#maybe i got better at colouring and composition

[yulless]

found 3-4 years old sketchbooks and feel very weird seeing how cool my skills were at the time lol

[f6bron]

sequoia.

pairing : iso x gn!reader

notes : mutual pining ? i’ll let the audience decide , might be ooc since i wrote this based on all of his available voicelines so far ( . — . )

The echoing clang of bullets hitting metal targets reverberated through the shooting range as you took aim alongside Iso, the new recruit to the Valorant Protocol. You’d been itching to get to know him better, and what better way to break the ice then some target practice?

“Clean shot! I should let Chamber know he has a rival now.”

Iso shrugged and chuckled, as an acknowledgement to your compliment.

“So, Iso… I heard you isolate your enemy into that domain of yours? Interesting…” you remarked, keeping your eyes trained on the target as you shot a bullet straight to the head.

Iso nodded shyly, his fingers still gripping the handle of his pistol. 

“Y-yeah… Just my way to secure a 1v1 duel…”

Oh, what the hell am I saying, Iso thought, mentally facepalming at his awkward response. He felt silly for acting awkward in front of you. To be honest, he finds you really, really beautiful. Maybe that’s the reason.

But to his surprise, you merely gave him a soft smile. 

“That is sooo freaking cool ~! Can you bring me there someday?” you asked, your tone playful and light.

Iso was surprised, his eyebrows knitting together. 

“Why would I bring you there? I don’t think having a gun duel with an ally there is a good idea–”

You giggled, which interrupted his words. “Not in a gun duel, silly. I just wanna know what it looks like in the dimension.”

Warmth crept onto Iso’s face, his cheeks tinged with embarrassment at having misunderstood your context. “O-oh… Yeah, sure. I hang out a lot there even though there’s nothing much… Mostly when I need alone time to read my books or… listen to music.”

“And, having company once in a while would be nice.” He smiled, his eyes glanced at you.

“Mhmm, then I’ll be waiting ~” you replied, your curiosity piqued. You adjusted your stance, firing a few more rounds with precise accuracy.

“Oh ! Talking about music,” you continued, gesturing to the earbuds that Iso always had whenever you saw him. “I always see you got your earbuds on all the time. I assume you’re a music enthusiast, yes?”

Iso nodded, his fingers fumbling with the gun’s magazine as he exchanged it. “It helps me to stay relaxed and focused. Music has this way of grounding me, you know?”

You smiled, appreciating his honesty. “That makes sense. What kind of music do you listen to then?”

As Iso put his pistol down, he began to list off his favourite genres and artists. You noticed the way his purple-coloured eyes lightened up. You were surprised by the variety of his tastes, from classical compositions to high-energy EDM tracks. Your conversation flowed seamlessly, as Iso continued geeking over his profound hyperfixation.

“So, do you have a favourite song?” you asked, genuinely interested.

Iso took a moment to think before answering. He has so many favourites, heck, he could create millions of playlist when he thought of it. Then, a song came to his mind, “There’s this one song that I find myself going back to quite often. It’s called ‘Helena’ by My Chemical Romance.

The name caught your attention, “Wait ! I know that song ! What’s the worst that I can say ~”

Iso chuckled, he continued singing along, “Things are better if I stay ~”

“So long and goodnight, so long and goodnight.”

Both of you started giggling, which lightened up the mood surrounding the both of you.

Iso started to fiddle with his gloved fingers, his expression softening. “To me, that song carries a powerful and cathartic expression of one’s emotions surrounding the loss of a loved one, so it has become one of my favourites.”

You were touched by his description and decided to make a mental note to listen to the song again later. As you both finished up with the training at the shooting range, you couldn’t help but feel a connection forming between you and Iso. He’s slowly getting along with you, no longer the quiet and reserved recruit. 

Someone you could genuinely relate to.

As the both of you left the shooting range, the two of you talked and laughed, not just about combat training but about music, books and everything in between. His giggles caught your attention, the way he would bring up his hand to stifle his laughs. 

Goddamn, he’s cute.

You didn’t expect the training you had with him could be the perfect time to bring you both closer. You couldn’t wait to explore Iso’s unique dimension with him, discovering not just his hidden talents but the beauty of the world he had specifically created for himself.

“So, about that dimension visit,” you teased, “When can we make that happen?”

Iso grinned, the embarrassment from earlier dissipating. “Whenever you’re ready. I’d be happy to show you around the place.”

“Can we make that a promise?”

“Yeah, promise.”

(A/N): my love for iso is growing… he’s so cutie patootie… do u get me…

masterlist.

[hydn-jpg]

redraw of this piece!! i mentioned in that post that i would redraw it at some point and ig that time is now! (i meant to post this before id2 came out but i got really busy so y'know lol better late than never)

i like to think i've improved! still can't draw chairs though haha

side by side comparison under the cut + rambly artist commentary(?):

i still have a long way to go in learning proper anatomy but i think the new pose looks a lot more natural and comfortable! also ~sexier~ perhaps

i tried to make the bg look closer to the actual cg they used in the book, i am arguably better at doing backgrounds now i think! i used to not put a lot of thought into it and just blocked out random shapes and called it a day (okay, i still do that now lol but i put more care into it now !! i try to make the shapes a bit more distinct and actually plan and sketch it out rather than draw some blobs and hope for the best ldkfkhsl). also more colour range(?) to give it a bit more depth!!)

i'd also like to add that i think i'm also better at figuring out compositions now, idk how it is for y'all but when i look at the original my eyes can't help but just fall to the centre, bc there's no focal point(?) or anything that's visually interesting for the eyes to land on. plus with the way it's structured, my eyes just naturally fall to center (+ bottom half bc the skin showing through the rips are bright in contrast to the black) >_> in contrast, in the redraw your eyes are automatically drawn to the face bc it's arguably the most interesting thing on the canvas and thus acts as the visual anchor of sorts (plus there is enough contrast with the background to make cas stand out instead of blend in)

even though i cringe looking at the og i can't help but to also feel endeared bc this was one of the first immortal desires fanart i ever did and also one the first of my posts to do really well! i never expected to get that much attention since i was only posting casually but it really warmed my heart reading all the lovely comments and motivated to draw more :D

it's also really fun seeing how much my art style and techniques have evolved! i don't think i use any of the same brushes i used to use for my old pieces anymore now haha. i also watched the timelapse for the old one and am honestly kind of in awe at how my different my drawing process used to be!!

i still have a lot to learn (esp in terms of anatomy, lighting, shading etc.) but i'm happy with where i am rn! the great thing about being a hobbyist is that there isn't really any pressure for me to improve quickly so i can just take my time haha (except maybe from imposter syndrome but that's neither here nor there)

i think i could've drawn his face and expression a bit better but i think this is a satisfying enough redraw for now!

btw, these are just my thoughts! i am not an art student so the things i said might not be technically correct but this is how i make sense of things in my brain

[omaano]

SW Hades AU June Update

Other monthly updates: May - June - July - August

This month I’ve had some time to organize my notes and plans for my Star Wars meets Hades AU - I have a massive table for all of the characters, which original Hades game character they had been modeled after, and whether they need portraits/tokens/keepsakes/crests/etc. it’s colour coded and everything. (Fennec had to be cut out from the lineup and I’m hopelessly heartbroken about the whole thing* 😭)

Everyone has an icon who needs one (I’m sorry about the Echo and Fives one, okay? But they come as a package deal, and I also wanted to make sure that Echo is easily distinguishable from all the other clone characters and not just the average looking clone guy next to Fives who - by order of elimination - must be Echo), and everyone has a crest who needs one (except for maybe Barriss… I feel like that the Jedi order symbol doesn’t fully fit her, but for now I will keep it as a place holder. I can't come up with anything better for her at the moment T^T. The froggie returned to the “chtonic companions” line (it is exactly the plushie that Echo and Fives would give Grogu), and now there is Batcher too! If you notice any similarities between Batcher and Boba’s old rancor rag doll, it’s mostly because I took that one and modified it to fit the lurca hound, since they have a similar back ridge pattern.

I also think that it could be a cute in-universe thing if the Batcher doll had been modified from the rancor. Timelines are very flexible in this AU anyway, so it could be totally plausible.

Speaking of! I have a character sketch for Omega and Batcher!

It took me a while to settle on which version of Omega I wanted to put into this AU, but I am very happy with what I could come up with in the end. I had some trouble with what to do with her face, since Hades is really lacking in young teenage characters, and even Melinoe and Eris from Hades2 didn’t prove to be of much help, so I allowed a bit more of my own style to slip back in. With everything else I think it hit a nice enough balance. I mixed her s2 and s3 appearance into one outfit and gave her back her hat and old crossbow (I know she got a new one from Echo, but I prefer how this one sticks out over her shoulder).

