#not even kidding the stylization and the colors is

[scimagic]

Any tips for artist tryna improve their art? Love ur art and would love to some tips and tricks of yours! ^^

BOOHOO;; THANK YOU!! THAT'S SUCH A NICE COMPLIMENT TO ME;; Like what do you mean you like what I do enough that you want to hear some tips from me!! DON'T MAKE ME CRY FHDJKSA

I really really tried to make things short for you but I don't think I was very successful dkhkdh but I hope you find them useful!! <3

Tracing (not the stealing kind):

Tracing is not bad when it's used to study, some of my college assignments were copying renaissance artists' sketches! Hell, when I was a kid I used to trace Undertale fanart I liked and look where I'm at fhjkads

When you study other people's styles, you can actually gather a lot of information like line weight or proportions, colors, even stylization. So get your favorite artists' pieces and really look at them for a long time, draw them, then apply what you learn into your own art. Just be careful to not steal or claim something as your own!

Focus on one area at a time:

Now you have to chose one area to practice on. You could tackle on many at a time but I find it easier to pinpoint what I would like to do first and then move on to the next thing.

There's a lot of subjects you can go into like anatomy, rendering, backgrounds, but you just have to find one area in them and get a lot of references.

For anatomy you can go into: muscle movement, figure drawing, body parts in different angles.

Rendering: Shading, lighting, color theory.

Backgrounds: Point perspective, different camera angles, landscapes or detailed room scenes.

Don't overwhelm yourself either! Take one thing at a time!

Dear god get a reference board:

Pinterest really helped me find styles I wanted to study and anatomy tips to incorporate in my art. It really relates to my first point but having an actual compilation of how things look next to you really helps. It also helps keeping them organized like so:

Do The Thing™️ anyway:

I know it's repetitive but it genuinely works you have to trust me, practice does make progress. Stop letting fear hold you back on compositions you think are great or believe you don't have "enough skills yet" to work on them. You will never get enough skills if you don't try.

My college classes forced me to pick up watercolors and paint backgrounds and I learned a lot just from trying it out. Make mistakes!! Have fun! That's how you truly improve on your skills!

Be patient and loving with yourself (and your art!):

I cannot stress enough how important it is to love your art in order to grow. You NEED to learn how to be patient with your art AND your journey because it will never compare to anyone's!! Art is not a competition nor a race, it's a medium to express yourself through a process you like. That's why there's millions of art styles and why each of them cater to a different audience!

Once you do, you can actually ask important questions like "Did I like the process? What can I improve on next time? What's something I liked I want to continue incorporating into my art?", and it helps with self esteem too.

And last but not least:

Have fun!!

Art is a journey of self-discovery, it's not meant to be something that weighs you down or makes you feel bad when you're not working on it. Take constant breaks! No matter how short or how long! If you get tired or incredibly frustrated at it, then it's probably best you take a break from it!

Thank you for listening and supporting me!! I love you!!

[wyvernity]

wip posting just to get something out there, and it's def a mixed bag!! the only thing more inconsistent than my posting schedule is my art style RIP

[minzart]

Btw I loved krypto the superdog animation and the hyenas with bathound where, unsurprisingly, my favorites

[chinesegal]

It has been pointed out that Vivziepop's designs look "soulless" because instead of looking to real life for inspiration she just copies whatever stuff from whatever she's into. I brought this up during an argument with a stan who replied with saying that my mindset is "boring", telling me "so you're saying characters can't be cartoony". This wasn't what I meant at all, but to be fair I've got a difficult time defining what I mean.

It's just that regardless of how cartoony and stylized your artstyle is, you need to look at how real humans look in order to draw characters well, as well as look into clothing and fashion styles that you're not into.

Characters drawn by Vivziepop almost always wear either generic suits and bowties or scene kid or goth fashion, with spiky hair and ripped clothing even if it doesn't make sense. Take Alastor for example, his haircut isn't something men wore during the 20s-30s, and what's more he has zero black features despite being supposed to be a mixed black man, including Emily, Sera and Velvette.

On the other hand, fanartists who redesign the HB characters often research historical fashions and trends for their designs, and keep in mind the character's backstory. Husk is an older man in his 70s and an alcoholic, but this isn't reflected in his canon design who looks more like a surly teen. In fan redesigns he's often fat with a gut and has baggy eyes and mangy fur like many older cats.

So I would say that what makes looking at the real world for inspiration important is because it makes sure you avoid falling into the trap of only drawing stuff stuff that appeal to you, and as a result the designs become boringly repetitive cuz they all have the same color scheme, outfit and design language. It gives the impression that the artist doesn't know anything exists outside of their personal preferences.

[twstfanblog]

*~Murder Movie Madness~* PT 1

A/N: YO! Super excited to finally share this fic with you guys!!!! You get two parts in quick succession and another two tomorrow before the final part on Halloween! Enjoy the fic! Word Count: 2K Pairings: First-year poly minus Ortho and Yuu Warnings: Swearing, Me typing out a country accent

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

A dear server friend, @transguydeuce was able to draw art for this! It'll be at the ending of this part and I'm so excited for everyone to see how amazing their art is!!!

Yuu hadn't realized they didn't know of any of the horror movies of Twisted Wonderland, not until their second Halloween was coming up.  A choice of movie for reviewing that week during the Film Research club was vetoed. Every other member saying the movie was ‘too scary’.

While the easiest and most obvious answer would be to ask Vil or even Idia for recommendations. They instead went the fun route and invited their Firstie group to a movie madness marathon. Each freshman was tasked with bringing a copy of their favorite horror movie for judgment. By the end of the marathon, they'd all vote on who's movie was scariest. A contest that Yuu wasn't shy on already claiming victory over. Something that had Epel already seething and stating he was going to find a movie so scary that Yuu was going to actually cry during it.

Soon their movie night approached, Ramshackle's lounge area was decked out with spooky and kooky Halloween decoractions. The large square-shaped coffee table filled to the brim with snacks and drinks for the coming marathon. Grim was pacified from wrecking the area in a tantrum, allowed to eat a bit of each snack before making his way to Ignihyde to play whatever games he could whine Idia into letting him try. Yuu always found it funny that the dire beast loved hearing stories and playing video games, but he couldn't stand to sit still for a movie.

Epel, Deuce, and Ace had been first to arrive, bringing more snacks and carrying disks of movies. They all sat around the lounge, waiting for the other three of their group to arrive. Deuce had sat at the disk player, Ace leaned over his back and nitpicking at every little adjustment the other card soldier made to the screen display. Epel placed himself on a floor cushion, already dipping into the bowl of melted marshmallows and chocolate with a graham cracker cookie the Heartslabyul duo had brought as a gift from Trey.

The Pomefiore student threw a smug little smirk over his shoulder at Yuu taking up an entire couch for herself, “The movie ah brought is gonna scare yur pants off. Picked from a list of recommendations from Vil and everythin’. He even gave me money to spring for the best versions an' cuts.”

Yuu smiled from their place, raising an eyebrow and reaching over his head to grab a handful of colorful caramel popcorn, “Says the fucker who made me turn off Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory-”

“That tunnel scene was fucked and ya know it…”

“Still don't know what you're talking about.” Yuu smiled, rolling their eyes and turning away from a fuming Epel laughing under their breath, “I don't know what you're talking about, there wasn't a tunnel in that movie.”

“Stop gaslighting me-” Epel took a breath, calming himself and eating his cookie before it dripped any more of the sticky mixture down his hand. Chewing thoughtfully, Epel pointed at Yuu and spoke when his mouth was clear, “Shut ya whore mouth. Ah asked Vil specifically what were the scariest movies he knew of to make ya eat ya words.”

He shoved the disk container into Yuu's face, explaining the movie plot while she looked at the cover. It was, painfully basic in Yuu's opinion, though they could find little details that made it interesting. The title of ‘Haunting Grounds’ was across the top in a stylized font, a group of stereotypical teens or college kids were all squished onto a couch with various expressions of fear and terror holding bright red party cups. A weird scene but the more Yuu looked at the cover the more they found had been snuck in to show it was a horror film. Blood leaking from under the couch, the slash marks along the back walls, How roughed up the people looked, the ominous figure silhouetted in the center behind the group seen from the illuminated bay window.

Epel tapped at the case, black painted nails tapping at an out-of-place red dot in the corner of the cover, “With the extra funds Vil gave me, Ah was even able to get the immersive copy. We gotta watch it first and really get the scene set for the rest of them.”

