#i wish i could draw at work instead

[kikker-oma]

I've run out of my queued posts for whumptober🥲

I'm gonna try to stock pile some posts tonight, but we'll see what happens lol

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

A gift horse for @piosplayhouse

[thrumugnyr]

I LOVE YOUR ART TOO!!!! My favorites are Rhys gives Tam a dagger and Tam gives him a kiss in return, and the Memento Mori one. Thank you for being awesome and bringing so much joy and great art to this community!

You are too kind! Thank you so much! I love that you enjoyed the Memento Mori comic! I am also pleased with how it turned out.

It might also make you happy to hear that I have 2 more Rhys and Tamlin comics sketched out! Have a small sketchy excerpt of one of them (it's where they meet for the first time):

[problemswithbooks]

BNHA Ch. 429

So, I guess Toga is dead, and people are losing it.

I get why people liked her--she was actually queer, being pan/bisexual. She was representation for them and that's rare in shonen manga. But here's the thing--she was bad representation at best and insulting at worst. Nor do I think she was made queer because Hori really wanted to represent a queer girl. Himiko was always the author's poorly hidden fetish--she just was. She liked girls as much as boys because Hori wanted to draw a girl touching sexually on another girl. You can see this in how he draws her and Ochako in solo pics together.

I mean, people seem to understand this when it comes to Momo and her outfit being overly sexual or that both Himiko and Hagakure's Quirks either leave them naked or they have to be naked to use them. These are excuses to draw girls in a sexual manner. Himiko being into other girls is the same thing and that's the kindest interpretation.

Given how Himiko acts and her Quirk being heavily coded sexual desire, and therefore her use of it against someone unwilling being sexual assault, it could just being playing into harmful stereotypes of predatory gays.

As a queer person myself I just found Toga insulting. She was designed to be overly sexual and give the male author a female character that he could draw being suggestive with his other female characters. When he did flesh out her character, her backstory was eventually the trope/fear of straight people, that gay people will be so overcome with their lust that they end up sexually assaulting them.

In the end Ochako accepts this part of Toga and says she'll giver her blood forever, but as much as a lot of readers took that that as some deep lesbian confession, for me it really fell flat. Hori never really gave any of the main kids time to actually learn about their villain or show how that changed their minds toward them. Shoto only works because Touya is his brother (even though he admits he barely remembers him). But Ochako goes from not thinking of Toga at all pre-first war, to one thought about her during her speech, to suddenly caring about her so much she--given how Toga's quirk is coded, is willing to essentially fulfill Toga's kink for the rest of their lives.

It's weird and it comes out of nowhere. It's made even stranger because Toga doesn't actually change or show remorse for anything she did, which included personally hunting and murdering people before she joined the LOV. None of the death and destruction she is also partially responsible for is brought up either, something that Ochako was rightfully upset about during the first war when less people and property had been destroyed. Ochako just accepts everything about her suddenly and her past serious crimes are forgotten so they can cuddle and cry.

Am I shocked Toga died--a little. I didn't think Hori would have the guts to kill off a young girl character, especially one that he clearly got a lot of joy drawing in sexy poses. But at the same time, once he killed off Shigaraki and ended Touya's story with his slow death, I'm not surprised he went the same route with Toga.

This isn't Naruto--Hori isn't really kind to characters that do something wrong, especially if they don't try and change. Enji, Bakugo, Hawks, and Aoyama all sort of got punished for what they did. Enji is the worst off, being permanently crippled, missing an arm and burned everywhere. Bakugo's hand is damaged, his heart weaker, plus he feels bad that Izuku lost his Quirk so they can't compete the same way he wanted them to. Aoyama, despite doing way less wrong and even helping his class during the forest raid, still leaves school because he doesn't feel he earned being there yet. Hawks lost his Quirk and even though him running the HPSC could be seen as good for him, Hawks always wanted a break, but now he has one of the most time consuming and stressful jobs out there.

So, if this is what characters who actively did good things and even changed and fought to be better get, what would characters who never changed and never did anything positive for anyone but their friends/themselves get?

Before the last Arc started, when so many people said the LoV were 100% going to be redeemed I had doubts and always thought it wouldn't make sense with how the story presented redemption or treated other non-LoV villains in the past. That if the main LoV did get some happy ending where they were bffs with the main cast it would clash with how other characters had been treated.