This seems to be a girls’ update, since the next sketch I want to share concepts Bo-Katan and her Nite Owls! I’ve wanted to add them to this AU for ages, but all that armor and posing had just seemed too much of a hassle up until I had to seriously distract myself from some irl stress. So now I’ve got the trio to stand in for the fury sisters as first bosses. (I'll need to adjust Koska a little, I see it now)

God bless whoever’s decided to make one of those 30 cm action dolls of these guys, they had been so helpful when it came to looking up reference details! (While we are at details: I made Koska left handed (I think? Or opposite handed at the very least) because I had been coming up with their composition under the impression that she had her flame thrower in her right vambrace like Din and Boba do, which, upon further inspection, she does not ^^;)

Some in-universe thoughts regarding them: 1) Din can very much lose the Darksaber to whoever kicks his ass if he runs with is as his weapon of choice, and then has to return to reclaim it from that enemy (he doesn’t want to but they are in his way), and if he loses it either to her or another enemy Bo-Katan will most definitely have an opinion on the matter. 2) Boba is more than happy to swoop in as a “godly call” against Koska. If he has the option to claim the Call boon from Boba, it's a pretty good indicator that it will be Koska waiting for him at the end of the level. 3) After a while and enough encounters Axe starts showing up around and in the arena on this AU’s equivalent of the Elysium level. Paz would do anything not to have to talk about that minor detail. (Din: "Why does Axe Woves keep calling you baby girl?" Paz *steam escaping from the edge of his helmet* "how about we stop talking for a while." <- This meme has been on my mind for months, now you have to suffer it with me XD) After that it’s a boss fight of Din vs Paz and Axe.

This post is getting a bit long, so I will leave my progress with Obi-wan’s background to the next update. I will also make a separate post on the new little portrait icons, but I really liked how cute Rex and Omega looked next to each other in the big lineup Q^Q

*the only thing that made me dedicate myself to this decision with a heavy heart is that Fennec had been in the Bad Batch, and that would give me the ideal excuse to imagine her in a Hades2 inspired AU where she is helping Omega (as a stand in for Melinoe). I’ve thought a lot about this even before the test version of the game came out, and a lot of it would track now that I’ve seen some game play and story and characters but. Let’s not be delusional, I can barely keep up with this project, and the Hades2 art style, while super pretty, has a twist on the first game's art style that makes me want to cry when I think about replicating it ^^; so that just remains a nice little thought experiment.

Ventress went through the same thing, mostly because I think that in a strange way she would fit very well with Hecate's role. Especially after that s3 episode where she had her cameo with her new fancy haircut.

[akysi]

My Pokémon Illustration Contest entry! Congrats to all the people that made it to the next round :) (minus the AI shit, I hope that gets resolved sometime soon)

I'll be honest, I debated uploading this because I wasn't satisfied with the end product at the time and I'm still not, I overworked the shading and got into my own head too much because of the pressure of the contest, which always puts me at my worst skill wise. This has been a persistent problem for me, so it's not exactly comforting that I haven't grown past that behaviour as much as I thought I had :')

That said though, I am at least happy that I entered! I think I'd regret it if I didn't (younger me probably wouldn't let me hear the end of it!), even if this is a rather polarizing reminder that illustration contests like these are largely out of my league at this point. Other than comics, illustration is probably the weakest of my four main skill sets, and I've known this about myself for a while. I want to push myself to do better with them and digital painting overall, but I'm focusing on upping my comic skills instead for now. Maybe I can do both with all of the environments I'll need to draw for those, we'll see!

I still like this though, I like the general idea, composition and colours I chose. Maybe I can return to it someday without a deadline and give it a proper redo! I got Warrior Cats vibes from the idea in my head so I leaned into that. The entry required a description, but the one I initially made was too long (and might not have been the kind of description they wanted??? idk) so I might as well put that here:

You find yourself out on a cloudless night, the rocky mountain landscape lit up by the crescent moon, starkly glowing against the dark sky. Suddenly, an Absol appears, silent but intently stepping towards you. Its red eyes stare into you, and as you steal a glance at the circle of cliffs around you, you see more eyes staring back. Is this your final judgement… or your final warning?

[oceanlipgloss]

WATERCOLOUR

ANDREALPHUS.

+ warnings: angst, mentions of blood and death.

+ female mc, feminine pronouns.

Was this what it’s like to wash away one’s sins?

The water was warm on his skin. The sky may have been weeping blood above him, but that was just the shower. The enamel tub was dyed crimson, as though painted with watercolour. Molten garnets trickled down his pale flesh.

Soap makes foam that’s white in colour. Water is clearer than crystal. Red are the tears of his sick victims.

He couldn’t see, but she could; she watched the pure water turn a morbid hue. Ugly, turbid. She watched cherry-red get bleached into the shade of unhealthy peaches.

Water of nauseating colour.

Like watercolour it trickled down his closed lids. Tears of pale blood.

A vicious sight.

So much gore.

Starving burgundy snakes slithered with ominous slowness into the water. Were they his own hissing sins, or those of his violent destiny?

When he was a child, the world had bared its sharp teeth at him. He had so many enemies.

There are children who enjoy dipping their soiled brushes into clean water just so they can admire the way colour swirls and makes the liquid unrecognisable, changing its very identity and composition.

Despair is like that too at times, isn’t it...? Pain destroys some souls and mangles others beyond repair and recognition. The victims begin to wonder who they are, and whose mistake everything was.

Who was it that fucked up? Was it the people, fate, God? They themselves, perhaps? Each and all of those factors together?

So many questions, but no definite answer. Life’s complexity is a displeasure. Why do things have to be this way, stay mysterious forever?

Endless millennia to think about, thousands of subjects to ponder. There are those who have the time to contemplate, and those who disappear early. Maybe much too soon.

Her touch melted his skull. Soft. It was soft. With her breakable hands she tried to erase the evidence of his hatred. With her breakable hands she tried to clear the proof of his anguish.

Behind his lonely back, she radiated warmth.

The cold bathroom floor was wet with murky water under her feet.

Creamy was the scent of soap and rancid was the smell of blood as they twirled into one in the air, lacing the steam.

Everything could have made one feel queasy. Even him. He was marred, bloody.

Yet, with a swollen heart aching from heartbreak for his misery and lust for his body, she merely thought about how he was so sad and so very pretty.

He felt better, but she was only washing his hair. It’s not that important. It’s not permanent. Tomorrow he would once again think about something dark, something else.

Death can be nice sometimes.

After all, he was alone. He had no one. So had he not promised revenge, if it were not for bloodlust and justice, he would have liked to disappear, too.

+note: finally got around to finishing this WIP that's way past its expiration date. It's so old it was beginning to rot. Depressive episodes and stress normally paralyse my 'writing-brain,' but this was another one of those rare times in which that was not quite the case. I was still somewhat reluctant at certain parts, though that's pretty normal anyways—and surprisingly enough, I managed to continue writing with a sort of ease. Thank you to the torment for taking this damn WIP out of my way, I suppose.

On a side note, long before the game's ordeal I was clueless about how to continue all the 'What in "Hell" is Bad?' WIPs I had, so I scrapped 98% of them. As of now, I have one WIP for each of Leviathan and Andrealphus, but I'm stuck and still debating whether to finish them or scratch them out as well. Besides, the displays of greed and the in-game mess lowered my desire to write 'What in "Hell" is Bad?' fics to near 0. However, albeit the fact that I no longer feel compelled to do so, I guess I'll likely write if ideas visit me. Normally, it would be hard to resist writing an idea I like, of course.

+ MASTERLIST

+ AO3 POST

©𝙤𝙘𝙚𝙖𝙣𝙡𝙞𝙥𝙜𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙨

[st-hedge]

Hello Hedge!

I just wanted to say, no matter what you draw or paint, your art always looks so good!! But I also wanted to ask if you had any tips and stuff for someone who is extremely unskilled at painting backgrounds and sceneries? Or like, what would you recommend as a starting point? I've been struggling for literal years and have never found anything that makes painting backgrounds enjoyable, or that makes me feel like my backgrounds are... well, satisfying, if that makes any sense.

