#my whole problem is probably just my art style

[fried-manto]

King

[frog-in-a-dew]

A detective trying to uncover just what exactly is going on and where did all these magical girls come from VS his niece and her group of trouble making friends who are a tad bit too obsessed with an old cartoon for their own good, following him around like ducklings

[minakoaiinos]

Me when I think my dad is cool and admirable

[exopelagic]

sudden realisation that the thing holding my art back is that I never had an anime phase

[lewisvinga]

fashion help | charles leclerc x fem! reader x alexandra saint mleux !

summary; how charles, y/n, and alexandra came to be all because of y/n wanting to help a clueless charles in a mall

warnings; ?? none i think

word count; 635

all works taglist; @goldenmclaren @namgification @c-losur3 @minkyungseokie @lavisenri @ollieshifts

note; requested !

masterlist !

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“Alex! These are cute too, no?” Y/n questioned as she ran over to a pink dress and a matching red one beside it. The couple were searching for a matching outfit for an art exhibit event which led them to the large department store in Monaco to find outfits.

“These are quite cute, amor.” Alexandra quietly says. One hand was interlocked with her girlfriends and the other ran down the fabric of the dress. “The fabric isn’t the greatest but-“

She turned to look at Y/n but she was seemingly distracted, staring at the men’s side of the department store.

“Why is he grabbing those blue pants? They’re hideous.”

Alexandra followed where Y/n was staring and saw a confused brunette looking through the racks of clothing. He held up a pair of patterned blue pants which the Art student had to admit was hideous.

“Maybe he’s shopping for a friend?”

“Then I have to help him! If someone gifted me those pants I’d be offended.”

“Y/n, no-“ Before She could finish her sentence, Y/n was already walking towards him.

Alexandra loved her girlfriend, she truly did. She just hated sometimes how extroverted she was and was willing to go up to a stranger to tell him about his poor fashion choices. She hesitantly shuffled behind. She was already preparing to apologize to her girlfriend when she suddenly heard the mystery man thank her.

“Honestly, I don’t even know what I’m doing here. My friends always say I’m bad at this.” He says with a chuckle, causing both Alexandra’s and Y/n’s hearts to skip a beat. “But thank you. I didn’t quite catch your name?”

“I’m Y/n and this is my girlfriend, Alexandra.”

“Charles, it is a pleasure to meet you both.” He smiled as he shook their hands. Any other man would’ve probably been shocked at Alexandra and Y/n’s relationship, which was common because men always hit on them, but Charles was different.

Both girls were bisexual, so they weren’t new to romantic feelings towards the opposite sex. But they had been dating for a few months and only had feelings for each other. Until the confused-looking Monegasque caught both of their attention. Even Charles felt intrigued, noticing how Alexandra stared at him or how Y/n’s touch lingered for a second too long when shaking his hand.

There was a tension that fell over the three of them and neither could quite decipher what it was. Y/n cleared her throat after a few seconds of silence had passed.

“Good thing Alex and I have good fashion taste.” She said with a smile. With one hand she holds onto Alexandra’s hand and with the other she grabs Charles. “Now, looking at you, I think these would fit well.”

Her girlfriend gave the Monegasque a look before they both laughed at Y/n’s enthusiasm about what pants style and what color looked best on him.

Hours had passed by the time the girls finished picking out a whole new wardrobe for Charles, although it felt like it was just a few minutes.

“I’ve got to thank you both. I really do appreciate the help.” Charles said with a smile, the three of them walking out of the store with bags in hand.

“Oh, it’s no problem. I’m a fashion major so this is kind of my thing.” Y/n said with a smile.

“She just really likes to help people.” Alexandra nudged her girlfriend’s side as she chuckled.

“Are you two busy?” Charles suddenly asked, “I’d like to treat you both to lunch as a thank you.” He wore a hopeful smile as the two girls shared a glance.

Y/n being the most straightforward one, linked one arm with Alexandra and the other with Charles. “Well, lead the way!” She exclaimed with a laugh and the rest was history.

[morphean42]

Falsettos unpopular opinions because two people asked for this and honestly I don’t give a fuck anymore. I want to state this isn’t in response to anyone in particular, though, and if you get offended by any of these think about why. For a good reason? Please tell me and I’d love to debate it, truly. For a petty reason? You’re simply part of the problem.

1. They are Jewish. End of story. If I see anything related to Christianity or Christmas or whatever the fuck with them… shut up. Yes Whizzer is half-Jewish, yes in the revival Cordelia isn’t Jewish (WHICH BRINGS ME TO ANOTHER POINT ILL GET INTO LATER), yes they are most likely secular as evidenced by Mendel’s “religions just a trap” and ‘Days Like This’, no this does not give you the right to ignore their ETHNICITY AND CULTURE.

2. It’s okay to like the revival more. It’s not okay to ignore the original just because you get blinded by conventionally attractive men. Going to my Cordelia point, she’s Jewish in the original, her line ‘Shiksa caterer’ is ‘Kosher caterer’. Again it’s fine if your headcanons and fanfics and fanarts are based on the revival, I love it too, but stop acting like it’s the only version.

3. Whizzer’s entire personality does not revolve around being gay. He’s not a sassy twink. He’s a full grown man with issues that need to be addressed. Again, I reiterate, he is not a twink. Stop. Drawing. Him. Skinny. And. Hairless. I don’t care if ‘ oh but but that’s just my art style!’ Shut up.

4. Correlated to the above point, here are things Whizzer is not: a prostitute, a drug addict, relying on Marvin for everything, a twink (saying that again to get it through peoples fucking skulls), innocent. I’m 100% positive if the people who had these headcanons watched the OBC version of the show they’d never continue to advocate for them… once more I’m begging you guys to look past Andy Randy’s beautiful face and actually use critical thinking skills when it comes to Whizzer.

5. Short but (not) sweet: don’t claim to understand Marvin if you haven’t watched In Trousers. Just don’t.

6. If you flat out hate any character in the show, you’re wrong. Yes I’m still mad about the Mendel thing; if you think any one character is worse than the rest and isn’t just a fully human person with flaws and nuance, you don’t understand the musical as well as you claim.

