#im trying to change up my workflow

[echolocalia]

ermmmm accccshually 🤓☝️

hes my fave ever

[asthedeathoflight]

Okay so I was thinking someone should do something adjacent to this band au by @emilywaters but with Rembrandt as the lighting director but i fear that i may be the only person capable of this considering you know. Thats actually my job. But i have too many wips so you're getting this au in post form. Everything I changed from the original post is due to me writing out this entire post before I successfully tracked it down so like it's not me disagreeing I simply forgor.

I'm not sure what like level of fame they were supposed to be in the original but i need them to be doing stadium shows purely for Rembrandt's sake okay she deserves it theyre touring with an ma3 just believe me.

I think Cleon was originally their lead singer but she had to step down for. Reasons. Idk. So the Warriors are hard up bc their producer is on their ass about getting demos recorded for their next album but none of them really feel good about replacing Cleon.

Mercy is a mistreated burnt out pop idol who's just kind of getting listless at this point because she's basically just a prop for a brand and she can't even give a fuck about her music anymore. She meets Swan at a party and they hit it off and get blackout drunk and Swan wakes up the next day with a recording on her phone of Mercy doing a demo of one of the songs she wrote. She takes it in to their producer like here fine theres a demo are you happy and shes like??? Hello???? This is incredible??? Who is this singer??? And Swan is like hahaha. About that.

The producer reaches out to Mercy's management and theyre like um absolutely not she does not want to join your band she's a solo act but then Mercy gets Swan's number somehow and is like i DO wanna join your band actually but im stuck in this goddamned contract. So then its about them getting their record label to go up against Mercy's and get her out of her contract so she can be their new lead singer.

And also more importantly (to me) is the subplot about the like relatively young and inexperienced lighting girl from their home venue who Cleon insisted on hiring for their first tour and who just kind of stuck around and became part of the group. They tour with a disproportionately nice rig bc Rembrandt is a fucking nerd and none of them can resist her puppy dog eyes about getting shiny new toys. And like yeah she's kind of quiet and doesn't talk much in a group but she can hold her own against the fucking overhires giving her shit at whatever venue and not taking her seriously and she gets stars in her eyes when Ajax asks her about programming so like needless to say Ajax is a little bit obsessed with her. Rembrandt's job is half ordering around men twice her size and age and half real-time computer programming live in front of an audience. Ajax never stood a chance. There are always fans trying to see Ajax after the show and Ajax is always in the booth while Rembrandt talks about the latest patch grand ma pushed out and how she hates everything about it and everyone at that company is trying to ruin her life (she will have adapted and forgotten about this in two days until the next patch which alters her workflow .00001% upon which time she will again believe her career is over and she needs to call them to revert the console)

I think probably their relationship is more of a flashback moment bc obviously The Warriors can't be touring while they're looking for a new singer but I think when they're not on tour Rembrandt lives in Portland and does like weird indie performance art shit and Ajax stays in LA with Swan and the others and the long distance is kind of killing them. Could Ajax stay with Rembrandt in Portland for a few months and fly back down when they're actually recording stuff? Absolutely. Does this idea terrify her existentially for reasons she can neither articulate nor overcome? Also absolutely. But on a more fun note Rembrandt drags Ajax to USITT with her every year which is actually kind of fun for Ajax because in addition to Rembrandt being so excited nobody there is impressed at all by her being famous but they ARE impressed that she knows how DMX works. So. Who's laughing now Swan. The flashcards worked.

[berrysemifreddo]

You can call me Sofia! Virgo, ISTJ, Ravenclaw, in case anyone's interested😂

≈≈≈≈OTHER THINGS ABOUT ME≈≈≈≈

MUSIC: Mostly listen to Radiohead/The Smile nowadays, but used to be a Muse fan (also listened to Acid Black Cherry for the whole 2024 for some reason😅4000+ minutes Idek how)

MOVIES/SHOWS: Favorite TV series is Legion. Movies...too many, but tbh none of my favorite movies formed any "fandoms", but I did watched "The Guest" for like 20 times🤧(I have problems ik)

ANIME/MANGA: Huge JJBA fan, love AoT too, absolute fav is Death Note, recently was just catching up on Demon Slayer with my bf

VIDEOGAMES: Enjoy puzzle games the most. Chants of Sennaar, The Room, that sort of thing. Also love Witcher 3 and Assassin's Creed Origins. But my absolute favorite is comedy games like Thank Goodness You're Here and Untitled Goose Game and I'm not even joking

OTHER HOBBIES: Fragrance. Headphones. Singing. Writing (not fanfic tho, my fics were absolute trash🙃). All things AI. 3D animation.

(That's all I can think of🤥)

≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈AI RELATED INFO≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈

Since I'll be posting a hell of a lot of AI stuff in the future...I guess I'll pin this here in case anyone's curious about how I made them😂

My workflow involves tons of inpainting, which essentially is "partially change the image using AI". It's a bit like Photoshop's generative fill but free (and better🤫). Inpainting can be quite time-consuming, but I hate seeing unignorable artifacts, so I try my best to fix them.

Model-usage-wise, I normally just use the original Flux dev (by Black Forest Labs)+LoRAs I trained+Other style LoRA/Concept LoRA (sometimes Redux too). I run the models with ComfyUI locally and I make my own workflows. I train LoRAs with Kohya's GUI.

≈≈≈≈≈≈MUSIC SHARING TIME!≈≈≈≈≈≈

Favorite song of my 2024:

All time favorites:

[partyhorn]

Have u ever posted your comic or animation workflow anywhere? Im super curious on how you tackle the process, especially not using a drawing tablet. I know you have a very simple (and adorable) style so that probably helps in terms of workflow -- Im just curious about the steps you take.

Thank you! With both comics and animation my key thing is to not spend too much time on any particular thing, just draw loose and fast. Honestly the only downside to drawing with a mouse is that I can tell my arm has extremely specific muscle memory regarding it- if my mouse breaks and I get a new one I have to spend a good month or so just letting my hand get used to it again lol. Same with if my setup gets readjusted too much- right now my setup is my mouse on one of those padded mousepads, on top of 2 books, with my elbow resting on my 3DS case (I'll get an actual pillow or something for it eventually lol). But luckily thanks to this I suffer very minimal wrist pain 👍

(...Okay I started to go really in depth in my process here, so sorry if this is way more than what you were asking. Putting it under a readmore just to save space lol)

With MFM in particular, I start by writing out the entire script for the next story arc, which really is just all of the dialogue and vague notes about any important actions. Then I do the paneling with very loose stick-figure like sketches of where the characters are and what they're doing. I prefer having very little planning when it comes to character poses and panel shapes, coming up with those on the fly makes things much more exciting and faster to make. But it's the opposite with dialogue... it needs to be 100% FINAL before I draw a single line lol.

That's part of my script for my most recent chapter, as well as what my extremely loose goofy thumbnail sketching is like. I write the script as one big thing and don't separate it into pages until I actually start drawing- then I go and color change it just to keep track of what dialogue goes on each page

After that, I go back and do the ACTUAL sketch, as well as the lettering (I don't believe this is how it's done professionally. I used to do lettering as the very last step in the process... but then found it hard to cram speech bubbles in the right places lmao.) After that is lineart, coloring, background flat colors, then shading/rendering for all of it. I do each step in batches, as in I sketch out ALL pages of a chapter before moving to lineart, I line ALL pages before starting coloring, etc. I find it way easier to be productive when it's broken up like that, though when I first started the comic I used to draw each page to completion before starting the next (but also, the comic's style was DRASTICALLY simpler back then haha)

(Unfortunately I merged some of the shading to the background flat colors so it's not entirely accurate... oops) FireAlpaca has a sand texture feature that I only found out about last year- adding that to the backgrounds makes them look 10x better with WAY less effort.

