#so I got out my drawing tablet and tried to make a cute background

[jiraisupportgroup]

₊‧°𐐪♡𐑂°‧₊ Depression Dental Hygiene Tips ₊‧°𐐪♡𐑂°‧₊

♡ Brush your teeth when you feel up to it regardless of the time of day.

♡ Brush your teeth for shorter amounts of time. If you can do 30 seconds but not 2 minutes, just do the 30 seconds.

♡ Dry brush your teeth - take a dry toothbrush and just brush. You can do this anywhere, even in bed.

♡ Use kids' mouthwash or toothpaste. The flavour is usually sweet, and you can change flavours to keep things interesting.

♡ Use kids' floss picks. They're super cute and not so aggressively minty so they can be much easier to use.

♡ Use Wisps, they're like little disposable toothbrushes and you don't need water or toothpaste to use them.

♡ Wipe your teeth off with a wet paper towel or washcloth after eating.

♡ Use chewable toothpaste. Most are designed to be used with a toothbrush, but you can just pop it in your mouth, chew it up, swish some water in your mouth and swallow.

♡ Listerine strips can be used in a similar way and can be much easier than mouthwash especially if you're not near a sink.

[beltransadie]

A Chat Under the Haitang Tree

Happy New Year! I've been practicing on my samsung tab for the whole past week and I wanted to show the culmination of what I've made with this new years art. This is based off of chapter 58 from 2HA where ranwan spent the entire night chatting under the haitang tree for the new years. I'm still not as good on this tab compared to how I am with the Huion, but I think this is pretty satisfactory. The approach is more painterlike in comparison. I do not have the patience for lineart (I've tried) on this, so it's mostly draw loose then clear it up.

The Journey to This Illustration

What else have I done while practicing? Honestly, most of them are ranwan art. Animatic making had made me proficient in drawing Chu Wanning and Mo Ran gahahaha and they're both fun to draw anyway.

At first, I wasn't used to drawing on a samsung tablet, so most of what I've done are doodles. I also spent majority of my time traveling (like since I got home which was an 8 hour bus ride, I had to go travel again for Christmas and back again, and then the day after I had to accompany my mom for another outing).

Day 1 (12/22)

Here, I slept for 4 or so hours, and find myself having to leave at 5AM. I managed to catch a bus ride home (where, unfortunately, one of my friends weren't able to ride because they waited at the wrong stop), and overall the ride was pretty chill. I spent most of my time chatting with my cousin, sleeping, and drawing. Here's some of what I did during the time. Most of it are Chu Wanning because I feel really comfortable drawing him.

Day 2 (12/23)

I didn't have any place I have to travel to yet, so I went out of the house to draw at a cafe. I still didn't feel comfortable coloring so there's none yet >_<

Day 3 (12/24)

Most of Day 3 was spent outside too coz I had to travel again to visit my grandparents. It was also when I started Yuwu (it has been chill so far, and I'm leisurely enjoying it). I didn't draw anything on the tablet.

Day 4 (12/25)

Back to the drawing grind here. I figured it was about time I try out coloring and I did two! While I had to commute again early morning, the whole of my afternoon was spent chilling at home. The notable stuff I did on the tab is this cute animation of Wanning finding a tiny Mo Ran in his gift, and two colored pieces.

The one on the top right I think was a failed attempt. The colors didn't turn out as well as I wanted, and concluded that it was probably because of the background (which was pure white). I changed it to gray and colored like I usually did, and I think it turned out really well.

Day 5 (12/26)

I had to go out and travel again. Most of the stuff I did during this day were doodles.

Day 6, 7, and 8 (12/27-29)

Gonna compile coz I think most of what I did were at cafes and it all blurs together.

Here's where I actually start getting into coloring. The first thing I colored was the bottom left one. I really like how curly the lineart of Mo Ran's hair is, and the individual groups of hair on Wanning's ponytail flow together. Next is the middle left one, which was just me thinking about how ranwan had 8+ years together idk lol. I drew Mo Ran as a midget there, I didn't know he was actually almost the same height as Wanning by book 1 (179 vs 181) so that was uhh lol.

The sketches for the top left and the right image I did the same day, but the coloring for the right image I did last. Top left uses some rejected designs I had back when I was reading 2HA. I thought it'd be a fun creative exercise if I derive myself of official character designs, and create designs based on how I imagined them while reading the book. (That's something worth making a post about.) Specifically, the designs are post-story. That was also when I started rendering a bit.

It was at the right sketch when I thought I could try a rendering a bit more. Like clean up the lines a bit. Still the same process.

(This wasn't done on the Samsung tablet, but here's the height comparison). Mengmeng and 1.0 are a bit out of proportion i know lol.

Day 9 and 10

All of it leads up to the new years drawing at the top. It was tricky trying to render the two characters, because I had to tilt my pen a certain way so the lines made won't be too broad. I spent day 9 doing the sketch and the rough color, spending time on the background too and Day 10 on rendering the characters and polishing the background.

The app I use (Infinite painter) has a built-in playback function which is pretty neat because I always forget to record my drawing process. I ended up changing the background a couple times because I misread the actual scene lol. But yeah here's the process.

Overall, drawing on this tablet is more painterly compared to how I color on PC gahaha. So many brushes to choose from, and almost no keyboard input >_< it's a bit tedious coz I like having my brushes binded on keyboard, and here I have to move my hand around on screen and sometimes I end up pressing the shortcut for the undo button. But yeah, I think I can make more colored art outside now. Learning to get used on this is fun.

Happy new year, guys!!

[fanartfunart]

My art progression as showcased through dragons as I avoid doing schoolwork:

2014: I had recently received a digital tablet. Promptly made drawings of long-haired people from behind because I hated drawing humans, and also loved backgrounds and animals more. I do everything on one layer because I’m a child who just transferred over from paper. Probably didn’t even know what a layer was. I exclusively drew dragons (and most everything) in profile. 8/10: I actually had awesome style as a teenager and these are definitely dragons. Storytelling also on point. Everything is a little stiff though.

(cont. under cut)

2014 (part 2): A gigantic leap as I figure out how the heck to color digitally in a way that’s not purely airbrushing everything in. Bright colors show up. I still draw humans flat and as minor details. Animals are still my best friends. Everything becomes absurdly long and angular for far too long starting from here. 5/10: Awkward and lanky. And my mountains got worse, lost all sense of texture and style. There’s no emotion.

2015: Everything is fuzzy. I am obsessed with trying to capture texture but I’m also a teenager and do not know how to capture texture. I also discovered the beauty of making OCs that have weird weird colors and designs. Background creatures remain to be weird sketchy things because I still don’t use base sketches for backgrounds. 3/10: proportions got weird again and the wings are a gigantic downgrade from 2014 me.

2015 (part 2): I continue to be a teenager obsessed with texture and playing with weird settings in digital art. I learn what layers are and why they’re helpful. I exclusively use this knowledge for separating background from foreground.  1/10: He has no legs and no personality and I didn’t know what I was doing. The initial paper drawing was better.

2016: This is for a biology project where we made up our own creatures.... I personally am not sure if I count this as a dragon. I get into My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and everything becomes cute and fluffy, what can I say. I also learned I’m allowed to not use the default canvas and change it. IDK I start drawing After the Fall‘s early concept art and superhero ocs. There’s a distinct lack of normal dragons. 5/10: It feels more like Modern Me and the personality has returned, but also it’s also unsure if this counts as a dragon or a weird bat creature.

2017: I am still obsessed with my superhero ocs, but I’ve given some of them a dragon friend. I also draw almost exclusively in character-only style and the once prominent backgrounds dwindle to nothingness. dragons gain actual scale texture and I still do everything on only 2 layers. My humans are prominent but long, unusual beanpoles. 10/10: I still love this dragon baby and this is an excellent showcase of personal artistic growth. Look at his innocent little face. He’s got personality and is 100% a dragon.

2018: I begin to use layers more thoughtfully, and even tried making a “lighting” layer. I decide this is a bad idea. This marks the start of the Ombre Wings which remains present in the Daydream AU. People remain lanky and perspective is also wonky. This also marks the end of an era, as I abandon all my superheros due to my co-creator/partner dumping me. 5/10: The lighting got worse from every version before. Also all definition in my backgrounds disappeared... why.

