#it’s been really fun/challenging to find visual ways to convey their dynamic!!

[rikkivoid]

‘how do you see me?’

[running-with-toast]

Lettering sound effects in Shiori Experience

Hi! I’m Toast, the letterer on #dropout’s English translation of Shiori Experience. This series was my first time doing typesetting, and I’ve learned a lot over the two years I’ve been involved in the project. Each new chapter brings new challenges, and as our team has matured we’ve gotten more ambitious. We recently began translating the comic’s sound effects along with the dialogue, a decision which instantly doubled the size of our workload. 

Our most recent release, Chapter 64, was probably the most technically complex chapter we’ve done so far. The sound effects in this chapter were varied and complicated, presenting a number of interesting challenges. Today I thought it would be fun to give y’all a peek behind the curtain, and show the thought process and effort that goes into the adaptation of sound effects in Shiori Experience.

Shiori Experience is a music manga [citation needed], so it isn’t surprising that the sound effects can get pretty complicated. Music manga need to convey not just the sound, but more importantly the impact of a performance, conveying an auditory experience in a totally silent medium. Shiori Experience’s approach to this problem is to make the sound effects semi-diegetic objects. They hang in the air, burst out of crowds, get obscured by foreground objects, and cast shadows on their environment. This is a really cool effect, but also makes converting them from Japanese to English a fucking nightmare.

(Look at the shadows)

Shiori Experience is kind of a nightmare

In some ways, lettering for Shiori Experience isn’t actually that difficult. Sound effects in this series are goddamn everywhere and they’re fucking gigantic, but they’re always straightforward. Much like the art of the series, the sound effects are clean and angular, strong dynamic shapes which are easy to parse even if you can’t read the katakana. For a great example of this, look at this sequence from Chapter 64.

This sequence demonstrates what you can achieve with good lettering. The sound of the band is conveyed perfectly with these visuals. The clear and regular beat of the drums, the dark and energetic bass line, the screaming uncontrollable energy of the electric guitar. We didn’t even bother translating it. We didn’t need to.

But look at the sequence again. In spite of its apparent complexity, there’s only two fonts here, a dynamic block text and an angular brush. Those two fonts represent the vast majority of SFX in Shiori Experience. The rest is just text effects and perspective tricks.

So to convert these sound effects into English, we just have to find equivalent fonts. It took me a while to pin down a set of fonts I was happy with. For the pointy brush font I eventually settled on Jolly Lodger, a brush font with a sort of piratey vibe. I’m still not 100% satisfied with this conversion, it isn’t as pointy as the original, but it’s good enough for now.

And for the big block font I chose Boogaloo. It looks a little thin when it’s on its own like this, but it really bulks up with the right text effects.

Great! We’ve got our fonts! Doing the sound effects should be as simple as erasing the old text and replacing it with the new text, right? Wrong. The nightmare begins.

Different approaches

There are several schools of thought when it comes to lettering manga SFX. One is the "keikkaku means plan" approach. In a translator's note outside the panel, or in plain text near the SFX, describe what the sound is. This is incredibly easy. This is also lame.

(This is from the official release of Dungeon Meshi. I wouldn’t want to redraw this one either, but like, come on guys.)

Another school of thought is style matching. Similar to the translator’s note approach, but rather than plain text, the translation uses similar text effects to the original SFX. This works fine, but it can create a lot of visual clutter if implemented poorly.

(This is from Drifting Dragons. Please read Drifting Dragons.)

The last approach is full replacement. In this approach, the original SFX is (are you ready for this?) fully replaced by the new SFX.

SFX Redrawing

Replacing a sound effect isn’t as simple as just erasing it. We work with tankoban pages, scans of the Japanese volume release. These files are flattened, with the art and text all on one layer as a single image. We can’t just disable the text. In order to remove the original SFX, we have to redraw them.

(for context this is from when I had covid)

Redrawing means recreating the art hidden by the original SFX. This is a complex process, requiring a steady hand, sharp eyes, and  a lot of guesswork. Since we don’t know what precisely is underneath the original SFX, we have to use context to reconstruct it. The goal of any localization is to make the translation invisible to the reader. The same principle holds true in redrawing. The art we add needs to be invisible, meshing seamlessly with the original artwork.

(I made this dude up out of whole cloth. I’m honestly really proud of how he came out.)

#Dropout uses a mix of style matching and full replacement, with the choice between the two being determined by a number of factors. To illustrate that decision-making process, let’s break down the process of redrawing a page of Shiori Experience, specifically the spread across pages 172 and 173 from Chapter 64.

Deciding between Style Match and Full Replacement

This is the original untranslated page, and there’s a lot going on.

In the background of the first panel is the sound of the band, バアアアン, phonetically translated as "BA-A-A-A-N", localized as “BWAAAM”. In the foreground is the cheering of the crowd, ボオワアアア, "BO-O-WA-A-A-A" phonetically, “ROOAAR” localized. Lastly, along the side of panels 3 through 6 is applause, パチ, "PA-CHI", “CLAP”.

At a glance, this page is overwhelming. The cheering sound effect is huge, with custom text effects conveying the energy of the crowd. Worse is the clapping, which overlays multiple panels with dozens of unique partially obscured faces. This looks like a pain in the ass to redraw, but in the end I decided to do a full replacement instead of a simpler style match. With the number and size of the SFX combined with the visual density of the panels, doing a style match would result in a cluttered unreadable mess. Too much of the original artwork would be covered, and there just isn’t enough space. So, full replacement.

The redrawing process

As I’ve gained more experience, it’s been surprising to learn what constitutes a difficult redraw. You’d expect crowd shots to be the hardest, with lots of unique faces and little details, but they actually aren’t that bad IMO. More detail means more context means less guessing. Definitely a lot of work, but not difficult. Meanwhile, something like a gradient or screentone pattern which looks simple is actually a goddamn nightmare to recreate, as we'll see later.

That’s why I started my redraw for this page with the clapping. Again, this looks like it would be really hard, but looks can be deceiving. There’s a lot of clapping, yes, but the text is thin and spaced out. Whiting out the text reveals just how little artwork is actually hidden by the sound effects.

After whiting out the original text, the next step is connecting as many existing lines as I can. I do the panel and bubble borders on a separate layer since they’re simple structural elements. The artwork itself requires a bit more thought. I need to examine the original artwork carefully to avoid connecting lines that shouldn’t be connected. Context can also provide guidance where there are no lines to connect, such as the cheering guy’s hat in the first panel, or the clapping hand in the second panel. Also, when there’s lots of little SFX like this it’s easy to miss a few lines, like the box thing near the bottom of the last panel (don’t worry I catch it later).

The last step is adding in all the inking and screentones, the pattern templates which fill in the “color” to the line work. I have to go through with the clone stamp tool, collect samples from the image, and extend the pattern to fill the blank areas. This is the most annoying step in the process for me, because it requires a level of precision even beyond what’s required for the line work. Humans are pattern-recognition machines. Our brains are really good at catching tiny discrepancies, like when a section of a pattern doesn’t quite line up with the rest of it. My patch job on this panel wasn’t perfect, and you can see where I couldn’t quite line things up in areas like the guy’s checkered shirt in the first panel.

And with that, this redraw is complete! Now it’s time to insert the English translation of the sound effect.

SFX Lettering

The clapping SFX is in that same brush font I pointed out earlier, which we use JollyLodger for. There’s no real perspective things or text effects here, so mimicking the original isn’t difficult. Here’s the before and after.

This approach of fully redrawing the old SFX before inserting the new SFX only works in situations like this, where the text is small and there’s enough detail to reconstruct the image with a high level of confidence. As an SFX gets larger, like the roar of a crowd, the harder it gets to fully replace. This calls for a different approach.

Because of the size and complexity of this sound effect, I decided to do the lettering first. This is the block font I identified earlier, which is replaced by Boogaloo. I do some basic manipulation right away, applying a black outline and distorting the text to create the same perspective effect as the original. The SFX in this series are subtly three-dimensional, and the replacement text needs to be in the same orientation to sell the effect.

I’m also being careful with my placement here, doing my best to align the new text with the old. This will be important later.

Next we need to recreate the distortion effect. Photoshop has functionality to mimic this kind of effect, but I opted to do it manually. Osada (the mangaka) does all these layouts, SFX and all, on paper. The original effect was hand drawn, so the replacement effect is hand drawn.

The lettering for this effect is now complete, and we can begin the redraw process. Since we already have the letters in place, we have the advantage of knowing exactly where a redraw is needed, turning what would otherwise have been an enormous replacement into a minor patch job. From here, it’s the same process as the clapping SFX: Raw, Blank, Line, Fill.

Minor sidebar: translating Japanese sound effects presents an interesting and incredibly niche problem. The katakana symbol オ is translated phonetically as “o”. The problem with that is that when you’re replacing a オ with an O in a sound effect, the hole of the O is positions right on the center of the オ. This makes オ really annoying to redraw. Every O turns into a little window of totally new art, with barely any reference points to draw from. It violates the principle of invisibility, but there’s really no way around it. You can see I got a little lazy here, and clonestamped a different section of the crowd into the hole. As long as I don’t draw attention to it nobody will notice. I hope.

Sidebar over. Just for fun, here’s the before and after for the whole page.

Closing thoughts

So that’s what it takes to do the sound effects for one page of Shiori Experience. This page alone took me multiple days to complete, and it wasn’t even the most complicated page in this chapter. It isn’t why our releases take so long (that can be laid at the feet of staffing and scheduling issues), but hopefully I’ve given you a sense of how much work goes into each new chapter.

This chapter would have taken even longer without the help of Adi and Bangistus, who pitched in on a lot of the smaller SFX. Up until now the lettering of this series has been a solo show, Toast all the way down. Now that Adi and Bang are on the team I’m still keeping most of the big pages for myself, but being able to toss to the others when I get overwhelmed is going to be invaluable. Hopefully I can rely on them in the future as well, there’s some big things coming down the pipe

This series is a labor of love. Sometimes frustrating, often exhausting, but always worth it. I owe this series a lot, and I hope it shows in the work I put into it. I think it would be fun to do more behind the scenes process content like this, so maybe keep an eye out for that in the future.

Lastly, just as a status update, #dropout is not dropping Shiori Experience.  We have a temporary translator who’s helping us put together Chapter 65, which will be coming out Eventually™. Not as long as last time, but like always don’t hold your breath. We’re not sure what will happen after 65 drops. We’re still desperately hiring for a main translator, seriously if you know anybody please hit me up.

That’s all from me. Take care y’all.

[sothischickshe]

Writing ask games are so fun!!

Dialogue or description? Why is the other one so hard?

I was JUST talking to a friend about this! Do you have a preference for narrative versus summary styles? Is either more challenging than the other?

Thank youuuu 🥰🥰🥰🙇🏼‍♀️ & 🤝I agree they are fun (+ maybe capable of shaking something loose 😅)

Although coming in hot with the hard question/s I see! 😅😄

Okay: dialogue vs description... I'm not sure I have a preference?! I like writing both, and I think both are challenging, especially to do well/succinctly.

And... ~it depends!! I find writing dialogue pretty fun generally, but if I'm writing Beth & rio speaking to each other my face gets grumpy & lots of stuff ends up crossed through bc I tend to violently dislike it when they speak (🤯🤯🤯) & also they're so taciturn, nonsensical, insane etc.

And description! I mean what even is that! Of settings, of ppl, of outfits, of how ppl are speaking (eg volume, pitch, facial expressions & movements etc)...? It's a huge topic to lump together as a preference no, and not to be that guy (just kidding! I love to be that guy!) there's no reason dialogue couldn't be descriptive eg 'what did the man look like?' '18ft tall with 7 feet and bright purple scales'.

So first of all: kinda false dichotomy maybe? But most of all: deffo false dichotomy, in that I think the really hard bit is knitting them together! Just back and forth dialogue btwn (espec only 2 characters, particularly of different genders so you can rely on pronouns as identification) isn't so hard, and neither is finding ways to describe whatever needs describing: and even if the latter doesn't come super naturally, I think if you can identify what needs more detail to bring it to life, that's a workable challenge. The heavvvvy difficulty is tying them together dynamically, & unforcedly!

~conversations (I'd say beyond only dialogue, bc there could be unspoken communication via say eye contact, body language, movement etc) can be a great way to pepper in descriptive texture (eg of the environment, the objects characters are interacting with, the characters & their physical responses) but it's a fine balancing act!

Typically when I'm reading a conversation, I want to know what the other person says next in response!! I don't always want a lot of superfluous detail abt where their fingers are dallying!! That can take the reader out of the rhythm of the dialogue! If there's a paragraph of motion and detailed description btwn each spoken line and/or relevant gesture, I might simply forget what the heck they're responding to by the time we get there!!

So I think ^structure & rhythm/pace (as well as what pov it's filtered through) become v important. If it's a "dialogue" scene btwn oh let's say 2 v taciturn annoying insane etc chars where actually only about 3 lines of speech are exchanged, having a lot of additional descriptive texture can help. If the responses are being eked out, then a lot of glaring & gesturing & looking away at other stuff indeed makes sense to be happening & makes sense that it would be noticed by the pov character. Whereas if it's a rapid fire screaming match, too much detail & motion can slow the scene down, be distracting for the reader & easily seem unrealistic for the pov character (eg why are they staring at the actions of each individual finger when it was established a moment ago they were glaring into another character's eyes? How are they taking in & enumerating micromovements when they're established to be apoplectic with rage & incapable of focus?).

I'm trying to type up a ragged paper first draft atm, and what I've been struck by for the dialogue + description sections is:

too many dialogue tags! In order to convey who is (still, sometimes) speaking + shove in some relevant description, there can end up being too much he says she says where it doesn't need to be specified, which can get clunky & repetitive, and inevitably slows scenes down

Too much/fussy visual detail -- description can be fun, but ultimately writing can never convey visuals the way TV/film/comics can. It's easy to fall into the trap of trying to make the reader 'see' the story, but again I think this runs the risk of slowing things down too much and also if everything is described in detail, it makes it difficult for the reader to pick up on what's important (but conversely, if only the important things are described, it can make it too obvious what's plot-critical)

Beth and rio are... There I guess? And... Wearing clothes maybe? And rhea is there!! Let me describe to you her entire outfit, including each pocket in vivid detail 😂 (the author might like one character more than the others and maybe she should just leave it like that cos she's right!!!!)

Sentences aren't that load-bearing!! You can't realllly just throw 24 commas into one and pray it makes sense, which can make knitting dialogue + description together more challenging, espec in terms of trying to keep sentence structure varied (eg not 12 in a row starting with a pronoun or name, or SVO generally)

I'm looking fwd to one day being at the editing stage to find solutions 😊 & I don't know if I'm cheating but I deffo vote for an idealised seamless combo as the really challenging bit!!

Which leads clumsily onto your second q, narrative vs summary styles, to which I'll start by saying (since it is the brand): false dichotomy...?

Firstly cos I'd probs term it ~scenic vs summary (given that I think summarisation IS still [or does still have? 🤔] narrative), but also bc they frequently operate in combination, and, as ever, ~it depends.

Dialogue (+ description) scenes are probs the perfect vehicle for the combo! In order to keep dialogue snappy & engaging, over realism, things like pauses or repetition are often culled from the genuine "spoken bits", and summarised eg 'he agreed & they organised the next meeting', 'he said her name again', 'she ummed & ahhed, until eventually admitting it'.

Additionally, I generally prefer summarised dialogue when characters are remembering something from the past, rather than them apparently having perfect recall of a conversation from ages ago. This also allows for them remembering in full detail one or two choice lines that were yelled @ them to stand out!!

Likewise, this switch is a device that can be employed to display information about the pov character/'s ~mood eg is there a full record of conversation with one character vs with others it's simply summarised? Or are their scenes with character/s when they're on good terms detailed vs ones where they're on the outs just staccato summaries? Or indeed vice-versa! What are they paying attention to, and what are they comfortable expressing even to themself?

Ppl talk about the difference btwn the two styles (& indeed showing vs telling) as if they're absolute, but I'm not sure I adhere to that. If you have a character who is v matter of fact (at least in some scenarios), their pov might come across as summarisation rather than scenic; if you have a character that doesn't want to engage with their interiority (at times anyway), scenes might veer twds the telling side. That's not necessarily bad!

Ultimately I think it depends on the type of story! Many will have both 'proper' scenes & summarisation, and I think they work particularly well in concert bc of the contrast! The latter is often used to convey the passing of time succinctly (although I think that can be done scenically too, eg with the length of them, or bg deets), and I'm a proponent of allowing things to be glossed over which arent super relevant bc the reader doesn't need to be bombarded with too much (as that makes it difficult to pick out what matters) & also cos otherwise it gets too bloody large (hell for author).

A seamless transition btwn the 2 styles (ie from general to specific) can be one of my fave narrative tricks to experience as a reader eg (à la 85% of dh Lawrence stories) 'he lived in a cottage, with a long lane behind it. Every day he took that route to work, climbing over the tall gate. The sun was shining, hot on his head & bright on the clover as he panted along', like oh OK we've arrived at the action in the middle of the establishing detail have we!!!! Conversely, it can be one of my most hated experiences to read (what! I contain multitudes 😂) eg a couple of proper scenes suddenly descending into summary with not even a line break between 🤯 (I suppose it comes down to whether it feels intentional, vs messy? 🤔)

& I think both have challenges! A story purely composed of 'real' scenes runs the risk of putting too much onus on the reader -- can you know that you've conveyed what you wanted accurately as the writer? And to whom? What implicit references could be clear universally? (is an audience of a different generation or region or experiences going to pick up on things the same way?) plus a bunch of similar scenes can become repetitive -- do you need to slog through each weekly meeting, or do you just want to display one or two, then establish that they keep going on? (repetition CAN be really powerful, bc if it's established then the breaking of that routine may be v striking, but you probs don't want eg the minutiae of several similar council meetings if they're not super plot relevant.)

