#one of them ended up being a redraw of some old art without me realizing.

[dirusflor]

The many moods of one tainted plant

[dgdraws]

Artfight Postmortem

as you may know, i am prone to reflection on my art and process and progress. herein, i'm gonna navel gaze a bit about artfight 2024.

top line: really enjoyed myself, did a bunch of new things and this was "The Year of Artist Friends" which is spectacular.

i completed 20 attacks this year, including my first ever mass attacks! altogether I drew 28 different characters (incl 4 of my own).

for the first time, I had *users* i wanted to attack, rather than just characters i'd gathered via search or discord. honestly, three years ago when i picked up the stylus i was just excited at the prospect of drawing for other people, period. artfight was a cool way to be in community without prerequisites. i didn't quite dare to dream i might make some real connections and make proper friends. and yet :) here we are! i went in with three 'art friends' and i'm leaving with at least three more

in addition to being the year of artist friends, this could be "the year of clip studio paint was on megasale a week before artfight" because i knocked out like 2 practice pieces before July 1st so i wouldn't be starting with completely unfamiliar tools, but i used/learned csp for the vast majority of my attacks. one i finished in krita (lonnie), and my final attack i only used krita.

definitely trial-by-fired myself! but it motivated me to explore csp, and most important, gave me a reason to practice practice practice. last year i drew almost exclusively humans, lots of full bodys, because i wanted to get a better grip on anatomy and drawing a variety of faces. it worked then, and, well, i think i learned more of csp in one month of artfight than i would have if i was just plodding through my personal projects for 33 days :) *looks at my wip folder with months old files* pretty sure.

ok i'm gonna look at a few faves/standouts now:

came in hot with 0tt0 here! the main brush for this one (froggy pencil) was a mainstay for the whole month. so versatile!!! and lovely texture. this isn't quiiite brat green but this was what made me go, hmm, what if i... did a few pieces inspired by this album i can't stop listening to?

and then i took a huge turn and just used a soft round brush for Desa and Iryna for my dear friend @bobomcfoe bc i really wanted to turn these out in something approaching my "usual style" of late and i feared getting too deep into the temptations of csp if i put them off. and, um, yeah i love them. i got sooo close to matching that angle but ahh i can see the tilt now! nonetheless, love these two, not least bc brookie has some of the most pleasing color palettes to work w :)

then on to Rosé and baby's first vector lines! you can RESIZE lines in csp. did you know that? i didn't know that. i did forget to use it as much as i could have in later ones though, so i still only kinda know it ig. and halftone shading! bc why not? another thing i really only did this once, but want to experiment with more

Rook here, for my new friend @gender-premium-tm, was me realizing how to use filters/filter layers in csp. now THAT is something i used a lot this month! also something i use often in krita. i must say, though the csp options are slightly more limited (afaik), they have oomph!

okay these two are my "explicitly brat pieces"! artfight keeps you moving, which i find really valuable, bc i could have dithered foreverrr over Lonnie's gif here. like, do i add his arm? maybe he should be wearing a shirt? or, what if i just draw him twice, instead of splitting the expressi--see it just never ends. and as i am always going on about, art is so precious bc it is a reflection of us when we make it. maybe for some future artfight i'll redraw this (as Lonnie's artist @wenmistry did for me with Ebon this year), but for july 2024, i'm amazed at how well i executed this for just 2.5 days of work! (i did forget his glasses, which realization gave me a different take on the composition, so this is high on my list of potential redraws)

and then Aagatha. this is in my top 3 for this year. the pink just works so well with the green and her artist added the song to her character playlist AND added the necklace to her actual dnd inventory. like. omg. the impact your art can have!!! how freaking cool is that???

two mass attacks! i was in a silly goofy mood. i feel like i really got a handle on vectors w the anthro mass attack, i adjusted every single point on that one by hand. weird what hyperfocus makes you do sometimes, but i learned a lot from that. mainly that i will probably never user vectors as my main linework tool. there are circumstances it is perfect for, and outside of that i'm good w my raster lines lol

which is exactly what i used for this other mass attack, featuring mostly my ocs. hey, sometimes you need to shake things up! i can see here the style starting to hew back to my "usual style", though i'm thinking that might have a lot to do with drawing 5 people very quickly. falling back on practiced techniques. and by this time i apparently knew csp well enough to reproduce them pretty closely! ooh, one thing this made me miss was the transform tool in krita. that floor was ROUGH to wrestle into place in csp.

purple and green turned up a lot this year!

Echo is my crowning achievement with the froggy pencil, most of the shading here is just layers w that. and one last nod to brat green :)

i've worked in the paper cut style before (both my pfp's use it) but i really exploited csp's clipping layers to make Scraps here. they did make me briefly forget how they work in krita when i switched back, so well done w that

i played with gradient maps a little earlier in the month but for Okanar i actually made my own gradient! really a useful tool for ref'ing real human skin tones to make non-human ones, without muddying them up too much.

finally, Chaos. this actually might be my favorite! ironically this is the one that i made in krita. it was like, ahh, yes my old friend. wait where is the scroll bar. ah, okay, yes my old friend... the line layer is set to burn which just makes the whole thing so warm (and the cause of the red outlines on the earrings). used my old sable brush, a pattern fill set to overlay... my old stomping grounds! but plus a rendering technique i picked up this month and some other random habits i picked up in csp (like copying a detail to a new layer, moving it where i want a copy, and drawing/tracing it back onto the original layer in the new position. nothing i couldn't have been doing in krita all along, but made easier by the tool layout in csp, and therefore now discovered by me. amazing how one integrates new knowledge. it's like magic sometimes!!!)

that was a good roundup! if you actually read this to the end, wow! and thank you! i hope it was interesting... and inspiring! bc i want to read about your process and reflections too! yes you! and plz tag me, i'm always down to gush about art XD

[crazys-art]

day 28 of martch - redraw old art

had this idea 4 years ago and now i have realized it lol. i put way too much thought into this so notes below

notes for designs i did while making this:

i wanted them all to have unique eye shapes instead of defaulting to how i draw eyes normally because animal crossing characters dont have uniform eyes lol

also i worried wayy too much about some of the species choices lol. like. do i make junko a bear because monokuma, or does that give the twist away? do i make everybody a different species, or do i double dip in a few places to make the twin twist less predictable? ultimately decided fuck it im not writing the game im drawing fanart i can do what i want

when i first came up with this idea i'd only fully decided on the species of 7 of the cast so here's my train of thought for why they are what they are:

yasuhiro- easiest out of the way first. there's nothing else he could be but a frog. decided to give him the weird facial hair animal crossing sometimes gives their characters because its not animal crossing without a couple ugly guys (affectionate)

hifumi- big guy. elephant. made sense. gave him some pink accents despite not thinking it worked all that well to get that animal crossing authenticity yknow lol. plus he likes some cutesy things so he can have some pink as a treat

sakura- felt bad about making her a gorilla ngl- especially since she is. one of the three characters in this game with a darker skin tone. but literally no other species made sense for her. and ngl there are like. no gorilla villagers i like. so i tried my best to make her look cool as hell

sayaka- cat villagers are super popular, so might as well make the ultimate pop idol one, right?

asahina- okay this comes from bias on my part but in my new horizons my default uchi villager was a rabbit and asahina would 100% be an uchi villager so bada bing bada boom. ended up making her coat more orange than it actually is cause i wanted her to be red and didnt want it to clash.

mondo- im going to be completely honest. when i thought of this i was just like "oh that makes sense i always associated mondo with tigers i dont remember why tho." and i just double checked and not only are they in his execution but he also has tiger underwear. so. this ones canon imo

ishimaru- once again, wolf villagers are popular, and just made sense for him. hes a loyal rules guy, and more edgy than a dog- plus, it gives him a cat and dog dynamic with mondo! this concludes everyone that i came up with their species 4 years ago, below is the ones i decided now

kyoko: i was between anteater and wolf for her, and since i decided not to double dip on species, i went with anteater. idk, anteater villagers always seem so aloof and strange to me, it's just her vibe.

junko & mukuro: i was between bear, cat, and rabbit for them, and once again, avoided double dipping. bear is pretty obvious, but cat was because once again, cat villagers are so popular, and rabbit was because of the irony. junko's ears are also supposed to mimic the little monokuma hair ties she has lol

celestia: i was between anteater and ostrich, and i'd already chosen kyoko as the anteater. i didn't even remember that the ostrich villager was called ostrich for a bit, i kept thinking of her as a peacock, but then realized that was perfect for her whole european thing lol.

toko: i was between cat and squirrel, and sayaka was cat. her just being such a small bitter little guy is fitting for her i think.

chihiro: i was between hamster, rabbit, and mouse, and rabbit was taken. i think i only went with mouse because i wanted to draw that head shape, but i did realize after that that means they and mondo are a cat and mouse lol

makoto: i was between deer and dog, and honestly it all came down to his ahoge. if there was a way to have antlers and an ahoge, i would have done so, but honestly it worked out for the best i think. having a dog and cat relationship with sayaka + komaru and toko being dog and squirrel just worked too well.

togami: i was between horse and eagle and this was one of the hardest decisions. ultimately went with eagle simply because i didnt want to draw an animal crossing horse. this did end up making the squirrel be obsessed with the eagle which i do love. i kept trying to work blue into his design but it just did not work at all.

leon: oh leon. the hardest one to choose. i had to save him for until id decided everyone else lol. i was between bull, eagle, and tiger, and went with bull bc of double dipping. all three suited him equally i think it was hard to choose. also coloring him was hard too lol

[ask-epitale]

Update on the comic

I was just thinking about making an update post yesterday, and getting an ask just solidified that thought.

(tl;dr, life was a mess, I’m not going to continue the comic for a while so it’s on a hiatus for who knows how long, and when I do return, i’m going to redo what currently exists of the comic before continuing officially. Asks will be turned off, use replies if you want more info)

I haven’t done much with the comic because I was dealing with depression without fully realizing it was depression. I finally got it diagnosed, so I’m working on it, but it’s still slow going. In the middle of making epitale, I was dealing with it, leading to weeks where I would post nothing. it was also not helped that at one point, my hard drive kicked the bucket, making me lose all my files, and then there was also an issue with the old hunk of junk i used until I got a new computer which caused a number of the layers to outright disappear (you can see this best with the comics in grillbys where we started on one side of the counter and moved to the other because i didn’t want to remake the old scene and not work right.)

I’ve seen a number of fan comics go the route of ‘hey, I don’t really want to work on this anymore, but here’s what would have happened’ and while this was half ask blog, half story comic blog, I don’t entirely want to do that. Sure, I’m going to give some details later in this post, but I’m not going to give the whole thing. Why? Well....

Making the comic with the stints of depression wasn’t so much I wasn’t doing art, more so, the comic felt less like something i wanted to do and more something that was expected, which made it feel forced sometimes. And then there was also the issue that since I was still doing art, my style evolved and I changed how I would draw things. (blob gaster into full skele gaster as an example). this made me less want to come back because I didn’t want to be changing style every page as well as the fact that the way I was doing it before wasn’t the best way, and even a single panel could take a while, or I would just alter the heads or hands slightly.

so all together, depression, art changes, complexity of art, fun, etc all made me not want to work on it. at least not publically. The other mods that were listed around here (mod bun, kiwi and bear) were all friends who sort of helped out with some of the ideas, but the story, blog running, art, etc was all mine (mod cat) one of the mods helped me the most with idea stuff, so much so that we have a full discord group we used for it, but it ended up evolving into stuff that’s... very non canon. I could potentially share tidbits from that eventually if anyone wants that, but I doubt that would happen. I’m going to turn asks off though, so turn to replies to request those.

as it currently stands, i have no clue when I would work on the comic again. that being said, when I do, I won’t be continuing the story. Not exactly. I won’t be deleting anything, just tagging them as old, but when I bring back the comic, I’m going to be... sort of restarting. I’m going to be redrawing the pages in an art style I can more easily do as well as fixing up things I’m no longer happy with (like how I draw undyne, and I might not redo the starting scene with sans and papyrus and the mod cat annoying dog substitute.)

One thing I will be slightly redoing is Dee, which i will just explain in a following post as when I first made them, I had a slightly different idea from what they are now (and what I have thought of them for a few years.

[gallickingun]

basic manga cap tutorial || ibis paint x

I got a request on how I color my manga caps (you can check them out in #morgan-colors-bnha and #morgan-colors-hq), so I thought I’d do this step by step tutorial that walks you through my process!

I color and draw on my phone (Samsung Galaxy Note10+) using the stylus provided with the phone, however you can use your finger. For manga cap coloring, I use Ibis Paint X, which you can find HERE for the Google Play Store, and HERE for the Apple App Store! It is a FREE app, and actually really helpful for a number of reasons, which I’ll show you down below! It does go without saying - there are a limited number of brushes that you get with the free section, but I haven’t found them to be too limiting, however I’ve only done basic manga cap coloring. You can watch short ads (I haven’t watched any, so I can’t vouch for the obscenity of them) to use the non-free brushes for a short period of time, though. 

The first part of this tutorial is going to be showing you how I took THIS SUGAWARA manga cap and turned it into the one you see HERE (both as pictured on the header image). The second part of this tutorial, attached at the bottom, is a timelapse video where I show you how to turn THIS BOKUTO manga cap into the one you can find HERE. 

Alright - without further ado, let’s get into the tutorial! As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to drop by my ASK BOX! Hopefully this is in depth enough without being too confusing. ❤

I’m doing this in steps so it can be in depth and informative enough, but I know that can become a little confusing, so I’m going to do my best to explain each step. I’ve also highlighted using little yellow boxes where I’m referencing, as pictured below. 

To start, here are the ways I usually find manga caps: 

1. Google searches, Pinterest searches, etc. Sometimes they’re already transparent, other times they’re not. I’ve found that I’m able to use the non-transparent ones because of the tools that are within Ibis Paint X.

2. Tumblr blogs - there are some blogs that are meant purely for transparent manga caps. 

3. Manga scans. I, personally, haven’t used manga scans, but I know others that use them! They usually require some extra clean up, which can take extra expertise. Removing speech bubbles, backgrounds, etc. 

Please remember to provide credit if it’s requested from the original poster!

Step #1: Open IP (Ibis Paint - I’m not going to say it every time because WOW that would get repetitive) and click on “My Gallery”.

Step #2: This is your gallery - as you can see, all of my prior caps are here, and this is where you will either open an old cap and keep coloring, or start a new one. In the bottom lefthand side, you see I’ve highlighted the “+” sign. This will bring you to the next screenshot.

Step #3: This is where you can choose if you want to create your own canvas, or create a canvas based off of the imported photo. Since I don’t do many “official” manga cap posts where I create a full image set from them, I usually just click on “Import Picture”, and go from there! However, if you want to create an image canvas, and import the picture once you’ve gotten the canvas open, please see Step #6 for how to import the image once you’ve already created a canvas!

Step #4: This is the screen that should pop up every time you import an image. When you’re doing manga caps especially, you’ll want to hit “Ok”.

Step #5: I believe these are the automatic settings, however if they’re not on your app, these are the settings I use when selecting how to extract the line drawing. Black at 0%, White at 100%, and Middle at 50%. This will remove the background from the manga cap, and only leave the dark line art remaining.

Step #6: This is what the layer should look like once you’ve extracted the line drawing. See highlighted the “+” button - this is how you will add new layers. I chose to add a new layer, which you can see in Step #7. However, if this is where you want to add an image, see the highlighted camera button. This will let you choose an image from your camera roll and import. The “Extract Line Drawing” option will appear each time that you import an image, so don’t worry about triggering it! It will trigger itself!

Step #7: Here is the new layer! I cut out the screenshot from before, but each new layer shows up on top, so I had to use the three little lines on the righthand side to drag it beneath the layer of the Sugawara manga cap layer.

Step #8: I used this new layer to import a photo of Sugawara in his uniform from a quick google search. I actually end up grabbing another one just to make sure I know what the bottom half of his uniform looks like, but I don’t show it just yet. Because the layer is behind, it shows up underneath Suga’s face. I end up erasing the parts that interfere with the cap here in a bit. 

Step #9: When you click the brush button down at the bottom, this selection screen comes up. There are a ton of brushes to choose from, but for the base colors, I use “Dip Pen (Hard)” at 100% opacity. I’ve shown it highlighted here!

Step #10: Now we’re going to create our color palette. Sometimes I will find color palettes online And import them, but for the sake of simplicity, I’m going to use this photo of Suga along with another one that I nab later to create the palette. The way you use the “dropper” tool (if you’re familiar with Photoshop) to select the colors from another portion of the image is to press down rather hard, and then this circular selection tool will pop up. You can keep the pressure and drag it to the specific spot you want to pick up a certain color for. I’ve found that it’s best to do this with my finger instead of my stylus. I’m not sure if it’s because the heat of my finger and the change in pressure is easier to pick up, but that’s what works for me! 

NOTE: It is important to note that if you have the eraser tool selected instead of the brush tool, you won’t be able to use the color selector. This might come as second nature to some of you, but it STILL makes me screw up from time to time, haha. 

Step #11: Using the dropper/color selection tool from Step #10, I create a small color palette, as you can see in the upper lefthand corner of the image in this step. I grab both the lightest and darkest shades from the different things I’ll need to color in for the cap. I picked up the highlights and shadows of Sugawara’s skintone, eyes, hair, and jersey. I just draw in little overlapping circles so I can switch back and forth between the colors 

Step #12: I added an additional layer in the very back of this image, and colored it in completely using a blue shade. This will allow me to make sure that I’ve filled in all of the space behind the manga cap. It’s important to note that in order to color the line art in later, you’ll actually need to “overdraw”. We’ll touch on that more later. 

Step #13: As I show here, I have a layer where I use the singular skin tone shade and color in behind the manga cap, filling in all the spaces where Sugawara’s skin is showing. I usually use a different layer for each different shade/color just in the event I need to do a bunch of erasing, or if I need to change the layer style later. 

Step #14: Here is where I show how I “overdraw”. I’m not sure if you can see it very well here in these screenshots, but the way that these manga caps are drawn, sometimes the line art isn’t “clean”, it looks more shaded/scratchy. So, in order to combat white space, I usually overdraw and then go back in with an eraser. You can see in Step #15 the size brush I usually use - somewhere between 2.0-4.0, but most of the time I use a 3.0 size brush. I’ll go back in with the eraser with a similar size on the easy parts, and then all the way down to the smallest size - 0.3 for really close quarter erasing. 

NOTE: It’s important to realize that the smaller the eraser, sometimes the circumference of the eraser can be really light in opacity as well. You can help this with the intensity of the pressure that you use with your stylus/finger, but I’ve found that sometimes using a really small eraser can be counterproductive. There are times where I’d rather “over” erase in which I actually erase into the cap and then redraw using a small brush size. You’ll have to play around with eraser/brush size and such to see what works best for you!

Step #15: Here is the skin all colored in! You’ll notice I colored in his eyes and mouth, which are going to end up being white in the end. I do this because usually it’s easy to forget that you need to color things in white if you’re doing it against a white background. I oscillate between the colored background and the white/transparent one because sometimes it can be tough to look at that bright color all the time. I’ve found that this is more of a tip/trick for me to be able to remember to color in his teeth and eyes and even sometimes the brow or other features! In the end, this just works for me. You don’t have to do this step!