2018 (part 2): I get a tumblr and get into Sanders Sides. I make the Daydream au. Virgil is the first non-furry dragon I make with ears??? I abandon trying to draw scale textures for working on perspective and lighting. Shading gets a little flatter again, but I’m also more mindful of actual lighting sources, so it’s forgivable. Dragons return to being Very Big in comparison to people. 8/10: Good memories. The start of an era. Most consistently I’d drawn dragons in a while at this point in time.

2019: Cartoon big eyes become the Standard.  Things have started to become very flowy and soft. I draw a lot of babies which translates to everyone becoming a bit stockier in adult versions too. (This is good because everyone stopped being weirdly long). I add sprinkles of scale-shading back in. Looking back, claws begin to be more paw-like than actual claws in comparison to 2017′s lizard-y claws. 9/10: Designs are on Point and expressions are getting real nice. I’ve finally figured out how to lock and shade layers. Also Babies.

2020: I’ve got AtF going again, and I branch back into making non-scaled dragons. Texture is a Thing, and I make a lot of digital brushes for textures I use a lot. I start using my new coloring technique more regularly. 9/10: about the same since 2019 dragons-wise, but the process has gotten smother and faster. The point off is both an attempt at pretending to be humble while also being aware that my art will change no matter what, and I will think that is better so that potential is There (except for 2017. That’s perfection. The most adorable dragon I’ve ever drawn.)

2021: Despite the fact I’ve gotten really into DnD and despite Dragons being in the name, I have not drawn barely any DnD dragons. There are no colored dragon drawings in the first 2 months of 2021 and this is a flaw. -10/10: no dragons.

[sunshinesteves]

some prince of egypt things:

the cast is incredible. especially ralph fiennes as ramses, jeff goldblum as aaron, and of course, steve martin and martin short as hotep and huy

not only did dreamworks acknowledge at the beginning of the movie that they took some artistic liberties, but the things they changed made sense. they added more to the story - especially with making ramses moses’s brother instead of his father.

music!!!! every single song is such a goddamn bop

ofra haza (an israeli singer) played yocheved. the hebrew she sings in deliver us translates to “my good and tender son, do not be frightened and do not be scared”

when yocheved sings her lullaby to moses, she sheds two tears - one from the inner corner of each eye - and her hair blows in front of her mouth. later, when miriam sings the lullaby (also to moses) the exact same thing happens. kills me every time

music motifs!!! off the top of my head - yocheved’s lullaby plays during some significant moments when moses is still in egypt (no i don’t remember which specific moments just take my word for it), all i ever wanted plays while moses is shepherding right before the burning bush scene, deliver us plays when moses tells tzipporah about his people wanting their freedom, and the plague song is basically an all i ever wanted reprise

ok so cool thing about colors - moses is always red, ramses is blue. the accents on mose’s egypt-wear are red, so are the plumes on his horses, and the huge-ass robe thing he got from jethro. when he’s younger, ramses’s clothes are accented with blue, his horses’s plumes are blue, and so is his armor in the red sea scene. in the plague song, when half of each of their faces join to make one face, moses’s face is lit up red, ramses’s is blue. at night the palace is lit blue. the one blue thing moses owns is ramses’s ring - which he ends up giving back.

what they did with tzipporah! in the actual torah they don’t meet until moses saves her and her sisters (i’m pretty sure the whole “moses falling in” thing doesn’t happen in the torah either...stellar scene. truly) the way she’s handled in the movie just adds a lot of history and background to her and moses rather than it being out of the blue. obviously it doesn’t get off to a...great start...but i just think it’s cool that moses helping her escape leads to him finding out who he really is, which leads to him running away, which leads to them falling in love, etc. good job prince of egypt writers!!

not that it matters but making moses stupidly hot and not like 80 (which he canonically is) was. galaxy brain. thank you for making me horny for the leader of my people dreamworks

i don’t know jackshit about animation but that red sea water looked fucking real. WHAT– 

also! the fact that the bottom of the red sea isn’t just straight up flat sand cause that is literally just. not how a sea floor works? it’s like it’s own mini mountain range! and it takes them a while to cross!! FANTASTIC

when moses turns the nile to blood and there’s a little circle of water around him!! true to the source material!! (in the torah it says that it was still water for the israelites)

THE FUCKING DREAM SEQUENCE OH MY G O D

it’s so cleverly done, especially when the moses!fam is running from the egyptians and they run on the ceiling or on the pillar in front of all the drawings. the MUSIC. the COLORS. and according to my art history mother, all those trees were literally everywhere in Egyptian art. THEY👏🏼DID👏🏼THEIR👏🏼RESEARCH👏🏼 

how they tried to show just. how many people there were. like there were around 600,000 israelites!! and that’s just the men over 20!! and you could tell that it was a TON of people (especially when you see them leaving and on mount sinai)

BURNING BUSH SCENE

fun fact! the voices of god are a man’s voice and a woman’s voice layered on top of each other!! 

fun fact part two! the male god voice is the same guy who voices moses! oh the metaphors

the “who made the blind, the deaf, etc.” line is a direct quote from exodus

ANGEL OF DEATH!!!!!

obviously that’s like. a very difficult scene to do (maybe even more difficult than the bush scene??) without pissing off a lot of people and they did. a good fucking job.

moses’s hair is just. really important. you know what? zuko vibes. moses is zuko, zuko is moses, they are the same.

the kids singing in hebrew as they leave egypt are singing the song of the sea! in the torah, it’s sung as they cross the red sea. also it’s sung by a children’s choir how CUTE

it’s little but in the actual torah moses doesn’t spend much time with kids because he’s busy leading a bunch of whiny bitches (i’m jewish i’m allowed to make the joke lol) through the desert for forty years, so just that little moment where those two kids jump on his staff..he really was a leader of the people, yknow?

how when old!pharoah (no i don’t remember his name) stands in the throne room in profile and it perfectly lines up with his bigass statue of himself right outside. and then ramses does the same exact thing except his statue is like. much bigger. i think he’s overcompensating for something lol

the movie ending on the ten commandments is obviously v good but i’m just laughing because we’re just gonna. gloss over the tablet smashing lol. it’s ok i’ll let it slide

AND IT ENDS ON YOCHEVED SINGING DELIVER US AGAIN!!!! Y E S

and at the very end, three quotes about moses - one from the torah, one from the new testament, one from the quran!! 

there are lots more lol i could go on about this movie for a very long time

[pbandjesse]

I feel and look exhausted but I had a really nice day. I am having some weird feelings but like. It was still nice. 

I actually slept last night!! I didnt realize the new melatonin I got was twice as strong as what Ive been taking. So I was really asleep. And getting up wasnt as miserable. It was still a little hard, but that was mostly because I was cozy. I laid with James for a bit, but soon enough he was getting up and we both had things to do. 

I had a commission to work on. And I wanted to finish my quilt project. Just wanted a good art day. James headed out for a bike ride and I had breakfast. And did a little bit of cleaning. 

I was excited because when he got back I had a package! It was the new tablet!! Its great! I wouldnt know that for a few hours because it needed to charge, but its a full inch bigger on all sides but still about the same weight. Its really nice! And moving everything over was super easy and I barely had to do anything except putting in passwords and changing the background. Im really really pleased. Ive been playing with it a lot today getting sued to it, but its very similar in operations to my old tablet so its not a crazy learning curve. It does have a stylus pen though and I am super excited about that!! Im going to try drawing with it. Well see how that goes. 

James started work on some laundry while I kept working on art. I tried and failed a few different ways to finish up the quilt once I got it cut down. I was going to do like. a gold edge? But I couldnt figure that out so I decided to make it a wall hanging and I think it came out so cute. Its hanging on the back of our door now. Im very pleased. 

James came backupstairs with like, christmas day level of packages from the mail table. It was so exciting! I sat on our bed and we opened everything together. I got new socks! Very exciting. I also got mini squishes from Jess. The christmas tree one was a big want this year so that was exciting. I also got a christmas toad winter hat. Not really seasonally appropriate now but for next christmas. I also got my knee pads, my skate tool, and my new, more expensive, skates! I was floored because they are just so beautiful. Today was basically christmas and I had such a good time opening things but I also just, loved everything I got so it was even better then christmas. 

I was super pumped to try on the skates. They are very stiff so its going to take a little while to get them broken in enough to tie them as tight as I want them to be. But going a size down made a huge difference. These are also slightly taller on my ankle and give me a little more support, and having them fit my foot better allows me to break a little better. So still practicing stopping but I think this will help. I skated around the living room a little and just felt so cute and good. The tongue of these skates is a cloud?? Its great. I cant wait to get better at this. 

