#its bg noise while i work on shit/draw

[fraternum-momentum]

can u just tell me to kms instead

[flutteringfable]

back on my yansim bullshit i fear

[canmom]

last season's anime: that elf show (1-6)

Belatedly watching Sousou no Frieren, the darling of the... previous anime season four months ago. So old news as far as most are concerned!

I have held off on watching this one because, well, videogamey elves-and-dwarves European fantasy is ehhhhhh! I can get into it if it's really well done and puts the focus somewhere interesting (c.f. Dungeon Meshi), or if its medievalism is a bit more historically grounded than your average videogame-inflected fantasy anime (actual European history is full of fascinating/fucked up shit which rarely makes it into fantasy). But Frieren didn't strike me as having that vibe.

Nevertheless I heard Madhouse were the ones that did it and somehow that was enough to finally tip me over into watching it. So lol. I was a baby or even an ovum when Madhouse were doing most of their best known work, and yet...

Anyway, it turns out, not only was it a Madhouse project, but none other than Yoshiaki Kawajiri actually boarded a good few of the episodes, although he's not the enshutsu [episode director/storyboarder] whose people are most excited about. The series director's last work was Bocchi the Rock after all! And this sure is another hit.

The first two things that jumped out at me in the first episodes were: the bgs are insanely good looking and the photography department is absolutely in love with a digital bokeh filter. I don't think I often see this specific kind of blur filter in anime (though I think you'll see it the works of some directors who like to emulate realistic photography like Yamada or Shinkai), and it was interesting the effect it had of eliding the lines and creating an effect kind of similar to posterisation.

Bokeh aside, the background painting and layouts in this anime are really incredibly good. When I occasionally watch fantasy anime - I have a friend who is quite into isekai and will occasionally show me one of her faves such as Ascendance of a Bookworm - one thing that often bothers me is the architecture, you have identical box-shaped houses with big windows, wide flat streets, it generally doesn't feel like a lived-in city. This is something that particularly bothers me about Attack on Titan.

By contrast, Frieren is routinely dropping scenes like this:

Split levels, varied colours and heights, accurate depiction of features like jettying, mixing up the verticals a bit. It's an impressive attention to detail and it does so much to sell the setting.

And the nature scenes are outstanding as well. Although I'm pretty sure they're painted digitally, it has the feeling of older physical media. The bg painters clearly understand the power of hinting at form with brush stroke shapes and a few flat colours - a technique similar to the bg paintings at Ghibli. There's rarely an obvious digital texture and they exercise restraint in overwhelming everything with glows and flares. The flat colours and paint-like textures are allowed to shine on their own. Plus everything has a subtle grain (pretty sure it's just good old Perlin noise), adding to the analogue feel.

But yeah, look at the subtle atmospheric perspective in the last one there! The layers of forest in the background are painted with less saturated colours, creating a powerful sense of layering and distance, without having to draw more trees than the immediate foreground. I could learn a lot from this painting alone when it comes to forest scenes.

While I'm going on about technical stuff, the animation also stands up. The first episode in particular has some real flexes with crowd scenes containing dozens of moving characters. The character animation is generally very restrained, but naturalistic. There is constantly a strong sense of space. The action animation later does less for me - it's not at all bad, but it's within the conventions of modern shounen adaptations - but it's generally speaking strong.

All that said, what about what it's actually, y'know, about?

Frieren wastes little time in establishing its premise. The title character is a nigh-immortal elf, who was part of the RPG party that defeated the demon lord just prior to the outset of the show. Frieren has a pretty flat affect in general - not to say she's emotionless, far from it, but rather the heavy lifting of what she's feeling has to be conveyed through cinematography and implication of her actions. Though that said, it does plenty to humanise (elfise?) her too - she is not a morning person, and there are moments where she will get visibly excited about small things. Mostly, Frieren is a character who really doesn't understand herself very well.