NOTE: As I stated in Step #14, using pressure can change things. The same goes for this specific pen type - the dip pen. I use about size 3.0 most of the time, but I can actually do really detailed work with this size pen (see Suga’s ears, the spaces between his hair, etc.) by using lighter pressure. I do have a stylus, so this is a lot easier for me. The pressure was a little tricky for me to get down in the beginning, but once you realize how soft/hard you need to press down, you can use bigger brushes for even smaller areas. I find that makes it a lot easier for me, since I don’t have to keep changing the brush tool - which you can do using the sliding bar at the bottom of the screen labeled “Thickness”. The thickness of a brush is the circumference it has when you are using the hardest version of pressure you can muster, so keep that in mind!

Step #16: Here is where I do the basic coloring for the skin, hair, and eyes. These colors will be relatively the same as the colors from the palette, because there is not a “gray cast” caused by the line art sketch from the manga cap. This means that the skin color that is showing in the manga cap that I’ve colored is pretty close to the original color from the screencap from the anime/the palette that I’ve got in the upper lefthand corner. I do FLAT coloring for this - aka NO SHADING YET. So I only use the LIGHTEST shade for the hair and skin - the ones farthest to the left on the palettes for each section. I do use the DARKEST shade for the eyes, but that’s because usually the lighter shade is the one you use most sparingly, where as with skin, the darker shades are used for shadows only and aren’t used in excess.

NOTE: As previously stated, I do a separate layer for each different color. At this point there should be six layers, as follows (from the bottom up):  Layer 1: Background Layer (Mine is blue, but for the sake of easy viewing, I made it white.) Layer 2: “Notes” Layer - this is where I keep my notes, as in the reference photos, color palette, and any other things here and there.  Layers 3-5: These are the colored layers - skin, hair, and eyes.  Layer 6: Manga Cap Line Art

Step #17: Here’s where I’m showing the two different orange tones. This is what I meant in Step #16 - The original orange shade is the lower part of Suga’s collar - as you can see, the line art shading makes the color a lot more muted. I used the color wheel to find something brighter, just for a comparison shot. I still choose to use the traditional palette that I pulled from the anime screencap. 

Step #18: Now that I’m ready to color the manga cap pieces that are skewed by shading (i.e. his jersey here), I usually turn the manga cap down in opacity, so I’m able to recognize where I need to fill in! This is where I fill in the blue of the jersey, the orange of the collar and other accents, as well as the off-white shade for the number and the line accents. 

Step #19: Using the eraser and smaller brush sizes, I fill in all of the flat colors. No shading yet!

Here comes the time consuming, nuances...

Step #20: I’ve turned back on the colored background layer - sometime between when I started and now, I changed it from blue to pink. If you can zoom in on the image, you’ll see the boxes in white contain “errors”. This is areas where there are “holes” in the coloring, or where I’ve gone outside the lines. I’m going to go back in and clean this all up with the eraser and some more brush work. 

NOTE: This is very important, especially if you’re trying to make this a transparent image, or if you’re going to do the extra steps and color in the line work. Any holes, overdrawn, or underdrawn areas will make the final drawing look a little funky.

Step #21: Here is the shading! Honestly, this cap kind of shaded itself, haha. Some manga caps have “built in” shading, as you can see on Sugawara’s arms and neck. I added some shading to his hair and face, trying to use the anime caps as a reference. I’m not very good at shading yet, but I wanted to show it here so you guys could see!

I used the darker shades from the palettes on the eyes, hair, and skin. I didn’t do any shading to the jersey because the manga cap lines already skew it so much, that it didn’t really seem necessary. This can be a really hit-or-miss time, both with areas that you choose to shade, as well as the colors that you use. I would really suggest searching for skin tone palettes if you’re not using the anime screencaps for reference!

Step #22: For my shading, I actually use “clipping” effects. As you can see, the two layers that are highlighted are clipped to the layers beneath. This means that the coloring on the clipped layer will “attach” aka clip itself to the layer beneath and that layer only. So, for the shading of the skin, hair, and eyes, I chose to clip the shaded parts to the base coloring, that way even if I over drew, the colors wouldn’t bleed together. 

I did more of what’s called “cell shading” for this manga cap, as well as the Bokuto one that I do in the timelapse video below. What is cell shading? This wiki page explains it pretty well, but basically it’s more “harsh” shading where there’s not necessarily an airbrushed quality to it, it’s more blocky. You can see I only chose to use one color of shading, which makes the contrast much more stark. IP does have several airbrush tools, I’ve used them in my Bakugou manga caps for his gauntlets, and they work really well! 

I brought up earlier that it’s important to color your base colors all the way to the edges of the manga cap line art. This clipping effect is why. On Suga’s neck and ears, the darker shade that I used for his skintone goes to the edge and actually underneath the line art of the cap, because it is clipped to the base skintone layer beneath. Had I not made sure to go all the way to the edge of the line art, this would be much more choppy, and there would be white space between Suga’s ear and his hair! 

Step #23: Here is the extra step - line art shading! This can be tricky, depending on the complexity of the line art, the shading, etc. Usually, in choosing a shade to color in the line art, I grab the darkest shade for that section, and then grab something even darker. As seen in Step #18, there is that drop down box that is currently listed to “Normal” - this will need to be set to “Screen” for the current line art coloring layer. You’ll also need to “clip” the layer you’re using for the line art color to the manga cap, meaning it will need to be on top of the manga cap layer - and therefore, should be the highest layer in the image.

For this image, I only did line art coloring on Suga’s face, hair, arms, and neck. I was really satisfied with leaving the jersey alone so far as coloring. I did this mostly because of the sketchy quality of the cap, the line art would be really involved and complicated, and it just wasn’t worth it to me (so sorry lol), and I liked how it looked with the darker color outlining it anyway. 

Also, I added little details like making the sweat on Suga’s face outlined in white! And yes, I do know that missed Suga’s beauty mark, but we’re going to pretend I didn’t just do that. I love you, Koushi, please forgive me. 

And that’s it! I’m sure there are easier ways to do things, or better ways, haha. But this is my beginner tutorial (as in I’m the beginner, lol). I hope that this helped anyone whose doing it for the first time! I stated this before, but if you have any questions, please feel free to hop into my ASK BOX and ask me! I’d love to help anyone out! And I’ll do my best! 

See below an additional manga cap coloring - Bokuto Koutarou this time! I thought doing a timelapse video of me actually coloring in the cap would help you guys out! 

PLEASE BE AWARE: This video is in 2x speed so it could not be forever long and really boring lol. With that being said, I do spin the screen around several times while coloring in the cap - this could make you nauseous, so please beware of that before you watch!

Here is a link to the time lapse video on YouTube! 

A special thanks to @cutesuki--bakugou​ who helped me a lot while I was coloring my original caps, and also to @writeiolite​ who nudged me in the direction of finally starting to color manga caps! And a little thanks to @rouge-heichou​ since I bugged her about a couple of things as well. And then as always, a huge thanks to @candychronicles​ because she keeps me sane. Also a special mention to @pixxiesdust​ because she does really cool gifs and has done a wonderful job in the bookclub of trying to share her knowledge with everyone else.

Disclaimer: I’m no artist, this is just for fun! I’m sure my shading and line art can use some work.. but I’m not focusing on that! Instead I’m just going to keep playing around and having a good time ❤

[littleeyesofpallas]

Was chatting with a coworker the other day and two things crossed my mind...

that I've been at this weeb shit so long that I forget what I just sort of take for granted and what might not be commonly known little factoids, and

that VIZ's attempt at a monthly Shonen Jump magazine has been gone so long most people probably never saw them. (nevermind the old RAIJIN Graphic Novels that tried the same thing)

So, here's some fun little things you might not have known about manga if you've only ever read English publications and/or digital scans...

For one, there's the matter of print formatting... In general, Japan actually uses their own standards for print that tend to differ from those in the US; The JIS(Japanese Industrial Standards) series A and B. Magazines like the typical anthology format manga are printed in JIS B5, which is comparable to the US Letter standard, or the ISO A4.

This was the same format that RAIJIN Comics printed in as well, and although I don't have a copy of the old English Shonen Jump for reference, if memory serves they printed in the same format as well in an attempt to really sell that "authentic" manga feel. Sadly, I don't know that the effort or attention to detail was much appreciated. Neither published a volume comparable to a Japanese weekly or even monthly serial magazine, though --not by a long shot. But this might not be the most practical for comparrison, since there actually just isn't much of an English language equivalent format. (unless you count actual magazines that happen to include comic illustrations or miniscule comic strip segments)

Despite the mammoth size of a serial magazine, Japanese tankoban are actually smaller than the North American equivalent. But notably the Japanese small book format isn't just a matter of contending with nearest print standards... What I believe is the JIS B40(although I could be wrong) tends to be the standard print size of small books in general, not just manga, and it's a print size that is only marginally smaller than VIZ's standard size manga, but with the very particular benefit of being deliberately portable. The small difference in size is the difference between a Japanese manga fitting in my coat pocket where as the English equivalent can't.

(I realize I photographed a copy of Shonen ACE, and not Weekly JUMP, but I measured a copy of Weekly JUMP for the thickness and not the copy of ACE; the copy of JUMP was around 506pg, while the copy of ACE was 570pg. Those are both older though, and the most recent digital copy i have of Weekly JUMP actually had around 520pg)

And I don't think it's always addressed just what a difference there is, culturally, in how Japan approaches the print medium. It's kind of an old cliche by this point, and I don't know how accurate it's remained in the past decade or so, but the quintessential image passed around between comic nerds has always been the Japanese bullet train; A place packed with commuters all passing their transit time with isolated preoccupation with music and/or reading, with manga being the king of this time killing arena. And its not just about sheer popularity driven by interest, American comic vendors have long envied the sheer accessibility of manga in Japan.

Here in the U.S. we used to have a thriving newsstand retail scene for comic books, and a kind of similar ease of grab and go comic purchase, rather than the explicitly niche interest driven "direct market" model that has been slowly but surly strangling the comic market ever since. But in Japan serialized manga has remained in relatively quick, impulse friendly, arm's reach of readers on the go. And what lubricates that business model more than anything is price.

I still remember a time when VIZ dominated the English manga market by offering at $7.95(and am I crazy or am I remembering a time when it got down to $6.99?) but now'days it's settled on a low end of $9.99. You know how much the recent vol.29 of My Hero Academia goes for? ¥484. That's less than $4.50.

You know how much that big ass magazine with 500+ pages and 21 different series goes for? Do you think it's more or less than the little pocket-size tankoban? Did you guess something close to ¥290? That's less than $2.75. But how does something bigger in both page size and page count managed to sell for less???

There are a few secrets to that, but one is that the things are packed to the gills with ads. But that's the boring answer. The other feature contributing to keeping an accessible cost on weekly/monthly manga is something we don't think about much in the U.S.; it's the paper and print quality.

The nice little books are printed in what you might expect as far as starch white paper and clean black inks, but those big honkin' phone book(do people still know what phonebooks look like??) size magazines are printed on cheap recycled pulpy newpaper with typically rough print jobs. This is most noticeable in the quality of solid blacks, and when scanning the texture of "white" space.

(I tried to take individual photos of different series chapters to show off the fact that the paper is differently colored... but my phone's camera seems to be smart enough to auto balance that kind of thing when there's no other context to anchor it to. (It doesn't help that it's night and my lights have a harsh yellowing glow to them.) but on th left you can still kind of see the different paper colors; this particular issue alternated every 3 chapters between pink-ish, green/gray, a kind of off-white/gray, and sepia, but I've also seen blue-ish, oranges, and a different shade of yellow different from the sepia-ish one.)

Back in ye olden days when it came to fan scanlations, more slapdash teams and projects would often stumble over levels in photoshop (too much black and the pulpy paper texture shows up as grainy shadows, but too far white and the edges of lineart get crunchy and ugly) but those who had more robust readership and a regular streamlined flow of work, we'd actually go in and touch up the solid blacks and whites by hand. We'd also redraw art to erase overlaid text so the type setters could lay the new English in over top.

(Weekly Jump: Left, Bleach tankoban: Right)

They do however keep a few coveted color pages in better quality paper and ink. In contrast, the standard quality tankoban actually don't include color pages at all, and just print what had been color pages in grayscale. There are also all kind of irregularities between publishers and special editions and such, but on the most basic level this difference in quality both keeps serial prices down, while also incentivizing tankoban purchase.

In the U.S. we might still have the draw of an ad-free reading experience in our TPB, but the print quality between a biweekly issue and a TPB are basically the same. Incidentally, even though manga are generally drafted at a much larger scale than even the serial magazine proportions anyway, the scaled down size of the tankoban also serves to sharpen the image. When put side by side the nice clean tankoban print looks noticeably better than the serial.

Now'days the English scanlation scene seems to be conducted almost entirely through ripped digital releases (at least as far as I can tell with popular, regular weekly titles) which is great for quality, frankly, but it does kind of lack the charm and personal touch of a band of amateurs finding round about solutions to a convoluted bootlegging pipeline. But obviously I'm a little biased.

[edit]: Oops i posted this without really ending it in any sensible ro conclusive way... I feel like ive lost sight of the point since i first drafted this but I guess its mostly just me pining after if we could just get super cheap, disposable quality, bulk manga in that classic Japanese magazine model to work here in the states. I already tend to sell manga in big runs, even at $9.99+, and frequently I'll have customers put volumes back, or clearly want the next volume but just can't afford it and wait to come back. If I could sell these customers more volumes, and more importantly more titles, at the same price, I would love to. I would love to see these things fly off the shelves. I would love to see people keeping up with multiple series. I would love to see someone look at a 44vol long series and actually feel like that's a number of volumes they can afford.

[comicteaparty]

May 23rd-May 29th, 2020 Creator Babble Archive

The archive for the Creator Babble chat that occurred from May 23rd, 2020 to May 29th, 2020.  The chat focused on the following question:

If someone came to you for advice about starting their first comic, what would you tell them?

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

The biggest hurdle I see beginner comic creators (including myself) struggling with is the fear to begin because they "aren't good enough yet." I would tell them to just start. The best way to learn how to make comics is to make comics. You can always go back and fix old pages. Or you don't even have to. The improvement throughout your work can be encouraging. So I say, just begin.(edited)

carcarchu

know your ending before you begin! so many webcomics start and then have no idea how to continue. at least have some kind of idea of the direction you want to go to and at least a basic outline before you begin. you can always change things but going in without a roadmap is a recipe for disaster

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I would tell them to consider a few things: your desired scope, your current skill levels, and how likely you are to still love the project months or years later. I didn’t start with a small scope, so I can’t tell people to keep it simple no matter what, but it absolutely helps. Doing a short 6-10 page comic as your first thing will totally tell you if this is something you like, or totally hate. Assessing your own skill level is hard, but I try and encourage people to practice anatomy and perspective and other skills before diving right into creating a massive world. I’d encourage them to practice some writing as well. But even the act of creating a comic can help with all that. So, YMMV! And you gotta love what you’re drawing! I didn’t feel comfortable creating a story until my late 20s because I felt I hadn’t settled on something I’d be indefinitely passionate about. My likes and dislikes were still changing so much. If you can look at your idea and pretty confidently say you want to draw this stuff over and over again for years... that’s a very good sign

eliushi [a winged tale]

I find my advice will vary depending on what their vision is for their comic! For instance, if it’s a short form, I would recommend looking at different styles and experimental storytelling to find ways to best explore their work. For a long form I would advise as y’all have done so as well: start and keep going to improve. Have an ending in mind. Know the basics of character/plot and storytelling; essentially if you know the rules then you are more easily able to break them in an informed way. Most importantly is to have fun drawing, have fun with friends, have fun sharing your work

I guess sort of as a follow up... did you all receive any advice before starting your comic?

carcarchu

i didn't ask anyone in particular but the advice i read before starting mirrored what has been said so far

the advice about just starting and not being afraid is probably what helped the most

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I was told to make my first comic shorter... but with the caveat that if I absolutely could not, it was okay to try a long-form one from the get-go

carcarchu

another thing that i often tell people looking to start is that comic making is actually a gigantic time sink and requires a LOT of discipline. a lot of people i talk to really don't realize how much of a time investment it is. i don't want to dissuade anyone by telling them this but it's important to realize

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I agree with lazuli! Right now I'm actually feeling more motivation for my long comic than my short story.( I will absolutely finish both though)(edited)

carcarchu

x2 agree with claire, i've realized i'm not good at short stories

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I've been asked this question before, about first comics. I always say the most important thing is to draw what you like, for yourself.

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Short stories are hard! I’m often jealous of all the marvelous one-shot comics on twitter, telling an affecting story in such little time. I often wonder if my own stuff will ever be half as successful in the emotions department. Short stuff is easier to digest but requires a ton of skill to craft well.(edited)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Absolutely. Two of my favorite comics are 3 pages and 5 pages long and years later I am still thinking about them.

I think it takes even more skill to craft a compelling story, world, and characters in only a few pages

It is witchcraft, I swear

carcarchu

there was a beautiful short story i read about a cat before, i'll see if i can find it and share it in recs

eliushi [a winged tale]

I think a lot about the unfinished comics! even though they aren’t finished, they still stay with me. Ultimately if you draw comics, it will touch people and people will remember

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I've always wanted to do a short story like that but am not a good enough writer yet unfortunately

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Also agree with @Eightfish (Puppeteer) - you must make something for yourself. You can try and tailor it to certain audiences, but don’t stray too much from your own sensibilities. Make a comic that speaks to your soul, and people will feel it.

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

Pick something you love, you‘ll spent a lot of time on it.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

If you don't love it, who will?

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

And short stories are their own medium with their own rules, needs and patterns; they‘re not interchangable with longform and the otherway round.

That‘s what annoys me about the „start with 8-page shorts!“ advice. It‘ll teach you how to do shorts, not how to do long form. And I‘ve seen so many treating shorts as a stepping stone to „proper“ long-form comics, and that format deserves better.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I do see the merit in that though. There are a lot of unfinished long comics. If you have a good short story, might as well make it first. For me though, they are way harder than long stories.

I did give myself the option to end puppeteer after about 80 pages though

Luckily I fell in love with making it and won't be doing that now

But it was an option

Capitania do Azar

Yeah I'm gonna have to repeat the points already stated. Everytime I get the chance to give advice to a starter, I do focus on the discipline aspect. Webcomics (any comic actually) does take a lot of work and if you wanna make it in the long run you gotta know your pace and you gotta know where you wanna go so you can make the best use of your time

You don't need to have super solid plans but it's good if you know how much time it takes you to make one, five or twenty pages, so you can get organised

And at least in my experience being organised is one of the most important aspects

That, and liking what you do but also allowing it to change because things take time and you will change too

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

^^^I can't reiterate this last point enough

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

For sure cap! I spent a lot of time experimenting with art style before starting and I think choosing a simpler but still nice looking (to me) style has been vital for me being as consistent with my comic as I have

Having a schedule was really important to me starting out

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

I think I would have said..... MAKE SURE YOU DRAW IN ADVANCE BEFORE POSTING.

I've made this mistake, and I know many people have made this mistake, but it's really easy to get stressed and demotivated when you realize that you might not be drawing as fast as you want...particularly if you're starting out.