James had lunch in the other room. I hung out on the couch. And soon he was off to work. 

I fixed his sneakers that broke. I made some outfits. I did some cleaning. I made more art. I made more videos. Its been a nice day. Trump got impeached for a second time. What a world. 

I have been hanging out for a while now. I just feel really sleepy. I just had dinner and I think Im going to take a shower and get in bed. I really hope last night is the start of a trend and I can keep sleeping good. Wish me luck. Goodnight everyone! 

[badlydrawnmanic]

time for episode 5 because i’m bored as heck

• just thoughts during the theme song but i wish we got to see more of aleena • the extras in this opening scene look passable for mobians which is a surprise • sleet explains something to dingo while looking directly into the camera

• WHAT IS THIS CATERPILLAR DOG THING UGH • it’s a legal requirement for thief children to have wack hair • kjsdgsd max snapped • i think i remember some people shipping manic with this kid • what animal are any of these characters supposed to be • that bungee jump thing makes no sense at all which is terrible • who gave sonic a drivers liscence • sonic your whole thing is to help people and then some poor kid comes in your van like “help me” and you’re like “why should i” what is the truth • shit dude that van turns on a dime • nobody in this show knows how to drive do they • this little goblin dude juggling is kinda cute, his design ain’t bad. weird colors but that’s a given • what sleet turns dingo into reminds me of the koopalings right down to the voice • is manic older than max or does he just say “little bro” because max looks even shorter than manic does • manic: stealing’s wrong   max:

• max brings up a good point about like... how are they gonna survive without money from the shit they stole • i think i redesigned max at one point? i think i made him a xoloitzcuintli (those weird mexican hairless dogs)

• OH I DID, this was back when i mainly did lineless art (it was easier doing art like this rather than lined art with a mouse, i haven’t tried this style with my drawing tablet yet), i really like what i did here skjdgs small boy • there’s two background characters with names, there’s a girl named allegra with a huge nose and some pig looking gremlin critter named clifton, i think that’s interesting • is it like a cultural thing for all the thieves to have earrings or did the character designers just go “yeah only punks have piercings” • sonia’s being really mean about their music for no reason when it doesn’t sound awful, just let these kids play their accordions and violins in peace dude • manic is a gross boy and spits all over this girl to show off one of his little tricks, disgusting • the headcanons about dingo involved something about this episode i think, i’d have to go digging through dms to remember tho • there’s this bird character between allegra and clifton who looks depressed as shit • sleet looks ugly enough to be a passable spore creature and i might just try that if i have to look at his nasty face any longer • i understand what manic means when he’s like “haha this whole thing reminds me of when i was little and stole shit all the time” because i was a little kleptomaniac when i was a kid and like... getting away with it is fun as shit. of course i feel bad now but like... hey i get it • for once the siblings yelling out of surprise has some energy to it, though i wish it was less like “oh aah” and more like... y’know, actual startled sounds, it’s not super convincing • sleet is standing there with his gaping maw wide open pointing in one direction with no animation like a statue and it’s weird • swatbots are on the same level of aiming as storm troopers • what even are these lasers? are they lethal?? do they hurt??? i don’t think anyone’s gotten hit from what i remember so like what’s the danger • sonic just fucking... vaccums up all these children with wind from running, he’s gonna hurt someone, he’s so damn reckless • WHERE’D THEY GO • the little animation where manic takes out his drums doesn’t look half bad! it’s a pleasant surprise when bits of animation are higher quality than normal

• after saying that i realized his gloves disappeared in the shot i was just praising sndkgjds • how was the production of this show? did they color digitally or was this still in the time of hand-drawn animation cells? i wonder how rushed production was • is “amigas” proper spanish?   [googling]   yes it is nevermind   spanish class as a required class was pointless apparently because i don’t remember jack shit from it • dingo you aren’t allowed to steal the “main man” title from manic (my nickname in our discord server was “my main man, manic” for the longest time sjkdgbs)

• it’s kinda neat seeing where all these pics my boyfriend gave me when i was looking for refs came from • i’ve thought that a song was gonna play tiwce now so now i’m wondering when it’ll come in and if it’ll be plot relevant • bummer majores • i get the point of “aw man i can’t believe you have to give all this money to robotnik because he’s evil and demands taxes” but hey either tax the rich or eat them dude • this old man’s outfit is horrendous • sonic and sonia just hid behind behind a thing hanging on the wall and that just wouldn’t work • manic and max both like drums... ;v; • why are manic and dingo just throwing glass bottles and shit back and forth at each other, is this a game • DINGO YOU HURT THE BOY • god what are these masks • SONG TIME • again, manic’s just talking in the middle of the song, and i get it’s for plot but the visuals are, again, sickeningly distracting, i can’t tell what’s happening • how does nobody notice the drummers changing place in the middle of the performance? how is there not a gap in the drum/cymbal beats? • these poor children, wow dingo • it’s really sweet that this old man helped the thief kids find parents and homes to go back to, that’s very nice • manic has one (1) coin and everyone takes that as evidence that he robbed the old man of all his money when that also doesn’t make sense, yes he took it from the vault thing but he didn’t take the whole thing? • why does manic just let the robot handcuff him, i know he feels guilty but like he isn’t an idiot, he knows what’ll happen if he does that so why does he??? • why do sonic and sonia immediately believe what sleet says about manic, shouldn’t they be on guard whenever this fuck’s around and have some suspension of belief here • this man went from 0 to 100 real quick huh • SONG TIME??? • i forgot that the song already happened because of my confusion during the sequence and now i feel like an idiot • anyway the song was like a 5.5/10, it has the energy i think they were going for and it doesn’t sound awful, it’s a little better than alright, though i wish the scene was more coherent and easy to follow • sonia’s classist as hell damn • sonic’s faith in manic being honest is nice to see • the thief children didn’t get their homes after this?? i’m upset • two bros laughing manically in the sewer in front of a very small crowd of children, as you do • manic talking to himself in jail kinda reminds me of movie!sonic but like... slower and less interesting, also why do they just throw him in jail? doesn’t robotnik roboticize everyone? • that one kid dares to look in max’s direction and he’s like ShShHhH like your hushing is gonna get you caught dude not that kid • MAX IS THROWING METAL THINGS IN THE BACKGROUND WHY??? YOU WERE SHUSHING THAT KID FOR SAYING NOTHING • max should be like... directly in sleet’s line of sight rn • of course they gotta very clearly explain the plot directly to the audience • everyone’s so shitty to these poor kids, damn • you’d think that huge laser blast would have injured manic in the process of blowing a hole in the wall • why’s sonia so concerned about the police chasing them? aren’t the police chasing them all the time? • manic nyooms again when he gets out of the van • these robots aren’t observant at all are they • for once, reusing animation makes sense • yay the poor kids get homes now • as nice as this ending is, it isn’t easy to kick bad habits like thievery, especially when it’s like... part of your nature at that point? it’s odd

• god the perspective • also, this is exactly why i give everyone on this blog extended muzzles and more clear divides between their eyes when they’re looking to the side, otherwise they look cursed • IT’S TIME TO JUICE AND JAM

[ceealaina]

Love’s Strange

Square: K3 - Carnivorous Plant Rating: T Link: AO3 Warnings: None Pairings: Stuckony, background Carol/Rhodey Summary: Tony makes a new friend in the lab, and for some reason Bucky is the only one with enough sense to be concerned about it. 

Bucky walked into the lab and couldn’t help grinning broadly. Tony was draped over a work desk, poking at something, hip canted out and grey pants molding perfectly to his ass.

“Well hell,” Bucky drawled, leaning against the doorframe and folding his arms over his chest as he let himself just linger and stare. “Ain’t that a sight for sore eyes.”

“Hey honey.” Tony looked over his shoulder, shooting Bucky a genuine grin, but a second later his attention was pulled back to whatever he’d been looking at. “What’re you doing down here?” he added after a minute, tone distracted.

Bucky shrugged even though Tony couldn’t see him. “Got bored. Sam and Clint were talking about whether a radish is also a rutabaga. Too much stupid for me to handle, so I thought I’d come down here... Pester my favourite engineer... Maybe see if he wanted to fool around a little...?”