I hope you have a wonderful day, and thank you 💕

Heya! c: i was giving this a think and im gonna say if u dont enjoy making something, don't force urself to! someone who is good at doing backgrounds may be only good at that. they might've discovered they hate drawing people or are really bad at it (like bob ross ehehe) so they focused entirely on doing landscapes. so if u just find urself not enjoying backgrounds, it's okay!!

but if u want to give backgrounds another shot, here's an idea I had: i think that backgrounds can be very overwhelming and unenjoyable cuz of the scale and the fact that u think u gotta fill the entire canvas. the way i got over that gradually is by doing very simple block colour thumbnail sketches. base the sketches on photos, game screenshots, whatever u have on ur mind that might look neat. it helped me understand composition and colour palettes much better, which also helped me to then progress into doing more detailed paintings by making it feel less overwhelming. u can also then just blur the thumbnail and stick it in the background of a portrait and it'll look grand!

once i got more comfortable with making those thumbnail sketches, i'd go back over the painting with more detail. but by that i don't mean go back in and draw every darn leaf by hand. what i do is grab a favourite textured brush on the messy side (eg. wedge tail in procreate) and go over things to add shape and texture. u can imply a great amount of detail just from making a mess of texture lmao

once i have that satisfying amount of chaos, i might see shapes i like and then in that case i go back in and refine them with finer brushes. that might even be by just using those sort of 'stamp' brushes that immediately stick in leaf texture or something

thats how i managed to eliminated what i hate about doing backgrounds. if there is a specific thing u hate about doing landscapes, there's probably a work around for it that is lazy and satisfying as hell. maybe breaking the process down like i described above will help u figure out what it is

i hope that helps a little! but again please don't pressure urself into drawing something u might just dislike!

[joyburble]

So, we see Donfang Qingcang reading on screen several times, and I think it's an important character message.

On encountering a problem, in episode 4, that can't be addressd by violence, what is the first thing our character does? He RTFMs. He sends Shanque to fetch the Fucking Manual, and he Reads It. What. In fact, they both read it, at least until they find the right bit.

Iconic. And adorable.

Definitely much less surprising in a Chinese genre than it would be in any English-language genre. But this section is so spectacular I want to give it a lot of weight.

The scroll is extremely long. He baulks, for a second, at the length,

but this, his face says, cannot possibly defeat him: he backs himself (I love it) and gets down to work.

It's illustrated. I'd love to hear from someone who can read any part of the text. He engages in detail with the content.

He continues in episode 5, having made some progress, and still backing himself to work out what it all means.

He takes it out on the balcony to study it by daylight. When his plans don't succeed at first, he doesn't reject the information, he thinks about it harder and compares it with the data.

Then something interesting happens: after making Orchid's tummyache better, he sits down, and without any stated reason tries to read something else, which looks like a completely normal book:

He can't focus because she's so sad, but we get a glimpse of the corner of a title label. When he puts it down, we can see it's a paperback stitched in the traditional Chinese manner.

It could be anything, but looks a reasonable size for a novel. There are also some other books on the table. Maybe they're technical works from Xiao Lanhua's library, and he's just bored and curious?

This wouldn't be as clear if it was the only example, or if we saw other characters repeatedly reading. But I don't think we do.

In episode 18 post-whump we learn again that what he does to relax and distract himself, when in pain and/or wanting attention, is read a book. It's a slim volume with a vertical format and a pretty, embellished cover. Perhaps a book of poems?

In Episode 26, now knowing he is loved, he is reading for fun again, with no explanation asked or given. Another sewn book, but in this case it has a hard cover with a shiny and colourful design. What could it be? Who knows? It seems to be making him smile a little.

The message we are getting, here, is that what he does when he wants to relax and enjoy life, is read. We’re supposed to understand that in his natural disposition, minus his father’s crimes and his profession of violence, he is a gentleman and a scholar. He is curious. He is capable of handling new information. He has brains and capabilities and ingenuity. He has a big ego, but he can put it in the engine room, not the driving seat. It's a gently-delivered message, but I think it contributes a lot to our perception of the character.

In dream-world episode 31, he is reading a scroll with Xiao Lanhua. Are they reading a story to each other? Doing the voices?

So apparently in his imagination it's a bonding activity too: you can read together with a person you love and share your reactions. A bit like you and I are doing now.

Finally, I think they published this behind-the-scenes shot for a reason (thank you @moonsupremesblog, and I'm sorry this probably should have been a reblog of this post but I got too far in before I remembered)

We can see it's Dylan Wang referring to a script, but we do a double-take because it's totally in character, the lighting, composition, and depth-of-field intentionally reinforce that effect, and we have to look at the plastic cover and the little place-tags to realise it isn't.

[lady-of-imladris]

How to recognize AI "Art"

A post I have wanted to make for a long time because I think it's important to know! Please mind that this is not 100% accurate and I am by no means an expert on AI art. My knowledge on the topic comes from a semester of research on the development of AI art and how it has improved over the years. I wrote a pretty intense paper on it (I got an A on this!) and I am now using this knowledge to help identify AI art.

I often ask myself "did an actual person make this art or did they just generate it?" because I WANT TO SUPPORT ARTISTS WITH A REBLOG BUT AI "ART" IS NOT ART!!!!

Image description and tags, other posts by the same user If there is no image description by OP, that's usually a bit sketchy. Also read tags other people have added in their reblogs! And look at other posts from the same user!

Features blending In an image where a person is wearing glasses, do they maybe merge into the skin a bit? (see Image 9)

Circular artefacts TBH I forgot why they happen but one paper I studied discussed ways to remove them because they are an obvious giveaway that an image is artificial (see Image 10)

Image 1: Circular Artifacts [1]

4. Problems with text or other "logical composition stuff" (sorry I'm bad at words) AI is bad at generating text! It looks like words, but it makes no sense. In Image 3, where does the cat's paw come from? (Also note here that DALL-E puts those coloured squares in the bottom right corner).

Take a closer look at the hands of the women in the image on the bottom right. How many are there? Hands are also a good indicator!

Image 2 [2], Image 3 [3]

Image 4 [4], Image 5 [5]

5. mismatched earrings/eyes... ("long range dependencies") Human faces are symmetric, we (usually) have two eyes, two ears... That's a problem for AI. Earrings and eyecolours usually have to match. Either side may look perfectly fine, but when you look at is as a whole, it does not always work.

6. seems "too smooth"? I've noticed a lack of texture. Brushstrokes are missing, everything seems just a little flat. There are definitely generative models that can emulate brush strokes, but watch out for backgrounds. They sometimes give it away!

7. read this article for a lot of additional information!

8. something I found in this article that is not mentioned: the harsh contrast I have taken the below pictures from that article, and you can see some very "harsh" areas around the irises in the pictures with the eyes, or around the kids

Image 6, 7, 8 [6, 7, 8]

In the two images below, I have just marked some areas that seem off and I will briefly discuss why:

Image 9, Image 10 [9, 10]

Left (Image 9): In Halbrand's hair, there seems to be part of a crown or some other adornment, but it's not quite there. You can also see the general "smoothness" in this image. Another suspicious looking area is Galadriel's neck. Between their faces, you can see the mountain range in the background continue, but it stops exactly where the strand of hair is. On the right side of the image, there are some bright spots on the rocks that also look a bit weird.

Right (Image 10): I have marked some spots that I think look a bit like circular artifacts (that have probably already been "treated" by the generative model). On the bottom left side I have circled this jar? vase? Whatever. You can see that the lid and the rest of the object don't align.

Once again: DISCLAIMER - I could be wrong! This is really hard because the generative models get better.

Sources:

[1] D. Stap, M. Bleeker, S. Ibrahimi, and M. ter Hoeve. Conditional image generation and manipulation for user-specified content. arXiv preprint arXiv:2005.04909, 2020.

[2] A. Ramesh, P. Dhariwal, A. Nichol, C. Chu, and M. Chen. Hierarchical text-conditional image generation with clip latents. arXiv preprint arXiv:2204.06125, 2022.

[3, 4] Generated by me using DALL-E for research purposes.

[5, 6, 7, 8] from this article, accessed on August 15 2023

[9, 10] posted by Tumblr user @ fandomfatale, accessed on August 15 2023

[lara-cairncross]

Hi I did not expect to be hit with this much nostalgia for pixie hollow fairies lol

The way you draw them is so pretty!?!?!?!?! I love their designs so much

I'm considering drawing fanart now, especially since I saw the suggestion of drawing my personal OCs in your fairy au, and I realized.... I have an oc. That I created recently. Like so recently that I haven't even named her yet. And she's already kinda fairy-like??? She's the result of a one-night stand between Leo and a random bird yokai who decided to dump the egg on Leo (it's the accidental baby acquisition trope except its more like you-really-should-have-expected-this-leo baby acquisition XD)

Don't worry though, she's not bird-like enough to want to eat your fairy boys if she met them. She's basically just a feathered turtle who loves shiny things, and I haven't even finalized her design but now I wanna draw her as a fairy haha. I do know her feathers are blue-purple-pink-ish with red streaks, so her colour scheme matches Fairy Leo haha

Hmmmm maybe I should actually put a question here uhh....