7. It’s not the ‘gay’ musical. If you like falsettos for Whizzvin and nothing else, please, just… I don’t even know. There’s so much more to it than ‘ooo boys kissing.’ Please grow up, this leads into a whole other point but fetishisation is never okay, no matter who does it.

8. So many people treat Trina as either a perfect angel or just the side character in the way of the gay people. She’s an entire person, an entire character with flaws and hardship and terrible actions done by her and to her. Treat my homophobic queen with the respect she deserves, and acknowledge her faults too. It’s more misogynistic to treat her as perfect when she has issues too than just saying ‘she’s never done anything wrong’.

9. Stop making AIDS jokes.

10. This next one is probably the most iffy on the list. I will never be one to police fandom and creation, you can engage with material in any fucking way you like it literally doesn’t matter to me… but I dislike AUs. Now, I’ll always enjoy a little fun, adding in a twist like lesbian Whizzvin, or enjoying a feel good college AU. But. Especially for Falsettos the canon events are so fucking important and cannot be disregarded as casually as some do. AIDS is an extremely important part of the story, as well as the fact that both Marvin and Whizzer are men. I’m trans myself, but I dislike making them so simply because everything about their characters, all the characters, are so highly specific and important to take these aspects away is to disrespect the message of the musical.

11. It’s very important Mendel is straight. I see some people headcanon him as bisexual or trans or so on, and this just feels so wrong to me. Trina and Mendel are straight and that’s why their acceptance and love for the others in the Tight Knit Family is so important, especially Trina struggles with moving away from the idea that these ‘homosexual tendencies’ are wrong. They are straight but they love Whizzvin and the lesbians just as much as anyone else.

12. This one is so petty and I accept that, but… HIS NAME IS NOT MARVIN GARDENS. GARDEN IS A JOKE CHRISTIAN BORLE MADE BASED ON MONOPOLY. Jesus guys please just stop it it’s so stupid, William Finn didn’t have a last name for Marvin on purpose, and though I can’t do more than theorise what that purpose was, Gardens is so stupid. It’s not even funny. Same goes for Cohen, which just is odd. The only name I could begin to accept is Falsetto, and even then… just work around the last name in your fics.

12 1/2. SIDE TANGENT Jason would never take Weisenbachfeld as his last name. As a child of divorce… no. He’ll never view Mendel as a true father over his own dad, especially after Falsettoland, and he wouldn’t take that name. Hell, I’d known my ex step-father since I was two and I’d never have taken his last name. So, please, I never want to see Jason Weisenbachfeld again. That’s just not how it works.

At the end of the day this is just me alone in my room bitching… I just hope these points resonate with others.

[arcadia345]

Astro observations🌺

FYI I’m not a real astrologer, just my observations :) TW🔞

The cancer moon men I know are pretty chill and laid back + funny, but the women are so bitchy and moody😭 with a big sweet tooth

Every twin I know either has Gemini or Pisces placements

You ever meet someone and their neck just stands out for some reason added points if they smell good, most likely they’re a Taurus rising/ mars. Good example is Megan thee stallion her neck is so cute to me hehe

Aries in the chart can show you the things you were introduced to at a very young age, the early memories that you think of and say ‘That was wild lol’

3rd: could’ve started learning way before you started school(like flash cards and things) siblings and cousins, music, having access to electronics early

4th: erratic home life, the woman around you could be go getters

6th: could’ve got a lot of injuries when younger, probably couldn’t have a peaceful day even if you tried, bad experiences with animals

7th: domestic abuse, might have seen people having affairs, lots of disagreements between couples

12th:paranormal events, you could’ve had a lot of deja vu moments without even knowing, tend to have strong spiritual gifts,people having ill intentions towards you

Aquarius moon or degree/ moon in the 11th tend to have a “second mom” a person that treats them like their one of their own children, sometimes even better than their own mother does. 🌚

The people with mars in the first house I know have so many battle scars on their body

Moon/cancer in 3rd love changing their voices, and they have a bad habit of not telling the whole truth / white lies

Water sign on the descendent- people are always wondering what you’re up to, no matter how much you show them they’ll still wanna know what you’re hiding

Your first house correlates to how you came into this world, I have Chiron (ruled by Virgo) in my 12 conjunct my ascendant, uhm she said she almost d*ed having me😀 and I was a C-section baby. And the hospital did her so dirty(you know much they hate black women) they didn’t even stitch her back up correctly or drain her fluids and to this day she still has problems. The also gave her extra dosages of drugs just cause she’s a plus size woman- honestly I could go on and on but it really correlates with my cap rising and Neptune/Uranus in 1st

Mercury ☌ Sun, these people voices are just💋💋 they sound so sensual and unique ugh hard to explain it but 🥴 ex. Jungkook , Tupac

Gemini/ Libra in 2nd love collecting things like figurines makeup clothes candles plushies, could easily be a borderline hoarder tho

Ives noticed that sun in 10th have a strained relationship with their father, but their later years in life their relationship gets better, or not could really go either way, also could have money issues in their early years but ends up climbing the corporate ladder. It may take you a while to tho but just know it’ll be worth it in the end :) also they always stand out at their work place in some way, the coworker that you’re glad to see clock in at rush hour cause you know they gonna handle shit

Venus- mercury positive aspects love giving out nicknames to their favorite people 🥺if they’re always calling you cute names just know they really care about you lol

Sag moons and degrees have no chill😀 like calm down bae sag anything tbh🚬

9th house ruler in the 11th could go to the same college with their old friends or could become very popular in the area they’re in, I think they’d make good bloggers

Air signs or degrees in 5th are trend setters.