That got him a soft huff of pleased laughter, but Tony didn’t look up again and, curiosity winning out, Bucky gave up his A+ view to move over to him.

“What’ve you got, doll?”

Tony glanced over when Bucky leaned into his space, face pulled into an adorably puzzled frown. “A plant.”

Bucky couldn’t resist giving him a quick kiss before Tony’s words caught up to him. “A... plant?” he repeated, because last he checked, Tony wasn’t the horticultural type. But sure enough, there was a funny little lime green thing sitting in a bright pink pot on the tabletop, about six inches high and covered in little spikey bell-shaped leaves, run through with electric blue veins. “Where did that come from?”

“No idea,” Tony answered. “It was here when I came down. I thought maybe Steve brought it for me? Steve seems like the type to give people plants, right?” He reached out, running his index finger delicately over one of the leaves. “Ooh, it’s soft.” He gave Bucky another smile. “It’s kinda cute, right?”

“Uh... cute,” Bucky repeated. “Right. Tony, what the hell is this? I’ve never seen a plant looking anything like that before.”

“Oh, really? I mean, it didn’t look familiar to me, but then, it’s not like I’m a botanist.” He managed to say the word with so much disdain that Bucky couldn’t help snorting a little. “I just assumed it was some specialty fancy plant. You know, like orchids.”

Bucky blinked, watching as Tony continued stroking the leaves carefully, and what the hell, he could have sworn the plant shivered. “That definitely ain’t an orchid.”

“Well, I know that,” Tony replied, before staring off into the middle distance for a minute. “Wait, what do orchids look like?” he asked, before shaking his head. “Doesn’t matter. I like it.”

Bucky was still watching the plant suspiciously. He was almost positive that he could see it actually leaning into Tony’s touch against its leaves, and he was definitely positive that plants weren’t supposed to do that. “Tony, baby... Don’t you think that we should maybe... Find out where it came from?”

Tony lifted his head, giving Bucky a dry look. “What? You think it’s secretly a trap sent here to- ow!” Tony’s eyes went wide and slowly turned his head to look back down at the plant. “It bit me!” He lifted his hand up, the entire plant coming with him, one of the bell leaves now closed around the tip of his index finger. He gave his hand a little shake, wincing when the grip tightened. “Oww!”

“Shit!” Bucky moved to grab the thing, ready to rip the leaf off and smash the plant against the wall, but Tony smacked him away with his other hand.

“Careful! You’re gonna hurt him!” Tony turned back to the plant. “Hey, Einstein, I’m not your food. Let go of me.” He was practically cooing at it, using his free hand to tug carefully until the plant let him go and he could set it back on the table. “See?” He turned to Bucky, all smug. “He was just hungry, weren’t you pretty thing?” He gave the plant another little pat, and this time Bucky definitely saw it flutter at the attention. “Do you think he eats blueberries?”

“Tony!” Bucky stared at him incredulously. “It just tried to eat you!”

“Because he was hungry,” Tony insisted. “Must be a Venus Fly Trap.”

Bucky groaned. “That is not a Venus Fly Trap. Tony, honey, we gotta find out what this is before it goes all Little Shop of Horrors, and does eat you.”

***

“Alien,” Bruce confirmed twenty minutes later. Bucky had gone to get him when Tony refused to do any testing in case he hurt his precious new friend. They’d come back to find him feeding it peanuts. “The chemical composition in the soil isn’t even something that exists on this planet.”

Bucky groaned, rubbing at his temples as he felt a headache coming on. “Outstanding,” he muttered dryly.

“I know, right?” Tony asked, bending over the table to get his face up close to the plant with his usual complete lack of regard for personal safety. “Hey, you funky little alien. Did you come all this way to hang out with me?”

“Tony.” Bucky gave his boyfriend a look. “You cannot keep the carnivorous space plant.”

“Carnivorous?” Bruce looked up from the readouts he had been peering at, eyebrows raising.

“It tried to eat Tony earlier.”

“He was hungry,” Tony insisted again. “We just have to figure out what he eats and it’ll be fine.”

“He eats people, Tony.”

Tony just shrugged. “He liked the peanuts I gave him.”

Tony refused to hear a word against his plant, or to stop feeding it peanuts, so Bucky did what any sane person would do in this situation.

He went to get Steve.

"Stevie," he complained, walking into the living room and finding Steve parked in front of a window, sketching the skyline. "Please come and collect your ridiculous boyfriend."

"My boyfriend?" Steve repeated without looking up from his drawing. "Uh-uh, it's Tuesday. Pretty sure he's your boyfriend on Tuesdays," he told him, snickering when Bucky tossed a throw pillow at him.

"Fine. Come and collect our boyfriend. He's not listening to me."

"What's he doing now?"

“Hanging out with aliens.”

Steve did look up then, a slightly startled look crossing his features. “I’m sorry, he’s what now?”

“Just come on.”

Bucky explained the situation on the way down to the lab, where they found that Bruce and Tony had progressed from peanuts to feeding the plant raw ground beef. Clint was standing in the corner, a bandaid wrapped around his finger.

“Uhh,” Steve said eloquently.

Tony looked up at the sound of his voice. “Steve!” he cried happily. “Come and meet our new child!”

Bucky choked at that but Tony ignored him, grabbing Steve by the arm and hauling him over to the table. “Steve, this is Einstein. Einstein, this is your other other dad, Steve.”

“Um, hi Einstein,” Steve said, sounding a little perplexed. “Where did he come from?”

“No idea,” Tony admitted. “But he was hungry,” he added, getting a grumble from Clint. “Look!” He grabbed another spoonful of the ground beef, and Bucky waited expectantly for Steve to tell him that they needed to kill it with fire immediately. But instead, to his horror, he watched Steve move closer, bending over the table to peer at Einstein the plant speculatively.

“Aww,” he cooed, watching him - it - gobble down a mouthful. “He’s kinda cute.”

“Right?” Tony looked at him, pleased. “Here, look.” He grabbed Steve’s hand, touching his fingers gently against the plant’s leaves. The plant shivered again, leaning into the touch. “See? He likes it!”

“Oh, sure,” Clint grumbled from the corner pouting at the plant. “Captain America touches him and he’s everyone’s best friend. But I get near him, and the thing tries to attack me. That thing’s dangerous, Tony!”

“Thank you!” Bucky agreed, pointing at Clint. The two of them shared a look and Tony just glared at them both.

“You scared him, Barton. What were you expecting?” He stroked the leaves again, beaming down at the plant like some kind of proud parent. “See? He’s harmless.”

Steve had taken over feeding it, grinning as the plant gulped down mouthfuls of ground beef, like that wasn’t the most terrifying thing in existence. Bruce was scribbling observations on a tablet, grinning at them over top of his glasses from time to time. Bucky just threw up his arms, sensing that this was an argument he wasn’t going to win.

“What is wrong with you people?” he demanded, because he may have loved these idiots but it didn’t mean they weren’t still idiots.

Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like Einstein was going anywhere. Tony and Steve were doting on their “funky little alien son.” Tony and Bruce were performing daily (non harmful) experiments, figuring out what he ate and what he didn’t eat, soil composition, trying to determine where he came from. Tony had introduced him to Dum E, U, and Friday, who all apparently adored their new baby brother. Steve would sit for hours, sketching them working, and close ups of the plant itself. There was even one that Tony had had framed and put up in their living room, to a lot of eye rolling from Bucky. Nat had rolled her eyes at Bucky’s protests, Thor had told him not to worry about it, Sam had laughed himself sick over Bucky being scared of a tiny little plant (although Bucky noticed he didn’t get within five feet of it himself) and after the fifth time Einstein had bitten him, Clint refused to go anywhere near the lab. So Bucky was left as the only voice of reason, glowering at everybody from the corner for getting too close to the thing.

Until the day that he and Steve went out on a run only to get an Avengers alert for an intruder in Tony’s lab. They’d torn back to the tower at super soldier speed, but it had still taken them a full ten minutes to get there and by that time, apparently, they needn’t have worried.

The lab was in complete disarray by then, machinery overturned and tossed around the room, all the tech blinking and on the fritz. Tony was leaning against the far wall, halfway between sitting and standing. He was cradling his arm and looking shell shocked and bruised and bleeding, but nothing seemed too serious. There was no sign of any bad guys.

“Tony?!” Steve rushed over to his side as Bucky did a more thorough sweep of the space. “Jesus, Tony, what happened?”