You keep hinting at plot points but you've also said you don't plan on making this a comic, so are we ever going to find out what the heck is going on???

And I know the idea of making a whole entire comic can seem overwhelming, but have you considered viewing it as just doodling and practicing? For my own au comic I only have one part drawn so far and it is the first part, but I'm planning to just draw any part of the story at any point in time, just depending on what I feel like. Cuz no one says you have to do it the "normal" way, right? And I like to think of drawing the comic pages as practicing new skills, like learning how to do page layouts and composition better. Aka focus on the journey and not the end goal.

Whoo, that got kinda long and I only really asked one question, but based on previous asks you've answered I have a feeling you don't mind ;)

OK that was entirely just stream of thought after going through the whole au tag (there are more thoughts but most are incoherent and overlapping so this is what i managed to pick out of my brain), but to summarize: I love your fairy au and the boys are gonna be living in my head now, along with every other version of the turtles that I love <3 <3 <3

I'm glad to hear you're liking the fairy au!! I had a ton of fun coming up with their designs :D

I do actually plan on making this into a comic of sorts! I dunno if I could ever make, like, a long-form webcomic or anything like that-- but I'm definitely planning on doing at *least* a few mini-comics to elaborate on the story! And maybe build my way up to something longer and more fulfilled :D As of now, I'm trying to experiment with different comic styles on my own time so I can try and find something that's quick and easy, but still looks decent. I like the idea of treating it as essentially a glorified doodle page. Honestly, as soon as I try to take any of my stories too seriously, I burn out fast-- so I'm trying to stay pretty chill about this one and just making content whenever I feel like it lol

Yup, I'm totally cool with everyone drawing their OCs as fairies if they want to! It's not like I own the idea or anything lmao. The only caveat is that I have jurisdiction over whether or not something is canon to my particular au. Leo and the rest of the boys are still canonically kids/teenagers to me, and I've been writing/drawing them as kids this entire time, so I won't be including anything/anyone related to one of them having a "one night stand" with somebody. I can't really police what anyone else draws though, so have fun :D

Sorry about these little guys buzzing around in your brain ❤️💜🧡🩵

[thisworldisablackhole]

Opeth Discog Run

So, every once in a blue moon I like to punish myself with stupid music listening challenges. Over the past week I tasked myself with doing a full run-through of Opeth's 14 studio albums and writing a mini paragraph of my thoughts over on sputnikmusic. I figured I'd post it here as well, because I put a stupid amount of time and effort into it. Approximately 65 hours of listening and 500 track plays in 7 days. Woof. These are just my first impressions as someone who had never listened to this band prior, and therefore has no bias toward any era of the band. I listened to all of these albums at LEAST twice, with some being played up to 8 times in a row, and mostly just read wikipedia articles for additional context. So without further ado;

Orchid (1995)

So I was honestly expecting something a little more straight forward and heavy for their debut, but these guys were fairly progressive straight off the bat. Pretty impressive considering Mikael Åkerfeldt was only 20 years old at the time! Obviously super talented guy for his age. I have to say I enjoyed the softer, more atmospheric parts of this album more than the straight up metal parts. I think they compliment each other well, but every time the band broke out the acoustic guitar or piano I just got totally absorbed into a trance, and then the metal parts come back in and I was reminded that this was written by 20 year olds. The composition of the songs make up for some very basic riffage though. There is a simplistic charm here that makes each song feel like a living organism, steadily growing, rising and falling with each breath. It's nice. I can see the potential.

Morningrise (1996)

It's actually insane how much of an immediate step up this album is from Orchid considering it came out only a year later? Like what? Did these gents do some sort of time traveling in the course of that time? Gone is the nascent baby fat and in it's place is some actual muscle and bone density. The riffs sound way more thoughtful and creative, especially the lead work, and the album as a whole seems less reliant on the sharp contrast between heavy metal and progressive ambiance. The bell curve is just a lot smoother (like the acoustic guitars are implemented so beautifully and seamlessly) but there are still some really great "floor falling out" moments scattered throughout. Bass lines go brrrrrrr also and the tone is so warm and round like a dollop of savoury syrup, definitely a highlight of this album. These songs feel more controlled and developed which maybe makes them feel less "alive" but the tradeoff is just better playing and writing. Off to a good start.

My Arms, Your Hearse (1998)

Okay, if Opeth could evolve so much in only one year, what can TWO years do for them? Let's see. Very noticeable tone shift right off the bat to something much darker and heavier on the black metal influence. I was a little skeptical for about 5 seconds until I realized just how good this album is at pulling you in different directions. Not only are the riffs just moodier, jutting out like brutalist structures from a turbulent sea, but the shift in production really brings out all of the brighter tones to create a more vivid spectrum of colour. I do love the organic warmth of the first two albums but this one just sounds massive and encompassing. The vocal range continues to improve also, both in the low end and Mikael's cleans. Definitely their most emotionally compelling album thus far. Not sure if I like it MORE than Morningrise but it's different in ways that I appreciate.

Still Life (1999)

Another year, another album. Very impressed by their work ethic alone. Still Life is another clear evolution of the band's sound, but it feels like more of a "settling in" than another wild leap. This is Opeth reinforcing their foundations, tightening their bootstraps to ensure optimal ankle mobility. This might be their most cinematic album yet in large part due to the individual songs feeling more focused and clear in their intent to service the overall story arc of the album instead of becoming worlds of their own (looking at you "Black Rose Immortal"). Some of the bands most memorable and dissonant riffs ("Godhead's Lament" sheeesh). "Benighted" might also be their best acoustic track as well. This is probably their "best" so far but I can still see so many valid arguments for any of the previous three being someone's "favourite".

Blackwater Park (2001)

Wow, I have so many mixed feelings about this one. Blackwater Park is objectively good, I'll give it that, but it's also surprisingly docile coming from the jagged anger of Still Life. Not what I was expecting from their most popular album. This is maybe their most atmospheric work since Orchid, but for entirely different reasons. Instead of long sections of ambiance interspersed between towers of distortion, the opposing forces are almost layered on top of each other. Even during some of the heaviest moments, a steady supply of acoustic guitars and soaring reverb-heavy leads just bathe everything in a soft, mellow glow. "Drapery Falls" is probably the best example of this. There is definitely a heavier focus on melodic clean sections here, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, as it makes those moments when the growls kick in feel more powerful, but something about this record just feels a little watered down, streamlined, smoother, more accessible. No wonder it is their most popular. It's actually funny listening to this for the first time in 2024 and feeling an immediate sense of familiarity from it, not because I've heard it before, but because I've spent the last two decades listening to other bands ape its style. Unfortunately, that makes it a bit harder for me to appreciate it. It's also the first Opeth album so far where I have straight up not liked some of the riffs, mostly in "The Funeral Portrait" and the title track, which both have riffs that seem to be pandering to an American groove metal audience (I wonder if that was intentional, as Blackwater Park also marked the bands first big splash in the North American tour circuit). It might be my least favourite so far, but it might also have the most potential to grow on me. We'll see. Onto Deliverance we go~

Deliverance (2002)

Lol what the fuck? Opeth really pulled a fast one here. I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of some bright eyed little weasel spending their weekly allowance on this CD after falling in love with Blackwater Park and then getting slapped across the face by the flabbiest drum roll of all time and a guitar track that sounds like it was recorded on a fossil. The story of this album is actually pretty funny. Mikael Åkerfeldt wanted to record a purely heavy record for funsies but he had to butter up his label to allow them to record it by saying they would record the more mellow sounding Damnation at the same time, and that it wouldn't cost any extra money, and then of course the recording process ended up being a completely rushed fucking mess. It really comes through in the mix (I did mostly listen to the original mix just to get the most authentic experience), but I'm not gonna lie, this record's rough production quality ends up being one of it's greatest charms, and it perfectly suits the stripped back and aggressive approach the band took to songwriting. I can see how people would view this as a step back in bands evolution, but I really fuck with it. I also think it was probably a good call to take a step back and reassess the bands core foundation after the grandiose epic of Blackwater Park. One of the things I love most about Deliverance is that the folky acoustic and piano moments actually feel impactful again, because their pure abundance in every corner and pocket of the songwriting on Blackwater Park just diluted their ability to provoke any sort of emotion or surprise out of me. I guess I just prefer contrasty Opeth to blended Opeth. Great album.