With animation, it depends on the project. For simple 5-10 second animation I make for fun, there's very little planning lol. I skip some steps in the process- I'll sketch out the keyframes (and maybe any difficult inbetweens if necessary), line those, then go straight into making linework inbetweens. I'm not a cleanup artist and have no experience in that, so I always find trying to line my rough animation makes everything jittery and wobbly. If I do it with a clean line from the start then I can avoid that and save a lot of time 👍

For my bigger projects (such as the Parvey cartoon and the MFM Kickstarter trailer), I do the whole animatic with final audio first and foremost, with the animatic being almost like the keyframes. I split them up into individual shots, .mp4 files anywhere between 1-30 seconds usually, and animate those one at a time. I'm a huge fan of free to use programs and try to use them as much as I possibly can, here's a list of the ones I use:

FireAlpaca- for the actual drawing part itself (storyboarding/animating/etc). FireAlpaca has a feature that lets you export every frame as it's own drawing, as well as an onion skin mode

Windows Movie Maker- for compiling all of those frames into video format, creating individual shots. If you upload all of your frames and set them to around 0.08 seconds, it equals about 12fps (I usually animate at 0.10 seconds/10fps, its a bit slower but looks nice)

Onlinesequencer.net- for making music. It's the place I've made all of my songs on, like the timeloop song, hyperworkaholic, and the background music for the MFM Kickstarter trailer.

Audacity- for editing audio/music. Also great for recording things directly from your desktop

DaVinci Resolve- for editing and putting together all of the shots into one big video. Can get kind of intensive on the computer during rendering, so watch out.

YouCut (app)- also for editing and compiling shots, I used this one a lot a couple years back but I'm not sure how well it holds up. Doesn't need much phone storage to download but needs a lot to render videos.

MS Paint (yes really)- for typing up text. FireAlpaca has a text option but I don't like it as much as Paint's.

...The only thing I genuinely can't do alone is voice acting. Luckily there's a big voice acting community on Twitter and they're all amazing to work with!

This got... way more in depth than I planned for it to be, so sorry if this is way more than what you were asking lol. But that's my general process when it comes to my art 👍

[einsatzzz]

ok! webcomic update! previously, i said that i'm considering on making two chapters before i release it - im scratching that idea off. tho i keep jumping back to do some linearts and a few coloring for parts that i'm sure i won't change, i finally also finished the sketch/mapping as a whole for the whole script draft i wrote for chapter 1.

as i kept on mapping and sketching everything out, especially near the end, i realized that the chapter length is easily at least two times the size of what i initially expected of a standard chapter length??? LMAO so i'm technically already working on two chapters worth of story length all along, it's just that since it's chapter 1 that its longer. if i stack these long pages together, the canvas height would at least be around 115K pixels 🤣😭🤣😭

im so extra for this shit, bc this chapter is just me essentially setting everything up (=planting seeds) and getting a grasp on the webcomic creation workflow & most of the canon characters. but i love being extra for my ocs! ueueueue you will understand when you read it.

this will also be the most i've drawn tsuna and reborn(butter this one's for you 🫵), ever. so besides oc withdrawal, i am also having cute girls withdrawal, the only one keeping me alive in these trying times is my girlie kyoko-chan. if you notice her panels are extra well-done...umm...uhhhh....i love cute girls 🫶🥰✨

my alternative is to just add another segment in the end, as some form of preview on what to expect next chapter. it should be no more than another 7K pixels, it's alr so long, this is nothing at this point 🤣

in terms of art improvement, i must say that they really are not kidding when they say if you keep drawing comics your art will improve. i keep noticing things idk how to draw (=i'll need to study how to) and i'm also being forced to draw characters in angles/poses i was too much of a coward to draw before and also! things i didn't give too many shits about to draw before, including mob characters and backgrounds (that i can't 3d my way out of).

honestly, at some point in the future, i should make a custom brush for namichuu student mobs, because goddamn! it's a pain!

it's also nice that i get to also technically do manga panel redraws by doing this! i find that doing redraws of anime screenshots/manga panels is good practice for how effectively im able to eyeball & figure out poses from references.

lastly for the updated estimate of the release! the latest i could finish it if i really take my time would be by christmas (this would be my og deadline if i had planned to release two standard-length chapters). though, i'd release it earlier if I finish earlier, of course.

and im not rlly beating myself up for not making my own personal deadline, i'll just think about it like this "deadlines are a social construct, its not like i'll lose my irl job for not finishing my personal webcomic 🤣🤣🤣" lmaoosjdfhjsf pls im already so depressed the past few days & im isolating, i don't want to add more to it. and having tunnel vision on the grind to make this is actually a good distraction from nasty thoughts. also took a break today from making it, that's why im able to drop by a few ppl's notifs 🫶

[fantastic-mr-corvid]

Hiatus

TLDR: my ass has not been recovering but instead stressing myself out badly over tumblr so i will be taking a break from tumblr till it wont affect my mental health and my physical recovery. more details further down

Key Stuff:

Unlike my last hiatus, im talking a complete hiatus, no dash, no checking peoples blogs, no posting art and probably not even posting my writing on ao3.

Commissions will be open via my kofi as they have been, as im already shooting myself in the foot financially with this hiatus and i wont any further. I also won't be raising my prices from £25 to the price i should given how i changed my workflow and the time i take for them, in an attempt to make them more appealing, as other than unemployment benefits and occasional private comms from family they are my only way of making money as i am too disabled to work.

Mutuals please dm me for my discord if you want to keep in contact while im on hiatus<3 i will be active on there

My reasons: Since finishing education i have been mainly focusing on opening commissions, and then trying to draw more/get more popular so i can reach potential clients. Despite telling everyone and myself that this time is for me to recover from the stress of the last... well lifetime, I've thrown myself right into the stressful ordeal of being an artist online trying to make money through that art. And its been awful for my mental health.

Turning what was for so long my escape and joy into what i make money from has made it so much harder to focus on the positives, from lovely tags and replies to people interested in my ocs to discord conversations. I feel raw, drained, and one bad step away from fucking everything up because the stress is tiring me out so much i cant think about how to be polite, or find the energy to be kind no matter how much i want to.

I need to take a break from tumblr to actually try and fucking recover, and i'd rather leave now than after i have worn myself down even further. I hope to return as soon as i can do so in a good mental place, and hopefully i will have physically recovered to some extent in that time as well.

Because i think I'm funny[and this song has been looping in my head all day]:

[fearowkenya]

camp digimonth 2025!!!

oh my god has it for real been one entire calendar year since i joined @campdigimonth?? INSANE

i couldnt even really think of a goal to set because other interests and life in general happened to football-tackle me in the last week of january last year. i can barely remember what i set out to do. in fact im reading my goals from last year right now and rediscovering that i'd split them into projects, sub-projects, and sub-sub projects. which is kind of ridiculous… but exactly the kind of ridiculous that works for me specifically! i think i'll actually just copy-paste my explanation because it still holds:

"the projects are MANY , and it’s impossible to say which ones i will have the impulse to work on and which ones i wont. i dont want to commit to a specific project and then decide ‘actually i dont feel like working on this one’ so i thought it would make sense to just list a bunch of things i want to do and knock out the ones that i have the most motivation for." -me, circa 365 days ago

so true, me from 1 year ago!!! i'm going to keep the same goals as well:

GOAL: complete 5 sub-sub-projects SECONDARY GOAL: complete 10 sub-sub-projects TERTIARY GOAL: complete 1 entire sub-project OR 15 sub-sub-projects

details on specific projects under the cut because i don't know what brevity means nor am i interested in learning it. WARNING FOR DIGIMON SURVIVE SPOILERS AHEAD. i will mark spoiler start points in RED and end points in GREEN so that you may scroll past them if you so desire

PROJECT 1: Finish Winds of Change winds of change my beloved. i am so sorry that the editing schedule for your final chapter coincided with the realization that final fantasy 7 rebirth was set to release the next month. i regret absolutely nothing - honestly i was starting to burn out a little by the end and i think the break from survive, so it was a net positive. either way id like to finish this fic , perhaps even this month! who can say. i do feel a little apprehensive in that it's been a minute since i wrote for survive and i worry id be a little rusty with the character writing. but these kinds of worries are always not as bad as they seem so fuck it we ball

SUB-PROJECT: Winds of Change Chapter 9

rewrite the parts i want to rewrite

go thru edit checklist

post

--

SUB-PROJECT: [REDACTED]