Aquarius you inspire people, they could take things and make it into their own like art

With gemini here people will “copy & paste” ur looks. But no matter what it just looks like a knockoff version of what you did lmao it just never look as good as yours

Libra here people are very opinionated on how you express yourself either in a good way or bad, neither less you guys get a lot of compliments on your style

Every time I see a Capricorn rising with Neptune in the 1st it’s like their skin is see through and fragile😯makes sense tho since caps rule the skin and Neptune fogs things up. A good example is Ariana Grande her skin looks so delicate

Pluto/Scorpio in the 11th/11th house ruler in 8th, your friends could hate each other🤺 also they could have a rough life/childhood, trauma bonding or just experiencing traumatic events together is common here

Chiron in Aries (honestly any Aries placements it just depends on where it is), most people didn’t pay attention to them in their childhood in some way so they learned to be independent because of their lack of support cardinal things fr

That’s all for today! Give me a follow if you enjoyed💕

[maniwannadiezz]

Thank you. You make me feel sane for hating on vivs art😭 (she did influence my art in middle school, but now I see all the issues with it)

no problem! I think her art had a lot of bad influence on newer artists simply because at first glance it’s appealing and people like you (and me) thought why can’t we just copy it and go from there? Welllll problem is that just copying an artist will lead to you consuming and producing the mistakes they make or not fully grasp why they exaggerated something the way they did. Unfortunately those anime hating art teachers held some truth in their words, just copying right off of another artist without fully understanding the rules of art will lead to getting stuck.

I’ve gotten “stuck” before, my art deformed contorted to the style and gave me a mess where the heads were too big and the proportions too wonky when I could have spent my time understanding anatomy and proper colouring techniques. Of course there’s nothing wrong with just wanting pretty looking art and nothing more but if you want to expand and not hit a ceiling it’s better to learn the rules before you break them. You’ll probably learn things you never knew you never knew! Find things about your style you never dreamed you could have drawn before and expand into your OWN person and your OWN artist, instead of being the vivziepop drawalike.

DECONSTRUCTING VIVZIEPOP ARTISTIC ISSUES WE MAY HAVE CONSUMED AS CHILDREN (if her art has improved I haven’t seen but I will give her the benefit of the doubt! So let’s just isolate this to the past for US ex hazbin artists to understand where our problems truly began)

Anatomy: Vivziepop has a habit of not properly following even the anatomy of her own drawings let alone anatomy rules at all. I had to bend and meld what I thought a limb may look like from its transition from in front to behind a limb (like the legs) since the lines didn’t properly match up. Arms change size, legs have no knees, one thigh thicker than the other and hands that have fingers which melt into the palms.

you could say it’s stylistic, but considering she’s ONLY ever drawing stylistically whether she liked to or not this bad anatomy has become a crutch and down fall. If she wished to draw more realistically I will assume she can’t or can’t anymore…

Here’s a draw over. You can keep the stylistic effects while keeping your anatomy at least somewhat readable, especially the hands 💀

Shading: shading plays a huge role in not only give us context to the image like where the light source is coming from but also the shapes of the body. the body is comprised of different shapes (cylinders for arms and legs, circles and ovals for head, different planes for the face) with shading like vivziepop’s we don’t know where the light is coming from but also the shading blends into the drawing as visual noise, or worse makes things look flat and lifeless. Her legs especially are shaded as if they are two pieces of paper sticking out from under her dress.

Colours: we all know her main appeal in art is her colours, but designing your piece by just how pretty you can make all the colours also is ignoring fundamentals in what makes your art from good to BEST. With too much of one shade your whole piece blends together in the eyes of the viewer. With not enough contrast in the right areas you will have a focal point that bounces around (like us her chest the focal point? It’s the darkest spot on the piece! Or is it all those eyes that clutter up the whole drawing with the random stripes in the back…. Ouch! I can’t tell what’s what!)

conclusion: I leave you and others with this quest, you wanna get better at art? Take a moment to critique even your own favourite artists. You can have inspiration of course but question their decisions before blindly hoping on the hype train. Or you could be consuming their own mistakes and end up STUCK, like I was, like many have become.

Give critiquing these pieces a try, deconstruct them, trace them (don’t post) see where the lines match up- do the limbs look as if they existed behind the limb or do they go to a void and come up the other side a completely different size? You tell me…

[autisticandroids]

i've been seeing ai takes that i actually agree with and have been saying for months get notes so i want to throw my hat into the ring.

so i think there are two main distinct problems with "ai," which exist kind of in opposition to each other. the first happens when ai is good at what it's supposed to do, and the second happens when it's bad at it.

the first is well-exemplified by ai visual art. now, there are a lot of arguments about the quality of ai visual art, about how it's soulless, or cliche, or whatever, and to those i say: do you think ai art is going to be replacing monet and picasso? do you think those pieces are going in museums? no. they are going to be replacing soulless dreck like corporate logos, the sprites for low-rent edugames, and book covers with that stupid cartoon art style made in canva. the kind of art that everyone thinks of as soulless and worthless anyway. the kind of art that keeps people with art degrees actually employed.

this is a problem of automation. while ai art certainly has its flaws and failings, the main issue with it is that it's good enough to replace crap art that no one does by choice. which is a problem of capitalism. in a society where people don't have to sell their labor to survive, machines performing labor more efficiently so humans don't have to is a boon! this is i think more obviously true for, like, manufacturing than for art - nobody wants to be the guy putting eyelets in shoes all day, and everybody needs shoes, whereas a lot of people want to draw their whole lives, and nobody needs visual art (not the way they need shoes) - but i think that it's still true that in a perfect world, ai art would be a net boon, because giving people without the skill to actually draw the ability to visualize the things they see inside their head is... good? wider access to beauty and the ability to create it is good? it's not necessary, it's not vital, but it is cool. the issue is that we live in a society where that also takes food out of people's mouths.

but the second problem is the much scarier one, imo, and it's what happens when ai is bad. in the current discourse, that's exemplified by chatgpt and other large language models. as much hand-wringing as there has been about chatgpt replacing writers, it's much worse at imitating human-written text than, say, midjourney is at imitating human-made art. it can imitate style well, which means that it can successfully replace text that has no meaningful semantic content - cover letters, online ads, clickbait articles, the kind of stuff that says nothing and exists to exist. but because it can't evaluate what's true, or even keep straight what it said thirty seconds ago, it can't meaningfully replace a human writer. it will honestly probably never be able to unless they change how they train it, because the way LLMs work is so antithetical to how language and writing actually works.