“Gotta set dress for a shit show, huh?”

Sebek, Jack, and Ortho arrived to the scene of Epel and Yuu rolling around on the floor fighting, the two smaller freshmen spitting insults at each other. Soon, everyone was seated and picking at the spread of snacks while Deuce gave the disk player a final check as he prepared each movie to play back to back so that no one would have to get up.

Ortho held out his hand, smiling with his eyes toward Epel, “Epel Felimer, may I see the disk case you brought? I wish to look at the reviews for the movies tonight!”

With the case in hand, Ortho had only just loaded the movie overview before his eyes caught the red dot at the corner of the case. His eyes widen, stuttering slightly, “O-oh! Epel Felimer, I don't have an issue with it but have the others agreed to engage in such an experience?”

“Huh?” Seeing Ortho hold up the case and point to the dot he smirked once again. “Oh yeah. Don't worry. Ah got the green light from Vil on how good this movie is. The immersion feature is just to scare us a bit more.”

“...” Ortho's brows furrowed down, an air of seriousness so deadly it made everyone around the couch pause, “Epel Feilmer, a pink dot is immersive, a red dot means interactive.”

“...Fuck.” Epel whipped back around, a knee braced against the coffee table as he tried to pull Deuce back, “DEUCE, WAIT-”

“Huh-”  Deuce had turned around, his questioning tone cut short as his finger pressed the play button and the room went dark.

As their eyes suddenly snapped open, Yuu was painfully aware that the sun fucking hurt to look at, “Oh God, the fuck? It's like 8pm, why is the sun out-where am I? Hello!?”

They looked around in disbelief, Sage Island was just dipping into Fall, leaves turning crunchy and temperatures dropping by the day. Instead, they found themselves in lush summer grasses, tall and leafy trees in almost nauseatingly hot air. They look down, seeing their comfortable fall loungewear replaced by a simple V-neck tucked into denim capri pants and sneakers. Feeling something against their skin, they pulled a necklace tucked under their shirt out to find a heart-shaped locket with a photo of a completely different woman with an older man.

“What the fuck…?”

“YUU!? CAN YOU HEAR ME!?”

“Ace!?”

The woods weren't as big as they had seemed. Only a few steps and they found Ace and Sebek standing in a clearing, the other freshmen looking just as confused and in different clothes as well.

Ace was dressed sensibly, minus the open-toed sandals and layered top of a plain t-shirt and a comedically printed unbuttoned shirt. A baseball cap with several pins on it was a few feet away, no doubt supposed to be Ace’s.

Sebek…was in a sweater vest. The argyle top seemed to be too small yet fit him perfectly, he even had a little bowtie. Paired with pressed khaki shorts, matching knee socks and hiking boots, Yuu had to physically stop themselves from giving the half-fae a wedgie and demanding whatever money he had on his person.

The half-fae was awkward, standing as though he knew if he moved too fast the clothing would rip apart at its seams, “...This feels tight. I can tell it's not but it feels tight.”

Yuu placed a hand over their mouth but removed it to speak, “I wanna beat you up so bad right now.”

“I think I'd let you…”

Ace was looking around the treeline, hoping to spot another one of their group, “Juice!? Epel!? Jack!? You guys ok!?”

A familiar hulking figure comes from the bush. Jack was in a striped tank top, cargo shorts, hiking boots, and a varsity jacket tied around his waist. The closer he got, Yuu was able to see he had leather bracelets on each wrist and big gaudy ring on his right hand.

Ace looked at his boyfriend confused, pointing to something in his hands, “Where the fuck did you get a football?”

Jack looked down, only now seeming to realize he had a football in hand, “I…I don't…know…” He turned and threw the ball away, opening his mouth to speak only for everyone to jolt at the sound of Epel yelling in pain.

Sebek was already halfway through the trees, Jack hot on his heels with Yuu and Ace close behind, “Epel! Remain where you are! We are coming to you!”

The country boy was on the ground, the football beside him as he groaned and held his hands over his face. Sebek reached him first but stood back, a faint blush on his cheeks.

Jack stopped short too, looking at Epel's outfit with confused eyes, “O-oh…”

Epel glared at his boyfriends, standing up of his own accord as Ace and Yuu arrived to the other clearing, “Yeah, no, Ah'm fine. Ah'll get my own damn self up. Just got hit in the damn eyes with a ball and-...”

Yuu covered their mouth again, trying to fight the laughter struggling to escape them. Epel was basically in a bikini of an outfit. A small, brightly colored halter top that showed off his midriff, stark white booty shorts that had a rhinestone decal of a butterfly, and slightly heeled strappy sandals. Yuu also couldn't help but notice he even had a few thick metal bangles on.

“...” Epel gestured to himself, his voice coming out so loudly and angry that it was almost impossible to tell what he had just screamed, “WHO CHANGED ME INTO THIS!?”

Ace shrugged, looking Epel up and down with a slight smile, “I mean, it’s not bad.” “My damn ass is hanging out!” Epel tried to pull the shorts down, growing more frustrated as the shorts either showed more of the top bands of a thong he was wearing or pulling them up to have the bottom of his asschecks exposed

Jack tilted his head a bit, his ears pivoting around before he turned his head away, “I mean- Wait, I hear Deuce.”

“Where is he?”

“Guys!?” A rustle from bushes pulls their attention, the spade soldier walking out of the brush and into the clearing while pulling leaves out of his hair.

Deuce was in loose jean shorts, the edges frayed and a nearly see-through white button-up that was opened enough to show off his collarbones and top of his pecs. As he walked closer, Yuu noted that his skin was glistening and he had on a shark tooth necklace.

He was wiping at his exposed forearms and legs, a look of disgust on his face at the feeling on his skin, “I’m…I’m like oiled up. Is anyone else covered in oil? Why am I covered in oil?”

Sebek huffed lightly, gesturing to everyone else’s clothing before pointing at his own, “Why am I dressed this way but you all have decent wear for the environment?”

Epel scowled toward the taller boy, “Decent?”

Jack’s ears folded back, turning back to the group with a look of worry on his face, “I can’t hear Ortho.”

… The group descended back into a momentary panic, each of them breaking off into the woods screaming out for their last lost member.

They were on an island. At the very least it was in the middle of a lake and not an ocean like Ace had feared before Jack and Sebek were able to point out faint buildings in the distance. Epel had pointed out a boat speeding away from the island at a different shore. Running over (Epel annoyingly managing to nearly trip over every exposed root) they all shouted and tried to wave down an old man scowling at them to turn back around. He yelled back at them, shaking his hook hand at them, “I WARNED YA! I WARNED YA! I HOPE YUR CURSED JUST LIKE HE WAS!”

“COME BACK !?” Yuu sighed, holding their hands up to the sky as if to question the heavens, “Why the fuck are we here if this place is cursed!? Epel, your movie sucks!”

“Don't ya fucking blame this shit on me, ya COW-”

Jack’s ears were pressed to his head, dread starting to fill the other firsties while Epel and Yuu fought in the sand beside them, “Oh Seven, we’re in the movie…”

LOOK AT THIS! I love how they draw so much and Im so happy I got them to draw the firstie's outfits. Just imagine them in these the whole time honestly.

[crtastrophe]

Hi hello it seems I’ve caught a rare strain of art block that makes me unable to draw in anything other than Kid Pix Deluxe 4™, but I still need to buy groceries and stuff so!! I’m gonna try my hand at some experimental commissions.

If you have some kind of whimsical OC and you want me to let me loose on them, now’s your chance! Give me a character and I will cook up something cool — there's no pose/style/background tiers, though I will try to put an equal amount of effort into every drawing.

Payment in USD through PayPal invoice only.

More info under the cut!

Inquiries through Tumblr DM or via crtastrophe@gmail.com.

You can give me some brief prompting (e.g. “I’d like a drawing of my wizard OC casting some kind of spell”, “Can you work in some robot/tech motifs?” etc.) – or give me free rein, if you’d prefer.

I will need a minimum of one visual reference of the character’s design, but the more material I have to work from, the better! Tell me about their lore, what they’re like, their associated themes and motifs, all that jazz! Show me their aesthetic moodboards, the funnie tumblr textposts you associate with them, their playlist even.

As the nature of the program makes revisions difficult, I might turn down a request if I do not feel confident that I can compose a satisfactory piece from the provided material.