Comparisons to the prototypical emotionaless girl Rei Ayanami come to mind to me - especially the version of Rei we encounter in Eva 3.0+1.0. Both characters' affect is shaped by transience - for Rei, she's a short-lived clone, for Frieren, her perception of time is completely miscalibrated to all the people around her so she'll accidentally disappear for decades while they get old and die. And both characters' arcs involve learning about how to understand human connections.

As kvin has said in his impressively detailed article on the background to this show, this premise is used to tell a story about the passage of time. In the specific, it's about the grief of realising you did not spend enough time with someone after they've gone. Frieren is retracing the steps of the party after disappearing from their lives for nigh on 50 years, returning just in time to catch the human characters as they die of old age. The episodes are usually constructed around her memory of that adventure, paralelled by the connection she's forming in the present with her new apprentice. She's trying to do things that she never managed to do when they were alive, get in touch with her own feelings, etc. etc. Lots of mono no aware in the air.

So each episode tends to develop two stories in parallel. There will be the immediate impetus - Frieren and co. find something that needs dealing with and coincidentally links back in to the past - and also flashbacks which help flesh out the rest of Frieren's party and why the journey was such a big deal to her. The writing and editing generally does a very good job of knowing what to leave unstated, what can be implied by a cut and a closeup.

More than anything I think I'm reminded of Seirei no Moribito. Frieren herself reminds me a little of Balsa - they're quite different characters, but the way they relate to others and the general arc of being changed by their connections - and while the dynamic between her and Fern is a little less parental than Balsa and Chagum, the use of scenery and the general approach to setting up of episode plots feels quite similar.

Predictably, stories about grief touch a nerve! 'I didn't properly appreciate the time I had with her' is something I feel particularly with my friend Fall, who we lost nearly two years ago now. A story about figuring out just what someone meant to you after they are gone is resonant, shall we say.

The first and second episodes as a pair end up particularly affecting. I talked about the technical stuff above, but the editing is also really strong. A couple of moments that stood out to me: moment of ephiphany communicated with a sudden eye closeup, an L-cut to bells which you don't hear until there's been another cut to the actual funeral. Since I've been in the sakugabooru server I've been learning to pay a lot more attention to individual enshutsu, so the names to credit in this case are Saito himself for the first, and Tomoya Kitagawa for the second.

The third episode (Daiki Harashina) stumbles a bit in my view, not so much because of the direction but because the script brings in some less-interesting magic mechanics and fighting-a-demon elements. The fourth episode, the first directed by Kawajiri, falls back into the rhythm: the stakes are small but we feel the development of Frieren and Fern's dynamic.

The fifth (Kenichi Shimizu) and sixth (Toru Iwasawa) episodes are a two part story, introducing a new character Stark as a second young apprentice character - the sixth episode has a really exceptional action scene with its dragon fight, bringing in a lot of familiar action animator names, and moreover the preceding episode does the work to set it up so we're invested in the culmination of the character arc it represents! Also there's that one sitting down cut I heard about. I wasn't sure I'd be on board with Stark at first, but he's growing on me through his interactions.

By this point we're starting to have more present-day 'villagers have a monster problem' type setups, but they're still primarily instruments to advance characterisation: the conflict of Stark with cowardice and responsibility is paralelled by one of Frieren's former party members, Frieren and Fern get to face ghosts of people they've lost, etc.

The first few episodes jump forward in years at a time in between, and even within the episodes tend to elide huge periods of time with montages - very effective for driving the central theme of tiiiiime. That seems to be slowing down a little now, although we'll see.

I think if anything weakens it, it's that the demons and monsters feel undercooked as setting elements - and I'm a little worried by hearing that they become increasingly central elements as the show goes on. Of course, they're kinda mandated by the RPG setting, and being able to just say 'back when demons attacked the village' lets the show put its time into characterisation. But to take episode 3 for example - surely there is drama to be had in the idea of a senior underling who was frozen for nigh eighty years, unaware that his master had been overthrown? But nah, he just attacks immediately, and then it turns out that human magic science has advanced so much building out from his technique that he's not a big deal anymore (ratfic ass concept). Mostly demons and monsters exist as plot devices, opportunities for characters to prove themselves or experience an epiphany.