Damnation (2003)

I was worried my proclivity toward Heavypeth so far would set me up to be sorely disappointed by this album, but I'll be damned, this album is fantastic. Opeth is fully expanding on their progressive folk rock sound here. Not a single metal riff or scream in sight, and I'm not bothered in the slightest. It's gloomy and dramatic and packs an emotional punch, and still has some pretty rockin' solos to boot. The addition of the mellotron was an absolutely brilliant idea, it adds such a cool flavour to their sound. This is also their shortest and most condensed record yet which I appreciate, just makes these songs more memorable and digestible imo. It's hard to believe this came from the same recording session as Deliverance, but now that I have heard both I really appreciate their decision to split their sound into two distinct lanes. Very cool concept and great record. We are officially half-way through!

Ghost Reveries (2005)

Ahh the much revered two year resume gap returns! And of course the pendulum swings back toward heavy once more, but now with a full-time key wizard on payroll to work some of my favourite elements of Damnation back into their metal roots. Along with a pretty thick helping of ~middle eastern~ melodies (especially on tracks like "Beneath the Mire" and "Atonement"), this is perhaps their weirdest and most eclectic metal album so far, but it's also bordering on more of those groove metal tropes that I'm not too fond of. If only they would have retained more of their acoustic folk influence, this would have been the damn Super Bowl of Opeth albums. Probably their best production quality so far too. So far I haven't been bothered by Opeth's long ass songs, and felt like they were almost always justified in their indulgence, but this might be the first time I've really felt the drag. So, not perfect, but pretty damn good. This is kind of the album I was expecting Blackwater Park to be.

Watershed (2008)

So this is it huh? The end of an era? Kind of scared to continue past this point to be honest, but we're in too deep already. What a great way to end this chapter in their career though, hey? They really boiled the 70s prog influence right down to it's purest form here, flutes and all, and I absolutely LOVE it. Opeth have always had moments of quiet in their music (god does that ever feel so trite to keep mentioning at this point), but on Watershed those moments are light and flowery (funky even!) and tinged with psychedelia in a way they have never been before—bringing yet another fresh approach to their signature contrast. On top of that, their death metal chops sound darker and more unhinged than they've been since My Arms, Your Hearse. As someone who (so far) prefers their first four albums + Damnation, Watershed just immediately clicked with me, it has all my favourite elements of their sound. Hell it might even be my second favourite after Still Life.

Heritage (2011)

To be honest, I don’t know anything about progressive rock outside of stuff that is post-hardcore adjacent. I have maybe listened to King Crimson once or twice in my life, that’s about it. So I have zero frame of reference for an album like this. On the bright side, that leaves me with no preconceived notions or expectations. What I do know, however, is that I’m a huge sucker for wind and key instruments and head tilting arrangements, and this album has all of those things. It also still has a decent amount of vintage heaviness and skewed rhythms to it. A far cry from boring or sleep-inducing, thats for sure. The jazzy intro into the desert psych of “The Devil’s Orchard” is such a cool way to start. Definitely gravitating more toward the second half of the record though, “Famine” and “Folklore” are perhaps my favourite tracks but the whole run from “Haxprocess” to the end is pretty great. Not a bad start to Newpeth although it’s very easy to see why this is so divisive.

Pale Communion (2014)

So if Watershed was the boarding process, and Heritage the blast off, then Pale Communion must be the band settling in to their zero-g voyage. Although to use any kind of space metaphor would be remiss, because this album is earthy as hell. I swear I can see the Misty Mountains overlooking a fishing village tavern when I close my eyes. I really enjoyed Heritage, but I think I like this one even more, and it took me a few listens to really figure out why. Pale Communion just feels more intimate, it has no grand ambition of being a masterpiece or magnum opus, the lads are just having a good time here and crafting melodies that almost feel like more of an extension of what the band was doing on Damnation. There is still a healthy dose of heavy funk here ("Cusp of Eternity" comes to mind), but for the most part the psychedelic heat-delirium vibes of Heritage have been traded out for something more serene and whimsical. "Elysian Woes" is such a dream. Big fan of this record.

Sorceress (2016)

Sputnikmusic's least favourite Opeth album (based on some increasingly unreliable metrics). How does it fare? Well, I can kind of see why people consider this to be a weak release. The shift in production caught me off guard straight away. That title track is just CHONKY as hell following the very unassuming intro. These arrangements are also all very straight forward by Opeth standards, BUT… this might also be the most overtly heavy of the Newpeth records so far, and in a way that almost reminds me of the their debut record—simple, heavy, and free. Sorceress is kind of like the scuzzy little farm dog that rolls around with the pigs and barks at strangers but still rolls over with glee for a good belly scratch. These riffs are THICK, and there are still quite a few moments where the interplay between organ and lead guitar just blows me away. Lot's to love here for sure, especially in the middle to end portion of the record, but I have to agree that it's a wee bit of a step back.

In Cauda Venenum (2019)

Ahhhhh we're in the final dash to the finish line here. The Opeth fatigue is real, but that's not going to stop me from taking my time and trying to enjoy these last two albums. The band definitely sounds reinvigorated here. That intro into the beginning of "Dignity" is just such a bombastical way to come back from the Sorceress slump. In Cauda Venenum is dense, theatrical, operatic—a proper story book with so many peaks and valleys to explore, and of course the inevitable helping of cheesy vocals and lyrics that most rock opera's come packaged with ("Heart In Hand" might be the worst offender). But it's nothing that we aren't used to at this point, right? Certainly one of their most conceptually coherent albums, and the songwriting more than makes up for the cheese, their sense of melody and volume dynamics is back on track here. I think Pale Communion is still my Newpeth record of choice, but this is a very solid (albeit bloated) late career entry. That closer is just so epic, come on.

The Last Will And Testament (2024)

We have come full circle, back to the album that got me in this whole mess. I actually listened to this once already and enjoyed it, but now I return with the context of their entire discography on hand. And boy, what a symbolic place to begin and end, with an album that sort of encapsulates their whole career. Have to echo what others have already said, this isn't so much of a step back in time as it is a reincorporation of old themes into something entirely its own. The Last Will And Testament actually makes so much sense as a follow-up to In Cauda Venenum. In the same way that Deliverance and Damnation could be two sides of the same coin, so could these two albums. This still has the highly conceptual, operatic whimsy full of borderline goofiness that just makes me smile — it's just more aggressive, and that's beautiful to see. Speaking of goofiness, this album is weird as hell. Haunted victorian noble-esque spoken word parts and Bambi flutes are contrasted by death growls and twisted prog metal riffs. It's both fantastical and dark. It's also just way more engaging than their last two IMO. The return of death metal elements don't automatically make this the best Newpeth record, but it's at least on par with Heritage and Pale Communion, with the conceptual clarity of In Cauda Venenum. The 51 minute run-time also makes it feel surprisingly concise for an Opeth album, at no part did I feel like this was dragging on, which is better than I can say about some of their older albums. This isn't only one of the most unique Opeth albums, it's one of the most unique albums I've heard period, and this whole discog run was worth it just to appreciate it for what it really represents. Good job boys, now pack it up.

[starshipqstar]

On a supportive queer fandom, community, and making our first ever animation

Making the Starship Q Star animation has largely been wonderful - we got to make a show we love and learnt a LOT. As two writers new to producing the format (Lauren had only written for kids animation) - it was a huge learning curve. A learning cliff if you will. Whilst we had to cut a lot out for time and budget, we're really proud of how they turned out within the constraints. And by the end? Lauren and I coloured most of the final episode and I did all the compositing and VFX myself (all in Toon Boom Harmony - a program neither of us had used a few months before).

Animation is also still a bit of a boys club - so we committed to finding a design and animation team that was diverse as possible, and reflected what the project was about. I'm proud to say that we managed that (out of our cast & crew of 24, only 3 were cis-men - and most were queer). We also gave opportunities to diverse creatives who hadn't had jobs in the industry before - and have since seen some of them use the experience to get more paid work. You simply love to see it! All of the cast and crew are incredibly special and brought amazing things to the show - an absolute dream team.

It hasn't been easy at all - animation is a LOT of work, and the budget didn't allow for all the support we probably needed, so it was months of unpaid work for the two if us, and a number of weeks working 15-20 hour days to get it done. But we bloody well did it!

But since the show has been out, it's been a bit of a... reality check? Having been immersed in the audio drama community with Starship thus far - we perhaps got a little too used to how incredible supportive (and perhaps queer?) everyone is.

Another animation project is part of the same initiative as we are, and it was one of the first projects released. The creator is a really lovely and talented guy who has made a special show we really enjoyed. His show went kind of viral - which is AWESOME! It's great! However due to his experience on certain other projects... some of the fans of his show... aren't necessarily our audience? And the nature of the initiative means only some projects get chosen to make more.

