#no matter how many times I redrew it :(

[heartorbit]

searching for a star that's still unknown to anyone!

[purplebunnydraws]

Apparently there’s a Just Dance inktober??

The prompt was robots/aliens. Technically Leda is an alien to the Just Dance universe, so that’s what I’m using to justify this.

If it didn’t put Wanderrose in jeopardy this ship would be so compelling tbh

(This is a wip btw) (ALSO!! WHY IS THERE NO STORY MODE IN JD 2025???? 😭)

[turtle-taetell]

goodbye Mersmp

Super long message below!! (Funny story!)

and a message to the CCs at the end! <3

This is a piece that means so much to me. 21 months ago the designs for Theo and Faye got released. That day, i drew them! On paper with the supplies I had laying around, in a sketchbook smaller than my hand. At this point I was proud of my art but still very nervous about it. I had no idea how to draw them. I struggled a lot.

The second time I drew it, a year had passed. I felt I had been able to grow a lot as an artist and was excited to show how much I improved, so I redrew it! I loved how the lineart turned out and was so so excited to see the finished piece! But guess what? I hated it. I colored it in and still hate it to the point that I don’t even have the final version saved to my phone. It makes me feel ashamed.

But now, Mersmp has come to a close and the characters I have grown to care about so deeply have gotten their happy ending. So I wanted to give this piece that as well.

And finally, I think I can finally say I did.

I started drawing this final piece as soon as I was able to screenshot their epilogue designs. I was determined to make it right. So I sat down and drew, and drew, and drew, only taking an hour break to have dinner with a friend (don’t be like me). Finally, at 3am, eleven hours later, I was satisfied.

In this final piece are things that show just how tired I was. There are countless freckles on both characters, even under their scales! That’s a lot of dots. But wait… not the smallest. If you zoom in close enough they have pores! Much smaller than their freckles. That’s really a lot of dots! My freckle brush must have really come in clutch, right? WRONG! I dont have a freckle brush! All of this was done with one single smooth brush and I made Every. Single. Dot. Individually. That must have been pretty hard on my stylus, right? ONCE AGAIN WRONG! I don’t have a stylus! All of this was done on Ibis Paint x, a free art program, on an old janky ipad I got for free because it was so broken, all drawn with my finger. Even if I got a stylus, my ipad is too old to connect to any of them, including apple pencils.

The moral of this story is to never give up and not to let your resources limit your creativity. It doesn’t matter what medium you use, just do something to learn and keep pushing to improve. You will get there. Despite everything, you can do it.

And to the Mermp crew: Thank you for everything you have done. Through the story you have told and the community you have built, you have helped myself and others to grow in many ways. I myself learned a lot from Theo, learning that I do in fact go nonverbal at times and that does not mean there is anything wrong, and that I can feel conflicted and unsure about gender and expression. I learned I don’t need to be fixed. Just like I have now learned to look at the first redraw. I may not like it, but it is an expression of who I was at the time. Similar to Cella and Bite. Those characters may not like what they did in the past, but they are able to look back and recognize that it made them who they are today. If I always was proud of my first redraw, I may have never pressed myself to make this third one as beautiful. Thank you for the stories and lessons you have shared with us and allowing us to grow along side you and your characters.

And maybe, one day, a year or so from now, I can return to this and redraw it again, seeing what other things I enjoy in the future and how they may shape me to change.

With love, Turtle.

[normalartistsdoingsaneredraws]

“Why did you redraw my screenshot???”

“I redrew your screenshot!?!?”

Hiiii.

Welcome to the first (of hopefully many!) Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency screenshot redraw challenges!

Who can participate: Literally anyone. Are you an established artist? Join! Is this literally your first time putting pen to paper? Join! Have you been a Dirk Gently fan since Douglas Adams first pitched the book to publishers? Join! Is this the first time you’ve ever heard of this show and/or book series? Join! And consider watching the show, we love recruiting fans.

What is it: Literally just take the screenshot in question, and redraw it! Here is our inaugural screenshot:

Draw in whichever style you like! Stick figures, photorealism, abstract shapes and colours meant to represent the image — it doesn’t matter! This isn’t a challenge anyone can win, it’s all about community building and fostering creativity. Hell, go ahead and remove the “drawing” part out of the challenge and make it out of play-dough, I just wanna see what you come up with!