Tony waved him off as Steve helped him upright, wincing at the shift of his arm; it looked like his shoulder was dislocated. “Uh… Portal. Weird space bird things.” He was blinking a lot, still looking dazed. Worried he was concussed, Steve cupped his face in his hands, trying to get a look at his pupils, but Tony scrunched up his face and pulled away. “Stop,” he protested.

“Tony, baby…” Bucky moved to join them, gun in hand and a perplexed look on his face. “Where did they go?”

“Umm.” Tony was frowning again, that confused look back. “Einstein took care of it.”

“Einstein?” Steve and Bucky both spoke in unison, turning to face the plant. He was in the same place on the table, looking as if nothing had even happened.

“Yeah,” Tony said. “He just, uh…” He made an explosion motion with his hands. “He just… Ate them.”

“He ate them.” Steve repeated, staring at where Einstein sat a full seven inches tall.

Bucky blinked and threw his arms up in a shrug. “Alright, sure,” he said. “Weird space plant ate the bad guys? Sure. I guess he can stay.”

And if in the middle of the night Steve and Tony woke to find Bucky missing from bed, only to discover him in the lab, cooing over Einstein and telling him how smart and perfect and pretty he was? They kept that to themselves.

***

It was nearly three months later that Carol and Rhodey showed up, with a sonic boom and no warning as they usually did. Tony had been sprawled across the couch, tangled with Steve and Bucky and sleeping off a work binge, and he’d practically shoved them both to the ground in his haste to go greet them.

Rhodes was waiting, armour gone and arms held out expectantly, the two men hugging tightly as they reunited.

“So…?” Rhodey asked when they pulled apart, staring at Tony expectantly. Tony frowned at him.

“So what?”

Rhodey frowned, looking a little put out. “You didn’t get my present?”

“Present?” Tony lit up, waggling his eyebrows ridiculously. “I love presents. Gimme.”

“I already gave it to you. Well, we did,” he added, grinning at Carol. “We couldn’t stay, but we dropped it off. Little thing about yay high.” He held up his hands. “Bright green? Likes leaf scratches, jazz music, and raw meat? Protective streak a mile wide?”

Tony blinked at him. “Einstein was from you?!”

Rhodey just rolled his eyes. “How many other Rhodey’s do you know?” he asked before catching Tony’s blank expression. “Did… Did you not get the note?”

(In retrospect, leaving the explanatory note beside the plant that ate literally anything probably hadn’t been Rhodey’s best move.)

@tonystarkbingo

[munchyn]

Blue Eyes| Daniel x Reader Chapter 19- I Love You

12:17 a.m

I banged my head against the table repeatedly in frustration. I had to finish designing the merch for the boys and so far I had only decided the colors that the hoodies could be. I was getting nowhere. I tosed the merch designs to the other side of the table and pulled out a new sheet of paper. I opened my google photos account on my laptop and looked through pictures that zack had shared with me. If I couldn't come up with my own design, maybe, I could at least draw a picture that already existed.

I placed the tip of my pencil on the paper and groaned out in frustration, already starting to give up. I heard someone knock on the door and I leaned back in my chair to look at them. My head was lolling back and I saw Y/f/n who (from my perspective) was hanging upside down from the floor like a bat. I stared at her blankly and waited for her to talk. "What are you doing?" she asks curiously. She walks over to my desk.

"I'm supposed to design some merch for the boys," I say as I lay my head back on the back. I stared at the blank screen of my drawing tablet. "BUt HeY! TheN COmeS AloNG ARtiSTs BlOCk AnD MY lIFe Is RUInEd bEcaUSe I FOrgoT HoW to DRaW!"

"Okay, okay, no need to be so melodramatic," Y/f/n walks toward me. She looks at the different designs that I came up with for the merchandise. She holds up a sheet of paper to look at it closely. She shows it to me and says, "I really like this one." It was a hoodie with the band logo on the back and I had a drawn a line on top of it. "What's that line for?" I sat up and spun in my spinny chair to face her. I explained to her that the limelight that would by that hoodie can submit their name and it could be written on the hoodie by one of the boys. "So their hoodie would be basically signed by the boys?" I nod.

"In the front, the cover of their song for October will be there," I tell Y/f/n. "But I still need to draw it." Y/f/n pulled out another chair that was in a chair and sat next to me to look through pictures for me to make drawings of. I saw her fiddling with the necklace that Corbyn had given her on her Birthday. They really were a cute couple. Almost as cute as me and Daniel. (lol. Sorry I'll leave now).

We decided on a few different ones and I got to work as Y/f/n looked through other merch designs, telling me which ones she liked. The both of us jumped when we heard a voice from the door.

"Somebody will die tonight," Nah, I'm just kidding. It actually just asked what we were doing. The two of us turned to see Jennifer there. She was leaning against the doorframe and had her arms crossed over her chest.

"We're designing Why Don't We merch," says Y/f/n. "Y/n is on an artist's block so I'm helping her." Jenn came over to us and looked through designs Y/f/n.

_____________________________

7:30 p.m

I screamed as I threw my hands up in the air.

"I have beat my record!" Jenn and Y/f/n stare at me curiously. "I've been sitting at this table for eight and a half hours without moving!" Jenn rolled her eyes.

"Okay, but did you draw the picture?" she asks. I look at her with a blank stare until I remembered and gasped.

"Oh wait, never mind. Everything is okay," I say calming down. "I finished it." I showed them the drawing on the screen of my computer. "What do you think?"

"It's horrible," jokes Y/f/n. "Just kidding. I like it, it's good."

"I think it's great," says Jennifer. I thanked them both and turned back to my computer. I saved the drawing of the picture and downloaded it on my phone. I opened up my chat with Daniel and sent him the picture.

Y: What do you think?

I waited for a while for him to answer while I read fan fiction. Suddenly my phone buzzed and I checked to see it was Daniel. I tapped on the notification to see his text.

D: OMG! That is awesome! Holy cow Y/n. I love the way you drew Zach. He looks like a monkey

I look at the text as a little part of me breaks. Did he not like it? Was he pretending to like it to not hurt my feelings.

Another text.

D: Ignore what Jack just texted. He was just trying to annoy Zach. This is Corbyn by the way.

I let out a relieved sigh when I read that.

Y: Hey Corbs What are you doing on Daniels phone?

D(C): He forgot his phone home while going out. We were pranking him and we got the text from you and yeah.

Y: Oh hey Corbyn, I almost forgot.. Could you tell Jack he hurt my feelings

Corbyn POV

I read Y/n's last text and turned to face Jack. I leaned over the back of the couch to face the former Noodle boy. I heard Zach giggling next to me on the couch. "Hey Jack," I call over to him. "Y/n says you hurt her feelings." He looks at me, confused. I show him the texts and a frown grows on his face. He told me to start a video call and I did.

"Hi Corbyn," says Y/n on the phone. I heard Y/f/n scream my bane in the background and then a crash. "Y/f/n! Careful with the designs!" She turned her attention back to the screen. "Anyway, why'd you call?" Right then, Jack snatched the phone out of my hands.

"I'm really sorry I hurt your feelings Y/n," he says, walking around the couch to sit on one of the single seat sofas. "It's a really good drawing and I wasn't trying to insult you when I said that." He shoots a glance at Zach. "It's just Zach already looks like a monkey in real life."

"Hey! I do not!" shouts Zach as he charges towards Jack. I heard Y/n chuckling from the other side of the phone. Jack flipped the phone towards me and I catched it.

"Did you guys just flip me?"

"Um, it was Jack," I say. Jack glares at me as he tries to peel Zach off of him. "By the way, is that drawing for our song cover? If it is then it is perfect."

"I was also planning on putting it on the merch," she explains. I then hear the front door open.

"What are you doing with my phone?" I look up to a certain Giraffe and the look back at the screen.

"Oh hey Y/n, look," I say as I stand up. "It's your boyfriend." I gave Daniel his phone.

Daniel POV

Corbyn handed me my phone and I saw that they were calling Y/n. My heart skipped a beat as I saw her messy hair up in a bun. Random strands of hair covering parts of her face. I looked at the clothes she was wearing through the screen. Instead of one of the usual fandom t-shirts, she was wearing a hoodie. Ny hoodie. The hoodie I'd been looking for for weeks.

"Hey," I say as I smile at her through the screen. "Isn't that my hoodie?" She looks down at what she's wearing. She shrugged.