The first comment on YouTube a few minutes after the Ep 1 of Starship Q Star was published was "make more [the other show]". Then our socials started getting homophobic and really negative comments (and trust me I have spent a long time curating that tiktok algorithm lol). At first I thought it was weird or maybe it was just because we were being shared by a third party so the wrong audience were finding us - but then they also included comments like "[the other show] is better".

I honestly find it odd that some fans take it upon themselves to do stuff like this. Making art is hard! And liking one thing better than something else doesn't mean you have to actively hate that something else! There's room for us all to succeed (well, once we take care of that pesky thing called capitalism). And maybe remember that when it's an indie project the people who made the thing are usually the ones running the socials lol.

We are so grateful to have had so many incredible people love and champion the show in both audio and animated format. And we feel so lucky to be a part of both the queer and audio drama community (yes I know that venn diagram is a circle) - it truly is such a special supportive environment that lifts one other up.

Anyway, I'll probably delete this (way too earnest - eww) but thanks to all the lovely ones out there. We really love and appreciate all of you and all the nice comments and messages and shares. Means the world!

[best-titan-7274]

I would love to see a scene of cooper working on a vanguard chassis, maybe assisted by an exasperated SRS tech

I'm imagining the line "now I know you've never had to work on a vanguard chassis before, but *please* don't touch the reactor casing"

I'm bringing in an OC from my longfic for this one, 'cause I can 100% picture her saying that.

"First of all, safety and regulations," Jeanie says.

The booklet she hands him is well-worn, unidentifiable grease stains of various types sludged across the cover and edges, and he's pretty surprised to see that the pages are all readable.

It all seems pretty straightforward. In fact, he's not sure why he has to read any of this. There's an entire page dedicated to a set of diagrams explaining why you'll probably get squished flat if you make a habit of standing underneath cranes with heavy payloads. Who needs to be told that?

He doesn't comment, though, just leafs through the thing and hands it back. Jeanie tosses it off to the side, and he's not sure if it lands on the nearby table through skill or luck.

"Right, let's go."

She takes the scaffolding two steps at a time, and he follows a little slower, not used to being up this high. Not without being in a cockpit, at any rate, but BT's nowhere around.

"So, what's step one?" he asks when they're both at the top of the scaffolding. He's not sure if her eyeliner is really electric blue, or if it just looks brighter around her dark brown eyes. Not the time, Cooper.

"Step one: do not touch the reactor casing."

He blinks. "What?"

"I know you've never had to work on a Vanguard chassis before," she explains, one hand on her hip as the other gestures to the Titan in question, "but please don't touch the reactor casing. You will die, and it will hurt the entire time you're dying."

"Do people really do that?" is all he can think to ask.

She lets out a heavy sigh, and that answers his question pretty well.

"Don't touch the reactor casing," he says with a nod. "Got it."

He can only imagine what BT would say if Jack even thougt about it. Actually, he can imagine the Cooper, that is very dangerous pretty well. He might be a tad more reckless than he's willing to admit. Eh.

"So what's step two?" he asks, partly against his better judgment.

"Don't lose your balance while you're all the way up here."

That seems slightly more important, but apparently there are people who fail step one. So he nods again, and watches as Jeanie digs through a massive metal toolbox that was left up here. By her? He's not sure. He doesn't ask.

"Attach these sensors to these places."

The bundle of cables are flopped over his shoulder, clanking and heavy, and the mechanic's glasses he's wearing soon come up with an overlay. Everything's colour-coded, which seems like it'll make things easier. Great!

He takes a deep breath, then another, then steps off the scaffolding.

The soles of his mag-boots lock onto the unique composite of the chassis, keeping him from falling, but he still doesn't look down. Instead he starts trekking, careful not to step too heavily, as told in orientation. He has a hard time thinking the chassis can be anything approaching fragile, but better safe than sorry.

A sharp, screeching whine from behind him nearly scares him into toppling over. He looks over his shoulder, fully expecting to see some kind of danger, but it's just Jeanie with a circular saw of some kind. Sheesh. Could've warned him.

He starts putting sensors where they belong, the glasses adjusting his path and inventory every so often. It's easier than he thought it would be, as long as he pretends he's not a spine-snapping distance from the concrete below.

It's easier to think of this as BT. Mag-boots or not, he's safe there, no matter what's going on. And besides, Lastimosa never would have let him get so far in his Pilot training if he didn't have some sense. That's a serious responsibility. Even if he and BT screw around sometimes in a way that's decidedly not responsible, but hey, the fastball is fun.

He doesn't mention that part to Jeanie, cause somehow, he doesn't think she'd approve.

She's waiting for him when he steps back onto the scaffolding, a datapad in her hand.

"Good job not dying on your first day, newbie."

"Should I have been worried about that?"

"Depended on how stupid you were, honestly," she says, and takes one look at his surprised face, and laughs louder than he expected.

He takes half a second to think of what his expression just looked like, and laughs with her.

[thebestofoneshots]

Hey You!

Ok I was just infatuated with your sneak peak for GC Ch. 25 omg. I had to look at it over and over again since yesterday. Really I love your AI art for this series. This is exactly how I picture the boys in my head. Sirius' hair I'm dying. I've already spent my time using AI to create portraits of them, and it was just rubbish. Maybe I'm not advanced enough to use it properly. But I just had a look at you last art again and I just have to ask you! I have so many questions. Which tools do you use to create it? Do you rework the pics with other software like Photoshop or something? And most important, and propably the most improper question: what do you tell the AI to do exactly? You don't have to answer this one. I don't want to steal your style or anything, I'd just like to know how you get them pictured so accurate you know? And how much time do you spend in average to be satisfied with a picture to publish it for GC?

Yeah I hope I'm not rude asking you this, but I'm a big fan of your work 😭

Have a nice week! 🤍

I find it hilarious I got this question just when I was fighting with AI to do what I wanted it to do lol.

There are a lot of questions, so I'll try to be as detailed as possible. I talked about the AIs I used on this post. But basically, I recommend Bing's Image Creator that's powered by Dall-e 3.

I do rework the pics, not always, but AI always seems to confuse hair colours, gives Sirius a sandy brown and Remus black, so I do find myself switching that often (I use things like picsart, facelab, procreate and makeup+ for this). I have also done some face altering things here and there, especially when the faces don't look exactly like I want them to, for example in this one:

I wasn't quite satisfied with Sirius' face so I altered the features a little more so that they looked exactly like they looked in my head. This minor alterations I find myself doing rather often on the pictures that will be the official ones.

Now the time I spend until I'm satisfied varies, sometimes the AI image is perfect and I use it straight, sometimes I have try a few times over and over until I get the exact result I want, and that takes much more time. Maybe like 30-40 minutes to get the image and the side (aesthetic) pics I add to the sides.

Now, the most important question, what do I say? Again it varies, sometimes I find myself tweaking and altering things arounf until I get exactly what I want. For this image in particular I said something like this:

16 year old Remus Lupin (sandy blond hair, golden-brown eyes, scars on his face, handsome)holding back a 16 Sirius Black 16 year old Sirius black (long curly hair, delicate & soft features, pretty and handosme, grey-blue eyes). Remus has his hand in Sirius shoulder, they both look tense, like they want to stop a fight. Defense against the dark arts classroom. realistic art.

I remember I changed it later, to Hogwarts classroom and students standing behind but, once I get the basics of the composition I tweak things around until I have exactly what I want.

Now I find AI has some issues with side profiles, maybe I haven't cracked it yet, but I spent all my energy on Bing trying to get the right composition for an image for next week's episode and it was not cooperating with me.

I asked for this:

16 year old Remus Lupin (sandy brown hair, golden-brown eyes, scars on his face, handsome) and young Sirius black (long curly hair, delicate & soft features, pretty and handosme, grey-blue eyes, gryffindor). Remus covers Sirius mouth with his hand and he is pressing his chest onto Sirius’, they’re front to front (we see their profiles), foreheads almost touching . Restricted section of the library. they’re hiding from someone. realistic art.

And kept getting Remus standing behind Sirius:

Don't get me wrong, I loved most of this, they look amazing! But it wasn't exactly my vision. Even wasted $15 usd on DALL·E hoping it would make it better but I was very disappointed (Bing is so much better and FREE).

Eventually, I got one image that did exactly what I wanted and I'm currently reworking it to make it exactly what I want, we'll see how it goes in the end.

But yeah, I've spent almost all day working on this (using my free time at work), and only one out of all worked, so time spent on it really, really varies.

Hope you find this helpful darling, and if you managed to get the image I've struggling with to work, it'd be really cool if you shared it with me.

Read Gilded Constellations

[dark-is-d3ad]

Moving AU, part 3, anyone? Haven't got a tv and a ps5 like Ghost, but I do have some lights now (gosh my own headcanon made me want them so bad, why do I do this to myself).