When: I am currently typing this on the afternoon on August 1st, 2024, and I am officially calling this challenge OPEN. I’ll reblog any and all entries that I see, and I’ll do a master post with links to all entries on September 1st. I’ll also have next month’s screenshot challenge that day as well (unless I don’t, because, you know, life. But it’ll be at least close to that date).

Where: Here on tumblr. I’ll be following the tags “Normal Artists Doing Sane Redraws” as well as “NADSR” (I checked, both are empty as of now) (even on google, right now it’s only a North American Dutch Shepherd Rescue group — I’m glad those Dutch Shepherd’s have that resource available).

Why: Funzies. Creativity. Recruiting more people into the Dirk Gently fandom. And I just wanna see everybody’s take on drawing the same image!!!!

How: However you’d like! Again, the tags are “Normal Artists Doing Sane Redraws” and “NADSR”. No relation to Dutch Shepherds.

Any other questions that I haven’t considered answering here: The ask box is open! Please note that I will default to answering all asks publicly unless you request otherwise :)

Alright babes, 3,2,1, get to the art!!!

[oistak]

Hiii can I request a vees * separate* x fem reader or g/n which the reader is Beelzebub’s daughter romantic sfw and nsfw if you don’t mind

vees (separate) x fem reader!beelzebub’s daughter

cw: suggestive in vox's part, honestly nothing that bad

⊹˚₊‧───────────‧₊˚⊹

vox:

📺 vox was a con-man, a business man, and an entrepreneur 📺 when he met you his first though was to make as much money as possible off you 📺 he tried to get you to play into your “princess of gluttony” label and start a snack brand 📺 for the first time in his life since he became wealthy, vox’s ideas got rejected 📺 he was absolutely devastated 📺 he’d never felt so horrible 📺 you found him a month later in a bar

vox hunched over his drink his jacket on the back of his seat and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows

“hey” you whispered

you walked up behind vox and tapped him on the shoulder before sitting down next to him,

“a vodka cranberry and a scotch please” you yelled to the barkeep in the back.

he turned to you, and scoffed before focusing on swirling his drink.

“what d’you want” vox snarled, his voice was husky and reeked of alcohol, his screen flickered and you could tell he was tired.

you flicked your ears “you look like your having a rough time” he glanced at you amusment

“wow” he mocked “great observation”

smirking you swished your tail, “ok old man” you sat and drank in silence for a while before vox started talking again.

“doll did i ever tell you how smoking hot you are smokinghottscauseikinda” he slurred, “alright i think its time for you to go home” you walked him to the cab and as you got in with him,

he looked up at you drowsily “i love you doll” he slouched into the middle seat and laid his head on your shoulder “we’ll bethe beeest power couplein hell.”

as he fell asleep you kissed his forehead “love you too loser.”

⊹˚₊‧───────────‧₊˚⊹

velvette:

💄velvette met you at one her fashion shows seated next to bee 💄 one look and she knew you'd be perfect for her next show 💄 having the princess of the hellhounds in her repertoire would be great for her so she set out to poach you 💄 you were very busy but working for velvette was a dream of yours, so you said yes 💄 she had you model all her newest designs 💄 you were her star and she featured you in every one of her shows 💄 slowly you got closer and one night while she was sketching some designs,

vel had her hair pulled into a messy bun, she wore large frame glasses, and a sad excuse for pajamas sweetie and yet, she was the prettiest you have seen her.

“sweetie” she chirped, “where is the original design, for the cocktail two piece?”

you whisked your tail and it ruffled through tens of hundred of papers, most of them crumpled, “vel all of these are perfectly fine”

“darling it has to be perfect” she whined as you passed her the design

“the show is next week and the top designs have been leaked already and mine are so bland, i cant have that”

as you watched her scribble over her drawings again and again, you realized that no matter how much she redrew her designs, and how stubborn she was, velvette was perfect,

tilting her head up you pressed a kiss against her lips, both your tongues fought for control and she moaned into the kiss.

she pressed you down onto her notes and sketches and for the rest of the night you lie there with velvette.