But is summary too simplistic? Is stating things removing needed ambiguity? Are these things which could have been displayed elsewise and/or earlier?

I'm not sure I have a preference, and I'm not sure they can realllly be separated out (most proper snapshot scenes will have some degree of summarisation to them), and I think ~summarised storytelling gets a bit of a bad rap & is unfairly seen as juvenile where it can be such an effective way to move through time, can certainly be told v much via the pov character's lens, allows authors to skip over stuff which would bloat the story (or indeed paper over weaknesses) & can be so so effective in short stories.

Especially where the two are used in combination, I think it comes back to structure & pov for me. What's actually relevant to the story? What would the ~narrator bother to dwell on? How long do you want this monster to be?? What needs to be clear to the reader? If everything else is the other way, does diverting here feel weird or does the difference underline a change in mood/focus/whatever?

And ultimately: trying things out is the best! The more comfortable I've got/ten with being able to do different things, even if not to a very high level, the better I feel about the ability to utilise them as a tool!

Writing asks

[meruz]

once again i am answering asks in a big compilation post. included is... gotham, patrick stump, tips about drawing backgrounds, tips about drawing in general, links to my faq, and infinity train

like.... the tv series? No... I’ve drawn dc comics fanart before, though. But it’s been years since I’ve been really into it. I like jumped ship like 10 years ago when the New 52 happened LOL.

AFJHDSLKGH I’m sorry I (probably) won’t do it again??

Actually full disclosure I have a truly cringe amount of p stump drawings/photo studies in my sketchbook right now LOL. He’s just fun to draw... hats, glasses, guitar, a good shape... but I don’t think I’ll rly post those until I can hide them in another big sketchbook pdf.. probably Jan 2022. Stay tuned........ (ominous) 

(ominous preview)

These are all sort of related to backgrounds/painting so I grouped them together even though they’re pretty much entirely separate questions.... ANYWAYS

a) How is it working as a BG artist? Is it hard? What show are you drawing for?

I think you’re the first person to ever ask me about my job! Being a background artist is great. It’s definitely labor intensive but I think that could describe pretty much any art job (If something were rote or easy to automate, you wouldn’t hire an artist to do it) and I hesitate to say whether its harder or easier than any other role in the animation pipeline. Plus, so much of what truly makes a job difficult varies from one production to the next, schedule, working environment, co-workers etc. But I will say that I think while BGs are generally a lot of work on the upfront, I think they’re subject to less scrutiny/revisions than something like character/props/effects design and you don’t have to pitch them to a room like boards. So I guess it’s good if you don’t like to talk to people? LOL

A lot of my previous projects + the show I’ve worked on the longest aren’t public yet so I can’t talk about em (but I assure you if/when the news does break I won’t shut up about it). But I’m currently working on Archer Season 12 LOL. I’m like 90% sure I’m allowed to say that.

b) ~~~THANK YOU!! ~~~

c) What exactly do you like to draw most [in a background]?

@kaitomiury​ Lots of stuff! I really like to draw clutter! Because it’s a great opportunity for environmental storytelling and also you can be kind of messy with it because the sheer mass will supersede any details LOL. 

I like to draw clouds... I like to draw grass but not trees lol,,, I like to draw anything that sells perspective really easily like tiled floors and ceilings, shelves, lamp posts on a street etc.

d) Do you have any tips on how to paint (observational)?

god there’s so much to say. painting is really a whole ass discipline like someone can paint their whole life and still discover new things about it. I guess if you’re really just starting out my best advice is that habit is more important than product. especially with traditional plein air painting, I find that the procedure of going outside and setting up your paints is almost harder than the actual painting. There’s a lot of artists who say “I want to do plein air sometime!!” and then never actually get around to doing it. A lot of people just end up working from google streetview or photos on their computer.

But going outside to paint is a really good challenge because it forces you to make and commit to lighting and composition decisions really quickly. And to work through your mistakes instead of against them via undo button.

My last tip is to check out James Gurney’s youtube channel because hes probably the best and most consistent resource on observational painting out there rn. There’s lots other artists doing the same thing (off the top of my head I know a lot of the Warrior Painters group has people regularly posting plein air stuff and lightbox expo had a Jesse Schmidt lecture abt it last year) but Gurney’s probably the most prolific poster and one of the best at explaining the more technical stuff - his books are great too.

e) Do you have tips for drawing cleanly on heavypaint?

@marigoldfool​ UMM LOL I LIKE ONLY USE THE FILL TOOL so maybe use the fill tool? Fill and rectangle are good for edge control as opposed to the rest of the heavy paint tools which can get sort of muddles. And also I use a stylus so maybe if you’re using your finger, find a stylus that works with your device instead. That’s all I’ve got, frankly I don’t think my drawings are particularly clean lol.

f) Tips on improving backgrounds/scenes making them more dynamic practicing etc?

Ive given some tips about backgrounds/scenes before so I’m not gonna re-tread those but here’s another thing that might be helpful...

I think a good way to approach backgrounds is to think of the specific story or even mood you want to convey with the background first. Thinking “I just need to put something behind this character” is going to lead you to drawing like... a green screen tourist photo backdrop. But if you think “I need this bg to make the characters feel small” or “I need this bg to make the world feel colorful” then it gives you requirements and cues to work off of.

If I know a character needs to feel overwhelmed and small, then I know I need to create environment elements that will cage them in and corner them. If a character needs to feel triumphant/on top of the world then I know I need to let the environment open up around them. etc. If I know my focal point/ where I want to draw attention, I can build the background around that.

Also, backgrounds like figure compositions will have focal points of their own and you can draw attention to it/ the relationship the characters have with the bg element via scale or directionality or color, any number of cues. I think of it almost as a second/third character in a scene.

Not every composition is gonna have something so obvious like this but it helps me to think about these because then the characters feel connected and integrated with the environment.

Some more general art questions

a) Do you have any process/tips to start drawing character/bodies/heads?

I tried to kind of draw something to answer this but honestly this is difficult for me to answer because I don’t think I’m that great at drawing characters LOL. Ok, I think I have two tips.

1) flip your canvas often. A lot about what makes human bodies look correct and believable is symmetry and balance. Even if someone has asymmetrical features, the body will often pull and push in a way to counterbalance it. we often have inherent biases to one side or another like dominant hands dominant eyes etc. you know how right-handed artists will often favor drawing characters facing 45 degrees facing (the artist’s) left? that’s part of it. so viewing your drawing flipped even just to evaluate it helps compensate for that bias and makes you more aware of balance.

2) draw the whole figure often. I feel like a lot of beginner artists (myself included for a long time) defer to just drawing headshots or busts because it’s easier, you dont have to think about posing limbs etc. But drawing a full body allows you to better gauge proportion, perspective, body language, everything that makes a character look believable and grounded.

Like if you (me) have that issue where you draw the head too big and then have to resize it to fit the proportions of the rest of the body, it’s probably because you (I) drew the head first and are treating the body as an afterthought/attachment. Sketching out the whole figure first or even just quick drawing guides for it will help you think of it more holistically. I learned this figure drawing in charcoal at art school LOL.

oh. third mini tip - try to draw people from life often! its the best study. if you can get into a figure drawing/nude drawing class EVEN BETTER and if you have a local college/art space/museum that hosts those for free TREASURE IT AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT, that’s a huge boon that a lot of artists (me again) wish they had. though if youre not so lucky and youre sitting in a park trying to creeper draw people and they keep moving.. don’t let that stop you! that’s good practice because it’s forcing you to work fast to get the important stuff down LOL. its a challenge!

b) I’ve been pretty out of energy and have had no inspiration to draw but I have the desire to. Any advice?

Dude, take a walk or something.... Or a nap? Low energy is going to effect everything else so you gotta hit that problem at its source.

If you’re looking for inspiration though, I’d recommend stuff like watching a movie, reading a book, playing video games etc. Fill up your idea bank with content and then give yourself time/space to gestate it into new concepts. Sometimes looking at other art works but sometimes it can work against you because it’s too close. 

Also something that helps me is remembering that art doesn’t always have to be groundbreaking... like it’s okay to make something shitty and stupid that you don’t post online and only show to your friend. That’s all part of the process imo. If you want to hit a home run you gotta warm up first, right? Sports.

I should probably compile everytime i give tips on stuff like this but that’s getting dangerously close to being a social media artist who makes stupid boiled down art tutorials for clout which is the last thing i want to be... the thing I want to stress is that art is a whole visual language and there are widely agreed upon rules and customs but they exist in large part to be broken. Like there's an infinite number of ways to reach an infinite number of solutions and that’s actually what makes it really cool and personal for both the artist and the viewer. So when you make work you like or you find someone else’s work you like, take a step back and ask yourself what about it speaks for you, what about it works for you, what makes it effective, how to recreate that effect and how to break that effect completely, etc. And have a good time with it or else what’s the point.

for the first 2, I direct you to my FAQ

For the last one, I don’t actually believe I’ve ever addressed artwork as insp for stories/rp but I’ll say here and now yeah go ahead! As long as you’re not making profit or taking credit for my work then I’m normally ok with it. Especially anything thats private and purely recreational, that’s generally 100% green light go. I only ask that if you post it anywhere public that you please credit me.

(and I reserve the right to ask you to take it down if I see it and don’t approve of it’s use but I think that case is pretty rare.)

a) @lemuelzero101 Thank you!!! I haven’t played Life is Strange but actually  that series’ vis dev artist Edouard Caplain is one of my bigger art inspirations lately so that’s a really high compliment lol. And yeah I hope we get 5-8 too...!

b) Thank you for sticking around! I’ve been thinking about Digimon and Infinity Train in tandem lately, actually. They’re a little similar? Enter a dangerous alternate world and have wacky adventures with monsters/inanimate objects that have weird powers... there’s like weird engineers and mechanisms behind the scenes... also frontier literally starts with them getting on a train. Anyways if anyone else followed me for digimon... maybe you’d like Infinity Train? LOL

c) @king-wens-king I’M GLAD MY ART JUST HAS PINOY VIBES LOL I hope you are having a good day too :^)

a, b, c, d) yessss my Watch Infinity Train agenda is working....

e) aw thank you!! i think you should watch infinity train :)

[fyeah-bangtan7]

Jimin: “There’s people who’ve been rooting for us throughout this difficult time”

In the “ARMY Corner Store” video posted by BTS on their YouTube channel BANGTANTV to mark the eighth anniversary of their debut, Jimin talked about the leather riding jacket that the older members passed down to him when he was still a trainee. The jacket was first worn by SUGA, handed down to j-hope after SUGA’s debut, then given to Jimin with the words, “This riding jacket is passed down from generation to generation.” Jimin still wears the jacket when it’s cold. Many things change, and, even in times when they must, there are things that do not.

You released three songs in a year: “Dynamite,” “Butter” and, finally, “Permission to Dance,” and BTS grew more popular all the while. How do you feel? Jimin: At some point, it stopped feeling real. The reactions from fans, the cover videos they uploaded and the dance challenges they did—I’m just so thankful for that. It lit up my life. We made those songs with a good purpose in mind, so just hearing people say they enjoyed listening to them was fulfilling. And that was our original goal. “Permission to Dance,” in particular, was the perfect message for right now, so I think I got a lot of comfort from it, too.

How so? Jimin: I think it was both the atmosphere and the actual content. It was comforting right from the title. Thinking about it now, the fact that it made me think, Oh yeah, I might not be able to see ARMY right now, but I will soon, was one good point. I’ve been thinking by myself about how the future’s going to be better, and being more careful, and ended up waiting longer. And meanwhile, we had a fan meeting in the middle of all that. So my thinking changed to be more positive. That was great.

Was there any part you placed particular emphasis on to express such positive emotions in the song? Jimin: I think I just followed my heart. Before, there’d be some kind of concept, and I wanted to show off something about myself in that context, but lately I’ve just been following my heart, following the feeling of conveying the feelings I want to share with others. At first I was worried whether the feelings we were trying to convey in the songs would get across to people since we’d never tried songs in those styles before, but after giving the performances a shot, we found out they’re really fun and easy for us to follow along to, too. So I thought it should be easy enough for people to approach these songs, thankfully.

Even though the three songs—“Dynamite,” “Butter” and “Permission to Dance”—all have something in common, I imagine they were all completely different when it came to figuring them out. You did “Butter” before “Permission to Dance”—how was that? Jimin: They’re totally different. The attitudes I take on are different, the thought process is different, and I think the emotions I feel are all different, too. I think “Butter” was a bit hard for me. It wasn’t a style I was used to, but I thought the actual dance was elegant when I saw the video and it had a lot of footwork, so I thought I’d be good at it, but it was way harder than I thought. During practice I even thought, Why am I so bad at dancing? If you look at our usual choreography, it has very powerful parts with big movements and lots of power, but “Butter” felt really difficult because all the power went in at the same time even though it was loose. So I watched Hoseok dancing a lot, and since every member has their own style of dancing, I watched the way Taehyung loosened up, and the way Jung Kook danced by the book, and I combined all those. So for some of the broadcasts of “Butter” I really loosened up and for others I used a little more strength. I tried all different things.

Maybe that’s why even the style of clothes you’re wearing seems to change the way the dancing feels. It felt like you danced a little differently in a suit than when you were dressed casually. Jimin: I never noticed before but the songs do sound different depending on what I’m wearing. Sometimes I danced all excitedly when I wore casual clothes, but when I wore a suit, something about the song sounded sexy. There’s a different vibe when I dance alone versus when I dance as part of a group, so I visualize how I should dress to make my dancing look cooler every time.

The “Dynamite” performance at the Grammys was very impressive, too. I felt that the music, clothing style and poses where you jumped out were all a perfect match. Jimin: I think it all depends on what kind of outfit I wear, where I am for a given part, and how much I weigh. There’s a pronounced difference to the way a dance looks and feels based on how much I weigh. I think the dance and outfit were a good match in “Dynamite.”

On that note, when you performed “Black Swan” at the end of the year, what pair of shoes could you dance the best in? Looking at the fancam focus video, your dance changes in feeling slightly depending on the design of your shoes. Jimin: For me, it’s barefoot. I think it’s got to be barefoot when I’m doing a classic style dance. It looks sharp and attractive when I wear dress shoes, but it always feels more natural to express myself barefoot. It’s more dynamic, I guess you could say. So I wanted to go barefoot for all my other performances, too. I wanted to be barefoot for when we recorded “ON” at Seoul World Cup Stadium at the end of the year, too, but I gave that up because it could’ve been dangerous.

The performance of “ON” at Mnet 2020 MAMA, right? I was curious about something while watching that video: I wondered how the members of the group could perform with such effort in that big, audienceless stadium, with the new solo performances added into the original choreography and everything. What helped you to find strength even under those circumstances? Jimin: There’s people who’ve been rooting for us throughout this difficult time. I think we have to give them a reason to root for us, then. If we’re going to make them want to see us and make it fun for them to watch us, I wanted to give them a good reason.

Then how did you feel when you performed at the Grammy Awards? Surely it must’ve been meaningful to you in a number of ways. Jimin: I wanted our performance to show what it meant for us to be up on that stage. A group of kids from Korea, each from their own neighborhood, can do this, too, so what’s the big deal about winning an award? That’s one thing I thought. Of course you can’t get it if you’re not capable enough yet, but the important thing is that the people who like us can be proud of us, too. We did the performance in return for all the support they show us.

It must be hard being unable to see your fans since you can’t hold any concerts. It’s hard to tell how well the performance was able to convey that return of their support. Jimin: I learn a lot from going on tour. I combine the audience’s immediate reactions and the parts I wasn’t satisfied with and practice based on that, and ask the other members about it too, but right now there’s no time to review that. So I keep practicing a lot, but it’s hard to tell how the things I’m doing will end up looking, so I keep trying things out on my own but without any feedback.

That must’ve made it harder to get ready for “Dynamite,” “Butter” and “Permission to Dance,” especially since you still have to sing in English and the emotions in the songs are a lot different from your previous ones, and it’s hard to feel the reaction in the concert hall under these circumstances. Jimin: Even the pronunciation is definitely different, and the part of your throat the sound comes from changes depending on the pronunciation. I think that’s why I was a little flustered. On “Butter,” if I had done it the way I always do, it wouldn’t show up. So I studied a lot on how to sound more clean and simple.

It felt like you had to meet all sorts of conditions; you have to keep it breezy and hit high notes, all while maintaining your unique voice. Jimin: I guess you could call it the song that most made me think like I was just starting out again. I think I practiced harder than ever before. I think I’ve worked extremely hard to have my own unique style, but then I hit a wall and had to go back to the beginning to find a new way. And I went over it a lot with Jung Kook. What if I sing it like this? Or what about this way? How should I practice? I asked so many questions like that and practiced a lot, too. But I enjoyed the process. At one point I was like, I can get that kind of voice out of my throat too? Even though it didn’t make it onto the final recording, I tried doing different adlibs while singing other parts and I found my strengths that way.

In previous songs you had fairly strong emotional vocals when you sang high notes, but this time around they’re cooler. How does it feel having different emotions in your vocals? BTS also sought to allow people to feel more positive emotions during the pandemic. Jimin: It was hard to adjust to the changes, but in other ways, since the group saw a greater outpouring of love, I thought we should be featuring emotions and content that’s a little more comprehensive. Personally, it was hard adjusting to a situation where I couldn’t perform. But after “Butter” was out and we moved on to “Permission to Dance,” I saw how lots of people took positively to the way I put so much effort into attempting to change things a bit more with these songs, and I realized that we could find a new side to ourselves in the process.​

I saw on “ARMY Corner Store” that you were drinking with the other members recently and all talking together, which makes me think you’ve had a lot of thoughts since the pandemic started. The world’s changed so much, and the group’s status has changed since “Dynamite” came out, too. Jimin: It wasn’t just the time mentioned in “ARMY Corner Store”—we also talked while going here and there by car, whenever we would get together, and when we were on set. I think it took me a long time to calm my nerves. It took around four or five months, I guess, but after we kept dealing with it and talking with each other, I think that’s when we got used to the new normal and our new selves.