Part 1, part 2, part 2.5 - context.

• A few days later it really starts getting on Ghost's nerves. Even with help from Gaz and Roach, a lot of their stuff isn't sorted yet, and they're both tired of it already. He's used to order, his home was always organised, and this is nowhere near it, and it won't be for foreseeable future. So, he does the only sane thing every adult person should do in this situation: holes up on the sofa and goes on a gaming binge.

• Ghost's sofa is black (of course), huge, and it's just a sofa. No plead, no pillows. A comfy one, yes, but to Soap it looks kinda empty. Well, given that its owner only has one chair to his name, Johnny knows better than to expect something else. Yet, he kind of wants to sneak in a couple of pillows, and is very surprised when Ghost protects his space with ferocity of a wild cat. No funny colours on his sofa of doom, not even a smidge. Johnny's slightly upset, but he's not giving up on the plan.

• He starts by fucking around. Then sits down to play Diablo with Ghost in the evening. Brings a plead and a nice mustard-coloured pillow in a little while, just to make himself comfy for the time being, OK? It's fucking cold. And then he conveniently forgets them there. Several days of shenanigans after, Ghost concedes.

"Pillow allowance," he says, so seriously it cracks Soap up. "No more than two, no patterns." No patterns it is. Johnny still counts it as a win.

• Soap's go-to sorting method is "make em piles". He's got a clean laundry pile, a dirty laundry pile, a kitchen pile, a random stuff pile, and he keeps throwing things around when he goes through the rest of the stuff they have to sort. With all due respect, that annoys Ghost to an extreme degree, because there's piles everywhere, but it doesn't look like they're getting smaller. If anything, they started to consume the little space they had.

• The "dirty dishes" pile is one of them, and Ghost finally takes care of it. They both dislike washing dishes, but someone's gotta do it. And it apparently annoys him more than Johhny, so Ghost gets to get rid of it. He feels so much better when it's all done, dried, and put away.

• They've split the wardrobe, and Soap's side is still partly in the pile state. It's also how Ghost learns that Soap doesn't really iron his clothes unless it's like a shirt he's going to wear on a wedding today, and he has to. At this point he's really starting to question his own sanity. Why does it bother him what Soap does (or doesn't) with his clothes? He really needs to chill out, he decides.

• Johnny's really doing just fine, because none of what Ghost does really bothers him, and he's in his lane, somehow managing to hop around his newly made piles while still on crutches, and he does it so effortlessly. It's Ghost who keeps stumbling on them and cursing all the time.

• Somehow there's not much space for Ghost's gun collection. Ok, he's got a place to work on them, but he doesn't want to store them away. After a while, they decide that one of the bedroom walls can be sacrificed so he can hang them up nicely.

"Are we sleeping in the armoury now?" Soap asks.

"You've got your toys,I've got mine."

Fair.

• Johnny's art room is one of the spaces that actually came together from the get go. All of his things had fit, and it's got a nice space to it, enough to put an easel out, and maybe set up a composition. And the light is good. There's a shelf in there almost bursting from the art supplies he had accumulated over the years. The best way to describe it would be "organised chaos." Somehow, while in other spaces the chaos really gets to Ghost, he enjoys it in the art room. He's been spending more and more time in there.

• Johnny has a little really soft futon with loads of pillows in the corner, just next to his desk (it's not for naps, OK? It's for a performance series where the artist explores their understanding of comfort, and if they happen to start to snore, it's a part of it). So, Ghost is now also an artist of sorts. He's been doing these performance pieces quite alright, working on it tirelessly almost every afternoon, and Johnny really doesn't mind it for two big reasons. First: he gets to draw relaxed Ghost, sometimes even maskless. Second: it's nice to join him there, too. It's a perfect cuddling space.

• What Ghost loves about the futon corner is that it is freaking ultimate safety. Even his sofa wasn't ever as good as this. He can actually sleep there without nightmares. The fact that Johnny's around doing his thing, the quiet rustling of pencil on paper, music low on the background - it knocks him out better than any sleeping aids he had ever tried. He usually comes there with a book, but never goes through more than 10 pages at most.

• After their kitchen finally got sorted, they found a quick understanding. If one cooks, the other does the dishes. Soap basically takes over dinners, Ghost does breakfasts, and they usually have a snack in the midday rather than a proper lunch. Also, Johnny shows him a couple of tricks to level up his cooking game, so now breakfasts are getting fancier. Ghost's secretly very proud of himself. And Soap doesn't miss a chance to praise him when it turns out good which honestly helps way more than he's ready to admit.

• Ghost basically stole a couple of finished paintings and hung them up in the living room. Soap tries to argue that they aren't his best ones, and they aren't good enough, and he could probably find a multitude of reasons why they should take them down.

"But I like them," Ghost says simply. And it's hard to argue with that. Besides, after a couple of days, Johnny gets used to it, and deems them "not too bad". It's a tie now, and a bloody good comeback for the pillow intrusion.

• He lets Johnny help him take care of the guns. It's a nice chill evening, they work on them together, Soap's humming a little silly tune under his breath. Ghost says they really have to take them out on a shooting range when his shoulder is better, shoot some plates or something. Johnny's thrilled about it.

• A few days later, Ghost finally declares war on the rest of the piles, and goes through them in one go, not stopping until they're gone for good. There's very little random stuff left after that, and they just put it all in a box and make a very responsible adult decision to put it away and go through it sometime later. Both know that it will probably never happen, but do they care? Not really.

~~~

"You know what's weird, Johnny?"

"What?"

"You know how if you're left with extra parts in a Lego set that means you've messed up a step somewhere?"

"Yeah, and?"

"We've got some screws, and that one is definitely from that chair. It's supposed to go in first."

"Oh, hell no, Si, we're not doing it again."

~~~

• They are even hosting a little housewarming party. Ghost never had one, so he's way too anxious, although it's just the close circle - their team + Laswell and her wife.

P.S. there will probably be one more part with the party, some neighbour action, a little more of outside stuff, but that's where I'm wrapping it up. After all, the move is done, piles are almost gone, and I'm close to being a functional human being again.

[canmom]

VR observations, 10 months in

I've been a game dev for 10 months now. It's pretty great, I'm enjoying it a lot, I get to spend my days doing crazy shader shit and animations and voxels and visual effects. Hopefully the game that will come out of all this will be one people enjoy, and in any case I'm learning so much that will eventually come back to the personal ~artistic~ side of things. I can't talk about that game just yet though (but soon it will be announced, I'm pretty sure). So this is a post about other games.

Mind you, I don't actually play very many VR games, or games in general these days, because I'm too busy developing the dang things. but sometimes I do! And I think it's interesting to talk about them.

These aren't really reviews as such. You could project all sorts of ulterior motives if it was. Like my livelihood does sorta depend on people buying VR headsets and then games on them. This is more just like things I observe.

Headsets

The biggest problem with VR at the moment is wearing a headset for too long kinda sucks. The weight of the headset is all effectively held on a lever arm and it presses on your face. However, this is heavily dependent on the strap you use to hold it to your head. A better balanced and cushioned strap can hold the headset still with less pressure and better balance the forces.

The strap that comes with the Quest 3 is absolute dogshit. So a big part of the reason I wouldn't play VR games for fun is because after wearing the headset for 30-60 minutes in the daily meeting, the absolute last thing I'd want to do is wear it any longer. Recently I got a new strap (a ~£25 Devaso one, the low end of straps), and it's markedly improved. It would probably be even better if I got one of the high end Bobo straps. So please take it from me: if you wanna get into VR, get a decent strap.

I hear the Apple Vision Pro is a lot more comfortable to wear for long periods, though I won't have a chance to try it until later this month.

During the time I've been working at Holonautic, Meta released their Quest 3, and more recently Apple released their hyper expensive Vision Pro for much fanfare.

The Quest 3 is a decent headset and probably the one I'd recommend if you're getting into VR and can afford a new console. It's not a massive improvement over the Quest 2 - the main thing that's better is the 'passthrough' (aka 'augmented reality', the mode where the 3D objects are composited into video of what's in front of you), which is now in full colour, and feels a lot less intrusive than the blown out greyscale that the Quest 2 did. But it still has some trouble with properly taking into account depth when combining the feeds from multiple cameras, so you get weird space warping effects when something in the foreground moves over something in the background.

The Vision Pro is by all accounts the bees knees, though it costs $3500 and already sold out, so good luck getting one. It brings a new interaction mode based on eye tracking, where you look at a thing with your eyes to select it like with a mouse pointer, and hold your hands in your lap and pinch to interact. Its passthrough is apparently miles ahead, it's got a laptop tier chip, etc etc. I'm not gonna talk about that though, if you want to read product reviews there are a million places you can do it.

