#really it's the thing of 'first time i draw the character mostly on model (and it sucks cause i'm bad at keeping things on model)'

[astrow1zar6]

Astro Observations (Beauty indicators)- 27

Degrees in the 5th degree: known as a big sex appeal placement. These people naturally draw attention to themselves effortlessly especially on the asc. They could be wearing a bag and will have ppl still staring and asking for their number. They can get famous for their beauty.

Neptune in the 1st house: they kinda look like their wearing a filter naturally.. like their appearance is abnormally smooth and glossy, they have a very otherworldly look to them that will make others turn back for a second look. They all look like angels. They can have very dreamy personalities as well they know how to mirror other’s desires back to them which can create an almost hypnotic effect on others. (Marilyn Monroe had this)

Venus in 1st house: they give that conventional insta baddie look usually. But no seriously these people can easily become famous for their beauty fast on social media. They have such friendly charming personalities and genuinely enjoy being around others which adds to the charm. They normally put a lot of effort into looking good.

Libra Rising: I think this one is pretty self explanatory lol. These people are really easy to spot they normally have amazing fashion sense, regardless of their aesthetic they pull of whatever they wear so nicely. They dress like story book characters. Just a main character placement

Lilith conjunct asc: these people are also so angelic to look at. I feel like many ppl expect these people to be covered in tattoos and piercings and dark makeup (however they definitely could) but I mostly see that they have such an innocent beautiful appearance normally, the edginess is more through the vibe they give off which causes a lot of people to become obsessed with them. They look so sweet & innocent yet you can sense how much power these people hold within themselves. This can make them very intimidating but insanely attractive!

Libra Venus: they never usually have a hard time finding a partner due to their refined nature. These are people truly in love with love, their willingness to find love in others can be really attractive to the opposite sex (or same sex) which will cause them to have a lot of suitors normally. Their appearance is always so put together and they have such a perfect face for makeup! They tend to have very beautiful smiles as well.

Capricorn rising: talk about face card, these people normally look like models. They have amazing bone structure and are very petite themselves. This can give more an edgy dark beauty. They remind me of a sculpted Greek statue very emotionless and still yet so beautiful to look at.

Venus in 2nd house: giving princess vibes. These people are the definition of pretty privilege. Men will just buy them things for looking cute. Usually has an amazing fashion sense. They have very wealthy personalities, even if they weren’t raised rich they talk like they came from a lot of uk what I mean. Their power is really in their voice they have the most seductive voices my lord, this is what can attract so much wealthy partners. Amazing sweet talkers.

Venus in Taurus: give such a natural beauty. These people give coconut girl aesthetic with the natural tanned faces, effortlessly messy beach wave hair. These people just radiate beauty. The most beautiful thing about these people is their feminine qualities and their ability to know what they want for themselves. This can make them ideal wife’s to many. They are usually into classical feminine activities such as clothes making, cooking/baking, knitting, making jewelry. They give perfect conventional wife vibes.

Aphrodite in the 1st and 7th house: I feel like the first house is pretty self explanatory but these natives are usually known for their beauty like Venus in the 1st house. Many famous models have this placement (Adriana Lima) they have the most symmetrical features, these were the kids that never had an ugly/awkward phase. The 7th house makes you attractive to others around you. You can be seen as extremely charming and likable in your social engagements with others you can become very popular fast. However this attracts a lot of enemies and jealousy from others because of how liked you are by others. People almost worship you like a goddess. When I think of Aphrodite in the 7th I think of “the birth of Venus” painting where she’s emerging out of the claim and everyone around her is in awe, that’s what this placement is like.

Venus in 7th house: usually have such beautiful personalities. Even if they aren’t physically attractive they have such charming personalities that they are still seen as very attractive. These people are also really funny and good at engaging the opposite sex (or the same whatever you’re into) they attract so much attention from others romantically even if they are the least attractive in the room. They can pull some pretty attractive partners as well! And if they do happen to be physically attractive then they probably steal all the men😂 lowkey a little jealous of this placement! You guys are just so cool.

Pisces moons: they get known for their beauty pretty often. I feel like everyone has a crush on them ESPECIALLY the men with this placement. The men with this placement tend to sweep women away like a fictional character, they’re usually amazing with sweet talk. They also tend to look otherworldly too and others can get really obsessed with them. (Bjorn Anderson was a Pisces moon).

Cancer moons: they are all so pretty and feminine 🥺 they usually have a very doll-like appearance and a very warm aura. They know how to make others feel at home which is really attractive. They usually have soft feminine features and have a natural glow to them like the moon! They have such a motherly energy to them you just want them to mother you. Also very emotionally intelligent. These are amazing people to go to when you just need to vent, they’re the best listeners and comforters. Their softness attracts so many people to them.

[villiedoom]

Some Kotie sketches for practice, sharpening vision and thought 🐈

Nothing raises my artistic self-esteem as much as redrawing old and objectively bad stuff. Back then I believed that I will never learn, that realism and anatomy are beyond my comprehension (I still feel that way sometimes). But I didn't give up...

From 2013 on the left (plus one stylized face from 2014) and new re-drawings of these on the right. In 2013 I barely knew anatomy and my vision of Koties was quite abstract, so I mostly used severely buggy dog-like anatomy for these. I tried to fix this in my new sketches, at the same time trying to re-create the whole vision and features of the depicted characters.

I also really enjoyed drawing long fur and tufts on their ears, and so this become part of their lore, that all the Kotie ancestors had such tufts on their ears.

From 2015 and new re-drawings of these. In the first picture, two old ones in the top right and top left corners are from January 2015 and were probably one of my first attempts to learn to draw more realistically.

It was really bad and I struggled with everything, from basic anatomy and proportions to my perception of shape in general. I tried, however, to move away from just a dog or a weird stylized thing and give the Koties more of their own anatomy. I mostly saw them as thin, long-legged, yet having quite large paws, and so I tried to show this.

Sketches of Koties, depicting their heads and comparing them with my main source of inspiration, the Oriental Shorthair cat, which is represented both as photos and my redrawings of those. I used three Kotie characters as an example - Key, Atram and Liandra, plus a random Kotie with features more similar to the cat photos. My idea was to make the reference (Oriental cat) recognizable in Kotie's realistic features, but also to show their differences, as Koties are still a fantasy species and they aren't just a copy of an Oriental cat.

My perception usually reads their faces as "longer, more specifically angular, and having something vaguely human-like about them". They also have fairly narrow and flat whisker pads, so some Koties (such as Key) have faces that are extraordinary long and narrow, nearly unrealistic for a feline.

As a bonus - Kotie and Vaeraf lowpoly models from 2013. These were some of the very first 3D models I ever made and I am very happy to find them as actual model files. I still love them and I once made a remake of them ~

[evileyedoll]

Dark at the End of the Tunnel

Sink into an Anglers grasp in a dream, like the undersea the Night cradles screams

Been inspired by anglerfish recently, so I'm going to try to do at few of these dark background ones back to back and see if I stumble into something new. I noticed I tend to draw characters / mechs / robots in these oneshot illustrations extremely lanky, but I wonder if I made a comic, whether I'd keep these exaggerated proportions - I'm often indecisive about how much mech vs character is in these biomechs, so I usually just don't think about it and draw what feels interesting in the moment.

This gives me a chance to lay down a meandering anecdote - many years ago as a dumb teenager, I'd stay awake every Friday evening / saturday morning till 4 am, hoping to catch my favourite developer, Digital Extremes' weekly devstream. I vividly remember during closed beta in 2012 people would introduce the game as being about futuristic space pirates zipping through corridors - the games fidelity back then was really quite different, one of the early warframes, Ember, even had her whole model redone at one point. Around 2013-2014 ish when I was most excited for these streams, I noticed the games tagline was "ninja's play free", nothing at all to do with pirates - but it was catchy, and you'd see all over in the advertising because of the parkour moves you could pull off in the game were genuinely sick.