the issue is that people think it can. which means they use it to do stuff it's not equipped for. at best, what you end up with is a lot of very poorly written children's books selling on amazon for $3. this is a shitty scam, but is mostly harmless. the behind the bastards episode on this has a pretty solid description of what that looks like right now, although they also do a lot of pretty pointless fearmongering about the death of art and the death of media literacy and saving the children. (incidentally, the "comics" described demonstrate the ways in which ai art has the same weaknesses as ai text - both are incapable of consistency or narrative. it's just that visual art doesn't necessarily need those things to be useful as art, and text (often) does). like, overall, the existence of these kids book scams are bad? but they're a gnat bite.

to find the worst case scenario of LLM misuse, you don't even have to leave the amazon kindle section. you don't even have to stop looking at scam books. all you have to do is change from looking at kids books to foraging guides. i'm not exaggerating when i say that in terms of texts whose factuality has direct consequences, foraging guides are up there with building safety regulations. if a foraging guide has incorrect information in it, people who use that foraging guide will die. that's all there is to it. there is no antidote to amanita phalloides poisoning, only supportive care, and even if you survive, you will need a liver transplant.

the problem here is that sometimes it's important for text to be factually accurate. openart isn't marketed as photographic software, and even though people do use it to lie, they have also been using photoshop to do that for decades, and before that it was scissors and paintbrushes. chatgpt and its ilk are sometimes marketed as fact-finding software, search engine assistants and writing assistants. and this is dangerous. because while people have been lying intentionally for decades, the level of misinformation potentially provided by chatgpt is unprecedented. and then there are people like the foraging book scammers who aren't lying on purpose, but rather not caring about the truth content of their output. obviously this happens in real life - the kids book scam i mentioned earlier is just an update of a non-ai scam involving ghostwriters - but it's much easier to pull off, and unlike lying for personal gain, which will always happen no matter how difficult it is, lying out of laziness is motivated by, well, the ease of the lie.* if it takes fifteen minutes and a chatgpt account to pump out fake foraging books for a quick buck, people will do it.

*also part of this is how easy it is to make things look like high effort professional content - people who are lying out of laziness often do it in ways that are obviously identifiable, and LLMs might make it easier to pass basic professionalism scans.

and honestly i don't think LLMs are the biggest problem that machine learning/ai creates here. while the ai foraging books are, well, really, really bad, most of the problem content generated by chatgpt is more on the level of scam children's books. the entire time that the internet has been shitting itself about ai art and LLM's i've been pulling my hair out about the kinds of priorities people have, because corporations have been using ai to sort the resumes of job applicants for years, and it turns out the ai is racist. there are all sorts of ways machine learning algorithms have been integrated into daily life over the past decade: predictive policing, self-driving cars, and even the youtube algorithm. and all of these are much more dangerous (in most cases) than chatgpt. it makes me insane that just because ai art and LLMs happen to touch on things that most internet users are familiar with the working of, people are freaking out about it because it's the death of art or whatever, when they should have been freaking out about the robot telling the cops to kick people's faces in.

(not to mention the environmental impact of all this crap.)

[dragengyrr]

"Lose the jacket"…

More Alastor in dress from this post because I am completely normal about it (I’m not).

@prince-liest : answering previous asks, let’s establish now that if I mention you directly in my posts, you are free to link the art to your fics without asking (after all, it wouldn’t have existed without them). I’m pretty sure I’m not done with them. Cheers <3

Artist’s little side note (because I feel like rambling again): so Hazbin gave me two life improvements (well, three, if you add the music) - one was stepping foot into the unknown aroace territory and being hit on the head with realisation that it was my home all along, making my questionable behaviours and reactions in the past a whole lot less… weird. At least for me, the allos probably still thought I was weird af, but that’s their problem now.

Second improvement was discovering a cartoony style that just sits right with my hand. I’ve always loved cartoons, had a little nostalgic era at the end of high school where I went back to the stuff I’d watched as a kid (Jake Long, Ben 10, Kid vs Kat, Samurai Jack), then I was discovering shows that were made quite recently already as an adult (Over the Garden Wall, Gravity Falls, The Owl House), I loved them for various reasons… but every time I tried to play with their style, I couldn’t get past a few drawings.

I also never truly worked out my own cartoony style, so I thought I’d be stuck with realism for all eternity - which is not bad by any means, it’s just that added pressure of your own artistic ego whispering into your ear that if you misplace one tendon or muscle, or get the proportions wrong, you’ll likely burn down in some special part of hell, specifically for artists that are too lazy to check their anatomy atlas for every single drawing they make. Or maybe that’s just me.

The point is – I don’t remember the last time I produced so many drawings in such a short time, and it’s a blast. And I can focus on posing and emotions more than anything, thus learning new tricks, and it might improve my realistic art as well, right now limited by my fear of it somehow looking incorrect (because that would surely mean the end of the world).

-End of ramble-

[kozachenko]

[Click image for better quality]

I FIGURED OUT A WAY TO FUCKING MAKE THE IMAGE SMALLER FOR POSTING ON TUMBLR WITHOUT SACRIFICING THE ACTUAL QUALITY OF THE IMAGE OH MY GOD

Ok so, what I did is go into the clip studio paint file, make a new file, copy and paste the group in the original file, merge everything, get rid of the extra stuff outside of the canvas, and then make the flattened image smaller and crop the canvas. Once you have that, export it and you're done. This helps maintain the actual quality of the image and also helps shrink the file size down to something actually postable (if anyone has a better way of doing this please tell me)

[Edit]: Ok I guess posting something to Tumblr just naturally compresses the image a bit more somehow because I'm looking at it now and zooming in too much makes it a bit blurry so I'm still gonna have to futz around with image quality for future pieces oof

Artist's Note:

I'm so glad I figured out a way to do this because I like working on a big canvas so I can get as much detail in as I possibly can. Only problems are how laggy it gets while drawing lol.

