#renruki art practice

[recurring-polynya]

Profile views for Rukia. Unfortunately, I suffer from a disease called "watched Escaflowne at a formative lifestage" that makes me always want to draw noses super pointy in profile, which is what is going on in #2. Weirdly enough, in a way I cannot argue from logic, she looks more like Hisana there, so maybe the solution is that Hisana's nose is pointier than Rukia's, and I can save the pointy noses for her. I actually think I got the nose just about how I want it in #4. I drew the lieutenant hair. It was stupid and hard to draw. Alas.

[fluffnflightillustrations]

i really like your art style for renruki, you make them look so cool 🫶

so i was wondering if you can see more of your art for other ships like ichihime and hitsuhina??

If people commission them, definitely! But to be honest, the only ship that really truly moves me is renruki, so its the one i always draw in my downtime. Ichihime is cute, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't strike my heart's strings the way renruki does. I'm practicing with ichihime for once right now, but its just... not coming out the way I wish it would, so I scrapped it.

It's so nice to hear that, and I appreciate your support! But the fact is simply that they just dont make me as happy as renji and rukia do, and drawing them in my free time doesn't give me the same giddy happyness in my heart that Renruki does.

I'll totally draw them if I get a comm of them, of course, but odds are it wont likely be in my free time drawings. I'm sorry!

This, and I don't know how I feel about hitsuhina. To me, I just never personally shipped Toshiro with anybody, so I'm not even sure I will ever draw that ship unless comissioned. I don't hate it or dislike it, but i dont love it or like it either; I've just never quite thought much about it. But they have a lovely dynamic.

[scratching92]

Personal Update 20/02/2022

Nothing much to say, just a few updates on some personal projects, since I figured I should use this blog to track my progress. I don’t know if I’ll post an update every week or every other week or what, but I figured I should keep some record.

First thing’s first: digital art. I started properly getting into digital art with a tablet this year, and in the past month I’ve done a bunch of art and animations, as you’ve probably seen if you’ve paid attention to this blog. Unfortunately, I’ve hit a point where I’ve become more acutely aware of the progress I’ve made in getting more comfortable with a tablet, but also how little progress I’ve made overall. I want my art to look better than it currently is, but I’m not sure I’ve figured out how to actually go about doing that beyond just more practice, which is ugh. I have a bunch of unfinished sketches saved in folders because I keep seeing flaws in each of them and lack the energy or patience to fix them (assuming there is a fix beyond “erase the entire thing and start over”). But I need to push myself to actually finish what I start, because otherwise I feel I’m gonna develop some bad habits all over again (most of my non-digital art is... Notoriously incomplete).

On the fanfic side... Things are okay, I guess. I finished that Ichihime fic, which is nice, but I’ve also added maybe 200 words to that YGO 5Ds fic, and all 200 of them will probably be erased and rewritten anyway next time I open the document. It’s more than nothing, but it’s not much more either. I already figured I was in for the long haul with that fic though, so I suppose I can’t say I’m surprised. I also want to try and write something Renruki-related. I have the beginnings of an idea for something involving Renji’s transfer to the Eleventh Division, but nothing concrete so far beyond that.

I don’t have much else to say. Now that I’ve finished reading Frankenstein I’ve decided to read The Conquest of Bread, but I don’t think I’ll do any kind of read-through blog posts for that like I did Frankenstein. Maybe I will when I get my copy of Midnight Horizon in the post, who knows.

[meishiro]

BLEACH: WINTER CAFE [ICHIHIME]

"She is something to behold Elegant and bold She is electricity Running to my soul, oh." ~ Vance Joy (Georgia) Decided to focus on my OTPs for a little bit I think, that way I can practice canon characters a bit more and actually appreciate the ships I have aha. IchiHime is one of my oldest ships and oh my god, I love them so much lol I have another IchiHime drawing that I'm working on and then I might draw something RenRuki and see if I can finally do justice to them c: BLEACH; Ichigo Kurosaki & Orihime Inoue is (c) to Tite Kubo Art is (c) to meishiro

[recurring-polynya]

Finally finished my Renji profiles! It's hard to find time to draw on the weekends. Numbered in the order I drew them...I had to rearrange them a little in order to get them all on the same page without having to shrink them down too much because his hair takes up so much space. I think (2) might be my favorite? Again, that's a tiny bit unfair because that style of bandana so much easier to draw. I made myself draw the other one twice, even though I didn't want to, for practice. I also had to cut myself off because he's got so many annoying details that I could literally just spend forever futzing around, trying to make his nose or his hair or his tatts look the teeniest, tiniest bit better. But the idea is practicing!! More is better! Do it quick and draw another one!!