Incidentally, both the Defiance MMO (rip) and Destiny 1 (rip) were what warframe tended to be compared to at the time, both released a little after warframes closed beta, neither of which were piratey or ninja-ey , I think probably 80% of the reason for that was that they all had both guns and abilites ... I guess they were also all live services, I don't know if they were called that back then.

Compared to Defiance and Destiny, I was puzzled at what it was about warframes identity that made the aesthetic feel "itself" - and I got my answer on one of those devstreams - the art lead at the time brought out what they called a "faction pitch bible" a one pager showing all the factions they had in the game at the time, each of them with a few lines of flavour text.

What struck me from that faction pitch was that the Tenno / warframes "cyber knight" description was nothing at all to do with pirates or ninjas, it was a third, wholly other thing, and yet by virtue of being first, it might as well have been the "true" description.

But there was another original, even more original than the "true", Warframes predecessor game, Dark Sector, was a spy thriller with biomechanical aesthetics, or perhaps a powered suit superhero series. Would this original, more original than even the initial, not be what it truly was?

I think what my takeaway was from all of these, is that first an foremost, the aesthetic is "itself" rather than any arbitrary descriptors - I enjoy this about my own pieces, that they mostly still feel like they were made by me even if I can't quite categorise them or explain myself. Perhaps I'm happy if the takeaway is "cool mech", "weird robot" or "wacky character" because maybe it's all of those things and even more!

[unsoundedcomic]

What's your typical process for designing locations or characters? Since you don't go all the way to model sheets but I have some vague memories of seeing a page of sketched designs for Army era Duane. (with the note "he must NOT look cool!!")

Don't get me wrong, I do draw sketches! But they are the roughest, loosest things, entirely for my own reference, and are there largely for me to figure out shapes. Once you've got the shapes, you can draw anything in the world.

The bulk of the time however, I design characters right there on the page, right in the first panel they're introduced. I already have an impression of them in my head, and that's what I lay down.

You should not do this probably! It seems to be best for most artists to do model sheets. I just personally don't care to belabour a character design. I already know what I want - characters almost always pop fully formed into my head when I'm writing the script - so that's what I go with :) And of course you've seen my designs are pretty simple and straightforward. Look at how simple Duane and Sette's designs are; almost entirely about shape and colour. Not super graphic either, just really stripped down.

But again, that works for me. Doesn't mean it will work for you.

I'll usually plan environments a little better. I always rough out a map of the big locations, like Port Morstorben or Ethelmik. Durlyne has a pretty good map. Otherwise again, it's all stored in my mind cave, and I just slide it out as needed. I am not a fussy or patient artist; I want to get going!

Mostly my sketch file is full of things like this

[alexanderwales]

One of the dominant models of magic and superheroes is that everyone has their "thing", what I would call a bespoke magic system, but is mostly just a power that sits orthogonal to all other powers. This crops up all the time, because it's really really good for having dynamic fights, for characterizing people through their powers, for having new surprises and twists, and just generally keeping things going.

It's adaptable to all kinds of genres. Superheroes are the obvious one, whether it's canonized as Quirks or just an aspect of the setting. But I'm pretty sure that the basic concept was first invented in anime, with marital arts settings, where every character had their own jutsu or whatever, or the system in theory is all about ki manipulation or equivalent exchange but in practice everyone has their own particular niche. You can slot this into urban fantasy, giving every vampire their own special Power, or you can have some magical fantasy thing where everyone has their own unique Semblance.

So this is all well and good, but it leaves us with a narrative hole, which is progression. Having a unique power is cool, because you can think of new uses for it, have unique matchups, etc., but it doesn't give you that juicy sense of becoming more, and if you're facing down terrifying villains with their own powers, then a god-tier power is just kind of ... random. Luck of the draw, rather than the consequence of a powerful will or keen mind.

You can strip out limitations and amplify effects, and this is cool and good, or you can lean back away from uniqueness and toward uniformity, which I think is sometimes the right call, depending on your narrative needs.

So you say that actually the guy who can swap places with someone and the guy who can cut people from a distance are both unwitting hyperspecialists in the same field of magic or whatever, and that in theory, with unlimited time to train and experiment and explore, each could do what the other does.

This allows for a lot of snazzy narrative stuff. Two intense rivals "learn" each other's techniques, or at least adapt them into their own technique. Maybe the guy who does teleport swaps never learns to cut from a distance, but his teleport swap incorporates a cut into it, slashing at the person he's trading places with. A widower incorporates aspects of his dead wife's power, a mentor passes down elements of his technique to all his students, a young protagonist has some angst about using the aspect he got from his abusive father, etc.

If powers are a reflection of character, then you get to physically manifest a character's relationship with other people.

[kaiserouo]

do you have tips for drawing armor? (specifically guardian armor but armor in general works too)

Wow this is the first time i got asked about art related question. Life achievement get. Also please allow my rambling.

Tbh, there's... not that much real advice i can give? I mean, the best thing about drawing armor is that there's almost no organic stuff (e.g., facial / eye expression, muscle, etc) and you can just copy the reference. I'll try, but idk if this is what you're looking for

Basic / General Section

Because drawing armor is basically just "slapping a skin on a figure by copying the reference mindlessly", you need quite a few basic "things" to actually do that well enough:

A base figure (to slap the armor on. If you're good you could probably just freehand the armor directly but i cant. Draw the figure now so you can mindlessly copy-paste the armor on it later)

Reference (if you're drawing that armor set for the first time definitely don't use your memory. Just get a set of reference and stare at it and copy each piece you see. I would use destiny 2 model archive, open in blender, render enough reference i need and post them in PureRef. You'd probably need: 8 angles for the body, 8 angles for the head (zoomed in), the inside part of the arm and leg, and maybe more variated angles for the head. By 8 angles i mean front back left right and the 4 in the middle)

Perspective skill (this is generally important in drawing, but for armors (which is mostly about inorganic stuff) this probably matters a little bit more. For example, the shoulderplate might be in weird angles when the character move their arm and you should make sure you can draw that in these weird angles. The general advice would be to just go to drawabox.com and learn as much as you can, at least part 1 lesson 1 and draw (a bit of) 250 boxes challenge?)

Btw, by "copying reference" i don't mean "pose the character in game or in blender and copy / trace the pose and things exactly what you see", i mean "you shouldn't just imagine the armor pieces and clothe design of the character, you should know what the design looks like by seeing a reference and copying its design"

And that's it. Go slap some armor on some figures... Okay maybe I should give some examples.

Let's use these 2 as examples

So first of all, who are these people anyways? They are the Limitless Subversion hunter set (& exo chassis & ghost) and Reynauld from darkest dungeon, so you should probably go and prepare your reference now.

Now the least fun part imo. Drawing the figure.

"Least fun" because all the proportion, motion, perspective information, and just basically anything should be dealt with at this stage and i'll be more and more unconfident in my figure drawing and perspective skill as time goes on. The rest of armor is just detail that you can mindlessly slap on the figure later.

probably should make things more block-y to see what i mean by perspective

not perfect but you get the point. you should know which direction the arm / leg / torso is facing so you can slap the armor at the correct position and angle.

...tbh that's just part of the figure drawing skillset. you also need that when you slap muscles on a figure

(just a random example for my practice note don't actually try to figure that out it's probably wrong anyways)

As for how exactly to do the figure drawing... there's tutorials literally anywhere and each person has their own way to do that. can't really help you with that, go google some videos or just crunch the andrew loomis figure drawing book. free online btw. Also anatomy helps a huge ton even if youre not actually drawing muscles.