Once we’ve worked out all the details, I will send you a link to a PayPal invoice. I will not begin working on the piece until payment has been recieved.

Please note that I won't be providing WIPs! I can show you my initial sketch for the composition if you'd like, but after that the end result will be a suprise.

Once completed, I will send you a link to a drive containing the resized drawing in the form of a .png, as well as the original 665 x 477 bitmap.

Once payment has been received and I have begun working on the piece I cannot refund it. However, if I for any reason have to cancel the commission from my side I will refund it fully, regardless of level of completion.

Some limitations of the program (good to keep in mind!):

No layers

One (1) level of undo

Image size: The Kid Pix 4 drawing area is 665 x 477 pixels. I scale up the final image file x4 to make it more compatible with the modern internet, but the drawing itself will still be crunchy. That’s part of the charm! (I can also make the image dimensions 1:1, if requested.)

Colors: It is possible for me to create colors outside of the palette provided by the program, but replicating hues precisely can be tricky. Expect some stylization.

Okay, I think that’s everything! Thank you for reading this far, and feel free to contact me if you have any questions <3

[punksocks]

BM Lilith Aspecting Ascendant Culture:

*Just based on my experiences, only take what resonates

-Being labeled as a weirdo as a kid and being outcasted from most social groups

-Getting to know the other outcasts and caring for them

-Being seen as feisty and often being blamed for starting fights when you stand up for yourself

-Having authority figures dote on you, often taking too much interest in you and what you’ll do

-Otherwise having beefs for seemingly the most petty reasons with other authority figures (which is crazy like why are grown folks fighting kids)

-Or being surprised that figures you looked up to seemed to have ulterior motives (especially conjuct, square, and opposition)

-Often you grow up being shamed to the point that you don’t grow into yourself and become confident in your Lilith energy until you’re older (late high school, early college, post college even). this is especially true for hard aspects (conjunct, opposition, square)

-People assume you’re mean and find you intimidating and are surprised if you’re nice to them

-Sometimes your kindness can mistaken for weakness and people severely underestimate your power and all of the hardships you’ve gone through in your life

-You may have gone through a period of downplaying your femininity/being a pick me before embracing your femininity/probably becoming a feminist

-You may be drawn towards alternative/unique styles that express a darker femininity

-You may be drawn to having an unnatural hair color (as I write this my hair is pink and orange so I get it)

-You may also identify as non-binary or femme instead of cis because of how much you don’t identify with traditional femininity

-No matter what you wear, it looks s*xy. You could be covered from head to toe and it wouldn’t make that much of a difference

-You may have gone through a period of wearing lots of layers to hide your body shape. Then embracing your curves by wearing more stylized outfits.

-People will often react as if you’re dressed scandalously for work or for different occasions even though the same outfit wouldn’t catch negative attention for anyone else

-Very specific but you may struggle when dating other women/femmes to either close the distance between you or to not unlock some petty behavior with the person you’re dating

-Maybe going through a phase of dating around after you come into your attractiveness. Partially being surprised by the attention (especially if you date men/masc folks) and partially being shocked by how dudes react when you date them (getting possessive and controlling only a few dates in)

-No matter how many people you date you tend to get shamed by friends or family for dating around

-But taking a certain amount of pride in the attention you’re getting after your glow up (if square or opposition your Asc you probably go back and forth between pride and anxiety/disgust)

-Getting favors from total strangers but evil eyes from (some) family/close friends

-Having to be aware of mean girl behavior for the rest of your life (4th house for family/7th & 8th house for relationships/10th house workplaces/1st house every aspect of your life lowkey and the experiences will likely shape your personality)

-Often growing out of friendships because you realize some people don’t actually like you but they’re indulgent on some aspect of your energy (for example, seeing you as strong so they like to “humble you” and make you feel small)

-Being seen as a temptress or a damsel in need of saving but rarely being seen as yourself (treasure the people that do see you clearly and treat you well)

-Being seen as “irresistible” to certain extremes. Trines and Sextiles are more likely to embrace this and squares and oppositions are more likely to be wary of volatile behavior this attracts.

-Older men are nicest to you. Men who are in relationships often ogle you or avoid you most adamantly. And f*ck boys get into you but like just physically. (Guys who claim to not be f*ck boys also can get caught up in the same way)

-In positive romantic relationships you may still find yourself unlocking passion in unexpected ways from your partners (ex. They may be the quiet unassuming type but when you hook up a more intense side of them seems to come out of nowhere)

-Getting dudes that have been in your dms trying to hook up for years (goofy behavior lol)

-Getting shown off by someone your dating but less likely to be introduced to someone’s inner circle as anything more than a friend

-Having guys that pursue you just to try to get you to change how you express yourself (how you dress, how you act, etc)

-Being the friend with all the stories of guys hitting on you in weird ways

-Having an interest in exploring s*xuality and bodily autonomy, but not matching the n*mphomaniac image projected onto you (more so for squares and oppositions)

-In general your s*xuality is a significant part of your personality either through embracing (trine, sextile) it or suppressing it (square, opposition) or by going back and forth between those extremes (conjunct, square, opposition)

[tossawary]

A handful of random thoughts about the "Ultraman: Rising", with some vague, marked spoilers here and there:

I like the fact that they didn't explain kaijus or where Ultraman came from. After so many superhero origin stories where we have to be slowly introduced to the existence of the supernatural, it's refreshing to get dropped in the middle of a "second-gen" (unclear how many generations of Ultramen exist in this universe so far) superhero's story. The movie isn't apologizing for its genre or its premise. It just goes, "Yeah, you know what a superhero is and what a kaiju is, so let's go already. No, we're not even really going to explain how Ultraman's powers work. That's not what this is about!!! It it about our protagonist's daddy issues!!! Keep up!!!"

If I think about the world building, I do have some questions, like who built the protagonist's fancy tech house that's also a superhero base, but it's not too important. I assume his dad built it and then moved out to give his kid space? OR: "Why do the kaijus seem to attack this place specifically?" This movie works mostly because it's like "this is classic superhero stuff and we're just not dwelling on the logistical setup too much"! It leaves you to fill in some blanks on your own or just suspend your disbelief, which works.

The pacing was a little weird in places and the movie does get a little ridiculous in parts, I'm never quite sure of what the capabilities of these characters are, but it's a superhero vs. kaiju animated movie and that's to be expected. I still enjoyed myself well enough.

A few of the character designs didn't super work for me, like the big-headed kid characters. The kaiju baby is maybe a little too cutesy, but she was very cute and I've forgiven them because they didn't shy away from babies being gross. (There is... A LOT of baby kaiju vomitting.)

I did really like some of the other character designs. I liked the protagonist's big nose and pierced ears and bangs falling in front of his sharp face; he looks like such a dirtbag pretty boy. I like the lean in the industry right now towards more stylized and geometric 3D character designs in general, because I think that the shapes are fun and they'll age better this way.

Dirtbag guy to single dad is a winning story formula, huh.

They did a lot of 2D-style effects in this movie that I thought looked fun. I dig that trend in the industry right now as well. Some of the scenes were a little clean, almost bare, in terms of environmental design, but the colors generally looked great. Some of the scenes were really bright and vibrant and pretty.

(Mild vague spoiler?) There's no romance in this movie, which was surprising when they definitely set up a female journalist in the position for a love interest. No, it's a "strangers to friendly acquaintances" relationship for them. The female journalist is also a single mother, which was interesting, because you don't get a whole lot of career-minded single mother love interests in animated movies.

(Unimportant spoiler:) She told the protagonist to his face that she thinks he has daddy issues. Not stated quite like that, of course, but it was pretty funny. She was also right about that.

The emotional focus in this film was instead about the protagonist, Kenji, repairing his relationship with his father and also taking care of the kaiju baby. Kenji's only friend and co-parent for a chunk of the movie is an AI assistant (Mina) his parents made.

(Unimportant spoiler:) Stumped by an issue, Kenji makes a frustrated comment about how maybe he should ask Siri instead. Shortly after, in response to a different statement, the AI assistant Mina makes a passive-aggressive comment about how maybe he should ask Siri instead. I found that pretty funny.

(Mild spoiler:) Ultraman in this universe is a known and popular superhero and has been for decades. At one point, the baby kaiju gets out into the city, and Kenji has to go get her before she gets hurt or hurts someone else, and he publicly tells her to "Come to Daddy." And this is overheard by a bunch of nearby civilians, who gasp loudly. It is quite funny. It doesn't really come up again, but even if that wasn't recorded, you just KNOW that the news and the internet went wild over that revelation. "Ultraman had a baby with Gigantron???!!!"