⊹˚₊‧───────────‧₊˚⊹

valentino:

🪩 you met at the club after he bought you a drink and invited you to the vee tower to see his work 🪩 as one of the seven deadly sins you tried to make as many connections as possible 🪩 he was offended and surprised you didn’t know him, you were surprised and offended of what his “work” was 🪩 after you left, val texted you telling you to toughen up and stop being a pussy 🪩 you were so taken aback over the fact the he didn't know his place in the heirachy so you marched back to his studio to confront him

“valentino, you're a such an elitist!” you yelled bursting into the doors, most of the workers realisong who you were scattered.

your body glowed and you thrashed your tail, val backed up fear pricked his eyes under his heart glasses,

“look you were being a pussy, ok don’t expect me to apologive”

you growled “that’s your defense??, you anger a heir of a deadly sin and yet you don’t even apologize!

you unsheathed your claws and grew in anger, “you man-whore”

val was suddenly aware of how lanky his frame was, he couldn’t fight you and he knew it. val could feel his heart pounding as he took a step back. he’d never felt so weak and he loved it.

“baby please, i'm sorry” he whimpered, you shrunk back to normal, which was was a bit weird, since standing up right in front of him you were about a foot shorter,

“how sorry are you?” you sung picking at his chain, he growled at your pushing you back onto a chaise,

“you want me to beg?” val cackled, holding down your shoulders, “i’ll have you begging by the end of the hour” he snarled, attacking your neck with his teeth and tongue, you moaned into his coat and gripped onto his chest.

hope you liked them <333

[aidanchaser]

“Why does this stay on when you’re transformed?” she asked, the ring still shining between her thumb and forefinger.  Her voice was a pounding in his ears, mixing with his roaring pulse. “What?” “Your ring,” Kagami said matter-of-factly. “Why do you keep it the same on both sides of the mask?” He pulled back, shaken, and knew she could see it. There was no partial truth he could give her this time, not even a hint. He’d have to explain how his magic couldn’t cancel itself out, how the transformation wouldn’t work if it did, and then she would know. She could never know. “Maybe I like it that way,” Félix replied, and pressed the doors-open button for escape.

I wanted to do a piece in honor of the scene that made me fall madly in love with Felix/Kagami because before this moment I was rather blasé about it. Now I am feral.

It isn't my fault that the scene that turned me feral was focused entirely on hands interlocking with hands so fuck me backwards I don't want to know how many times I drew and redrew some of these panels but i did enjoy getting to break out my water colors; i haven't painted in a while

thank you @wackus-bonkus-maximus for writing one does not love breathing and changing me irrevocably

[meral-ace-art]

Click for better quality

Anastasia x Undertale Multiverse Crossover Comic

-Page 3-

First - Previous - Next

Tag is Anastasia X Undertale Multiverse or AxUTMV

Link to the masterpost

I am truly sorry for the bad art, no matter how many times I redrew it, it still looked awful. I just can’t seem to get the proportions right. And no, the other pages will not be in black and white.

[kingescher]

Ohhhhh Eli lore!! I'm actually not very happy with this, no matter how many times I redrew it I couldn't get it to accurately look like Eli :(. But I really wanted to draw something to show off his mask and why he has those scars on his face.

[spaghetticat3899]

The Sona Selection

This post is just gonna be me rambling about my sonas and shite, if you’re interested, look under the cut. Some in the image above are no longer used, I just am too lazy to make a new drawing of them all. Toyhouse pages are linked of you’re also curious enough to look at those for some reason, lol.

Skullcandy (she/her)

The edgelord herself. As can be obviously deduced (probably), I made her when I was 12-ish, and for whatever reason I’ve never been able to get unattached to her, no matter how many times I’ve tried to replace her. I guess she’s here to stay, lol.

She’s an “irradiated raptor”, which is some sort of radioactive creature that might’ve been a ferret at one point. Her head was based off a ball python’s, just because I find their faces cute. The rest was made up on the fly. In earlier designs, she used to have tiny crystal wings for some reason, but they’re no longer in use. She’s incapable of dying via physical injury, a blessing or curse depending on who you ask (mostly just an excuse for gore art).