It's a shame because the show goes to such enormous lengths to flesh out everyone else's motivations. 'Why did character x do or feel y' is kind of the thrust of every episode (c.f. that kinda questionable stuff people say about JP storytelling being more about causality than conflict). Next time they supply us a demon character, I hope they're willing to give them a comparable treatment. 'Kind, peace-loving villagers vs ontologically evil baddies' is just such a boring dynamic, and with such love poured into everything else, it seems a shame.

Overall, I don't think Frieren is going to displace Tengoku Daimakyou as my fave of 2023, or stand alongside Dungeon Meshi as elves-and-dwarves fantasy goes, but it's definitely a memorable one. As an adaptation it's absurdly strong. Looking forward to watching the rest.

[mr-aftons-rotting-pussy]

FOR THE ASK GAME!!! 6, 11, 12 <33

YIPPIE!!!!

6. favorite thing to draw?

infinite<33333 NJDSNCJKDNKJ furries<3 specifically dogs but ive been obsessed w n drawn animals almost exclusively my entire life i love me a funny creature :3 im big into speculative biology esp in horror n sci-fi contexts, so like. ANY TYPE of weird animalish creature im hugeeeee fan of drawing i luv thinking abt alien anatomy..... so like: furries<333 aliens<3333 alternate fucked up beasts n the likes<333333 and blood n guts >:3

11. do you listen to anything while drawing?

YESSS it feels weird to draw in silence i need bg noise for 95% of all tasks i do lol. usually i listen to music that itches my brain/inspires me in that moment r watch video essays!

12. describe your process while drawing

hrmmmm, i think my process is pretty simple kjnjkjbk usually when i go to draw ik likeee kind of know what i want to draw? if i dont have a clue ill just start doodling different characters/shapes i like to draw r have thought about recently. but otherwise its just, drawing approximately what i see in my head, n making changes where i see fit n whatnot. im a VERY VERY visual thinker n have eyeballed shit all my life so like i really do just wing it for the most part jdjcdkjbjcbj

i spin 3d characters n environments around in my mind until i get a frame i like/looks interesting and then. draw. i wish i could go into more detail here but in all honesty i try not to think too much when i draw. BJCDBJCVJBDJJ

in terms of like how i actually go about drawing things ummmm !!!!! i do REALLY messy sketches w a bigger brush, just trying to position elements n get proportions down and the rest is sortof a drawn out cleanup process. i erase a lot when i draw n often block out entire shapes getting the silhouette/contours of the subject done first and then erase inside the lines where needed and add details! i value being able to draw fast and efficiently while also telling a story n i def think that shows a lot in my works n how i go about drawing !

[mynarco]

For the Specific Art Ask Game: 5, 7, 8, 11,19, and 21

5. Estimate of how much of your art you post online vs. the art you keep for yourself

Uh... almost everything I make is posted online in some form (Tumblr, public or private Twitter, Discord, rarely Instagram). The only art I tend to keep to myself is schoolwork (this semester I have both a drawing and photography class and YES PHOTOGRAPHY IS ART DON'T @ ME,), and even then I come up with a few gems to share out there. Not for it to get attention, of course! I just like them.

7. A medium of art you don't work in but appreciate

Oils. I've tried to work with it before. It fucking sucks for me. Anyone who can handle that mess has my respect.

8. What's an old project idea that you've lost interest in

I actually feel like I lost interest in the Young Guardians AU really early on, which is why its posting schedule was... sporadic, let's say that. I dunno, compared to the Club of Demons I really didn't feel I had that much to work with. Though I haven't fully lost interest in it! I had an idea for Glade/Sucre that I wanna get out there, even if it ends up not being Cookie Run related (and you KNOW it won't be).