I had an idea for a drawing with Reimu and Zanmu because I really like thinking about their potential dynamic a lot. I also wanted an excuse to draw Zanmu again but in my normal rendering style because last time I drew her she was in my more sketchy style with generally flat colours so I wanted to draw her again. Speaking of, looking at the sketch for this is a jumpscare that I never enjoy seeing, like, man am I glad I didn't use those for my final piece.

Also about her spear. I was originally gonna make it like the ones she had in game, but it kinda threw off the whole piece. It was too big, too blue, and too flat, so I just went "fuck it" and gave her a different one instead. My headcanon justifying this is that the ones she uses in game are for danmaku battles whereas in any other fight she just uses a proper yari, or she still uses the yari and just makes it all glowy to power it up, maybe both lol. I pulled as much inspiration as I could from Sengoku era spears, and even put in some blue into the decorative part of the spear and also added a little skull to pay tribute to the original spear. Also, in my research I saw some art of izanami and izanagi making japan and saw that the yari izanagi has had a little decorative tassley thingy on it so I took some inspo from that and just made it one of Zanmu's tassles (Idk when that art was from or if the spear was still accurate to Sengoku period Japan but hey, probably the same reasons Eirin puts little bow ties on her arrows, it's just for personalization purposes).

I love rendering hair and clothes so much omg, while I like the super curly hair Zanmu, the longer, wavier hair suits her better for this drawing (I imagine it only does that like how Ghibli characters hair moves when they feel angry lol). I love making Zanmu's hair all messy and crazy, as well as giving her grey hairs, this woman has aged like a fine wine. Also, if the hem on the ends of her sleeves, top of her shirt, and her pants look like gold to you, that's because it is! It's fairly light so she's not collapsing under the weight, but it's gold! (I don't care how impractical it is, it's just cool). Not the undershirt though, it's made of a gold fabric. I had a cute idea with Reimu's hair to make it have a red shine to it. I also changed up Reimu's outfit so it isn't just a blob of red. I like it a lot when Reimu's skirt and outfit is segmented into different layers, so I wanted to incorporate that.

I tried to draw their hands differently as well, but IDK how noticeable that is. Also, I am super happy with how the side profiles for the two of them turned out, I used to struggle a lot with how to make the side profile of a character actually look like the character, so I'm really happy that they actually look like themselves.

Also added in the tree and rocks in the background as an homage to Zanmu's character art in Touhou 19, just because I was getting kinda stumped on what to do with the background lol.

In terms of a story idea with Reimu and Zanmu, idk why but the potential plotline of Zanmu wanting to ascend to godhood is so fascinating to me. Like, it is very possible that if she just convinced everyone she was a god (which would be very easy for her to do), she would become one in a heartbeat. Also, if she were to become a god, with her ability to return stuff to nothing, could she hypothetically get similar abilities to (Jojo Part 5 spoiler btw) GER? Like, idk about the death timeloop stuff, but the concept has been haunting me every night as I have been trying to find loopholes in GER's ability for a while now ( for no reason in particular). Back to the main topic, I imagine that she would probably tell Reimu that if she were to become a god she would take over the Hakurei shrine since the god there might as well be dead, and Reimu just says to her, "Over my dead body bitch." Like, I have no idea how to summarize their dynamic but like, it's the type of hero-villain dynamic where the phrase "We're not so different, you and I" would definitely be a phrase said during a fight. I think that if another IN style game were to release, Reimu and Zanmu would be in a team together. They could also have an interesting mentor and pupil kind of dynamic. Can you tell that Zanmu has been charging my mind rent these part few months? Like, instead of living in my head rent free, she kinda just uno reversed the whole situation and now she's the one charging me rent. What happens if I get evicted from my own brain? Actually, scratch that, I don't think I wanna know.

[elenthyaolyenths]

Ok, it's time, isn't it? My first "Art Versus Artist"! and always, my complete Good Omens Art Gallery if you are curious!

Hello my dears! Your little Frenchie wing-addict here! 2024 has been a hell of a ride, so many great things happened since I decided to join the Good Omens fandom ! What a ride, yeah, from my first Red Art sketches in January to my most recent full-colour tries and experimentations - most of them still secret, sorrryyyyy. My wrist surgery and the physiotherapy still going on, depression and health problems hitting hard again... BUT I KNOW I wouldn't be here without the fandom and without your wonderful support.

The constant research of my own art style, while i was granted the chance to work with amazing writers and artists. The pleasure to share my improvements with you all, dear followers and friends!!!

Thank you so much, for everything. Wishing you the best for 2025, I hope I'll be able to make you smile and dream even more!

Linktree - Masterpost - Ko-Fi - Prints of my Art here!

And, here, I'll have to stop a minute and try to remember ALL of you dear people I'd like to thank even more personally... with all my love and my gratefulness. (!long text under the cut!)

@vavoom-sorted-art dear M'am, I have already told you how one of your Tumblr posts litteraly saved me in the beginning of 2024 and gave me back the courage to continue to make art. It was probably a very small thing for you, but for me it has been a life-changing thing for the best. Thank you again, thank you so much for your kindness, and your advice about my art during this year. I wish you the best for 2025, for your studies and everything else <3

@malohkeh-main My dear, you're the first one who encouraged me to do this personal Red Art Daily Challenge in January. Thanks for your wonderful support and our translation teamwork, life happened between us but I'll never forget our discussions.

@floscrap-blog, my dear frenchie friend I have met on international GOAD sub, while we were living almost right next door, how was it even possible?? Dear Hun, thank you so much for your kindness, I'll treasure our friendship forever.

@kotias, the one and only! I can't even say how much I'm grateful for you finding me and dragging me into the wonderful behind-the-scenes of this awesome fandom. Because of you (and it's a compliment) I was suddenly drawing even more, writing again after a 3-years-blank-page-syndrom, meeting so many new people and collegues and friends. My life has definitely changed the day we started to talk, and I discovered what the tag "found family" might mean. Thank you so, SO MUCH, Madame.