So make sure you have buffers so that you can post those updates as consistently as you can.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I'd say for my past self that make sure you have.... at least almost everything ironed out for your story first if you want to make a long form comic as your first try because trust me if you don't, you'll end up redrawing the first chapter twice lmao. knowing how it begins and ends, knowing your drawing speed and also recognizing if you're just either motivated to work on it or you're doing it despite motivation. Because those are like the main factors that affect burn out and if you don't watch out, you'll get fucked over from it. have a good sense of your self in terms of your work ethic, and your writing. Art will be supplement for that writing but you're pretty good at least understanding the basics you should be aight Also if you don't feel doing your long story first, you can always make a short story to test waters. but if ya like me and rather just jump making a long ass comic first, go for it lmao

sierrabravo (Hans Vogel is Dead)

I think the biggest advice I'd give would be is to accept what you've already done, kinda related to the "you're good enough to start" advice. A lot of webcomics stall out in the "gotta redraw this to be Good Enough" phase, and it's easy to get caught up in the cycle of redrawing early pages (especially once you get a few years into a comic), but learning to sit back and appreciate early pages for the stage you were when you drew them is important!

also something I don't hear creators talk a lot about, is having a support group. Getting positive responses from strangers from the internet is a rush, but it's not always going to happen, and relying on it isn't a great idea mental health wise. Having a group of friends you can bounce ideas off of and that can support you in your story helps make the lonely art of making comics a little less lonely. I wish I had known about this group sooner because it seems like a really great resource of creators coming together and being supportive!

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

oh yeah that last point especially

like honestly if I didn't met other webcomic creators I probably wouldn't be working in webcomics tbh

sierrabravo (Hans Vogel is Dead)

It's so nice to have outside perspective both for art advice/critique stuff, but also just the general "hey guys drawing pages amiright"

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

yeah lmao

sierrabravo (Hans Vogel is Dead)

plus if/when you ever meet up with people at conventions, it's always so nice!

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Yeah, I would second that. Starting out I had a really hard time knowing how to take praise from my real world friends who are into my comic. It felt like maybe it wasn't real praise and they only like it because they liked me. But honestly the longer I make comics the more I just want my friends to like them and the less I care about what an internet stranger might think X'D Also, I watched the video on new creator tips that Joichi post in #writing_n_misc_resources last night before bed and those tips are super solid. I think folks have already hit on all of them but writing something you really like and is for you first and foremost and being being prepared for a lot of work are super important. Also, get that buffer!

kayotics

I think this was touched on already but having an idea you’re really passionate about, especially for a long form comic, is kind of essential to keep you going. You gotta keep up momentum for years, not just a few weeks. The thing that helped me, personally, was building my comic in a way that let me end it after the first story, but also let me continue if I liked it. My first chapter was definitely like a pilot for a tv show. If I didn’t want to continue, I’d just stop. But I ended up writing the second chapter before I knew it so I guess it worked out

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

I don't have too much new things to add but I agree that webcomics, is a lonesome job on your own. But once I started hanging around this discord, sharing frustrations, comic compliments. The support made a big difference, no longer having to shout in the abyss of Twitter to be heard. I know when you first start out, it's overwhelming. There's so many platforms, do I do color or grayscale? (as it felt that way for me.) The best is to begin small baby steps, write scripts. Draw thumbnails, talk about it with people you trust. Generate ideas and put them on paper. Something I learn, is finding a good group community who raise you up, than put your works down(edited)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Seconding/thirding/etcing about support. Other than that, I really don't have a single advice that I could give to someone starting out. Because it would need to be tailored to their situation. Someone who's in my exact same situation back when I started my first webcomic? They don't need ANY advice honestly. They just need to do it (which they will anyway) and learn from the experience.

sierrabravo (Hans Vogel is Dead)

https://tenor.com/view/doit-gif-5247874

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

(Again, I'm talking about a hypothetical person who's exactly like Younger Me. Not every beginner will "do it anyway.")

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

I corrected my definition, as I found out what the topic was about! I thought from everyone's comment, they felt like talking about internal feelings about community spirit.(edited)

Deo101 [Millennium]

I think that "just do it!!" Attitude is probably what I'll echo, it's what I'd have needed to hear and what I think there's probably the biggest hangup on. I think everyone tries to wait til they're ready, and it's like "you are gonna learn so much so fast and never stop learning once you start making your comic" so just, start learning now! Make changes later. You can't fix something that doesn't exist yet!

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

One thing I often think about is when artists completely relaunch their comics once they become a bit more intermediate in skill level. They've improved so much during the creation process that they feel a need to go back and totally start over. I've even run into some comics where they... almost seem in a constant state of relaunch I often wonder about how to encourage new artists to move forward instead of reiterating existing stuff. Or is the reiteration not necessarily a bad thing?

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I mean I guess it's not a bad thing if they're still having fun? Sometimes they're still having a blast; other times it's a form of torturous perfectionism.

Sometimes it's a bit of both, even

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah, I always frame it as "unless you are rewriting, don't redraw."

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I have seen a redrawn comic go well only once

Deo101 [Millennium]

Cause if it's just to fix your art but nothing is really fundamentally changing, then you'll get stuck in a loop I think

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

and that comic kept updating latest pages while redrawing the first ones

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah I've seen people do that. Where it's not a rebooot that basically stays the same, just a revamp of old stuff.

I could see myself doing that eventually tbh.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

The guy had very messy art in the beginning. Not bad art, he just didn't put much effort into it. The comic just evolved into something way bigger and more professional than he'd expected so he went and made the first pages professional looking as well

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yup Cause conics make your art improve so fast, every 50 pages you'll feel like your first one has sooo much wrong with it! So you can't get stuck just remaking pages

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Deo I don't think your first pages are any impediment to new readers. I have noticed a ton of art evolution though :0

Deo101 [Millennium]

Unless, yeah, you are rewriting and need the content on the pages to be different.

Yeah they might not be impeding but they're uglyyyyy

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I didn't notice your art changing much while reading your comic but then i went back to the first page and, woah.

big difference

Deo101 [Millennium]

It would be smth like way off in the future though if I did do it. It's not currently in my plans

I'd rather make new pages and new comics

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

has anyone ever commented on your art evolution?

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah my art has changed uhhh a lot LOL I think maybe a couple times? I don't have a good memory

mariah (rainy day dreams)

I think it's probably different for everyone. Personally, I don't think really believe in going back and redoing stuff, but I also say that as someone who just spent the last year redrawing most of my first five chapters. For me, Ive always wanted to print my comic, and I felt a lot of self-created pressure to have my first book look really good. Because it's going to be new readers first introduction to the series and if I don't feel 100% proud of it, sell it to other people was going to be impossible. I kind of just felt embarrassed by my old art and writing(some of it was like 8 years old and hadn't aged well). And also if I was going to use up resources to print something, then it should be the best version of that thing. But on the other hand, redoing the old stuff has also made me really sad that I haven't been able to move forward with new chapters. I definitely second Deo. And I also think you have to know where to draw the line. Like "ok, I'm going to redraw this once and then not again" or "I'm going to redraw up to X point and call it good. I think can be a really easy perfectionist trap and time sink if you aren't careful.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

it is also hard to get your existing audience to follow the same story twice

OH, webtoons features are rebooted comics oftentimes

I guess that counts as going well!

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, since getting featured by Webtoons is kinda like going print; it's a form of getting Published

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah. For this other comic I've not launched yet, I've redrawn the intro 4 times. The intro onky takes like, 20 hours absolute max (latest) but I still find myself looking at it and thinking.. I could have been making new stuff :/ BUT! I did rewrite it every time so it did need to change. I should have just waited to start it til I could commit more so there wasn't a year between each intro

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

But since webtoons features update so fast I don't really mind following the same story again. Lone is already almost to where the canvas version was

Deo101 [Millennium]

And yeah wt features need to reboot for a lotta reasons, there's also probably a lot of times like. At least lengthening updates to fit the requirements

They're not necessarily redrawing it, too. They just have to post from the beginning which totally makes sense

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

I'm giving myself a mantra, don't redraw, don't look back. Just move on with what you got. There's chapters I want to cover. It's just years ago, I had constant panic that the story's theme was going to change as it went, so I 'must' change the first chapter to suit the general overview of the story. But it resulted in me burning out and being self destructive to my work. I'm going to take better care of myself(edited)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

i think most redraw significantly though

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah I mean, wouldn't u?

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I'd have to! My whole story is only like. 20 webtoons updates?

Deo101 [Millennium]

Truuu

If that, 40 panels.. a page is like usually around 5

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

agreed on redraw hell. tried it and I didn't like it at all lmaO

I'm kinda glad I have a good footing on my current comic and I don't want to redraw it at all unless it's adapted for something else. still like

work what you have, if you can orz

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

"Don't look back" is hard when you feel like the first X pages are dragging all the future pages down with them. I agree that you need to draw a line (no pun intended), set some criteria

The thing Eightfish mentioned -- not so bad that it'd deter new readers -- is a very useful criterion IMO

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

if you must, i wonder if redrawing the first scene would be okay?

Just as a taste of what's to come for new readers

Deo101 [Millennium]

Do you think they would notice the difference in quality and question that?

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

rip maybe

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I've read a long webcomic where only the first chapter was redrawn, and when I got to the second chapter and saw an immediate drop in quality, I knew what exactly happened XD

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah, but you're a creator! Readers don't have the same background to necessarily be able to assume that

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Just put in a note saying that it's art evolution

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

As someone who redrew their first scene for a lot a reasons, I will say that I personally think it's worth it.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Also same, I've seen it and knew exactly what happened

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, it was mentioned in the notes, but I didn't read the notes at first because I knew the archive was huge, and I wanted to Get Through It

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

if i were to do that, i'd put a note in the page itself

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

That sounds like a good idea

Deo101 [Millennium]

What were your reasons for redrawing crona?

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I'm not Crona but I redid a big chunk of my chapter 1 for writing reasons. (This was in addition to a whole reboot done prior.) The writing was... not 'this screams terrible writing' kind of bad. But it was extremely misleading/ unclear on what the overall story was going to be

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

dang tbh I did kinda redraw some panels to make the dialogue flow better. But I also tried my best to match up the quality of the pages drawn the time so it doesn't look jarring.

kinda what keii said but just minimizing the effects of shockkkk

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I think this is one of the reasons why i don't want to do a comic that goes on for more than a couple years (well, for now that is. Maybe that'll change as i improve)

Deo101 [Millennium]

I redrew one intro 4 times, cause I kept rewriting the whole story.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

after that I was like "don't touch Ch. 1 again" lmao(edited)

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

1. Several panels didn't properly show what was happening in the scene. 2. Rewrote some of the dialogue 3. My art had improved so much that even if I hadn't redrawn it, the next scene would look very different. 4. I wasn't super far along, so I thought it would be good to give this another go, knowing much more about paneling, page-layout, and pacing.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

do you think there's a chance you'd eventually redraw wotp as it is now?

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Hell no(edited)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

lol then i think it's fine that you redrew!

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Even if I go back and clean some things up later for print, I'm not completely redrawing anything about WotP anymore

I finally got it to a point where I'm happyish with the way it looks

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I've never totally started over, but I did a ton of drawing edits (and a few writing edits!) on my first chapter before releasing it to the public. The previous version of the chapter does look far less polished. But even then, I really only completely redrew 1 or 2 panels. The rest was just liquifying wonky faces and whatnot. Still, once it got printed, I basically locked the artwork. With how long new pages take, I really don't have time to look back much anymore which is its own kind of blessing!

In that way, I'm very glad I kept it private for a while. I wasn't confident with my skills yet - and I wanted some wiggle room. It's part of the reason I encourage people to at least have some sort of foundation, so that the jump in improvement isn't so... startling

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I actually kind of love to be startled by art evolution

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah I could see myself editing wonky faces and things like that more than I can see myself redrawing! My pages only take me like 2 hours and I still wouldn't redraw, can't imagine what your timeframe would look like...

But not in your own work, crona?

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

It happened with a lovely comic called Wind Rose, and it is so inspiring

I wouldn't say I don't like it in my work

More that I was completely changing art styles too

Deo101 [Millennium]

I see

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I think starting a comic is a good way to get those foundational skills though, lazuli

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Even if you didn't post it online, you did start

Which I think is enough

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

one of the biggest examples of art style shift I've seen

Comic is still doing really well though!

I don't think anyone minded the art evolution at all

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

@Eightfish (Puppeteer) Yeah, that's my dilemma! I've seen a couple very new comic artists burn out quickly, or say that they're relaunching because of their own unhappiness. And part of me wants to tell them to slow down - they don't need to post anything, just use it as a training ground.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Of course, if you yourself hate your old art you're probably more important(edited)

hm

It's still nice to have your story read though

even if just by a few friends

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I haven't read through it, but I know this is another good example...

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

another one!

This was intentional though, to convey a change in setting

It's kind of fun to look at these comparisons(edited)

I think most readers would feel the same

carcarchu

my most inspiring art evolution is from zero point idol chapter 1

chapter 90

the artist also got better at panelling too. also not only did the art change but the genre completely did too. it started out as a comedy romance then slowly became a drama romance

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Looks like you switched the images around?

carcarchu

oh it's in the right order on my side

the more bishounen looking one should be the newer one

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Oh! I think the more colorful one looks much better actually?

But perhaps the author chose a different style to draw more quickly?

carcarchu

uh i think the opposite

the newer art looks objectively better

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

okay i'm gonna look it up maybe I will think differently if i see a bunch of panels in context

looking it up it is definitely clear that the author is putting much more effort into later updates.

Though skimming it I still sort of prefer the style of the earlier pages?

carcarchu

i have never heard someone say that before

people usually complain they got gipped in the first chapter lol

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Can't say anything about the paneling or anything like that because I just skimmed it

Well, I like the style of the things in the first pages that they tried harder on

There are a lot of like, chibi or messy panels there

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

I'm looking up the titles for these screencaps you guys presented!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

The first one I shared is A Matter of Life and Death!

The second is YU+ME Dream (highly recommend)(edited)

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Seconded, YUME is very good and it's complete!

kayotics

I think there’s a lot of good reasons to restart or redraw past pages, but there’s a lot of people who DO get trapped in the constant iterative state of restarting/redrawing their comic, and then they don’t get anywhere with it

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

It's hard to come up with any consistent advice because people have different goals starting their comic. Like, some people just wanna do a comic to get better at art, or because they have a bunch of OCs that they want to do something with. And to those people... like, just have fun with it. Now, if you have a full story in mind, and your goal is to complete it in a timely manner that isn't overwhelming (without sacrificing on quality), this is the advice I give: 1) Plan out your story. You don't need to do a full script or whatever, but do try to have at least an outline, with an estimate of how many pages each part will be. 2) Spend a typical month (like, a month that you also have other work to do) drawing the first few pages of your comic. Don't post them yet. Count the number of pages you drew. The number you post per month should be less than that. e.g. if you drew 6 pages in that month, you should post 1 page each week. That way, you can have a bit of leeway to build a buffer without burning out. 3) Look back at that outline. How many pages did you plan it out to be? And how often are you planning on posting each page? Let's see... carry the two... this comic's gonna take HOW many years to complete?! 4) If you're comfortable with the task ahead of you, continue on to step 5. Otherwise, cut some stuff from your outline and repeat step 3. 5) Have fun with it! You might change your mind on future plot points, and that's ok! Just... try to do so in a way that doesn't create more work for yourself.

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

My advice is to just get started. I see so many people caught up in the idea that you need to perfect your art skills before starting a comic and then they just never start working on it

Your art is never going to be "perfect" and its better to have a tangible comic than a perfect one

I don't mean that in a discouraging way I just mean like no one can really achieve perfection and it's better to just create things

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

I like snuffysam's advice because I have noticed there are different kinds of approach to webcomics. Some do it for fun and practice like I do nowadays. While others have a big long form series they are deeply passionate about but to start it seem overwhelming. Everyone's advice is pretty great! (edited)

DanitheCarutor

Fff I don't feel like I'm really qualified to give advice to people. I don't take art and comics seriously enough to follow most rules, so I would just be a bad influence if anything. Lol (Also everyone else has already said what I would.) I guess the one thing I would tell someone on the fence about starting their comic is to do it when you're ready. Like, I wanted to start doing comics when I was 15 but I wasn't quite mentally ready yet? I was used to doing illustrations so I couldn't stick with doing anything longer than 1 page, throughout the years I experimented with doing 1-2 pages of random scenes in stories I wanted to do, it wasn't until I hit my 20s when I was like "Okay, I want to do this!" In a way I didn't totally get into comic mode until my current project, since I was still feeling things out with the previous ones. Kinda went on a tangent there. Lol But yeah, comics are a huge commitment, I don't think it's super good to push yourself into starting if you're not mentally ready yet. Give yourself some time, do some casual stuff to prepare for the comic you really want to do in the meantime (brainstorming, concept art, character studies, etc.), or don't think about it at all if that's how you do things, then when you really get that itch go for it.

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

My advice won't be anything that hasn't been touched on in this chat (so many good vibes ;_;) but I do wanna say that if I had any advice for someone to get into comics, it's to do it for yourself as the main priority. Webcomic popularity has been on the rise very quickly in this past decade, with copious amounts of creators trying their hand at their One Story, competition, exposure, and pressure are sure to set in with this wild ride that is comic making. So what do you do to combat that? How do you stay above water, make sure you have fun, or avoid turning this into what seems like never ending homework? You make your goal you. Whether You want to improve, whether You want to explore characters, or whether You just want to experiment- such a large project (let's be real, there's no easy way to do comics!) should be handled with that initial fire you had when you wanted to start the project, when you felt inspired to lay those panels down and tell that story. Don't compare your journey to others, don't feel that pressure to always Be Something.(edited)

Comics are a medium, just like film, canvas, or Video games for that matter, they have their own process and steps. Find what works for you and enjoy the ride, because it could easily turn into a long one!

eliushi [a winged tale]

I love it Krispy! You gotta do what you love

I’m just curious. What are your personal goals that keeps you going for the comic if you don’t mind sharing?