When you performed “Daechwita” at BTS 2021 MUSTER SOWOOZOO, the part you did was, as it happens, “Remember, remember days gone by remember.” Maybe it was a coincidence, but now that BTS, the team who debuted with “No More Dream,” currently sits at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, I’m wondering how you feel about the days gone by. Jimin: I only realized it recently, but I used to be really unstable. I was acting like I was well-grounded when I was around other people, like my family and friends. It meant I had to pretend a lot. I worried about others by saying things like, I’m fine, but how are you? I spoke like I could always take care of anything that came up, but looking back, that wasn’t the case.

What made you think like that? Jimin: I’m still young, and because I’m making a lot of money at a young age, I end up wondering what money and success ultimately mean. Because I’m young, I hear a lot of people talk, and some people can be jealous or envious. But there’s a lot of people I have to repay and a lot of relationships I need to hang onto. I thought I could take care of all these problems, but looking back, that wasn’t the case. It hasn’t been very long since I realized that I was the one to grab on and forced everything to happen.

Was it some sense of responsibility? It reminds me how you called yourself “the kind of person who likes to be loved” in your last interview with Weverse Magazine. So I imagine you probably try your best for the people in your life. Jimin: Yes. I was just being headstrong, you know. Being headstrong. (laughs) It’s the kind of situation where people look at you and they might say, You can’t even take care of yourself. (laughs) But there were still a lot of points where I kept thinking things like that. Now I think I didn’t have to go quite that far, and as times went by, I started to think, Oh, I’m glad I can think about this now so I can let things that I should let go of, go. When I couldn’t let things go, my resentment kept growing. My pain, too. Rather than admit I had those feelings at that time, I’d say there were emotions in different situations that I came to unconsciously accept, and I started to feel like I could see how much of a hard time I was having after some time passed.

You’ve tried so hard. How did you feel after letting go of all those feelings? Jimin: I felt like I was becoming empty sometimes, at first. I felt like I was denying my own thoughts and beliefs. But I talked a lot with my parents, and I said, Did you know I was going through all that? And they said, We didn’t know what you were going through, but we knew it was something. So finally I shared what I was feeling with them, and my mom and dad talked to me like they were my life coaches. After coming out of that whole period, even when I do similar things, I can tell my mind has changed a lot. If I was more focused on my surroundings before, now I’m able to focus on myself as well. My mom told me it means I’m growing up, and that I’m finally becoming an adult. So I said, I don’t wanna be an adult—it’s too hard. (laughs)

It seems like you ended up doing a lot of self-reflection during the pandemic. Jimin: Last year I saw how lots of people were having a rough time and how there was a big social crisis, but as time dragged on I started to feel like I was trapped. But it was mostly okay when I was working.

What would you say work means to you these days? Jimin: I guess it’s hard to separate it from myself. I’m me, and there’s also a separate me who works, but it’s hard to tell the two apart.

© source

[sleepyjuniper]

HI! I am June, and I love movies! I've been working on something, and I don't usually post my work because I don't get a lot of views, but I feel what I've written here is really important, and I would very much appreciate a read, and maybe an upvote if you enjoy what you've read! I've really put my heart out on the line here, and it would be great for it to get some traction, so a movie I care about greatly can finally get some recognition.

So, Home is now back on Netflix. As a result, the passion I've always felt for this film has been rekindled, and now feels like the perfect time to bring it back to attention, to get it the praise it truly deserves. To explain, I was watching it last week and I suddenly had an epiphany. I suddenly connected more with Oh's character than I ever had before, and every little detail in the movie started to pop out at me and further strengthen this feeling. I became so obsessed with the depth of it's heavy emotional scenes and gorgeous visuals that I immediately got to writing. It gets a bit tricky to collect my thoughts every time I try to address what this writing actually is; it's not necessarily an analysis, not necessarily an essay, because it lacks direction and a real conclusion, or motive, I guess. I'm simply going in depth into the scenes that I think are most pivotal to Oh's development as a character, and providing my own personal insight into how he's thinking and what he's feeling, based on the evidence I am able to glean from what the movie shows me, rather than tells me. I'm picking into each scene and bringing to light the specific details that make it so powerful to me, and how these details allow me to fully understand and connect with the characters in a way I can't with other films.

But regardless of what it is, the more in depth I go, the more it speaks to me, and the more I understand it. The more reason I have to believe that Oh has a perfect character arc, which is so well written and perfectly pulled off, that it creates a movie that is authentic, heartfelt, and complete in every way. There's simply no other like it. Now, with no further ado, let's get into it.

Every good story starts with an introduction to the main character. The beginning scenes of Home introduce us to Oh's character perfectly. They depict him as an adorable misfit with a propensity to make mistakes, who just wants to make friends. We learn that he is widely disliked by the rest of the Boov because of his differences, that he adores Captain Smek, and that he believes Boov are best at everything. We learn a lot about his personality too. All the Boov look similar, but he is much more animated than the other Boov, moving with more energy, and appears to be in a perpetual state of excitement. He’s the only Boov we see smiling at first, and what really sets him out is the way he emotes. While most of the Boov carry neutral expressions, their eyebrows relaxed, his eyebrows are constantly raised and his eyes are wide, making them stand out much more prominently. His color changing also adds an extra layer to his character, allowing us to see even deeper into what he's feeling at any given point during the movie. The movie can tell us more, with less words. It is immediately apparent to the audience just how different Oh is from the rest of his people; we can clearly see from the get-go that Oh's emotions work differently than the rest of the Boov. And this only adds to the impact of later scenes, as he starts to experience more complex emotions and venture further into unknown territory.

When the starting conflict of the story is introduced, we learn about the first real challenge he needs to overcome. He made a mistake, and is now on the run from his own people, who want to arrest him. Right now, his motivation is simply to avoid capture. It can be assumed that until now, Oh hasn't faced danger alone. He's likely faced danger while the Boov were running away from the Gorg, but he was always facing the threat with the rest of his species. This is the first time he's been completely alone while running from something, and it's all his fault too. We can pick all of this up from context, and feel sympathy for him and his terror, which is very much justified.

When Oh and Tip first meet, they start out not liking each other, and have conflicting opinions. Oh believes the Boov are more advanced than humans because Smek said so, and he doesn't understand why Tip cares so much about one human. Conversely, Tip hates Oh because his species is the reason she's separated from her mother. They are agreeing to work together out of common interest, that's it. Oh has promised to help Tip find her mom, but he does this only to avoid capture. These scenes are full of fun quips and hilarious antics, as the movie starts to build up a foundation for Oh's character dynamic with Tip. What the movie conveys to us is that these two characters don't know each other, and don't have any interest in listening to and understanding each other.

Things really pick up later in the movie. Oh disappears for a long while, and when he returns, Tip yells at him, and he stops in his tracks, looking genuinely astounded and confused by her anger. He was especially shocked that she was afraid he'd been hurt. We can actually see the moment he does a double-take at the realization that she had been worried about him. Likely, no one has ever worried about him before. For the first time, we see him actually absorb what she's saying, listening to her with a curious expression as she tells him to try and put himself in her shoes. Tip explains to him that kids aren't supposed to be by themselves, and that the Boov's arrival ruined everything for her. When Oh says that Boov don't have families, she remarks that it's no wonder they take things and don't care about anyone else. This gives him pause, and he appears to think carefully, before speaking. No amount of explanation can really do this scene justice, so a direct quote of his monologue is needed. He says: "So, your mimom.. is a very important humansperson to you. More important than others. To not belong with her.. causes you being sad. But, recent moments ago, you are kicking on me and yelling. Which is seeming more to be mad than sad." This gives us the first true indication that Oh is trying to be more open minded. Tip tells him to try and feel how she feels, and he does. With genuine sincerity, he's trying to understand how Tip can be feeling two emotions at once. Tip looks surprised by his sincerity, and has no energy to continue talking, but she listens, and she gets back into the car when he's finished. Not only does Oh state out loud that humans are more complicated than he thought, this scene is important because it's the first time they have anything close to a genuine moment of understanding. Simply put; he sees her react in a way he didn't anticipate, is perplexed by it, and pushes aside his own belief that he already knows everything about humans, and just asks her questions to understand her better. It is the first small sign of growth we get to see from him.

Tip and Oh gradually warm up to each other more over the course of their next few escapades. Oh explains to Tip why he's in trouble, and Tip realizes he's sad, and cheers him up by teaching him about jokes. They make a plan to give Oh a makeover so they can sneak into the Great Antenna without being caught, and Tip seems amused by his antics rather than annoyed. In the Antenna, Oh helps Tip find out where her mom is, and Tip hugs him. He looks surprised and uncertain for a moment, but quickly adjusts to it and even smiles, turning orange and hugging her back. From the information we have, we can extrapolate that this may or may not be the first time he's ever been hugged, due to the Boov's aversion to both Oh and physical contact. This is the most affection Tip has expressed with him so far, and he seems to just melt into it. He also looks as if he wasn't ready for the hug to end so abruptly. It's a sensation he's unfamiliar with, but immediately decides he wants.

This is when we see Oh, specifically, starting to trust Tip a bit more and even maybe like her, and their escape from the Tower shows them working with a newfound chemistry as they outsmart the Boov. We can tell Oh is scared at several points during the scene, because his yellow coloring indicates it, but he's also grabbing onto Tip as if it gives him reassurance. He trusts her enough to at least find comfort in her presence, which is something that wasn't true of their relationship in the beginning.

Following the events of the Eiffel Tower scene, Tip starts to talk about her mom, excited to find her and maybe even come back to Paris. When she turns around, Oh is standing further away and looking at the now wrecked central command, his skin displaying a dejected blue color. What does he have to come back to after everything is over? Tip knows where she belongs, but Oh would never be able to go back to the Boov in safety after his mistake. He is questioning his belonging. Tip notices he's sad, and attempts to cheer him up. It doesn't work, but Oh does something that surprises Tip. He apologizes to her. During the confrontation with Smek, Oh finally realized how Smek was wrong for causing the misunderstandings between Boov and Humans, and that he would never accept any Boov for showing individuality. Oh acknowledges everything that he previously thought about humans was wrong, and that Captain Smek was also wrong. He even looks ashamed to tell her that in the beginning, the Boov thought humans were simple and uncomplicated, and that they needed the Boov. He tells her he thinks the Boov should never have interfered with Earth, and that he's sorry for how it affected her. He doesn't say anything during his apology that would guilt Tip into responding a certain way; just gives an honest apology, and allows her the freedom to decide how she reacts. This is something that's incredibly meaningful coming from Oh. He's not trying to get anything from her, he's just apologizing for something he was complacent in and is now feeling regretful about. It's raw and heartfelt. She hands him the keys, and he looks surprised at first, then gives a huge smile, holding the keys close to his heart and turning orange.  

The following scene is perhaps the most important one in the film, and is incredibly impactful. Accompanied by the gentle tune of a song that slowly gets louder as the movie switches from dialogue between characters to simply visual storytelling, we watch as Oh and Tip take turns driving, and exchange vulnerability with each other, both describing their own experiences with being misfits. We see them laughing together, taking selfies, and just in general enjoying each other's company. Tip completely accepts Oh for who he is, and in turn he lets his walls down, and is finally able to be himself. This is a real bond they've formed. They are truly friends. Both look nothing alike, yet have so much in common.

Finally, we see Oh taking his turn driving at night while Tip sleeps, and he goes to tuck her back in when her blanket falls down. As we hear Kiezca's 'Cannonball' playing in the background (and on the radio) he takes a moment to appreciate the things in the car, discovering he does indeed enjoy them. Finally, he adjusts his mirror to watch Tip sleep, and we see him slowly turn a brand new color: pink. If you were to recap his life so far, the significance of this moment becomes clear. Oh is outgoing and friendly, but he's never fit in in his entire life. No matter how hard he tried to fit in with the Boov, he simply had emotional needs that the rest of the Boov did not, and as such they did not care about or recognize his need. Tip is the first person who has ever listened to him and gotten to know him, and accepted him for who he is. She's his first friend. In this moment, he is looking at Tip, and he's feeling something he's never felt before: love. It feels like a part of him he's always been missing has finally been found. For the first time in his life, he feels like he belongs.

We find Oh further appreciating Tip's qualities when they find the Gorg super-chip; he was afraid to go towards the ship but she convinced him, and when it worked out he realized that her idea had worked out better than his would have. He realized he can achieve things through being brave rather than giving up; essentially, if you don't even try, you can never succeed. You can see in his expression after Tip smirks at him that he was surprised; he realized he had faced his fears, all because of Tip's help.

We see a monumental backslide in his progress when he leaves Tip instead of staying by her side and fulfilling his promise. His greatest challenge is revealed to be that he's still not brave; not brave enough to put his faith in the one he cares about, not brave enough to face his fears and stick by her no matter what. We do know that he's terrified; both of being left alone, and of losing Tip. He has just found a sense of belonging with Tip that he's never felt before, and he can't bear to lose that. He tries to bring her with him, and she feels betrayed and breaks off the friendship. The detail that went into this scene makes it incredibly impactful. It's raw and filled with emotion. For context, during the course of the movie, we only see a Boov go pale in the face during a few very intense situations, and said pale-ing was usually followed by fainting. This suggests that a lack of color is indicative of a much stronger, primal emotion: dread, or pain. When Tip turns and leaves, he loses pigment. He blanches, and staggers. There's a physical impact of Tip's words on Oh. This isn't simply sadness or fear he's feeling, it's anguish. It's his world falling apart, his heart breaking. He is quite literally torn in two, as he looks back and forth between his best friend and his chance at escape, changing rapidly from red to yellow to blue and back again. It emphasizes his turmoil; the panic he feels at seeing a rapidly closing window to decide what action to take, before he turns back to what he's always known, running away. There's high stakes on both sides, and we as an audience can feel his pain, as he displays clear indecision and helplessness at this impossible choice.

As the Boov travel farther from Earth, bringing the Gorg with them, Oh and Tip have never been farther apart. As the Gorg mothership closes in, everyone runs to the other side of the ship; all except Oh, who stares it down. He knows he can save everyone. He pulls out the super-chip, his gaze hardening with determination, and runs against the flow of the crowd to plant it in the control panel. Everyone stops to stare in disbelief, crowding around him afterwards, curious to hear him speak. Smek tries to ostracize him for acting unBoov-like, and Oh directly challenges him. He tells the listening crowd that he used to believe what Smek said was right, but he'd learned things that said otherwise. He talks about the human he met, and how she's smart and brave, and has an emotional capacity for caring for others that Boov lack. During this monologue, we see his skin turn pink again as he talks about Tip, reminding us as that he does still care about her. This also reminds him of his own actions, and he turns blue, concluding his speech by saying that the Boov may be better in some ways, but not in the ways he thinks are most important now. He realizes that Tip has strengths that are/would have been useful many times for the Boov. This is when it becomes apparent that he's regretting leaving; Tip made him stronger, and he now knows he can be as brave as she is. 

Which is why it's an incredible payoff scene when he is made leader. He's surrounded by Boov who are cheering for him, but he feels lonelier than ever. He wanted to be accepted, but he wasn't ready to be looked up to. It doesn't feel right, he doesn't belong here. When he watches the view of Earth grow smaller as it fades into the distance, he actually cries, and catches a tear as it rolls down his cheek, a pensive look crossing his face. He pulls out Tip's keychain, and all in one instant he realizes why he's so miserable. He doesn't feel like he belongs here, because he belongs with Tip. It's where he's meant to be. He turns pink, looking hopeful, and in the next scene he turns up on earth, by himself, and finds Tip. It's not really necessary to explain why this is an important development; we can see everything there is to be said in the way they compose the scene. There's also the parallel shots where we see Tip and Oh both pushing through crowds and both looking completely alone despite all the people around them, emphasizing that they need each other. Oh just had to figure out he could follow Tip's example, what he'd learned from her bravery, to realize he could still salvage things. He realized a life feeling alone among the Boov was worth nothing, and a life with someone he truly cares about is worth facing any danger, no matter what may come. 

Oh and Tip are reunited, and he tells her what he learned, that he realized she's his friend, and he belongs with her. You can see from the look they share that both of them feel this way. They've come full circle, to a full understanding and acceptance of each other. 

Oh helps Tip find her mom, finally fulfilling his promise, and when the Gorg attack and he realizes it's because of the Boov, he tells Tip he's fixing his mistake, protecting the reunited family by making it so they're unable to chase him and be put in danger. He loves Tip, and he wants her and the human she cares most about to be safe. He's not about to let her risk losing that. So, bravely, yet stupidly, he runs to the Gorg mothership and holds up the thing they've been chasing the Boov for all this time. He tries to do it on his own, which is a major sign of his growth as a character, but the only reason the Gorg actually see him is because Tip has his back. He was fully prepared to sacrifice himself. When the ship is closing in on him, and the dust and sparks are blinding him, he turns around, and sees Tip running to him. He smiles, his trust fully in her; if he doesn't get out of this, she can save everyone else. He throws the rock to her before the ship covers him, choosing to put his faith in her in what he believes to be his final moments. He went from caring only about his own survival, to caring about the survival of his best friend, and wanting Tip to help make peace with the Gorg so the Boov and humans can be safe as well. 