[REDACTED]

[REDACTED]

post (dont worry 😇 )

*********************************************

PROJECT 2: Redesign Survive Partners context from last year: "I am very charmed by the idea that a digimon’s design is affected by the events and relationships in their lives. For example, a digimon may change a little in appearance in a way that reflects something about their human partner."

so i've been kinda working on this on-and-off for the past year, mostly doodles that i didn't plan on doing anything with because they weren't polished enough. i actually really like the redesigns i did although i never posted them, so im thinking i just redraw them and colour them with markers this time. or digital. idk we'll see. i'm gonna pick three of the survive digimon and not all of them because if i did that we would be here all day

SUB-PROJECT: Lopmon Redesign

Redraw the one I did already onto marker paper via light table

Colour and ink

Scan at work (my scanner at home HATES certain colours)

Touch-ups

Write mile-long post about design choices

Post

--

SUB-PROJECT: Labramon Redesign

Find a cool dog pose to reference

Draw a Labramon

Move onto marker paper via light table if necessary

Colour and ink

Scan at work

Touch-ups

Write mile-long post about design choices

Post

--

SUB-PROJECT: Agumon Redesign

Remember what the hell my workflow was; I've started this one already except that it's 100% digital which i dont usually do. i seem to recall that i'd found a vaguely similar workflow to the one i use with traditional mediums but i dont remember at all how i managed that. i will have to try to remember how i got that working

Finish colouring

Simple background???

Post

*********************************************

PROJECT 3: Survive Alternate Evos (Digifakes) i refuse to elaborate. i think that doing a big finished colour illustration is not going to be helpful for this since these would be the first passes of all these designs, so this would probably be just some sketches with minimal colour??? maybe??

SUB-PROJECT: Blackavarmon

find & look at blackavarmon's original sketches again to remember what on earth i had in mind

idk just do a bunch of sketches and keep 3-5 of the best ones

low-effort ink/colour

scan at work

post

--

SUB-PROJECT: Tigervespamon Burst Mode

find the few sketches i did last year and try to push them further; i remember feeling like some of the design elements weren't working the way i wanted them to and i gotta tinker with them

tigervespamon burst mode is very much 'what if i take the machine aspects out of this design and add others that cater more to me specifically'. tigervespamon as-is doesnt look enough like a wasp OR a tiger to me and im taking it upon myself to fix that. im going to stare at pictures of tiger jaws and wasp mandibles for six hundred hours until i can mash 'em together in a truly horrific way to make a guy who is SO upsetting to look at <3

close-ups of weird design aspects, probably jaws, arms, face, perhaps wings if i dont fear god

low effort ink/colour

scan at work

post

--

SUB-PROJECT: Mothmanmon

slap together a bunch of reference pictures. mothmanmon has a specific purpose that i refuse to explain, but i also want it to have the vibe of a digimon that isn't necessarily relevant to [REDACTED] or [REDACTED]. unlike blackavarmon or tigervespamon burst mode, i havent even STARTED work on this one so a finished polished definite design isn't the intent

doodle a bunch of concept sketches

ink/colour the one that looks the most like i want it to

scan at work

post

*********************************************

PROJECT 4: Survive Snippets so this probably doesn't come as a surprise to anybody but the survive fics ive posted are barely scratching the surface of what a version of me with infinite spare time would like to explore. ive been tossing ideas around for a while that i want to at least write down. i dont know that i'd post any of them since they'd likely be part of other bigger fics that i CERTAINLY do not have time to write

SUB-PROJECT: Conversation (& fight?) between Dracmon and [REDACTED] you get no information on this (:

--

(DIGISURVIVE SPOILER WARNING START)

SUB-PROJECT: Alternate Kunemon Champion evo scene listen as much as i love survive and love kunemon and think its funny that his big dramatic evolution scene was triggered while battling against (checks notes) actual babies, i dont necessarily think that it was… the uh, most elegant way to go about ryo's partner's first evolution?? the tone of the scene gave me whiplash. i would like to know what it would be like for that scene to have stakes that are more in-line with the other champion-level evolution scenes. i DO know how im going to do this though, vaguely, ive been thinking about it for like over a year. it'll actually also require some changes to syakomon's champion evo scene most likely! the challenge with this one is going to be to boost the impact of flymon's first appearance while not minimizing the impact of shellmon's first appearance. it's a balancing act that im not SUPER intimidated by; i managed something similar in winds of change, but it's still a little different.

--

SUB-PROJECT: Alternate Lopmon Champion Evo scene This would sort of be an epilogue to winds of change! without spoiling much, winds of change is a different outcome of part 5 Truthful where shuuji manages to survive the waterway, but something very very bad still happens. this bad thing would delay lopmon's evolution into turuiemon, and that delayed version would have a different vibe to it than how it was presented in the game's truthful route.

(DIGISURVIVE SPOILER WARNING END)

*********************************************

PROJECT 5: Digimon TTRPG Stuff I play digimon ttrpg with my friends. yet i rarely draw any of our funny little guys. i wish to draw our funny little guys

SUB-PROJECT: Lys the Muscle Wizardmon currently for playtesting i am playing a melee damage wizardmon who did not get great grades in wizard school. so she hits things with a stick instead. good for her!

--

SUB-PROJECT: Delaney & Herculeomon beach episode Look™

--

SUB-PROJECT: Nova (Terriermon-x) (& maybe Xander??) beach episode Look™

*********************************************

many things to consider! and neither you nor i know which i will attempt first (: good luck fellow camp digimonth participants! lookin' forward to seeing your progress!

[skunkes]

(visual examples under readmore) struggling hard to find a good coloring workflow with my current lineart/sketch habits

i like doing my two tone lineart drawings bc it lets me sculpt the lines and helps me with them not feeling super stiff and also it looks nice to me, like dis

im trying really hard to find a way to color em without losing the Two Tones ! i can change the color with color layer, but that only changes the color...not the brightness

AND even if i change the brightness and contrast to be a more fitting color (left), i like colored lineart! and that also gets rid of the two tonecharm in some areas regardless ykwim (right, where the folds are)

i know i could just continue to use color adjustment layer and brightness/contrast adjustment to keep those light/dark strokes but thats......way too many adustment layers... when my goal is to streamline this so i can do my fun flowy colorful lines and be able to actually use em later... idk.... ill figure it out OR just give in but it is something i keep running into.

like i really wanna color my art! not at the sake of ruining the lines though...

(turning the lineart layer to multiply also doesnt work esp if i want certain lines to be a certain lighter color, bc we end up back at the Needing Several Adjustments phase wahhh)

[tstwitterupdates]

I feel like (imo from being a creative and having life get in the way) Thomas plotted out s2 and how it was supposed to go a long time ago and then his whole fricken world changed. Cause like, first it was the production company, then Joan and Talyn, then several health scares, then a relationship and a breakup, and, obviously, and entire pandemic and a hurricane ruining part of his studio. And that's just the stuff externally. So I get why it's taking so long, cause he wants to make it perfect, and he can't change his plans for s2 at this point, because it will ruin basically everything. Plus, with Into the Unknown and the among us videos, right, it's clear he's trying his best to put content out there. So I can understand where he is.

I think I'm just frustrated because I miss when we had stuff like Thomas and Friends content, like Real or Fake Anime or Joystick Joyride and stuff. I feel like the Sides/Cartoon Therapy wait would be less painful if we were getting a bit more content on that end, you know? Cause while it's been a long time, I still feel like it would've mitigated the pain seeing him a little more frequently. Plus, I think Roleslaying would feel less odd if there was other content going out around as often as the once-a-week uploads for a month or so, rather than it being basically all the content we see from him, now.

