#my writeups

[parisoonic]

How the hell do you manage to superimpose the hilariously exagerated proportions of the tf2 mercs into a cohesive 2d style? I always struggle SO much with like, the way the mercs' models have huge hands, the way they have relatively low-poly definition on things like arms, shoulders, and legs... and Especially the way like, the models are kinda janky when you pose them for art purposes- when using movement tools, things like armpits and seams between body parts get all deformed... Which makes the study of form and silhouette rather difficult.

I assume that a lot of your ability to translate the concept of the mercs from their original mediums into your own works of art comes to you quite naturally- through experience you have with drawing and art style stuff, as well as through intuition. I was simply wondering if I could poke at your mind and get some insight into your process, any thoughts you have about the proportions and silhouettes of the mercs, any quirks you've found while drawing the mercs, or simply what you enjoy drawing about them. Like, don't be afraid to infodump about something just because you think people wouldn't find it interesting- I am here, I am sitting, and I am listening- if you so choose to speak.

I am utterly fascinated and enraptured by the more behind-the-scenes aspect of art. The mundane things that come second nature to great artists yet seem so revolutionary to less experienced artists.

I love your work, I look forward to seeing more of it, and I hope you have a nice day :]

Sorry for the late reply! I've been a little…stuck on how to answer this but that's mainly because to me, drawing is composed of SO many different little skills - you have form, anatomy, shape language, silhouette, appeal, rhythm, acting and posing…not to mention everything AFTER your raw draughtmanship like line style, rendering and colour theory. Trying to distill a multiude of small skills into some pithy advice is overwhelming to my brain. So I'll take the invitation to ramble instead :))

I don't think I have any new or revolutionary insight into the tf2 guys specifically - more I'm using them as work horses to excercise general silhouette/posing/shape-language and further my skills when it comes to drawing characters!

I do agree though the proportions are rather silly when you stop and think about them realistically…they can be kinda tricky if you follow their 'actual' proportions. what looks great individually was maybe never meant to be directly compared (ie: Heavy's hand size against Spy's lol). It would've been funny if the TV show exsisted and we had more content to review…would the animators have had rules like Spy and Heavy can never shake hands? Would they cheated the proportions for shots? Or would they have said WHATVER it's gonna look weird and embraced it? (Like Kingpin in Spiderverse lol)

Paul Lasaine for 'Into the Spiderverse' This is AWESOME. But it's also one of the silliest designs I've ever seen comitted to screen. The varied scales of the characters work because of the unifying treatment (lighting, rendering, consistant hand anatomy, consistant clothing fold treatment etc) and because they are sort of proportional within themselves. A common mantra is that hands should be about as large as a characters face....which they all are here!

Human brains are very flexible and forgiving though. It's totally fine for you to put a character with huge hands and head next to a teeny tiny character! Vanellope and Ralph from Wreck-It Ralph look grand next to each other! And in that film you even have varying levels of stylisation sitting against each other (unified by the look dev treatment of the shaders and lighting). I think as long as the chracter is proportional within themselves it sort of works out. IE: a general rule is that a hand should be as large as the face so…you can have some large arse hands as long as their placed on a body with a big arse head. Unifying characters with the same treatment (ie: lineart brush, colouring style will also help them look cohesive next to each other :) )

I don't actually reference the 3D models/animations very much at all and instead draw their proportions based on my tastes for stylisation following their general vibes/silhouette profiles. I don't stick THAT close to their in-game looks and there are artists who do that are so so so much better than me (Creedei and Flapjack come to mind). I'm not amazing at body-type differentation and TBH they're all wearing chunky clothes all the time so I usually draw the guys as one-of-three body shapes: Heavy is the uniquely wide guy; Sniper/Scout/Spy are all tall and slim and Demo/Soldier/Medic/Engie have a little more of the generic 'hero' bodytype with varying tallness and broadness of the shoulders

Something like this! You can vary all these individual elements in terms of size, thickness, taper amount etc to create different characters. If you ARE going to reference the 3d works though you'll need to apply some anatomy knowledge to overcome the weird shoulders, armpits and knees which desperately need blendshapes to correct the 3D volumes and approach it a little more like an animation supervisor. There's a reason why you see in making-ofs and art-ofs character designers, character leads or animation supes doing drawovers of the models. These are character models that have had great effort put into their 'base' silhouette but it still needs to be reinforced in every frame for maximum appeal.