Thanks to @goodomensafterdark for creating the best goblin nest ever. Your whole community supporting me when I was about to get my wrist surgery and when I was scared as hell? Probably my best wonderful memory ever of this summer. Still crying about it. Thank you so much, for everything.

@demonsandpieohmy, dearest, I still remember this comment on my art on GOAD, mentioning your fingers tingling... and then, "To Shreds" was born, and it was just the first of our several collabs together. Thank you so much for your trust and your support on my very first NSFW artworks! Thank you for your friendship, we might have talked less these last months but it's always a pleasure. Wishing you the best for your ulterior writings!

Thanks to @the-bentley and @cassiecasyl for choosing me on the Reverse Bang Minisode and for our wonderful teamwork!! I have been uncredibly lucky to have you both.

Greatings and many thanks to the people who supported me on Ko-Fi and/or commisionned me this year. It's been an honor and a true pleasure. <3

Hugs, love, and big thanks to my dear friends and fellows artists/writers: @daneecastle (your kindness and your advice still help me everyday, dear), @gribouli (tellement heureuse d'avoir pu te rencontrer, merciiiii pour tout!), @nosferatini (Thank Mama Nos for everything, can't wait for 2025 ;-D), @sweetmascherari (the "BIG" project was so much funnier by your side!<3), @eybefioro (my dear I'm so happy to finally be able to work with you!)... and I probably forgot people and I hate it but be sure I'm so so grateful T.T

Thanks even more to all my lovely friends from the TNAN discord - and specifically to @itsscottiesstark, my dear friend and co-moderator. I love what we have created there and even if this BIG BABY of a network is sometime a little bit overwhelming now, it's always a pleasure to co-event with you and having fun during your Story-Times.

And, last but not least, thanks to my dear internet Spouse, @captainblou. Writing and arting by your side has been one of the most wonderful things I was able to do this year. Thank you for that, and for everything else, each day, every day.

Happy NYE everyone! See you in 2025!

Tag-list (ask in comment to be add if you want to be notified next time I publish my Good Omens arts and WIPs! A lot of secret work is almost done and is coming!!!)

@goodomensafterdark ;

@floscrap-blog ; @demonsandpieohmy ; @amagnificentobsession ; @captainblou ; @mamamissy

@ineffable-hyperfixation ; @itsscottiesstark ; @moralsofanalleycatsposts ; @featheredboaconstrictor ; @lenareadly

@fearandhatred ; @eybefioro ; @crowleys-bentley-and-plants ; @ashfae ; @crowleys-hips;

@paperclipninja ; @silverdphantom ; @neverlet ; @naturallyteal ; @goodoldfashionedlovergirls-blog ;

@madaims; @daisydimple20092 ; @seraphhiim ; @rebeccakatmauri ; @cobragardens

[chiscribbs]

Updated Future Donnie Concept Art!!!

So, I've been hesitant to try my hand at designing an Apocalyptic Future version of Donnie for a while, for a number of reasons - mainly that I just didn't have a clear idea of him in my brain yet and the thought of attempting to update his already pretty perfect design was highly daunting - but I finally caved and decided to take a crack at it. A couple months and several revisions later, I'm actually genuinely happy with the result. I'd still consider this "concept art" more so than a final design, elements of it could definitely be improved, but I really do like the concept as a whole - I think it could work!

The main goals I had in mind while working on this were: A. Must fit the character/look like something Donnie would canonically wear and still be easily recognizable. B. Must work in the Rise world & style (i.e. not be overly detailed or have too complex a silhouette.) C. Must fit in with the other (canonical) Future Rise designs.

I was also thinking about what problems Donnie might be trying to solve, which is what inspired the belt (more info on that below). All-in-all, although there might still be a few kinks to work out, I think I managed to come up with a pretty solid base design for my favorite Warring Warrior Scientist (Jr.)

Some additional character tidbits under the cut.

Also, I can't draw mechanisms to save my life, so just pretend those vague ninpo-gun-things make sense lol

Donnie has a mechanical prosthetic leg. How'd he lose that leg? Up to interpretation - my working theory is that it was a minefield accident that occurred when he was trying to blow some Krang dogs to Timbuktu. Naturally, since it's Donnie and they are in the midst of an alien apocalypse, he designed the leg to do a whole lot more than just help him stand without falling down. It's a multifunctional tool that contains a plethora of secret uses - including, but certainly not limited to, sawing off ugly Krang faces. It's essentially his new tech bo.

Bonus leg tidbit: Casey Jr. saw him deploy the saw blade in battle once when he was little, he then proceeded to beg for a saw-leg of his own to fight the Krang with. Donnie, realizing that amputating a perfectly healthy child's leg is probably not that most morally acceptable option, instead made him his own "sawing stick"(AKA, his motorized hockey stick)...which the others then made him wait until Casey's 10th birthday to give him.

The belt that Donnie's wearing here is a prototype of his latest invention. Its intended purpose: to deflect the Krang's mystic-blocking attacks, allowing them to use their ninpo in close combat. It took a lot of risk-taking to collect the necessary information to create such a device, and he experienced a number of way-too-close calls (one of which may or may not have resulted in that large gash across his plastron), but he finally managed to crack the code and pinpoint the frequency of the Krang's sound waves. He's testing it out right now to make sure that it works and is safe to use, but once it's out of beta, he plans to mass-produce them for every mystic-wielder in the Resistance to use in battle. He believes it could turn the tides of the war...unfortunately, the device never makes it out of beta, as he dies before its completion.

Donnie's gloves are fashioned after the ones his dad used to wear in his Lou Jitsu days (with some modifications, for comfort and to make working with screens a little easier and less annoying.) The material they're made out of is far more durable, of course, since he's working with them near-constantly and under varying conditions. But maybe he designed them to look like this as a way of keeping his dad's memory close, similar to Leo's sword hilt?