(And for anyone to answer too!)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I get what you mean and 100% agree with you. But I wanna bring up a caviat -- some people use the whole "do it for yourself" thing to shut down creators who are doing it for themselves, but also want some recognition. It's not their main priority, but it is a thing they want and it's okay to want it. I guess that goes back to the other advice about getting support. Find support, find people who won't make you feel guilty for simply wanting some recognition. People who will understand and support your goals.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

told myself that I won't let my self to lay my soul to rest till I'm done with the projects I have

so lmao that's somethin that drives me contracted to keep living till everything I do is finished lmao(edited)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

One of my friends got told she wasn't a Real Writer simply because she wanted a readership. That kinda disrespect is not okay

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

oh dang

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

oh that is a whole different level from what i'm saying for sure

first off those people can go away lol

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeeeah

Again, not what you were saying, just... how SOME people twist the advice

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

and secondly, if you're not doing your work for yourself, you can easily fall into pleasing others and drown in Trying to Stay relevant, burning your creative drive too (i mean, if you can make ur comic and do that , good on you woah) but i've seen multiple comic artists crash and burn for the sole purpose of doing the comic in competition with others, convincing themselves that 'other styles' are crap bc their own work doesnt match up (gosh that was a rough one) and all in all, them just becoming so bitter with their work! THOUGH! this essentially applies to all creative fields and not just comics! And those entitled ppl who do that suffer from jealousy and nothing else. I cannot stand for those types who tear others down when faced with their own insecurity

and creators have every right to ask for help too. y'all deserve that recognition for the hard work you do, sometimes however, that isn't always available to them

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

yea

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

(which is why we gotta lift eachother up!)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

You bring up a good topic that's very relevant to my struggles. It can be very difficult to know: is it okay to disregard this criticism. Am I allowed to do that? Am I allowed to like this thing about my work that people are pointing out as the bad part? Or does that make me a.... bad creator. Unprofessional, bratty, whatever. I'm not even talking about picking a fight/ getting verbally defensive. Just, silently disagreeing. I WANT to say the answer is yes, we are free to have our own opinion about our work. But dang if it isn't hard to feel guilty for doing it.

eliushi [a winged tale]

I think any trailblazers and pioneers feel this sort of sentiment.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

That sounds about right

I don't really think of myself as a pioneer, but it is still something I feel in my bones

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I guess that’s the beauty of a self-run webcomic. You are the boss. Your viewership can give you critique, but you can choose what to listen to. You’re not beholden to a higher power (producer, director, patron, etc) to change things no matter what. It’s your project to run, and oftentimes only YOU know where it’s going, and you know how that criticism would change things.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

ya lmao. idk like I don't see a lot of stories that run in conflict of towards what I'm doing so it's kinda nervewracking when you're like "oh god am I setting a good example or what? Should I be worried when I just want to create and share a story?"

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

If you can be proud of the story as-is, I think there’s power in that, and it comes through in the work. A confident comic is a lovely thing.

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

That makes me really sad that you have these struggles Kei. Your work is a project of love. Love for the things that inspire you, love for the way to tell your story, and love for that process. You are allowed to proud and tell the world about it, you are allowed to embrace the success that you gain from your work. We as comic makers do SO MUCH WORK and wear SO MANY HATS to make this mainly free to read story available, and that should be celebrated. SO YES, you CAN and you MUST choose what you want to take from others comments, their feedback, reactions, etc- but in the end, it's still about what YOU wanted to make of this work, bc in the end, you are the wheel that keeps this whole thing spinning

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I dunno about confident, but I can say my comic is an honest one. Even if I don't feel confident, I still don't let outside criticisms change what I do.

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

webcomic creators aren't given the space they need to grow a lot of times too-- we're essentially producing work that easily requires a small studio to create- there's gonna be ups and downs to the process. But you have to keep in mind for your own sanity that this is still your work and your vision. If you want to explore options of improving then you should be in control of that. (we all know how i feel about crits from randos too XD!)

eliushi [a winged tale]

Agree so much Krispy. I think everyone’s goals and visions for their project are valid and if they sustain your project, then that’s a success in itself

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

agreed!

eliushi [a winged tale]

Often I see this tip and pass on to other writers that when they write their story it’s important to think of a logline or something central that is the heart of the story. I put that as my first page so every time I open my document I see it. I think it’s the same for webcomics. Find the heart of your story — why you want to write it and remind yourself of that. I find it’s helpful to keep me going

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

omg eli....i love that!!!

sierrabravo (Hans Vogel is Dead)

wow that is really great advice eliushi!! I'd love to steal that if you don't mind?

eliushi [a winged tale]

Please do!! It’s a gift!!

take ittt

Miranda

these are all such great suggestions. You people are a fountain of wisdom.

Deo101 [Millennium]

I wrote in the header of my documents, "everything bad that happens in the story is because of me, and everything good happens because of them." Basically to remind myself not to do any sort of ex machina or whatever. And also put my tagline. It definitely helps!

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I think it's a good guideline -- the "pure luck can only be the bad kind" thing. But my bro brought up the Walking Dead (I think? either that or some other really well known zombie thing?) as an example of going too far in that direction. He said the characters take a turn, open a door, etc. and the zombies just come pouring out like an unholy explosive diarrhea all of sudden, to a point where he was like "lol?" He said it was like the universe was setting it up against the characters, and he couldn't take it seriously. He's played/watched lots of zombie stuff so he's no stranger to jump scares or zombies appearing in hordes, but that one was still too much for him.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

wh lmao about that spoiler part like

Deo101 [Millennium]

Oh yeah no, too much of anything is bad.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah like, I can see that kind of extreme bad luck being used in farce comedy

Deo101 [Millennium]

Ahaha yeah

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I wonder what a story would be like in the opposite direction where everything bad that happens to them is because of them and everything good that happens to them is because of the writer

Deo101 [Millennium]

Everything Goes Bad Man A horrible superhero trying to do his best

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

A comedy! Could also make it a Shakespearean tragedy

Deo101 [Millennium]

Horror could make it work too

I was meaning my thing more like uhh, make them earn their good things and success kinda thing

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Depressing drama about a person who tries to succeed in life but fails at every turn

Nah I got it deo

Just throwing out hypotheticals

Deo101 [Millennium]

I would hate to watch or read any of these horrible things btw

But it's fun to hypothesize

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I think for like, most stories, your direction is much more engaging

I don't want to watch someone fail over and over

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

There's also that trope where everything goes bad despite their effort, and then Luck just drops success on the character's lap, leaving them feeling empty

Deo101 [Millennium]

Me either LOL coming out of stories like that is always like 0_0 well nkw I'm just depressed

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

But I think something like watamote, a comedy about a socially inept girl, might be an example of what I said that a lot of people like. I haven't watched it though so I'm not sure

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, I don't know that specific one, but there are cases where people feel comforted by reading about tough luck in that "I'm not the only one" way. Certainly not everyone's cup of tea, though.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Oh

Grave of the Fireflies

That movie seemed more like a message about war though. It seemed like it was trying to say something

I think I could enjoy a depressing story like that if it was nonfiction or historical fiction

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

It was sorta semi-autobiographical (not 100% but inspired by his own experience)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Something that feels real

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

yeah, grave of the fireflies WAS based off of the author's experiences

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I personally am okay with depressing fiction if it feels real

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Same

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Doesn't have to be based on true events

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

his sister and him were taken in by the aunt and they were actually left that way the sister died of starvation (edited)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Hey, spoiler tag that!

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

whoops mbad

Deo101 [Millennium]

I'm one of those who is 100% not... I can be okay with and love depressing stories after having seen it and then getting time away from it, but watching or reading them is a horrible experience for me

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

My Sweet Orange Tree is thought to be at least sort of based on the author's own experience, and I think that adds something to the book. (Can't confirm because the author's dead.) But even if it were pure fiction, it would remain a lovely, compelling book.

@Deo101 [Millennium] Nothing is for everyone!

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

I remember feeling really depressed for the rest of the day after watching grave of the fireflies

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Not everything bad that happens to them was their own fault, but Grave of the Fireflies was sort of a story about pride though. A boy who refused to suck it up and apologize to his aunt, resulting in his and his sister's deaths. I think that did make the story more powerful

hubris and all that

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

so I can definitely relate to only watching short bursts of depressing stuff

Deo101 [Millennium]

I honestly try to avoid them entirely, not even short bursts tbh

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

correct! however, a lot of viewers also blamed the aunt for not keeping them. Apparently the real life aunt felt a lot of remorse for being indirectly responsible for their deaths, and her daughter was angry at her. However, the aunt was also feeling depression from her husband who recently died

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I read them rarely, but I feel like they make me more? Grounded? I liked the way Man's Search for Meaning (Holocaust survivor's book) changed the way I thought of the world

Deo101 [Millennium]

I'm just hyperempathetic and they really hurt me

Not like I'm like "I wanna be ignorant" or anything

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I think that one scene with the farmer telling him to suck up his pride was highlighting that he could have been taken back in but refused to even try

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

@Deo101 [Millennium] 100% Valid!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Yeah. Entertainment is supposed to be fun or meaningful and if it's not then don't read it

Although, I do really believe we should learn about these topics in school at least

You have to be exposed to them somewhat

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah I just don't like the kind of idea that gritty depressing stuff is more realistic, I understand learning about history and hardships but it's not something I like to think of as like "the truth jusy is that the world is terrible" it makes me feel very alone because I work very hard to see the world nit like that.

Miranda

Re: the extreme bad luck/I cause all the bad stuff for my characters I saw a tip that said coincidences can happen to get your characters into trouble, but not to get them out of trouble, and I thought that was an excellent way of putting that. (sorry to plop that in the midst of the most recent discussion)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

TBH as someone who has lived in Eccentric Relatives' House under not so great circumstances, I didn't even get any hint of "the boy should've sucked up" from Grave of Fireflies. My experience may have been worse than the boy's in his aunt's house though, and maybe my bias led me to see his experience as being just as unfair as mine. In any case it's been years since I watched it, so maybe I'm forgetting some key details.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I think "realistic" means a mix of good and bad

My favorite nonfiction books contain a lot of cruelty, but also very good people

Reading about people's good work and outlooks despite tragedies really got to me

Or like, perseverance

Perseverance as a theme really, really hits me

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah I like perseverance but I hate stories that are hopeless or treat hope as naiive

It makes me angry tbh

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

oof same yeah

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

the aunt was still feeding them though, and allowing them to stay. If he had left his sister at home and tried to get a job like his cousins did, I think it is implied that they would have survived.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I do like my dark themes but lmao i dont want to go to wreckless cruelty. there's an art with that(edited)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Endless pessimism is as unrealistic as endless optimism(edited)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I feel like there's hopeless stories and there's stories that treat hope as naive. The former is like, yeah sure, not everyone's cup of tea, but the latter is like "if this isn't your cup of tea, then you're dumb" which is

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah I don't mind dark themes it's just that sort of grittiness, humanity is inherently evil, hope gets you nothing kind of stories that I hate

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Btw. My favorite nonfiction books: Man's Search for Meaning The Gift of Fear The Gift of Pain (no relation to the gift of fear) All showcase a lot of cruelty and suffering but all are still very hopeful

I know it's unlikely you guys will read them but

They're good and I still reccoemend them highly

They are books that changed the way i think

They are also all written by people who have gone through and seen terrible things and yet made it their life's work to help others

I just can't reccomend them enough

But I will stop talking about it now

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

for me, uhhh it's from famial experiences mostly

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Do you think your stories err on the side of optimism or pessimism?

@ everyone

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

since most of my family suffered from the vietnam war, a lot of stuff they told me were fist hand accounts of war and cruetlty

like from my mom, my dad, my aunties and uncles

even like the older members of my communties so that stuff is still fresh lmao

Deo101 [Millennium]

Optimism. I want to say neither but I know nearly no one would read it and say it's realistic

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Oh, I've had similar stories. My great grandmother had her whole family except her killed by a Japanese bomb and my family, despite traveling a lot, has still never visited Japan out of respect to her

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

but since they already living better lives I see that the darkness in those times have at least kick started them out to their kind of propserity or still striving towards

so I see myself as a realist lmao

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

I think my stories usually go a bit more on the pessimistic side I’m afraid. People have remarked that my more emotional scenes can be surprisingly dark, so I’m trying to introduce some more heartwarming scenes

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I don't wanna say "err on the side of".... I do bittersweet and slightly LEAN towards the bitter more often than not! But I think this particular aspect may be partly up to the readers to gauge.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I think my story is realistic to me. The worst my characters experience is similar to mine, and the best is also similar to mine. But I have no idea if my own life has had more good or more bad than the "average person"

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

"Sometimes life super sucks in ways you have little to no control over, but you can still be there for each other, and that really, really counts" <--- is this too bitter or just right? That's up to each reader to answer, I think.

Deo101 [Millennium]

Hey you said optimism or pessimism you gotta pick

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

like there is hope and optimism but that is meaningless without the critical side of things. and I want to depict those sides in life.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Optimism

But I'm optimistic

Deo101 [Millennium]

Keiiii that's the way I write too and I think it's optimistic

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

My life has shown me that I can escape bad things so I don't think optimism is unrealistic though

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

You can't fix life but you can give love

Deo101 [Millennium]

Exactly

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

i guess for my stories they kinda like what keii said like there's good side of things but lmao I somehow add some painful elements that they have to endure in order to have those good times(edited)

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

personallly I think stories work if you give people hope

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Eh, not every story is meant to give hope

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Yeah

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

but it's a good goal

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

like as long as you give people a semblance of hope, even if you throw some depressing stuff.....it can work. Oh, I meant as a bittersweet story

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

But I think not giving hope is unrealistic

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

lmao I guess I'm a target since the last story i write

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Though perhaps I only think that because I haven't experienced true tragedy(edited)

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

it was just bleak in a hopeful light

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

It depends, like I can imagine a short story that hyperfocuses on something extremely depressing.

Deo101 [Millennium]

Y'know what I have actually hopeless things in my life and I have 0 interest in reading a story that's hopeless

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

ye and that's fair

Deo101 [Millennium]

And even though I have hopeless experiences I don't think my life overall is hopeless

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

i wonder if people actively look for stories that focus on not having hope because i know many people read these stories as a way to escape their lives

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I agree on that. idk. for me writing stories that lead to an end that really don't work with both parties... could be just my morbid curosity in just seeing how things won't work out as planned for both persons.

could be like a philosophical thing maybe? or giving a different perspective of some sorts?

like "things are the same but given with the option you gave me, I can't go through with that"

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I can relate to curiosity being a motivation for exploring dark stories. It's why I check out horror stories -- horror stories (games especially) show the MC in an extremely "wrong" situation at the beginning, and I check them out to find out the presumably equally extreme "why" for that wrongness. I don't think I could write stories like that myself, though.

Psychological horror specifically

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

yeah, horror has been uh ingraned in my life to this point. and I like writing stories with that kind of edge in mind, more of the psycholgial aspects than horror.

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

Do you guys think some people search for morbid stories like these to not only satisfy their curiousity....but also to make themselves feel better about their own lives?

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I don't particularly care to find out why Mr. Chainsaw is going around killing everyone in a splatter/slasher horror, for instance X'D

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

it's a possibility tbh.

sometimes I do that but I also had experienced simalar kinds of sorts that seeing those works i'm like "dang not alone in these wack feels"

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I guess it depends on each person?

"Gee, at least I don't have any literal demons coming after my eyeballs" is not very comforting to me, personally

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

i mean lmao

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Sometimes sad stories do make me feel more thankful for my own peaceful life but I don't seek them out for that reason

Deo101 [Millennium]

Imagine if ur disabled and that's the narrative used to make other people feel better about their lives

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

DX

Deo101 [Millennium]

Off topic but that's why disabled people hate "inspiration porn"

It's something that's really hard to explain cause "do you not want to inspire people" is really hard to answer

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

yeah, those kinds of stories I really don't like at all.

Deo101 [Millennium]

So I wanted to jump on the opportunity to explain even though it's really off topic sorry

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

No, don't be sorry. "Life sucks but hey, at least you're not me!" is not something anyone should have to put up with

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

it's understandable tho!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

To be honest I do seek out stories about disability because I find it fascinating how people adapt to mental and physical changes. I find ingenuity very interesting?

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I guess I look at it more towards like how some relationships with people don't work, and also the diaconomy between individuals interest me. Not for those kinds of stories but I've seen elements of that appear in some works i read in the past

Deo101 [Millennium]

I also seek out stories about disabilities, but only hopeful ones not like "my life is ruined and this is my driving motivation, to not be like this"

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

One of the books I recommended was by a doctor who spent his life working with people with leprosy and the workarounds for missing limbs and sensation he and his patients would come up with was just so fascinating to me to read

It's something that's really hard to explain cause "do you not want to inspire people" is really hard to answer

@Deo101 [Millennium] I think I understand you but just curious- how do you respond to that?(edited)

Deo101 [Millennium]

It's usually like "I want to inspire people to be like me because they're proud of what I can do" but they're always like "I'm proud of what you can do in spite of-" and it's like. Idk just a deep sigh

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

oh yeah rip

i had that happened to me before like "Dang you do did this and you're from some a family that suffered so much--"

"uh huh please focus on the work not my life thanks lmao"

Deo101 [Millennium]

Like don't hold me to a different, lower standard. Don't pity me

Yeah exactly

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Hm it's sort of true but also if someone said "I'm proud of what you can do despite not having a dad" I'd be like fuck yoooouuuu

Deo101 [Millennium]

Like there's other things please

It's like, pity. It's not actually inspiration I think

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I'm proud of what you can do in spite of not having a brain

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

pity has left the building

like sure, yeah let's go with that but there's other experiences other than my background and my identity the brought out this work too. that's how we can get some unique voices into the field.

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

so yeah, I can understand rip people saying fustrating things like that. maybe they don't have a better way of phrasing it. orz

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

At the very least it's better than the opposite side

"your experiences were not that bad" angle

Deo101 [Millennium]

I get that a lot also

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

and sadly I too experienced that angle LMAO

Deo101 [Millennium]

LMAO tuyetnhi same hat

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

no one wins

hurrah

most of it came about because of my mixed idenity like I don't get hit by the usual racism my viet friends experienced

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

This is overall a very small thing but I casually mentioned I was attracted to women to a long time friend yesterday and she went full on "thank you so much for coming out to me this doesn't change my opinion of you I love you you're a great friend" And then the conversation got hella stilted and awkward after that and AG I Hate that

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

but er.... I have seen people look at me and was like "mixed baby? that's hot"

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Wtfff

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

"please no."

it's wack like u put me in a scale where that scale is already wack to begin with

it don't make sense lmao

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

wait what the fuck

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

People are like why TF are u using a cane you're young and I tell them I have a condition and they're like, what does it do and I say the symptoms and they're like :/ I get those too :/

Freak out and tell them to get tested right away

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

also i really get annoyed when I see people just.......treat people with personality disorders like we're all psychos and tell others

hey at least you're not like these psychos

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Oh the telling others bit(edited)

Nooooo

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

like my experience isn't that universal but it's already terible enough knowing that if you have mixed ethncities then you're treated as an "exotic creature" and i'm like "I'll shoot you down"

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Mann luckily I grew up in a place where that doesn't really happen

I hope

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

Oh my god i'm glad i live in a really diverse city and yeah deo....they do

we get labelled "troubled people" particularly if we're female in the mental health sector

a LOT of psychiatrists push us around and they use it as code for "difficult"

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

rip I live where 80% the folks here are mostly er homogenous white folk

and they ask me these questions that I know boil me blood

I'm too poor for cali man

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

oooooof I feel that tuyetnhi i went to a really white uni town for my alma mater

i got called a tall chink by a frat boy there

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

yeah I experienced that shit durring uni

it sucks

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

yoooo you can also come to toronto if you can't go to cali ;3

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I can travel to toronto but lmao maybe next year

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

maybe ;A;;

also @Eightfish (Puppeteer) wait what do you mean by your question? is it pertaining to personality disorders or to the race questions?

......yeah people tend to treat you better if they don't know you have a personality disorder

LMAO I MEAN TRUE, that's pretty obvious XD

because people think that personality disorders are untreatable. And I would like people to be more informed about them

Heck, a lot of people don't even know about BPD. So I'd rather that people stay informed about it, even if it means that I might suffer for it.

What if there's another person with BPD who needed help but the people around them didn't know? And I don't think it's fair to keep it hidden when it can easily damage relationships.