After we see Tip mourn for Oh before it's revealed that he's okay, she pulls him in for a hug, and he immediately embraces her back, then over Tip's shoulder we see him looking at her fondly, smiling, and he turns a vibrant pink as he closes his eyes and leans into the hug. Just by the look in his eyes in this scene, we can see that he's fully appreciating this being who cared about him enough to listen to him, to stand by him and stand up for him, and run after him when he's in danger. In this moment, he's getting a second chance to embrace her, when he went in not knowing if he'd ever see her again. In this moment it was all worth it. Because he looks at her, and he is home.

[endlessdoom]

(diagonal) REALM

Single map.

By 4MaTC

2020

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/118682-diagonal-realm-boomsingle-map/

Starting area.

Acid river.

Warehouse.

Yard.

Exit area.

End.

Overall:

From time to time, we have debuts that manage to leave a good impression, but most of the time we know that ''hey check out my first map'' is not usually the kind of title that we expect to appreciate very much, not that it is something bad, but the quality is usually a little low. On the other hand, sometimes, on rare occasions, certain exotics are born out of the fog and leave us certain special gifts, quiet, silent and without too many surprises. Sometimes those unexpected gifts are just what we need. Introducing @4MaTC, a newcomer to the mapping scene that has contributed with some maps to community projects, also known for being one of the main editors of the Doom Master Wadazine. @4MaTC doesn’t stay only behind editing work, but he’s also quite the skilled mapper that focuses on delivering some interesting pieces that feel like vanilla at heart but have such a nice and modern style that it manages to capture the best of both worlds.

 Realm aka (diagonal) Realm is a medium-big map which stands out for being formed mainly by diagonals. If you know about mathematics or understand a little bit of geometry, you probably already imagine how it will be. What I can say, uneducated and ignorant of numbers, is that the fact that this map has been built in such a style means that we will find a pretty interesting level design that stands out for offering depth and detail. Realm manages to show us an excellent level design even with stock textures of the vanilla Doom 2, but by making use of excellent skills to place textures and a good color palette, it creates an attractive panorama that feels so puritanical in appearance but reveals itself with a more modernist touch that influences quite well the general perception that the visual theme offers. Diagonals in the layout mean that we find ourselves with well-curved maps and delicious geometry, as well as accompanied by a solid progression that makes us travel through different areas ranging from simple corridors to large progressive rooms that reveal more and more demons at every step. A wonder to admire thanks to its solid combination of simplistic textures with a good level design that evokes a fascinating geometry. The detail is another point to highlight, since every map needs a little detail to stand out in a good way and because Realm has just enough to make us stop for a few seconds to observe the landscape. Roofs with holes, animated acid rivers, realistic corridors with defined curves, dark areas with flashing lights, hidden interiors that combine earth with metal, etc. As far as appearance is concerned, Realm satisfies. All diagonally good.

 @4MaTC is also kind enough to warn us about the possible difficulty outburst that might present in our playthrough, stating that some parts may be a bit slaughter-ish in essence. Well, he’s going on the right spot! Realm feels, indeed, like a good vanilla map with a modern twist, but the gameplay also manages to convey such feeling by delivering some well-grounded combat that escalates in difficulty the more we advance. The map begins with a classic style without major difficulty, presenting numbered combats that we can pass without so much trouble, simultaneously that gives us a good variety of encounters in different scenarios, creating a dynamic flow that feels quite entertaining (although with a few pauses that slow down the gameplay just a tad bit) achieving a good balance between traditional combat and a more modern gameplay. On the other hand, we also have certain encounters where the fights turn towards the classic slaughter style: One arena, many enemies, much ammunition, much blood. Classic Slaughter combat that in part feels welcome in terms of the complete picture that presents the scheme of the difficulty and balance. On the other hand, you should not worry too much if you think that this is a masochistic adventure, since the author has also taken the great trouble of balancing the map in different skill levels, giving a door for all kinds of players who want to get into this type of gameplay without having to stand dry before a wall of difficulty.

 (diagonal) Realm is a one big adventure that throws some really nice vanilla aesthetics at our face. Launching us into a beautiful combat arena where most of the fun lies in the nicely-balanced combat and the dynamic progression of the map. While some part might feel a bit slow and some enemy positioning feels a bit out of place, most of the map is just one big joyful ride that everyone should enjoy. A big plus point is the fact that despite having quite the difficulty curve, Realm is also very welcoming to all kinds of players that want to achieve victory through some small specks of persistence and skill. If you want the challenge you can always jump right into UV, but don’t feel obligated to do so, instead you can also try lower skill levels for a more welcoming experience into this diagonal world of simple vanilla beauty and hot combat.

[wandernic]

My SPOILERY Be More Chill review

In honor of tonight’s opening, I wanted to put together my impressions of the show, brought to you by five off-Broadway and four Broadway preview viewings. I will divide things up by scene/song to better order my thoughts. Please DO NOT read if you haven’t seen or don’t know the story well already. 

(In that case, here’s a mini-review for you: GOOOOO SEE THIS! Okay now do yourself a favor and close this window.)

More Than Survive:

I like the change to Mr. Heere just eating cereal in his underwear, and unable to drive Jeremy to school. This better conveys Jeremy's real frustration with his dad being mentally checked out than the (admittedly funnier) off-Broadway scene, which just made Jeremy seem grossed out by him.

I miss the Chloe-Jake breakup scene a bit, but it didn't really add much to the narrative other than seeing them as a couple for a brief moment. The next mini-scene where Jenna addresses the breakup with Chloe accomplishes what's needed, plus adds to Jenna's narrative as the girl everyone goes to for the dirt and nothing else.

I Love Play Rehearsal:

I would shower Stephanie Hsu with multiple Tonys for this scene alone. Her Christine is equal parts adorable and batshit, and we can easily see why Jeremy finds her so much more fascinating than the conventionally attractive popular girls at school.

Minor gripe: BRING BACK JAKE'S DAB. That shit was hilarious, and in a simple move showed how Jake, while trying to live up to the cool jock everyone knows him to be, has the same amount of dork inside that everyone does.  

The Squip Song:

Ugh I get they're trying to clean this up for a staid Broadway audience, but Rich drawing the penis on the wall and brazenly peeing in front of Jeremy are both missed. Not just for the humor, but because without it Rich just seems like his Squip made him merely mean, instead of confident. That confidence would presumably be what Rich was seeking with a Squip, not to become a garden variety bully, so it loses something in the translation when Rich isn't displaying that through his inappropriate jokes.

I do appreciate Rich's bullying of Jeremy being stepped up, because it's important we get a fuller idea of Jeremy's suffering. Off-Broadway, it just came across as "I can't get the girl I dig and a boy at school sometimes says shitty things." Though certainly emotional bullying is awful, its pervasiveness over a long period of time is hard to convey in a few short scenes. Having Rich also physically intimidate Jeremy makes you feel Jeremy's fear in a palpable way, which leads you to sympathize more with him.

Also can we give Gerard Canonico a Tony merely for the "It's from Japan!" scream? I think, yes. Seriously, his performance in this role is so iconic, it's hard to imagine another actor playing Rich.

Two-Player Game:

The perfect scene for conveying the true dynamic of Jeremy and Michael's friendship. That dynamic being, Michael is a much better friend to Jeremy than Jeremy is to Michael. This is one of the challenges for Will Roland in portraying Jeremy: he is not an easily likeable character. Yes, Jeremy is bullied at school, but he also makes everything about him, his needs, his pain, etc. There isn't a moment in which Jeremy checks to see how Michael's doing (lest we forget Michael is also bullied - the backpack prank was pulled on him, too.) So this song works as both a fun bop, and as a display of the unequal nature of this friendship.

Also, on the whole I *love* Chase Brock's choreography. Especially in "Halloween" and the utterly phenomenal "The Pitiful Children." The one exception is when Jeremy and Michael get up from the bed to finish this song; these moves are clunky and not sharp. It's hard to tell if executed more crisply, they would work better for me, or if the actors are intentionally sort of keeping it loose to demonstrate that these dudes are not as cool as their peers.

Be More Chill:

Jeremy's Squip being activated and the ultimate dramatic appearance of that Squip is one of my favorite moments in the show. My God, the evolution of the Squip from last summer has me floored. It was always good, but what Jason Tam is doing with this character now is must-see. This Squip is like an emotionally abusive partner. He coldy points out what he sees as your flaws, then smooth talks you about your amazing potential, and you forget that you were ever hurt or mad to begin with. Rinse, repeat. He also reminds me of the current administration, in that he'll say something totally out of bounds, then quickly walk it back to where he really wanted you, and you're temporarily swayed by the dial-down that he's not so bad after all. Fucking masterful.

If this man isn't nominated, seriously fuck the Tonys.

Do You Wanna Ride?

What I love most about this besides its hilarity is that it shows a bit of quid pro quo in the seemingly one-sided Chloe/Brooke friendship. While Chloe pretty openly treats Brooke poorly on multiple occasions, when Brooke wants an assist in trying to get Jeremy to say yes, Chloe immediately jumps to her cue and joins in. This is actually more than Jeremy ever helps Michael with anything in the entirety of the show, which is pretty fucking sad when you think about it.

Katlyn Carlson and Lauren Marcus have perfect chemistry as the best frenemies we'd love to hate if only we didn't kind of totally love them so damn much.

Be More Chill Part 2:

I liked the staging for this better at Signature. It serviced the choreography much better when they didn't throw a mall fountain mid-stage that forces them to redirect the dance moves in a less visually striking manner. I especially miss the hoveround rolling down center stage with the mall shoppers trailing behind it. We've already been to Payless and the food court; we know it's a mall. The fountain is unnecessary. Also, can we give Troy a better alter-ego when he goes on? The Starbucks get-up just looks like Michael went to work at his mall job and for some unknown reason put a wig on.

Sync Up:

I love the expansion of the supporting roles in the show, something this song supports to great effect. I don't have a lot more to say on this scene since it's new to Broadway, and I don't remember as much as the other scenes.  Also I believe before this song is when Jeremy ditches his glasses, and I like the change from first preview in how that was accomplished (though I did laugh at the Spiderman rip-off that first night).

A Guy That I'd Kinda Be Into:

I MISS THE PART WHERE BROOKE NODS HER HEAD ALONG WITH CHLOE WHILE LECTURING CHRISTINE. This is in all caps because that shit was comic gold; why take it out? It also demonstrated how in tune with Chloe's whims and emotions Brooke is, which is to say, too much. If I can't have this back, I'm going to at least need someone to explain why it was taken out.

I believe this scene is where the Squip puzzles over the person Christine is, and I love both that she's entirely confounded him, and that post-song, she ultimately defeats his carefully constructed plotting just by being the unpredictable person she is.

As for the song, this has been unchanged that I can see, and that's because it does exactly what it needs to do well.

Upgrade:

One of the best changed scenes from Signature. It was fine there, but is much more fleshed out now, and gives more insight into many of the characters that is needed and appreciated. I especially appreicated the added dialogue between Jeremy and Brooke, in which we get Brooke's insight into her self-doubt, and how Jeremy's seeming interest moved her.  

I did prefer how the Squip insinuated himself more in this scene at the first preview. When he was trying to get Jeremy to get with Brooke, he pretty much physically climbed on him to push him into her on the bleachers. In a future preview, the Squip stood completely away from them onstage, directing Jeremy with hand motions, and I didn't think that worked at. All. Last Sunday, he stood near them and physically pushed Jeremy with just his hand to kiss Brooke; while an improvement, it still wasn't as effective as the first preview for two reasons.

One, the complete disregard for personal space is just much funnier. Two and more importantly, when the Squip was literally pushing Jeremy's body into Brooke's with his own (imaginary) body, it demonstrated an important aspect of the Squip's control of Jeremy. What looks like the Squip being physically seductive is really a demonstration of his seduction of Jeremy's mind. This is significant, because Jeremy ends up doing a lot of things he doesn't particularly want to do, but the Squip seduces him into thinking he does. I found that incredibly effective.

Loser, Geek, Whatever:

My gripe with this otherwise effective scene is the singing of the song itself. Every time it starts to build steam melodically, it's cut off by Jeremy saying/shouting so many of the lyrics. The build-up then has to start again, leaving the song to finish up not as impactful as it could be. This could be a barn-burner Act 1 closer, and instead it's just pretty good. Also I don't know how Will Roland takes that loooooong end note up and down and back again, and still belt as powerfully at the end of it as the start. The show must be using some new can't-even-look-it-up-on-the-internet technology to pump air into his lungs from backstage. This actor has taken on a very difficult character and pitched it just on the line of where it needs to be to work. So impressive.

Halloween:

Love the song. LOVE the choreo (lookin' at you, Chase Brock.) Love LOVE the addition of the Squip front and center. This makes so much sense, because by manipulating Jeremy he's really manipulating all of them, and his inclusion in the midst of the party instead of on its periphery demonstrates this incredibly well.

I don't love the substitution of a pumpkin candle for a gas can. What even was that thought process? That sucks up the drama of that moment almost entirely. What level of foreboding does one accomplish with a pumpkin?

This scene contains my only major problem with the show, and that is Jake's sudden and unexplained loss of interest in Christine. Are we to infer that they slept together once and that's all Jake was after? And that all of his character development in Act 1 was bullshit? In which case what was the point of developing his character at all? This whole thing could be easily fixed by a line or two where Jake realizes he still has feelings for Chloe, but that never happens. I haven't seen the show since last Sunday (when multiple people told me it was locked in), so I hope since that time they've unlocked it to fix the one glaring flaw, either clarifying Jake is a dick, or Jake misunderstood his own feelings. In any event, Britton is absolutely CRUSHING IT with the nuances of Jake, and I can't wait to hear him on the Broadway cast album.

Do You Wanna Hang?:

Katlyn Carlson is a comic genius. All the little touches she throws into this hilariously awful attempt at seduction are amazing. The only part of this I liked better at Signature is when Jeremy asks her if she's jealous, and in this version she's crying while saying "obviously not." (Or at least she was on Sunday). I think this works better if she immediately *stops* crying at that point, playing it like it's the most absurd possible question Jeremy could ask.

Michael in the Bathroom:

Alternate title: George Salazar at the Tonys

Michael is quite simply the beating heart of this show, an odd role for a supporting character. As played by George, he is that quirky, too weird to be popular but too sweet to not love friend that if we were very lucky, we had growing up. Michael is so important because to be frank, Jeremy is kind of a self-involved dick. That would make the show entirely dependent on Will Roland's ability to make us relate to Jeremy through those trials he faces that we've all experienced - and he does an amazing job. But he also gets a Herculean assist from George, who so convincingly relates how steadfast and loyal to Jeremy Michael is, it makes us believe there's something special in Jeremy that warranted this devotion.

A Guy That I'd Kinda Be Into (Reprise):

During the couch scene between Jeremy and Christine, they've cut out Christine's very valid explanation as to why she can't date Jeremy (it involved getting to know herself better first). This is a problem, because it doesn't make sense at the end of the show when she likes him - we never see why she made that leap, so we're meant to assume she likes him for doing the bare minimum of correcting his own mistake. The way it was at Signature, we find out at least that she just isn't in a head space to date someone on the heels of her breakup with Jake, which shows she could be interested in Jeremy once she gets past that.

The Smartphone Hour:

Easily one of my favorite scenes. Tiffany Mann as Jenna is a delight from start to finish, and this is her moment to shine. Her comic sensibility is perfection. Lauren and Katlyn chime in with equally hilarious support.

My only complaint in this number is the slight lyric change to "Jake's house." For pity's sake, we just spent three or four songs at Jake's party; I promise you, we grasp who's house it is. And the change ruins the flow of the song a bit.

The Pants Song:

Okay yes this song is sweetly funny and does exactly what is needed to advance the plot here. But I just want to talk about Jason SweetTooth Williams overall right now. HOW IS HE A REAL PERSON THAT CAN SO EFFORTLESSLY JUMP FROM ROLE TO ROLE WITHIN SECONDS WITHOUT MISSING A BEAT. Mr. Reyes and his delusions of grandeur is my favorite, but Williams brings equal skill to all his roles, including Jeremy's dad. What a talent.

The Pitiful Children/The Play:

This may be my favorite song. Especially with the song, choreography, and performances here, this show is firing simultaneously on all cylinders. I also love that Jeremy and Jenna have an extended conversation that lets us know her a little more. Tiffany Mann gives a heartfelt authenticity to this that is lovely.

I think this is the scene where these critiques go (apologies if not). I wish Jeremy didn't tell his Squip "you were supposed to make Christine like me!" One thing I love about Jeremy is that he is not really into the popular girls, but the most interesting girl. He digs Christine because of all that she is.

When he says this line, he is upset because the Squip didn't make Christine do what he wanted, meaning he now wants her to change to like him. I think this would work better and make Jeremy come across as less of an incel if the line were more like, "you were supposed to make me someone Christine would like!" It was, after all, himself that Jeremy was looking to change - not Christine, who he loves as she is. That is this character's saving grace, and this diminishes it a bit.

That said, I do think there was an overcorrection in trying to make Jeremy more likeable. In the three previews I saw before Sunday, Jeremy tricks Jenna into drinking the Squip-spiked drink. In the last version I saw, he actually tells her what it is, and she immediately drinks it. It's pretty unrealistic that she would do that. Worse, it conflicts with Jeremy's "you were supposed to make Christine like me!" outburst. If we must allow for the fact the Squip has gained so much control of Jeremy he no longer cares that Christine likes him of her own choosing, he's certainly not going to care about respecting Jenna's need to consent to taking the Squip. Given the choice, I would either change Jeremy's line about making Christine like him, or his choice to tell Jenna what's in the drink. Back-to-back, they don't give us a good sense of how much control the Squip has of Jeremy at that point.