11. Do you listen to anything while drawing? If so, what

Either video game OSTs (lately a lot of Pop'n stuff, though I'll dive into my other interests for specific vibes) or longform video essays about Youtube drama or niche subjects that I normally wouldn't give a shit about. Nice white noise.

19. Favorite inanimate objects to draw (food, nature, etc.)

SPAAAAAAAAAACE I love drawing space BGs they're so relaxing

21. Art styles nothing like your own but you like anyways

I think this Twitter artist's style counts for it. They draw MZD a LOT, but they always give him a unique spin of some sort and I think that's really cool! Also any realistic style that tends to have some surreal body horror (plants, crystals, anything that wouldn't actually happen to a human or animal). Like Chainsaw Man when the man becomes a chainsaw. I think body horror in that vein is cool. Fuck you /lh.

[izahunny]

your local hunny’s art tips

So yeah, I’m actually gonna commit to this. Note that my experience is different to everyone else’s, I’ve officially drawn for 6-5-ish years, and my style of drawing may be different. I’m just a fucking baby and maybe this is some obvious shit. But yeah, I wanna give out some tips as a thanks to the SMITE community and such. 

1) Take small breaks in between, step away from the art and do something like go on your phone or eat shit, before going back into the piece in your own time. It's obvious shit, but often we can't help ignoring the urge to take a break.

2) Draw to your aesthetic! Draw your faves w/ instagram wavy eyebrows or glossy eyeshadow, or draw them in your favourite or dream outfits. The enthusiasm and the excitement provide the perfect motivation to do things like being more productive or experimenting and getting more creative.

3) The brushes I use for painting at the present moment are here, for my lineless art, I use a solid ink pen and this blend brush.

4) When it comes to blending, it's better to use an acrylic brush with high blending and low opacity, and the colour picker. It's more realistic when the blending has texture - especially when it comes to the skin.

5)DON'T HESITATE BITCH!!!!! ! ! Don't be afraid to use different colours for shading (it's more vibrant), experiment w different poses and expressions and techniques. In traditional art, I go ALL OUT by drawing w ball-point pen and messily scribbling w copic markers.

(If you want more examples of not hesitating bitch, ive got a handful of traditional art on my art insta)

When you don't hesitate bitch, you earn more confidence and your works look more fluid and have more character. If you mess up?? Girl ur good, learn from ur mistakes :*

6) A friend was the one who told me this, and without this bit of advice, siiiiiiiiis I'd be NOWHERE. It's basically 'You know you're good, know your worth. Yeah, validation is great, but don't go looking for it in order to believe your art is good."

7) Super fucking obvious, but alter your drawing environment that optimizes as much productivity and comfort as possible. For me, I need bg noise, I have a playlist w songs that get me in the mood, I Skype call or go on Netflix/Stan (I like watching Brooklyn Nine Nine, 1000 ways to die, 50 ways to kill your lover, RuPaul's drag race, or deadly women)

8) You know how they say that in order to prevent same face syndrome, you use various shapes? That shit works. Do it. That was how I finessed thru my smite requests

8) *WILL BE UNDER THE READMORE, THIS IS THE ONE I WANNA TALK ABT A LOT*

Aside from using references for what you'd normally use refs for, I use references to mainly diversify chars.

I'll explain fully, when I draw certain POC chars, I find an appropriate model/face claim that suits them - this helps me to 1. Make them look more realistic/unique and 2. POC w/o shooting in the dark. This is usually for adapting the char to my art style, so if its an irl POC then I’m good. I don't use this for just POC chars, often I use models that look as close to my ideal idea or look for a character or poses that I like. Usually I keep the likeness or I exaggerate, as long as I have a visual reference of my idea. 

Mainly my ‘models’ are actors or models, often from Instagram. I like using poses from older paintings or Instagram photos. Basically, I use Instagram a lot.

An example of using a POC to help model another POC.  I like Lucy l.iu for nu wa bc of her elegant and mature look, also I like her facial structure. (Also she doesn’t look completely like Lucy but it was during the time where I was still getting the hang of likeness). Comparing her to the model I used for Chang’e, you can see different shapes and facial alignments.