I know Thomas is also getting to a better place with bulk recording an the like, and I'm genuinely still excited to see what's coming up. It just sometimes feels like Thomas is hyperfocusing on the big projects, and not letting himself enjoy the stuff that makes the bigger projects feel more substantial, if that makes sense.

i kinda agree im not sure i haven’t made up my mind on this. i liked the videos with his friends before but they’ve also gotten so extra that i no longer watch them either, im now one of those fans just waiting for sanders sides. but i do wish he would make simpler fun things either small sanders sides episodes or small vlogs. i miss his vlogs. but mostly because of nostalgia, those things made me company through the worst years of high school lol. anyway getting off topic.

i do think thomas is trying his best, i do not doubt that in the slightest. but even when you try your best if you don’t have a good strategy the results might not be the best. but i dont know what their strategy is so i can’t judge i guess.

more asks and replies under the cut

yeah like. they pushed the limits of what they could do with what they had back since accepting anxiety. and then they got better equipment and staff and stuff and instead of saying “now we can do the same things in less time and with less effort” they went “now we can do even bigger things that push our limits just as much!”

which is their decision to make not mine but i assume that’s where some of that stress might be coming from.

yes i agree with all of this. there’s some blogs that have posted criticism or defenses against criticism that i just find incredibly mean spirited or that make good points but phrase it in aggressive ways i don’t like.

i think whichever opinion you have it’s best to be open minded. acknowledge our own feelings and talk about them without attacking anyone. it’s okay to feel frustrated and angry and then we’re responsible about what we do with those emotions. and i think it’s cool to talk about them with other fanders that have felt the same. just stay open minded about what others have to say and then make up your mind about how much you agree or disagree.

and keep in mind that we know nothing about how thomas and co work. on both sides. like you cant claim their workflow is perfect nor claim it’s horrible because we just don’t know. but we can say we’re feeling disappointed or bored or annoyed or whatever because those are our own feelings.

yeah again this is my blog and i post what i want. and im doing my job by tagging and warning them.

and also thomas is a grown man in his thirties who has been a social media personality for, what? maybe almost a decade? im sure he knows how to be responsible about it and not go digging to read criticism of his work to get hurt by it. or at least i hope so. if he doesn’t then that’s out of my hands as well. and the hundreds of people supporting him on the replies of all his tweets more than make up for a handful of blogs that make angry posts every once in a while.

yes that’s understandable. but i still don’t know. if thomas has these personal problems that are so serious that they cause his content to come sooo slowly and still cause him to have this much stress then he should probably just take a huge actual break. and let us know about it. without necessarily telling us the reason of course.

if after Putting Others First or the last Asides he had said “hey im going on a hiatus for big projects like sanders sides and cartoon therapy while i figure stuff out, but i’ll film x kind of content because it requires less effort and i enjoy it” or even that the entire channel is going on hiatus, and then he came back like a year later and said “okay we’re back first thing we’re doing is writing the finale script!” or whatever then that would have been less frustrating than this. even if it had taken the same 3 years. because at least afterwards you know that he’s better and the wait would be worth it. at least that’s my opinion.

[thursdaysrain]

my experience with blender and unity, together, has been a bit of a nightmare, but separately they haven't been bad. unity i've had issues with but they always felt surmountable, like, no matter what i can work around this problem.

blender i just enjoy, it has this reputation as like a weird badly designed software but maybe that's gone away w/ recent (recent as in.. years ago) ui changes. new features have been great and there isn't much for me to complain about here, but idk what a new user's experience is like. it's hard to tell people who ask me how to get started what to work with, bc everything i learned from is out of date.

the real headache comes from the transition between the two, which has been a real nightmare for me. once i'm all done working on wormgrubber 2.0, i need to put together workflow document to reference whenever i'm working on new 3d assets for unity in the future. it's a big list and it's been a real pain to discover each problem one at a time.

first and foremost it is obvious to me now that blender is not gamedev software. when i started gamedev, i split my time between learning shaders and learning 3d, not touching animation and mostly focusing on making little model display art pieces. i did this for a couple years. rigging was always a huge pain in the ass, weight painting moreso, so i just avoided it for a while. when i brought my first fully rigged piece into unity it was a nightmare, nothing looked right at all. this kind of thing honestly traumatized me, lol. i spent so much time trying to obsessively make perfect rigs bc i was terrified by shapekeys and drivers, horrified to spend hours setting something up only for it to be useless. this was wrongheaded for multiple reasons... there are so many features in blender that are just not relevant to unity and/or don't export through the only 3d format unity uses, fbx. this makes sense if you think about it for a bit, blender has a lot of features for rendering 3d animation and art but a lot of this wouldn't work in a realtime game, it's just too intensive. but! if you spend all your time learning 3D instead of specifically learning "3d for game animation" you come to lean on things like corrective smoothing or other modifiers.

3d is a weird mix of like, destructive and nondestructive workflows. blender will often let you work your way into positions you cant easily recover from without a lot of extra work or discarding work, setups that work fine within blender but absolutely will not export to unity. things like being unable to apply modifiers to models with shapekeys, but needing to apply all shapekeys to properly export a model, etc.

unity does this thing where it has very specific ideas about how things should work and it only tells you what it's doing maybe like 20% of the time. everything else is up to you to figure out the hard way. im not sure yet if this is an fbx problem or not but interpolation settings in blender aren't exported to unity, so it just comes up with its own. unity doesn't play the last frame of an animation. this makes sense for some contexts, because an animation is an interpolation between a start point and an end point, but like, nothing in unity tells you this the case. whenever i search for these things i always find forum posts, not unity documents. and you cant really change it without clumsy code slapped on top bc so much of this is below the closed off part of unity's code.

make games this way, not that way. i used to always think that when i was struggling against unity it was a sign i was designing something poorly, but now i know enough to know it's often because unity is itself struggling under the weight of choices made years ago, or half finished projects with poor documentation. arcane rules and practices i don't know bc i didn't go to college and because the knowledge is typically split across like several different jobs in a normal large studio.

i don't know how you learn this stuff other than trial and error. maybe in a college?? i dont know how other self taught indies deal with it. tutorials on youtube/etc seem to be split between like teaching you isolated tricks or teaching you very specific workflows without telling you exactly why you can't do this or that. blender tutorials are often for non-gamedevs, and unity tutorials are about following unity's design decisions without explaining them.

i know creating tutorials is a lot of effort and it's impossible to be fully comprehensive, but for something as common as 'take blender thing and put it in unity' should be for indie gamedev, i dont get why i havent seen more grumbling about this. i feel like every major snag i've come across (ones mentioned here are only a few of them) i was completely clueless about until i started doing some digging and the only thing to save me is some post from like 2016 on the unity forums.

its been a struggle!!!! i know i'm getting closer to the end of the tunnel but like every time i think it's a straight shot some new pit opens up. still, i'm getting there. my short advice to anyone is to always iterate, if you are trying to make art for games, make some art and put it in gamdev software. see what you like about it, how your desired workflow works with the software, etc. these skills arent separate, they have to be tied together.

[c0rpseductor]

im really excited by this workflow actually. fucking fl studio froze but importing the midi and fucking around with the instruments worked just fine up until then, and the plugin works for other DAWs too, so i could either get cracked fl studio or try something else. (i would prefer something else since fl studio seems to think i don't deserve to use it without a much larger monitor.)

i COULD be doing all my shit in one program, but i just do not actually like doing that. i feel like i already have all my separate little workflows in individual programs that i like and i dont wanna change them so instead i will continue to do everything in my convoluted and stupid way

[tomwambsmilk]

Racoonstar Ratco... Im intrigued

@localgays2

@lastfridgemagnetleft

I am SO GLAD you all asked!! You WILL regret it :)

raccoonstar ratco is an AU that vi @togansweep and I developed on a Friday night in June 2022 over the course of 4 hours on Discord while getting increasingly drunk on white wine. It has EVERYTHING. evil tomgreg. were-creatures. President Connor. planes. tom and greg trying to kill each other. unethical medical experimentation. world war III. frogan AND togan. mpreg. the sewers of tuscany. Kendall going on a personal apology journey. the culinary arts. melodrama. Marie Kondo.