[recurring-polynya]

hmm...would it be useful/motivational/fun to post my daily drawing practice? maybe i'll try it and see. today i did rukia-eyes.

[recurring-polynya]

noses noses noses

Noses are one of those things that I *always* notice about other people's fanart, and I have yet to come up with a system I actually like for drawing them. Anime style is what it is, but I have never been a fan of the old shadow-suggestion-of-a-nose. Sadly, I often find that a vertical line or a big goofy L-shape often looks better than anything else I can come up with, and I'd like to be better than that. I'm definitely not moving on from the face part of this project until I can come up with a nose method that I like for each of the three most common projections (head-on, profile and 3/4 view), although I think I need to practice putting them together into faces before I can really decide what I think works best.

[recurring-polynya]

today, i bring you renji-eyes

in my heart, i would *prefer* to give him actual irises, but there is some essential renji-ness in just having tiny, beady dots

a thing i think i learned over the coarse of this exercise is that it's better to make the lines too thick and then erase away the parts i don't want. this is also the key to getting all those sharp points (a thing i learned back when i had a job cutting out parts on a CNC mill and have not stopped thinking about since)

[recurring-polynya]

I just did a quick run-through of mouth practice for two reasons. (1) Mouths move a lot, so the way I draw them is going to be very situational. There's not all that much value in having a "standard" way to draw mouths. (2) I'm pretty happy with the way i do mouths, already.

I did come away with a few observations:

I think that in general, Renji's mouth expressions should be asymmetrical. He's a slouchy, sneering, roguish sort of guy.

Rukia code-switches a lot, and her expressions should also be more lop-sided when she's been a shithead, and more symmetrical when she's in Kuchiki-mode.

Likewise, sometimes I like to draw Rukia with full lips, but often not, depending on the tone of the piece. I actually really dislike when fanartists draw her looking too girly, and I'd rather err in the opposite direction.

I love Renji's fangs more than anything, but they never look good when I try to draw them and I should just stop. It's too fine a detail, and it doesn't match the scale of the way I draw other stuff.

[recurring-polynya]

Front views. It took me a few days to finish these, because it's both facial proportions practice and hair practice.

Some takeaways: - I think I have figured out a way I like drawing everyone's noses (at least from the front) - I always want to draw Renji in the order head->hair->tatts->bandana and I can't. I gotta get the bandana in earlier in the process, or else his head is too narrow at the top. His head is really weirdly shaped, btw. -Timeskip bandana is SO MUCH EASIER to draw than the kind that is knotted in front - I probably should have tried drawing one of Rukia's other hairstyles but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ - I am so so so bad at drawing things symmetrically, but I am putting in extra effort to do so and I think it's paying off (which isn't to say these are actually symmetrical, just that they are more symmetrical than they were when I started)

[recurring-polynya]

drew ears until they stopped looking like ears anymore. i think i'm kinda happy with some of these. i promise these drawing updates will get interesting again soon 😂

[recurring-polynya]

Writing/Art Update 1/28/2025

It is twenty-eight days into the year, and I think I am going to give up on my Gentle Writing experiment. It was a nice idea, and maybe I will try it again someday if the world ever stops being a relentlessly horrible place, but right now, I need to bully myself into doing something I can dissociate into, instead of just endlessly doomscrolling and thinking about terrible things that very realistically may happen. To be clear, I have absolutely zero interest in writing anything at the moment. I am stuck on all my WIPs and I actively hate them. If I had any choice in the matter, I think I would be very close to quitting writing entirely, but I don't, so I guess I just gotta. I do not know how I am going to get out of this, but I gotta figure it out somehow. Just write miserable and write bad and hope I can fix it in editing, I guess! It has worked before!!

I guess I wrote something last week? (I say, ten minutes after finishing up answering my comments on it). For some reason, I keep forgetting I did this and saying things like "I haven't written in a month." Anyway, if you would like to read a story about Kira's time in Squad 4, please enjoy my story about Kira realizing that if he's in Squad 4, he's going to have to deal with people from Squad 11 whether he wants to or not.

