even ones who want to see you prove yourself in battle? So if you fight enough other monsters in the area, suddenly all these ones start following you around cutely and practically forcing theirself into your team! Oh, and also maybe if you defeat the predator or rival of a certain monster?

* Similarly, other forms of affection and temporary allyship you can have with monsters even before you catch them. Like maybe monsters that’re teetering on the edge of trusting you might display certain behaviours to try and convince you to catch them, and then you can benefit from that for a little while before they get frustrated and leave. The ones who respect your toughness might join you in fights as a guest party member, or reward you with an item for every fight you finish within their time limit. * Probably the most common and useful temporary allyship would be mountable wild monsters! Cos I’m thinking maybe how many mons in your party would be determined by ‘party points’ or something, rather than each taking up one slot. mount monsters are bigger so you could take one of them or like six small monsters for the same amount of upkeep. Finding a good reliable mountable wild mon and bringing all the stuff you need to befriend it will help you cut costs on your adventure! Tho probably they have more limited abilities compared to a tamed mount, like worse obedience and stuff.

* The design of this monster is something I’m gonna enter into a kickstarter backer reward thing, so i probably won’t be able to still use it in other projects afterwards. But here’s the idea I had for that Sombul monster if it was in a game style like this! I was thinking it could be one of those sleeping on the map type monsters, but also it fights back with sleep magic when awakened. So it just puts you to sleep and then falls back asleep next to you XD There could probably be other monsters that evade you using other techniques instead of regular fighting. Various sorts of stunning or weakening your attacks, so they can run away while you’re distracted! But I think Somnul in particular would be super cute if it doesn’t even run away afterwards. Its just like the ultimate no-sell “NO FIGHTING” monster who you can only catch by befriending it. And even its no-sell just has it cuddle up to your sleepy self and take a nap too~ Probably its befriending technique would be to just sit down next to it and go to sleep on your own. I know i’d really wanna just lay around and watch the monsters frolicking in a game like this~ Weird ghostie friend admires your napping technique! It joined your party! Woo!