It all began with one concept - every month Tom reads a different productivity book with a different productivity system and then makes Greg completely overhaul their workflow setup for whatever the newest system is. That's how he ends up making Greg "Marie Kondo" his office, which does NOT work because when he asks Geg what 'sparks joy' the only things Greg did NOT say yes to were highly important files about revenue projections and ad contracts. Tom did not immediately realize that this was a fucking stupid thing to get rid of, and so Greg spent Friday night dumpster diving behind the Waystar building. After this Tom starts calling Greg his "little raccoon", at first as a joke and then suddenly unironically oops what happened there. One day he asks an admin assistant to get xyz numbers from “his little raccoon” before the afternoon meeting within earshot of Logan, who takes a week to process and then decides it’s a dominance thing and starts referring to his own minions as little raccoons.

Of course, the rumour that Greg was going through Tom’s trash spreads through LackeySlack like wildfire. Greg knows if Tom catches him fully denying it he’ll throw shit at him but he needs to save face, so he says that Tom had left something sensitive in there and asked him to retrieve it. This, unfortunately, just makes everything worse. The rumour reaches Logan, who won't accept the way tom is handling sensitive documents, leaving them in the trash and all; especially now he's in a higher position. So he calls him to his office, and after giving him some angry speech he calls tom "my little racoon" and they have hatesex (togan real!!). Afterwards they change the company name to Gaystar Boyco and double down on their economic conservatism in an attempt not to fully lose their base. They're campaigning for gay rights AND the obliteration of the social safety net. Anyways eventually somehow Frank gets involved and they have a three-way and Frank gets pregnant because surprise! This is an abo au but only when we want it to be. Frank is actually pregnant with twins, one from Tom and one from Logan.

Poor Greg is still out dumpster-diving behind Waystar, and Events Transpire and he gets turned into a were-raccoon and goes into hiding because he's afraid of how everyone will react. One day, Tom’s taking the Frank babies out for a stroll when a giant NYC rat with latent lycanthropy tries to launch itself into the baby carriage, as New York rats do. Tom bravely defends them but is bitten and becomes a wererat. When Tom first gets bitten he’s Ashamed of his transformation and hides in the sewers with the other wererats. Wereraccoon Greg hasn’t spoken to him since togan became a thing, but he hears about the rat attack on the news and then Tom’s apparent disappearance and gets concerned, so he hits up his were-network to figure out where he might be. He sneaks into the sewer system to talk to Tom, knowing that the were-rats and the were-raccoons are mortal enemies, and if he’s caught he’ll almost certainly be killed. Tom refuses to speak to him at first but Greg is persistent, and eventually they begin carrying on a secret romance. Greg finds out that ratfucker Sam and Tom had an affair before Greg was able to track Tom down, and in a fit of anguish he kills ratfucker Sam. As it turns out ratfucker Sam was a high-ranking werewolf, and so Greg is banished from the were-community of NYC. Greg flees the country, and Tom, devastated, goes after him.

Tom learns that Greg, post-banishment, has been living in a sewer in Paris and goes there to find him. Greg is delighted to see him but embarrassed by the abode, he serves Tom a home-cooked meal that he made from scavenged garbage can scraps which he keeps apologizing for. It’s the best meal Tom’s ever eaten, including ortolan. Which is when Tom sees the plan - they’ll start a world-class restaurant using Greg’s amazing culinary skills and Tom’s business acumen.

At this point we had a slight interruption from @eastgaysian:

Anyways. As mentioned above Greg writes a biography of their smashing success as were-creatures in the restaurant business and Tom edits it to focus on their torrid and passionate affair and this goes back and forth for a while.

(This conversation was in our pre-Tommy milk days, so after Tommy milk became a thing we retconned this part of the AU so that their success was because of the rich Tommy Milk they used in their dishes, which was at its best when Tom was drunk off white wine from a very particular region of France. They eventually built a small empire selling Tom's milk on the side, but the board got greedy and started keeping Tom drunk all the time and eventually Greg got fed up with them treating Tom like an actual cow and took Tom and fled back to NYC where Tom had the worst hangover of his life.)

What about the Roy siblings? What have they been up to? Well, for a little while they tried to write an op-ed to take down Logan, but they couldn't agree on what to say so they all wrote competing op-eds and sued each other over it. This particular storyline is so universally critically panned (bc yes this is all happening on Succession the show) that in Season 5 their private jet disappears over the Atlantic Ocean and they’re never heard from again - except for Connor, who becomes the President. He also learns of Tom and Greg’s plight and is motivated to introduce legislation to end discrimination against were-creatures, for which he wins the Nobel Peace Prize. Connor is such a well-loved president that they abolish term limits and he stays president for 20 years, until the Frank + Tom's baby is old enough to run for office office. The Tank baby runs against him and it’s a perfect 50-50 tie, AND a 50-50 tie in the senate or whatever the tiebreaker is (idk I’m not American), so in the end they decide to simply co-rule.

In the meantime, Tom and Greg have started their own company, called Racconstar Ratco, which becomes incredibly successful, allowing them to take over Waystar Royco/Gaystar Boyco. They become the richest and most powerful were-men in the world - so powerful, in fact, eventually through their political influence non-were-people become an oppressed class. In order to work at raccoonstar ratco you have to be turned into a wererat or wereraccoon; people who have been turned are known as "purebloods". Marriage between were and non-were people becomes culturally taboo, largely due to a massive campaign on the part of raccoonstar ratco. The children of were-people and non-were people are looked down upon by people on both sides of the political spectrum.

30 years into this the Roy siblings emerge into this strange new world - their plane was simply caught in a time warp! They must struggle to find their footing and advocate for themselves and their fellow non-werepeople. (Also they learn that Logan and Frank both died in a bizarre skidoo accident that was never fully explained.) They also discover that Connor has been turned into a were-raccoon by Greg. Were-raccoon Connor is a well-kept secret, though, bc Connor for the last 10 years has been running on a platform of non-were people rights in order to get elected, and then simply not following through bc raccoonstar ratco funds his campaigns. Even the Tank baby doesn’t know - in fact, the Tank baby was secretly turned into a were-rat by Tom. Greg knows that Connor is a were-raccoon and Tom knows that the Frank baby is a were-rat, but they each turned their respective guy in order to have a Personal Edge, so they’re hiding it from each other.

For the first time in their lives the Roy siblings experience what it's like to be truly repressed, and this causes some revelations. Kendall goes on an arduous personal journey to apologize to very single person he feels he discriminated against. Kendall also offers to accompany Shiv and Roman on their own personal apology journeys, but they are Not Interested. When he finally gets back, they decide they need to kill Tom and Greg. They decide to leak the truth about Connor and the Tank baby being were-creatures in the hope this will start a revolution, but it fails miserably, and they’re arrested by officers of raccoonstar ratco (who also fund law enforcement) for disturbing the peace and fomenting revolution. They can't even find a non-were lawyer, because everyone has been turned into a were-person at this point and the Roy siblings minus Connor are the only normal people left.

After the trial they don't have to go to prison, but instead they're put in some sort of zoo as an exhibit. Tom visits Shiv in her cell, secretly, with cameras off and no guards watching, to offer her a deal - let him turn her into a wererat and they can rule raccoonstar ratco together. Tom’s becoming increasingly convinced that the only true pure were-race is the were-rat, and he wants to suppress other were-races, including were-raccoons. (It’s a difficult decision for him because he does love Greg, but he simply cannot ignore the biological differences between them any longer.)

(Also they’ll change the name to ratstar ratco. Obviously.)

Shiv refuses, because of course. Tom is upset, but he will not let this stop him from starting the were-rat revolution. Because he does love Greg and can't just leave him behind he decides to do an experiment and bites Greg during sex to see if he can turn him from a were-raccoon into a were-rat. It ends up turning Greg into a bizarre were-rat-raccoon hybrid. Truly monstrous to look at - the overload of lycanthropy in his system means that he now physically resembles both a rat and a raccoon at all times. He loses the ability to speak human language. Tom is absolutely devastated, utterly heartbroken. He summons the best were-doctors to try and fix Greg, to no avail. Ultimately, he decides the most loving thing to do is put Greg out of his misery - but Greg overhears him discussing this plan with the were-doctor and flees into the Nevada desert. There he lives out his days in peace, and at some point he runs into, surprise surprise, the Contessa who has also turned into a rat raccoon hybrid. They make babies and start a new species.