Deo101 [Millennium]

And also, "why don't you just hide that part of yourself if people treat you badly for how you are?" Is hardly ever a healthy way of dealing with things

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

better be informed than being ignorant

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

Yeah...I've actually considered just...putting a joke warning label on myself lmao

(but thank you guys for understanding <3)

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

negatively changed? rip

ohhh nooo

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

yeah.....it's kinda like.....just because you have these negative experiences, you try not to let it stop you

because there's ALWAYS a chance that you'll meet people who understand

........I actually told a good friend that I had bpd and she started ghosting me. She was scared of me and thought i was...."weird"

and scary.

She was scared that i was gonna go psycho.

but I think it's important to know that not everyone is going to be an asshole.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

it really is

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

i had a psychiatrist tell me that i probably lost friends....because i was a bitch ;A;

after formally diagnosing me with bpd

yeah and i had one psychiatrist just....diagnost me with anxiety disorder and he wouldn't listen to me just gave me a survey to fill out

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

makes them feel like they're 2d?

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

yeah and they are usually very complex and have very VERY varied pasts doesn't help that the media paints us as monsters in horror movies a lot

you see sociopathy and antisocial disorder in the news a lot and then they see people with bpd and they're like

LOOK! YANDERES!

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

ooooffff

that's not even part of the DSM lmaO

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

screams every time i see an article about how to "save yourself from someone with BPD"

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

speaking from my experiences as a former psyche major

like that can't be determined solely just by those factors alone

cormidbity is a factor too

oh my godddd

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I get that a lot

also yeah psychiatrists..........they need to keep themselves updated man

they put a lot of blanket terms for people with pds because it's easier or maybe because psychiatrists are simply not equipped to deal with people with pds?

i mean look how many psychiatrists i've met or heard fuck it up with bpd

and that's one of THE EASIEST pds to rehabilitate

imagine rehabilitating someone with narcissism or sociopathy

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

APD

is the proper term lmao

or ASPD

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

also eightfish....nope. it's a really long LONG road to rehabilitation. Some take years.

but it's kinda...a relief to be diagnosed OH WHOOPS

mbad

OH MY GOD THE TRANSGENDER THING

coughs in victorian times exCUSE me

hugs

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

rip this is from my understanding but if the condition of the disorder is either: a combination of bringing harm to yourself, restricting yourself from your routines, harm to others, or sense of losing control of your daily life then they will mostly likely dianoise. though that's what I

I've known years ago rip. idk if they hold up those standards today

or changed things from it

it really bites when you're seeking help and the folks that supposed to help you say like "but you're normally functioning so I see no problem ya u free to go"

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

"if we can't see it you're not injured so get the fuck back to work"

psychiatrists who just brush you off because it doesn't fit THEIR narrative piss you off

like you're going to them for help....and they categorize you as they see fit

and when you try to go against them they label you as "difficult"

eliushi [a winged tale]

Hey friends, good discussions here but just wondering if it’s best in #general as this will be archived? Just want you all to be safe

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

ah okay! Thank you Eli

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

Oof wait archived?

In what way?

eliushi [a winged tale]

Check pins(edited)

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

OH GOD

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

Ahh

I'm deleting every message lol

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

(And this convo is off topic)

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

will do man

Deo101 [Millennium]

already on it

I just deleted everything to about 1 cause I think thats where we went off topic

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Oh shit yeah this is creator babble

I will delete messages as well

[mysticsparklewings]

Fairy Enchanting‪

A bit later than I expected, but here we have the art that I used for the examples on my Commission Sheet! (Unoriginal title is unoriginal and also a pun based on "very enchanting") When I started thinking about putting together a commission sheet in the first place (which was something I wanted to do for the new year, as before I was just using a lengthy pricelist), I knew that I wanted to make a piece of art specifically for it and track my progress as I went, so that I would have an example for each stage in the process I take commissions for. And for the art, I more or less wanted to "go all out" since it's supposed to be an example, and I figure the example needs to be as close to top-notch as possible. Admittedly, I probably could've done even more than this, but me being me I procrastinated and ended up having less time to work on this that I initially expected, so... In deciding what the drawing would be, I also decided to return to my roots a little, and a do fairy as an homage to back when I used to do Winx art all the time. Likewise, as Enchantix to this day is my favorite transformation from the show, I drew heavy inspiration from it, and I'm sure that's so obvious that if you know the show I probably didn't have to point it out to you. Anyway. I actually didn't start completely from scratch with the sketch; I re-used this pose from a previous sketch I did that never saw a full-finished piece. I liked that other sketch okay, but it didn't feel like a "finish me" project. I did have to alter the feet because the original sketch was made with feet for ballet slippers (bigger heels, more rounded/curved toes, etc.) and much later on in the process I ended up angling the leg on the left more outward, as that felt more natural for the direction I was taking this new sketch in. In sketching all the bits that make this sketch otherwise unique from the old one, as I mentioned, I was taking heavy inspiration from Enchantix. One of my favorite parts of the transformation has always been the leg-wrap/barefoot sandals, for reasons I can't explain. So those were a must. I also really like how the Enchantix outfits tend to be short dresses that are more form-fitting at the top and more flowy and soft at the bottom. Here, I decided to bring the ribbony look on the leg wraps up into the bodice, and to frame the collar/shoulder area I used a sleeve & choker style similar to what I did for the dress for Ink Dance, which itself was based on a dress I actually own and love to pieces despite never getting a chance to wear it because of how fancy it is. The main difference for both of the drawing versions is that I skipped the lace overlay that connects the sleeves and choker, mostly because both pieces are traditional and drawing lace/mesh traditionally, especially when it's so teeny, is a nightmare I do not want to engage with. And the choker part fits nicely, as in Enchantix each fairy has a necklace (usually a choker) that holds their fairy dust bottle. I'm not sure if this fairy has one or not, but she very well could! Enchantix usually has long gloves, but I altered these to be shorter and fingerless (more like Magic Winx or Believix gloves) since this fairy is also based partially on myself, and I'd be more likely to wear that kind than the full-length formal gloves. And for the hair, as is maybe obvious, I was primarily inspired by Stella's for her Enchantix, since I've always loved that part of the transformation sequence for her's. Also, even though it doesn't look that way on my commission sheet, IRL I drew only one wing and left it separate, off to the side, to make positioning and flipping it easier. Once the sketch was done, I did try inking it traditionally/by hand once, and I just really wasn't happy with how it turned out. And I also realized I had drawn the skirt billowing/ruffling in completely the wrong direction anyway; It was moving to the left when it should've been moving to the right like the hair. So I had to take time out to fix that. As opposed to wasting more paper trying to ink traditionally after that fiasco, I instead went with what had been my gut instinct anyway; I scanned the sketch in and did the lines in Photoshop. Well, most of the lines. I was a dumb-dumb and when I did the lines for the wings, 1. it took forever because they're large curves everywhere and 2. I used a slightly bigger brush than for all the other lines, as I had mistakenly thought I was going to be re-sizing them significantly and the lines would be altered to for me when I did that. When I realized that wasn't the case, I did not want to have to redraw most of those curves again and risk not being able to get the right a second time. So I ended up booting a copy of the wings I'd already done into Paint Tool Sai and made use of the linework layers to redo the wings without having to draw the same line fifty times. Then I booted that back into Photoshop and adjusted the wings to be angled/aligned with the rest of the lines as I saw necessary. It was also at this point that I played around with positioning the leg on the left more outward than what it was on the sketch and ended up going with the position you see here. I could have then gone back and added weight to the lines in some places, but at this stage, I was already thinking that I wanted to print the lines out and use my digital lines to hopefully get cleaner traditional ones, as opposed to just printing the lines off outright. (Mostly because I wanted to use some super thick mixed media paper that I would bet serious money will not go through my printer.) That's what I ended up doing, and I have to say that attempt went a lot more smoothly than me trying to ink from the original sketch. And once I had the initial lines done, then I went back and thickened them in certain places. And I should probably mention here that the wings were a little tricky to figure out how to handle traditionally, as that's not something I've had to do very often. I ended up using my clear stardust gelly roll when I did the normal inking, and then, later on, I used colored pencils to go back over the outlines before coloring them in. After doing some tests, I started coloring with markers for the hair and skin, and a little colored pencil for some blush. I tried to get a little more bold with the shading than I usually do, which I'm sure still looks pretty tame compared to most. But I'd rather the shading be too light than too dark. Originally, I thought I was going to do all or mostly all of the coloring with alcohol markers. (Sidenote: is it just me or does it seem like there’s a lot of alcohol marker related stuff going on in the art world lately??) But then I did some testing with the lines I originally inked and didn’t like, and was reminded why I normally don’t use alcohol markers for gradients like the one on the skirt...frankly, I’m not very good at them...yet. Even though the test went better than expected, I still wasn’t happy with it. Then I tried a few more tests with watercolor, and that didn’t fare much better. Watercolor would’ve worked if the gradient wasn’t also supposed to be shaded, I think, but trying to shade it without using another supply wasn’t working. That left me with good ol' tried and true colored pencils. But colored pencils are relatively slow and textured, and I didn't really want that for the skin. The texture would've worked for the hair, but I didn't want to make the time investment for it either. And so I ended up sticking to my mixed media instincts and I used the colored pencil exclusively where I had to (on the dress so I could get the gradient for the skirt right) and then I used alcohol markers everywhere else, shading and all. With the alcohol marker doing most of the work, then I came back and added additional shading/highlights with the colored pencils as needed to everything except the skin. I added blush, but otherwise, I was quite pleased with how the skin turned out and didn't want to touch it for the risk of ruining it. The dress is supposed to be black/really dark gray, but I did brighten it up a bit with some of the blues from the skirt gradient as opposed to pulling out specific grays, so it definitely looks/feels more navy in the final product. Although my relatively dark/saturated color choices for her outfit made figuring out what to then do with the wings more challenging. I didn't want the wings to be the exact same colors as the rest of the drawing, because then they'd blend in too easily and be too distracting from the rest of the piece. But at the same time, I wanted them to match/look like they belong. (Again, similar to how the wings are in Enchantix) After some back-and-forth testing and a LOT of color sampling, I decided to color the wings in with alcohol markers in colors that were similar to her clothes but overall lighter/more pastel and outline them and the sections inside the wings again in colored pencil. Most of the colored pencil is slightly darker than the marker colors I picked, but I went with purple for the black/gray rims of the wings because I thought a dark gray or black would be too harsh. I'd already decided I wanted to do a slightly more complex background digitally, but even with that in mind, the traditional drawing still felt like it was missing one more thing after that. Namely, the wings didn't seem special enough. I realize that sounds a little weird; I was just talking about how I didn't want the wings to be too distracting, but I think there is a delicate balance to having them be special in the way fairy wings should be while still not overpowering everything else. And I'm not sure I achieved that, but I at least tried to. Though not a perfect solution, I ended up adding some metallic watercolor on top of the "true" (less purple-y) blue and pink sections on the wings.  You can't really tell here on the scan, and what little you can appears to be the wrong color, but in person, both colors now how a lovely pink or blue sheen to them when you move the picture in the light. (The metallic paints, in this case, are very opalescent, so they're almost completely transparent when you see the flat color despite still have a really pretty metallic sheen in the light.) After that, I felt there wasn't much more I could do traditionally, so I scanned it and moved on to that background. At this point, I was kinda pressed for time because me being me, I had unintentionally put making my commission sheet off to the last minute. I really wanted to have it finished before the ball dropped on New Years' Eve ("new year, new me" and all that jazz), and I still hadn't finished my example art by sunset time the day of. So I had to keep things moving. Early on, I'd had the idea to either digitally make a slightly more complex (but not too complex; I wanted to keep at least a little of the sanity I have left) background or perhaps make a special watercolor piece to use as the background. Unfortunately, I just didn't have the time for that anymore if I wanted to have the commission sheet finished by my self-imposed deadline. (And if we're splitting hairs, in theory, I could still go back and change the background if I wanted to, for reasons I'm about to go over, so of all the things to get rush-cut that's really not so bad.) What I ended up doing instead was taking some of the left side of my Starfall Mountains painting (I was looking for a background-type thing I'd already done/made that would suit this drawing or that I could quickly tailor to make it work, and I'm just as surprised as anyone else that this frustrating tiny painting ended up being the one I liked best of my options) and I blew it up to comfortable cover the background here, flipped it around so the colors would flow a bit better, and used the hue/saturation slider to make it more of teal color for a little more contrast. But of course, there was still just one more thing missing, even after all that. After a little tinkering, I decided I didn't like trying to making the wings transparent (I could do it, I just didn't like the way it looked in this case), so I went in and added a touch of sparkles digitally to both tie them more into the piece as a whole and to give them a little more pizzazz. And finally, blessedly after all of that, the artwork was finished, I was very happy with it, and I could move on to making the actual commission sheet.   I have to say, for as rushed as it was towards the end, I do really like how it turned out. More particularly I like just how blended both digital and traditional art ended up being here. To me, this is the next step beyond what I was able to do for mixing digital and traditional art with my Doodle Moon piece, and if I weren't currently in the middle of a tablet crisis, I'd really want to do more with this concept of going back and forth between the two on one artwork. However because of the tablet situation, the thought of really trying to do that right now kinda fills me with dread, so we're gonna have to wait a little while on that. I do also really like the anatomy/proportions in this. Which is not something I normally feel comfortable saying.   It's not the best art I've ever made or anything, but looking at it makes me happy. It's good to see it finished and it's good to think of where a lot of the ideas for it came from. (Re: Nostalgia for my life a few years ago) I'm not sure if I will since it kinda counts but also kinda doesn't(?), but I'm tempted to put this and some of my old Enchantix drawings up on the "Draw This Again" template, just to show how far I've come. I'm still thinking about it, we'll see. Speaking of "we'll see," I got word that the sketchbooks from the contest I made Designiest Design for back in October are finally in, which means the prize packs should be sent out anytime now! I'm excited to see how the sketchbooks turned out and get my hands on the Powder Pack and see how said powders work! I was admittedly starting to wonder how that was coming along, so that was some good news and a nice surprise I'd really been needing here lately. Rest assured, there will almost definitely be an art piece talking about that stuff once I have it in my hands! 

____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble |   Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

[secretshinigami]

Masterlist of Demegawa-chan’s Special Prompts

A compiled list of everyone’s prompts from the exchange – thank you for letting us post them, and we hope you guys enjoy them! Prompts are organized by their submitter, so be sure to give credit if you use one.

niatsuki

Near and Light kissing

Mikami and Light in the rain sharing an umbrella

Misa in a suit

Domestic Mikalight

Matsuda confronting Near on the theory he brings up at the end of the manga

Nate and Light having an obtuse argument, but with romantic undertones

toygowther

Light wearing a crop top, high waisted jeans and fishnets, and a choker. 

L having a nice day out in the park eating ice cream with Maki and Near 

Musical!Light smiling

Misa in a cute gothic dress doing a finger heart

L and Light wearing Misa Misa merch at one of her concerts.

AU in which Light is actually a woman. The fic would follow how Misa reacts to it and if she would still want to be her girlfriend.

Role swap au. Light as Misa and Misa as Light.

Light and Misa meeting a different way and actually forming a healthy relationship. 

spaceblue

L, Naomi & B shenanigans

Naomi, Wedy and Lidner as Charlie's angels (or L's angels?)

Wammy kids as Pokemon trainers

Matt gets the rest of the Wammy kids to play Smash with him

Naomi and L after the end of LABB, after he says his name is Rue Ryuzaki 

Drama!L and drama!Raye Penber bickering 

hazblogs

your take on A's gender and sexuality, bonus points if they're not a cis man and straight

Mello and sun imagery

Beyond Birthday and his eyes

Near with Hanahaki disease (pick who it's about if you want a specific ship)

Mello and witchcraft, if possible in the canon universe

Naomi interacting with Beyond (au or canon), if possible talking about L or the Wammy kids

L/Light being soulmates, in canon or in an AU

how Matt started smoking (I am comfortable with heavy drug themes)

polyphenols

L learning to garden, paint, cook, do taxes, care for an animal, or pay for a parking ticket for the first time

All the times L has cursed Right In Front Of The Task Force (poor Soichiro)

L alone, dressed for the cold, in a cathedral during midnight hours, gazing at the altar in silent contemplation

Aiber and Wedy at an evening gala on a mission

L and Alessandro Juliani warmly shaking hands

Young Naomi in a darkened room with red string and case clippings everywhere

What chain of events led to Quillsh Wammy deciding to adopt L and care for him?

Matsuda cant swim and he’s knocked into a body of water on a case, one of the task force has to go after him

The conversation that happened between L and Rem before he walked out onto that rooftop

L traveling somewhere exotic for a case, meets celebrity of your choice and becomes unlikely friends, takes down crime circle together 

Naomi and L interact side by side as partners during a seperate case  

paralllaxes

16 year old Gevanni (normal day or family banter)

Naomi in modern clothing

the SPK in one of those cheesy family pictures.

Naomi thinking about LABB while in Japan

SPK found family stuff / domesticity

Naomi being with the SPK (with or without Raye is the author's choice)

kiranatrix

Light and L in emo/goth clothes or in an emo band

Light in a crown on a throne

Ryuk doing something funny or playing a prank while invisible

L and Light on a road trip

Misa painting Rem’s looooong nails or giving her a makeover

Death Note characters as birds! 

Sayu gets a grumpy parrot and Light doesn’t realize it can talk until after he hears it repeat some Kira plan thing, so he has to adopt it to keep it from spilling on him

L and Light talk about something important that happened to them in their childhood

L has to deal with growing amount of Light’s products in their shared shower and tries some out of curiosity with disasterous results

Light accidentally eats the last piece of cake in Kira HQ and L can’t deal at 4am

Lawlight Apocalypse AU of any variety 

Beyond breaks out of prison after LABB, where does he go?

47gaslamps

The task force with portentous umbrellas

Halle, symbolically framed between Near and Mello

Naomi kicking Light's butt after he attempts to use force

Matsuda gives Yamamoto a welcome-aboard to the former Task Force / 

AU where the drawer IS forced open

Misa has to shield Light from the paparazzi

translightyagami

Light and L in a crowded apartment, obviously lived in, playing piano next to each other

Light sewing something like his father's suit jacket or a shirt Mikami tore

Indulgent ask for my cryptid AU L and Light sitting in a graveyard having a nice time

Light having a smoke before he has to go tell his parents he's moving in with Misa

Light and Sayu having a difficult conversation where they're both saying they're gay without out loud saying it

Near goes to a Lego building event and meets a nice boy who isn't a Wammy kid

almostsane-things

Wammy's kid(s) of your choice sitting on the roof, watching the sky

Beyond Birthday and Candy Guro

DN characters in a rock band, maybe the shinigami are their mascots

Draw a less appreciated character but try something new with your style/medium. (i.e. use different brushes, incorporate a traditional art/craft like painting or cross-stitch, make a collage piece, go abstract, etc)

L in prison

Misa and Sayu becoming friends/ hanging out

The legend of Kira, how has the story of Kira changed over time in universe? Do people believe it was something supernatural, a government conspiracy, a group of vigilantes, or perhaps it's faded to nothing but a cautionary tale for misbehaving kids

A DN character enjoys that thing you really like/ find interesting to learn about, and shares that interest with someone else. (i.e. Matt plays your favorite video game with someone, Linda teaches someone about gardening, etc)

weneedtotalkaboutdeathnote

A hot double date with BBxDemegawa and LxHiguchi

B meeting L (any context is fine).