Loid Bimac (he/they)

This little octo dude I can’t stop drawing. Sleep-deprived, always moving, might be a little feral. I made him sometime in 2022, originally starting out as a xeno design I scribbled down once in class. Eventually I redrew it and started using him regularly. Before his creation, I used Hachikō in place of myself a lot. He’s a California two-spot octopus, having little eyespots on his shoulders he’s kinda insecure about. His earlier design had more suction cups on his hair which I got rid of for ease and simplicity, which is why some older art of him has five suckers on his front tentacles instead of three. The finger color gradient is completely optional and I add it whenever I feel like it, it’s never consistent. His beak is weird because my teeth are kinda like that (albeit, a lot less noticeably.

Kid (any/it)

This weird goat chimera that took way too long to finalize a design for. They’re a bizarre thing, usually around a little jackalope by the name of Kit (a friend’s sona I designed for them). Their scales and horns are iridescent, based off an emerald jewel wasp. Their arms can become bat-like wings for absolutely no reason other than I said so. The innermost toe can twist back and forth and behave like a foot-thumb, the two other toes forming a hoof. The maw is based off thylacoleo, just because the teeth are funky. The tail has a stinger hidden in the fluff just because. Honestly a lot of their design is “just because”.

Saturn (she/they/he)

I wish I had a higher quality image of them because this is from an Aggie/magma canvas so it’s very fuzzy. Just a little hyena sona vaguely based off the planet, Saturn. Nothing much to them.

Dani (she/her)

A sona I made sophomore year of high school I use every once in awhile. She’s an opossum, not a rat. Not much behind her either, she’s just here, lol.

—————————————————————————

Alright, that’s all, here’s a picture of Sunny my sister took awhile ago.

[ankeaziy]

dtiys entry from instagram for #prosto_dtiys

I'm absolutely disappointed with how my drawing turned out in the end no matter how many times I redrew it. to the point I was reluctant to post it for almost a week ughhh. hope someday I'd be able to redraw it the way I'm satisfied with. and while I'm at it I wanna confess I fucking 🌸HATE🌸 drawing🌸 flowers🌸

[abeat]

2 - Bark

As with many problems in life, Lavender defaulted to two approaches. Take her time to think about it carefully, coming up with several possible plans and going through the ups and downs of each plan individually before coming to what she believed to be the best solution. Alternatively, she would go whine at her best friend Joey Madison.

The current situation called for whining.

She had pounced on her viera friend and after exchanging the briefest of their usual pleasantries (consisting of "OOH, I am so infuriated!" and "What's wrong this time, Chef?") had launched into the tale of the weird hyur woman, the corsage, and most importantly, how she could not remove the corsage.

“I have no idea what’s going on but I cannot take this thing off! I don’t know what it actually does and worst of all, it doesn’t go with all of my outfits! How am I supposed to at least look my best with this thing stuck on me?!” Lavender had wailed.

"You already look your best, Chef," Joey said in a monotone voice, which usually meant that he wanted to support his friend while simultaneously being done with the situation.

"I just paid her gil to make her go away and leave me alone! I didn't think any of this would actually happen to me!"

"That sounds just like you, Chef."

“All the same, what is this thing? I have tried pulling it off, tearing it off, cutting it off. I even attached it to a hook and tried to run away. It does not budge.” The much more emotional viera woman continued her story of woe.

Joey grumbled. Figuring that Lavender wouldn't complain unless she actually did try something, that part about the corsage not coming off seemed suspicious. Taking her hand, he looked at the bloom. Immediately his eyes turned white as his eyes detected a magic spell attached to the accessory.

A ritual circle. And all the energies that flowed to create the spell.

"I can see why. It's cursed," said Joey, still holding Lavender's hand.

“Cursed? So she conned me into giving her gil just to curse me?” Lavender looked down at her hand as Joey held it, staring down at the beautiful and vexing corsage.

"It looks more like the spell is trying to guarantee that you'll find a match. Here, I'll pull up the circle for you."