"Maybe," she smiled and then let out a silent gasp, remembering something. "Oh, I finnished the cover for the song. Corbyn and the boys already saw it and they like it. You're the only one that didn't see it." She paused ti think a while. "Actually, I don't know if Jonah saw it."

"I'll check it out later," I tell her while going up the stairs. I made my way to my room as I chatted with Y/n. I would occasionally her Y/f/n and Jennifer in the background but they mostly stayed silent. After a while I thought they may have left Y/n' room. "Hey, are Y/f/n and Jennifer still there?"

"Nah, they left the room a while ago," I was laying on my bed and I looked at Y/n through the screen. Her eyes shone under the dim light on her nightstand. E/c orbs always causing a new swarm of butterflies to flutter I my stomach every time I looked into them. She had let her hair down a few minutes ago and the h/c locks framed her face perfectly.

"Umm, Dani," Y/n' voice breaks me out of my trance. But quickly sent me down a similar path. I started wondering how beautiful it would sound wheb she sung. I'd only heard her sing once before and then it had only been barely over a whisper. "Dani, you're staring."

"You're so beautiful," I saw her cheeks go pink and she giggles. She shakes her head.

"No I'm not," she says and I frown.

"Y/n, you are so beautiful I don't know how I was lucky enough to find you. You have the most beautiful eyes, I get lost in them every time I so much as take a glance. You have so much life in you that it just radiates beauty. And you have such a beautiful voice, I haven't heard you sing before but I know it would be like listening to an angel," the smile on her face gradually grew wider and wider as I said these thing. Until she let out something between a choke, a sob and a giggle.

"I wish we weren't talking on the phone right now," my brows furrowed and a frown made its way onto my face in sadness. "I really want to hug you and kiss you right now." I smiled, relieved.

"I love you Watermelon," I mumbled.

"I love you too Apple."

🍉🍎🍉🍎🍉🍎🍉🍎🍉🍎🍉🍎

A/N: Hi cupcakes, sorry I've been absent for a few days. I promise I will try not to do like last time. I will continue with this story no matter how long of a break I take.

I can't wait for the boys to release their new song for October. When they do, I'll try to see if I can write a chapter with it.

Here is some random piece of information, but I made a candle. It's BlackBerry scented.

Love, your author,

Noa

[elcorhamletlive]

fandom: MCU ship: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark tags: Fluff/Established Relationship/Jealous Steve Rogers

At first, Steve thinks it’s adorable.

They’re not supposed to stay on the farm for long, just for a week. It was supposed to be two weeks – Pepper had set out a time in Tony’s schedule for that, and both Sam and Natasha reassured Steve that they’d be able to run the team just fine without him for the time period – but they know each other too well to think they’d be able to have this much downtime without growing agitated. A week is already more vacation than either of them has taken in years.

Steve doesn’t regret agreeing to it. The farm is beautiful and calm, isolated enough that they don’t have to worry about any reporters sneaking in to get an exclusive interview with the world’s most famous superhero couple.

They spend the first two days almost entirely in bed. By the morning of the third day, Steve forces himself to untangle from Tony long enough to go for a run and check out the animals. The owners have workers that keep them fed, but Steve has a great time doing it himself. He makes friends with the cows, brushes the horses and gives corn to the chickens.

At lunchtime, he goes back to the house to attempt to convince Tony to go horseback riding with him.

“Frankly, honey, I think it’s best for both of us when you’re the only one doing the riding,” Tony says, but Steve rolls his eyes and pulls him by the hand and he complies.

When they get to the ranch, Steve goes to find the horses. He picks the calmest and oldest of them to pull towards Tony, who practically hides at Steve’s back.

“I’ve seen you fight actual homicidal aliens without batting an eye.”

Tony shrugs, wide eyes still very attentively watching the horse. “I wasn’t riding them.”

Then, it happens.

A little piglet, probably having escaped away from its mom, approaches them. It’s small, chubby and pink, and it’s apparently very excited to see Tony, so, yeah, Steve thinks: Adorable.

“Oh, hey, who are you?” Tony asks when the piglet gets very close, sniffing his shoes. “Well, that’s very forward for someone who can’t tell me their name, but because you’re adorable I’ll allow it.” He takes the piglet in his hands, and it squeaks in excitement, fighting to rub its nose on Tony’s cheek, as if it wants to kiss him. “That’s very flattering, buddy, but I’m taken.”

“Yeah, he is,” Steve says, stepping closer to Tony, crossing his arms and giving the piglet his best Captain America glare.

Tony laughs, accomplishing Steve’s goal. The piglet, not in on the joke, clings to Tony’s chest nervously. “Aww, look at that. Are you afraid of the mean scary Captain? Let’s go look for your mom and get away from him.”

Tony starts walking towards the pig pen, nodding for Steve to follow him, but, anytime he gets too close, the piglet squeaks and squirms in Tony’s arms.

That, in Steve’s opinion, is a little less adorable.

As the day goes on, it grows from “not so adorable” to “downright annoying”.

The piglet openly ignores his mom when they get to her, choosing to instead keep following Tony. Steve tells Tony that, if he wants to take the piglet inside the house, he needs to bathe him, and Tony obliges. He gives the piglet such a good clean up that by the time he finishes, Steve has to admit he doesn’t even look like a farm animal. He looks fresh and happy and smelling of soap, and stays on Tony’s lap. He’s there all day - when they eat, when they watch television, even when Tony is looking at some schematics at his tablet.

Tony doesn’t mind, though. He names him Piglet, because of a cartoon Steve hasn’t seen yet knows by name, and gladly cuddles Piglet when he wants him to, which is all the time, apparently.

Steve wouldn’t mind either, if Piglet wasn’t unable to not express his dislike for him at every opportunity. He doesn’t let Steve get any closer to Tony without squeaking, and having to stay at arms-length from his boyfriend during their vacation wasn’t really in Steve’s plans.

Tony seems to be enjoying it, though, so Steve tries to act normally. He takes a few pictures, because he’s only human, and Tony gently cradling a small animal in his arms makes him all warm inside. He reads, draws and goes horse riding on his own.

At night, though, he draws the line at having Piglet sleep with them. “Is he even clean enough for that?”

“Hey, don’t talk like that, you’re gonna hurt his feelings,” Tony says, patting Piglet’s head. He’s sitting at the bed, and Piglet’s on his lap, where he’s been for the past three hours, and where Steve would have liked to rest his head while he was getting through The Silmarillion for the third time.

Steve crosses his arms. “Put him outside, Tony.”

“Hmm, bossy.” Tony grins while standing up, taking Piglet in his hands. “Ok, buddy, this room is gonna get inappropriate for baby pigs in a moment, so I guess you’re going. Feel free to use the couch.”

He walks outside, and Steve lays on the bed, trying to not show how satisfied he feels. A moment later, Tony’s back, closing the door behind him.

“So,” he drawls, walking slowly towards the bed. “You wanted to see me alone, Captain?”

“Since I didn’t get to do it the whole day, yeah,” Steve says, grinning while sitting up. He holds Tony’s waist and pulls him closer for a slow, long kiss, basking in his warmth and scent. He isn’t even thinking about sex, focusing just on how great it is to feel Tony’s body against his, his solid and wonderful presence enveloping Steve as he throws his arms around Steve’s neck, deepening the kiss.

They’re interrupted by a loud squeak coming from outside.

Oh, come on, Steve thinks. Tony pulls away, a bit puzzled, and another squeak comes, louder and more desperate.

“Shit. Do you think he’s scared? It’s dark outside, maybe we should…”

Steve drags a hand over his face. “Bring him inside, Tony.”

Much to Steve’s chagrin, Tony doesn’t waste any time in getting away from him. He opens the door and Piglet just runs inside, squeaking happily while Tony gathers him in his arms.

Steve fights not to roll his eyes.

“There; there you go, buddy,” Tony coos, gentle and reassuring. He sits on the bed, holding Piglet carefully. Steve knows it’s ridiculous, but he can’t help but be annoyed, because he wanted to be cradled in those arms tonight. “I think he got used to the warmth. Tomorrow, I will build him a heated nest or something.”

“Okay,” Steve says, laying on his side of the bed and staring at the ceiling. He sighs, then sits up and starts gathering his covers.

“Hey, where are you going?”

“To the couch.”