Naomi and Raye getting coffee together, having a nice time.

L can see ghosts, but he chooses to ignore them. This becomes increasingly had to do when B’s spirit shows up during the Kira investigation.

An Au where L defeated Kira, grew older, and basically disappeared. Older Mello (mid 20sish, now a detective) follows a lead that takes him to the washed up L. 

Non serial killer, "Unprivate Detective" Beyond Birthday works on a case with Naomi Misora.

pensulliwen

Misa making Valentine’s Day chocolate, perhaps while daydreaming about a fantastically unlikely result of giving them to Light.

Rem holding Misa as they fly over the city.

Meme redraws featuring Misa, Light, and L. Just go crazy. Any ridiculous meme image, shove these dorks in there instead.

Misa convincing Rem to take her flying, the feelings they both experience in the air together.

Misa and Mogi on a shopping “date” in which the unlikely pair manage to work together surprisingly well.

Light considers eliminating Misa from the equation many times, but there’s always something that stops him. Explore how he views her and the dissonance between how he views her versus how he views himself, as well as the reasoning for keeping her around longer than intended. 

izaori

Demegawa in a hot tub but instead of water its money

Mello playing soccer with the other kids (like Matt for example). 

Matsuda playing cookie clicker, because he's obsessed.

Young Demegawa when he first got his job, maybe a few months into the job.

Sayu studying for her big exam coming up so she goes to big bro Light for help.

Ryuk discovers sour green apples rather than just the red ones. Maybe Sidoh discovers dark chocolate/white chocolate at the same time.

mikami

High school age Mikami in a high school uniform.

MikaLight out on a date

anything L/Higuchi

A Sakura TV Documentary about the Kiras. 

MikaLight office romance, non-Kira AU.

Write me a fic about Demegawa. Can definitely be comedy, but please take the character somewhat seriously.

ghostoftasslehoff

L and Light playing piano together.

L with a kitty

Sayu and ‘Ryuzaki’ meeting, and hitting it off 

Matsuda recieving a present or something from a ‘secret admirer’

A day in the life of Matsuda (away from the task force)

L and B’s first meeting (can be shippy or not, whichever my Shinigami prefers)

L tries to engage in punnery with the task force, but only one person engages (preference for Light, but surprise me!)

Sayu’s (or Sachiko’s) thoughts on Light’s new secretive actions as Kira becomes more and more active 

tzigi

(All canon-compliant)

L gets first suspicions about a string of heart attacks which may be a new murder case for him

Light’s first day at To-Oh after L’s death

Light’s first day of work at the NPA 

Near tries to pick up L’s investigation

Why did Near go back to L’s original font for the “L” logo between chapter 108 and the C-Kira oneshot? 

A non-Lawlight rendering of the first evening of Light being chained to L after everyone else has already gone to sleep (preferably in keeping with the One Day one-shot) 

Light begging Ryuk for his life

Light’s funeral

catfishmaster

The main characters (plus B) as DND characters

Older Near (like 25-30) with a bunch of cats he keeps for company

Roger bonding with Near after the Kira case.

Beyond Birthday faked his death in 2004 and now lives alone as a poor and pretty miserable theatre actor with a fake name. Oh, and also it's a Kira wins au.

Years after the Kira case has concluded, L takes on Near as an apprentice.

Matt takes Near on a tour of an afterlife-like world they both wound up in. It's more like a dreamscape than anything else but it serves as an afterlife.  

[scarlettaagni]

DSoE: Muzzle of Nemesis art review???

I don’t know, I felt the sudden urge to talk about why the art felt very... degraded recently (surprisingly, looking back, Judgement of Corruption seems mostly exempt from this)

On Discord, me and some others were discussing how bland the MoN art felt, mainly because of the lack of contrast and the tons of empty space (which will be a reoccurring theme)

but I came back around a few hours later when I realized another thing, and I’ll basically paste my messages verbatim thus:

and huh, I think I realized another reason MoN book illustrations seem so stagnant: Nemesis is in all of them. there's only like... one picture without her. not a lot of variation with character appearances

For reference, there are seven illustrations, barring concept art and the cover. All but one has Nemesis in them, and the ones she is in is the main focus.

Now, this may sound ridiculous, uh DUH, Muzzle of Nemesis??? Of course she’s in it! It’s about her!

Well, yes, duh, but still. None of the other novels have the “main character” in them this much. It’s much more noticeable with how few pictures there are in the MoN novel. Let’s compare.

(Lust novel omitted due to not being illustrated by Ichika)

(Eve does not count as Margarita)

and how does Nemesis compare? well...

...wow.

yeah there's other people but Nemesis is still there, probably taking up most of the shot... add that with barely any backgrounds and lacking-contrast BW shading, it looks very boring

An important thing to remember is how while there may be main characters, they are not the ONLY character. Yes, we want to know and see more of this character, but that inevitably involves other characters, new and old. And, yes, there are other characters here. But Nemesis is the focus in most if not all the pictures she appears in.

Now, onto the individual illustrations.

Bruno is likely kneeling on the ground, and there's shading a little bit but it still seems empty.

there's a ton of empty space to his left, so there should be a sliver of Nemesis standing there.

and there's empty space to her right at the top, so why not have her soldiers lining the walls? the sheer lack of contrast in this whole image makes me sleepy...

and it's not a bad scan, because this is the online version.

another thing: why not have some blood and his busted gun on the ground beside him?

One thing my friends mentioned was the weird shading of Bruno. His skin seems weirdly light, as does his hair, and everything on his side of the page is weirdly flat. I think this might just be an accidental matching of shades, as his hair has lightened from age, he’s wearing brown camo, and the floor surrounding him is darkened, which all end up matching his skin.

Bruno is on the cover, and his skin tones seems the same, with slightly lighter hair.

Side note: the prevalence of split screen is unusually high in this novel. Not exactly a complaint, but overusing a technique can get dull. It is a bit irritating to the eye for characters to never be on the same “screen” so to say. In other words, characters are rarely on the same plane with one another on a single page.

Now it’s important to say that Ichika is most likely overworked, resulting in mistakes or a lack of quality. She deserves a nap and some tea for her hard work. But this doesn’t mean the work is exempt from criticism.

and this, we know what's going on, but we aren't seeing it

and I'd suggest the ship and Ziz-san being visible but then she'd have her back to them...

[for this picture] I'd suggest a redraw: her back to the screen, facing Ziz-san wrangling the ship

since it's broad daylight, I can excuse the lack of contrast, because the shading DOES look like it's broad daylight

And another note, we weirdly never see the sun in these illustrations? Granted, it looks like a bright cloudy day judging by the values in the sky above her, but it’s still a little weird to realize this.

Now, I’ve already criticized this picture before, but let’s revisit it.

not enough contrast

it looks like broad daylight, but this is a wintry night, and the blinding white blankness behind her doesn't help

also, just like Bruno, Nyoze's hair is weirdly gray??? so is his jacket? his hair is lighter than his jacket???

For the record, Nyoze has black hair and a dark gray coat. Somehow it’s switched and yet it’s still washed-out looking.

and a technical issue, Nemesis' face isn't very... convincing? I already pointed out how her TLR appearance was more dynamic, even with all the color taken out

her eye shading was warped, you could practically see tears that actually weren't drawn there

also her pose is different...

TLR says to me, girl unsurely holding revolver, MoN is just her holding it firmly forward

if she looked nervous, like she was attempting to be serious and repress her feelings, that's one thing I could appreciate as a deviation from the original

but it's supposed to be TLR again, and fails

A friend mentions that MoN Nemesis seems like she wants to shoot Nyoze, like she’s more angry than sad, but I can’t quite see it.

her face is just void of wrinkles, very smooth. they're much more visible in TLR 

I think the theme of emptiness/isolation is important in this scene, but empty scenes just make me all... bleh

there should be something in the background... even if it's just silhouettes, or snow

there's nothing behind TLR Nemesis, except snow.  it still feels right, it looks right

also the positioning is wrong? or it feels weird

so this is MoN

when this might be a better choice?

and I think that's how it was in TLR

a vertical scene, with both characters on the same plane, one on the left and the other on the right, would be a nice change of pace

since the images are vertical, it could be split, the top being the extended scene, bottom being their faces

and it'd be a good parallel to MoN PV Nemesis confronting Gallerian

the parallel already exists by the lyrics, "good bye my lover"/"good bye my loved one, good bye my hated one", so a visual one would be extremely satisfying

also nemesis looks... weirdly tall. her head in the accompanying panel blocks this but she looks way taller than she should, especially being far away from us and up against Nyoze (we all know how tall he is)

At this point, a friend mentions the gun looks weird.

I was thinking the same thing

she's pointing it up at Nyoze, we can see this... but next scene, it's pointed further down at us, yet the top looks like it's still pointing up

Now, next image is a scan. The previous ones were digital version of the images. All the remaining images are scans.

again, tons of empty space. we could have had other important characters there, or heck, even just stock bg characters

some random spy is behind Ney here:

she fills the space there well.

and a friend mentions how more expressive and filled out the image looks.

also Nemesis' shoulders look weird

like weirdly squared

like she's stiff, but her face looks, maybe relaxed isn't the word but she definitely isn't stiffened with anything... not fear or anxiety,

if it was the clothing, I'd understand but if that's her coat, and not like, Nyoze's or something, why's it to non-conformed to her? there's also nothing on the table, not even papers 

Someone mentions both look stiff. However, I can understand Gammon’s stiffness as he’s the professional here... even if he’s a droopy emo beanpole.

also, tons of empty space to Nemesis' left despite the small size of the panel

no background details, no brick patterns or anything

there really should be stuff like folders on the table [if she’s being interrogated]

the room is on fire and this image is still flat as hell

since we've already seen Nemesis against Gallerian from a profile angle (MoN PV), why not have that TLR pose from the previous MoN illustration instead? maybe not, but this picture is very crowded

it's so claustrophobic, because we have both panels like struggling to be seen and yet they cut off each other a lot. 

it's extremely awkward as well. we barely see her arm and that muzzle looks like it's out of nowhere. we can fill in the rest but it's still awkward

Gallerian being calm isn't a huge leap, but i feel as though we lost an opportunity to see a very expressive face, like he makes in the MoN PV

Here, someone mentions Nemesis doesn’t look too angry.

exactly. with her, we definitely lost out on an interesting and dynamic expression

wasn't she pissed, or say, shocked, upon seeing his reaction?

we see SOME interesting faces in the PVs drawn by ichika, but in the novels, everything is so smooth, everything is wrinkle free, except for the essentials, like eyelid folds, or maybe and I might be exaggerating here, undereye bags

and I get it, it's hard to make wrinkles uncanny, but Ichika, you can do it

now, Lilith/Postman. the only image without Nemesis.

now, I'd complain about the empty space but, I appreciate the feeling here. it feels silent. [it feels... poignant.]

but something I will note, however, is how she's weirdly off to the side and not centered? her pose is a little off-kilter too? 

I think the hat could afford to have more wrinkles from being hugged, too

otherwise, ichika, I love her, I want her to be happy, and I want to see her grow up healthy

I get it's literally a post-Armageddon wasteland... but s... so much empty space.... why can't we have all three of them next to each other to fill some of it in?

can't we have dark clouds doing something visually interesting in the sky? why not have scrap on the ground? some ruins?

and Gumillia is so far back I can't really see her outfit..... let me see her outfit u coward @ ichika

though the shading in this one picture does seem much more dynamic than the others, which is good

wind appears to be blowing, but Allen doesn't seem affected...

i wanna see his cute lil ponytail

also what is he doing with his hand? couldn't he be holding an important thing?

take that wind thing back a bit, his coat does seem to be affected

his hair, still not really

so that’s a weird note to end the review on. I won’t cover the, well, cover or the concepts.

Ichika probably won’t see this but I think it’d be a nice lesson about negative space, panel arrangement, and contrast and shading.

Ichika, if you do see this, just know we (and I especially) love you, and hope you’re resting well. Try wrist exercises so you don’t hurt yourself working so hard.

tbh same goes for anyone else who made it this far

[2700fstreet]

THEATER / 2018-2019

Long Way Down

OCT 24 – NOV 4

Adapted by Martine Kei Green-Rogers Directed by Timothy Douglas Based on the novel by Jason Reynolds

So, What’s Going On?

Sixty seconds. Seven floors. One elevator. Fifteen-year-old Will’s brother has just been shot, and Will is ready to follow “The Rules”: 1) “No Crying.” 2) “No Snitching.” 3) “Get Revenge.” But on the ride down, with his brother’s gun in his pocket, his plan is interrupted by a few visitors.

Told entirely in free-form poetry, Long Way Down captures the potent minute Will contemplates retaliation. As mysterious guests appear at each floor, Will starts to realize there might be other factors he must take into account. It is a journey that may affect Will’s decision of what to do once the elevator reaches its final destination.

Who’s Who

William “Will” Holloman — a fifteen-year-old boy

Long Way Down is a one-person show, but it features the presence of other characters whose stories and words are shared by Will. Here’s a guide: Will’s Mom — in mourning for the loss her son Buck — an older friend Dani — Will’s childhood friend Uncle Mark — the brother of Will’s dad Mikey Holloman — the father Will never knew Frick — a young man from the neighborhood Shawn — Will’s older brother

More about the Play

Long Way Down is a play adapted from the free-verse novel by Jason Reynolds. It takes place in an unnamed neighborhood of an unnamed city where many members are confronting loss.

The book and play are about a boy facing extraordinary circumstances, Reynolds says. In an interview with the Kennedy Center, he described the character’s dilemma this way: “Will has to make a really difficult decision because he comes from a community…where there are codes; there are rules and ecosystems that must be followed. And so he has to figure out and to choose whether or not he’s going to follow the rules [of his community], and one of those rules is, unfortunately, to avenge his brother’s death.”

The play follows Will’s experience as he struggles with this choice. Will he follow those rules that have been handed down to him? Or make new ones for himself? Reynolds emphasizes such codes of behavior exist in every community—well-off or under-resourced, from cities to suburbs to small towns.

So how does Will’s decision-making play out in Long Way Down? The book and the play intentionally leave Will’s final decision unstated and does not herd the audience toward any one conclusion about what he should or shouldn’t do. Instead, it challenges us to sort through and connect the perspectives, the feelings, and circumstances to present an open-ended question for us to weigh: After all his experiences on the long way down, what choice will this teenage boy make?

Check this out:

Interview with Jason Reynolds. Build. Oct. 25, 2017. Reynolds discusses his career and writing process—a great watch for anyone interested in the literary arts and what it takes to become a writer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58hF22Yz9gs

Meet Jason Reynolds

Caption: Author Jason Reynolds Photo by Ben Fractenberg

Jason Reynolds was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Oxon Hill, Maryland. He wasn’t into reading or writing as a boy, but that changed when he discovered his love for the lyrics and flow of Hip Hop. “It was through rap music and the discovery of rap lyrics that I found my path and my way into the world of poetry,” he said in the Kennedy Center interview. “And that poetry evolved over the course of ten, fifteen years into a way for me to tell my own stories.”

Like Will Holloman in Long Way Down, Reynolds says he and his friends faced a similar decision. “When I was 19, a friend of mine was murdered,” Reynolds said in a recent interview with The Guardian. “That night my friends and I went to his mom’s house and we were all planning to figure out who did this to him so we could exact revenge. So we could murder the man who murdered our friend. And I just remember the pain – the pain of the lost friend but also the pain of meeting a part of myself that I didn’t know existed. A part of myself that could lose control to the point where I could commit a murder. That’s a very human thing.” The mother of the dead friend talked Reynolds and his friends out of retaliating, saying no other mother should ever have to feel like she did at that moment.

Reynolds is now an award-winning, internationally-celebrated author of young adult books. Titles include When I Was the Greatest, Ghost, The Boy in the Black Suit, and As Brave as You. He has also written the Marvel Comics novel Miles Morales: Spider-Man and co-authored All American Boys with Brendan Kiely.

Check this out:

“How poetry can help kids turn a fear of literature into love.” Jason Reynolds on PBS News Hour. Dec. 15, 2017. Reynolds on finding genuine joy in reading lit that speaks to you and your experience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsQNaSLziGI

A Kennedy Center interview with Jason Reynolds on Long Way Down. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuXNsJvNaFs

Style and Form in Long Way Down

Author Jason Reynolds explains that Long Way Down was originally written in prose, but he eventually shifted the novel to free verse. Free verse is a poetic form, but one without rigid rhymes, rhythm, or structure; it may play with words up and down and across the page. It is effective for streamlining language and condensing emotion in powerful ways. In Long Way Down, he used free verse to create a sense of urgency, discomfort, and disorientation. Reynolds felt his “60-second story” would be more believable if written in poetry than in prose. “When experiencing trauma, the brain is not working in complete sentences,” he says. “I wanted to put the brain on the page.”

Here’s an example from the book, using both the freedom of free verse and shape poetry to signal a key moment.

AT THE ELEVATOR

Back already sore. Uncomfortable. Gun strapped like a brick rubbing my skin raw with each step.

See like time stood still as I reached out and pushed the button.

White light surrounded the black arrow.

DOWN

DOWN

DOWN DOWN DOWN

DOWN DOWN

DOWN

Make sure you see the section “Get Your Write On” below for ideas about writing your own free verse.

What to Look and Listen for

Long Way Down is a one-person show, told in Will’s words and actions. With this in mind, check out:

the way the set and lighting create the elevator and help the audience know where and when the action takes place.

ways the production uses sound, smoke, and projections to create tension.

ways music helps create the setting and gives clues about situations and characters.

how the actor interacts with projections and other onstage elements to tell the story.

listen for interesting uses of language, like the metaphors of the elevator and teeth, like the symbolism of smoke, and like anagrams (see below). What clues do they offer about Will’s character or the action of the play?

ways the actor indicates his character’s thoughts and feelings about the other characters using his voice and body language.

Think About This...

The Rules: 1) No Crying. 2) No Snitching. 3) Get Revenge. Why are these rules important to Will?

Keep an eye on the setting, the presence of smoke, and the costumes. Watch for any hidden meanings and visual/verbal metaphors.

Will says, “[The Rules] weren’t meant to be broken. They were meant for the broken to follow.” What does he mean? What are ways he and the others follow but also break the rules?

Describe your sense of what Will was like before his brother was shot. Describe his behavior on the elevator as he meets the others. Describe him when the elevator reaches the lobby. How does what he experiences seem to affect him?

Use Your Words and Art

Inspiring young people to write, as well as read, is part of Jason Reynolds’s life mission. He urges everyone to express their lives in words and art, whatever form that takes—prose, poetry, song lyrics, comics, anything at all. “The greatest gift [young writers] have is the voice that feels most natural,” he says. Not sure how to start? Watch for striking images and listen for powerful phrases from your own life and experience, then write them down. Here are some other ideas to help you practice capturing your own life in words:

Anagrams are word puzzles. They involve rearranging letters of a word or phrase to create a new word or words, with all the letters being used once. Anagrams appear in the play, such as in one instance when Will rearranges the letters for "ocean" to create "canoe." Will's anagrams offer clues about his thoughts and the action in the play.