After Jeremy and Michael battle everyone and Jeremy makes his final choice, as the result becomes clear, Michael bizarrely explains what is happening on the spot. This makes little sense, especially in light of the fact that at the hospital, he asks Jeremy how he knew what would result from what he did. Um, he didn't know, you literally explained it to him in the middle of the last scene, bro. I would omit Michael's inexplicably instantaneous explanation from the Play scene and let the audience sit with the aftermath a moment, before having it clarified in the hospital scene.

Voices in my Head:

Not a fan of the lyric changes here, which seem to water down the edge of the teens ("she probably thinks that acne is hot") to morph them into Stepford children ("we got your back 'cause we are your squad" - vomit). Otherwise, this scene wraps everything up well and leaves you satisfield with the weird, wild journey you just went on.

What a score (my #1 favorite in all of musical theater history), what a cast, what a show! If there are not multiple Tonys thrown at this masterpiece, any significance the Tonys have is null and void.

In short, GET THERE or you’re missing the show of the year!

[cap-ironman]

Developing Your Art Ideas for the Cap-IM Reverse Bang

EVENT INFORMATION | ARTIST GUIDELINES | WRITER GUIDELINES

The resources and tips for artists that we mentioned in the last post are relevant to any artwork involving Steve and/or Tony that you may choose to create (and some that are useful for any kind of art!).

In this post we’d like to focus on creating art specifically for the Cap-IM Reverse Bang, and what new elements you might want to consider when keeping the challenge in mind.

Once you have some ideas you want to move forward with, it's time to go back to the fundamental aims of your artwork: for the Reverse Bang specifically, you want to create an interesting piece of art that inspires a writer to tell an awesome Steve/Tony (or Steve & Tony) story!

So think about the kind of narrative you want your art to tell, and how your characters and setting can help you do that. It’s important to remember that for the Reverse Bang, writers will claim an entry based only on the artwork(s) that you submit—you can’t provide them with additional information until after you have been partnered up. Thus, we encourage you to make anything important about your artwork's story to be clear and visible in your RBB submission entry. That way, you are more likely to inspire a writer to create a companion fic that includes that piece of information, and the writer who ends up claiming your fic won’t be surprised by it.

With that taken under advisement, have a shot at fleshing out what sort of narrative you have in mind. What’s the main theme you want to draw upon? Is there a twist you can illustrate? What moment or piece of information is absolutely crucial to your idea? That thing should make its way into your art. For example, if your idea revolves around the identity porn trope where Steve has no clue that Tony is Iron Man, it’s important to try and convey that lack of knowledge through your art. If you really want Steve to find out that Tony is Iron Man, then it’s a good idea to centre your art entry around this: illustrate a scene that makes it clear Steve didn’t know about Tony’s alter-ego and now does (like the reveal itself, or a flashback) so that you’ve put forward this concept.

If you’re thinking of a particular point in canon, how can you make that obvious? Are there visual clues you can give the viewers? For example, Tony’s eye colour or facial hair can help identify a universe to some degree. So can superhero costumes and the Avengers’ team roster.

If you’re considering an AU or universe fusion, what part of Steve and Tony’s dynamic are you most attached to? What about their characters do you want to highlight?

Ask yourself what the most important element is about your scene or concept. What about this idea do you love most—the setting? The costuming? The potential angst or feels or fluff that the moment conveys?

The Cap-IM Reverse Bang runs from January until the end of May, which means that you have 4-5 months of time to spend with your artwork(s). You want to really love the idea you decide on illustrating, so choose whatever speaks to you most and focus on it. If you find something that you connect with, pay attention to it and carry it forward into your submission, as this investment and sincere love for your creation is what will make it shine! If your idea impacts you, chances are good that it will impact others, too.

You can take this event as an opportunity to try something completely new: maybe a format you haven't tried; a set of brushes you've been meaning to pick up; switching to a traditional medium like acrylics or charcoal; imitating a certain style you admire. Challenge yourself to create art in a universe you haven’t ventured into yet, or subjects you’ve never drawn before. Alternatively, you can create versions of Steve and Tony you know you do really well, or employ your distinctive artistic style, or play around with a trope that’s right up there in your comfort zone.

The Reverse Bang is a fun, collaborative event that lets you explore what you like best about drawing Steve and Tony, whether that’s experimenting with novel concepts or returning to re-imagine the familiar.

We look forward to receiving all your fabulous entries in our inbox! Remember that if you have any questions not covered by the Guidelines of the RBB (linked at the top of the post) you can flick us an email at cap.im.events@gmail.com.

[book-coverage]

Book Covers (Are an Act of Trust)

An Interview With Lisa Perrin by Christine H. Lee

We write our books alone. We have control over our words and our narrative. And then someday, it gets published. And then we have little say over how our work is represented. It’s a nerve-wracking thing. You as a writer have had agency over the content of your work. Every word—likely even the title.

But starting with the cover, you learn that the book is in the hands of others and that you have to let go. When it comes to book covers, writers are asked to step back and accept what’s created on their behalf. There’s little input on image, on font choice and size, or colors; in the end, writers may have limited veto power. The reality being: how many times can you veto politely?

There are wonderful covers out there. And there are missteps too. (Consider Japanese fans on the cover of a book written about and by someone Chinese). Bottomline: there is risk in putting trust in others.

I was lucky to have had Lisa Perrin illustrate the cover of Tell Me Everything You Don’t Remember—Lisa illustrated my BuzzFeed essay off which my memoir was based. She “got it” and of course I befriended her. I had to know the person behind the art and the person who, I am convinced, helped elevate my essay to become so widely consumed. Again: I am so lucky.

I wanted to share a little bit of the process behind book covers with you. I interviewed Lisa long ago, well before the pandemic, with the intention of publishing her words in this newsletter. My apologies if some of this is a bit dated. But truly, her perspective on book covert art is heartening—because she is a fellow artist, too, with great empathy for the creative process. With book covers, we are putting our faith in someone else toto take what we have created and put it into an image. But they too are artists.

And I hope what she says enlightens you too. Lisa Perrin’s art is amazing—and while I knew her from my work at BuzzFeed, she has an amazing portfolio of illustrations. She’s illustrated greeting cards for American Greetings, for Macy’s, and book covers for publishing houses. She teaches at her alma mater, Maryland Institute College of Art (and often assigns her students book covers for assessment!). Her work is vivid and inventive—and filled with energetic movement. Truly beautiful imagery that keeps your eye moving. It’s no wonder she’s become popular as a book cover illustrator. And when you read her interview, you’ll also understand the care she takes with how she interprets the writer’s vision.

In this time when trust feels fragile—it’s good to know there are to trust with your words. Thank you, Lisa.

Here’s the interview.

——-

Christine Lee: Part of my intention is to put a spotlight on book cover artists--and the process of book cover art from the illustrator’s perspective. You’ve been such a crucial partner to my work--and I’d love to learn a bit more of what you do--and hopefully publish to my readership.

Lisa Perrin: Hi Christine, thank you for your patience! I hope you are well. I appreciate that you wanted to interview me! :)

CL: Hi Lisa. For so many writers, the accompanying artwork is something to which we aren’t privy in the publishing process. We largely don’t pick the artwork accompanying our published essays or stories--and we definitely don’t have much insight into book cover design. So I appreciate you taking the time to open up what is a black box to us all. For starters--what is the title of your role? And what exactly is it you’re responsible for in delivering book cover art?

LP: I am delighted to talk about and demystify the process! I am an illustrator. I create visual art for many different types of clients, such as editorial, advertising, and surface design, but book covers have become the majority of my work. I think I have done about thirty book covers in the past six years! In the end, I deliver a layered Adobe Photoshop file with the custom-made artwork I’ve created. I am also a hand lettering artist and often hand letter the book’s title.

CL: How did you find your way to designing book covers? You were a working artist prior to working on book covers. Was this a pre-designated goal of yours? Are there any ways in which your work illustrating cards for American Greetings informs your book cover art?

LP: Creative career paths are rarely linear. In college I double majored in English and fine art painting. I think I have always been drawn to vehicles for story telling. I am also a lifelong fan of theater. My first job in high school was reshelving books in the local public library. Picture books often have an “about the illustrator” biography on the back flap of the dust jacket, and I would always flip to that as I was reshelving. I didn’t know anyone who was a professional artist or how to become one. I resolved to go back to school to earn a master’s degree in Illustration at the Maryland Institute College of Art. The program really helped me understand this industry, learn new digital tools for art making, and develop a portfolio.

Shortly after graduating with my MFA, I was hired to be an in-house illustrator for the American Greetings card company. Even though I was working full time, I actively sought out many freelance illustration projects. My time at AG was an invaluable learning experience. While I was there I was able to take lettering classes every week with a master calligrapher. I believe that being an artist who could do both the illustrations and hand lettering gave me an advantage in jobs where words and pictures mingle.

I cannot say that I set out specifically to become a book cover illustrator or a greeting card artist. I had a passion for design and a compulsion for drawing. I just want to put things that I think are beautiful in the world. I think all of these experiences have informed my current work. I often say that book covers are just posters for books. A poster is a classic illustration assignment. You have to convey the information clearly and aesthetically in a way that appeals to the right audience. You need to consider style, tone, and mood, as well as the hierarchy of information, conveying the most important things first. The artist tells you where to look and guides your eye around an image. I enjoy having my work be a part of our visual culture!

CL: Can you describe the process of designing/illustrating a book cover? How much do you know about a book as you make the art? What is your approach to deciding and envisioning what will be the image for the book?

LP: Typically the process begins when the designer at the publishing house reaches out to me or my agent to gauge my interest in the project and my availability. From there I usually receive a brief and a synopsis of the story. Sometimes I am sent a full manuscript. They may include a piece of artwork I previously made as reference, suggesting that they want something similar. They may list some other books that are cut from the same cloth as this one stylistically to help guide me as well. I usually ask a lot of questions at this point as I try to understand what the designer is looking for. There are many people who are part of this process, such as the design team, the editor, the author, and the sales and marketing team. There are projects where they know exactly what they want and other times its more about exploration and finding just the right note.

I usually get about two weeks for sketches. I try to incorporate anything specific that was requested, as well as include some other options as well. I typically send about four sketches. Next, I will get feedback on those sketches to change or revise certain elements. This part of the process can go on for weeks or months. Sometimes we will change course at this time if its not working. Once the sketch has been approved I send in color studies which are rough drafts of what the colors may look like. Once that has been approved, I can then begin to make my final art.

CL: Do you consider the reader or the writer most?

LP: I personally always think about the author when I’m designing. I only have this project for a few months, but for them it’s their baby that they have spent years on. I want the cover to be something that feels like the right home for something they care about so much. People do indeed judge books by their covers, and a dynamic and compelling cover can really help bolster interest and sales.

CL: If you could ever be in touch with the writer as you create your art, is there something you would say? Or do you feel it’s best when writers and illustrators are silo’d (as they currently are)"?

LP: This is a great and really interesting question. My understanding is that authors and illustrators are intentionally kept apart during this process. The author is so close to their work that it can be challenging to see it interpreted in other ways. The publishing house has experience with design and marketing for book covers and know industry trends and so on. I would love to have more contact with the author and hear what they envision and potentially incorporate that.

CL: If you could make the book cover for any book--classic or contemporary--what book would that be? And why?

LP: I have so many dream projects! So far I have only worked on covers for contemporary novels, but I would absolutely love to create covers for some great literary classics. I think a fresh or modern cover has the power to help revitalize and reignite reader’s love for those classic works. I’d be thrilled to make covers for some of Shakespeare’s plays, or Edgar Allan Poe’s dark mysterious stories. I would love to do a series celebrating great women authors! I also love folk and fairy tales, so that would be a very fun project as well!

I am fortunate to be a professor of Illustration at my alma mater and assigning book covers is one of my favorite projects.

[elsiesmith672]

10 Basic Principles of Visual Design

Yesterday I was listening to a podcast and heard someone who was about to ask a question saying something along the lines of "..long time fan, first time caller…" and for some reason that got me thinking about Medium. I've been consuming content here for a long time but have never contributed myself with my 2 cents. Today is the day this changes.

As my introduction I decided to write about something close to my heart, Visual Design (aka graphic design), more specifically the basic principles I learned to use which I consider essentials for me to perform my job well.

I want to keep this article short, for that reason I will try to be brief in each of these principles, for the ones that deserve a bit more depth I might dedicate a full length article in the future.

Ok, ready? It all starts with…

#1 Point, Line & Shape

These are the most basic building blocks of any design, no matter what it is. With these you can create anything you want, from simple icons to very complex illustrations, everything is made with the combination of these simple elements.

In geometry a point is a combination of x and y coordinates, add a z axis and you’re in 3D, but let's stick with 2 dimensions for this article.

If you connect two points you'll get a line. A line that is formed by an immensity of points, a bit like a bunch of atoms form molecules which, in turn, form all the objects around you. Then, if you add a third point and connect them all you have a shape, in this case a triangle, but as mentioned before you can use this basic elements to achieve pretty much anything that you want.

Now, to your eyes these shapes don't really exist until you add something to it…

#2 Color

The human eye can see over 10 million different colours from red to violet, and from young age all of us learn to attribute certain values or meanings to specific colours.

Imagine the traffic lights for instance. They’re just colours but we learn that red means stop, green means go and yellow means step on the metal because you can make it before it turns red. This to say that we take very different actions just based on a colour, sometimes even without thinking about it.

In my opinion this happens simply because we learn these things, not because a colour has an intrinsic meaning attached to it. This is more true if you consider that these meanings will change depending on your culture, where and when you were raised.

All this to say that you can add meaning, intention and a tone just by picking the right colour, you just need to make sure you understand very well who you're designing for.

Now that you can see your triangle, how about making it more interesting…

#3 Typography

This is a big one and I consider one of the most important, and difficult, things for designer to get right. It’s not only about what you write but how you present it. Typography is how your words look like.

With the right typeface you can have a banal piece of text and make it powerful, but that’s not easy to do, what is easy is to completely mess up a powerful statement just by selecting the wrong typeface. Typography, as well as colour, allows you to define a tone.

Most typefaces are designed with a purpose, you just need to learn what that is and use it in your favour. Some typefaces are great for big blocks of text, some work great as titles. Some are merely functional and super clear and others are just meant to be fun or used ironically (you know what I'm talking about).

There are thousands of different typefaces to choose from but unless you need something whimsical or you're trying to make something very specific I would always advise to stick with the classics. However, if you're felling bold you can even design your own typeface, although I think that is one of the most challenging things to do properly as a designer, but if you think you’re up for the task one thing that you can't forget is…

#4 Space

The way you balance your space can be a maker or a breaker, specially in typography.

You need to consider how each element/letter relates to each other, give them the precise breathing room they need, this is usually referred to as negative space (positive space are the actual letters).

You need to take the negative space as part of your design and use it well, space can be powerful and help your viewer to navigate through your design. It can also be a place to rest the eyes.

Use it wisely though, too much space and your design will look unfinished, too little space and your design will seem too crowded.

Managing to find the right ratio between positive and negative space allows you to create…

#5 Balance, Rhythm & Contrast

This is when you’re starting to make a bunch of plain elements into something interesting and appealing. Balance well all the elements on your design by considering their visual weight. A big black square in the your bottom right corner will sink your design from that side. Compensate for that weight or move it to other position.

he way you lay elements in the page is crucial, making some elements heavier than others will help to to create contrast and rhythm and lead your viewer's eyes through your design gracefully and effortlessly.

Something that may help you with rhythm and balance is also to play with…

#6 Scale

Scale helps you not only creating rhythm contrast and balance but also hierarchy. Basically not all the elements in your design should have the same importance, and one of the best ways to convey that is size.

Now, this must serve a purpose. Don’t go for the “make my logo bigger cream” approach and forget about the space I mentioned before.

For instance, take a newspaper page. What’s the biggest thing in the page?

The titles, that are also usually short. Why? So you can scan the page quickly and see if there’s something interesting for you to read. Then we have the subtitles that are smaller but give you a little more information about the article, and finally we have the article that has the smallest font size but also the most comfortable to read a long piece of text.

So, it’s all about making the size serve a purpose and never forget about the person who will consume your design. Speaking of newspaper, is time to bring some order with…

#7 Grid & Alignments

It’s like that oddly satisfying feeling when you're playing Tetris and you stack that last bar that clears your screen.

These are supposed to be invisible but you'll see them if you open a book or a newspaper, but (no matter what you’re designing) following a grid will structure your design and make it more pleasant and easier to digest.

Even if you’re making a chaotic design purposefully, there must be an order for that chaos.

Alignment is specially important with text, there are several ways to align it but my rule of thumb is to align it left. It always depends on what and for whom you’re designing of course, but generally, people read from left to right, top to bottom, which makes text that is center or right aligned much more difficult to read.

#8 Framing

This is a key concept in photography but it also applies in visual design.

Whether you’re using a picture, an illustration or something else, framing something properly makes all the difference.

Try to direct the eye to what matters, crop/frame images to make your subject stand out or to reinforce your message. It’s all about telling the right story and telling it well.

After all this, if you feel there's something missing, you can play around with…

#9 Texture & Patterns

I personally see texture and patterns like accessories, you don’t have to use them necessarily and you can live without them but sometimes they can, almost on their own, make your design or add that little extra interest it was missing.

Textures are not as trendy as they used to be a while ago but with them you can add another dimension to your design, making it more three dimensional and touchable.

The texture doesn't have to be in the composition itself, if it's something that is going to be printed, picking the right paper, add things like bevel, emboss or UV varnish can make your design pass from banal to something superb. But pick one, don't go crazy with the special finishings.

Patterns are all about repetition, and can be almost considered textures depending on how you’re using them. I see them mostly used as a way to inject rhythm and dynamism into a flat design and a way to compensate the excess of negative space.