Ironically, Donnie uses his ninpo probably the most consistently out of all the brothers (even though Mikey uses his to the greatest extent, hence his rapid aging). He's constantly using it to check on the base's security status and multitask while working on other projects. Because his ninpo takes a good deal of brain power to operate, it puts a significant amount of strain on his nervous system and this causes frequent complications. Seizures, spasms, and blackouts become a semi-regular occurrence - especially in the latter part of his life. Donnie does his best to manage them, but the workload makes it almost impossible to do so properly. Mikey is able to help with these attacks when they happen, but Donnie - not wanting his brother to overuse his powers any more than he is already - usually opts to just ride it out and save the mystic healing for people who need it. The exception to this rule being when he's in the middle of an extremely important procedure and can't stop long enough to let the attack pass naturally, then he has no choice but to accept Mikey's aid.

This is probably needless to say at this point, but much like Leo and his other brothers, he is a giant. Equal in height to Leo (if not slightly taller, even without the goggles.) The doodle in the top-left corner of the sketch page where he's next to April is meant to be them sitting, so don't take it as anywhere near an accurate representation of their height comparison. It is not, he dwarfs her by several feet, lol.

[machveil]

Beautiful, cute, dulzura, A quick question, do you have any advice for drawing? I see your drawings and I just fell in love with them, I just started drawing again but it's difficult...

I don't know, sorry, English is not my first language, using translator jiji 🤎🍁

(note: this post is long, grab a snack lol) ah! no problem, don’t worry about the translator haha (pinterest link - this is my masterboard for human references! I’ll talk about it more below)

I think my best advice for anyone wanting to draw is to break down your piece into shapes! (also, depending on your style, using different line weights)

from my experience, while looking at the whole reference is good, it’s easier to break down individual parts! while some parts can look complicated, a lot of things can be broken down into triangles, squares, and circles (or half circles)

I focus on character art, so I’ll be speaking about that - but it can applied to scenery and objects too. a lot of characters clothes are broken up into colored articles already - in the top reference, Ghost has a red bandanna on his arm! that bandanna helps break up his arm: the top near his shoulder is triangular, the bandanna itself is overall rectangular, and the bottom of his sleeve is a square

of course, depending on how you’re posing the character it can change the angle of what we’re seeing - there’s also an accommodation that your art probably won’t be a 1-to-1 copy with your reference. Ghost’s right arm (bandanna) has a white rolled up sleeve - while the model’s sleeve is square, I prefer to draw rolled sleeves more triangular

I think line weight is also important depending on your style! I prefer thicker lines around the entire character, and defining qualities also get thicker lines

I like thinner lines inside the character to help define dimensional shape and form. I use thicker lines on the inside of the body if there’s a shape/area that’s more in the foreground - example: König’s chest and midsection have thick line art to help differentiate from his left arm (behind his body)

I know a common piece of advice is to use real life references, and I agree… but, I never hear people talk about how to use references in a way that actually helps (“just draw from real life”, or “drawing with a reference is good practice”). I experienced that and wasn’t able to take anything away for years!

within the past year or so I seriously took a look at how using references can help me, so I want to try and talk about that - if I had trouble learning from references I’d wager someone else has

here’s my best example of using a reference because I actually remembered to! I labeled the figure to make it a little easier to follow

(1) my first tip is using a reference to figure out how the body ‘flows’. the human body has a lot of soft, rounded lines when you look at a picture - very few things are legitimately straight and sharp. I used the reference specifically to figure out how men’s pecs are shaped (of course, this is just one reference… because this is my headcanon for König’s body type haha)

(1) looking at references can help you understand how muscles move. in the reference with the woman, you notice how her right arm (down) muscles are layered - the shape portrayed by the reference lets you see how an arm’s muscles might be laid out in that position

(2) my second tip from the König reference is to look at negative space! the highlighted red portion between the arm and midsection is roughly the same negative space as the reference. if you’re using a reference and something feels off with the placement of what you’ve drawn I’d recommend looking at the space your reference takes up

(2) the negative space trick helps me line up where proportions should meet up - the distance between her arms lets me gauge how the rest of her body should be proportioned

(2) while it doesn’t match up 1-to-1 with the reference when layered overtop, it doesn’t have to! the negative space between the arms was enough for the sketch to mimic what the reference looks like. art doesn’t have to be a 1-to-1, but negative space can help you figure out ‘why does that arm look funny?’, “that arm looks funny because, compared to the negative space of your reference, it’s too (far away/close) to the body.”

(3) my last tip is the simplest, so I’ll just be referring to the König figure! when using references I look to gauge the distance between different body parts - it helps me get more realistic proportions. the bit I specifically compared to was the man’s stomach placement compared to his waist. I didn’t copy it 1-to-1 because I like the idea König has more of a tummy, but the reference allowed me to figure out an anatomical placement for where König’s stomach would be compared to his waist

I hope my advice wasn’t terrible haha everyone’s art journey is different, but these are tips I would have liked to know a few years ago (specifically the reference material ones lol). I wanted to focus more on the reference material because when people say ‘just use a reference, it’ll help’ it didn’t do it for me

I personally needed a more in depth explanation on why I would use a reference, what should I be looking at - because just drawing a person doesn’t necessarily help, and how should I be learning from it - I accidentally taught myself negative space before I knew what it was

but uhm… yeah, I hope this wasn’t awful! good luck on everyone’s art journeys, just remember that you’re allowed to take your time and try different things

if you guys have any other questions about my art feel free to jump into my inbox; process wise, inspiration, etc - I’ll answer anything I can<3

[adobe-outdesign]

What are your thoughts on the 25th anniversary pet colours?

As a whole, I really like the 25th anniversary colour. I have a few gripes with some more technical things, which I'll touch on momentarily, but I think it's a fun colour that stands on its own.

Visually, I think it manages to nail the three big aspects: base colour, individuality, and customization. For the base colour, the semi-opaque stars are a great nod to the Neopets brand that also happen to look "celebratory", and it makes sure the base isn't too similar to any plain colours. I've heard some argue that 25th anniversary is too close to starry as a colour, but I disagree; sure, they both have stars, but one is always blue with yellow stars and no wearables, while one is... not that. Like, you're never going to confuse the two.