I have been doing a lot of drawing, which is good, I guess? I've been alternating between learning to use (digital) watercolors for my art club stuff, which I am pretty sure I do not like. I mean, I've made some nice looking art out of it, but I find it really stressful and I get this huge sense of dread every time I try to start a piece, so...I dunno. My Renruki art practice project is going pretty well, I think, although I hate how slow I am (which is not helped by the fact that I am alternating with Art Club). I think probably everyone hates practicing things, but I also hate practicing things! No practice! Only finished pieces! The February theme for art club is 💖Love💖, though, so I think I might be able to pull double duty one or two of the prompts.

[iz-star]

You have no idea how much I'll be crying over this today and tomorrow and probably the whole year 😭❤️❤️❤️

I LOVE BALLROOM DANCE TROPES!! Because I just have this natural tendency to like in fiction what I wouldn't do irl 😂 Toshiro and Rangiku look FANTASTIC! And the managment of the gesture here is AMAZING! It just flows naturally and their poses are so dynamic, their faces so beautifully expressive! Their outfits are PERFECT! Everything about this piece just nailed it! They look so elegant yet hot and handsome and good-looking 😭❤️❤️❤️

Besides the way their fingers interwine, so delicate, so soft and discrete! It says everything about them: We're friends, we're a team and we always have each other's backs!

The intimacy in that simply touch says a lot! I love it!!

Besides I just love the little background story you made for this!! Because I can totally see Rose opening a Balroom Dance Club!! This is just so him and also the movie!! I MUST watch it now!

Also, Byakuya not wanting to be part of the club but asking to Toshiro to teach him the moves just cracks me up!! It made me remember that Malcolm in the middle episode where Otto asks Francis to teach him how to dance so he can give a surprise to his wife, so Otto becames skilled at dancing but when he tries to dance with his wife he discovers he's only good at doing it with Francis 😂

Imagine Byakuya asks for help to Toshiro cause he wants to learn how to dance for Rukia's wedding or birthday... Or well, something to surprise her in a special day. It would be lovely!! And a fun disaster too!!

Ahhh thank you so much for this precious gift, my friend!! I'm looking at it like an idiot and you'll get me smiling like idiot too, during the whole day! Ahaha. Thank you!! ❤️

🎉🎈✨Happy Birthday🎂🎇😘, @iz-star​ I made this for you!!

So, uhhhh, here me out, but what if one of the first things Urahara piped into the Soul Society tv feed was the sweet 1996 film, Shall We Dance? (It’s Tessai’s favorite movie, okay??) Most of the movie revolves around suburban salaryman ennui, which most shinigami found perplexing, but they liked the dancing bits a lot, and Rose, seeing an opportunity, started a Ballroom Dance Club (beginners welcome! instruction provided!!).

Toushirou is supposed to be practicing doing things in his adult form, but he doesn’t like to, it feels weird and clumsy. Rangiku conned him into coming to Dance Club with her, and it turns out that dancing is one thing he does like being a little taller for. 💕

[recurring-polynya]

Writing/Art Update 11/11/2022

Another week that felt very busy, although I feel like I was pretty accomplished, considering the circumstances.

The school district has been experimenting with replacing early dismissals with "asynchronous days", where the kids are given work to do from home. In principal, I am for this, because my kids both have long bus rides, and going to school for just a few hours is a big waste of their time. In practice, however, (1) both my kids need a lot of support to work from home and (2) for some reason, their teachers send home a ridiculous amount of work to be completed in that time frame. My third-grader was supposed to "complete" an essay she had started in class, comparing and contrasting two texts, except that she had no idea what she was doing, and her notes, which the teacher had told her "were good" didn't actually address the topic of the essay. So, anyway, two "half days" of work for my kids works out to a pretty tiring day for old Mommo (on Bleach Monday, no less!!). Tuesday, they had off for election day.

It was kind of a Big Emotions week for a couple of things going on in my personal life, some good, some bad. Also, Twitter is dying. It's not that it's that important of a platform for me, but it's the one place I still talk to the handful of IRL friends I have left, and I'm sad about it.