Last but not least, and this is actually what I personally consider to be the holy grail of visual design…

#10 Visual Concept

This is the idea behind your design. What do you mean with it and what’s the deeper meaning behind the superficial image.

This is what distinguish a great design from something you can download from a stock website.

Design with intent and always have an idea that connects everything in your design. Pick your fonts carefully and with a purpose, think about how every tiny part of your design follows that base concept. Coherence is everything.

If your concept is strong you’ll be able to defend it and sell the idea to your client/boss or whomever you're presenting it to.

Also, a properly thought out will last for ages. Trendy hipster things are nice and cute but, as the moustaches and the checkered shirts, they come with an expiry date. I really believe that a good design does NOT follow trends, but it creates them instead.

There you have it, "my" 10 Principles to build a good design. Even thought I consider #10 the essential one, you need to pay attention to all the others principles and make sure you really become a master of your craft. You might have a great idea but I think you also need to know how to make it justice (or have someone who does it for you).

If you really want to know about  Creative Design Decks please share your thoughts in comment section.

[abpettiford-blog]

Design Integration: Mastery Journal

Month Overview

The month 8 class was Design Integration. The month began with research and exploration in creating the characteristics, voice, and tone sample for our chosen community. We quickly moved into the creation of a static vision board which combined the collective knowledge discovered up to this point in a purely visual format. From there, a dynamic vision board was created to show the look and feel of the brand using motion graphics and audio. We then wrapped up the month by creating a media plan and designing a final design brief that will be used to guide all creative design from this point forward. Continuing to delve into research was a core skill exercised and strengthened over the course of the month. I am still having trouble researching using Full Sail’s library databases, so I always end up returning to Google and beginning my search there.

Connecting/Synthesizing/Transforming

The research completed during the course of Design Integrations was focused on several areas. The areas of research included crafting several solution statements; brand characteristics, voice, tone, tagline, and mission statement development; static and dynamic vision board development; media plan creation, and design brief creation. Several resources provided detailed information as to “the why” more than “the how”. This allowed me to synthesize solutions that would solve the design problem effectively based on the research.

A great example of how this was used can be found in the discovery phase of the solution statements. During research, it was found, according to Curren, that creativity can drive a place brand and bottom-up branding can really work (2017). These strategies rely on the strength of the community to help determine the direction and influence the vibe of the community’s brand. This bit of research helped me understand how to bridge the gap between solving the design problem and including the target audience in its formation. This solution will effectively solve the problem by engaging and allowing community members to be a part of the overall narrative.

Another example of how the research was synthesized and helped transform the work was in the choosing of the primary color for the brand. The primary color chosen to represent the brand is orange. In the research Sutton and Whelan discuss how orange is a stimulating, energizing color that appears friendly, outgoing, cheerful, and adventurous (2004). This directly corresponds and conveys the brand characteristic of entertaining. Orange also projects an inviting message. Using these type of connections within the framework of the brand helped solve and convey the necessary voice, tone, and feel even through the use of color.

Problem Solving

The design problem we are solving for is community locals are looking for an authentic, lively, and distinctive experience unique to this area because currently, one does not exist. The design problem is usually solved by increasing community awareness and recognition through community-focused events. Branding may or not be the driving force of this effort when others in the industry complete this type of work. I solved the problem by using the design thinking process which places the target audience’s needs and wants to the top of the list of priorities.

Innovative Thinking

When researching how other communities solved design problems regarding community brand awareness and identity design, my approach is similar but unique in one respect. Using design thinking methodology has led to crafting an empathetic, target audience- focused solution. This approach keeps the target audience at the center of all design choices. Using this framework ensures that the solutions crafted to solve the problems meet both the client and target audience needs in an authentic way. The subject of innovation was approached in the way the design choices tie into the audience preferences and overall brand aesthetic. The information gathered using in-person interviews and insights help define an aesthetic and strategy that will resonate with the target audience on an emotional level.

The work is innovative in the way the design process was approached using design thinking versus the traditional design process which doesn’t put empathy as a priority. This important difference can dramatically shift the focus and scope of the design problem and solution.

Acquiring Competencies

The challenges faced this month resulted in a few new research skills being acquired, a deeper understanding of efficient motion graphic workflows using After Effects, and a deeper understanding of grids and hierarchy in page layout. Because I continue to have issues finding relevant research using Ebscohost and the other research databases available, I have begun mastering conducting relevant research using other resources such as Google. Being able to search using specific keywords has been a skill I continue to develop as the program has progressed. The development of completing the dynamic vision board required me to research how to create the logo reveal effect and scene transitions. I learned about using advanced shape layer animation to create the line grow effect, how to tweak the graph editor to create particular ease in and out combinations that reflected the brand voice and tone, and how to use adjustments to create blended effects affecting multiple layers in a unique and interesting way. 

During the development of the design brief, I learned how to maximize custom, asymmetrical grids to ensure that all elements were aligned for visual consistency. The grids changed from page to page and I ended up with a variety of custom templated pages that I could use. Using this approach helped me keep the design brief interesting. I also researched typography and hierarchy and now I could maximize the hierarchy for the greatest visual impact. The competencies learned and improved in this month will help me become a more efficient and proficient media designer during both the discovery (pre-production) phase and production.

Reflections

The experience this month was very filling for the analytic and creative part of me. Refining gathered research and putting it into an aesthetic format was pretty challenging but fun at the same time. After completing the voice and tone sections, the design brief was ready for design. I had an interesting research and trial and error phase while designing the cover. Originally the research led me to a solution that had 60% whitespace on the cover. I re-evaluated this after putting the rest of the design brief together. The solution I ended up with matches the overall brand voice and aesthetic of the design brief. Creating interior pages for the design brief was also challenging because the brand voice encourages variety and new experiences. These characteristics need to be conveyed through the design brief as much as possible to present a unified presentation. 

This course was challenging but has forever altered my approach to new projects. I’ve had the opportunity to incorporate the knowledge I’ve learned this month (and last month) into new client projects. I’ve found that when you present to clients from a place of research and consumer insight they are more likely to accept your problem and solution statements. More importantly, providing them detailed insight into their target audience shows that you are intent on solving the real problem. The problem may be different from what was originally considered. I hope to build upon this knowledge going forward as a media professional and continue to sharpen my research, problem and solution defining skills, and technical mastery with the programs and processes used to complete creative projects.

Final Files Dynamic Vision Board YouTube link Community Village North Design Brief

References

Curren, D. (2017, July 17). 8 Lessons in Place Branding from City Nation Place Americas. Retrieved from https://aboutdci.com/2017/07/8-lessons-place-branding-from-city-nation-place-americas/

[recentanimenews]

EXCLUSIVE: In/Spectre Producer On the Challenges of Turning Manga into Anime

In/Spectre is one of the most endearing and unique series to come out of this season of anime. Kotoko and Kuro are at the center of an intriguing story of yokai, romance, and the power of internet rumors that swept fans up into a world of love and mystery. At last year’s Crunchyroll Expo, we had a chance to talk with Tatsuya Ishiguro, one of the anime’s producers about how the original novels became an anime, how the main characters were cast, and how he became a producer working in the anime industry.

Can you tell us a little bit about your career, and how you ended up becoming a producer in anime?

I wanted to become a creator, but entered the industry with a non-creative role. I kept switching companies and jobs, and then I ended up in King Records and then Pony Canyon, and then eventually I became a producer. 

Producers are often very intense roles in the sense that they have to manage so many different aspects of scheduling of recordings, making sure the scripts are coming along and keeping up to date with the animation process. What draws you to this role, as opposed to any other roles in the anime industry?

Again, I wanted to be a creator, but I can’t draw. I can’t really write or act and, I don’t really have any talent in music, so I just ended up as a producer. 

  Is there something about the role of producer that you’ve grown to enjoy or that you found to be special? 

I get to be involved in all these things. I get to see all the art, I get to look at the script, I get to go to the recordings, but I also get to have input on all of these things, too. 

That sounds like a very unique position to be in. To have a broad view of all these different creative processes coming together seems very special. 

Personally, I can’t do any of those things in a special way, but I do get to be involved with all of the different aspects, which is special in itself.

Can you speak a bit about how the In/Spectre novel was chosen for an anime adaptation?

This might not be too interesting, but we produce a lot of anime with Kodansha, and Kodansha pretty much asked me, “would you like to make this into an anime?”

Is that a common route for anime adaptations, the book publisher asking for an adaptation to be made? 

It’s one of the more common patterns.

Can you tell us a little about the process of adapting a novel into anime?

So, they have a novel for this title, but there’s also the manga version, and the anime draws more on the manga instead of the novel. Basically, everything within the show is adapted from the manga series.

Are there any aspects that draw from the novels at all, or is it completely focused on adapting the manga? 

Yes, there is be some stuff from the novel that will be in the anime, as well. 

Before we move on for another question, I’m just very interested in hearing: what is the difference in adapting a novel to anime versus adapting manga to anime? 

Most of it is the same. The biggest difference is that with the manga you actually have something to look at, visually. With the novel, it may be harder to visualize, so in that case, it lands on pretty much if the creative visualize correctly from the novel.

In/Spectre balances mystery, romance, drama, and comedy. Can you talk about the process of adapting these very different tones from the manga to the anime? Was it challenging?

More than the actual story we wanted to focus on the characters, how unique and interesting Kotoko is and why Kuro might be very charming, or why people might find him interesting as well. 

It feels like fans really picked up on the character dynamic when they watched the first episode, and it feels like a very very strong driving force. How did your team land on Mamoru Miyano and Akari Kito as the leads for the cast?

Like most anime, it was pretty standard. We had an audition and then landed on those two.  

What about them do you think is a good fit for the two main characters?

In the series, Kotoko describes Kuro as a goat, or compares him to a goat, and Miyano Mamoru has a very soft, kind-sounding voice. But also there’s something lingering in the background that’s sort or strange and unique, so it’s perfect. 

(Laughter) I very much understand that. 

With Kotoko, since this is a mystery series, she generally has very, very long lines, and she talks a lot. She needs a very serious tone, but also she’s able to flip really quickly and have a cutesy tone, and Akari Kito did that really well. 

What is the most important thing that you and the rest of your team wanted to convey to the viewers in the In/Spectre anime? 

There are battles in this series, they’re not really physical though. They don’t involve magic, psychic abilities, pretty much no weapons. What it is is a battle of lives, and that part is really hard to convey so we worked pretty hard on that. 

It’s really interesting and fun to see that play out in the series. 

If you could be a producer on any anime adaptation or any novel or manga that hasn’t been adapted yet, which would you choose and why?

If I had the chance... there are so many series right now. Most anime is one cour, so 12 episodes or so, and there are so many series that have been out there that haven’t been completely finished, for various reasons. But if I had a chance I would like to finish things that have already been established. 

If I could, I’d like to adapt a novel from the Edo era. I’d like to adapt Satomi Hakken-den, it’s the Legend of the Eight Dogs. It’s been adapted to various media… it’s been an OVA series before, plenty of manga, and it’s been adapted into other indirect anime, but if I had the chance I’d like to fully animate that into a series. 

I’d love to see that. 

Crunchyroll is heavily involved in the In/Spectre anime. With anime fan communities growing all over the world, and companies like Crunchyroll taking a more hands-on approach with anime production, could you talk about how global anime fans and companies are changing the industry?

I’ve been to various cons overseas, like Crunchyroll Expo, Anime Expo, SakuraCon. But right now anime, if it’s just being made for Japan, it’s not really a good business model anymore. And for creators, it’s not very fulfilling. So we do sell to America and Asia, as well as various other countries, and we feel that Crunchyroll is a very special partner because it’s an anime streaming site. They specialize in anime and they understand anime, and perhaps we can look forward to more original content from them.

So the last question: do you have anything else you’d like to share with Western anime fans who might be looking forward to In/Spectre? 

I’d like to expand on a previous question and go on a little more about In/Spectre.

We did take In/Spectre from the manga, but despite it being a manga, there’s a lot of dialogue and a lot of words, and the staff at first was very worried that they weren’t going to be able to fit all the dialogue in a 30-minute episode. When we adapt something from an original story, usually we can add padding or take stuff off that we don’t feel fits. But for this series, it was extremely hard to cut anything out. So again, we have to drop some stuff, so we’ve been very carefully cherry-picking the absolute best things we can, and we hope that the viewers can actually see that the staff is actually picking the absolute best parts that people will enjoy. 

It’s like very carefully pruning a bonsai. 

Ah! Hmm-hm, perfect analogy. 

Well, is there any else you’d like to share with Western anime fans before we conclude the interview?

Even now, in Japan 3D animation is getting bigger, it’s getting more commonplace. But this series is 2D and has a very experienced director and a very young animation staff, so I want to show that 2D animation is still appealing. I want people to experience that more, still, as long as I can. 

As someone who really loves 2D animation and hand-drawn artistry, I’m very thankful for that. So thank you for keeping this art alive.

---

  Watch the first episode of In/Spectre here!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[jamiekturner]

Digital Painting: Concept Art, Techniques, Tips, and Tutorials

Digital painting has a lot of nuances and challenges.

Now that tablets are more common, there are now a ton of options for digital painting apps and tools.

These developments have made it a lot easier to learn how to create a digital painting.

There are so many options out there to help you out and allow you to express yourself artistically, many of them things that haven’t been seen before.

Even if you haven’t picked up a pencil or a brush before, you can learn the digital painting process.

Of course, as with all artistic endeavors, digital painting techniques take time and practice to master. The first thing you need to do is select your digital painting software. It can be a program on a computer or a tablet app.

A quick search on the Apple or Google App store shows that there are a ton of apps available. Take a look at the features, the user reviews, and the screenshots. Different apps have different setups which may or may not work for you.

Some offer more elaborate brush sets or extensive customer support. If you want to record your digital painting process, pick an app that supports that capability. Be careful if you choose to spend money, as there are a lot of good free apps out there. Please note that many free apps sell extra brush sets and other options.

For the desktop, you may want to learn to create a digital painting in Photoshop. Photoshop has been the go to for desktop digital painting. Its controls are very simple to learn and there are a lot of digital painting tutorials online for it. You can also find a lot free plugins and fonts for Photoshop very easily.

Photoshop is a good choice to invest in if you’re looking to start doing digital painting on a regular basis. It’s been around so long that there are nearly limitless options for digital painting with Photoshop.

With your digital painting software selected, it’s time to figure out how to use it. We’ve prepared a guide to digital painting. Whether you want to try your hand at digital painting concept art, or are just looking for a way to express yourself, these digital painting tips should help you out.

The Usefulness of a Pen Tablet

It’s going to be much easier to create a digital painting if you have a pen tablet, even if you are using Photoshop on a computer. What a pen tablet (or a tablet app with a stylus) does is allow you to draw and/or paint as if you were using a brush or pen on a piece of paper or canvas. This ia much easier than using a mouse or using your finger.

If you’re doing your digital painting on Photoshop, there will be some unique features with using a pen tablet. You’ll be able to access additional settings in the Brush Panel if you connect your pen tablet to Photoshop. Even if the pen tablet is designed to work with Photoshop, it will not be the most intuitive, cooperative, or easiest thing to use. You will get frustrated.

There are a lot of options for different pen tablets. They vary pretty widely in size and cost. Whatever one you choose, make sure it has Pen Pressure, as that will make it much easier to use.

There are just as many options for styluses if you opt to use a regular tablet. The Apple Pencil is designed to work with the IPad, but there are a lot of other Bluetooth compatible styluses and even some that don’t require any connection. Check reviews and see if you can try them out to see how they feel.

Using Brushes

You’ll quickly find that there are a lot of brushes you can use when creating a digital painting. Figuring out these brushes is perhaps the most important of the digital painting basics. You should learn which brush you want to use for what effect, the size and settings you will need, and what sort of pressure to use.

There’s no brush or brush setting that will make your painting better if you do not know how to use them correctly. No brush will guarantee a particular look, regardless of its title or the title of the brush set. The only way to get better digital paintings is to practice.

Brushes can be used for a variety of things. Some of these include:

Sketching

Painting

Filling in large areas with color, like the well-known Paint Bucket Tool

Creating gradients of transitioning colors

Doing general shading with dark tones, highlights, and mid tones

Adding realistic textures

Painting in patterns quickly

Fine-tuning details

Throughout the course of digital painting, you will probably use a brush for all these things. The wide variety of brushes means that you can typically find the right one for the job. If you can’t, good digital painting software will allow you to modify existing brushes. Sometimes you can change the whole look of the brush by tweaking these settings.

Brushes are really, really great for adding realistic and interesting textures to your digital painting. Photo texture brushes are easy to find. It’s hard to convey a texture like denim with a normal brush and consumes a lot of time.

Use texture brushes to make your digital painting look like a real photo. If you want a texture brush you can’t find, look online for digital painting classes that teach how to make these brushes yourself.

The most common brush used is the Standard Round Brush. If you hear someone tell you they use the ‘round brush’, they mean this brush. By tweaking this brush’s settings and size, you can achieve a lot of different effects and textures.

Even by doing something as simple as changing the Hardness of the brush from 0% to 100% creates noticeable differences.

Hardness, Size, and Opacity

You hear these terms a lot when looking at various digital painting classes and tutorials. They are the simplest settings to change and also the ones that make the best difference. For a soft feel, go for a soft brush, while crisp edges are best done with harder brush setting.

Play with the settings if you feel stuck or frustrated. If you stay with only one brush setting, your digital painting will probably look very boring and one dimensional. You should be changing your brush settings often as you progress through the digital painting process.

Specialty and Texture Brushes

Texture and specialty brushes can make your life easier. Instead of requiring you to paint fur or fabric textures out by hand, you can just find a brush to paint the pattern in for you, achieving the effect you want in seconds. Trying to do it by hand might take you hours, if you can pull it off at all.