“What?” Tony sounds absolutely puzzled. “Why?”

Steve gestures towards Piglet, who’s happily nuzzling Tony’s reactor. “He’s gonna be scared if I stay. He doesn’t really like me, if you haven’t noticed.”

“Oh, my God,” Tony says, slowly. He sits up and Piglet slides to his lap. “Is that why you’ve been grumpy all day?”

Steve frowns. “I haven’t been grumpy.”

“Yes, you have. A very polite type of grumpy, but still, totally grumpy.” Tony shakes his head in disbelief, smiling. “Are you jealous of a baby pig? Really?”

“No, I’m not,” Steve says, but he feels his cheeks flushing.

“Oh, my God, you totally are,” Tony says, grinning now. “That is simultaneously the most adorable and the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” He pats the bed right next to him. “Get your star-spangled ass here, right now.”

Steve looks at Piglet. “He’s going to squeak.”

“He squeaks all the time, that’s just his thing.” Tony lays down himself, holding Piglet up. Piglet, as if on cue, squeaks. “He just hasn’t gotten used to you yet. Here, hold him.”

“I can’t—“

“Come on,” Tony presses, pushing Piglet into Steve’s hands. “Hold him and give him a kiss.”

Steve has no choice but to take Piglet. His hands shake, a little worried about holding him too strongly and mushing him.

Piglet, apparently feeling his uncertainty, squeaks several times loudly.

“Oh, don’t be such a baby,” Tony chastises, rolling his eyes. He nestles closer to Steve. “He only bites when I ask him nicely.”

Piglet clearly doesn’t find that very reassuring, because he keeps squeaking and squirms against Steve’s hands.

“Tony,” Steve asks, slightly desperate. “Maybe you should—“

“Shhh. Give him time to get used to it, big guy.” Tony’s fingers hold Steve’s wrist, pulling his arms down until Steve’s holding Piglet right on top of his chest. “There, let him get settled. Then kiss him, and then I’m gonna give you several kisses for being so stupid and precious. Come on.”

Steve rolls his eyes, but he complies, lowering Piglet onto his chest. Piglet squirms a little, but then seems to relax, and Steve loosens his grip, hands hovering over the little pig as he lets him go. He half-expects Piglet to just run way to hide himself under Tony’s arm, but instead he stays, big dark eyes blinking at Steve with wariness as he tucks his little legs and lays down right in the middle of Steve’s pectorals.

“Look, he already found the best pillows of the house.”

Steve chuckles, and, in an impulse, leans forward and presses a kiss to Piglet’s head.

“Awwwww,” Tony coos dramatically. “Tomorrow I’m making you do that in front of a camera. What? I need a new phone background.”

Steve grins. He hugs Tony by the waist, careful to not bother Piglet, and pulls him closer. He’s warm and wonderful, and Steve’s grin widens until it hurts his cheeks.

“He really is cute,” Steve says, watching Piglet, who’s blinking slowly and clearly getting ready to sleep on top of his chest.

“Yeah,” Tony says, pressing a smacked kiss on Steve’s cheek. “But you’re cuter.”

[cooper-draws]

I had this idea to draw Cooper in a different outfit for the Spring/Summer so i made a Sun Bun! :3

This outfit (in this case a white tank top w/ a loose blue shirt w/ black capris pants) was heavily inspired by an outfit worn by Anna in “When Marine Was There”, I’m sure if you’ve seen that movie you can see the resemblance.

I thought he would look cute in an outfit like that so I drew him in it & decided this is his outfit for when a long-sleeved shirt under a short-sleeved shirt with long black jeans isn’t weather appropriate.

ANYWAY this drawing took forever but thanks for your patience! This will probably be the last drawing I do just digitally, I find if I sketch out my drawings on paper first things go a lot quicker so I’ll probably be doing that from now on until I get a new tablet.

Mod Commentary under the break!

for the record i’ve never actually seen “When Marine Was There” BUT I PLAN TO but anyway the straps may have been a bra in that movie? here they’re from a tanktop, i just couldn’t find a way to comfortably show it other than the straps without it looking weird (i tried to have the bottom of it sticking out from under the shirt but it just didn’t look right so i just stuck with the straps). i don’t particularly care if it looks like a bra i just thought the outfit in general was cute and the straps were a part of that but for the record cooper doesn’t have boobs so it’s a tanktop and not a bra js (in retrospect i probably should’ve added more to the upper exposed chest area but i think that would’ve just made it look more like a bra so it’s whatever, the important part was the straps).

THIS TOOK AN ETERNITY cuz yea this was another one i drew 100% digitally while the last thing i drew (cooper saying good morning to cristabelle) was a drawing that i drew in my sketchbook first and i finished it that night (although it didn’t have color that was a stylistic choice because the art it was in response to wasn’t colored either) but i definitely could’ve colored it if i’d felt like it, that’s usually the easiest part

there were definitely some issues regarding cooper’s white fur parts, especially on his hands ;w; but i never like to get stuck on those things, all i really want to do/tell myself is to do better next time.

i did make an effort to make his paw beans more 3d this time around instead of just circles and i think they’re good for the most part! i changed the shape of his palm bean to something more like i’ve been meaning to draw instead of what i’ve been drawing which was more of a compromise since i didn’t actually know how to draw the palm bean that well yet

it only occurred to me in this drawing that i can move his whiskers wherever so while the whisker on your left isn’t perfectly aligned with the whiskers on the right, i feel like that’s okay because whiskers are things that you can move so he has his right (your left) ones up a little bit because before the top whisker lined up right with the tips of his fingers and it looked really weird, and the 2nd one intersected the lines of a bean (the thumb bean i think?) so moving them also fixed that

i also had the idea to make his shirt a little more loose at the bottom, like have it flowing in the wind or something but i decided against it because i wanted this to be more of a static pose and also because it looks more like his shirt actually fits him, if i wanted to i probably could’ve made it hang a little bit but ultimately i think it just would’ve looked strange so i didn’t do it at all

WHILE THESE DO HAVE AN UNCANNY RESEMBLANCE TO MY AVATARS I PROMISE I DIDN’T TRACE ANYTHING I’VE JUST GOT THIS SHIT DOWN TO A SCIENCE AT THIS POINT or just muscle memory i guess, i just draw & put things where i feel they fit correctly and it all ends up looking the same so i guess that’s just how it is, i’ll try to experiment with more varied head shapes and stuff in my sketchbook probably

there was also a point where his left shoulder looked too skinny and that’s because i had no sense of how shirts worked (how the fabric hangs when you have your arm out like that) so i did actually end up fixing that and it looks a lot better now so that’s cool

i like this one mainly because i got to draw cooper without so much stuff covering his arms & legs, and i got to show off a little bit of his chest which has a white pattern that goes all the way down to the bottom of his tummy (we don’t see that here but i’m js that’s what it looks like)

i like this pose too much lol even tho i’ve only drawn it twice (once with sofia & once right here) but idk just every time i think about drawing a character i imagine them in this pose, especially his left hand, i keep doing that cuz idk i think it’s cute and i’m tryna keep my characters’ hands out from behind their back so that’s just kinda what i default to (also so it doesn’t cover any of their clothing which i like to show off)

i made the sunglasses version last-minute because i got the idea for it when i drew the “sun bun” with sunglasses i was like hm... we can’t NOT have cooper also wearing sunglasses just like the bun on his shirt so i did a quick one of that too, please ignore how the sunglasses have no temples just assume they fit on his face perfectly, no more questions, i’m really bad at perspective atm so i think they’d look really weird also his ears aren’t down there so what would they even be holding on to there’s no point

ALSO HAVING THIS SHIRT SAY “SUN BUN” INSTEAD OF “FUN BUN” BECAUSE IT’S HIS SPRING/SUMMER SHIRT WAS LITERALLY LIKE THE ONLY THING I WAS THINKING ABOUT THE WHOLE TIME I WAS DRAWING THIS BESIDES THE BUN ALSO WEARING SUNGLASSES ASLDKFJLASJOISEJKL

at some point i was debating on whether or not to make the tank top gray like the cuffs of his pants in this case, but it felt like not only was he wearing overalls or something but also that there was too much of that one color on him so i decided to keep it white just to mix things up and not have it blend in so much with the rest of his colors, especially since with color it looked like something i didn’t want it to (overalls)

i think this took so long because i hadn’t drawn a full-body of cooper with the new method i use to draw legs yet so i kept trying to get his butt to form into his legs correctly without making him look too skinny and eventually i got it right (this is why i want to sketch things out before i digitize them so i have more control over my lines, it took so long because it had to be one perfect stroke otherwise it would look bad, drawing that out on paper first would fix that because on paper i have 100% control over where my lines go unlike in SAI where they often like to flip all over the fuckken place)

but yea i definitely don’t have drawing paws down, especially not at angles, but y’know small steps, like i said i try not to get stuck on stuff like that, if it looks good enough i just move on and do better next time