That doesn't mean that I think how Shigaraki, Toga, and Touya ended up in the manga was well done. I think their endings fit far better then a last minute redemption would have, but at the same time you can feel how rushed everything has been since the end of the first war arc. Hori was done with this story months if not years ago, yet he was contractually obligated to finish it. Because of that I think he left out as much as possible. As much as I think he's written some pretty obsessive stuff, particularly towards women, I can't really fully blame him cutting corners or the story being shit at the end.

We know Manga authors, particularly those that work with Jump are treated like shit. That they suffer incredibly long hours at times not even getting to go home for days. We've gotten messages for Hori saying he's sick quite a few times. On top of that, weekly story telling is not a great way to tell a cohesive narrative. Ideas probably change week to week or at least month to month and you can't go back and change the last chapter no matter how much you need or want to. Then you remember he also gave a lot of ideas to the people who made the movies, which would also change his plans for how he wanted the main story to go.

The story is bad--it has been for a while, but I think a lot of people put their hopes on their favorite characters getting a happy ending, even when there were signs that probably wasn't going to be the case. I know how much it sucks when a character you love gets a shitty ending (Stain was my fav, but he got an absolute dogshit ending) but at least, knowing what I know about the industry I can't really blame Hori the way I see some other people doing. Criticize it, sure, but saying Hori hates his readers or is horrible writer isn't true. BNHA was popular for a reason--he's great with characters and the beginning of the story had some great pacing. We'll never know, but I wouldn't be surprised if BNHA could have been amazing if Hori had been treated better and the story hadn't needed a chapter every week.

If anything BNHA has taught me how much a story suffers when authors/artists are treated like crap and forced to work past burnout.

[vykker]

*throws I.N.T at Joe*

They shall be star crossed lovers/Large Joke (sorry if it’s unfunny, I just think he is cool as well as Marble!)

My dude, I would be DELIGHTED!!!! For one thing I'm really flexible with my OCS and don't mind AT ALL if people want to tie their stories together, or use them for their own OCs backstories or whatever, I just want Vykkers Labs to feel alive. I just wanna play in the space and have fun!!! And for another, your Intern is fucking cute, I would support them SO hard. I think Joe would be awkward and shy though lol

[calamity-cal]

The real sign that d20 has gotten big isn't selling out madison square garden, it's ai art of the bad kids!

[inaris-mage-of-storms]

There are a few posts floating around with lots of love and encouragement for artists and writers, but can we take a moment to say thank you to all the beta readers and editors out there? Y'all are incredible. Your services are invaluable and I love you so very much. 💙

[kuromi-hoemie]

hhhh talking about my writing was fun but 30 tags is not enough.. yes i have 3 major influences but i have minor ones too.. it is a lovechild of my favorite things.. writing is so fun and i have no self control or a concept of pacing myself i will sit there for 16 hours and get hit with every status effect but by god does it all just flow out of me. I've always been a music person yes but i also used to write a lot into early adulthood until The Incident™

but i am ready 2 jump back into it. i think comics are a great middle ground between the two mediums so i don't get As into writing bc i kind of started going crazy last time 🫡 i can take a more structured approach to it that forces me to pace myself and think about it differently. i love art.... i love making things i love knowing how to do things i love knowing how to play things i love having so many creative outlets, even if i don't do a lot of them regularly lol. it is enriching 😳 and nice to know that it's always there to come back to when u want.

[tealfruit]

it's really a shame I have to sell 40+ of my life hours every week for poverty wages instead of spending all my time and energy on dozens of creative and technical pursuits with unlimited resources

[jazzzzzzhands]

Oh I got an ask!! And ohh it feels good to draw again!

It's nice to have an excuse to doodle!

Please I welcome asks of art requests during this time of art block!

(i also miss my Groovy au if someone wants to send me an ask..)

[claire-starsword]

Authentic Story of the Shining Force - Saint Fencer Max - Chapter 2

Translation notes:

The map in the first page is not the one seen in the final game, but the early version released during development. More info on my pre-release page as usual.

The enemies in that page are also enemies announced early before release: Rune Knights, Dark Priests, Dark Dwarves, Goblins, and the scrapped Mimic of course! That's fun to see.