And the next step is just stare at the reference and copy the armor pieces on the figure

that seems like a big jump but tbh we've dealt with the most difficult part in the figure drawing section so this is just mindlessly drawing now. the general advice i can give is to get a dual monitor (to not clutter the screen with reference too much), try to understand what each piece looks like in 3D, make sure the armor pieces is in the right orientation, and (do your best to) figure out if what you're drawing would violate the perspective rules you learned before (which should also be dealt with in the figure drawing part)

Detail / Niche Advice Section

we are talking about armor and clothes and outfit stuff so there should be a lot of niche detail stuff that would be beneficial to do or learn

the things i can think of now are these

DIY (do it yourself) means this is a common topic and there should be some tutorials online or in books (e.g., fur, crease), or just do it a bunch of times and you would somehow get the gist of it (e.g., hood). (i kinda hate learning that way because it's just pure coincidence whether you "get it" or not and that makes me uneasy because there's a chance that i'll never get it. but yeah sometimes this is what you need. Go and stare at / try to copy other people's artwork as practice and you MAY get what they're doing. Don't just mindlessly trace them btw it won't help if you're not actively using your brain to understand what's going on)

And that's it. It's probably too much for an AMA but let's just say i'm doing this as a record of my process

[c4n1d43cup1d]

Some hogcanons. notes (me rambling) under the cut

So silver was the reason i wanted to make this in the first place despite him looking the most on model (not entirely obviously, but i don't have many hcs for him). Mostly i wanted to draw his height compared to the other hedgehogs since him being freakishly tall despite being younger than sonic and shadow is funny. I saw someone say hes probably the most conventionally attractive hedgehog and i think that's true, hes a pretty boy and his fur/quills are really sleek and well maintained. The fluff on his chest is less spikey and more fluffy looking plus i put some fluff in his ears as well. I think his paws and nails are black and he doesn't wear eyeliner his lashes are just really long and hes got black markings on his eyes. Coming back to this after writing Amy's desc but i think hes genderqueer in some way idk maybe bigender i need to study him under a microscope some more every character i touch becomes transgender

Sonic has a few more added details, i like giving him a little nick in his ear and top surgery scars because that hog is trans. I haven't really seen many people give him stylized top surgery scars surprisingly, i tried to make his look kind of lightning bolty because uh something about him being fast. idk man. i think i imagined its similar to what itd look like for him to run in a zigzag? whatever i think it looks cool. I think his claws are kind of uneven and he doesn't really care too much about how they look especially since he just has them under gloves most of the time

Amy is fat because i said so, also i gave her wavier quills and heart markings everywhere. Her ears might look a little strange since it like implies her skin is making that heart shape but i imagine thats her fur spiking into the point. Her nails are painted the same red that shadows markings and stuff are mostly because i think them being besties is cute like. i see shadamy as a queer platonic relationship. Theyve always been my favorites im going to to make them as close as i want. Anyway, i think she and sonic are tied for having the shortest ears, and hers are the rounest (might make them even rounder the next time i draw her) also not entirely related to her design but i think shes transfem and genderfluid.

Shadow my son. im taking custody from black doom and gerald. anyway, i have the most headcanons for him because he is my absolute favorite guy ever he rots my brain. I think he and Amy are the same height, his rocket shoes are like platform/heels and so when he has them on he looks like Sonic's height or maybe a teeny tiny bit taller. I give his quills extra little spikes for no reason other than i think its cute, i could bullshit that its a black arms thing but idrc. What are black arms things though are his eyes and claws, his scelera is a more yellow compared to everyone elses (jaundiced as my friend put it. thanks endy) and i didn't draw it but his pupils are slits. Claws are long but are even longer when all the way out (retractable) his gloves are thick enough that he doesn't pierce them but he probably has a few spare pairs. Also not pictured but black arms related: his teeth are fucking razors, larger than the other hedgehogs and also serrated because i think thats cool. his tail is the longest out of all of them though i think it used to be longer but was lopped off in the name of science and never properly grew back. also his inhibitor rings are connected to a sort of device that does the task of being a proper gateway between his internal energy and the rings themselves, i didn't draw them but essentially its like a smaller ring that is embedded into his wrists i think. also hes trans but in a sort of alien way, i think the black arms can do the clownfish genderswap thing and shadow has it to a somewhat lesser degree its like an internal tshot i guess idfk

ok yeah thats all if u made it to the end thanks for reading the ramblings of a mad man

[amne-chan]

Hi I really love these elita one designs of yours:

https://www.tumblr.com/amne-chan/775015393488191488/head-and-poisoned-daggers-designs?source=share

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/18aoPG

Would you ever upload an elita one SpeedPaint on your YouTube channel? I would really love to watch them

Hi! I draw in photoshop, so usually it takes to me an extra effort to make them and also not forgetting to turn on recording. I tried to do in ph itself too, but it seems to be possible only through actions, which is not an option, I saw there's also a plugin for that but i wll probably try it later. Another thing is that i planned it to be Patreon only, but it turns out that I still don't have enough time for Patreon at this moment. You can get a free subscription until new posts appear. So first one just overpainted 3D model, I had something similar here timelaps. town dweller . You can find some screenshots on my artstation too from zbrush, but yeah, no texturing, sculpting or overpainting process. Second one i have here on tumblr too. Third Mind Movement-Лес в моей голове – @amne-chan on Tumblr It's been 4 years ago based on my head character design sheet i did 5 years ago. I mean i clearly remember that it was just this painted picture with minor head tilt, because i wanted to paint something but didn't want to think much what. (1) twitter – @amne-chan on Tumblr I'm also making a Zine about "death and loneliness" creation, lore, story and possibilities of future realisation that I'm making for TFnation where I'm going to table and for сolleagues. There are two chapters dedicted to logic and proccess of creation, first chapter mention changes of Elita 1 throughout time as an example. Generally there're only two designs of her i have, before "Death and loneliness" and after at this moment. It also will be 18+ due to heavy topics, foul language, explicit gore and generally my art mostly been aimed to adults even if it's not always visible. I probably will sell Zine after TFN too. So if you love it, I'd recommend to stay tuned for that but considering all mentioned above, if you specifically love the design it might not be a thing you could be interested in, on another hand her look wasn't taken from the ceiling so whatever seems relevant for you. I'm also getting a little bit more talkative on bluesky .

[taylor-titmouse]

2023 Book Retrospective

it's pretty much the end of the year, and i've never done this before, but i wanted to take a look at what i managed to do in 2023 and share some of my thoughts on it! i published five novellas this year (though i didn't actually write one of them) plus the public release of the demo and first huge update to You're A Mage on Monsterfuck Mountain. that's a lot!

so let's dig into all that. this will contain some spoilers for the books, because it's hard to talk about them without talking about what's in 'em, so maybe check out my itchio first and grab anything you missed! (but also.... perhaps wait until this weekend before you buy anything. shh.)