Joey spun his right index finger in circles in the air above the corsage. A ritual circle appeared above the flower, its lines faintly glowing akin to the spell circles of any caster.

"If I'm looking at this spell right, it's set to charm anyone standing within thirty yalms of your person. The first person to see you within that radius will become greatly infatuated with you and won't take no for an answer." Joey squinted, his eyes still white. "Unfortunately, there's no real way to get rid of this thing. Hang on, let me try something."

A flash of magical energy later, a shattering noise sounded from the corsage. The magical circle that hovered over the accessory shattered as well. Seconds later, the corsage sparkled with magical energy anew, and the magical circle Joey summoned to illustrate his point redrew itself.

Joey frowned. "Looks like no matter what I do, even breaking the curse or reversing it, the spell is set to reform itself until someone remains with you… or the thirty days are up."

Another spin of his finger and the magic circle disappeared. Joey gently lowered Lavender's hand. His eyes returned to their usual crimson red.

"I'm sorry, Chef, I tried, but whoever put this spell on made it very thoroughly. She's probably had a lot of experience in this sort of thing. It looks like your days are numbered. Literally."

“Thank you for that, Sous Chef.” Lavender nodded to her friend as she kept examining the corsage. “What did I do to her to deserve this?”

Before either could ponder the problem further, another had appeared to interrupt their conversation. A tall, lean bipedal grey wolf had approached them, holding a single red rose. His eyes lit up when they came across the viera goddess in front of him. Whatever his original destination had been, it had changed to following the visage of loveliness in front of him. He marched right up to her, ignoring the fact that another man already stood beside her.

The lupin proffered the rose to the beautiful viera woman. “For you, my lady, though the loveliness of this rose pales in comparison to the perfection of your face. When I howl at the moon, I'm truly howling at you!”

Lavender looked at the lupin and then down to the rose. “Ah…ha ha…t…thank you?” She looked furtively over to Joey in a silent, desperate plea for help.

Not wanting to pick a fight, at least immediately, Joey pulled out a soiled femur from a nearby merchant and threw it at the aetheryte plaza. "Good boy! Now fetch!"

The lupin, giving in his base instincts of being only different from the average dog by only two percent, chased after the bone with his tongue hanging out of his mouth and saliva flying wild and free from it. Even though lupins did not normally do so, he even managed a bark.

Joey took Lavender's hand again. "Quick, Chef, let's get out of here!"

No sooner did he make his declaration than he paid the invisible aetheryte warp service for a warp somewhere. Anywhere. What mattered was that Lavender and Joey were somewhere far, far away from Limsa Lominsa that the lupin couldn't possibly hope to catch Lavender's scent, let alone track them down on foot.

The lupin rushed back with the bone in mouth, eagerly looking for the people he had met there originally. Seeing that he had come back to nothingness, he soon realized his mind was soon full of same. Not remembering why he had come back to this particular spot, the lupin remembered his original purpose and went about his way.

-

Joey Madison belongs to @adeat, who also wrote Joey's lines and prose. Thank you so much!!

[vforviktor]

So I almost scrapped this whole painting because I couldn't get her hand right no matter how many times I redrew it. I still hate it... but honestly I'm only human and even though I've been a professional artist for my entire adult life... hands still fucking suck to draw sometimes. Hopefully that's inspirational somehow. Read the fic it's based on HERE!

[graphic--narratives]

Laying The Foundation- 007

Today I learned how to take geometric 3D forms and create both facial features as well as landscape drawings with them. While I am more than happy with the latter, I think I need to further study the former.

The first thing I was tasked with was drawing a nose from a rectangular form. I struggled with this as no matter how many times I erased and redrew, it didn’t seem to look like a nose. I had the same problem with shading the contour of the eye but it felt easier than the nose.

The head was the easiest of them all. It began as a circle and I’m happy with how it turned out, with the shading and line work to structure the head.

I will have to practice this further and really get the techniques down, perhaps using other sources to guide me.

Hope you have a great week!