Save for Lowe's odd age here, the training with Varios is very similar with how it goes in the actual game, with Lowe singing praises of how Max is on par with the knight captain. If none of that sounded familiar to you, you are welcome to hate the localization as much as I do.

Like, you think we're done with this? No way baby, Max's speech on memories is also a reference to a NPC in the start of the game! I legit got angry while doing the comparison on that one, it's a very iconic line that matches both Max's amnesia plot and the series' whole theme of forgotten evils resurfacing, it did not deserve to be replaced by generic slop. I'm glad I get to bring it back here and that it gets space in the manga as well.

Nova seems to have ears instead of horns in his brief cameo during the castle audience scene. Could be an old design, or the manga artist taking liberties or misunderstanding things. I find it curious though, because in the final version he's classified as dragonewt, however the GBA version will notoriously declare Elliot the last dragonewt on earth instead. This would make sense if Nova was intended to be something else at some point, and the GBA version tried to restore that, though it was nonetheless very badly explained.

Let's talk a bit about Max's speech patterns. In the original game, he obviously doesn't speak much, but the ending still shows him using the formal pronoun "watashi" for himself, and speaking casually to Adam, while more politely to the stranger they meet there. This continues in Final Conflict, where he's pretty casual to the team but sticks using watashi at the same time. This changed in the GBA version, where he switches between the more casual and masculine pronouns "boku" (softer) and "ore" (rougher) depending on who he's speaking to. I'm not knowledgeable enough to discuss this in depth but I do get the feeling that the choice of "watashi" for him in the original was a bit unusual. In any case, this manga just makes him use "ore" constantly. At the same time, he's pretty much always polite, even to his teammates. So he definitely doesn't come off as rough.

As example of this politeness, Max here also uses the usual "-san" honorific for basically everyone except Lowe, a literal child. I usually ignore those since they don't flow very naturally in english (at least for dialogue between friends/close teammates), but I did keep a couple instances when he has barely met Tao and Hans, because it felt fitting for a first meeting, especially with him being so notably polite in this version.

Let's talk about the rest of the team now! I've translated their in-game introductions in case you're not aware of how their personalities differs from the english version.

Hans was announced since the early coverage of the game, so every design difference you see here is the artist's choice. At no point was his personality touched upon however. So could it be that we were meant to have edgy rival Hans at some point? I find it unlikely given Hans' cute face, but my theory is that Hans had zero official personality at this point, so the manga artist just threw some elf stereotypes in and tweaked the design to fit that. It's hard to not associate Hans' attitude here with Mae's in the final game though. There's a lot of evidence in the pre-release page I keep linking to for Mae and the other centaurs' prejudice against Max to have been added late in development. So could it be that at some point elves were supposed to be the arrogant ones? Maybe! Could it be that the artist just shoved Mae's personality on Hans instead to erase her instead? Also possible! It should be clear already that the guy is not decent about female characters, and mild spoilers but, Mae is simply not gonna be around for this one save for small background cameos, which is mind boggling when she was clearly the main female character at this point in development. But could it be this has nothing to do with Hans and it's just a coincidence that his personality matches hers here? Also maybe! If it's not obvious I'm just rambling ideas at this point. To close the topic on Hans, he would eventually be confirmed as a noble in Shining Force Gaiden, as his son is mentioned to come from a noble family in the manuals. Though this is just the standard background for most characters in this game.

Tao is a curious case. She is seen in screenshots since the game's announcement, but it took longer until her art and profile were revealed. Said profile also says nothing on her personality, so my take on her here is the same as Hans. I doubt she was meant as the spunky girl we see here, but it's possible that the artist isn't warping her final personality, and she was just a blank state at this point. But it's hard to tell for certain.

Ken, on the other hand, was announced from day one to admire Max, which is probably why he's very much the same as his game version here.

Luke is the only one of the starting team to not be seen in early screenshots, and there's some evidence that Gort was meant to be the first warrior of the team instead. So the manga here gives us a better idea of when Luke was worked on during development.

The fighting tournament Ken mentions is brought up in the ASCII guide book as a tradition of Guardiana. Always fun to see little worldbuilding tidbits like this were planned from the start. And while nowhere else mentions this as the place where Ken first saw Max, it makes a lot of sense.