You're A Mage on Monsterfuck Mountain, released in March

TECHNICALLY, the demo was finished and available on patreon around the end of last year, and didn't become public until I'd finished the garden update, which i did finish this year. and what a massive fuckin THING that was. 60k words! 50 illustrations!! the biggest thing i ever put out and technically finished, and the beginning of a move to being less afraid of writing "weird" sex. there was so much bee sex in it. arguably too much bee sex in it. which i'd left entirely til last to do which meant i was writing nothing but bee sex for weeks.

this was the first time i let myself really indulge in writing dubcon for the bad endings, and it was a lot of fun. very often it was more interesting than the deliberately horny routes, because it meant writing a way to be put in the situation, and also making it hot every time. i'm very much of the philosophy with dubcon that even if the situation wasn't Ideal for the character, they're still going to get good sex out of it. i believe i put it at another point as, i'm here to write the pleasure of helplessness, not suffering. to that point, the dubcon endings for the armor, the dryad, and the queen bee were my favorite bits from this.

the fact i never got a second update out this year is a big regret. i finished a bunch of the routes for it, but ultimately i wanted to have things i could release! shortly after publishing the demo and update, i officially put my webcomic on hiatus so i could focus more on my graphic novel, and also spend more time on my writing. having that extra time is probably the only reason i was able to write as much as i did this year, and i didn't want to spend it toiling away on a serial project i couldn't release for months at a time.

which leads us to the release of my first novella of the year...

House of the Risen King, released in April

now this is when i truly said "i'm just going to write what i think is hot and interesting and not worry about how it's perceived!!" and went whole hog on exhibitionism and monster dubcon cult horror. house was mostly inspired by the ending of Hereditary, and was originally going to be more poltergiesty and played more straight, with vee being harangued by a bunch of horny ghost-demons and nothing more sinister than that. but i've had cult shit percolating at the back of my brain forever, and i wanted to play with ideas i'd first developed in shadow in the shelves with rituals and shadows, so here we are! the scene of hettie fingering vee in the bathtub while vee's god-fucked out of her mind is my favorite.

fun fact, the original seed for this book was actually going to feature max and mortis, my photographer/model couple (that link goes to cohost because i wasn't posting here yet when i was drawing them the most). the idea was they'd go do an urban exploration shoot and mortis would start getting fucked by a ghost while max filmed it, but the more time i spent with those characters the less i wanted to involve the supernatural. which meant i never wrote their book, and had to make a new character to do the idea. and then it wasn't even that idea anymore.

that's writing, folks

Roger Crenshaw: The Dogs at Duskfall, released in June

... which makes it ironic that the next book is one i didn't even write! r/l monroe @mortalityplays has been my friend for years, and was my editor for a long time (until he got a REAL JOB and didn't have TIME to edit anymore. sobs, cries, kicks a stone and walks into the distance). he's also always been an incredible writer, and for my birthday this year i asked him to write me something. i asked with the expectation of a little short story about our old tabletop RP characters, or a fanfic scene for one of my books he'd edited.

and then he wrote me 20,000+ words digging into the character of roger crenshaw and who he is that perfectly summed him up and tied all his stories together, such that i don't think i ever need to write another one. he did it, he wrote the perfect ending to roger. AND he did it using my favorite of his ocs from our tabletop campaign, AND there's some really hot and sweet smut in it. AND HE DID IT IN LIKE TWO WEEKS.

i loved it so much that i asked if i could illustrate and publish it as an official novella, and to my delight he agreed, and it was so so nice to collaborate with him on it. even if it meant beating our heads against the wall for 30 minutes about the placement of certain images on the page.

this was a great tragedy. i'd drawn the vagina one first, but an image earlier in the book had to be moved, which affected the placement of everything else. the vagina image had been perfectly at the start of a new page, and then suddenly it wasn't. so i had to do the penis one instead for better placement. tragic!!!

it's hard to pick a favorite scene in something written entirely, lovingly for you. how can i choose between the characters' pitch perfect semantic arguments on the nature of folk lore, the millenium princess-ass memory hopping, or the really really hot smut? i can't. i love it all. thank you r/l for being so good at what you do and writing this for me, i'll treasure it always.

The Dragon Double Feature, released in May

apparently this came out in may, and not july. i don't know why i've been convinced this came out in july. oh well i can't be bothered to insert it on top of the roger one.

anyway. THIS book. this book exists because i believe at the time i was a bit blocked, and wanted to just write SOMETHING. for a long time i've had the idea of a dragon wrecking a princess' wedding and fucking her in front of the congregation just sitting in my back pocket. it was the 'i know i could just slam this out if i wanted. i don't have to care about it it's just sex and then it's done' fallback idea, and i finally did it!

and then it was too short. i don't like the idea of publishing anything less than 10k words for full price, so i was like. okay. alright. i've always thought fucking an eastern dragon would be hot and have this other idea i was going to use for roger (back when i had an idea for every monster possible for roger), let's just write that. kenta is only kenta because i took a poll for what body type i should pair with a dragon (he was 'big boy', i think the other options were twink, older woman, and average woman). and i was also Really into the movie inu-oh at the time, which is probably obvious with kenta being a blind musician, lol.

the musician and the waterfall was tougher to write because i didn't have a clear vision of how it should end or even how they should fuck (the mechanics of fucking long noodle dragon have challenged me for years) but i'm ultimately pleased with it. it would have been a long time since i wrote something sincerely romantic, and it was nice to go back to it. i'm a HUGE romantic at heart.

both stories are pretty much one extended scene so it's hard to pick a favorite moment from them, but i will say i'm very pleased with how i approached writing the musician and the waterfall, specifically in the challenge i set myself to never use visual description kenta couldn't reasonably guess. writing from the POV of a blind man made me focus in on different senses and ways to describe them.

this book is also, as of right now, my best seller. which is great! i love that for me.

The Dragon Double Feature 2, released in July

okay i guess THIS one released in july.

anyway i got stricken with the curse with this one. a lot of people wanted me to write a sequel, but i wasn't going to. and every time i say i'm not going to do something, i end up doing it. it's so annoying. this one only happened because i wanted to write a SHORT! a SHORT extra for patreon describing kenta and wakatake's first time having sex as humans.

and then i wrote too much preamble describing their time on the beach. and then i got emotionally invested in unpacking their actual relationship, and also added a third character with mrs arakawa, and had to bring it all together into a story that was coherent and had something to say about the way they loved and ALSO ended in a THREESOME because WHATS THE POINT OF INTRODUCING A THIRD CHARACTER if they aren't all going to FUCK TOGETHER!!

it was tough. but i'm really, really happy with it in the end, and think it's one of the best things i've ever written. my favorite scene is definitely them playing with the hermit crab on the beach. metaphors babie.

the gundrid/eveline story is fine too. lmao. i NEVER PLANNED TO WRITE ANOTHER WITH THEM!! i only did it because the idea of publishing a sequel to a story from a double feature without writing a sequel to the other half of the feature was insane. and now eveline and gundrid are some of my most beloved characters, to the point of writing another book featuring them...

The Tenebrous Tower, released November

yet another book i'm pretty sure i was like 'i don't need to write this. this character doesn't work for a story on his own, what am i ever gonna do with him' and then i dumped a bunch of fantasy characters into a jar with him and suddenly i had a story. I ONLY MADE ROMICK BECAUSE I WANTED TO DRAW FUCKED UP WIZARD PORN AND MY ONLY OTHER OPTION WAS A GRANDPA!!!

anyway i started writing it as something to do on vacation, and it was just gonna be a bunch of dungeon bdsm vignettes until i hit on a throughline and suddenly i had a story and an emotional arc and damn i did it again. i did it again. i have a book.

i was expecting this one not to do very well because it had multiple prerequisites, but because i am a master of my craft i made sure to write it so you didn't need to read those. and then people read it without reading those. so it worked out anyway and now it's done just about as well as dragons 2. the people love romick, but they especially love the idea of him being destroyed. maybe someday. maybe someday. (except on patreon, where it's already happened)

the final vignette with the doll is, of course my favorite. i think it was a lot of people's favorites.