I did manage to post Ch 16 of the Tattoo AU. The end is firmly in sight for this one. I said last week that I had 6 chapters left to go. I had been going in order, but for some reason, I felt like I needed to write Ch 20 before I could write Ch 17. I finished Ch 20, and had some momentum, so I started Ch 21. I got about halfway through what I thought was going to be in Ch 21, and realized that didn't take nearly as much space as I thought it would, so it's possible that I may combine what I had thought would be Ch 21 and 22 into one, which means there are only 5 chapters left (1.5 already written). I might also add a lil epilogue, but I think it would be short. (Total written this week: 3352 words)

I drew a nice picture of Uryuu for his birthday! I'm really happy with the way it came out, and also, it didn't take me forever, for once!

I am honestly kind of panicking about Renruki week, but I told myself that November was for Gathering Ideas, and if I haven't finished up the Tattoo AU for December, I'll just put it aside, at least until I get some solid Renruki week progress under my belt. I only have two really solid ideas that I'm happy with, one of which is a half-finished art project that I think fits pretty well under one of the topics. I have two or three other ideas that are sort of half-formed or maybe won't work out at all. I keep telling myself it'll come together, except that the last two Decembers have very suddenly turned into nightmares for me. I am doing my best! 😭😭😭 It also feels like I've been working in the Renruki mines for the last three years, and it would be terribly pathetic of me (and yet also very in-character) to blow it when there is finally enough interest around to do a celebration week.

I am honestly kind of panicking about Renruki week, but I told myself that November was for Gathering Ideas, and if I haven't finished up the Tattoo AU for December, I'll just put it aside, at least until I get some solid Renruki week progress under my belt. I only have two really solid ideas that I'm happy with, one of which is a half-finished art project that I think fits pretty well under one of the topics. I have two or three other ideas that are sort of half-formed or maybe won't work out at all. I keep telling myself it'll come together, except that the last two Decembers have very suddenly turned into nightmares for me. I am doing my best! 😭😭😭 It also feels like I've been working in the Renruki mines for the last three years, and it would be terribly pathetic of me (and yet also very in-character) to blow it when there is finally enough interest around to do a celebration week.

[recurring-polynya]

I love your RenRuki Knight x Princess artworks so much, and I literally can’t stop thinking about them! I gotta know, do you have any headcanons about the Medieval RenRuki AU? Some ideas as to how their relationship develops in that AU? 👀

Aw, thank you! 😘 

So, to tell you the truth, the reason I drew it in the first time is because I didn’t have any ideas for a narrative 😂 but I will try to put together what vague thoughts I have. Forgive me if this is a little freewheeling.

Renji’s armor obviously takes some notes from his So-oh Zabimaru form, but it’s also Heath Ledger’s armor in A Knight’s Tale, which is one of Mr. P’s all-time favorite films, and I feel like this AU has the same general vibes (namely that it is about a bunch of dirtbags pretending to be fancy and also there is a lot of jousting + electric guitar action)

The political structure is kind of like in Chronicles of Prydain, where there are a number of kingdoms of varying sizes ruled over by one High King. Byakuya rules over one of the larger and more powerful kingdoms, but back when he was still the Heir, he was one of the Hottest Shit Jousters in the realm. People were literally throwing themselves on the ground and weeping in the streets when he fell in love with and married some cute peasant girl and adopted her kid sister. (Is Hisana alive in this AU? Reader’s choice)

Byakuya had a terrible reputation for going through squires like corn chips.

Local Village Boy Renji, heartbroken over the loss of his best friend, pours himself into the noble goal of Becoming The Greatest Squire Ever. He takes every odd job he can get from the blacksmith and the stables. He does push-ups. He hangs out at the tavern where the lower ranking knights hang out and Gets Tips. 

I cannot emphasize enough that at this point, no one wants to work for Byakuya. There is a tournament coming up and he’s getting really worried that he’s going to have to carry his own stuff when this beefy peasant shows up and shouts “PLEASE I WANT TO BE YOUR SQUIRE” and Byakuya is like “Can you lift things?” and Renji is like “I WILL BENCH PRESS YOU RIGHT NOW” and Byakuya is like “please don’t, you’re hired.”

So, what’s Rukia been doing this whole time? Well, boring princess stuff, mostly, but the one highlight of her life is that Rukia loves tournaments. She knows all the knights and their stats and has a lot of Ideas and Opinions. She is constantly five seconds away from disguising herself and signing up for tournament, but she’s 4′9″ people would figure it out.