Shiyoon Kim for 'Raya' This sort of thing will occur at multiple stages during the animation process. Shiyoon Kim's notes are post final model but pre-animation. Most likely for internal rig tests, exploring what blend shapes and alt shapes are needed for the rigs etc. If your production has time, this will continue all the way to final anim. IF! But it's interesting to see how he emphasises the shapes and enhances the character acting of the 3d model.

As for 'mundane things' - I wouldn't say they're second nature! (If that makes you feel better!) I have to actively really persue certain advice and try to figure out how to best apply it. This can sometimes involve redrawing and redrawing an element of the drawing until I've grasped the nettle of whatever I'm after or…..until I get frustrated and either delete the drawing or just call it done lol

Here, I'm looking for a really specific flow of the head that sells both the acting and a subtle head tilt. I'm also trying to apply the general mantra regarding faces that converging lines (set by the eyebrows and mouth) are more appealing than parallel. It's tough! I also tend to use a drawing I've already done as a template/reference on the page too. Oh! This page is an amazing example of why I'm not an animator or storyboarder…consistancy? Who is she? 💅

Converging lines (that form tapered shapes) are always more appealing than parallel. Using this logic you can loft the facial features across converging lines to create dynamic appealing espressions. Combining this with anatomy, perspective and rotation is the tough part though. I'm still learning o7

The things I probably think about MOST are always flats vs curves, simple vs complex and general line of action/flow...and then eliminting tangents. Each of these can be a dedicated visual-essay on their own - hence my stumbling as to answer your question. Anyhow, not sure if it's ever come up on this blog but I looove dinosaurs :)) so i'm using a wee piece to demostrate these ideas! (but also to demostrate these concepts apply to everything from humans characters to animals, props and background design)

Okay, I'm getting self-aware that this is getting really long :') I have a wee tutorial tag for my blog if anyone wants to comb through my garbled art-thoughts. Learning, studying, repetition and practice will always be the greatest teachers! I'm glad you like my art- thank you so much for the lovely comments - I feel like such a noob still and not qualified to give people advice but we're in it together learning! High-five! 🙌

[naturalist-fr]

A page from the Encyclopedia of Sornieth's Sophonts by Tetra Lightwrite, Chapter 1: Dragons, Entry 15: Spirals. The opposite page has extensive written information on this species, which reads as follows...

Entry 15: Spirals.

One of the common dragons of Sornieth, Spirals are native to the extensive bamboo forests found within Wind territory. They are among the smallest dragon species, only reaching a max length of a few mere metres. These energetic and acrobatic dragons are like living kites, using their extensive surface area to ride the winds and effortlessly glide from location to location. They are perhaps best known for their enthusiasm and excitement.

Spirals are very long and narrow, but have fantastic surface area. Their entire body is adapted for catching as much air as possible, with flaps of skin running down the sides of their body. Both arms and legs are pseudowings with extensive membrane that extends the aforementioned skin flaps even further. A downside of this is that Spirals are rather poor on the ground. Their first two digits on both limbs act like typical fingers/toes, while the latter two digits must be awkwardly curled back. Their wings are supported by cartiliginous rods, granting them high tensile strength in strong wings. At the end of their tail is a flat blade-like structure which often looks vaguely reminiscent of a leaf, though it varies from individual to individual. This blade provides even more surface area, yes, but is largely an individual trait that one may use to tell Spirals apart. A spiral's scales are very smooth, reducing air resistance as much as possible.

A Spiral is very at home in the air, more so than perhaps any other known dragon species. They love to launch themselves from great heights and glide around, slithering in the sky in a fashion that almost makes it seem as though they're swimming. Indeed, they swim in a similar fashion too, though perhaps less graceful. They are also highly adept at climbing, another favourite activity of theirs. If they must walk on flat ground, it is slow business on account of their awkward pseudowings. Many spirals use special footwear that they essentially hold onto, avoiding any awkward twisting of the digits. Some spirals even forgo use of limbs entirely and slither like a Serthis. Unsurprisingly, this behaviour seems to be most common in Spiral populations that coexist with Serthis.