............................................

and that's everything i published this year! honorable mention to my novel starbuster, which i'd written most of last year, then spent all of october this year revising with the intent of finishing it, only to run out of steam by the time i was done revising it. so it's exactly where i left it last year. just better written. god it would be nice to finish that fuckin thing next year.

my goals for 2024 are, of course: release more books!! i have a big project i've been working on illustrating for the past month that i'd like to release in january, and i've also been working on a spin-off one-shot with mrs arakawa and an oni. i think this coming year i want to Try to blast through some of the one-off ideas i developed this year so they'll quit banging cowbells in my brain. like the sleeping garden. it makes me insane i never actually wrote the sleeping garden.

anyway if you actually made it to the end of this, thank you!! if you've bought all of these books, double thank you!!! i've been able to pay my rent and expenses just with my adult work this year, and it's been amazing and fun and super fulfilling. thank you for supporting me in 2023, here's to a horny 2024!!

[kamirai-k]

Kang Haesol and the Stoic Male Lead Trope (In the context of Roles Reversal)

All right, I have been seeing constant discussion about Haesol and it really lets me understand that most of y'all don't understand Kang Haesol as a character (Or you just don't have common sense) and that genuinely boggles my mind while letting me know that many people do not read Shoujo and do not understand Shoujo tropes because if you did you would understand her a lot better.

So I'm going to be breaking down the one Shoujo trope you have to know to understand Kang Haesol as a character.

Stoic male lead.

Yeonwoo's Innocence is not only a roles reversal but it is also a Shoujo deconstruction. If you read a lot of Shoujo and romance in general you can pick up on this pretty quickly. Therefore pretty quickly you should understand what type of character Haesol is.

Kang Haesol is the stoic male lead. Given this is RR she is the female lead but this does not change on account of her gender.

This male lead archetype are the ones who do not speak their emotions. They show them instead through action. THAT! is the character archetype that Haesol is based around.

Another thing about these Stoic characters is that they are obsessive. That is a constant trait that all of these stoic characters have in common and it makes a lot of sense given that because they constantly repress their emotions. When something happens and they lose their grip they are going to blow up and show themselves in ways that are not all that pleasant. (All that emotional repression does something to you and it's only a matter of time until it blows up)

The thing about Yeonwoo's innocence is that typically when this trope is put in a Roles Reversal setting the female lead is not exactly like the stoic male lead that is her counterpart. In an RR setting the female lead who is a reflection of this archetype is typically watered down and made a more feminine version of this archetype that loses all its flavor. as the story goes on but Yeonwoo's innocence does not do this.

Kang Haesol is a genuinely stoic character. She is not going to get all blushy and emote because she is STOIC! The Definition of stoic is someone who shows little to no emotion. Kang Haesol is the personification of this trope in female form and You all need to understand that. If you're expecting her to become some cold beauty who ends up a housewife or whatever TF don't. That is NOT her character and it never will be.

With Stoic characters, you have to actually pay attention to them to understand them. You have to WANT to understand them to be able to peel back the different sides of their personalities and Haesol is perfect for this. If you just look at her surface level you see nothing but a stoic person.

But if you actually LOOK at her and how she interacts with the world around her you understand her a lot better.

That is the appeal of The Stoic archetype. That mystery of who they are is what draws Shoujo readers to them and what makes them such interesting characters.

Kang Haesol is the female version of this archetype so don't treat her any differently. You don't tell male stoic characters to smile more or show more emotion so don't do the same to her.

Kang Haesol throughout the story stays consistent and her personality is still at its core that typical stoic male lead archetype. She's the perfect stoic character.

That is until she meets Yeonwoo.

Love at first sight is also a stoic male lead thing and it is done perfectly in this manhwa. (ah we love it when the calm one loses their marbles)

A character who has their emotions mostly in control but one person (that love interest) throws a retch into their usually calm waters.

Here's the thing though. Haesol is different.

Haesol has no grasp on her emotions. She can not perceive her emotions because of her trauma and how being a child model affected her (those who say we know nothing about her need to read the manhwa again because her backstory is literally thrown in your face in multiple moments of this manhwa) she can not understand her emotions because it is the coping mechanism she developed while she was being abused. If she showed emotion she was punished for doing so. So of course she locked them away. Then being with her mother only made things worse because she never truly cared enough to actually help Haesol and instead hurt her even more.

Which only made her retreat further.

Then she meets Yeonwoo.

Then she felt emotion.

Unbridled, overwhelming, EMOTION! for this "girl" and the confusion of it makes it worse. The confusion of why she's unable to get this "girl" out of her head and why everywhere she turns she sees this beautiful person wherever she turns confused and deludes but excites her.

Then she finds out that "she" is in fact a "he" and that she has a chance (Not like she wouldn't have a chance with a girl like have we seen her?)

Of course, she's obsessed!

Of course, she wanted to get closer to him. Of course, she will use whatever excuse she can to get near him.

Of course, she wants him desperately! He's the first person to elicit such strong emotion from her and it's positive! Not only is it overwhelmingly positive but it's all consuming and she's terrified because she's never felt this before.

Of course, she hides it away and shows nothing when showing emotion has only ever led to disaster.

Now that that is out of the way, the reason why I wanted to explain this is because people don't seem to understand her character, especially in relation to Yeonwoo.

Understand that this is a Shoujo deconstruction and a roles reversal manhwa. (it's a good one as well. the most well-written one I've ever read)

This is a two-in-one so unless you have experience with Shoujo/ romance and works that deconstruct popular tropes you most likely won't understand many of the things that are being done in this month.

Haesol very clearly is obsessed with Yeonwoo.

It is painfully obvious and you don't even need to reread it to understand that. (though his manhwa has insane reread value) The moment you get to the scene where she turns around after Yeonwoo asks to go to the amusement park with her you should already have alarms blaring (if you read Shoujo) because you understand that's not what a stoic character would typically do.

In Shoujo, the first meeting with the stoic male lead most of the time is very one and-done. The stoic male lead most of the time does not turn back and ask the female lead anything much less talk to her.

It is mostly their second interaction that does that.

However in Haesol and Yeonwoo's interaction not only does she give him her umbrella but she also engages in a brief conversation asking if he's ok. Sure it's small and bearly a minute but it still matters. If you understand the context surrounding that scene you're going to understand that her giving him her umbrella means that she calculated that he has to give it back to her.

Furthering their conversation... and making sure she gets to talk to him again.

There are so many little details that have been put into this manhwa that need to be talked about more because this is just one of them.

Haesol is a character whom I've said multiple times you need to look at her actions and not her words if you want to understand her as a character.

Also given that she is a Stoic character her obsession is going to be deep, it is going to be unhealthy, and it is not going to be in any way light.

Given the fact that Yeonwoo in fact enables these tendencies of hers you all need to understand that is going to likely get worse. Not in a bad way Shoujo has a tendency to make obsession like this completely viable (as we should let the girls have their fun. I personally love it and fall for it hook line and sinker) but given that this is Esol we are talking about she will probably twist this trope on its head in some way shape or form.

In all honesty, I'm just sick and tired of people constantly making horrible takes about Haesol as a character when it is clear they do not understand who she is. It is very clear that you do not read Shoujo or consume romance in general because most of these takes would not be happening if people actually understood the context of the genre.

[bethpencilart]

Have some sketches I made the last couple of months since discovering Moral Orel

I did some doodles before this to learn how to draw Orel and this was my first attempt at drawing him in my style. I also drew Christina.