Here are a few words for you and your friends to anagram:

listen drawer past rules friend discern verse assume

(Answers: listen: enlist, silent, tinsel; drawer: reward, redraw, warder, warred; past: spat, taps, pats; rules: lures; friend: finder; discern: rescind, cinders; verse: serve, sever, veers; assume: amuses)

What other words can you think of that are anagrams? Also, think about how the different words of an anagram may be related in interesting ways. For example, Will makes the connection between “ocean” and its anagram “canoe.”

Free verse can be a graceful way to capture experience in tight, meaning-packed language. It often emphasizes the senses to connect quickly and intensely with readers. Consider the following phrases and similes from the book (page numbers in parentheses):

a headlock

that felt like a hug (p. 45)

the pistol under my pillow

like a lost tooth (p. 60)

the stench of

death and sweat

trapped in the

cotton like

fish grease (p. 65)

A jagged mouth,

sharp and sharklike (p. 79)

the cigarette dangling,

bouncing with each word

like a fishing pole

with fish on bait,

with hook through head (p. 132)

Sadness

split his face

like cold breeze

on chapped lip

after attempting

to smile (p. 165)

Use sensory detail along with your memory and imagination to write two or more moments like these. There is no right or wrong, good or bad; there is just what you feel and know. If it helps, think about what stories are important to you—about aspects of your life, the people you know, and the community and world around you. Imagine how to describe snapshots of those things and ideas, then write! And if you’re of a mind, share your moments at #lwdfreeverse.

Jason Reynolds says we are all “haunted by something.” He means there are experiences in our lives that we can’t seem to leave behind—a death, a lost love, a memory of perfect happiness. These moments trigger deep feelings—sometimes of comfort, sometimes of heartache. Write a story or narrative about what haunts you or someone you have known. You might even borrow from Long Way Down and envision an encounter or conversation with others who can share other perspectives on whatever or whomever is doing the haunting. Inject sensory detail to help your writing come alive and consider sharing it at #lwdhaunting.

Claiming Personal Power

In the play, Will feels overwhelmed by forces beyond his control. He isn’t sure what to do and doesn’t have anyone he can turn to get a real read on what he’s facing. Chances are, we have all felt like that at one time or another and wish there were some place to go or someone we could speak with to help us take perspective.

One strategy for battling a sense of isolation is to get involved with others who are banding together to celebrate shared interests, fun, and purpose. Such groups or organizations can be as social as a book club, as athletic as a parkour crew, or as political as you want to be. Here are ideas and resources to help link you up when you want to add your personal power to the company of others.

The Brown Bookshelf. This website promotes awareness of the myriad black voices writing for young readers. thebrownbookshelf.com

Dosomething.org. A clearinghouse for teen activism—from disability rights to water conservation to positivity campaigns—can link you to the causes closest to your heart and conscience. https://www.dosomething.org/campaigns

“The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Parkour.” Brett and Kate McKay. The Art of Manliness. July 19, 2013. An introduction to the freestyle urban sport with tips on how to find a group. https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/beginners-guide-to-parkour/

These kids started a book club for minority boys. It’s the most popular club in school. Perry Stein. Washington Post, January 21, 2018. Reading and discussing books as a group is powerful stuff. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/these-kids-started-a-book-club-for-minority-boys-its-the-most-popular-one-in-school/2018/01/21/c15620e2-fc6d-11e7-ad8c-ecbb62019393_story.html

We Need Diverse Books. A grassroots organization of children’s book lovers that advocates essential changes in the publishing industry to produce and promote literature that reflects and honors the lives of all young people. https://diversebooks.org

Youth Activism Project. This organization promotes and supports youth-led campaigns in the United States and globally. http://youthactivismproject.org/what-we-do/

Get Your Write On

Writing requires uninterrupted solo time when you can invite your imagination and creativity to come out and play. Reading writing that fires up your imagination is part of the process, too. Many writers also get a boost from connecting and sharing ideas, frustrations, and laughter with other creative types. Here are a handful of online resources to link you up with others working to get their write on:

“6 Great Websites for Teen Writers.” Iva-Marie Palmer. Brightly. https://www.readbrightly.com/6-great-websites-teen-writers/

“25 Amazing Books by African-American Writers You Need to Read.” Mentalfloss.com. Book list of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and memoir—the best from past and present. http://mentalfloss.com/article/532058/books-by-african-american-writers-you-need-to-read

“The DC Youth Poetry Slam Team.” Split This Rock. Fostering a national network of socially engaged poets. http://www.splitthisrock.org/programs/youth-programs/the-dc-youth-poetry-slam-team/

“30 Black Comic Book Writers You Should Know,” by Troy L. Wiggins. Bookriot.com, Oct. 10, 2016. https://bookriot.com/2016/08/10/30-black-comic-book-writers-you-should-know/

The Harlem Writers Guild. The oldest organization of African American writers. http://www.theharlemwritersguild.org/events.html

NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program. The super-charged write, write, write movement that inspires people to write entire novels—in 30 days. https://ywp.nanowrimo.org

“Poems for a Purpose.” Power Poetry. https://www.powerpoetry.org

Poetry Slam Inc. Psi promotes the creation and performance of poetry that engages all ages and communities. https://poetryslam.com

Dealing with Trauma

Something bad or scary happens, but we survive and hope our lives return to normal. Sometimes that’s easier wished for than done, though. Intense, negative experiences can leave us with trauma. Trauma is the emotional and psychological aftermath of a painful or terrifying experience. Entire communities that experience high levels of violence can also suffer collective trauma, even people who are not direct victims. When we suffer trauma, we may be haunted by flashbacks of what happened and feel fear that the world around us is out of control. Trauma also can affect our ability to think, sleep, learn, or relate to others in healthy ways.

If we have gone through a traumatic experience, we may need help to feel safe and hopeful again. The first step is to connect with people who help us feel protected and secure. Counselors at school, in community centers, or in places of worship can be good resources for helping us get the help we need and start rebuilding a sense of control in our lives, families, and communities. We may also be able to access resources and help online, and many support programs are free for children and teens. If you think you or people around you are dealing with traumatic stress, help is out there. Healing and flourishing again isn’t easy, but it’s very possible.

“Bulletins for Teens: Crime, Teens, and Trauma.” The National Center for Victims of Crime. A clearinghouse of information for anyone feeling scared or hopeless. http://victimsofcrime.org/help-for-crime-victims/get-help-bulletins-for-crime-victims/bulletins-for-teens/crime-teens-and-trauma

“Trauma.” Sutter Health, Palo Alto Medical Foundation. An informative site on the symptoms and effects of trauma. http://www.pamf.org/teen/life/trauma/

Teen Action Toolkit: Building a Youth-led Response to Teen Victimization. The National Center for Victims of Crime. For young people feeling the urge to organize. http://victimsofcrime.org/docs/Youth%20Initiative/Teen%20TOOLKIT.pdf?sfvrsn=0

“7 Self-Care Strategies to Help Manage Trauma, According to Experts.” Bustle. https://www.bustle.com/p/7-self-care-strategies-to-help-manage-trauma-according-to-experts-10087377

EXPLORE MORE

Go even deeper with the Long Way Down Extras.

Okay, you’re ready for Long Way Down.

-

Writer: Sean McCollum

Content Editor: Lisa Resnick

Logistics Coordination: Katherine Huseman

Producer and Program Manager: Tiffany A. Bryant

-

Part of the Kennedy Center's Human Journey www.kennedy-center.org/humanjourney The Human Journey is a collaboration between The Kennedy Center, National Geographic Society, and the National Gallery of Art, which invites audiences to investigate the powerful experiences of migration, exploration, identity, and resilience through the lenses of the performing arts, science, and visual art.

Bank of America is the Presenting Sponsor of Performances for Young Audiences.

Additional support for Long Way Down is provided by A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation; the Kimsey Endowment; The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation; Paul M. Angell Family Foundation; and the U.S. Department of Education.

Funding for Access and Accommodation Programs at the Kennedy Center is provided by the U.S. Department of Education.

Major support for educational programs at the Kennedy Center is provided by David M. Rubenstein through the Rubenstein Arts Access Program.

Kennedy Center education and related artistic programming is made possible through the generosity of the National Committee for the Performing Arts.

© 2018 The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

[md3artjournal]

When I first read this article, shared by an artist alley group on Facebook, my immediate reaction was that it was unsettling to see someone simply trace and not really transform someone else's work, then claim full credit without citing sources---unless tracked down and confronted by a third party, apparently---, and making sales, especially when the artist being appropriated was little known and working hard to make a living with their art.  

The Castor gallery showcasing the copy gave the short retort, "appropriation has been a form of artwork for a lot longer than any of us have been in the art world.  I don't even think a response is worth the time."  Basically, "appropriation art has a long history in the art field, so we won't dignify these criticisms with a response."  And there was something really wrong about that defensiveness.  Shouldn't they have been able to make a professional case for their support for that "artist"?  Or at least shown calm, professional courtesy?  There was something that felt elitist about throwing around in-group, industry terms like "appropriation art" and simply citing history, and expecting that to shut up all arguments.  No.  Age and even tradition don't justify anything alone.  They have to be rooted in something logically reasonable, to at least become traditions worth keeping.  Why would a venue that proports to value art, and thus, art's associated meanings and purposes, not bother to explain why "appropriation art" is valid?  

After re-watching The Art Assignment's "The Case for Copying" (https://youtu.be/6dIQW4DRrp8), I wonder if the thing that feels so distasteful about this Jeanette Hayes person is that she isn't using "appropriation art" for its intended purpose.  She isn't using "appropriation art" to critique the art gallery system's pretentious facade for the rich and powerful to congratulate themselves financially, and to be exclusionary and flaunt elitism (vs the meditative purpose of art).  And this episode of The Art Assignment, also reminds that "pop artists" and "appropriation artists" generally appropriated from mass produced media, whose sources that everyone could recognize.  There was not misconception of credit there.  Why doesn't Hayes bother to even cite her sources until someone confronts her about it?  Maybe if she was ripping off advertising images and big name, recognizable logos, she wouldn't need to.  But not citing the small-time artists, trying hard to make a living with their artwork every day...?  That's just suspicious.  

I've had my work appropriated before with very little transformation by the other person, and though I felt that, as a fan-artist, and since the work taken without my permission was figure photography, I didn't have much right to get angry, I did feel a little hurt.  I had put effort into posing my figures, choosing framing, composition, lighting, and not not mention the cost of collecting all those high-end figures.  To not be cited, then for the appropriator to get so much praise and credit for slapping on an OTP name in the corner and a faded filter frame onto my photo...Well, it didn't hurt as much as the feeling that all the numerous commenters were praising her for "her" photo, as if she had put in the work.  ;_;  

It actually wasn't until I joined this artist alley online group that I discovered the problem of tracing and redrawing.  I had always thought tracing and redrawing was good practice, and had helped me learn someone else's art style, so I could do fan-art, ever since I was little.  Then in college, they had us redrawing and re-painting famous old works.  Ever since I was little, copying my contemporary masters was still a big effort, and the closer I could emulate one of their drawings, the more proud I could be of my progress...vs not being able to draw at all before.  I was new to Instagram and didn't realize anyone would assume my redraws were "originals by me".  O___o!  I didn't realize Instagram was building a culture of artists posting only their hand-made, original works to their accounts.  My account is a mix of scenes from my everyday life, including whatever art I'm crafting, within my daily life.  I once took a photo of some cute pillows I saw while browsing around Michaels, taking a break from all my crafting; someone saw that pillows photos amid all my in-progress photos of my crafting and thought I was crafting those cute pillows too.  O_O!  I immediately corrected them, but that was the first time I realized that there was something different in the expectations of Instagram culture.  I frantically went through my entire account, ensuring all my redraws were noted as "#copyingofficialart", because I didn't even know the term "redraw" back then.  Still, as proud as I can be of my progress to copy someone's much better, official art, I don't claim blatant redraws as my originals.

The same artist alley online group posted about the problems in artist alley with "splatter artists", artist who sold prints which were clearly just tracings of others' art and even official art, just processed through a simple Photoshop filter.  And when I read those linked articles and how the original comic book artists were also offended to see their work copied so blatantly, even walking through artist alley in-person, the "splatter artists" felt clearly wrong.  

It's a strange situation though.  We fan-artists walk a fine line.  True, we draw or craft everything ourselves, but we are inspired by an official IP.  We don't deny being inspired by a pre-existing series, and in artist alley, customers actually expect it of us.  But once someone starts tracing, even redrawing official _photos_ of a figurine, then even the fan-artists in artist alley are ready to protest.  

Honestly, I love fan-works.  Fan-art, fanfics, doujinshi, fan-created (original) musical themes, and even cover songs.  I love watching fandom grow and fans connect through the internet.  I love watching fans share their fan-works on Tumblr and Twitter.  I love seeing everyone geek out together about their favorite series and express that love through their own creations, inspired by that official IP.  It's much better than before the internet, when we were all disconnected and fanboying/fangirling alone (except for the 2-3 times a year for conventions).  And a lot of people are so isolated in their real lives, that they can ONLY find their tribe and validation on the internet.  We forget because comic book movies are ubiquitous now, but being a geek used to be a lonely, ostracizing status, and people used to try to make you feel less than a person for it.  But being a geek anyway, and making fan-works anyway, even before the internet, seems to prove to me that fan-creations taps into something naturally human.  An expression of love for the inspiration something else from our collective culture has imparted.  I know I wrote earlier that a "history" of "tradition" alone, isn't enough to justify something as "right"; valid "tradition" is proof of something worthwhile.  And I think that love of a story, of participating in culture, is worthwhile and just.  Fan-work is participating in and generating culture.  There's nothing "wrong" about it.  It's barely ever even "appropriation art".  So often it's original fan-art, not redraws or tracings.  And I'll let you in on a secret:  so many fan-artists move on from fan-art to creating their own original stories.  First it starts with OCs (original characters), then BAM---before you know it, you're writing original stories and designing original characters:  creating new art, new IPs, making new additions to our culture.  That's worthwhile.  

But do people who just trace or add simple Photoshop filters to others' works, ever get there?  Do they move on from fan-art to original works?  Is their tracing really "fan-art"?  Just a quick browse through Tumblr, seeing all the differing interpretations of an official IP, and how transformative fan-works can be...It's not hard to see the difference between a mere copy and the sheer amount of originality (though in interpretations) in fan-works.

SUSPICIOUS: The post about Hayes/Buzzfeed is gone from Artist Alley Network International.  o~o?  First, I thought my private Share of the post to my Timeline, suddenly going missing was just a mistake; maybe I accidentally deleted it.  But even if the FB group deleted the article/discussion for possibly breaking group rules (not being enough about art???), then my Share would at least still be posted, just with a broken link.  Is Facebook themselves deleting anything about this Jeanette Hayes art theif?  Someone in the comments suggested she must have rich friends in high places if her Google search results always omit her art thievery.  Is this part of that?!  O~O?!  

Then found this: https://www.reddit.com/r/quityourbullshit/comments/6zuzvx/verified_instagram_artist_caught_ripping_off_real/ The top comment is from "AutoModerator" and says, "Liar or not, harassing, doxxing, or brigading other users is not allowed under any circumstances". Is this the same thing that happened to Facebook?  They have some robot algorithm that doesn't know the difference between calling someone out and being angry about what they did, vs hate speech and harassment???  O_o

[symbianosgames]

Deep Dive is an ongoing Gamasutra series with the goal of shedding light on specific design, art, or technical features within a video game, in order to show how seemingly simple, fundamental design decisions aren't really that simple at all.

Check out earlier installments, including creating tension in Card Thief, achieving seamless branching in Watch Dogs 2’s Invasion of Privacy missions, and creating the intricate level design of Dishonored 2's Clockwork Mansion.

Hi, I’m Barney Cumming, artist and designer of Crawl. I created the art and animation for the game, and will be talking a little about the process and decision-making that went into the project. I've been working as an animator, designer and artist for video games in Australia over the last eleven years, with these past four under the banner of Powerhoof, a two-man games company started with programmer buddy David Lloyd.

I started making pixel animations on the computer at roughly eleven (around 1993), using HyperCard and a program called PC Animate Plus. In 1999 I started animating with 3D Studio MAX R3, which led me into the games industry; initially as a 3D animator, and later as a designer. In 2013, Dave and I quit our industry jobs to have a go at making something a bit more personal to our tastes, and to escape the crushing boredom of the mobile market and all those microtransactions.

Crawl is our first commercial game, a local-multiplayer dungeon crawler where all the traps and monsters can be controlled by your real-life friends. The art style is very low resolution, with screens tending around 150 pixels high (where screens on the NES for example were closer to it’s full 240 pixels high). Crawl uses off-grid, scaled and rotated sprites, (rather than adhering to classic restrictions in these areas), to give a style which freely combines elements from modern and retro sensibilities.

In developing this low-res art style for Crawl, we start with a simple list of requirements:

It must be efficient enough for our one-person art team to create and animate upwards of fifty unique monsters, as well as innumerable hero weapons, environments, props, menus etc, within a reasonable timeframe.

It has to be visually striking. Not just look good, but look good in some unique way that stands out from the way other games are looking good.

As I’ll be making all the art, the style should emphasize the things I’m good at, quick at, and experienced at, and deemphasize all my weaknesses.

It should be fun to make. If we’re going to be working our asses off on this thing, it’s best not to choose a style I already find laborious. Fortunately if we meet the other three requirements, this one tends to be a given.

Despite all my industry experience being with 3D art/animation, and not having touched pixels for a good fourteen years, after initial testing it quickly became clear that pixel art could be just the right tool to let us realize our design. If I took the resolution low enough, I could give the impression of “knight” “demon” or “spider” very quickly (compared to modeling, texturing and rigging in 3D), I would have access to all the fluidity of 2D animation (which you can’t ever get from a 3D rig), while magically being freed from how slow I usually am at drawing in 2D. I could focus on my strengths - animation and character movement - and avoid all my weaknesses.

I knew my tiny little 5 or 10 pixel high monster sprites wouldn’t be visually striking compared to all the amazing game art out there, but keeping them so low-res (so quick to draw and redraw) would allow me to really go crazy with the animation fidelity, and seeing such modern high-fidelity animation applied to such low-resolution art (which we’re used to seeing with only the most rudimentary animations) was a pretty bold look to my eye, and not one I’d seen anywhere else.

If we were trying to be visually appealing in the same way as other games, going for a well-trodden style but just trying to outdo everyone on execution alone, we’d have needed so much raw art firepower to be noticed above all the competition. So this technique of making our own little competition off to the side in which there are no other competitors, is a sneaky way of standing out without quite competing. It’s a bit like wanting to break the world high-jump record, but seeing it’s way too high, so creating your own “highest jump while also wearing a sparkly hat” category and winning that instead with a much lower jump (and a much cooler hat).   So the style goal I set was to take incredibly low-resolution characters, reminiscent of the games I played as a child, but instead of recreating the way those old sprites really moved, I’d animate them to look how they did in my imagination. As a kid, those clumsy two-frame attacks were heroic lunges, and the simple run animations were athletic and full of life. I wanted to recreate the version I saw through the rose-tinted lenses of my childhood imagination.

