#more art and whatnot on the way dw :3

[werewolfgenesis]

I drew too much and now I barely have the motivation to finish any of my sketches, I have so many wips rn in my ibis gallery waiting to be finished

I've mostly been doing small silly doodles and dumb little drawings (if you know you know) and I have a whole checklist of things I want to draw

Been so excited to be here and to draw things that I was pumping out so many drawings a day through pure, unadulterated determination and excitement

I'm glad people like my silly art though even though it'll probably slow down now <3

It means a lot to me and everyone has been so supportive of me and my art

I'm not used to having so much attention on me as I haven't really posted online in roughly 4 years but the support means everything to me, even if everything is a little bit overwhelming for me at times, I know I must sound like a broken record but I really appreciate all the love I've been recieving on my art <3

[inventors-fair]

Second Stroke: Art Direction Runners-Up ~

Our runners-up this week are @grornt, @helloijustreadyourpost, and @horsecrash.

@grornt — Vein Connoisseur

Yeah, that’s pretty darn excellent mechanically. I think this was the closest pick to a winner, and I also think there are some changes I would have liked to see to make this card perfect. Let’s start with the good, though, because there’s a lot of it! It’s aggressive, it’s...frighteningly strong and unique mechanically, and it feels Innistrad-y to the max. I think it’s about time that Alara and I talk about my favorite plane, honestly, because there’s a close call to be made between the two. Whenever you sacrifice, add R... Wow. I want to see this played. I say this way too much, but when I get that innate urge to see a card in action, when I want to slam it on the table in the archetype, that’s a sign that you’ve done something not only correct, but stellar.

The first change I would have liked to see would’ve been some camera work and some mood. Where is the neonate in relationship to the bodies? I’m picturing a dramatic angle, but it’s hard to understand exactly what you were visualizing here. That’s a minor me-issue, as there tends to be, but I think a little bit of specificity could have helped. With the flavor text, it’s good enough and makes the nobility contrasted with the savage art direction stand out. If I’d been in the workshop, I would have perhaps suggested a quote about a “fine vintage,” something slightly shorter/snappier, and on a totally unrelated aesthetic note I would have suggested chopping the top/bottom in the MSE Mainframe in order to separate it from the bottom a little more. Super minor changes, so DW about it too much. I’m mostly just now catching up to the fact that “spending only to cast certain spells” is the perfect tie-in with someone being a snob about their blood. Ha! Bloody brilliant.

@helloijustreadyourpost — Infamous Pickpocket

I don’t want to say that this card is trying too hard, because it’s still doing a lot right and it made me smirk. In my opinion, there’s a little too much flavor text to be as snappy as the art direction. My main criticism is that the wordiness in conjunction with the name doesn’t emphasize the strengths of the art/mechanic combo that’s carrying this card. Replacing the word “pickpocket” with “thief” or “scoundrel” or “burglar” would have added that spice; the aural qualities of the word “pickpocket” are best not reiterated. I feel like I’m explaining this a little, uh... Academically? It’s a word that takes up a lotta bandwidth in the brain-mouth and does enough in the name not to be used in the text.

Man I talked too much about that, but no matter, because it’s time for me to fawn a little over this card now. The ogre! I’m picturing him muscular because reasons. And I can see the humor in this card for sure. Is it Ravnican? Capennan? Don’t matter—it could be Fioran for all I care, and it’s flexible enough to be hilarious in all the city-esque melting pots of the world. “I’m gonna pick your pocket” is exactly what this card wants to do. A 3/3 for 4 with potential card advantage and some combat complexity is just plain hot! I think that either this was a conscious effort to do some amazing common design, or you’ve absorbed enough to fall into it, because as a draft player this card makes me just want to gush. If there’s ever an IF best-of set that uses commons and whatnot, I want this in there, because it’s just so simple but it says so much about the game. I’m not sure if I need to be as impressed as I am but I am regardless.

@horsecrash — Grandiose Reunion

I feel like you poked a massive hole in this contest. Quite frankly, I don’t enjoy this card. I like it a lot, but I don’t enjoy it. Mechanically? Stellar, if a bend. Name? Raises questions and piques interest. Flavor text? Sure, I can totally dig it. The art direction. I look at it and I picture it and I’m realizing just how much this is terribly terribly right. Norn is indeed white, Vorinclex is indeed green, and there’s nothing necessarily wrong about this card being a Phyrexian powerhouse in the world and some kind of story spotlight or whatever. But it feels wrong. Why? Because it breaks preconceived notions.