I love Stephanie, so I made a page dedicated to her. The flag is supposed to be the lesbian flag. I decided that I should also draw some of the other adult characters. From left to right: Bloberta, Clay, Reverend Putty, Miss Censordoll, Principal Fakey, and Miss Sculptham. I had a theme with the right page, the adults of Moralton that should be role models for Orel but constantly let him down /lh

Adult Swim canceling this show is my Roman Empire. They really canceled it before the main character could go through his entire arc. I made these design mainly to work on something else, but I'm happy to have made them. I have definitely been inspired by other designs fans have made, but I did try to be original. Also made one for Christina! She's kinda inspired by pastel goth cause I imagine her parents are more strict and wouldn't let her wear traditional goth attire. She's probably already pushing the line.

Finally, some OCs I made. I'm sorry. First two are friends for Christina, I wanted to do something more then make a female Doughy and I had fun making them. The second is an OC I designed for a fic that is currently a wip. Yes, I did have a fun time creating the punny names.

Laika Lyukanida is Christina's childhood best friend. She is a second-generation Russian-American, her grandfather defected the USSR and moved to the US. I wrote that he was KGB, but I'm thinking that him being a spy makes more sense. I thought it would be funny for her to quote her grandfather sometimes and it being obvious that the quote was about his previous work, but neither her or Christina recognize it.

She is more resistant to Christina's chaotic plans, but she always finds herself working on them anyway. She has an interest in science and is often sneaking in the library against her family's wishes. As she grows older, she probably becomes more agnostic but keeps it a secret. Her first name is mainly a reference to the claymation studio, but I imagine in universe she was named after the dog that made it to space. Her last name is a reference to an old stop motion film from Russia.

Komugi Nendo Jingorō is Christina's friend who has a friendly rivalry on who's the better Christian. She is unfortunately very aware of how much her and her family are outcasts due to being Japanese in a mostly white protestant town. Christina and Laika are her closest friends due to them being more accepting of her. Laika understands what it's like for her name to be constantly mispronounced and relates to her. Christina's parents, much like Orel's, are racist and she has to keep their friendship a secret from them.

Her first and middle name is a reference to flour clay. It's a type of clay that children play with, and I thought it would be a cute name for a kid character. Her last name is both a reference to an old Japanese artist known for working with clay, and a reference to a stop motion short film that is about the same guy.

Will Plasticine is a gay florist in Christina's hometown. He grew up there, and when he turned 18, he ran away from his parents to go to college out of state. He met Stephanie there and they immediately became friends due to them being able to relate with growing up closeted in a very religious environment. She made one of her first tattoos on him, a pink triangle on his upper arm. He opened a shop in his hometown once he finished college, but he still has contact with Stephanie and sometimes they visit each other.

His first name isn't a pun or a reference, his last name is a reference to material used for claymation, especially earlier on. I thought it would be funny to make him a florist to Stephanie's tattoo artist, ie the florist and tattoo artist au thing. Obviously it's not romantic, they're just good friend. I imagine he has a story that parallels the episode, "The Blessed Union", where Christina hears a sermon about how wives should treat their husbands and she becomes curious on what husbands should do for their wives and she ends up in his shop.

[villiedoom]

I have some idea what your previous post is about. I think your best options are to either carry on as normal (if possible), or share your side of the story, just so people don't have only rumors to go off of. Either way, I think it would be best for your mental health to block/mute all accounts/everything to do with this other person, and just authentically follow your own path. Please feel free to ignore this, your post gave me the impression that you were seeking advice, sorry if I misunderstood.

Thank you (as well as one more person) for the support!

I though about sharing my side many times throughout all the years; it's already taken too much of my mental health and I don't know how to handle all this stuff properly.

I decided to share the basic things in public, with the goal of informing people on what my side is and counter disinformation against me. No names here. Those who know, they know.

OP sorry for using your message for this stuff!

DO NOT attack anyone, whatever you think of them. And do not involve me any more. I may respond to something in private messages and you are free to inform or ask me, but I also reserve the right to remain silent.

I don't know what they want from me except for me to give up my entire species concept and realistic style, on which I spent years of my life (I was also the first one who started working on realistic 3D, this has been my dream since childhood and no way I'll give up on doing 3D models of my weird cats)

Back then (2018-2019) I was a rather small artist with barely more support than a couple of friends and, along with being very personal and touching on some very specific cult-like tactics, it all collapsed me in a really terrible way. I am hurt and angry to this day.

The other people involved are either those I have no contact with (mostly these who are used against me; I have info about some of them, including from their former friend who contacted me about all this once, but idk if I can share it, I don't want to involve anyone without their consent), and the main ones are problematic.

Their attack on me was manipulative and controlling (in a "I do this because I love your species and care about them being original" manner) and downright threatening (like "you will have problems if you do not change your species") from the start (2016) and no detailed explanation was given. Then they suddenly turned friendly and were okay with me, my style and my species; back then (in 2017) it was my initiative to talk about it and they were okay.

They also openly took inspiration from my art, especially my symbolic/spiritual art and lore; by openly I mean their direct questions about using this or that from my art. I was okay with it at first. Then, for personal reasons, it became problematic for me as well; I felt trapped and used. And so they went against me again. And do this to this day. All the stories about me accusing them of stealing the species are either a misunderstanding or a lie; it was personal and more complicated. Now I don't care what they draw, I try to avoid them.

For other "funny" stories (and about why I said they are"problematic") you (not you personally but anyone who is interested) may try to contact @kissthegogo-goat-witch (hope you're ok with that)

I already blocked them, all their friends, and sometimes I block even their fans just to keep their whole circle away. I had my grievances against them, but I'm not interested in continuing all of this.❗❗❗

For my species - I work on them on my own; they are based on oriental shorthair and I am transparent about this. I do not believe that I am not allowed to use my concept, which I created and started to work with on my own, only because other person was the first one to use a similar idea. Not to mention the personal meaning of my species and characters to me.

I am not happy with this "similarity" either, because I hate to be associated with them; these comparisons, as well as the memories, bother me throughout all these years. Back then I've been trying to find a way out, tried to draw Koties "less similar", destroyed their concept completely and built it anew by using the photos of real cats, desperately redrew their concept from scratch many times. I once gave up on them and their lore and story entirely because it all have drained me deadly, so I changed my old characters into Vaerafes (Vewis as a Vaeraf), which was never fully voluntary on my part. I also deleted all my old art and avoided sharing it.

But now the Koties, my vision of them, and my right to own, draw, and share them, are my personal priority and my little win that I managed to finally draw and share them again. I decided to come back to them when I was working on the history of my entire lore and concepts, and realized that I need them, I miss them, I still love them, and I don’t want to give up on them. I'm tired of living in fear and pressure.

Other people and their questions and misunderstandings are not my responsibility. Hundreds of people call my characters Pangur after all. Plus, our characters aren’t just cat designs but also their story, meaning, etc.

(numbers are years, 15=2015 and so on)

I have used - and use - different creatures and styles in my art, but it is my right and choice to do so. I have the right to have them all as valid; none of this is an attempt to deceive my followers, nor is a crime.

Sorry for messing around; I'll likely delete this post later, but I decided to share it to make my side more transparent.

[moongothic]

Seen at least one (1) person complain about Crocodile losing his "unique faceshape" (now having the same facial structure that 90% of OP men have) after episode 1086 came out and like

To be fair, yes, the shape of his head HAS changed since his first appearance in The Year 2000. The thing is, Toei's latest Crocodile Offering is frankly more in-line with how Oda drew Crocodile during Impel Down and Marineford than ever before. Like yeah he looks different, but this change isn't new

But that comment really did make me think about how FUNNY it is just how different Croc really looks from his first appearance, like. The evolution in how Oda draws the bastard is so facinating to me

These are from chapters 155, 160 and 205 respectively.