Meanwhile, Tom is utterly depressed without Greg. He's lost all his will to live, and has no idea how to move on with his life. The Contessa still technically had a valid claim to the throne of Luxembourg, so once their children are of age they decide to move to Europe and attempt to assert the claim. It goes poorly, and in the end they end up taking the throne in a violent coup, implementing a reign of terror throughout Luxembourg. This shocks Tom, who assumed Greg was dead (and is also apparently immortal bc otherwise this timeline is well and truly fucked).

In the meantime, Tom had successfully taken were-rat power in the Americas, suppressing all other races. This means that the Americas are now a pure-blood wererat paradise, and Europe is a land where mixed-were creatures reign supreme. Tom is angry and betrayed that Greg ran off and married the contessa and had children with her. Greg is angry and betrayed that Tom tried to kill him (also he eventually learned to speak again with the contessa’s help). Using Frank + Tom’s co-president daughter as a go-between, they attempt to meet at a political summit on neutral ground. They end up declaring war on each other. (Tom is not technically the president but since his daughter is he can basically do that).

They’re neck and neck for a long time. Countless losses are suffered on both sides, giving rise to significant anti-war sentiments in both countries. Tom tries to murder the Contessa; Greg tries to destroy the ratstar ratco building. Eventually the anti-war sentiment rises to a fever pitch, and both of them are subject to violent revolution from their own people and are forced to flee. (The contessa is tragically killed in the revolution). Each of them individually decided to flee to Italy, the location of their last truly happy memories together. (Italy somehow avoided getting caught up in the war). They each, individually decide to visit the Tuscan sewers.

They see each other in the sewers for the first time in years. They are overwhelmed with emotion. Tom starts weeping. Greg also starts weeping. They lay their weapons down. They embrace. They kiss. They make love. (In the sewer). They forgive each other.

And finally, after having so many babies with other people, they have babies with each other. They live in the sewer with their children for many years, a peaceful, simple life, full of old joys they had long forgotten about. They start cooking together again, something they hadn't done since their time in Paris. Their children grow up and have their own children. Before long, they are the patriarchs of a thriving Tuscan sewer were-rat-raccoon colony with a deep devotion to the culinary arts. It has been many years since they’ve had contact with the outside world.

Then one day, one of their descendants has news. She has met someone… from outside the colony.

They are initially thrown into a panic. What if their carefully crafted ecosystem comes crashing down? What if this interloper drives a wedge between them? What if they HATE GARLIC? WHAT IF THEY HATE CHEESE?? But then they take some time to reflect on their own hard-earned life experiences, and they realize that no good will come from standing in the way of love. After all, look what happened to them. So, they agree to meet her beau.

What she did NOT tell them, though, is that her beau is not a were-person at all.

Something UTTERLY UNHEARD OF in this day and age.

How can this be???????

Well, as it turns out…..

Frank had a third child.

With KARL.

When he walks into the sewer, Tom IMMEDIATELY recognizes him… he’d know that nose anywhere. He doesn’t know who the other father is, but that’s 110% a Frank baby. He sighs at the thought of adding this to his family tree, which is already complicated enough.

(Genuinely his immediate worry is not even the genetic makeup but the very literal and EXTRAORDINARILY complex pepe silvia-esque family tree diagram he and Greg have carved into the sewer walls. And by "he and Greg" I really mean just Tom because Greg does not see the point. Their conversations about it always go along the lines of "uuuh yes, great Tom! it looks, like, really good!" "It does not look good Greg, it's utterly and completely wrong!!! have you been listening to a word I'm saying??")

Tom is shocked, but he puts that aside. They have dinner. (This new Frank baby objects to neither garlic nor cheese, which is a relief.) However, they’ve been in this sewer for so long, eventually he has to ask - what news of the outside world? The new Frank baby tells him that after the revolution that unseated him and Greg, the globe entered an unprecedented era of peace. All types of were-people lived together in harmony. And eventually, after much lobbying, even the Roy siblings were released from their captivity. However, several years ago Connor disappeared under mysterious circumstances, and Tom’s daughter with Frank has been slowly and steadily consolidating an alarming amount of power.

(Tom sighs as he realizes his genes have once again possibly fucked over the entire civilized world. "Tom don't worry, it happens to the best of us!" Greg says. “Of course you would say that, Greg, it’s your fucking family that got us in this mess in the first place”. Tom is very tempted to throw his plate of food at Greg's head, but they've been to couples therapy where he learned that whenever he has an urge like this he has to name 15 different types of cheese in his head to calm himself down.)

After much soul-searching, Tom decides that he must travel to America to confront his daughter. The thought is frightening. He has not left this sewer in many, many years. Greg offers to go with him, but Tom feels this is something he must do alone. He travels to America, hoping his daughter will remember him. She does, and he is granted an audience with her. He is led into the Oval Office, but no one else is in there. He sits on a couch and waits. Eventually, the door opens, and in walks his daughter. And then, following close behind…..

SHIV

Tom is in shock. How could this be!?!?!?!?!!? 

Well. It turns out that while the Roy siblings were in there zoo, Shiv started devising a plan, should they ever be released, to overcome the were-people and return the world to its “natural order”. But first, she needed to find a non-were person she had no biological relation to to procreate with. When she was released, she studied the annals of what happened while they were stuck in the time warp, and learned of the two Frank babies. But she was sharp, and when she kept digging, she saw signs of a third. She tracked down the Krank baby and persuaded him to give her some of his sperm that she could pair with some of her eggs. (She did not fully explain her plan, she just offered him a fuckton of money, and he was super broke.) She then approached the Elon musk Frogan baby, and together they developed an artificial womb and then a cloning facility, where they’ve been essentially growing a secret army of non-were people. 

But Shiv needed political leverage. So, she approached the president - Tom’s daughter, who felt abandoned by Tom after the whole World War III debacle. She persuaded her that the problem was Tom’s were-rat nature, and that were-people were evil. She convinced her to use her political leverage to kill Connor and give Shiv access to the White House while consolidating power, so they can try to suppress the were-people. She also worked with the Frogan baby to develop a cure to lycanthropy, so she herself won’t have to be a were-rat any longer.

(What happened to the other Roy siblings, you ask? Kendall has been trying and failing to become a famous rapper and Roman became a consort to Swedish were-king Matsson. They aren’t important.)

("Plottwist, didn't see that coming!" is what Greg says when tom tells him the story over the phone.)

Shiv openly tells him all of this, which surprises Tom. Why? Well, first off, he’s not allowed to leave. (Surprise!) They keep him prisoner in the White House, although it’s a rather luxurious imprisonment and he is allowed to talk to Greg on the phone. He also does not have to make his own toilet wine.

(“Well, that sounds like a plus!” Greg says when Tom mentions that last part. "Well, no, it isn't Greg. they only let me drink red wine! how do they expect me to survive without my whorewater??? This is their way to kill me, Greg, this is the end." To distract himself from the pain tom takes up knitting, and he knits himself a red scarf. He looks really cute in it actually.)

After a few weeks Tom goes increasingly stir-crazy. And then, Shiv’s other angle is revealed when she offers him her own version of the deal he offered her many years ago - let her cure him of his lycanthropy, and they can rule the world together. Tom’s torn. He knows that if he doesn’t take the deal, he’ll be imprisoned here forever, slowly going insane and knitting increasingly colourful scarves. But if he does… Well, he’s built his whole life around his were-family. He’ll lose everything that’s grown to be important to him. He’ll lose Greg.

("I need to... I need to consider my options, Shiv, you understand that right?" "Tom, you can't be serious. are you really considering not taking this deal just because you want to... I don't know what it is you did before coming here, knit scarves with my cousin?")

He’s in conflicted agony for weeks. He does not tell Greg what Shiv offered him, but Greg knows something is wrong, so Tom starts calling less and less so that he doesn’t give it away. He knits approximately ten more scarves.

(The last one has a complicated star pattern that was tricky and he’s actually kind of proud of. He plans on giving it to Greg, if he ever sees him again. He's stitched GJHW - for Gregory John Hirsch-Wambsgans - into the hem.)