(Another mild spoiler:) At one point, Kenji asks the female journalist for some parenting advice, and she IMMEDIATELY asks him if he has a secret love child. (No one is quite sure why this baseball star suddenly came back to Japan from the U.S., as they don't know he's Ultraman.) Kenji denies it, but I'm pretty sure that she must still think that he does.

(Continuing:) Kenji's baby kaiju parenting struggles (along with his ego) are fucking up his baseball career, due to stress and lack of sleep and conflicting commitments. We aren't shown a lot of interactions with his team, but I desperately hope that he also asked a couple of his teammates for parenting advice or something, so that his team could also immediately assume that he has a secret love child.

Like, "Yeah, yeah, Kenji Sato's secret love child, we all know about it. The poor kid is really bad at hiding it. We're trying to keep it hidden from journalists for him, but the whole team knows he's a new dad, for sure." (They do not know that Kenji is Ultraman and the baby is a kaiju.)

All in all: this movie was fun! Very silly, but cute! I think that I might try to pick some other "Ultraman" shows or films out of the dozens that exist, and try some of those ones out. The property seems to exist in a similar vein as "Transformers" where Rule of Cool rules world building and canon is whatever the newest iteration wants it to be.

[kitkinnie]

games w. species euphoria

please don't spoil any of the games with stories in the replies or reblogs!

Ori and the Blind Forest - felinekin, maybe some kind of fae or angel kin too ori is very good little creature design and it moves around so fluidly but there's zero customization, if you vibe with ori it's great and if you don't, might not be for you. it's a puzzle platformer similar gameplay-wise to hollow knight (but not as difficult)

Hollow Knight - bugkin, ghostkin, voidkin difficult but very pretty and atmospheric. i've played some of it before getting stuck/being unable to progress because i'm not good at video game. hard platformer with boss fights.

Stray - robotkin, catkin this is one i've been meaning to play for ages (and haven't gotten around to pirating yet, cough) Stray is a 3d game set in a cyberpunk/sci fi world. You play as a tabby cat trying to find its way back to its home and it looks stunning. I assume the story is great, too.

Roblox Creatures of Sonaria - there are so many creature designs there you're bound to find something that's youcore their colors can be customized. It's a multiplayer survival game so it's more stressful than the other games on this list, you gotta be trying not to die the whole time

Animal Jam Classic / Animal Jam Play Wild - lots of real world animals you can dress up and change the colors and patterns of your animals. ajc is in 2d and ajpw is in 3d and has more animal options, but i find ajpw really confusing personally.

William and Sly/William and Sly 2 - foxkin old flash games available as a set on steam, a quest platformer where you run around a pretty forest environment as a red fox and find various things. the music is lovely, both games have a great atmosphere, played it a ton as kid on armor games. i dont think i ever even finished either game i just loved running around as sly (in the second game there are also little kitten-fairies that you can collect and that follow you around)

Postmouse - mousekin free on steam, 3d puzzle platformer where you're a mouse that delivers letters. it can get a little obtuse and confusing at times which is why i never finished it, but it's very charming and free to play! you run around all these huge and pretty environments as a fancy-dressed little mouse .

Lost Dream 1 and 2 - foxkin abstract/stylized/polygonal walking simulator where you play as a red fox. doesn't seem to be much story and the reviews are mixed because walking sims like this need to be like, your cup of tea.

Spyro Reignited - dragonkin of course had to mention such an OG dragon game. never played it but like, it's spyro. cartoony 3d platformer in a fantasy environment.

Oneshot - catkin pixel rpg where you play as a cat child and the gimmick is that you only have one life. the steam page tags it as story rich and having multiple endings/story choices you can make, and the graphics are beautiful, the whole game seems to be made of dark colors and poppy accents

Honorable Mentions:

Way to the Woods - an in-development 3d game where you play as a deer and fawn exploring different enviroments.

The Isle - an early access survival MMO where you play as a dinosaur and try to stay alive.

feel free to add more in reblogs, i know i'm missing a lot of classics but i'm getting tired

[mimicmockingbirds]

OK, but hear me out

Say Ride the Cyclone were to be adapted into a film; imagine how much fun it would be to see it animated.

Because for the main plot, like the intro song and the mostly dialogue scenes in limbo, you could easily do a stylistic, but still grounded in realism style that a lot of modern animated projects are doing right now (think Arcane or Into the Spider Verse). But once each of the kids go into their respective songs/fantasies for what their life could have been? What if those were done in completely different styles?? Imagine the additional, visual storytelling that would tell about who they are as characters?

Like say, for Ocean's number, WTWN, everything became more simplified, and the characters (especially Ocean herself) turned into a more rounded, chibi-like style to enhance just how cutesy and likeable she's trying to portray herself throughout that number.

Or for Noel's Lament, everything goes black and white, and the characters become even more 2D stylized, and the film scales down to a smaller millimeter frame, more reminiscent of cartoons from the early 20's, when animation was just starting out, to enhance his idealization of "the olden days" (as Ocean puts it).

Mischa's song, This Song is Awesome could be animated with a more choppy frame rate, and the character designs turn a little more jagged around the edges, kind of like animated music videos (I'm thinking a Gorillaz band vibe). But as he transitions into singing about Talia, the colors start to bleed out over their lineart, and become more paint-like and Talia herself moves like a rotoscoped character (think Loving, Vincent that came out a few years ago) to enhance the sense that she's somewhere between a real person and a fantasy Mischa's built in his mind.

Ricky's song would, of course, be stylized after those sci-fi cartoons from the 90's, like X-Men or Captain Planet.

For the Ballad of Jane Doe, I would love to see something like what Wolfwalkers did back in 2020, where most of the characters (in this case, the other kids) are for the most part, animated like traditional, 2D characters with very clean lines and neat movements, whereas Jane herself stands out for having messier, sketchy line art, and looks more and more unfinished in her animation as the song goes on, because she can feel more and more of her own identity being lost.

Constance's Sugar Cloud I could see done in the classic 2D Disney style (i.e., the Renaissance era of Disney, like the Lion King or Little Mermaid days) because not only is it really smooth and colorful and just all around nice to look at, but it reminds the average moviegoer of their childhood growing up with those movies (among others, obviously), which ties in nicely with Constance's preceding monologue about remembering her own life, and the good that came with the bad.

I'm even tempted to envision the first half of the finale song in a different style, when the stage production would show a quick projection of Jane/Penny's life after she returned to the world of the living. Imagine watching this animated film, and for that segment alone, it becomes that really hyper-realistic, almost uncanny valley CGI animation style, to show that she really has joined the world of the living, i.e. our world, among us, the living breathing movie goers watching this, and watching the other kids still in limbo fade back to that main art style for the final number.

I don't know; it just feels like something that would be so engaging to see from an already compelling storyline and characters. Especially with more experimental animation projects on the rise right now

[thesirenwithnovoice]

Thoughts about how different mediums of a same story may give you different views (and rambling about the Tower of Heaven)//TW: violence

Lately I've been wondering about how manga readers might have very different visions than anime watchers of a same story, because althought the plot remains the same, some little details can change our whole perception of a story.

This reminded me of the first time I read Fairy Tail and how terrified I was at how cruel and dark the Tower of Heaven's arc is.

Jellal's face (that by that time, were only an 11-years-old kid) drippling blood while being tortured shocked me so much as a kid and I still find it one of the most disturbing scenes in the manga, lol.

In the anime, the content itself is the same. We know the kids are slaves that go throught different kinds of abuse, however, I find the manga way gloomier and more graphic. And althought part of it might be just a personal opinion, it's not entirely without basis: Mashima uses different techniques in his art to represent facts whitin the story than the animators, and it leads to a topic I really love: semiotics - how we interpret images, and how detais can be used to convey a certain felling throught art.

Colors and composition helps A LOT creating an atmosphere and causing a feeling on the reader. Proportionally speaking, a manga doesn't have colors, but it has it's own alternatives - the Tower of Heaven arc, in comparison to the rest of the manga, uses a lot more black and hatching.

One can argue some scenes are still "visually darker" in the anime, since it has the advantage of being able to play with shadows and colors in a broader aspect; however, since Fairy Tail is not an anime that changes it's saturation or colour pallete, the loud colors in most scenes end up not helping building the same dreadful atmosphere.