[kopathefox]

How people vent|ft. My OCs

Characters are:

New Kopa (the novabeast)

Old Kopa (the orange fox)

Misim (the grey hedgehog)

Shmoolik (the black wolf)

Darkness (the evil white & brown wolf)

Adaman & Lemon (in that paper drawing)

Buddy (the green dragon)

Puro (the gold blue masked wolf)

Explain time:

Just a note, the “weird” about my way is that i do it *instead* of actually sharing my feelings with someone (I sometimes wanting to show it to people such as my good teacher but im too scared to get rejected or smth, which is what actually makes it weird, not cuz drawing is stupid), so ever since i was little (yes, waaaaay before i started animating, like around 8 or smth) i used to draw things to express how i feel, since when i was little nobody ever listened to me nor cared, not even my parents (they treated me like a damn toddler even when i was fricking 11!), I didn’t even trusted my first psychologist (i went to 3 in my life, the current one is a good one), I didn’t even knew a lot of people back then, so the only thing i could do is draw, so thats what i did, my artstyle was rather shitty back then, but it was helpful, i used to draw some pokemon of my teams in some games fighting against the people i hate, every time i redrew the same thing over and over again, (i also drew other non-vent things for fun, at that time my parents disallowed me to watch youtube, but shhh! Heres a secret, I didn’t actually stopped, and im proud of it! It was actually the right thing to do!) but back then nobody actually looked at those drawings and saw a description explaining about it, it was all on paper, unpublished (yeah, my life as a kid pretty sucked, it is actually kinda sad), nowadays i have my channel, i have the ability to animate, i can share it with many people over the world, my parents also looking at it and learn (not always), drawing my silly ars OCs has became something that’s necessary in order to survive, just like food, water and all that, everyone has their own way to vent, as mentioned, my mother just shares her feelings properly without problems, my father chooses to be heartless, my evil teacher takes it out on others, and i swear & draw, im into art like around 5 years! So remember, do what you like to do as long as you don’t harm anyone in the process! Dont be like Darkness! She isn’t a good example for you! (Darkness represents my evil, psycho teacher, she takes her anger out on others) and also, if somebody tells you the way you vent is bad, don’t listen to them! As long you don’t harm anyone its fine! And for artists in general, your art is the best no matter what! Continue what you’re doing and don’t give up! For anyone, don’t give up on your dreams!

[timpac-capstone]

Week 11

Timestamp: 6:18 to 7:05: A friend of mine recommended this video of Billie Eilish watching and cringing at her old Vanity Fair interviews. For the most part, she isn't too hard on herself because she takes into consideration her age and feels more forgiving for what she says because of that factor, it could also be because this is her sixth time doing this in a row. However, in the timestamp that I gave, she reacts the same way that I react when I watch my old YouTube videos which is comforting to see that I'm not the only one that wants to choke myself because of the dumb things I said and did in the past.

This was another recommended video, I can't remember if it was from a classmate or my teacher but this was a lot more useful to watch. For starters, I finally understand why there are no camera positions indicated in screenplays thanks to 13:47 to 14:04 and that is because the screenwriter's job is to make the story and the director's job is to present that story. This is also helpful because Emily is writing a SciFi story which has its own issues of having ideas too ambitious for the audience to understand. It was also insightful to see how the writing process progressed as Emily got more studio notes, an example being how loose she was in writing the first draft, and then in the second draft she made many quick decisions to get rid of scenes or dialogue she didn't like and flesh out the stuff she did like, and in the third draft was further fleshing out extra details and adding more background info about the characters and the world.

I FINALLY DID IT, I FINALLY ANIMATED A CHARACTER IN KRITA. After months and months of telling myself that I couldn't do it, I finally got around to making this walk cycle of the brain cell carrying a heavy bag. I think what definitely helped me was using the drawing tablets that the Fablab provides rather than the cheap one that I have, it actually does make a huge difference and it's not cause the Fablab one has more buttons. For one I have more surface area to work with that is closer to the sketchbook size that I'm used to and the pen feels like it has some resistance when I'm drawing and I can feel how hard I am pressing into the tablet. Once I got used to it I just started drawing the first pose of the character and then when I finished that I said "Fuck it let's just try animating this bitch" and looked up a tutorial and loosely followed along. I won't lie to you this was a very long learning process and I did get frustrated at times to the point where I had to leave my laptop, this animation that you're seeing right now took me a whole day. Something that was very frustrating was definitely the size of my laptop since there are a lot of panels that I needed open but Krita doesn't like it when you try to shrink those panels past a certain point so I had to constantly close and open panels. Another frustrating thing was the legs didn't seem to be coming out right no matter how many times I redrew them so I recorded a video of myself trying to act out carrying a heavy bag of laundry as a reference and I was finally able to fix it. I also had to figure out how to space out these 6 frames to make the bag look like it's heavy to pull. Before I had the frames evenly spaced out and the physics just didn't seem right and was about to draw some more frames but thankfully I figured out the timing before I did all that work. I'm really proud of myself for this even though this is just a rough test animation but I'm not as reluctant on digital drawing anymore.