As tempting as it might be to use this kinds of brushes at all times on your digital paintings, try not to rely on them too much. It can reduce the variety and visual interest of your work.

The Eraser Brush

In many respects, the eraser tool is just another brush. Don’t think of it just as way of getting rid of mistakes. It can also be used to do a lot of other things on your digital painting.

Erasers can be used to create highlights, much in the same way they are used to create highlights on charcoal or pencil artwork. What’s amazing about the eraser in digital painting software is that it can have its opacity, size, softness, and shape changed much like any other brush. You can use it to create all sorts of effects. It can be used to clean up edges or overspills of color, but it can also be used to soften edges. All you have to do is play with the settings to see what effect you get.

Layers

Layers are one of the key elements of digital painting. You can create an outline of your painting on one layers, then color it in freely on a layer below that. This will make sure you can consistently see your guidelines throughout the digital painting process. Background details can be their own layer so you can make adjustments to the foreground without having to everything else.

Layers not only make it easier to organize and edit your artwork, but also allow you a chance to try out different looks. Want to see which colors or which different shades of one color work better? Make a layer with each one. You can switch the visibility of each layer on and off so you can see what each one looks like.

The Undo Button

The undo button is a great feature in digital painting. You should not rely on it too much, and it does have its limits, but it can help you out. If your hands slips and ruins a brushstroke, you can just get rid of it with a click.

As you learn how to create digital paintings, don’t let the undo button’s easiness turn you into a perfectionist. For one thing, the undo button will only go back so far. Second, you might be surprised how well something that isn’t quite perfect turns out.

Sketching

Sketching is a great exercise to improve your skills as a digital artist. It allows you to learn the different brushes and get a feel for how to create different weights of lines with your pen tablet or stylus. It’s also a great way to try out ideas for different digital paintings. You can use your sketch as the base for a new painting.

When sketching, you should avoid soft edges. You don’t want a blurry sketch. Here are some fo the best brush settings for sketching:

Brush Hardness: 100%

Spacing: under 30%

Brush Size: smaller size brushes make for cleaner sketches; 5-10 pixels is a nice size range

Shape Dynamics: Put Size Control to Pen Pressure for tapered ends

Transfer: Put Opacity Control to Pen Pressure.

These settings make for some nice clean line art. Shape Dynamics will also make your sketches look more traditional, but don’t start thinking of it as a necessity.

Colors in digital paintings

Learning how to color a digital painting can be a lot of fun.

First start out filling in the base colors of the digital painting, then move onto carving out shadows, highlight, and mid tones. Your goal is to get the paint on canvas, so don’t worry if the different colors are a bit too hard against each other or a bit sloppier than you like.

Here’s some brush settings to help you out with this basic coloring stage:

Brush Hardness: Will vary based on the effect. Soft brushes will makes realistic shadows. Hard brushes will help to sculpt. Stick to 30-50% in most cases.

Brush Size: Bigger works better for quick application.

Shape Dynamics: Make sure you turn the Pen Pressure Off after you finish sketching. If you leave it on, the brush strokes will be tapered and difficult to apply.

As rough as the end result of this stage may appear, you will be smoothing it out when you begin blending.

A Recommendation when drawing digital paintings

It’s tempting to start painting in vivid colors, especially because the digital color palette offers such a vast range of colors to choose from with a click or tap. However, this can make your digital painting look like a cartoon or painful to look at. Bright, vivid colors work very well for a few styles, but anything more realistic than certain styles of cartoon will not look great in those unnatural colors.

Instead, paint with more natural tones. Take color samples (easy to do on almost any digital painting software) from photos to get a good naturalistic color palette. Using these kinds of colors will make a big difference in the realism of even the most fantastic digital painting concept art.

If you want to paint people, look at natural color palettes for skin tones. Skin is more complex in color than you might think. Realistic depiction of skin tone requires more than using varying shades of brown.

Blending

Blending is when you start using your soft brushes. Hard brushes are very hard to use for blending. Gauge how useful your brush settings are by setting them at the lowest level of Hardness. If that doesn’t work, steadily increase it until it works perfectly for your digital painting. Your chosen style will determine which brush settings are best, but here are some digital painting brush guidelines to help you get started on blending:

Brush Hardness: Begin with 0% and increase after you start experimenting

Brush Size: Large brushes cover more area’ you will rarely use very tiny brush sizes

Shape Dynamics: Keep Pen Pressure off during the blending phase

Detailing a digital painting

Detailing becomes more important with higher resolutions. Overall, painting will be much easier when working at high resolutions, but the detailing typically becomes harder. The larger file size simply creates more brush lag (especially on Photoshop). Be patient and keep working through the brush lag for best results.

Some brush setting guidelines to help you out:

Brush Hardness: Keep the settings between 60-100% for the most crisp details

Brush Size: Will depends on your painting resolution. In general, it’s best to use smaller brushes to help you get into the nooks and crannies of the digital painting for the best details

As always, feel free to experiment and see what works best for your piece. You may end up using very different brush settings from those described here.

Using Photo Textures in digital paintings

The addition of photo textures can add an extra layer of realism to your digital painting. What we mean by photo textures is taking parts of photographs that you manipulate to blend into your digital painting. It’s a good digital painting technique to use to get perfect textures for all sorts of things from clothes and skin to a general gritty texture. It’s a technique that takes a bit of experimentation and practice to get to work right, but it can be great for those times when you can’t find a brush for the texture you want to use.

Applying Ambient Occlusion

Ambient Occlusion is a shading technique used to figure how exposed each point in a painting would be to ambient lighting. For grayscale painting, using it breaks down quite simply: One grayscale base + colors set to different blend modes = a nearly completed digital painting.

Getting your lighting right can turn an okay digital painting into something amazing. Photoshop’s Ambient Occlusion capability will apply a universal lighting scenario to your image. This will save you a lot of time and effort. By painting in grayscale, using Ambient Occlusion, then converting your grayscale image to color, you are nearly done with your artwork. You don’t have tweak and fix the digital painting until it drives you insane with frustration.

Painting Additional Light Sources

One of the most important elements in any composition is the lighting. Understanding lighting is one of the most important things you can do for digital painting or any other kind of visual artwork. Lighting effects so many elements of the image, including mood, color, and the poses you will use for figures.

The best way to learn about lighting is to study photos, since they capture the way real light works. A quick internet search can yield up a lot of different photos showcasing a lot of different lighting effects. Some good lighting terms to look up and study are:

Ambient Lighting

Rim Lighting

Back Lighting

Different Combinations of Lighting

Adding Noise Filters

If you aren’t going to use different brushes in your digital painting, you can fix the sense of visual dullness quickly by using a Noise Filter.

It’s very simple to apply a Noise Filter. Add a new layer to your digital painting and fill it in with some shade of gray. Go to your digital painting software’s filter settings and Add Noise. Set the Amount to 1%. Set the Opacity level to 30%.

This will add a sense of grit and texture to the image in a handful of seconds. Don’t add too much noise, however. It can easily ruin the entire digital painting, obscuring the outlines of the images you’ve painted. You need to make sure that the Noise Filter adds a bit of interest to the brush strokes, but does not obscure them.

Common Mistakes and How to Fix Them

Digital painting might seem quite simple now that you’ve read out guide, but it’s all too easy to get into bad habits. It can be frustrating to see your digital paintings turn out badly time after time and not be able to figure out what is going wrong.

Digital painting software gives you the illusion that everything is simpler than it is. The various tools and filters make fixes to problems seem easy. If you want a particular effect, there’s a brush out there that can make it happen. The Undo button seems like it can simply make problems go away.

The thing is that relying on all these tools can essentially allow Photoshop or whatever program you are using to paint for you. It makes a digital painting look better than you would normally be able to pull off on your own. You can create lots of images fairly quickly at decent quality without ever realizing that you have a lot of elements to improve on.

Professional digital painters use digital painting effects in a different way than amateurs do, and it does produce higher quality images. These pros imagine their effects before they start, then they get the program to produce that effect. Most amateur digital artists toy with the program until they see an effect they like.

This mindset creates a lot of the problems we discuss below. Changing it is going to take time and work. As with any new skill, especially artistic ones, be patient with yourself and continue to make effort to improve, even when it seems like you can’t make progression fixing a problem.

Please note that what seem like mistakes in one style of digital painting might be a desirable effect in another style. If it isn’t a mistake, but rather a planned effect, don’t fix it. It doesn’t need it.

1. Using the Wrong Canvas Size

It’s so easy to start a new digital painting. All it takes it creating new file, which is so simple hat most desktop programs have a keyboard shortcut and most mobile apps have a simple button to tap. However, this can lead to a problem with three aspects.

The Canvas is Too Small

All digital paintings are made of pixels, and measured that way, too—200×200, 400×1000, 9999×9999, etc.

It’s a typical beginner mistake to use a canvas that is smaller than your screen resolution. The problem with doing this is that you don’t know what resolution the people who view your digital painting will use.

More resolution means more pixels. In a smaller resolution, an image might take 20 pixels to depict, but in higher resolution it can easily be ten times that all on its own. This means you can include a lot of interesting details in the larger area.

If you paint a smaller detail in a larger resolution, you’ll find that—no matter how rough or sloppy it seems up close—it will look better from a distance. If often looks like an intentional detail and will probably add more visual interest to the digital painting.

The Canvas is Too Big

The opposite problem of a canvas that is too small occurs, too. Sometimes a canvas that is too big causes its own kind of issues.

With a bigger resolution, your brushstrokes will have more pixels. More pixels in the stroke means it’s harder for the computer to process it. Pressure levels with variable Flow have a particular problem. To use larger resolutions, you’ll need a more powerful computer.

Larger resolutions are meant to be used for very detailed artwork. Not every digital painting requires this level of detail. There are a lot styles that don’t work with more detail. Even very realistic digital paintings don’t need those sort of details. It can easily turn the image too busy and too hard to look at.

Using a larger resolution canvas size than you need, you might be tempting to add a lot more detail than you should because it’s so much easier to do. You can’t really switch it back, either. For faster, more painterly results, you shouldn’t be spending hours on details in only portion of the digital painting.

The Final Size is Too Big

You may choose the perfect resolution of your digital painting but still end up with canvas size issues. The resolution you originally chose was your working size. You might have wanted more pixels to get higher levels of detail, but the finalized version of that detail will be visible from further out.

Before you save your digital file painting for its final review, you should resize it. There’s no set optimal resolution. More detailed artwork is best presented in a larger resolution. Sketchier, less detailed pieces will look fine as smaller files (which will also load faster when emailed or as a part of a webpage). Make sure you check to see which resample algorithm works best. Some will sharpen the image, which may not be something you want.

Take a look at the works of your favorite artists and see what resolutions they use. This can be a great way to learn more about how to adjust your finalized file size.

2. Starting Off With a White Background

A lot people envision a blank canvas as a white background, perfect for starting a new digital painting. The neutral color helps you see your colors and shapes really well, right? It’s just like a sheet of paper!

The truth of the matter is that there is no such thing as a neutral color. A transparent is as close as you can get, but it’s also impossible to paint. A color is a color is a color. Where any combination of colors meet, their relationship appears and affects how your eye sees things.

Against white, every other color looks dark. Even if you want to paint something bright, it won’t look right, because you’ve started with the brightest possible background.

Traditional painting is done on white backgrounds for several reasons. For one, that’s just eh color of paper and canvas. For another, it is easier to put dark colors on a white background than the other way around. Digital painting does not have these limitations. It’s possible to paint bright colors on black backgrounds perfectly well.

That does not make a black background a better choice than a white one. It has the opposite effect of a white background, making all colors appear bright. The most neutral color you can find for your digital painting background is going to be 50% bright gray (#808080).

Background colors change the way you understand the other colors of the digital painting. You want colors to appear neither too bright (as they do on black backgrounds) or too dark (as they do on white backgrounds).

Black backgrounds will also make darker colors seem too dark, while white backgrounds will make brighter colors look too bright. Any attempt at contrast will be hobbled once you try to add some other background.

More practiced artists can work with any background color and get some pretty good results. Years or even decades of practice with color theory allow these artists to understand how to use the background color to their best advantage.

Unless you are very confident in your understanding of color theory, stick with a neutral background that is neither too bright nor too dark for a while.

3. Avoiding The Use of Strong Contrast

A poor quality screen can cause issues of your perception of bright and dark. Anyone who has sued a laptop has probably noted that the contrast changes depending on the angle of your screen; a lot of us use it to our advantage when reading or viewing certain things.

With digital painting, it can be hard to figure out how to use contrast properly for every viewer, regardless of the kind of screen they are using.

Even on good screens, focusing on a picture for while throws off your perception. If you are going to change shades slightly with as your progress, the contrast might seem better because it’s better than it was a few moments ago. It might not actually be that way, however.

Photoshop in particular has a tool that can help with this issue. This tool is called Levels. It’s a histogram and can show you how much of each shade there is in an image. Other digital painting programs also have a similar feature, thought it tends to go by different names.

4. Using Complex Brushes Too Often

Digital painting brushes are not like physical ones. Physical brushes allow for a finally limited number of kinds of strokes, while the ones you use in digital painting programs can be much more complex. Some of them are small bits of artwork unto themselves.

Every time you use that sort of very complex brush, you’re giving up a bit of control over your own digital painting. Simpler strokes are considered more professional because they allow you to show off your own skills much better. Complex brushes should be used to support the simpler ones. Using them too often will make you lazy and slow (or even stop) the development of your own artistic skills.

It’s easy to look for ways to get the effect you desire in the easiest, quickest way possible, especially when you are just starting to create digital paintings. You’ll get results immediately with some of the complicated brushes, after all. This can be useful, of course, nut they should not replace your own skills. Sometimes the complex brushes might not be as good at creating an effect as you would be with simple strokes. For things like fur or hair, the brush may not be able to communicate the way movement or lighting effects them quite right.

Spend some time pretending these sorts of brushes don’t exist. Learn how to create textures and effect with more simple brushes instead. This will not only make you a batter artist, but may also look better as well. Your digital painting will often have a more handcrafted feel, and the details will be more accurate for the environment and lighting.

5. Using Too Many Colors

You don’t need to mix paint with digital painting, unlike with traditional painting. You just select the color you think you need from a gradient or grid. This is much, much easier, but it is also a hindrance to developing a proper understanding of color theory.

Color theory is not something people know intuitively. Studying it can help an artist’s work immensely. Colors can’t just be what they were before you started doing digital painting. You need to understand them through the concepts of Hue, Saturation, Brightness, and Value.

Colors exist not only on their own, but also in their relations to other colors. Background and adjacent colors can change the way a color is perceived, making it bright or darker. Every aspect of color can change due to its surroundings. Warm colors can even look cool depending on the colors around them. Professional artists understand these complex relationships and know how to manipulate them to get the results they want. It’s well worth your time to look into and will make you better.

6. Choosing Colors Directly from References

The Eyedropper Tool is a tempting cheat. It means you can get the right color for skin or hair, right? Yes, but it’s also not as useful as you might think. The hue and saturation of your digital painting will change the effect of those colors, as will the light source.

Picking your colors from references is also little better than tracing. You can’t claim credit for those color choices. It doesn’t help you develop your understanding of color theory. You don’t progress by doing this. Understanding why certain colors work is more worthwhile than using the same ones directly.

7. Using Dodge and Burn Tools For Shading

The Dodge tool does not add light to image and the Bun tool does not add shadow. It’s a fairly rudimentary way to add shading and highlights. The tools are fine in themselves, but using them this way is not effective, either visually or for your one artistic understanding.

Shadows are more complex than a mere darkening of the base color. That sort of thinking works very simple styles, like cartoons and cell-shading, though it is a kind of cheap shortcut even there. For more complex styles, this sort of shading flattens the objects and no amount of added texture can really help.

Using Dodge and Burn like this is another shortcut that stops you from progressing. Shading is much more complex than that. Actually take the time to study the way shadow and light play on objects. You will steadily be able to learn how o bring those nuances to your own digital painting.

8. Blending with a Soft Brush

Blending with a soft brush is a very quick way to do your color blending. If you use larger strokes, you will quickly find you have flattened the object and made it unnaturally smooth. This is another one that adding textures will not make better. This digital painting technique can be useful for starting the painting. For a nicer, more subtle kind of texture, use a harder brush setting with Pen Pressure controlling the Flow.

Digital art examples

The games digital art that people can get today are all truly impressive. There was a time in which games rarely produced anything that could truly be considered art.

The graphics were very crude. Stills from games were not going to be interesting to look at, and they certainly couldn’t rival the other visual arts of the day. This games digital art is both breathtaking and powerful, and these are the sorts of games illustrations that would inspire anyone to get involved with expanding the art form.

These games illustrations depict dramatic military scenes. The scenes are quite realistic. From a slight distance, people might easily mistake them for photographs. However, there’s enough exaggeration in the color scheme that their artistic aspects become that much more apparent to anyone that is really paying attention when it comes to the work.

The color saturation is strong enough that these military scenes almost seem more real than actual military photographs, as if they better match the mind’s idea of what these kinds of military actions really are, in terms of the emotional effect.

Some of these games digital art feature more stylized images of people fighting back in action scenes that feature women and demonstrate female power in only one brief image.

The triumph of these characters over the vaguely futuristic soldiers has a certain power to it in its own right. Juxtaposed against many of the more modern military scenes, this image and images like it seem to make an even more powerful statement.

League Of Legends – Zed

DOTA 2 – Mirana

VI

Imperius – Storm Of Light

WoW Fanart – Illidan

Diablo 3 Monk

Illidan

Retribution

Headhunter Caitlyn Splash

Mordekaiser

STRIFE – Rook

Samus Tribute

Thief

Demon Hunter

Barbarian

Lunar Revel Diana

Val, Queen Of Thieves

Ending thoughts on digital painting

Digital painting may seem simple, but doing it well is more complex. Use your tools wisely.