For the smaller characters, the animation process is simple. I’d start with the key poses (frame numbers with boxes around them) which in this case is mostly one frame for each swing of the sword, with the pose being drawn in the posture the hero holds on immediately after each swing. Beyond that it’s mostly just inbetweens, apart from a few cases (frame numbers with underlines) where I’ve pulled part of the pose out a little further from the upcoming key, to give a stronger anticipation. 

You’ll notice practically none of my inbetweens are actually half way between the two poses. If things are moving very smoothly and robotically you’ll get half-way inbetweens, but in the case of combat (and most other animations in an action game) the movements are very staccato, so half-way inbetweens won’t suit. To get the desired movement, most of my inbetweens are actually copies of either the previous or next keyframe, with slight tweaks to indicate which direction the movement is about to go in (or which is has just come from) and some delayed and tweaked body parts to indicate where the force and weight are pushing, dragging and pulling things down. The actual “action”, the biggest movement of each strike, tends to happen between two of my frames, and I just draw a big motion-blur smear to indicate the movement of the blade over that time. This technique, which amounts to mostly just cushioning around keyframes, gives very snappy, staccato results.

For larger, more complex creatures, I’d do most of the animation work using fairly simple stick-figure type lines (which are very quick to draw and redraw) before painting over with full detail once I’m happy with the movement. Any style or process which allows you to change your mind and redraw a pose quicker, will always result in better animations as you are freed to take more risks.   You can see the process is quite approachable when broken down into simple individual tasks, with the most important decision being the order in which to do it all. If you work hard on secondary movements before you’re entirely happy with the primary, you’ll end up having to redo all that work once you change the primary. Or even worse, you’ll be tempted to just accept an imperfect animation, to avoid redoing the work.    Immediately after animating that bird creature, I decided I didn’t like the direction I’d taken and redid the animation from scratch. The efficiency of low-resolution allowed me this extra creativity and experimentation, by stripping much of the sunk-cost in time spent experimenting. If this animation has taken a few days rather than a few hours, I probably wouldn’t have bothered to try again.

Of course as a small team we still try to minimize the wastage and reuse anything we can. When it came to designing combat functionality for the bird creature, I had initially envisioned him having a big “squawk” as one of his attacks, where sound waves would fly out like projectiles, and make the hero dizzy on contact.

The attack wound up playing badly in-game, no matter how much I tried to make it work. Although the attack was scrapped I did quite like the squawk animation, so when I settled on a “grab and bite” move, I reused the old squawk frames for the anticipation on his grab.

The speed of drawing in that art style wasn’t only about making better animations, it was about game-design efficiency and the ability to experiment. I could have a brand new character designed, animated and fighting in game within a day, allowing even our most risky ideas to be tested. With a higher sunk-cost for each failed experiment, we’d have been both risk-averse in our initial ideas (playing it safe and designing moves similar to ones which had worked in the past), and much more prone to making do with not-quite-right gameplay after all that work had been done for the art. 

For us little developers, art can be a tightrope between visual impact and cost.  We were lucky enough to find a style for Crawl that we loved the look of and was also efficient to make, but with that now old-hat, it’s time to find a new twist for the next game.  Maybe low-resolution but wearing sparkly shoes this time?          

[silviascorcella]

Fashion Conversation: LEE WOOD - L72

Contemplare le sue creazioni, e intanto scoprire dalle sue parole garbate quel che racchiudono, regala la soffusa sensazione di trovarsi come di fronte ad un’opera di pittura intimista, dove le composizioni quiete di luce morbida e colori nitidi sono invero un loquacissimo sguardo sulla realtà. 

Lui è Lee Wood e il suo brand L72 rappresenta un’avventura stilistica molto recente, ma che ha già conquistato il vasto plauso del pubblico e trionfato, tra le altre, sulla pregiata passerella di Who is On Next? 

La sua moda racchiude percorsi compositi che per buona parte si sono svolti al fianco di Donatella Versace. Una moda che oggi si racconta attraverso la più nobile e sovversiva forma di lusso: la libertà.

[ENGL.]

Going through his creations, and in the meantime discovering from his nice words what they encompass, makes you feel like being in front of a piece of intimist art painting, where the quiet combinations of tender light and vivid colors are indeed a very eloquent glaze on reality. He is Lee Wood and his brand L72 represents a very recent stylistic adventure, but that has already won the ample plaudit of the public and triumphed on the prestigious stage of Who Is On Next? contest. His fashion universe embraces multi-faceted paths, that to a great extent took place alongside Donatella Versace. A fashion universe that today reveals itself through the noblest and most subversive kind of luxury: freedom.

Tell us about yourself and your background: when did the very first encounter with fashion happen and how did it become your professional way? I’m English, born and raised in the countryside near Reading, in the Berkshire county, along the famous River Thames. After the compulsory education I decided to start following my artistic path by entering The Berkshire College of Art & Design, where I studied art, fashion and design. So, when I was 19, I decided to move to London in search of a job and new horizons. I remember two incisive moments concerning my approach in fashion: the first one, when I was a child and my mum, coming back from a ski holiday, was wearing a custom-made dove gray mink coat. That was the first time I ever saw anything like that closely, and that, especially, I could even touch it. So my mum, all proud, showed me the lining with her initials jacquard-woven … I couldn’t believe it, it seemed like a miracle! The second moment was when I went with my mother (it’s always her fault!) to the hairdresser: while waiting for her turn, she was reading some fashion magazines and I gazed at those pictures so glossy, so impeccable, so far from my world, and my mind ran formulating a thousand ideas and as many thoughts. My career began in London, when I started to be the assistant of the stylist David Thomas: it’s thanks to him that one night I had the chance to meet Kinder Aggugini that, in his turn, introduced me to Donatella Versace.

How, why and with what style vision was your label L72 born? My brand comes from my urge to give voice to my personal aesthetic. I’m a reserved person, rather quiet and loner, but inside me my imagination continuously creates, wherever I am and all hours of the day. I’m like a Marcello Piacentini’s building: rigorous, symmetrical, neat, but with the interiors designed by Lorenzo Castillo. After 16 years at Versace, I felt the need for trying new creative ways. I had decided to open my own design consulting studio in 2013 when, while I was making some samples for promoting my activity, I realized that I was subconsciously laying the foundation of my own line. I spoke with different people and friends within the sector and the feedback was more than positive, everybody said I was crazy! I was happily surrounded by products speaking a common language, that could be a total look, without even thinking of it, it was pure instinct. Thus, the things that had been existing in my fantasy for years became concrete and my vision became real. At that point I could not come back anymore !

Your own creative world is instinctual, beauty is a personal point of view, materials are the issue of experimentations and entrepreneurship is essential: what do these elements entail and how does their harmony happen in your fashion? For me everything is connected, I’m always present in my job and in every planning phase of the creative path. I don’t like staying at the desk, I prefer staying around instead, with the suppliers, at the studios, with the printer, at the photography studio to work together and “get my hands dirty” with the people helping me to realize my dream. And it’s thanks to them too, their energy, experience and diligence, if today I am here: every day I learn something new, and this is my nourishment. Today being creative is not enough, unfortunately: our world has become too much complicated and contradictory. You can’t create if you don’t have a support structure; you can’t have a support structure if you don’t have the resources and if you don’t have the resources you can’t make a production that would allow you to produce the next season … as they say in Italy “a dog chasing its own tail”! The expectations have become so much high and strict, accompanied by a very frantic pace of life, that there is a strong risk of implosion. Today a fashion designer must be also a manager, director, sales representative, and self-assistant: that’s crazy! I pay attention to the business and numbers: I’ve been working for 22 years as a salesman and creative director, I would be fool if I wasn’t concerned with the business aspect too, I have a lot of experience and I’d like to improve more and more, but doing things right takes a lot of time and energy and I often find myself leaving the creative part aside for the nights or weekends, when the rest of my world rests and grants me the silence and peace I need to think clearly. My instinct is strong, when I draw my first thought is always the right one for me: if I linger on too much developing  and redrawing, I always end up going back to the beginning. I love neat and graphic fashion, the proportions and the blending of male and female: a sort of “uniform for the future”, a combination of history and street.

Describe your last collection: what kind of inspiration does it originate from and how does this imagery take tangibly form within the creations? The spring/summer collection is called “Primary”: the concept of starting from zero. Last February (2015) I launched my brand with an exclusive press presentation, the project was called “Collection Zero: Non Conditioned”, so I was really starting from zero for the summer production. It’s a journey inside my childhood, moments where I became aware of the world I was in, a pure and instinctive approach, when colors enthralled me and at the same time taught me the chromatic circle, that the primary colors, red, yellow and blue were the main base for all the color blocks, like when I was a kid and I played with Legos, or rather I had fun organizing them by color. I thought to juxtapose this idea of nostalgia with a reflection on the expression of the time we’re living in, so it’s not only a mere memory of my naïf world. I added an embroidery made of real mini-disks: a while ago we used to think that CDs and mini-disks were so futuristic, but today almost no one touches music anymore, CDs have already turned old and young people think they’re something outdated. Our world changes so quickly and the primary colors of that time, my RGB, today are different because our reality is enclosed in a 2.0 world that broadcasts images and colors through the light. Today the main colors are red, green and blue. Ultimately, between a picture you hold in your hand or the same picture that you can see by Internet apparently nothing changes, but I know that the base is truly different.

One name inside and one outside the fashion world you would love to work with? Inside the fashion world I would really love to collaborate with Melanie Ward. I already had the chance to meet her and work with her when she was working with Versace: I really love her style, she’s English like me, and I think that her sensibility marries beautifully with my aesthetic. Whereas, outside the fashion world I’d say Olafur Eliasson, the Danish artist, I think he’s absolutely brilliant. His works begin with a different perspective on our world through lights, colors and science. They’re studies involving the environment to emphasize “hyper reality” concepts: his art captivates me, moves me, amazes me and destabilizes me at the same time, but gladly. I get a powerful and harmonious vibe from it, but with strong social messages.

Beauty will save the world, a renowned quote holding some truth for those who create fashion: what is your ideal about beauty? Will beauty really save the world? How can we categorize beauty in order to realize, then, if that kind of “beauty” could be our salvation? It’s so compelling, personal, it doesn’t mean we want to rely on beauty as if it was a religion, hell no! As for me, the idea of beauty must be dissected and employed depending on the subject. The proportions of a dress, the finishing of a table, a woman walking on the street, the sound of an instrument, things that people may even not like, meanwhile. But we all have our point of view, luckily! Perfection doesn’t exist, thank goodness; here’s what I think is good, the fact that imperfections exist and when we’ll be aware and at peace with this thought, we’ll finally get free from the so called “classic standards” that only bother me. I think nature gets close to perfection, it has its own balance that makes it unapproachable and mystical; but then the human being arrives and thinks he can enhance it, but he only makes disasters, as he often does for himself trying to reach “beauty”. Last summer I worked with MEG for her tour where she featured the album “Imperfezione”: we hit it off, we have several things in common. In an interview she states “I suddenly realized that the possible takes place within the imperfection and not within perfection, that is an abstract world, strict, an archetype, always the same as itself” and this is what we must convey to the world, the diversity, and teach the young people to accept themselves and their neighbor. This is my idea of beauty. A nice, respectful, natural creature.

If I say “imitation of life” (the theme of this Hachi Mag issue n.d.r.): what comes into your mind? I believe that what we’re living is an “imitation of life”. There’s something so insane in our today’s world that I can not think otherwise. I don’t think that this can be considered life, but that we’re literally surviving. We’re conditioned, directed, fed, driven by people and mechanisms that don’t want our prosperity. The world has turned into a game of powers and abuses and our lives are put on the line to bolster a media spectacle that can make us believe the unbelievable, and keep us quiet. As for me, life is something else.

Among the accolades received and the exquisitely personal dreams: what are your projects for the future? My first thought is to continue working, learning and living the best life I can: maybe this is a little fanciful vision, but it’s true. For my brand, I would be able to develop a well-established business that can create the L72 lifestyle by extending the product categories in order to include various licences. Then, if I could dream, think freely without any limits … I would love to buy a plot of land in the countryside and build a brand new home where I could live in complete peace with a lot of animals, where I could finally resume my love of horseback riding and keep on creating from a studio overlooking the hills.

Silvia Scorcella

[Published on Hachi Magazine issue n°4]

[symbianosgames]

Deep Dive is an ongoing Gamasutra series with the goal of shedding light on specific design, art, or technical features within a video game, in order to show how seemingly simple, fundamental design decisions aren't really that simple at all.

Check out earlier installments, including creating tension in Card Thief, achieving seamless branching in Watch Dogs 2’s Invasion of Privacy missions, and creating the intricate level design of Dishonored 2's Clockwork Mansion.

Hi, I’m Barney Cumming, artist and designer of Crawl. I created the art and animation for the game, and will be talking a little about the process and decision-making that went into the project. I've been working as an animator, designer and artist for video games in Australia over the last eleven years, with these past four under the banner of Powerhoof, a two-man games company started with programmer buddy David Lloyd.

I started making pixel animations on the computer at roughly eleven (around 1993), using HyperCard and a program called PC Animate Plus. In 1999 I started animating with 3D Studio MAX R3, which led me into the games industry; initially as a 3D animator, and later as a designer. In 2013, Dave and I quit our industry jobs to have a go at making something a bit more personal to our tastes, and to escape the crushing boredom of the mobile market and all those microtransactions.

Crawl is our first commercial game, a local-multiplayer dungeon crawler where all the traps and monsters can be controlled by your real-life friends. The art style is very low resolution, with screens tending around 150 pixels high (where screens on the NES for example were closer to it’s full 240 pixels high). Crawl uses off-grid, scaled and rotated sprites, (rather than adhering to classic restrictions in these areas), to give a style which freely combines elements from modern and retro sensibilities.

In developing this low-res art style for Crawl, we start with a simple list of requirements:

It must be efficient enough for our one-person art team to create and animate upwards of fifty unique monsters, as well as innumerable hero weapons, environments, props, menus etc, within a reasonable timeframe.

It has to be visually striking. Not just look good, but look good in some unique way that stands out from the way other games are looking good.

As I’ll be making all the art, the style should emphasize the things I’m good at, quick at, and experienced at, and deemphasize all my weaknesses.

It should be fun to make. If we’re going to be working our asses off on this thing, it’s best not to choose a style I already find laborious. Fortunately if we meet the other three requirements, this one tends to be a given.

Despite all my industry experience being with 3D art/animation, and not having touched pixels for a good fourteen years, after initial testing it quickly became clear that pixel art could be just the right tool to let us realize our design. If I took the resolution low enough, I could give the impression of “knight” “demon” or “spider” very quickly (compared to modeling, texturing and rigging in 3D), I would have access to all the fluidity of 2D animation (which you can’t ever get from a 3D rig), while magically being freed from how slow I usually am at drawing in 2D. I could focus on my strengths - animation and character movement - and avoid all my weaknesses.

I knew my tiny little 5 or 10 pixel high monster sprites wouldn’t be visually striking compared to all the amazing game art out there, but keeping them so low-res (so quick to draw and redraw) would allow me to really go crazy with the animation fidelity, and seeing such modern high-fidelity animation applied to such low-resolution art (which we’re used to seeing with only the most rudimentary animations) was a pretty bold look to my eye, and not one I’d seen anywhere else.

If we were trying to be visually appealing in the same way as other games, going for a well-trodden style but just trying to outdo everyone on execution alone, we’d have needed so much raw art firepower to be noticed above all the competition. So this technique of making our own little competition off to the side in which there are no other competitors, is a sneaky way of standing out without quite competing. It’s a bit like wanting to break the world high-jump record, but seeing it’s way too high, so creating your own “highest jump while also wearing a sparkly hat” category and winning that instead with a much lower jump (and a much cooler hat).   So the style goal I set was to take incredibly low-resolution characters, reminiscent of the games I played as a child, but instead of recreating the way those old sprites really moved, I’d animate them to look how they did in my imagination. As a kid, those clumsy two-frame attacks were heroic lunges, and the simple run animations were athletic and full of life. I wanted to recreate the version I saw through the rose-tinted lenses of my childhood imagination.

For the smaller characters, the animation process is simple. I’d start with the key poses (frame numbers with boxes around them) which in this case is mostly one frame for each swing of the sword, with the pose being drawn in the posture the hero holds on immediately after each swing. Beyond that it’s mostly just inbetweens, apart from a few cases (frame numbers with underlines) where I’ve pulled part of the pose out a little further from the upcoming key, to give a stronger anticipation. 

You’ll notice practically none of my inbetweens are actually half way between the two poses. If things are moving very smoothly and robotically you’ll get half-way inbetweens, but in the case of combat (and most other animations in an action game) the movements are very staccato, so half-way inbetweens won’t suit. To get the desired movement, most of my inbetweens are actually copies of either the previous or next keyframe, with slight tweaks to indicate which direction the movement is about to go in (or which is has just come from) and some delayed and tweaked body parts to indicate where the force and weight are pushing, dragging and pulling things down. The actual “action”, the biggest movement of each strike, tends to happen between two of my frames, and I just draw a big motion-blur smear to indicate the movement of the blade over that time. This technique, which amounts to mostly just cushioning around keyframes, gives very snappy, staccato results.

For larger, more complex creatures, I’d do most of the animation work using fairly simple stick-figure type lines (which are very quick to draw and redraw) before painting over with full detail once I’m happy with the movement. Any style or process which allows you to change your mind and redraw a pose quicker, will always result in better animations as you are freed to take more risks.   You can see the process is quite approachable when broken down into simple individual tasks, with the most important decision being the order in which to do it all. If you work hard on secondary movements before you’re entirely happy with the primary, you’ll end up having to redo all that work once you change the primary. Or even worse, you’ll be tempted to just accept an imperfect animation, to avoid redoing the work.    Immediately after animating that bird creature, I decided I didn’t like the direction I’d taken and redid the animation from scratch. The efficiency of low-resolution allowed me this extra creativity and experimentation, by stripping much of the sunk-cost in time spent experimenting. If this animation has taken a few days rather than a few hours, I probably wouldn’t have bothered to try again.

Of course as a small team we still try to minimize the wastage and reuse anything we can. When it came to designing combat functionality for the bird creature, I had initially envisioned him having a big “squawk” as one of his attacks, where sound waves would fly out like projectiles, and make the hero dizzy on contact.

The attack wound up playing badly in-game, no matter how much I tried to make it work. Although the attack was scrapped I did quite like the squawk animation, so when I settled on a “grab and bite” move, I reused the old squawk frames for the anticipation on his grab.

The speed of drawing in that art style wasn’t only about making better animations, it was about game-design efficiency and the ability to experiment. I could have a brand new character designed, animated and fighting in game within a day, allowing even our most risky ideas to be tested. With a higher sunk-cost for each failed experiment, we’d have been both risk-averse in our initial ideas (playing it safe and designing moves similar to ones which had worked in the past), and much more prone to making do with not-quite-right gameplay after all that work had been done for the art. 

For us little developers, art can be a tightrope between visual impact and cost.  We were lucky enough to find a style for Crawl that we loved the look of and was also efficient to make, but with that now old-hat, it’s time to find a new twist for the next game.  Maybe low-resolution but wearing sparkly shoes this time?