(It doesn't mean you can't make a scary story using bright and colorful tones, tho. A great example is the movie Midsommar. But it's not an easy task!)

Erza's childhood memories in the manga also carry a "dirtier" feeling; the kids are always covered by bruises, and the background is rougher. Also, the anime chooses to represent slavery in a more fanciful way: the kids wear stylized handcuffs and are assaulted with magic attacks, what inevitably softens the scenes by distancing them from real life slavery.

In a story, an act of violence will always be more shocking if your brain is able to automatically make a connection with real life. Seeing blood conveys a feeling of disconfort easier than a character being hit by a wave of magic, even if the author tells you "this is painful"; that's why some people say they started to find difficult to watch horror movies involving kids after becoming parents, because after experenciating something in real life, they connect with fiction harder.

The above scene causes me very different feelings in each media. In the manga, the despair in Jellal's face when seeing they removed Erza's eye is much clearer, and his skinny body, his eyes filling up with tears (he doesn't cry in the anime) shows not only a feeling of worry, but of utter dread and helplessness. All that helps endorsing the fact that, doesn't matter how brave he is, they are still just fragile kids, unable to protect themselves from the cruelty of the world around them.

I want to make it clear, though, that this is not in any way meant to be a critique to the animation team, or an affirmation that one type of media is better than another. We all have our personal preferences, but each media has it's target audience and objective. Fairy Tail's animators certainly do know how to convey the same feelings on the public, they just choose not to, for a variety of reasons. Probably because the anime is aimed for a broader and younger audience, many scenes have been softened or censored somehow. Also, animation consumes more labour than a manga page, so unless you have a lot of time and investment, the art tend to be simpler.

So do you think it affects the plot, Siren?

In my opinion, yes, even if just in a subtle way. In the manga, I think this raw brutality helps Jellal's character to gain a more interesting complexity. To me, he feels less like a hero and more like what he actually is: just a really kind and brave kid trying his best to protect his friends.

Another major change they made in the anime was removing the ambiguity (something that happened more than once in Fairy Tail's adaptation, such as in the famous kiss scene), leaving clear since the beginning that Jellal was a victim of a mind controlling spell; while in the manga, until Urtear's confirmation at the end of the arc, we do not know for sure if he have been brainwashed or just convinced to adore Zeref.

And as much as I can see why some fans might hate it because it leaves room for people to see Jellal as a bad man, I (as someone who is not afraid of loving evil characters, heh), find it interesting and somehow enriching to the plot, because it gives the whole arc a reflection: is extreme suffering, specially at such an young age, capable of changing someone so much?

We are left questioning what did "Zeref" say, or do, that made him change so much. And having so many real life examples where despair has made people easy victims of manipulation throught faith or falling into extremist ideologies, after we seeing Jellal's pain and fragility in a tangible way, it's not that hard at all to understand how he went insane and managed to drag all the other slaves along with him.

Also, I think it makes it easier to understand Erza's empathy towards him. Jellal and Erza are characters connected not only by the affection they nourish for one another, but also for sharing the same pain. She is the only person that fully understands the horrors he lived in the tower, since they were the only kids that have been in the torture chamber. And althought she never tries to justify Jellal's actions, Erza does not only show him compreension, but she feels guilty for not being able to retribute his protection and prevented him from losing his mind.

That doesn't mean, tho, that there weren't many other clues he was not acting on free will: be it his grotesque change of personality, his hysterical laughter out of nowhere or his motivations that doesn't hold (because they were never his to begin with). To me, all that at first glance makes him closer to Batman's Joker, someone that grew insane after so much suffering, than a villain that's genuinely just plain selfish and thirsty for power. And that only makes me find him a creepier villain, since personally, I find sadism and insanity way scarier than ghosts.

So this is just a looong collection of thoughts about how small choices can change a lot the "feeling" we get from a scene or a character. I hope someone can find it interesting too. There are many other examples of adaptations where it happened, and if you remember one you'd like to share, I would love to hear!

Last but not less important, all the love for Mashima's art, the Tower of Heaven arc (that is a personal favorite) and Jellal, a character I deeply love and one that holds for sure the strongest spirit in the manga for being able to become such a kind and mature man despite everything he has been thought. ♡

[bogleech]

What are your favourite dragon quest monsters across the entire series?

The first Dragon Quest Monsters game I've ever gotten to play wound up being the first one to leave out exactly the top three I looked forward to getting:

GIANTSLUG/MAULUSC: I'm pickier about slug and snail creatures than you maybe expect but I love the vapid drippy zombie face of the DQ slug. It perfectly captures the appeal of a slug as a monster, a mindless gooey thing that will just eat you without a care. And its classic color scheme is that of a Banana Slug!!

BELZEBUB: I am also picky about fly creatures; usually I want them to have the proboscis present in some way, and the correct number of wings (two). There's something I still love about the toothy mouth of Belzebub however, maybe the way it curls up between the eyes? It just does a good job capturing the feel of a fly's personality I guess.

DARKEYE/EYELASHER: eye creatures can also very easily feel a bit boring to me because I've just seen so, so many of them, but DQ's basic killer eyeball appeals to me a lot with its irregular fungus-like collection of tentacles. The little root branches on "top" are especially cool to me, and sometimes they're the bottom, because they represent where the eyeball attaches to either floors or ceilings! In a few games, they're even encountered as parasites inside bigger monsters!

I used to admire the guidebook to the first two DQ Monsters games as a kid but never had the games themselves, and never got around to any other DQ titles. I just spent my whole life waiting for just the right one where I'd finally get to assemble my three favorites, then finally this new one comes out and has to be the first time these three took a vacation :( But, Dark Prince was at least nice enough to include exactly my next three favorites in the franchise. I went over them already in my DQM Dark Prince post but some people will see this post first so I will have to reintroduce them:

DROHL: droopy flappy membranous mollusk guys, honestly horrible looking in a great way. In 3d games it turns out their helmetlike head spirals in the back like a snail shell! Apparently they're meant to be troll-like beings.

LUNATICK: just a blue fleshy sac thing with gooey antennae, a bunch of tentacles (most of them segmented like worms!) and a little eyeball, perfect, no criticisms, also reminds me of what Berserk considers an "Incubus:"

(Don't worry, Berserk Incubus aren't sex monsters but monsters that give you nightmares and feed on the fear)

TAILEATER/MAD MOLLUSK: I love how pathetic their front face looks, and the whole shape is so pleasantly reminiscent of an abyssal sea cucumber of some kind.

SKULLROO/GUAARDVARK: I didn't even realize this was one of my top favorites until getting it in Dark Prince. It's an unpleasant wrinkly fat aardvark kangaroo thing that just always carries a human skull around. Its profile says they collect them and the one they carry is their favorite! A lot of slightly lower favorites were also left out however, none of these are in Dark Prince but are very high up there to me:

PYURO: what is this thing? I don't know! Different games have categorized it as an insect or a plant. It's a furball with five eyes encircling a butterfly proboscis, two little legs and a big huge ring of flower petals behind it. Very xenobiology.

TONGUELLA: it's kinda like a dumpy, hairless sloth with an aardvark tail with a mushed-in dog face and a giant gross tongue. I guess I just like foul moist beasts. I wish this was a real mammal we had in the world, I bet it'd smell terrible. Feels like a perfect counterpart to Guaardvark.

SLURPERON: it's one tiny pitcher plant with a giant tongue and then it has cool reptilian eyes at the bottom end. So simple and so rad! A fun way to stylize a pitcher plant monster without ripping off Victreebel.

SICKLER: is a little tiny mantis in a robe, like the Tonberry from Final Fantasy but a mantis

RAGIN' CONTAGION: a newer one, a gooey vaporous cyclops ghost that represents disease. In its first appearance as a boss in the series the English localizers decided it should talk like Yosemite Sam. Sure why not!

So I like the new game and it gave me some new favorites like Skellyfish and new appreciation for some others, but oddly it only has my very middle all-time faves

[shannonmanorart]

TWST Process!

So I got a comment this morning asking if my Ignihyde piece was a Memoji---a thing I immediately had to google to even know what that means lol I'm not mad, no shade to OP but it really threw me for loop to be asked if my art is a customizable avatar.