Instead I wanna talk about rendering, since I think this is something that only gets discussed among devs, and maybe people outside might be interested.

Right now there is only one game engine that builds to the Vision Pro, which is Unity. However, Apple have their own graphics API, and the PolySpatial API used for the mixed reality mode is pretty heavily locked down in terms of what you can do.

So what Unity does is essentially run a transpilation step to map its own constructs into PolySpatial ones. For example, say you make a shader in Shader Graph (you have to use shader graph, it won't take HLSL shaders in general) - Unity will generate a vision pro compatible shader (in MaterialX format) from that. Vertex and fragment shaders mostly work, particle systems mostly don't, you don't get any postprocessing shaders, anything that involves a compute shader is right out (which means no VFX graph), Entities Graphics doesn't work. I don't think you get much control over stuff like batching. It's pretty limited compared to what we're used to on other platforms.

I said fragment shaders mostly work. It's true that most Shader Graph nodes work the same. However, if you're doing custom lighting calculations in a Unity shader, a standard way to do things is to use the 'main light' property provided by Unity. On the Vision Pro, you don't get a main light.

The Vision Pro actually uses an image-based lighting model, which uses the actual room around you to provide lighting information. This is great because objects in VR look like they actually belong in the space you're in, but it would of course be a huge security issue if all programs could get realtime video of your room, and I imagine the maths involved is pretty complex. So the only light information you get is a shader graph node which does a PBR lighting calculation based on provided parameters (albedo, normal, roughness, metallicity etc.). You can then instruct it to do whatever you want with the output of that inside the shader.

The upshot of this is that we have to make different versions of all our shaders for the Vision Pro version of the game.

Once the game is announced we'll probably have a lot to write about developing interactions for the vision pro vs the quest, so I'll save that for now. It's pretty fascinating though.

Anyway, right now I've still yet to wear a Vision Pro. Apple straight up aren't handing out devkits, we only have two in the company still, so mostly I'm hearing about things second hand.

Shores of Loci

A few genres of VR game have emerged by now. Shooting and climbing are two pretty well-solved problems, so a lot of games involve that. But another one is 3D puzzles. This is something that would be incredibly difficult on a flat screen, where manipulating 3D objects is quite difficult, but becomes quite natural and straightforward in VR.

I've heard about one such game that uses 3D scans of real locations, but Shores of Loci is all about very environment artist authored levels, lots of grand sweeping vistas and planets hanging in the sky and so on. Basically you go through a series of locations and assemble teetering ramshackle buildings and chunks of landscape, which then grow really big and settle into the water. You can pull the pieces towards you with your hand, and then when you rotate them into roughly the right position and orientation relative to another piece, they snap together.

It's diverting, if kinda annoying when you just can't find the place the piece should go - especially if the answer turns out to be that there's an intermediate piece that floated off somewhere. The environments are well-designed and appealing, it's cool to see the little guys appearing to inhabit them. That said it does kinda just... repeat that concept a bunch. The narrative is... there's a big stone giant who appears and gives you pieces sometimes. That's it basically.

Still, it's interesting to see the different environment concepts. Transitions have this very cool distorted sky/black hole effect.

However, the real thing that got me with this game, the thing that I'm writing about now, was the water. They got planar reflections working. On the Quest! This is something of a white whale for me. Doing anything that involves reading from a render texture is so expensive that it's usually a no-go, and yet here it's working great - planar reflections complete with natural looking distortion from ripples. There's enough meshes that I assume there must be a reasonably high number of draw calls, and yet... it's definitely realtime planar reflections, reflections move with objects, it all seems to work.

There's a plugin called Mirrors and Reflections for VR that provides an implementation, but so far my experience has been that the effect is too expensive (in terms of rendertime) to keep 72fps in a more complex scene. I kind of suspect the devs are using this plugin, but I'm really curious how they optimised the draw calls down hard enough to work with it, since there tends to be quite a bit going on...

Moss

This game's just straight up incredibly cute.

Third person VR games, where you interact with a character moving across a diorama-like level, are a tiny minority of VR games at the moment. I think it's a shame because the concept is fantastic.

Moss is a puzzle-platformer with light combat in a Redwall/Mouse Guard-like setting. The best part of Moss is 1000% interacting with your tiny little mousegirl, who is really gorgeously animated - her ears twitch, her tail swings back and forth, she tumbles, clambers, and generally moves in a very convincing and lifelike way.

Arguably this is the kind of game that doesn't need to be made in VR - we already have strong implementations of 'platformer' for flatscreen. What I think the VR brings in this case is this wonderful sense of interacting with a tiny 3D world like a diorama. In some ways it's sorta purposefully awkward - if Quill walks behind something, you get a glowing outline, but you might need to crane your neck to see her - but having the level laid out in this way as a 3D structure you can play with is really endearing.

Mechanically, you move Quill around with the analogue stick, and make her jump with the buttons, standard stuff. Various level elements can be pushed or pulled by grabbing them with the controllers, and you can also drag enemies around to make them stand on buttons, so solving a level is a combination of moving pieces of the level and then making Quill jump as appropriate.

The fact that you're instantiated in the level, separate from Quill, also adds an interesting wrinkle in terms of 'identification with player character'. In most third person games, you tend to feel that the player character is you to some degree. In Moss, it feels much more like Quill is someone I've been made responsible for, and I feel guilty whenever I accidentally make her fall off a cliff or something.

A lot is clearly designed around fostering that protective vibe - to heal Quill, you have to reach out and hold her with your hand, causing her to glow briefly. When you complete some levels, she will stop to give you a high five or celebrate with you. Even though the player is really just here as 'puzzle solver' and 'powerful macguffin', it puts some work in to make you feel personally connected to Quill.

Since the camera is not locked to the character, the controls are instead relative to the stage, i.e. you point the stick in the direction on the 2D plane you want Moss to move. This can make certain bits of platforming, like moving along a narrow ledge or tightrope, kinda fiddly. In general it's pretty manageable though.

The combat system is straightforward but solid enough. Quill has a three button string, and it can be cancelled into a dash using the jump button, and directed with the analogue stick. Enemies telegraph their attacks pretty clearly, so it's rarely difficult, but there's enough there to be engaging.

The game is built in Unreal, unlike most Quest games (almost all are made in Unity). It actually doesn't feel so very different though - likely because the lighting calculations that are cheap enough to run in Unity are the same ones that are cheap enough to run in Unreal. It benefits a lot from baked lighting. Some things are obvious jank - anything behind where the player is assumed to be sitting tends not to be modelled or textured - but the environments are in general very lively and I really like some of the interactions: you can slash through the grass and floating platforms rock as you jump onto them.

The story is sadly pretty standard high fantasy royalist chosen one stuff, nothing exciting really going on there. Though there are some very cute elements - the elf queen has a large frog which gives you challenges to unlock certain powers, and you can pet the frog, and even give it a high five. Basically all the small scale stuff is done really well, I just wish they'd put some more thought into what it's about. The Redwall/Mouse Guard style has a ton of potential - what sort of society would these sapient forest animals have? They just wanted a fairytale vibe though evidently.

Cutscene delivery is a weak point. You pull back into a cathedral-like space where you're paging through a large book, which is kinda cool, and listening to narration while looking at illustrations. In general I think these cutscenes would have worked better if you just stayed in the diorama world and watched the characters have animated interactions. Maybe it's a cost-saving measure. I guess having you turn the pages of the book is also a way to give you something to do, since sitting around watching NPCs talk is notoriously not fun in VR.

There are some very nice touches in the environment design though! In one area you walk across a bunch of human sized suits of armour and swords that are now rusting - nobody comments, but it definitely suggests that humans did exist in this world at some point. The actual puzzle levels tend to make less sense, they're very clearly designed as puzzles first and 'spaces people would live in' not at all, but they do tend to look pretty, and there's a clear sense of progression through different architectural areas - so far fairly standard forest, swamp, stone ruins etc. but I'll be curious to see if it goes anywhere weird with it later.

Weak story aside, I'm really impressed with Moss. Glad to see someone else giving third person VR a real shot. I'm looking forward to playing the rest of it.

...that's kinda all I played in a while huh. For example, I still haven't given Asgard's Wrath II, the swordfighting game produced internally at Meta that you get free on the Quest 3, a shot. Or Boneworks. I still haven't finished Half Life Alyx, even! Partly that's because the Quest 3 did not get on well with my long USB A to C cable - for some reason it only seems to work properly on a high quality C to C cable - and that restricts me from playing PCVR games that require too much movement. Still though...

Anyway, the game I've been working on these past 10 months should be ready to announce pretty soon. So I'm very excited for that.