They’re there to help you improve your skills and add details, but not to replace your own skills. Be patient, apply your digital painting basics, and you will find yourself steadily improving.

If you liked this article filled with digital paintings and useful info, you should check out these as well:

The Best Drawing Tutorials: Learn How To Draw

How to draw anime: learn to do anime drawings

How To Draw Chibi: 33 Drawing Tutorials

Inspiration and tuts on Pinterest

The post Digital Painting: Concept Art, Techniques, Tips, and Tutorials appeared first on Design your way.

from Web Development & Designing http://www.designyourway.net/blog/inspiration/digital-painting/

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Zoe Meagher · Experience Developer, Museums Victoria

Zoe Meagher · Experience Developer, Museums Victoria

Dream Job

by Elle Murrell

Zoe Meagher works her dream job as an Experience Developer at the Melbourne Museum. Photo – Caitlin Mills for The Design Files.

Zoe with specimens in the Melbourne Museum’s test space for the forthcoming exhibition ‘Inside Out’ for which she is overseeing the experience development. Photo – Caitlin Mills for The Design Files.

Behind the scenes with Zoe, who has worked for Museums Victoria (across their three locations) since 2009. Photo – Caitlin Mills for The Design Files.

Some of Zoe’s amazing notes – she’s an exceptional illustrator – on a visitor experience test cart she had made to assist with prototyping exhibitions and gaining feedback. Photo – Caitlin Mills for The Design Files.

‘When I was studying I didn’t know that this was something I could aim for,’ says Zoe. ‘So I just did the bits and pieces that I wanted to, little by little, and it ended up building into the experience that helped me secure this role.’ Pictured is one of her illustrations from a meeting.

Just going about her day-to-day alongside a gigantic polar bear. Photo – Caitlin Mills for The Design Files.

Zoe and fellow experience developer David Perkins (of Client Liaison music-video fame, they joke!). There are five Experience Developers at Museums Victoria. Photo – Caitlin Mills for The Design Files.

Zoe describes her role as ‘almost like a museum dramaturge’, weaving curation as well as audial and visual element of an exhibition together into an overall experience.

Zoe will often cruise around the Museum testing out her audio tour prototypes. Photo – Caitlin Mills for The Design Files.

Zoe Meagher studied a course that doesn’t exist anymore, to gain a job that wasn’t created until a couple of years ago. The Creative Art graduate’s path to Museums Victoria Experience Developer certainly reveals the dynamic state of the current employment landscape.

An ultimate go-getter, and today’s imperative: ‘a generalist’, Zoe is one of five experience developers at the Museum, and she is currently working on its forthcoming exhibition, ‘Inside Out’.

As part of the project team, Zoe advocates for the visitor, constantly questioning: what does someone actually experience in an exhibition, why should they care, and what’s the best way to communicate the interesting aspects? ‘There is always something cool about an object or topic here, it’s just about finding the key to unlock that for people, and to communicate it,’ she tells, as a 100-year-old taxidermied baby rhinoceros gets wheeled passed, post face-lift.

Today, the 30-year-old schools us on why you shouldn’t wait for an invitation or a big break, but pursue what you love bit-by-bit and look widely for experience and inspiration – such as abandoned Melbourne Airport buildings, Australia’s first supercomputer, or the recently discovered TRAPPIST-1 planetary system, for example.

The talented performance artist and skilled illustrator modestly acknowledges she’s been lucky a LOT, but as we talk, it quickly becomes clear Zoe’s incredible work ethic and enthusiasm have been the drivers of her success, rather than any matter of chance.

At the close of our interview, she struggles to distinguish her future goals from her aspirations for the Museum, as intertwined as they are – the ultimate indication that we’ve really found someone working their dream job!

The most important verb in the get-your-dream-job lexicon is…

Cross-pollinate!

I think it’s really important to look for experience and insight outside of the specific field that you think your dream job is in, because you never know what is going to end up being unexpectedly relevant further down the track. When I was attending university, I was also waitressing the whole time and I remember thinking, ‘this is never going to be relevant to anything I want to do in the future!’. But being able to work under pressure, learning resilience, and how to talk to anyone came out of that.

What all of your experience adds up to is something that is going to be unique to you.

I landed this job by… 

I studied a Bachelor of Creative Arts at Melbourne University, majoring in Visual Media and for my Honours year I wrote on film theory, did some sound design and produced a folio of drawing. It was kind of this Jack-of-all-trades degree, a good mix of theory and practice, but unfortunately it doesn’t exist anymore.

Following university, I started working for Museums Victoria in 2009, in a customer service role at Scienceworks – I was looking for a place that I enjoyed being in, and like so many ‘90s Melbourne kids, I’d had really happy memories their, so it was my pick!

After a couple of years, I moved to customer service at Melbourne Museum, and later into the education and community programs department where I was working on lessons for school groups. Next, I was at the Immigration Museum doing the same work but full-time – so I have the trifecta of working at all three venues! – before taking my current role.

Alongside to all of this, I have continued to work as a performance artist.I really like focussing on little-known historical stories and one project that I did, before I started in my role at Melbourne Museum, was actually at the Melbourne Museum with the support of the Next Wave Festival. It was an audio tour and performance about the CSIRAC Computer, which was Australia’s first digital computer. Through this, I got to know some people working at the Museum – that’s my version of volunteering or interning, making connections and gaining experience.

This position was externally advertised and I was persistent; when I got this job, it wasn’t the first time I applied for it. The first time I wasn’t ready, but then I tried again. I had also done a performance at an abandoned building at Melbourne Airport not that long before the second application, and some people doing similar work at the Museum  happened to attend. They were able to see the relevance of what I was doing in performance, to what I could do in this role.

A typical day for me involves…

It’s always different and it really varies project to project. Usually I will be across a few different projects at one time, but at the moment I am really focussing on the end of year exhibition: ‘Inside Out‘.

I have been working on the audio layer, so the curator and I have been doing lots of interviews with subject specialists from both inside and outside of the Museum. Last week we interviewed an Egyptologist, and later that afternoon a tattoo artist from Preston! Tomorrow it’s an iconic Australian fashion designer.

Getting to interview and meet all those people is really exciting, and then I go away with the recorded audio and figure out how that will fit into the script for the audio layer of the exhibition. I put a very rough edit into the headphones so I can wander around (looking very strange) and test it to see if it is doing the job that we need it to do for the visitor.

In the afternoon, I usually go and sit down with the curators, designers and the creative director and see how all our respective work is fitting together, to see if it is weaving together into a story that we can share with the visitors.

The most rewarding part of my job is…

Having conversations with the people that actually visit the museum, because this means I get to understand our finished product! 

Also getting to collaborate within this organisation is really rewarding; the unique mix of people who work on each individual aspect of a project, makes each one super inspiring and its own kind of unique beast! It’s really interesting to see what can spring out of the unexpected collaborations.

On the other hand, the most challenging aspect is…

…I think, sometimes just answering that basic question of : why should someone care about these things? Because for some of the items we have in the museum, it’s not that obvious. The CSIRAC computer is an example; it just does look like a big metal box with a whole heap of wires sticking out of it, and many people will just work straight past it.

The flip side is getting to seek out the story of a particular thing, through talking to people who really know and love it – the curators, researchers and scientists in the building. Getting to witness their passion, drawing that out of them and feeling that spark too, before working out a way to convey it to the visitor turns the challenge into another highlight.

The culture of my workplace is…

The people who work here are very passionate about what they do, and they bring a whole lot of love to the museum. Everyone is also very supportive of one another, but people are also supportive of one another’s individual aspirations, their interest and passions outside of the museum. Our workplace culture allows people to have their own lives too.

I continue to do my performance art under my art name, Zoe Mars. Recently, I did a little audio tour and projection for the Gertrude Street Projection Festival in collaboration with a composer. It was about the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system, which was identified earlier this year. You could download it and stream it, and it was to scale, taking you on the 40 light-year journey from Earth to the TRAPPIST-1 planets over the course of 15 minutes. I also created these projections that were based on 70s sci-fi illustrations, it was a lot of fun.

I’m always…

…sketching on my iPad during meetings. I find it can be a really helpful to storyboard or draw a diagram that communicates an idea or concept. I was also always doing this at school too.

Sometimes I’m doing it so much that it starts to look like I’m not listening, but I am. As I interpret things they just come out the other end of the pencil

My idea of the perfect workplace is…

I think one that encourages playfulness, calculated risk taking and experimentation, but also one where you get the opportunity to collaborate with lots of different people, I think that is really so valuable.

Practically speaking, a workplace where baked good are plentiful.

And also one where the line between colleagues and friends is a little bit blurry. Here, we’ll go out together after work and see theatre or live art shows. And just having that, being able to be friends, makes the workplace much more wonderful. 

The best piece of advice I’ve received is…

…not to wait around for the one big project, or one big opportunity, but instead to dive in and find small ways to start doing the things that you want to be doing. Collectively they will unfold and turn into something bigger. If you don’t, I think there is a danger of always only talking about that big thing that you want to do and never actually getting around to doing it. Then it becomes too intimidating to ever start… ‘Just do it,’ – some wise words from Shia LaBeouf… and Nike, but this advice actually came from my partner Mathew. He used to work in live art too, and is just one of those people with an excellent work ethic who is always doing things and never hesitating, not waiting for an invitation, just going ahead and trying stuff out.

Over the years, the Museum has…

Well, the job I have now didn’t exist three years ago, so that is one big change.

Another one would be the approach to now developing, not just exhibitions or programs, but experiences that mean something beyond just delivering information to people.

I am also really pleased to see a big growth in collaboration with people outside of the Museum, as well as making it much more accessible. There have been really beautiful initiatives over the last couple of years, like The Autism-friendly Museum that provides resources for families who have members on the autism spectrum. Another one called I Want To Go To The Museum, makes it easier for people who would otherwise find it difficult to visit, by assisting with transportation, costs, cultural differences… and just making it more open and welcoming for everyone.

In the next five years, I’d like to…

…find ways to work with even more objects that are currently tucked away in storage. Of our 17 million, only around 1% is on show. I know that there are some really excellent supercomputers that are just waiting for someone to come along and love them – I would LOVE to be that person!…computer history is so so rich, and there is really interesting feminist history with computing as well. A lot of the early operators and programmers were women, because people thought it was a clerical position, and then as soon as it started to get more prestige a lot of women got pushed out of the industry – I could rant about that for age!

The work that is happening here is changing all the time, there are always so many interesting things going on, who knows what’s going to happen in this place over the next five years.

If you had said to me three years ago, ‘You’ll be able to work with virtual reality by 2017!’ There is no way I would have believed you, but that is something that has emerged all of a sudden. The scope for new kinds of technology to affect how we experience museums is really exciting.

I definitely want to continue with my personal art practice. And I want to go and see lots of live art and theatre so I can find ways to incorporate unexpected inspiration from other disciplines into what we do at the Museum!

Melbourne Museum’s ‘Inside Out‘ exhibition opens on December 23rd and runs until February 11th. For more information, visit the website, here.

[webbygraphic001]

How to Sell Games on the Web

The first step to getting famous as a video game studio is to make a great game. The second step is to sell the darned thing to a whole lot of people. That is, of course, easier said than done. It’s not enough to throw the game on Steam Greenlight and hope for the best. You have to get people excited. You need hype.

There’s a lot that goes into marketing a game, but this is WDD, so we’re going to focus on one thing: video game websites. Specifically, we’re going to focus on sites that market games to new players. We’ll go over the current game site design trends, general tips for making your own, and some UX concerns that may arise.

I won’t be addressing community sites or forums, video game blogs, gamer social networks or ranking sites, clan websites, or any of the other kinds of game-related sites, because I just don’t have the space. All of those probably deserve their own articles.

The trends

Once upon a time, most video game sites, and indeed most sites, looked a little bit like this:

That’s the site for Planeshift, an ongoing open source MMO project. Okay, I feel a little bad about picking on an OSS project, but theirs was the only site I could think of that still looks like that. And still uses tables for layout.

Their site reflects the product, really: it’s old school. You have to type to talk to NPCs.

Throughout the early 00s, a lot of game sites stayed like this, while others experimented with various trends, most of which incorporated elements of the game’s own UI or branding as part of the website’s UI. There were also, of course, plenty of Flash-based sites meant to reflect the dynamic experience of playing video games as much as possible. (Many of these experiments served their purpose, and have rightly died off. Thus, I have no screen shots.)

In the past few years, sites for marketing video games have started to fall into one really predictable pattern, with most of them adopting the full-screen-section-based-landing-page style.

We need a shorter name for that.

This style is used consistently across companies large and small, it’s used for games from different countries, and it’s used for basically every game genre. It is characterized by the full-screen focus, lots of huge images, some video, and occasionally parallax effects.

Here’s a small sampling of what I mean:

And here are a couple of examples with parallax:

Even with this same-feeling style of design, you can differentiate your site by working elements of the game’s UI and branding into your site’s UI. Have a look at Dungeons & Dragons Online’s website:

Now is this trend a good or bad thing? As usual, I am of the opinion that if it works, if it’s selling your product well, then it’s working as intended. As a customer (read: as a huge nerd), I don’t need the site to be super original, I need it to tell me what I want to know about the game.

Not everyone does things the same way, though. Some sites throw you straight into the community. Here, Guild Wars 2 is banking on its brand recognition. If you don’t know what it is, you’re probably not that interested. This is a bold strategy, but I wouldn’t recommend it for everyone.

Some other game sites have kept to the old “Gaming Clan” look. Remember when every Photoshop-owning gamer used to make their own “clan website template”? Please tell me I’m not the only one who noticed this trend. Heck, some people are still doing it.

How to sell your game: show off the experience

Okay, so you’ve settled on a landing-page-style template for your site, and you want to sell your game. How do we do that? Well, games are all about the experience. You have to sell the experience that your game provides to the people who will like it best. This is the one big thing. If you take nothing else away from the article, this is what you need to know.

People who play video games tend to play them quite a bit. Over time, they develop a taste for the kinds of experiences that they enjoy the most. (Warning: Sweeping generalizations to follow…) People who play racing games love the illusion of speed, and the challenge of out-performing a smart opponent, whether AI or human. People who play multi-player shooters love that competitive challenge, but they might prefer a slower, more tactical pace, or they might want a run-and-gun game.

People who play single player and co-op shooters want some challenge, but they mostly want to mow down hordes of virtual enemies, whether alone or with their friends. People who play strategy games want to out-think their opponents on what might as well a much more complicated chess board.

You have to sell the experience that your game provides to the people who will like it best

People who play RPGs might be looking for an action game with a good story, or a world where they can decide what happens to the fate of civilizations, a dating simulator, or some combination of all three (cough Mass Effect cough). People who play horror games want to be scared and challenged at the same time.

Then there are the settings: urban, rural, sci-fi, wild west, and the list goes on for a really long time. People want to know these things. Heck, before I pick up an MMO, I want to know if I can have more than one hotbar.

The point is that you can’t just say, “Our game is totally fun!”, put in a couple of screenshots, and leave it at that. You need to show them, in detail, exactly what kind of experience they’ll be getting. Gamers have been buying games based on hope for a while now, and many of them have been burned before.

The smart game developers give as much information about the game as they can without giving out, say, story spoilers. The more accurately the marketing materials resemble the final product, the better. Every year there are scandals about how games were completely misrepresented before they came out, and that hurts sales.

You might be trying to surprise your players, but more often than not, developers who hide all the details are just hiding a bad or unfinished game. Buying anything is always a bit of a gamble, but right now, finding a truly good game that actually meets the marketing department’s claims feels a bit like winning the lottery. This should not be so.

What to showcase

Start with the gameplay. This is the experience. This is also one of the few times when I’ll say that video is almost necessary on a website. Still images don’t convey enough information about how it feels to play a game.

Heck, even video tends to fall very short, but until we can play demos right on your site, it’s the best we’ve got. Don’t tell them how great the game is. Let them feel it for themselves, as much as possible.

The 2016 release of Doom did this very well. Go to the website for Doom (Fair warning: it’s Doom. There’s virtual gore.), and you’ll see that most of the pages are light on text, heavy on background video. If a picture is worth a thousand words, short videos at 30-60 FPS are like one heck of a novel.

Next, you’ll want to include a clear and immediately available price, or price table. Be very clear about what your buyers get for what price. Some companies try to deliberately make this confusing, and it backfires, all the time.

Get people talking about your game. Be sure to include links to any forums, Facebook pages, or Twitter accounts where people can talk with you about your game, whether it’s out yet or not. People talking to their friends is where a lot of hype comes from

If your game is lore and story-heavy, it can help to include a beginner’s introduction to the story and setting. Just don’t fall into the trap of trying to make the lore into your marketing material. Jumping feet first into a whole new world is a big deal, and if you start throwing too many fantasy names at players who haven’t even bought the game yet, that could backfire. Put some basic lore on the site, but not on the home page.

UX concerns

Selling a game is a bit rough, because in order to properly showcase a game’s experience, you need a fair bit of visual material to get the point across. On the other hand, people with bad Internet play video games too. Just make sure to optimize your video and images as much as possible. Use responsive images, and have the video available in multiple qualities.

And though you might be tempted to animate your UI a lot, like in the days of Flash, I’d keep that to a bare minimum. The sheer amount of visual media will already be hard on some people’s connections. Extraneous UI animation just adds to that burden.

Conclusion

The sites that sell me on a game are the sites that tell me what I need to know, not what they think I want to hear. This is true of all websites in general, but remember that gamers are often far picker than average consumers.

And right now, some simple clarity and honesty is all you need to set yourself apart from, and morally above some AAA game developers. This is not a great state of affairs, but you could make it work for you, by being better than them.

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