The collective noun for Spirals is tangle. Spiral tangles are very common, as they're quite the gregarious species. They are very physical people, with touch being a part of everyday communication. Boundaries are far looser for a Spiral, which give them trouble when trying to integrate with other sophonts. Spirals may even get quite distressed if denied physical contact with anyone for long periods of time. As one may have guessed, it isn't unusual to see Spirals sleeping together in one big, well, tangle. They are also very, very chatty. Spirals seem to nearly always be in conversation, it's fair to assume they spend more time talking than not. If you aren't a conversationalist, you may have a hard time making friends with a Spiral.

Hatchling spirals are surprisingly independent, for better or worse, able to climb and fly just as well as an adult mere minutes after hatching. Combine this with the intellect of an infant, and you have yourself quite the handful. Because of this raising the next generation is a communal activity to Spirals. All hands on deck are very much necessary to keep these little wyrmlings safe. Thankfully Spirals mature on the quicker side for a dragon, reaching adulthood in about 20 years.

[vulcanautus]

"I have to carry on, and do everything he planned to do."

[remxedmoon]

“the cautious ewe. the chime of its bell begets its strike.”

hooved

🛎️ power - 3 health - 3 blood

bell ringer - this card’s power increases the closer it is to the combat bell. power also increases for each chime on the field.

bellist - when a card bearing this sigil is played, a chime is created on each empty adjacent space. chimes have 0 power and 1 health.

hidden trait - insulating coat

this card cannot be transformed into a frozen creature. frozen creatures have 0 power, 5 health, and the frozen away sigil.

mirewebelle… she’s one of my favorites out of all the cards i’ve made. anyways!! writeup time!!

ding ding! yeah this entire card is themed around that one interaction on the first floor where mira talks about the bells on her brooch. she might be trapped in a card but i can’t take away her funny noises

the bell ringer + bellist interaction is so cool but it’s so hard to achieve ingame. with optimal placement, mira can do 5 damage on turn 1. hence why she’s a 3 blood! she hits harder than a grizzly. those funny noises are dangerous

i know female sheep don’t usually have horns but like. shsshhsshhhhh. she looks cooler with the horns. she’s like. one of those breeds where both males and females have horns. it’s fine.

i wanted to make the eyes in her alt art look like the change symbol!! because it’s fun!! every alt card has something special!

unlike sif, mira isn’t a talking card! none of the party is actually. as always siffrin suffers alone broken heart emoji.

also! that card trait huh. what the hell is a frozen creature? it’s. a reskin of the frozen opposum. i’ve got a king boss fight in the works and one of the mechanics of it is that he’ll target spaces and turn the cards within them into frozen cards. the frozen away sigil makes the card release a creature upon being killed. in this case, it’d probably return the card to the state it was in prior to getting frozen. and it’s called insulating coat because sheep teehee.

her patch’s sigil is armored/nano armor! which prevents the card from taking damage the first time it gets hit. since transferred sigils also affect the chimes, her chimes can tank an extra hit in battle! looking back though, i think leader would’ve synergized with her kit a bit better. since she can’t get an attack buff at campfire events (without glitches, at least), she’s basically capped at 5 power without that sigil. oh well! armored still works.

speaking of that patch. FUCK that patch. i had to cut out a jpeg of that thing by hand for every card because oops! i couldn’t find a png of it! only one of the card generators lets you add patches and it’s the less game-accurate one. so i had to manually cut it out for each card that had a tribe. which is most of them. hhhh at least i don’t have to deal with it anymore. it sucked.

and i think that’s all my notes on this card! here is a mirewe. observe her

[chocodile]

Tiny little asteroids (Tiny little asteroids) Crashing through the sky (Crashing through the sky) Poison all my blood (Poison all my blood) Cut out both my eyes (Cut out both my eyes)

[boxturret]

Flexile Tarakava Spine, made Flesh

This is a followup to my post about the apparent design revision to the Tarakava you can see in the cancelled game Bionicle, Legend of Mata Nui.

I mentioned wanting to get the parts to make it real, and thanks to them turning the post back on, I did!

Its....not great. Its much worse than I thought it would be.

If you flip the kickstand around you can get an okay roaring pose, but its very wobbly.

Since the Tarakava is so hunched forward the whole build is incredibly unstable.