Finally, the battle at the Gate taking place on the inside, so dark it needs to be illuminated by torches? That's how the place looked in early builds as well.

[ikemenomegas]

I need a kneeling knight and delicate prince reader x itachi self com...

[phoenixfangs]

i want to draw riza i dont want to be at work. but my problem is that i am Constantly sketching my beautiful princess on lined paper and sticky notes at work (i have so many things to do but i dont want to do them, iw ant to doodle) and they are not worth sharing outside of sending to my friends in dms because theyre not 'good enough' to show to the public. which i know is silly and i shouldnt care, but WAH i do ;<;

and i would sketch MORE on my fuckass tablet so i could have more complete drawings to share but its GIANT and CUMBERSOME and has like a 2 and a half hour BATTERY because wacom is fucking STUPID. and also when i draw on my tablet i enter a flow state and end up spending like 4 hours on one sketch anyway, having to wrestle with the charger and Interrupting my flow state, and by the time i have to turn the tablet off i dont even like the sketch anymore >:(

[samuraisharkie]

due to Life Shit I kind of stopped drawing much about a year or two after I graduated high school bc I just kind of didn’t have the time or mental/emotional/physical capacity to fit it in, despite art being something I really want to be a part of my career. It kind of makes me sick to realize how much muscle memory I lost just from that time (I had only about a year and a half total of absolutely no art but that was enough. doesn’t help that during that time I seriously injured my hands) considering I’ve been drawing my entire life. I really wish things had not gone that way and that I could have kept going, but expectations were on me to do something else and any time I sat down to draw was treated as wasting time. There’s also something weird about recovering from severe trauma that kind of adjusts how you engage with a hobby you used as a coping mechanism, which Art very much was. I almost never drew vent art, but I used it to focus on something and make myself happy and proud of work I actually could do, and once I was out of the environments that funneled me into drawing (being forced to go to church, school, anything involving sitting down for a long period of time) I found less time to actually have an excuse. Someone bought me a single college course of art classes right out of high school, and I think that was where I COULD have had the opportunity to really get started if I had actually had the money to continue and the college hadn’t been so far away. After that course ended I didn’t have that excuse anymore. I used to draw in DeviantArt and Discord art groups, but those began to fall apart and soon I didn’t have that option either. After that I doodled but didn’t really create Full Pieces unless some friend asked it of me, and it was never a commission bc I’d never trained myself to get that sort of shit done without taking too long, so I’d always do it for free. So even that wasn’t a big motivator eventually. Now that I’m struggling for work after becoming more physically disabled after COVID, all that time I could have spent honing my art skills so I could do SOMETHING with my art really is weighting down on me. I have the option to do freelance work, illustrations, pet commissions, even things like cards and cookies. I’ve seen these avenues open up for me gradually, but I’ve lost the skills I built up that I need to actually make something I’m proud of. I’ve taken to tracing old art to try and remember my thought process and my “style”… but my memory was bad BEFORE the covid, and it’s worse now, and my brain fog makes it hard to focus even if I could get back on the train of thought. I don’t remember the construction that would be in my mind’s eye. I barely can keep a clear vision in my mind’s eye anymore, worryingly. I never had a crystal clear imagination, it was always sort of abstract, but I could see the lines, I could construct a scene. Now I have to focus hard to get any sort of detail clear in my head. It’s like if you tried to look directly into someone’s face in a dream, or put in a prompt in neural blender. So I have to adjust to performing the entire thought process physically, slowly and tediously trying to figure out what I’m imagining before I can really get started. Those old art tutorials for constructing shapes and bodies and such just aren’t coming naturally anymore so I have to dredge deep into my mind to remember which advice helped “click” the best and knowing it might not do it this second time around. It’s like if you forgot how to ride a bike. It was something natural to you, you could even get started haphazardly and distracted and still be able to tell where you were going and not fall over or trip on yourself, but now it’s like you have to focus on each step and it constantly feels like it’s taking everything you have to not crash. I’m glad I can start drawing again, but it hurts that something so huge in my life has been turned into this. I’ve ranted about it before it’s just easier to notice when you’re not sketching out people’s pets or doing super stylized doodles.

[exopelagic]

sudden realisation that the thing holding my art back is that I never had an anime phase

[monster-noises]