REFLECTION:

Honestly, I have nothing to reflect upon, I finally did an animation and that is a victory in itself. Next week for my Capstone presentation I'm going to try and put together a scene from my storyboards. It won't play out exactly how I want it to because I'm still just doing early test animations to see what works and what doesn't work as well as just figuring out Krita. Not sure if I'm gonna put dialogue in or just let the animation speak for itself but if I have time I'll try to do some voice acting.

[desperatehornet]

Animation Practise Week 1: Character Design (Class)

Our class assignment for week 1 was to start researching ideas for a character design. We got to pick a random time period, a personality trait and a physical trait.

I (for better or for worse) ended up picking some quite difficult options. My character has to be from colonial Canada, they have to be conniving, but also dishevelled.

I started off by creating a new Pinterest board for this character, and looking for any reference I could find. one silver lining of my prompts was that colonialism in Canada spanned around a century, so I had many periods of fashion to choose from. I mainly looked into the early-mid colonial references I could find, putting main focus on the 1810s, the 1830s and the 1860s. I also looked for references on poses, messy/unkempt appearances, and evil/plotting poses. Finally, I also looked into cartoon concept art, looking at how other artists interpreted a more 18th century outfit into an animated character.

I wasn't sure where to even start with these prompts, so I just opened to a random page in my new sketchbook and started scribbling figures, to warm up. I wasn't concerned with making these pages look nice at all, and just wanted to get as many ideas down as I could. this was quite difficult to start with because not only do I find most day-wear from the 18th century quite ugly personally, but drawing long, ballgown-esque skirts is one of my struggles.

After drawing some quite poor sketches, I started to gain somewhat of an idea for my character. I wanted to make her slightly older, around mid-30s. I decided to stick mainly with the shape motif of a triangle, to express her as abrasive and vengeful. I wanted to stick to the 1860s at first, as I thought they were the most visually appealing to me. I decided that she would be an actress, which would fit with the shape motif of a triangle, to show that she is active.

As I kept drawing, something just wasn't right. she just looked boring to look at, no matter how much I redrew her. After a moment of desperation, I took a look at one of my 1830s references. I find the 1830s to be quite unappealing in terms of fashion, so I didn't want to initially use it for my character. However, looking at it through the eyes of a character to animate, I realised that the outfits provide a very unique silhouette. The sleeves, the hats and the skirts all gave a clear silhouette, making me want to start experimenting. After sketching out some drawings inspired by my 1830s dress references, the character started to form in my head even more. The exaggerated sleeves and giant hat made her look quite silly, making me realise: instead of making her an abrasive, plotting villain who looks exhausted, I could instead make her a whimsical, erratic woman who is unpredictable and unorganized. (Around this time, I also started researching a particular actress known as Polaire, a late 1800s, early 1900s actress who gained fame for her own bold, offensive personality. I want to take inspiration from her legacy in making my character.) I started to love this idea, and soon came up with a distinct silhouette for her, filling the page and refining her design bit by bit. I decided to stick with the shape motif of triangles and circles mainly, as I want her to come off as active, bold and rude, but also happy and bouncy.

I'm still going to do some experimenting with her character as I complete the home task for this week, but for now I'm very happy with the progress I've made today, and I feel like I already have a strong idea of who my character is.

As of right now: She is an 1830s actress in her early 30s, who gained fame for her strange and outlandish acts, who will do anything to get ahead in life.