Also click hinges just like...suck. Doing this reawakened a lot of traumatic memories of trying to use them back when I played with legoes, and they're just the worst. Too stiff to be used in smaller things without tearing the build apart, too weak to be used in larger builds.

I just knew right away that the hinges wouldn't hold up to the quite strong forces the Tarakava goes through in normal use, but I didn't really consider the whole...hinges+human skin thing until I actually messed around with it.

Ouch.

So in conclusion, I am firmly of the opinion that as a physical build, this sucks, but as it, or something similar, is used in LOMN, I think its a "cannon" option for people rigging the model digitally to try it to give it some more flexibility while not resorting to making the spine a noodle.

Its dark out.

[do-you-know-this-queer-character]

Do you know this queer character?

Jon is Biromantic and Asexual, and uses He/Him pronouns!

Art by @ wellotwig on X

[honnojis]

III. The Empress

bsky version // choice writeup

(also i have writeups for the previous cards too!)

[hustlerose]

oops, all rpgs! hades has been eliminated because i already did that one

[presiding]

literally saw corvo and daud and was like 'is anyone gonna make them have an increasingly bloody and painful fight in the rain?' and then didnt wait for an answer. yea new chapter of swan song up

[astronomodome]

kind of cool of hermitcraft to free association it up anarchist style

[hanzajesthanza]

(Adam Dudaczyk) The fact that vampires drink blood to get that *meaningful hand-neck gesture* - you made that up? (Andrzej Sapkowski) Yes, I didn't model myself on anyone here, I don't know anyone who wrote before me about the fact that vampires drink blood not to satisfy their hunger, but to satisfy their thirst for… entertainment. Texts: the guys sent me to get blood, I was flying drunk… The fun was great.

as i reread this i couldn't stop thinking of this meme

[mizartz]

I am dreaming of a mod that is So self indulgent

[unproduciblesmackdown]

landscape mode "suddenly seymour" clip :'I

[ceramicteapot]

they told me "nobody loves you".

but then my friends saved me a seat in class. my sibling accidentally bought two cups of coffee even though I'm hundreds of miles away. my grandmother still wears the scarf i gifted her one December in the late 2000's every winter. my mother put her life on hold so i didn't have to pause mine.

[freckliedan]

wait i’m loving this can you elaborate more on the moon card for dan and death card for phil? and what your interpretation is?

i agree that they’ll need a little post tour break but that it’ll be more definitive, like ‘hey we’re going to take 4-6 weeks to chill so don’t expect anything’ kind of thing.

i mean phil's very clearly heading in that direction; death is about massive amounts of change. phil very clearly wasn't going to have a crazy girl era at the same time as dan, like?

in a long term relationship sometimes overlapping bad days are unavoidable but often you can like. take turns having a truly "i'm figuring out who i am and being insane and trying new things and processing some stuff for a while" era.

and i think dan and phil's relationship is healthy, but that phil also put a lot on hold for years that he didn't even realize he wasn't processing. but it froze him up. and dan had his crazy girl era first after they came out because it was still a part of his necessary journey yknow? and until touring WAD dan still hadn't fully self-actualized as an individual outside of the context of his relationship with phil.

so now it's phil's turn to reinvent/rediscover himself. to go crazy ahh go stupid. and we've been seeing the slow build of that, the phlonde is a MASSIVE early piece of it, but like. 2025. mark my words. will be for the fucking phillies.

the moon as dan's tarot card of 2025 goes CRAZY. btw. it's about emotions/dreams/intuition/anxieties+fears/possibilities and discerning what is true for you when things are unclear; it's very much so a card related to one's inner world and how connected they are to it.

and the moon can be very directly connected to femininity.

dan howell. gender is coming for you bad.

i do not think the moon will be an easy card for dan to integrate the learning from? considering the way he overthinks. but i'm also completely unsurprised that tour is going to contribute to something like this? i was already kind of anticipating the possibility but it wasn't something i was willing to Predict (tm) before.

but like. it matches the pattern. tour means interfacing with a lot of fans and we know that interactive introverts had a massive impact on dan's processing and readiness to share about his sexuality. so many of us are very gendery now and dan's been talking a lot about gender in the last year.

and now he's going to get whammied by the fucking moon. >:)

whatever. anyways. phil's gonna blow everyone's dicks plumb off with never before seen confidence and hotness and dan's getting a new gender. as far as i can tell.