No massive changes happening here in the middle of the arc, but you can kinda tell that Oda was definitely still figuring out how this asshole was supposed to look as he got further into the Alabasta (which is perfectly normal), which just makes That First Appearance look even funnier with time because. Who the fuck is that lmaooo

But then we get to see him briefly during Miss Goldenweek's cover story, this being from the cover of chapter 413! All things considdered, bastard hasn't changed that much, still looks pretty much the same as in Alabasta. His head is maybe a little less elongated than before but still, chin is quite pointy still

And now we're in Impel Down at chapter 540. Again, dude looks about the same as he did before...

But it really doesn't take long for Oda to start reshaping this bastard's entire head at this point

Chapters 544, 546, 578, and cover of chapter 584

The chin is easily the most obvious part, but you can tell Oda kind of defaulted to giving him that same ol' evenly square-ish head most his conventionally attractive characters have during these story arcs (instead of the elongated shape he originally had).

And then we have the latest appearances, from 1082 and 1100

I do feel like comparing these to what's come before would be a little unfair considdering his health and eyesight and how those affect the artwork itself, but. They're there, for comparison's sake

But the point is still there. Crocodile's face shape has changed since his first appearance, but it's not like Toei was behind that, the change was (mostly) gradual and from Oda himself. And it mostly happened in 2008, so it's not new by any means either

So really, all Toei did was just update his character model because ⬆️ is more accurate than ⬇️ for One Piece right now

Regardless. The sheer difference between the two is hysterical to me

[ryuichirou]

Replies

Some twst replies, also shorter ones today.

irregardlessly-tish asked:

Have you seen the cards for the new event? 👀 (Possible spoilers ig) They got me thinking okurrr yes gawd boots the house down slay mama 💅, but also you know how they usually change Grim's model a bit? They are probably going to be cowards and give him a different bow but I know what he really needs to match the guys' energy: a fabulous mullet.

Anonymous asked:

Thoughts in the images of riddle in the rapunzel outfit?

Alright, first of all Ridpunzel is insane. WOW.

The emotion he made me feel is so confusing that I am still trying to wrap my head around it. He looks so… perfect. Like this is exactly how he is supposed to look, like I am not surprised at all for some reason, like yeah duh this is Riddle – our Disney Princess lol Of course it would fit him well because his face is so cutesy and all, but damn it fits him so PERFECTLY. I love him a lot. But I am also very overwhelmed by him so it’ll take some time for me to draw him like this probably lol She really ate, she really boots the house down… my wig is nowhere to be found.

But you know who I am also excited about? Fucking Deuce. He is giving me something I didn’t even know he could give. He is like a mix of dgm Kanda and a very specific type of uke from 80-90s. I am in love with him, I am so happy Jack is also there to be this very specific type of seme from 80-90s with his fucking mane lol

As for Grim, I was thinking about him also having a mane, BUT A MULLET… what a fabulous option indeed. It would be decorated with flowers… so pretty and cute! Now I’m almost sad he won’t get any of these options lol

Anonymous asked:

Mr. Clover [edited out]

Not posting the ask, Anon knows why, but I still wanted to wink at it (I hope that was okay with you) and say… Yes. I absolutely agree. 

Anonymous asked:

What are you opinions on things like Power bottoms? What decides who is bottoming? Is it who is in control? Who is being penetrated? Vibes? Something else?

We have a big post about our reasoning when it comes to who tops and who bottoms, but to give you a short answer, it’s mostly vibes + our personal preferences for very specific types of tops and bottoms!

We don’t usually gravitate towards power bottoms; absolutely nothing against it and it suits some characters very well, but I’m just a huge sucker for “submissive + penetrated” combo, with rare exceptions. And the exceptions kind of end up being more bossy and bratty than proper power bottoms with us…

Anonymous asked:

But woe, who do I see pass my way? 'tis a sickly victorian boy living out his days through the written word?

Naught? 'tis but Rollo Flamme reading a book? Hast he escaped the monastery?

For some reason, Anon, your ask had BGM in my head… it really took me there. A very well-written ask…

I want Rollo’s entire life to be narrated like this.

Anonymous asked:

Idia really is just bones, isn't he? Skeleton man.......

Yeah, he really is… so bony and cute :”(

[seventeenlovesthree]

I know you wrote, you have a ton of projects till the end of the year, but! I saw Ruki/Jeri in your poll and would you care share your two cents about them girls? Only if you have time. I loved them since Ruki was teaching Jeri to play the digimon card game 🥺 I think they are my fave f/f ship in digimon

First things first: You can ALWAYS drop messages in my ask box, I'm always happy and up to discuss and share my own meta about ships and characters!

While my personal favourite f/f ship in Digimon overall will always be Sora/Mimi, I can actually draw some parallels between their dynamics, particularly when it comes to the similarities between Sora and Ruki - I'll try to keep this as short as possible, but the main aspect here is: Both Sora and Ruki have incredible soft spots for Mimi and Juri respectively and thus break through the initial trope(s) you associate with them. You would not expect the more introverted tomboy (who start off actively rejecting typical femininity) to care so much, be so protective of and overall get along so well with the supposed girly-girl at first glance, would you? While Sora is having more of a big sister vibe going on towards the other/younger characters, it's less likely for someone like Ruki, who used to push everyone away and wasn't even seen interacting with girls prior to meeting Juri.

You would expect her to look down on "card game newbies" the same way she used to ridicule Takato and Jenrya for being "too soft" - luckily for Juri, Ruki had already started contemplating her approaches and view points and, probably for the first time ever, seemed to feel some kind of pride in being able to teach someone. It's interesting how she just... Immediately feels drawn to Juri, how softly she talks to and smiles at her and has all the patience in the world for her. Sometimes I feel like some scenes/moments didn't make it into the final product, because Ruki's softness increases a lot faster during the midpoint of the series (and it's really a shame because the more the cast grows, the less you see individual interactions between certain characters). Either way, looking at how she treats Juri, it's no surprise that, aside from mimicking Takato's card slash pose, Juri also copies Ruki's initial card holding pose. Juri is admiring Ruki greatly and through the course of the series, whenever possible, she does cling to her - whereas Ruki is there to protect and comfort her, but without EVER belittling her. She knows Juri isn't weak, but worries for her for very understandable reasons after the loss of Leomon.

Tamers overall has a very interesting framing theme when it comes to Ruki, her reltionship to her family (mostly influenced by female figures) and to Renamon - as mentioned, she is initially rejecting feminity due to a difficult relationship with her mother. Not only does she not want to be "like her" (a model obsessed with beauty and not having time for family anyway), but she's also obviously rebelling, lashing out due a sense of having to prove herself and displaying strength. We know she longs for the attention of her father and can assume that there is underlying trauma of feeling rejected as a daughter that causes her to bottle up. She appears incredibly detached and/or lashes out when others show her affection, which is why she is initially still tough towards all the boys around her. But she improves almost all her relationships upon accepting Renamon more and more as an equal partner and friend, culminating in their Matrix evolution to Sakuyamon, which definitely represents the beginning of Ruki being able to embrace her own sense of femininity. One might argue that there are also potentially romantic undertones in how her behaviour changes towards Takato and Ryo (which, as we know, is a typical trope in media to portray boyish girls becoming more feminine). But I'd really like to add that the first human character that brought out her gentle side was Juri. And thus, my verdict is - Ruki wouldn't even have gotten that far if it hadn't been for Juri contributing to her soft side coming to the surface. (Renamon still has the biggest impact here and despite being proof of Digimon having no gender, Renamon is still associated with the female gender and thus being another female influence.)