I know this blog is mostly my fun little sketches or side projects but I am a professional artist! Even if this is a silly little side project to keep my brain from falling it the abyss, it's still my art I drew with my own hands and it's important to me for people to know that!

Process breakdowns below the cut! it's not very detailed but figured i'd be fun to show a peak behind the curtain!

First things first! I do all of these in Proceate on my iPad! These are very casual and just for me to have fun--I'm very burnt out after my associate art direction job on Hit Monkey so I'm just trying to give myself a tiny piece of joy so I can get myself back to drawing my web comic and merch for cons/my store.

I draw each dorm in their own file just to keep things from getting too cluttered. The group shots I do separately in another file. So I'll finish them, flatten them and paste them into another file to size them up together/add backgrounds/effects. I included screenshots to show the breakdown of the original drawings along with the group shot. Nothing too fancy. Also forgive all the unnamed layers x_x I am usually incredibly organized but typing on my iPad annoys me so I tend to not name Procreate layers. You can see where I thought about it by naming ONE layer.

Here is the timelapse for The Ignihyde boys! You'll notice I keep Ace+Deuce in the file--I use them as a base reference for the stylization. I stylize everyone a bit differently but I try to maintain some consistency. I also reuse some bits of their palette as a piece of that consistency. You can also see me go 'oh yeah Ortho's hip thing goes all the way around so we should see it behind him........oh no. nvm that looks bad.' lol

What was most important for me to sell with these two was the difference of their personalities. I was aiming for that 'Someone will die' 'of fun!!' vibe haha So I wanted Idia very compact and to himself while Ortho is energetic and friendly. I also wanted to bring some design elements of Hades face to Idia's face. His bangs cover it up but I gave him a long nose that starts right from his brow the way they stylize them in the movie. I also gave them more color to their skintone but kept Idia more ashen/desaturated--I liked the idea of him looking kinda grey to match Hades instead of just pale.

Here's the non-default brushes I use--Jingsketch brushes are available here and the free comic brushes I got from Di Brushes. I'm usually a default brush kinda person but Procreate's default textured stuff wasn't really doing it for me anymore. I really like using stuff that looks more like pencil or pastel. I've also been addicted to adding noise a lot to my pieces. I know that's not the most original thing in the world but idk, it looks cool. My group shots always get a layer of noise.

But yeah, that's it! These are purposely kept pretty simple so I can knock each one out in about two hours or so. More detailed dorm outfits obviously take longer--I hand drew all the patterns on the Pomefiore kids like a mad man. Every time I erased the edges, I went 'I should probably copy and paste this' and then never did. I love making things harder for myself lmao

See y'all in Diasomnia! (I also have plans to draw my MC and Grim so Diasomnia won't be goodbye~)

[ohbo-ohno]

a place that feels eerily familiar to you, like you knew it in a dream + price !! 🫶

congrats on so many sillies following you!!!

1k game here

this one was kinda hard to think of something for but i hope you like it! also thank you ily <3 i love my sillies

2.2k of john price x single mom reader. this is kinda labyrinth inspired, except i've never see labyrinth so we're going on vibes alone. no smut! this is another one with very little of the character requested, but im gonna get better about not doing that i promise <3

You're gobsmacked as you stare at the scene in front of you.

The walls are painted almost aggressively bright, with rainbows crisscrossing over each other in every direction, random bursts of white you think are meant to be clouds. The colors make you squint a little, you didn't even know paint could be that bright.

It's almost painful to look at. It's also... familiar. You're not sure why, but it is.

You shake off the odd sense of déjà vu, refocusing on your goal.

"Alice?" You call out again, cupping your hands around your mouth and shouting as loudly as you can. "Alice, baby, where are you? Can you hear me?"

Nothing.

It's hard not to fall to your knees and just give up. The only thing keeping you standing is the memory of your sweet baby girl in that man's arms. Her little cherubic face tucked into his neck, tiny body dwarfed by his massive form...

You force a full breath into your lungs, then another, then another. You won't be able to help Alice if you can't keep your head.

"Alright, think," you whisper to yourself, taking another moment to scan the room. "If I were a piece of shit baby-stealer, where would I keep a perfect angel?"

Nothing responds.

The room is definitely meant for a child, but scaled up to your size. The door you'd come in through has disappeared, leaving you stuck in this weird rainbow nightmare.

There's a bed against one wall - not really a bed so much as a stack of no less than six mattress one on top of the other, all with the same purple bedsheets. They nearly reach the ceiling, and on the very top your sure you can see several stuffed animals.

There are bookshelves against one wall, floating shelves styled after unicorns where the books rest along their backs and the unicorns themselves stick out from the wall. It's horrendously impractical - all you can think about is how much dusting they would need, how dangerous they could be if they fell on top of someone.

The floor is a nice hardwood with a large plush rug in the center, stylized to look like a white cat curled up in a little ball.

The room is spotless. Nothing is out of place, there's not a spec of dust anywhere to be seen, and nothing is stained. You wish your own daughter's room was this clean, but three year old's are a very messy species.

This room is clearly meant for a kid, but you can tell it's never been used. No child could keep a white rug so clean.

You sit on the floor in front of the purple bed and try to collect your thoughts, eying the room around you.

The man - John Price, he'd said around a cigar - had been clear about your task. Find your way out of the labyrinth in twenty-four hours, and you'll be reunited with your baby.

Of course the jackass had neglected to mention it's a magical labyrinth. Of course he hadn't told you that the maze would literally reconstruct itself right in front of your eyes.

This room had appeared practically out of thin air too, which is why you suspect that no one's ever been here but you. The whole place has an air of cleanliness that leaves your skin crawling.

The walls though... there's something so familiar about them.

It hits you a few moments later.

You'd had a coloring book as a little girl that was rainbow themed - each page featured a rainbow in a different setting, or a different shape, or an animal with rainbow patterns, things of that nature. Your favorite page had been the one without any design but rainbows, arches crisscrossing over each other in every direction. You spent hours painstakingly coloring it properly, despite the fact that it was nearly impossible to tell where the top of the rainbow was in certain places.

You'd begged your mother to paint your room like that, promised her that you'd help, that you'd never complain about your chores again, all typical little kid stuff. Your mother had refused, and you'd forgotten all about it by breakfast the next day.

That pattern from the coloring book is the same one decorating the walls, complete with the incorrect colors in certain places. That's where you remember it from.

And... and that bed. Mattress stacked on top of one another, purple bedsheets. It's just like an old copy of The Princess and the Pea your father brought home one day. You had been so entranced with the idea of a bed so tall that you'd never even cared about the end of the story. You vividly remember begging for a tall bed like the princess had, and you'd gotten it - you slept in a loft bed for most of your teen years.

It's clear from there what's going on. The unicorn shelves are plucked from your memory too, originating from a years long obsession with the mythical creatures. The rug, now that you think about it, matches one your kindergarten teacher had. The whole room is filled with things that you thought would be great in a bedroom as a little girl.

So.... how do you get out?

There's no door, no windows, no attic, nothing. Just a sealed rainbow box.

You skim your memory as quickly as possible, trying to imagine any sort of escape route you might've wanted. When you were little, you'd gone through a phase of wanting to live in a tower like Rapunzel, but that had a window. You also tried to run away once, becoming very enamored with the idea of living in a tent. You'd wanted to live in a treehouse for a bit, and that....

Oh. That's it.

You'd wanted to live in a treehouse, and your father jokes that you would roll right out of the hatch when you were asleep. You'd proudly said nuh-uh and told him how you'd drag the mattress over the hatch every night.

You glance over your shoulders at the six mattress stacked on top of each other and sigh.

-------------------------

It takes a while, but you finally manage to shove the last mattress away from it's spot.

Not only is there a trapdoor beneath it, there's one singular pea.

You'd laugh if you were any less exhausted.

You leave the rainbow room all but destroyed - the stuffed animals had gone flying and knocked off the books, and the floor is almost completely covered by mattress - but you're far too excited about your small win to worry about cleaning up.

You climb down the ladder in a tiny, enclosed space, breathing slowly to keep yourself from hyperventilating. It's almost pitch-black and you can't fight off the image of the walls shifting around you, deciding you're not supposed to be here and.....

You breathe a sigh of relief when your feet hit the floor.

Your first instinct is to call out for your daughter again, hope that she hears and cries out for you, but this room - dark and undecorated - is dead silent. The kind of silent that feels wrong to break. So you inch forward towards the only door you can make out along the wall.