I wanted to capture Chronos’ jawline perfectly so it caters to my style, so I use my insta crush bc he has the jawline I need. I find the post w the right angle and use it, then I thought he wouldn't look complete w/o the large lips nopalitoss has, so I gave it to him. He looks cooler and the looks gives him more of a vogue handsome look while still maintaining Chronos’ maturity.

For Nu Wa, I used Justine’s (my other insta crush) poses so I could capture this Instagram ‘feelin’ myself’ vibes for the piece I'm working on. I use various and mash them together to get what I envisioned. Also Justine is my body reference for Nu Wa.

I referred to this guy in order to give Thanatos an appropriate hairstylbc I didn't want Thanatos to have the same hair style as Chronos. I also used him for Chronos,I used this pose for him which I thought looked neat. Same model, different purposes.

Of course this accommodates to my style so it may be harder or easier for yall to find refs. However I still think its important to use refs for drawing poc characters, so that you gain a better understanding of certain features pocs possess.

So this concludes my art tips, kudos to you for reaching to the end and listening to my ramblings. Hopefully these would help in some way, if not, then I hope it was a nice read. I’ll do one more part, it will be a tutorial so feel free to hit me up w what you want to learn/or know what I do in particular. 

[unproduciblesmackdown]

there was an ask list but instead of reblogging it im just doing the thing where i answer it all and put it here under a readmore

what mythical creature do you wish actually existed? idk i like griffins but i feel like thats boring b/c they dont like have any Powers...

soundcloud or vinyls? i dont rly use either lol

what book does everyone right now need to read? whatever they want i have no huge recs. i like the ashbury high / brookfield series & thats kinda unknown but thats it

do you like wearing other people’s shirts/jackets? its not much of a thrill...i guess im neutral but it has to fit me for starters

what was the best thing that happened to you this month? i donno. watched some stuff, had ppl compliment me

what’s a promise you’ve recently made to yourself? i periodically tell myself to care less about various shit

would you rather be the sky, the ocean or the forests? i guess the sky....clouds are nice. the ocean is full of heinous shit and the abyss. the forest can be kinda iffy too and also cut down

would you kiss the last person you kissed again? i havent kissed anybody romantically* so its not really an issue for me

do you plan your outfits? rarely

how do you feel right now? eh theres the usual undercurrents of misery and frustration but that’s just bg noise most of the time. im alright i suppose

what’s the last dream you remember having? well i was having trouble driving, which is a frequent dream, because it was a bus, which is an unusual detail. i think we were trying to take a roadtrip to a beach in another country, which is a thing that happens in my dreams lately. but then i suddenly found out i was in a play that was in like rehearsal/performance stages already, which is also common. my role was to act like i was real gay for some other guy character. i was like lol no prob

what are you craving right now? im usually a bit hungry i guess

turn ons/offs? i like people who can go along with a joke i suppose and who seem interested in other people and what they have to say. too many things repel me from other ppl to list

when was the last time you cried? why? i’ll cry super easily if im just imagining some sad concept

did the one person who hurt you most in your life apologize? there’s some contenders there smh...but no

do you bite or lick your ice cream? lick....

favorite movie ever? i dont have one

do you like yourself? yeah im alright enough

have you ever met or seen in person a celebrity? not like an a-lister no

how many countries have you visited? just the one ive always been in

have you ever been in a castle? no

what’s the craziest/bravest thing you’ve done? i dont think anything too special. got in front of a car w someone but it was moving slow. proceeded w my stage entrance anyways even when a curtain cue got effed up & led the Improvisation of working around it, but that was dance so nobody had any lines to change

what’s on your mind right now? hoping it tstorms really dramatically later

what’s your zodiac sign? gay

name 5 facts about yourself. my eyes are blue, my pupils dont dilate evenly coz one is a bit less dilatable, im horribly nearsighted, i can cross one eye, i have sort of a unibrow