Anyway, when Renji shows up, obviously she’s happy to see him because he’s her old friend and she’s been really lonely, but also she now she gets to live vicariously through him. Having achieved his first goal, Renji reveals that his secret, next goal is to study Byakuya’s every move and become a knight himself. Rukia is down with this, mostly because he teaches her everything that Byakuya teaches him, so they can practice together. In return, Rukia teaches him stuff about manners and politics, which ends up being a lot more useful than it sounds. Obviously, there are some misunderstandings, in the sense that Renji thinks the only reason Rukia hangs out with him is because she’s a tournament superfan, and Rukia thinks he primarily puts up with her because she’s helping him achieve his goal (completely failing to realize that there is a third, even secret-er goal). Even in an AU, they are morons.

Anyway, the art all takes place the first year after Byakuya has taken the throne and feels it is no longer appropriate to personally compete in tournaments, and lets Renji compete under his house banners. (Obviously, his cousins are distressed, but that’s what they get for being bad squires)

Renji is very competent, but he’s under a lot of pressure to prove himself an adequate successor to Byakuya, who again, is regarded as the GOAT.

Oh, did I mention that some orange-haired kid shows up on the circuit this season out of absolutely nowhere and is kicking everyone’s asses? Yeah, all of this is most likely taking place as the B-roll to some Ichihime Princess-Knight AU.

In the end, the true valor is the friends we made along the way or some crap and Ichigo gets his kingdom reinstated (or whatever the hell he was doing here, this is out of my scope of work), Rukia and Renji admit their feelings and at some point Byakuya gives Renji an exceedingly mealymouthed bit of praise. Roll AC/DC’s You Shook Me All Night Long.

More trivia: the pose in this one was inspired by this scene from Romeo + Juliet, a film that is burned extremely deeply into my psyche. I would have liked to try doing the lighting, but it looked too hard and I didn’t have the emotional capacity for it at the time. 

Oh! I almost forgot? You wanna see the alternative version of the sketch where Rukia is doing excited hands?  Here’s the alternative version of the sketch where Rukia is doing excited hands. Can you believe I drew extra hands that I didn’t even use for this?

[recurring-polynya]

Writing/Art Update 5/27/2022

Update is late in the day, not because I forgot, but because I was hoping to have more to report (it did not work, altho perhaps my word count is a tiny bit higher).

It was not a particularly productive week. I’m not going to beat myself up about it, there was a lot of distressing stuff going on in the national news that had me not exactly feel like working on this kinda stuff. I wrote a lot of headcanon memes instead of writing and I caught up on answering my ao3 comments, so I guess there is that. 

I know it looks like I did not do my What if...? story this week, but it’s not the end of the week, and I have been working on it. This one is a little different tonally than my usual, and it’s mostly descriptive writing, which is not my forte, but it’s good to practice. It’s currently at... hrmmgnphhh 2964 words, which is three times longer than any of these were supposed to be anyway. I’ll probably finish it tomorrow? The What if...? project was a good one, and it was fun to have stuff to post, and I think I did some stretching out of my usual comfort zones, but at the same time, I definitely feel ready to be done with it. 

Speaking of things I am ready to be done with, I did manage to get my zine piece into an acceptable “if I had to turn it in today, I could” state. I have it saved in about 17 different files because I kept running out of layers, but it means that nearly every element of the piece is in a different layer and is swap-out-able, which means that I can now spent my time redoing everything in the order of things I hate, most-to-least, until I’m either happy with it or I run out of time. I have no idea why this thing has been so difficult. I never found a composition I liked and it just went downhill from there. 😕

I think I may also be in one of those art phases where my brain is better at finding flaws in my art than it is at fixing them, so everything I draw just looks horrible to me? But I really think it might just be me? It’s just a hazard of art that happens from time to time, and it’s really frustrating, but it will pass eventually, when my hands catch back up to my eyes. 

I did do a quick dip out to make a piece for Renruki Kiss Day, which you can see here. I think I need to practice doing profiles more, and I am thinking of maybe doing a study of some quirkier ways of doing them. 

Hoping to finish up and close a number of things in the last few days of May and I’m really just ready to move on to what’s next (what’s next is a little in love).