Your hand shakes as you push it open, tense as you reveal....

A nursery.

A nursery with your baby in it, your little girl all curled up in a crib that she's a bit too old for. She's wearing something different than what you had her in, but she's real and she's safe.

You step froward on instinct, standing at the side of the crib. Just as you're reaching in to grab her and run, a voice speaks up from behind you.

"What are you doing?"

You jolt, spinning around and pressing your back in front of where your baby sleeps.

It's the man again. He can barely fit through the doorway (literally ducks) and he's broad enough to nearly block it. He's almost cartoonishly large, with tree trunk thighs and arms, a soft padding around his body that makes him look both terrifying and nice to hug.

His beard twitches as he frowns at you, thick eyebrows dipping low over his eyes.

"You're not supposed to be here."

You shake your head a little, getting your racing heart under control. "You said if I could find Alice in twenty-four hours I could go home."

He shakes his head slowly, stepping further into the room. The door disappears behind him. "No, I said find your way out of the labyrinth and you could keep her."

Against your own will, you feel tears start to sting in your eyes. "But..."

"How did you get here?" He asks again, shifting back a bit. His face softens just slightly, but that isn't saying much.

"I found a door," you say. "Under the mattresses."

He hums. "You remembered, then."

Now it's your turn to look confused. "Of course I did. It was my dream as a child."

His head tilts to the side as he takes a few steps forward. "You would be shocked how many parents have forgotten their own dreams. It's pathetic," he spits.

You try to push a little further back as he comes within reaching distance, but you have nowhere else to go.

"Pathetic?"

"Yes. How are you supposed to fulfil your child's dreams if you can't remember your own?"

"But... but not all dreams are meant to come true."

He scowls at you, leaning a little further forward. "Really? You don't remember how devastated you were when you didn't get that treehouse? Or the rainbow walls? You cried for hours, I saw it in your memories. Why would you want to put your daughter through that?"

That's... invasive, but you try to move past it. "But my dreams weren't always good for me. I couldn't sleep in the treehouse, what if something went wrong? There could've been a storm, or someone in the woods, or I could've gotten too scared to go inside - any number of things. And I would've been bored of the walls by the weekend, of course my mother didn't spend days painting them just for me to be over it before I even said thank you."

He hums a bit, bringing a hand up to stroke his chin. "You would deny your daughter's dreams because you don't want to create them, then?"

You scowl at that, holding yourself back from poking a finger into his chest. "Are you calling me lazy? How dare you! You know, I work two jobs to take care of that little girl all by myself since her daddy's a deadbeat, I work myself to the bone making sure she can eat, and you call me lazy for not painting the walls the colors she wants?"

He latches onto the wrong part of the sentence. "Her father's not in the picture?"

You glare at him. "That's what you got from that?"

He seems to be stuck in deep contemplation, taking another step forward so your chests nearly brush and you're forced to stare up at him.

"So, it's not for a lack of love, then?"

"What? Of course not. If I could, I'd give Alice everything she could ever want and more. But that's not how the real world works."

"It's how the labyrinth works."

"Excuse me?"

He gestures broadly to the nursery. "The labyrinth is kind to her inhabitants. She gives them everything they desire, because it's easy for her."

You've never been more confused in your life. "Okay? Good for her, then."

You get the feeling he's reached a conclusion that you can't even see in the distance as he nods to himself, leaning to the side a bit to glance at Alice. You fight down the urge to leap over the crib and cover her body with yours.

"Then you will stay here."

That jerks you back to reality. "Wait- what?"

"You will stay in the labyrinth, where she can provide for... what did you call her? Alice? Yes, Alice. You and Alice will be taken care of here."

"But-" you splutter. "But I found her! You said I had to find her!"

He shoots you a slightly exasperated look. "No, as I said before, you had to find your way out. You didn't. And look at that, time's up." A timer appears in the air in front of him, ticking down to zero. "Now you and little Alice are mine. It's been a little empty around here recently, it won't be the worst thing to have company for a bit."

You feel heat rush to your face. "No! Let us go, you can't keep me here on a technicality!"

He smiles - a real smile, brightening up his eyes - and surprises you by cupping your cheek with one big paw.

"Oh my dear, it's my labyrinth, I can do whatever I want in it. And it's not a technicality, though I could keep you based on several of those too."

You fume as you glare up at him, hands curled into fists. "I'll find my way out. You can't keep us here."

He chuckles, patting your cheek once before stepping away. "Oh, yes, I think you'll be fun to keep around for a while, darling. Try your best to escape, if you'd like. I don't think I'll mind finding you lost a few more times."

[ouroborosorder]

what do you think the most stellar examples of arknights' vfx are?

Okay so there are a lot of examples, so I'm going to try to keep my description of each one short. Unsurprisingly, most of my favorite effects are on more recent, paid skins for fan-favorite/meta 6* operators, since those are the ones they put their whole ass into.

Executor the Ex Foedere. The way that it weaves blasts of light and the shapes of Sankta wings into his shotgun blasts is absurdly creative. Perfect for a saint of Laterano.

Passenger's Skin. Specifically his S3. Stellar lightning is a weird pitch, but it's so fucking beautiful that it works. This is the effect that convinced me that I might enjoy being a VFX artist after all, not fucking kidding.

Jessica Alter. Look. Her skills are underwhelming as fuck, they're all the same shot effects every time. But. Do you genuinely understand how amazing these gunshots look? Do you know how hard it is to make a stylized gunshot that doesn't just look like magic? These are breathtakingly good. The glass shattering on hit genuinely made my jaw drop when I first saw it.

Eyjafjalla the Hvit Aska. It's hard to make a healer that genuinely looks unique, but Eyjalter's dreamlike colors and flat effects manage to bring the visual style of So Long Adele into every map and make it look reasonable with the artstyle.

Kirin R Yato. Monster Hunter's effects are extremely distinct, and seeing them recreate MH's style in Arknights' is really lovely. My one sorrow is that I wish there was more lightning, since like. Kirin.

Lin. Glass is a legitamately hard thing to pull off because it so often just looks like crystal, but leaning more into glass dust and shards makes it work perfectly. Her skin is also quite pretty, but it loses the glass look that made me love Lin to begin with.

Reed the Flame Shadow. Holy fucking shit holy fucking shit holy fucking shit holy fucking shit fire made of flowers?? The way the fire looks secondary to the whole thing while being undeniably present is stunning. Her skin is nowhere near as good tho.

Penance. Penance has such a stunning aesthetic that it immediately endeared me to her. Her vibe of gilded thorny chains carries to her effects and it works.

Texas the Omertosa. Fucking. Duh. It's hard to make a normal sword swipe look unqiue but Texas nails it. Her skin's effects are even more stunning, even if the animations are awful.

Minimalist. It's hard to make effects that are minimalist and still look good.

Specter the Unchained + Skin. I need to specificially call out her skin. Her skin may be one of my favorite pieces of effects at all time. The colors, the aegirian poetry as part of the visuals, the stellar water, it's all practically perfect.

Kazemaru. A sleeper hit!! She's got a lot going on with the "paper-controlling ninja whose clone has a completely unique aesthetic" thing so it seems like she might be too busy, but it manages to pull it off. Shoutouts to her clone's spawn, which actually does the slash mesh slightly wrong intentionally because the ring look actually helps a lot.

Goldenglow. It's rare that I see a lightning character and say "I have never seen anything like that before in my life" and Goldenglow's pink and blue stylized lightning genuinely shocked me.

Ling (Does it Wash The Strings). If you want my choice for best VFX in the game, this would at least be in running for first. It's flashy as hell, but manages to not be overbearing. The S3 dragon attacking with mountains rising from the earth alone is stunning, but the normal attack impact is my favorite part of the entire thing. It's so simple and elegant and stylish.

Amiya Guard. Amiya's Guard form is the combination of Amiya's Arts, Sarkaz Arts, Ch'en's swordfighting, the normal AK Arts and sword design languages, and a tiny bit of weird space tech to represent the Precursors. And it manages to come together to something that feels really cohesive while still drawing attention to how incongruous these elements are. The effects actively tell the story of Amiya - a girl with big shoes to fill, carrying the legacy of so many.

Ceobe, and her Unfettered Freedom skin. At this point in Arknights' lifespan, they had a much more defined visual language for how Casters look compared to melee units. Ceobe, being a Caster who throws fucking enchanted melee weapons instead of casting spells? So she combines their languages, with the buildup and trails of Arts casters and impacts of melee units, it's subtle and I love it. Unfettered Freedom deserves a special shoutout because I love geometric magic so fucking much.