do you believe in karma? i dont believe in not karma

ever been in love? not romantically*

whom do you admire and why? a lot of activists, im interested in activism and volunteering but have rarely been able to actually be involved in things

what was your favorite bedtime story as a child? man i dont remember having bedtime stories, i dont think i did that much after learning to read myself. i read “pat the bunny” a lot for my little brother, that one was his fave

did you make someone laugh today? i dont think so

do you believe in ghosts? ive always liked hearing about ghost shit, i am not inclined to think that everyone who says theyve had Ghost Encounters is lying, i know ppl personally who have stories who i dont think are lying and it would be presumptuous to say like “well but they probably didnt REALLY x y or z,” and yet still i am always skeptical abt the whole thing. i am agnostic abt everything ever re afterlife stuff, but again—if we’re in a horror movie haunted house situation and shits going down, im going to assume ghosts and everything ive heard about them is true and act accordingly until we’re out of there, Greg The Adamant Disbeliever can have fun dying. and catch me not messing around w ouija boards or any of that shit either...im good.

if you could go back in time which time period would you visit? visit....damn i dunno.

would you want to live forever? why/why not? i mean if other ppl are doing it to then it might be fine. but like me specifically as things are now living forever, im not much interested. someone else can have my immortality

what makes you sad? shit like, life man

was today typical? why/why not? yeah i didnt do anything interesting

who do you trust the most? i dont particularly distrust anyone but i dont really have anything i’d need to trust anyone over

what did you have for breakfast today? i didnt

do you have any regrets looking back in your life? not really

what’s your favorite fictional universe? i dont have one

favorite tv show? i dont have one

share a favorite quote. i have some but i’ll never be able to think of one on the spot

what does your ideal day look like? ahh idk. doing something fun while being around other people

do you have any hobbies? i guess drawing / writing count. theres other things but i dont do them regularly / recently

share a small random book passage that means something to you. dont have one

what’s something you always wanted to do but were too scared? theres not really anything like that

do you usually date people your age or older/younger? neither

who means the world to you? why? any cat ive ever met b/c theyre angels

best books you’ve ever read? i guess i can plug the ashbury/brookfield books again

who is your favorite cartoon character? i gotta say lars dont i

coffee or tea? tea

would you rather be extremely rich or extremely loved? loved but like by multiple ppl right? gimme that magnitude in Widely rather than Intensely

are you a dog or a cat person? i feel like only dog ppl consider this to be a real Binary

what is your biggest addiction? biting my lip endlessly lol

do you ever think about the galaxy? sure

what’s your favorite color? blue

do you have a good relationship with your parents and siblings? why/why not? nah...my sibs and i are like friendly acquaintances i guess. thatll be an abusive household i guess

are you a morning or a night person? night

have you ever dealt with a mental illness? I Guess

how would your friends describe you? uhhhh people say im funny sometimes

do you consider yourself and extrovert or an introvert? bit of both

what’s something you love watching/reading but you are too embarrassed to admit you do? i dont think i have any secrets there

describe yourself in 3 words. extremes, thoughtful, Gay

best memory as a child? idk i always liked swimming and going to pools / waterparks

what is your eye and hair color? blue / brown, respectively.

do you like crystals? theyre cool

if you could change one thing in the world, what would it be? imperialism banned

what’s your hogwarts house? idk slytherin hufflepuff or smthing

biggest pet peeve? theres many..

would you rather go to a cocktail party with your best friends or stay home and read a book/watch a movie with your pet? well first i need the mythical best friend group but also can we be doing something more fun than a cocktail party

share a secret. I’ve Pooped Outside

would you rather live longer or happier? this might only be a difficult choice if it was live shorter or happier

who’s story is your biggest inspiration in life? why? nobody coz idk

do you wear glasses? yes

forest or river? forest

do you like exercise? its alright i dont like just straightup running though

do you like poetry? it depends on who the poet is. cishet white dudes shouldnt be allowed, for starters

any special talent that you have? i’m good at telling if lines are parallel lol