I also think the colour works in terms of both overall coherency and and individuality. Each pet has a simple main hue for the base with stars, and then a few small celebration-y items for custimization. However, the base color is different for each pet and the wearables also vary, so each pet still feels unique. The wearables are also a nice touch because they add a little something and are unique to this colour, but are completely optional. It reminds me a lot of valentine in execution, which is a good thing.

The colour also comes in "celebratory" styles. The styles are variable in quality; some of them have really fun poses and good shading, while others look very flat and have very thin linework or strange proportions. However, I'm not quite as picky with these because they're all-new styles not based on any actual pre-customization art, unlike something like the recent dynamic Halloween and Ghost styles. Either way, I do like the styles and I think they add some life.

My only issue with this colour is that we only have, like, five pets in it. Don't get me wrong, it's normal to only get a handful of pets in a given colour when it debuts... but the reason is that each species needs to be designed, whereas here, we know most species already have a 25th anniversary design thanks to promo materials. It probably would bother me less except we have way more pet styles than we do non-styles, which feels kind of gross; almost like part of the colour is paywalled for certain species until further notice.

Also, my other minor beef is that "25th anniversary" is a very clunky pet name; not only is it a mouthful, but it doesn't make sense in-universe (the 25th anniversary of what, exactly?) and makes it weird to release 25th anniversary pets on any other anniversary, which they're apparently planning to.

Favorite Species:

Xweetok: Unfortunately there's no NP colour for this one yet, which like I said above I'm really not a fan of as a practice. However, this is a really 25th anniversary pet regardless. It comes decked out in a bow, wings, and balloons, and uses a pink/green/orange palette that really shouldn't work and yet somehow does. The winking pose for this one is also very fun and adds a lot of personality.

Uni: I don't know why I like the Uni so much; maybe it's just the nice rearing pose, or maybe it's just that I like the light blue, yellow, and pink palette. Regardless, it's very pretty, and that's coming from a person who normally isn't huge on Unis. My only beef with it is that the hair clip stars and the bow have colored lineart for some reason, and the bow is stapled directly on the body without a ribbon around the neck—a weirdly common problem with 25th Anniversary pets for reasons I don't quite understand.

Kougra: Of the five pets to currently have both a NP option and a style, the Kougra has a very fun base color; a mix of red, blue, and yellow that's kind of similar to the base red Kougra but also not at all. There's not a whole lot of wearables, but the Kougra's fairly complicated default design combined with the colours makes it kind of work, seeing as it would likely look too busy otherwise. My only issue with the customized version is, similar to the Uni, the stapled-on tie with colored linework, though at least you can remove it here. The style is nice, more expressive but not over-exaggerated; proportions are a bit off (the head is way too big, and the body's a little too skinny), but that's not a huge deal.

[nho-jungle]

giving gillion a tail: bug's thoughts on triton anatomy

yeah im writing a full thing about this okay let me autism lazerbeam in peace.

so the thing with triton anatomy is that one would assume theyre just human anatomy with some extra bits like gills n stuff. and tails, but we'll go into that in a moment. the problem with this is bone structure. not all fish have bones. sharks don't have bones. instead the support structure of their bodies is made of cartilage. which isnt too different, considering parts of human anatomy are made up of cartilage, but it poses some interesting questions. im no scientist, but i am autistic as hell. so im going to pose a couple of options that are fun to rotate.

the most common depiction of tailed tritons (which i myself have drawn) is some variety of fish or shark. this is aesthetically fun bc of the variety within fish and sharks, in terms of colour and shape, that allows you to get funky with it. anatomically speaking, this would probably be achieved via the tailbone being there, like a monkey, but with the muscle and flesh around it being shark or fish-like. this would all lend to a tail that moves side to side, which would lead to an interesting swimming style that probably wouldnt involve much movement of the legs.

the second thought i had for tailed tritons was seals. seals have very short tails, but as mammals they have the same bone structure as humans. due to this, my initial thought was a second set of hips, so the triton bone structure would look like it had four legs, but the second set of legs would be the tail formation. this would lend itself to a tail that moves up and down, which could probably be utilised in tandem with the legs to create a very efficient swimming style.

however, neither of these ideas take into account one very important thing about tritons:

they're amphibious.

oh but bug, they can have human lungs and fish gills with nothing to do with the tail- silence voice i made up purely to disagree! we are not here to do arts and crafts! we are not gluing random creature aspects together with whimsy and magic! this is real science!

so amphibians. frogs and newts and salamanders and the like.

the amphibian life cycle, in most cases, involves eggs being laid in water and larvae being adapted to an aquatic lifestyle. frogs, toads, and salamanders all hatch with external gills, and develops lungs to breathe air as they grow up. amphibians are very adaptable to their environment, and there are many possible variations among individual species purely caused by outside influence and the area they grow up in.

but what does this have to do with tritons and their tails?

tadpoles

unlike most amphibians, frog tadpoles dont look like the adults. frog tadpoles start out fully aquatic, with external gills. as they grow and develop, they get gill pouches to make their gills internal. they have cartilaginous skeletons (which later develop into bone), lateral line systems (found in fish, used to detect movement, vibration, and pressure under water), and large tails. their lungs develop early. their front legs develop first, and then their back legs soon after.

(oh what about axolotls- axolotls dont have lungs. they are functionally the same as salamander larvae but they never get past that developmental stage. theyre amphibians that arent amphibious.)

im running out of steam for this post but basically what im trying to say is that triton are froglets. this would also make sense for the fact that triton have webbed hands and feet. frogs do too so it would be implemented into the swimming style. bone structure is a whole nother things, especially since both 'mordenkainen presents: monsters of the multiverse' and 'volos guide to monsters' are cowards whos triton designs are just blue people. but working from 'mythic odysseys of theros' designs, who have at least a little bit of flare, i think it's safe to assume that their bones are a little funky. some fun mix of bone and cartilage to have those interesting shapes.

all that being said, i am a big supporter of doing whatever you want forever. i am also just a massive nerd and like to think way too hard about these things.

(shoutout to my dad for assistance with bouncing ideas around, and for being the one to suggest the tadpole thing.)