Conviction's Skin. Why is this so good they're a joke operator.

Dorothy's Skin. I may have mixed opinions on this skin, but the effects are objectively stunning. I am personally heartbroken that she doesn't have the sand anymore, but that's a personal thing. I also don't like that her S3's range is obfuscated by the explosion but again that's nitpicking.

There's probably WAY more that I've missed and even more I cut for time, but those are my favorites after browsing the list of operators and skins for like, two hours straight. If there are a few I missed... Look, this list is this long already.

Also note that I didn't really list enemies or anything other than playable operators. Their enemy effects are usually... servicable, with a few standout exceptions with Talulah and Frostnova.

[pastel-rights]

I LOVE your art style! How did you came up with it?

huh? my art style??? uhhh, i mean i uhhhh if you want, i can explain how I got to this point but. sometimes, things just. happen yknow???

honestly my old art compared to the more recent of what I've done probably looks. very very jarring side by side since it looks like it was drawn by completely different people lol. For example, look at this early 2017 character concept verse a late (November) 2024 character concept.

It's. Definitely a lot to take in so uhm. Buckle up! [cue a heavy metal version of bye-bye-bye playing for atmosphere reasons]

So, I've been drawing as a hobby since about... 2009 give or take? However, the earliest art I have on hand is probably from... 2016 or 2015 tbh??? Although, I only really started keeping a fr fr log of my art from 2019 and onwards so, let's start with what I actually have to show.

It's all about the basics, anon!

Growing up, my art was inspired by the shows I watched growing up! in particular, shows like "Codename: Kids Next Door" and "Tom and Jerry" were my rock in childhood times (since I wasn't allowed to watch Spongebob until I was much older and a majority of my "childhood" tv shows didn't start airing until later in my life, like Bubble Guppies (which aired in 2011) and Team Umizoomi and Octonauts (which both released in 2010) which, by then, the television was run by my younger brother's needs mostly, and I didn't get a say.)

So, I guess you could say my art was inspired by those two shows mostly???? of course, not... fully? hold on let me show you guys the earliest art I have to work with here-

these are all from 2019 since it's the furthest back I was able to save my art but. Looking at it, it doesn't look like it was inspired in the way artists are normally inspired by their environment. At least, that's not how it feels to me.

my art at this point was very... a lot of it was traditional in comparison to now, for starters. The color grades are completely off, the lining is. interesting. A lot of one shot one result type of shenanigans. Of course, it shares its origin with my childhood entertainment in general, which is being very cartoonish in style! On traditional grounds, I fucked around with a lot of different methods, some just pencil, some with markers, blah blah blah yada yada yada.

which, character design is my passion /ref if you couldn't tell. but my art style has always been very cartoonish and stylized, even in my earliest days. Big eyes, wild hair styles, noodly limbs, you know, the cartoonist hallmarks! If nothing else, my art style is more reflective of who I am as a person?? like the cartoons that formed me, it's very expressive and full of color and whimsy and in its own way, it's my way of thanking the world that taught me happiness and joy, and I draw to give others that same feeling.

Whether that be my friends' OCs or silly shitposts, I draw for the joy others get seeing it! Here look at this picture of my friend (@sxftriina)'s OC, Ocean, I draw way way back when lol

...

but at some point, I realized. My art didn't make me happy anymore. I didn't have fun drawing anymore. and it just became more of a chore to make than a fun hobby or a good time. I couldn't find the joy in art anymore. And I couldn't create anything I was proud of either.

I got stuck. It didn't matter what I drew, what things I tried. I couldn't make myself happy again. and while my art might not have suffered.

I did.

art was nothing more than a chore. something I had to do because I wasn't good for anything else.

and it made me severely depressed, among other things happening during those times.

so what does a burnt out depressed artist do in crisis times??????????

...

he joins tumblr, of course.

I wish I was joking. I'm not.

anyways so it was like 4am and I was like "let me join tumblr why the hell not maybe I'll find something there" and uhm. well I didn't find anything initially. and every day was as depressing as the last, and I eventually just. felt like giving up. I ran an askblog and drew a ton still because while it made me unhappy, I felt unhappier just. doing nothing. Lesser of two evils I suppose?

that was until I uh. I met someone really special to me. Even now.

if you're reading this, uh. hi lupi!

This was around the time I found Identity Five at the end of 2020, and began drawing fanart for the game, which restored... some joy to art? Not completely, but, I wasn't so miserable drawing during this time of my life. It felt like a chore still, but, at least now I was having some semblance of fun doing it. Not completely fun though... I was still stuck in a funk. I didn't know why.

And then, I met Lupi. At the time, she was following me through her askblog account (she still does) and I got curious and decided to check it out for myself and. I think if I never checked out Lupi's blog that day, my art wouldn't have taken the direction it did, and, I would have never regained my love for my craft.

Of course, I feel silly even talking about it so... I took a different direction with my art after scrolling through Lupi's art, which sometimes I'll do, even to this day just for fun sake. And this time... I don't know.

It just felt different this time. It wasn't the best, and it certainly wasn't easy either. But for the first time in over a year... I had genuine fun drawing again. No negative feelings attached.

Just... fun.

A lot of fun at that. A lot of things from this era of my style stuck. Like... a looooot. My color choices, my mini style, the flow, a lot of what I learned from this era stuck with me, even now.

it retains so much of the past yet it means so much more. it's still cartoonish, still small and squashed, funky hairstyles, noodle limbs, fun clothing... the whole nine yards.

Of course... this is only 2021 art. My art now, while similar... it's not the same. And it's all thanks to ONE RED HAIRED MOTHERFUCKER. not ginger, red haired. apples are red, not orange. /ref

It was the first time in. several years that I've drawn something just for me. Even if it was something small and silly while waiting for an after-school activity to start. It was something I remember really fondly, a feeling that wasn't just fun but. actual joy.

Not only that but, for as simple as it is, it marked the start of a very, very... very long long of stylization like never before. You take what makes you happy... piece by piece, bit by bit...

you learn... you grow... you improve upon skills you have... body language, expression, detail... all those things. You meet some really cool people along the way... you talk, you laugh, you cry.

you get inspired and you want to show them something new, something cool... and in doing so, you make something you never thought was possible. Not with your skills, and not in a million years.

But, you learn. you laugh. you watch. you grow.

you figure out what you like. cool colors, fun dynamics, shading, lighting, storylines... things like that. you inspire others, and those people inspire you in turn.

you learn some cool new poses, you draw some fun fanart for your friends aus, you try new things and those end up sticking.

sometimes it's just you and one other person, who stuck through, watching you draw until a piece's very end. because they like you for you. and they care. sometimes they never leave your side, and they continue to inspire you to this very day.

you have fun with what youre doing. there's not really any need to rush, you know? you look at new media, you talk to the people you care about the most, you make things to surprise them with. and they're happy. and you're happy.

and you want to keep drawing.

but you can't forget to draw for yourself sometimes. something just for you that others can enjoy, but, it wasn't made for others. it was made because you love yourself and you deserve something special. it's important to draw what you want for yourself.

and sometimes, it becomes your staple.

you put your best foot forward, you give it everything you've got! because it's not a chore. it's fun. it's a hobby.

and it makes you happy. your art becomes recognizable, people compliment it and enjoy its presence. even in passing.

...

I love my art style too, anon. i know its been a long while of me talking. telling my story, my experience with my art. how it built me. how it ruined me. and how I found myself again.

I didn't know how to answer your question when I first got this ask.

Because, I didn't know how I came up with it. In my mind, it just happened. But, I think I have an answer for you now.

For real this time.

My art style is a culmination of everything and everyone I love. Navi, Pins, Beth, Yuu, Tae, Klai, Joe, Rina, Lupi, Four, pretty much everyone I surround myself with on a day to day basis. Bit by bit, piece by piece, my art style is fueled by the love I have for my friends.

Every improvement over the years has all been so I can show them something fun, something new. So I can keep surprising them with each new piece I do.

But, it's not just my friends.

It's you too, anon. Whoever you are. Wherever you are. Every like, every reblog, every comment and compliment. Every ask, every live reaction.

Thank you.

Thank you for helping me find my joy again. I hope I didn't disappoint.