After weeks of thinking and knitting and softly weeping at night, he comes to his decision. He decides to take Shiv’s deal. It’s a heart-rending decision. But she’s going to take over the world regardless - she has the power and the ambition - and he’s unlikely to ever see Greg and his many were-children ever again no matter what he does. But maybe, if he takes this deal, he can try and protect them from the horrors Shiv intends to unleash. He strokes the Greg scarf one last time while wiping away a tear, then he pulls himself together and goes to Shiv to break the news.

("I knew you'd come around, Wambsgans, you're a lot smarter than you look".)

The treatment for lycanthropy is simple - an injection that will kill any traces of it in his symptom. Shiv and the Frogan baby have been developing it for quite some time, and they’re very confident in it. Tom is, however, the first human subject.

("Shiv, are you absolutely sure this is going to work? that I will not, oh I don't know, DIE?" “Don’t be dramatic, Tom, only 38% of the rats we tested it on died.”)

It’s a truly awful experience, and he actually does feel like he might die. He feels like his veins are on fire. It goes on for hours and hours. Eventually, he passes out from pain and exhaustion. But when he comes to - 

He knows that it worked. He feels... reborn. but at the same time, it feels like a fundamental part of him died. It's an odd sensation, and he's not sure he likes it. 

He has to tell Greg. He doesn't want to, but it's necessary. He owes him that much. He doesn’t want to do it over the phone. It feels wrong. Cruel. So he goes to Shiv, and asks if he can return to his Tuscan sewer one last time. She agrees, but only if she goes with him. The last thing he wants is for Shiv to be there to witness him breaking Greg's heart, but he has no other choice.

When they arrive, Greg runs out to meet him - but when he sees Shiv he stops, confusion on his face. Then he looks at Tom again, and his eyes widen. He knows immediately what Tom did.

"I'm... I'm so sorry, Greg. I hope you can forgive me, I had no other choice." Tom reaches out for him. It’s been so long, and this is the last time he’ll ever see Greg. He wants more than anything to touch him. But Greg recoils from him, shaking his head in horror.

"Don't touch me" "Greg, I did this for us! for our children! don't you understand? this was the only way to keep you safe, Greg, Sporus... I... I didn't want it to end like this. please look at me, Greg."

Tom hands over a small package.

"Open it."

Greg hesitates, but does it anyway.

It's a scarf, one of the most beautiful scarfs he's ever seen. then he notices the little initials.

"GJHW? did you make this?"

"I told you I picked up knitting, didn't I?"

Their eyes meet. There is so much grief there. Tom wills Greg to understand, to believe him when he says he did it for them. Greg swallows thickly and then nods a little, and Tom knows that he gets it. He reaches up, and in an echo of a gesture from many lifetimes ago, takes Greg’s face in his hands and kisses him tenderly on the forehead.

Then he has to go. He doesn’t want to, but he has to. He looks at Greg’s face for a long time, committing it to memory - 

And then, with a heavy heart, he turns back to Shiv.

This is the way it has to be. This is real life, not "Pride and Prejudice." Not every relationship ends like Mr darcy and Elizabeth. In reality, sacrifices have to be made. Tom knows he's made the right choice, even though it feels like his heart is being stabbed from every direction. Sometimes, if you truly love someone, sometimes you have to do things that hurt you more than anything, but you have to do it. To protect them, to keep them safe. And this thought, though depressing at first glance, is what gives Tom a small, minuscule feeling of happiness. He realizes that he's privileged to have known Greg, to have experienced his love, and how after everything they've been through he still loves him more than he could ever put into words. They've been on opposite sides of a war for fucks sake, and still, he would give up the world for Greg. That's love, he thinks; true, selfless love. and it's what he keeps repeating to himself while glancing back to get one last look at Greg. But he's already gone.

Greg is devastated. Heartbroken. He goes back into their sewer- well, his sewer now. He’s swarmed by his were-children, asking what’s wrong, but he shakes them off and goes to what used to be his and Tom’s bedchambers, alone. He drapes the scarf Tom gave him across the headboard. He locks himself in there for days, not eating, not speaking to anyone. His were-children grow concerned. Eventually, the oldest and boldest of them threatens to break down the door, and so he lets her in and tells her what happened. She’s quiet for a long moment. Then, she says, softly:

“We’re gonna make those fuckers pay”

......................... And that's more or less the end? At this point it was 4am in Vi's part of the world so we called it quits for the night. Since then we'll periodically go "Hey, we should finish racconstar ratco", but the truth is that it's been unfinished for so long now that I'm kind of attached to it in this form.

(Also this whole thing was written in a very specific alcohol and exhaustion- fuelled headspace that I don't know either of us will ever be able to replicate, and I'm not sure we could do it justice otherwise.)

[butterscotch-goat]

JjjjjjjaARED, IM IN UR ASK BOX

WAS LIKE,,, LUCYS ACTUAL AUTHORITY IN HELL??? LIKE WHAT DOES HE DO BESIDES EAT HOT SHIP AND KISS BOYS???

HI SENNY ❤️ GREAT QUESTION! I still have some spots to figure out but the jist is...

so when the he first fell he was the leader and technically still is, but back then he was INCREDIBLY respected (by most of the demons) and lead the whole operation, even going to earth himself pretty often, especially in the 500s (AD) but over the years the routine got tiring and his hate for humans grew bc he saw them persist despite his attempts, so he started working from hell, making gran plans of destruction and sending other demons to carry them out. He was still very active and would communicate with other demons often, and still take trips to earth every once in a long while. Demons still respected him but didn't have him on a pedestal as much.

Around the 1730s ish(?) He started getting REALLY dedicated to his work and plans. Eventually he got so dedicated to it that he barely left his office or talked with any other demons, including gene, because he was so fueled to ruin humanity and wanted to make the PERFECT plan. Gene tried to get Lucy to freaking CHILLAX bc they have like 8 billion whole years til the sun implodes, but Lucy wouldn't listen. Lucy worked harder and harder and as a result of doing nothing but plan the worst things imaginable, got sadder and sadder and even started feeling *the tiniest hint* of remorse. But that didn't stop the workflow. what it did do was make other demons kinda pity him and view him more as a friend in a tough spot.

And so, in 1922 gene was finally sick and tired of his lovely husband being an ass and was like "buddy. pal. love of my life. you're mad killing the mood and being incredibly petty with all this planning. Humans ARE suffering and maybe you should find something else to do" and Lucy's like "no" and genes like "bye" (or something like that. Im still working out the details but the point is Lucy has been ignoring everything and everyone, including gene, to focus on his work for like DECADES)

And from that point on, the demons view Lucy as a shell of the leader he once was; more of a sopping wet cat than the ruler of demons. No one's trying to take the position of Leader from him tho since the section managers pretty much run everything anyways.

After some runs to earth with Ronnette bc ronnette just HAD to get up in his business, Lucy gets back to his work but is doing a LOT worse and is either crying, sleeping, doing nothing, or doing work. eating hot chip and lie y'know

This may change in the future but this is it basically ^^

[cosmonott]

Work Log no.13

The semester's beginning to wrap up now, so I wanted to use this final worklog to overview the full project and reflect.

For starters, I did complete my goal of 6 animations! If we count the stuff that wasn't for this class or left unfinished, that tally goes up to around 12! (which makes me very happy). I even added some of the pieces I'm especially proud of for my portfolio!

(this is gona be the reflection part)

However, the project went by no means perfectly or smoothly, and while this was disappointing, I did learn about some of my working habits, and I'm excited to try different techniques for future projects.

My main method of spacing out my work for this project was using soft and flexible deadlines instead of intentionally rationing out my work. I divided each project into broad sections that allowed me to change the workload to fit my needs with other classes.

While this did help with my workload for the semester, I don't think this workflow was very productive for me when my goal was to make as many animations as i could. Once my motivation was spent, working on my thesis work became much harder, which eventually led to abandoning using Adobe Animate all together for the later sessions of the project.