There is... A lot of wlw subtext here in my opinion (the RenaRuki subtext in particular is INSANE, if you think about it), but unfortunately, Digimon has never dared to cross that line officially. I do see the appeal in people shipping Ruki with the aforementioned Ryo and Takato (though I personally feel like the former is a little forced, disruptive of the group dynamics and also a bit too stereotypical - the latter is somewhat difficult when you see Juri as semi-official love interest for Takato, it makes the whole thing a little messy). But in my opinion, it would have been nice to at least show the girls being important to each other. Because they absolutely are, even if my memory on the final Tamers episodes is a bit rusty.

[juette]

a comprehensive guide to custom villagers

when making my custom villager it was very difficult to find good tutorials as many of them would point to deleted pages or only cover things i already knew, so i have decided to make my own complete tutorial. please let me know if you need any aditional help! i will try my best to keep this tutorial up to date and clarify it if needed.

it's important to note that these villagers will NOT show up in online play and dream towns. since only your game is edited, other players will see whichever villager you've replaced instead of the one you've made unless they also mod their game.

first things first, you will need a hacked 3ds with luma3ds and an SD card for this. you can probably play in citra, but i dont really know how using mods in citra works so i will focus on luma3ds for this tutorial.

if you haven't hacked your 3ds yet, do not follow a video tutorial: they can become outdated very easily with no indication of it and following outdated guides makes it a lot more likely that you'll brick your console. follow the guide on 3ds.hacks.guide instead.

other software you will need:

hackingtoolkit9ds to decrypt and unpack the rom

kukkii to extract the textures and put them back in

a drawing software (can be anything, even mspaint) to edit the textures

blender or another 3d editing software to preview what you're doing

010 editor to edit the bin and .umsbt files

step 1: getting a rom

if you're simply downloading the rom online, you may skip this step.

for those who wish to dump the rom from their console, you must first turn it on while pressing the START button to enter godmode9's menu. click the HOME button to see more options, then select "Title manager", then select where you've installed the title (SD card or the console itself). a list of all your installed games will appear. scroll down to Animal Crossing New Leaf or Happy Home Designer depending on which game you want your villager to be injected into.

once you've chosen the game, select "Manage title..." and choose either "Build CIA (standard)" or "Dump CXI/NDS file". you may then shut down the console and insert the SD card into your computer. the rom will be in the folder \gm9\out on the root of your SD card

step 2: decrypting/unpacking the rom

drag and drop your rom to the "PackHack" folder that hackingtoolkit9ds is in. rename it so that it doesn't contain any spaces or special characters.

open up hackingtoolkit9ds and type either CE (for .cia roms) or CXI (for .cxi files) in the window that appears depending on the format of your rom. it will ask you to write the name of your file without the extension. type it and press enter and wait for it to do its thing.

step 3: making your textures!

you'll find your extracted villager models in the folder \ExtractedRomFS\Npc\Normal\Model

the first three letters in each .bcres file name represent the species. open up one of the files of the species you want to make yoir villager be. it doesn't have to be the file of the specific villager you want to replace as we can rename it later, but do be careful that certain villagers have slightly different models than the rest of their species (tucker having tusks or étoile having hairpins, for example)

since i wanted to make an elephant with tusks, i've picked tucker as my base. he uses model elp09.bcres

click the "Batch export PNG" button and choose the folder you want the textures to go in. you may then edit them as you wish. your textures do not need to be semi-transparent like the extracted textures are.

i like seeing the way things look as i work, so i get a copy of the model as a .dae file to open it in blender. you may get those from models-resource.com or you may extract them yourself using ohana 3ds rebirth, though ohana can be a bit unreliable at times. blender's "texture paint" tab also allows you to draw directly on the model, though i don't find it precise enough to my taste so i mostly use it to lay guidelines for me to draw over.

once you're satisfied with your model, make sure to draw the different expressions as well.

eyes 0: neutral

eyes 1: half-blink

eyes 2: blink

eyes 3: angry

eyes 4: sad

eyes 5: happy closed (think ^_^)

eyes 6: surprised

eyes 7: >_< face

mouth 0: neutral/smile

mouth 1: half-open

mouth 2: fully open

mouth 3: frown

mouth 4: half-open frown

mouth 5: fully open frown

you do not have to follow those expressions exactly: for example, being a plush elephant, tusker's mouth moves up and down as he speaks instead of opening and closing.

once everything is done, open the .bcres file in kukkii again and import all of your textures in the right slot (i've found the mass import button does not work for me), then save the file.

step 4: editing names and catchphrases

note: if the villager you are replacing is already in your town, editing the catchphrase in the game's files will NOT change it in-game. similarly, if you are putting the villager in your town with marc robledo's save editor, they will have the catchphrase of the villager you've replaced unless you change it in the save editor yourself.

editing a villager's name or default catchphrase is quite simple, but the new name/catchphrase cannot be longer than the old one. if it is, it will mess up the names and default catchphrases of all the following villagers in the game files.

since you can edit the villager's personality in the game files, simply pick a villager with a long enough name and the right gender. you may also look at the villagers' favourite colors and styles on nookipedia to find one that most closely resembles the villager you wish to make.

since i want tusker to have the sisterly personality, i looked at all the sisterly villagers and i found that pashmina's tastes were close enough, so this is who tusker will be replacing. since her id is goa08, tusker's model needs to be renamed to goa08.bcres

you will find villager names in \ExtractedRomFS\Script\Str\STR_NNpc_name.umsbt and \ExtractedRomFS\Script\Str\STR_NNpc_name_ASR.umsbt

scroll down until you find the name of the villager you wish to replace and change it. the dots between each letter are NOT periods! make sure not to delete them. if you do delete one, or if the villager you're replacing has too many letters in its name, you can copy a dot from another name and paste it between the letters or in place of the extra letters.

catchphrases are found in \ExtractedRomFS\Script\Str\STR_NNpc_habit.umsbt

step 5: editing birthdays, species and personalities

you may skip this step if you only wanted to edit the villager's name. as far as i know, this does not work in happy home designer.

first, download this template.

then, open up \ExtractedRomFS\Npc\Normal\ConstPack.bin in 010 editor and click View -> Line Width -> Custom Width... and enter a value of 34 to make all the villager IDs align.

next, click Templates -> Run Template and select the template we've downloaded. a list will appear at the bottom of the window. scroll through it until you reach the villager you wish to edit, (it will be highlighted in the top half of the window) mine being goa08.

clicking the arrow to the left of struct VillagerConst will reveal a list of all the data this line contains. i will show you how to change birthday, species and personality.

the page we downloaded the template on shows a list of "cases" for each field . for example, for the species field, we want tusker to be an elephant, which is case 0x01 on the page. we will thus type 0x01 in the u8 Species field of 010 editor. the same thing goes for the u8 Personality field. sisterly is 7.

the birth month and day simply require the date. tusker's birthday is may 1st, so i typed 1 in the u8 BirthDay field and 5 in the u8 BirthMonth field. leave everything else alone.

step 6: putting them in the game

luma3ds makes it really easy to put your villagers into the game as long as you pay attention to the folder structure of the original rom.

on the root of your sd card, there should be a folder named luma, and within it a folder named titles (if there isn't, you can create it.)

within that folder, create a folder named with the title ID of your animal crossing game. that title ID will depend on the region of your game.

you can then create a folder named romfs in which you will place your mod files while respecting the path of theoriginal files. for example, the path for the models will be \luma\titles\<game title ID>\romfs\Npc\Normal\Model

when all the files are in place, pop your sd card back into your 3ds and open the game. if the villager isn't in your town, use wisp and an amiibo card (or wumiibo) to see if they show up properly.

and that's it! enjoy your new villagers <3 feel free to tag me in your custom villagers, i'd love to see what you make!

did you find this tutorial helpful? you can buy me a ko-fi as thanks!