Nuance is a b-word when it comes to talking about this kind of card. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this card whatsoever. And yet, green and white going together like this with this art has a quality that’s deliberately unsettling and no matter how much I say that it feels XYZ way there’s nothing objectively I can point to and say that it’s actually a break or a badness. Phyrexia was fairly popular for this contest, and yeah, it makes sense, because they’re a weirdly diverse range of antagonists that can make the holy seem profane, the natural seem regressive, the dutiful macabre. There’s the rub. I think that... Oh, huh. I think that if I had to make a critique, it would be that this contest was about emotional expectations that contrast without clashing. Subverted expectations leading to resonance is one thing, and this card causes discord. Is it bad? No. Is it wrong? Certainly not. I’d play it for sure. I think that I’m cowed by the discord, honestly, and you know what, props to you for making me realizing just how much this contest could be interpreted in different ways.

Commentary will be done this evening once I finish pie-making.

— @abelzumi

[marudyne]

Hey, Maru! I love your art so much; there's something so poignant and classic about it? It makes me think of old fashioned French postcards or something very elegant. Thanks for sharing your creations with us! I have some P5 related questions, so I'll just get to the point. SPOILER WARNING! In your understanding and pov, how do you think Akechi was feeling when he pulled the trigger on (cognitive) Akira? I mean, he truly thought that was the real one. (1/3)

First of, thank you very much! I’m glad to hear you think my art is elegant- I try to go for that, well, generally when I’m not being super lazy!

I don’t think I understand Akechi well enough, or as well as I’d like (yet here I am drawing comics and writing fics lmao)As for how Akechi felt- I do think he felt a bit of satisfaction /when/ he pulled the trigger and only on that second. It was, after all, him getting one step closer to the finale of his plan, one step closer to his revenge against Shido that he’s been working on for years AND he rose above Akira who he thinks to have everything he ever wanted in life. But, I don’t think he was necessarily really happy about it.That whole scene in the torture room reeks of Akechi putting on a villain’s mask and playing the role as fine as he could. Though, honestly, I think he was trying to fool himself more than he was trying to fool Akira with that performance- if anything it could be so that he could put himself in a mindset to actually be able to kill him.

So the way I see it, it’s more like that moment when you’re angry and lashing out, that split second of satisfaction before what you did really catches on to you. I mean, afterwards he seemed to be very detached/numb looking as he poked Akira’s corpse + leaves the room and that continues until he calls Shido, i.e. until he slips on another mask.

But yes, Akechi does care for Akira, and tries to lie to himself that he doesn’t at the end. He DOES contact Akira before he finds out he is PT or related to it, so until he got actual proof that Akira was one of them, I don’t think he would really try to deny his feelings- he isn’t 100% sure as to what they are, could be just friendship or some sort of kinship. It’s just a testament to Akechi’s willpower to be able to sacrifice someone he cares for deeply in order to achieve his own personal goals. I don’t know personally if it’s deeper than that- deeper than just a testament for Akechi’s strive and thirst to achieve his goal and how far he is willing to go. I also do think that, well, after all the shit he has had to do to get there, one more person added to the pile wouldn’t matter. He probably thinks he wouldn’t have deserved it any other way.

Plus he does drop some pretty heavy hints, so a part of him wanted to be stopped + helped by the PT, but the other louder part of him wanted to finish things.

As for my personal feelings for that scene-

uhm. I’m a NieR + Drakengard fan……….. boy did I nut when I got to that scene i live tweeted that. I really did like the contradiction you find in Akechi in that scene, and I loved that willingness to chase his own dream to the point of sacrificing something that he probably knows would make him happier just to grant his own ideal and that juxtapose with Akechi’s childishness+love for heroes??? (flashbacks to P2) b o yyyyyyyyYYY Plus all that you can explore about his character with that added layer man… I guess, all in all, I think it just makes his character more interesting and with more meat on his bones.

It had some rather tragic connotations, and added anew layer to their relationship and feelings for each other that I’m a sucker for. I love this sort of complex relationships that are bittersweet.

Moreover, ngl, I DO have a theory about Akechi, his background and his powers that relate as to why he would emotionally be able to do something like this buuuuut people will have to wait for my friend’s fic (Catching Smoke) to reveal it before I actually talk about it myself +post the justification(Dw if you don’t end up reading the fic/don’t feel like it, because once that part is posted, I’ll be posting comics about that theory becauSE LET ME TELL YOU IT’S GOLD)Edit: Anyone, feel free to message me if you’d like me to explain what I mean by something or whatnot either out of anon or not- I automatically reply to all un-anon asks privately so don’t worry. If anything you can shoot a message or whatnot.