I did initially dedicate time to studying in my project plan, but in practice I hardly had the motivation to do so. In the grand scheme of things it was fine, since this project was mostly about producing alot of work, but I still wanted to learn and apply new skills.

I found the time to just sit down and read my resources only once or twice, where I found a very helpful explanation of Animation workflow that I immediately implemented into projects that followed

After this I realized that studying was infact helpful!>!??!? Though i didnt find much more time to read after this point. Moving forward I want to really sit down with my materials and read, likely over the summer!!!

Worklogging became increasingly difficult throughout the semester :(. I feel like having an extra task to complete (setting up a workspace and starting a timer) before being able to start actually working made it feel like more work and made me want to do it less.. However, i see the value that making a worklog has!! and i want to keep trying!!!! dunno if i will continue to use tumblr tho haha :3

this longer writing format felt good for reflecting on progress, but also was easier to lose track of if I fell behind :( but discord was too quick and easy, and i would often forget to stop/start logging or even what I was working on!! Im hoping soon ill find a happy medium, but in terms of new time management strats moving forward im looking into using more analog methods like sticky notes instead of digital.

overall junior thesis was a great learning experience!! (even if i didnt do much studying >w>; )

thank you for reading! :^D

[joesanimationblog]

Reflection and Evaluation of Learning 1

Lip Sync

For my animation reel after the MA I want to have a really strong example of lip sync, as the character of Alexander is very animated I thought focusing on a couple of shots with him in it would be a great plan.

I started with the phone call as this sets up my narrative. I thought it would be good to have a range of expressions For the shot where the Frenchman Alexander and old lady Glenda are on the phone I had already recorded the audio via my friend Val so was pretty much ready to animate but I wanted to do some research before jumping in.

I started by learning about phonetics and mouth shapes, using charts in the books The Animators Survival Kit and Drawn To Life I drew out some thumbnails of different mouth keyframes for different sounds.

I then recorded myself on my phone speaking the lines from my script and cross referenced my mouth shapes to ensure the French accent wouldn't change the way the mouth was positioned, I made some changes here, mainly for the sound Ouu which is different to Ooo. I redrew my mouth shapes in a more polished way and then began to chart my dialogue.

During the talk with Kevin Richards on lip sync he taught us about the process of charting out dialogue and so I took this approach in a separate layer of my animation document. I mainly used this charting as a way of figuring out if the head/eyes would move up or down and then I used this later when animating the head to make sure it had the proper squash and stretch mechanics.

I turned off my head layer and made only the mouth visible, I then worked through listening to audio and keyframing the mouth shapes using the previous mouth drawings I had done as drawing substitutions in the library of Harmony. Once the keyframes were done I re-watched them paying special attention to the timing of the changes of shapes, this was where I made the most significant changes as timing and clarity is the most important aspect of lip sync.

Once I was happy with the timing I keyframed the heads movements and the eyes, trying to add blinks and expressions where the language suggested there might be one. And finally once I had the keyframes for this section totally done I inbetweened them all.

I was really happy with how this clip turned out and im glad i prioritised finishing it, I think the lip sync is good, there are some areas where with more time I could crisp up the sync but I think this is more down to the frame rate rather than the accuracy of the drawings.

I found it challenging to lip sync someone speaking with the voice of a piano synth but researching a more professional workflow for lip sync helped me understand that the expressiveness of language can be communicated without the language actually making sense, this is through body language and physicality.

With hindsight it would have probably been a good idea to record my voice actor so I had real accurate references to go off as frame by frame analysis of references could have made it easier to match my lip shapes to the audio.

[mixdown01]

Adaption: Final Reflection, POTP

{youtube link xoxo}

And that's post wrapped!

It's been a long semester, and I'm stoked to have learned as much as I have and to have developed the skills and knowledge I now have for the future. I don't have too many photos of post because I was really hunkering down but I'll try to find some to put in!

I'm proud of the work I managed to do in the time we had after picture lock and before the crit. I think an extra day or two to sit on sound and let it marinate would've be nice, but considering, I think I managed my time and schedule well and am glad of that.

(pretty long post so pls open the readmore ive put in!)

I'll start with a quick location sound review - I had no issues, beside the usual nuisances that come with filming outdoors and in businesses. I did what I could to minimize this (the angle/direction of the shotgun really does matter) and it worked, for the most part. I'm going to utilize wingman more in the future, because the sound notes put into the app can be seen in AVID next to the video files- I hadn't realized the info is "burned" into the files like that but this makes communication between sound and camera notes really nice. Of course ill do physical sound notes still, but in addition to wingman too.

Now onto post!

I was stressed about this, I admit. I hadn't done such a dialogue heavy film before, and was only vaguely familiar with the proper workflow. Common sense when organizing is huge though, and the project wasn't messy at all. Initial checkerboarding went smoothly. One thing I was irritated to notice was the quality of the park atmos changed very much depending on what angle we were shooting at relative to the road, which of course I knew would happen when we chose the location, but was still very blah this sucks about. I managed with minimal tension headaches and I think it is very minimally noticeable, if not noticeable at all, in the final product so yay for that.

Leveling and doing a temp mix for their lines, though.... I abused automation and I was holding myself back (to be fair I didn't overuse it but I definitely used it a lot). In one line the actors would start off quiet and then their voices would spike and go loud, which is a combination of delivery and boom oping I think. (It never peaked, and worked for some instances of topic and character and etc but I wanted it not to go up and down always) I gave my boom ops very very very Very basic rundowns on 'How To' and I wish I had sat them down for a more in depth lesson, and I WISH I had headphones for them - but we couldn't get a splitter, or didn't. Going to push for this if I keep outsourcing Ops and don't record and op myself.

ANYWAYS. Finished with that and then went to my favorite bit: DESIGN!!!!! I was very slumped and depressive at this point, so it really picked me up. I wish I had more time to look into certain music choices for scenes, but I am happy with the piano we got scored for the end sequence.

One thing I will say: I had a lot of trouble and internal fighting with How Much I should put in. Originally we had wanted something very stylized and Edgar Wright-esque, but that didn't really end up happening with the coverage we got, and in turn with the edit (which is definitely fine!). But this left me trying to balance not overdoing it, since sound is supposed to mesh well with the edit and visuals, but I felt like I HAD to make it stylized in order to try and get closer to what we wanted OG. I think I did an okay job - in the crit Olivia said the sound did all the heavylifting, which I still cannot decide is a compliment or a detriment. While I'm half glad it got noticed in a- positive?- light, im also kind of eh about it since technically it should enhance the world and match it, not 'heavylift' it.

Through the process Anne Marie helped me a lot with suggestions and notes: here are some I found below from my phone, they probably make no sense heh, I also had markers on pro tools I was referring too as well

Phew, that's long. I'll end on a happy note before I go into things I will incorporate into the workflow for next time. I'm glad I didn't have any technical issues, and all my qualms were creative. Even though I will be pushing for earlier picture lock on future films, because I feel I haven’t been able to breath when sound is left for minute (mainly because I’m trying to balance getting it all done and doing work I’m proud of) I'm content with what I managed to get done in the time I was given. I started Sound 7 days before the crit when picture was locked, and I managed to do what I think is an alright job! So, success, and a good test of my time management skills, because I had to learn to stop nitpicking cause more often than not it's fine and no one else can hear it but you.

THINGS TO INCORPORATE/MAIN TAKEAWAYS~

Wingman notes for the editor

set the edit window and sound window DURING PRE PROD, not during production. See if people can give you a week and a half at least for sound so it can breath a little bit and you don't waste away in SAS. Also so you can do a proper Mix and not a temp one

TEMP SOUND IN AVID - have a meeting with the editor to see what you can give them, and to say they can put in temp sound if they think something similar should go in certain places. Mainly for music and timing instances.

Decide on a color coding system so I use the same colors for everything always moving forward and It doesn't vary depending on the project (look up industry standard)

VOICEOVER IS A SCRIPT/STORY/PRODUCTION ASPECT not a sound department aspect

Drink more water to avoid tension headaches

xoxo I really hope everyone a good summer and to lots of learning and growing in their field!