TO THAT END I SHOULD PROBABLY GIVE MY CHARACTERS KNEES/KNEECAPS AT SOME POINT I JUST GOTTA FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE IT NOT LOOK WEIRD SLADKJFLSDJFOISDJFLKSEJFOISJEKL

i drew his other foot behind the foreground foot because i didn’t know what else to do with it, but i didn’t want it in the exact same pose so i made it look like he has a little kick in his step which i thought was cute c:

I HAD TO LOOK UP CAPRIS BECAUSE IDK THE MEASUREMENTS THEY’RE LIKE ALL OVER THE FUCKKEN PLACE so basically the length i went for was “not quite shorts, not quite pants” and it looks like capris so they’re good enough lol, at some point they basically looked like rolled up jeans which isn’t what capris are so i made the ends look more like cuffs instead of rolled-up pant legs

ALSO at some point i had his shirt fold over his shoulders a lot like moria’s shirt, and while it looked okay i didn’t want to do that twice and i also wanted it to look more like Anna’s outfit from the movie so i looked back at the gif i had saved and redrew that to look closer to Anna’s outfit like i wanted

the background used to be a blue gradient and i was going to put the sun there but all-in-all it just looked bad so i kept the blue gradient and shoved the “hue” slider all the way to the right and it gave me this cool like sunset/summer tea color so i added some translucent circles to that and i thought it looked like a summer drink in the background so i liked that and kept it

his sleeves look kinda uneven but i assume it’s just the different angles they’re at so i didn’t really bother trying to fix those, also i didn’t know any way to draw the paw beans on his left hand without them looking weird so i didn’t draw them there either, just assume they’re too flat & don’t stick out that much so that you’d be able to see them from that perspective, same with his feet kinda except they’re facing more away so it makes a little more sense for them

anyway i think that’s it for now, i hope you enjoyed this drawing and hopefully the next one will be quicker! thanks for reading & see y’all next time!<3

[bebaexoexo]

Shit Oh Sehun did in 2017

-Mistook Jeonghan (svt) for Johnny (nct)

-Movie date with suho

-Slayed at the gaon chart award show with a solo dance

-Paris vacation/date with suho

-Got called best dressed man at a Louis Vuiton catwalk and then proceeded to spend the next day walking around Paris with a hood, baseball cap and a cowboy hat on his head all at one time

-Revealed his bed time snuggle routine with Suho, no shame attached

-Was supposed to debut as an Actor Oh in February, but didn’t…

-Was supposed to debut as an Actor Oh in March, but didn’t…

-Got an award for being himself (popularity award)

-Was supposed to debut as an Actor Oh in April, but didn’t…(NoT EvEn a FRackin TraIleR)

-Waved to a tablet instead of the camera, tried to play it cool by continuing to do so

-Posted about his big chilli… 0.0

-Got 15 points on a drawing game while everyone else got over 100 (he drew love hearts and wrote ‘I’m sorry’ for everything and still couldn’t accept being last)

-Howled because of sour pickles

-Members accuse him of being the prime suspect when food goes missing in the fridge, he agrees

-Used binoculars the wrong way round and couldn’t understand why he couldn’t see (Suho to the rescue and an embarrassed osh as a result)

-Gets driven around by big brother chanyeol

-CAN SING (might as well be in exo’s vocal line)

-Biyak Biyak 4 lyfe

-Rubbed his head on a random guy’s stomach (who looks like he’s his sugar daddy)

-Made suho sad because he didn’t go to a premier with him, but went to a festival with Chanyeol and guy whose stomach he rubbed his head on

-Danced (????) at said music festival. By dance I mean chicken fingers at the crowd wtf @ exo’s main dancer

-Can ya tell iv given up on the debut of Actor Oh

-Graced his instagram with such artistic pictures of rice, spoons and cereal

-Only one ft BoA returns

-KING OF SPOILERS sehun the cereal rice (kokobop) poster

-KING OF SPOILERS PT2 dancing the dance with kai can you all please stop this isn’t good for me

-Comments ‘is this exo’s official account?’ On exo’s official account

-“What did you do in preperation for this album?” “Loyalty”

-Passionately talked about eel reproduction

-“Favorite fruit?” “Water with ice”

-Gave flowers to the members because he’s their cute baby omfh (it was a punishment but same thing)

-*gives Kai a rose* “it fits you, you’re sexy and dark red suits you”

-Baekhyun confirms Sehuns big DIACK

-“Sehun has absolutely no interest I’m women. How do I know? Sehunnie said he has no interest in women”- Baekhyun

-Bragged about a really good noodle place, took 30+ people to eat and payed for them- but the food was disappointing

-“Say something to the EXO-L for their birthday” *sehun claps*

SUPER ELLE

-*brags about his dog at every chance he gets, literal protective father to vivi* “I am a cat person”

-EXOTOURAGRAM AKA SEHO AND FRIENDS

-“We’ve been roommates for 6 years I want to cross the line”

-Producer Oh

-“I’ve arrived!” \(-°o°-)/

-Date in NYC with suho (ft the third wheel JD)

-Pulls out chair for suho

-“Its enough just to film me, suho’ s voice in the background is fine”

-Couldn’t believe that a waitress in NYC can’t speak Korean

-Theatre date with suho (ft the late third wheel JD)

-Kicks suho out of their room

-SBS power fm- more like 2 hours of sehun whinning and crying from embarrassment while suho laughs

-“I really like chocolate milk. I think it’s love”

-“Sehunnie is upset~ upset~ really really upset… huhuu” AEGAO KING WHAY

-“I’ve been having a hard time too. At times like this, we should all embrace each other. There’s something I always tell the members and that is to to ‘hug/embrace (me)’. Let’s cheer each other on, got it everyone? Cheer up always and yea, that’s it” and this is why we love our baby

-Sehun irl- “I love all my hyungs to the moon and back #se-rang-hai-yo” Sehun in manwha- “who cares”

-LA date with suho

-DING DONG

-“Let’s goo” \(^o^!)__

-Just sehun trying to control his face while riding the drift car

-King of being HOT, calm and panicking at the same time when their car stalled

-Also Oh Sehun driving someone hold me

-Heart-shaped sweatpatch on his back

-“Excuse me… sir… ketchup ketchup yahh… thank you”

-“The hardest time isn’t when we have a lot of schedule but when the members have different opinions (argue). It saddens me a lot”

-Me me da

-Fan- “do sehun and i have something in common?” Sehun- “we’re human”

-Las Vegas date with suho

-Volunteers suho to go sky diving first like the little shit he is

-Wears a dress shirt and leather shoes to sky diving

-Acts like he isnt shitting himself on the zipwire

-Shamelessly wore nothing underneath an easily unzip-able hoodie

-MC Oh

-“Who is the scariest hyung?” “All of them”

-Tries to prank suho by putting a sticker on him, fails misrebly and then loses the sticker

-White suit blue shirt

-Chanyeol saying Sehuns voice is so good he wants to produce him PLEs

-Teary eyed sehun as eXO WIN RHE PRIME MINISFERS AWARD WWKBDUDBDJ

-Hello councellor MC’s @ seho “stop touching eachother are you guys coming out right now?”

-Sehun @ LVTN

-Gets customised bags from LVTN

-Sehun @ Moncler (also makes the CEO come out just to take pictures with him we love a powerful man)

-Peace signs in his pockets when hes told not to do it

-Doesnt follow seungri back on insta because aesthetics

-Omfg okay elyxion antics begins here

-SHIRTLESS SEHUN IMDG THAT BOY JUST THREW OFF THAT JACKETS WTF I JUST GOT OUT OF WORK AND THATS THE FIRST THING I SEE ON INSTA WTF OMG MY HEART I DONT EVEN KNOW WHATS GOING ON YET BUT I SAW FOKKIN RIPPED SEHUN AND SHIT THATS JISTVTJE LIFE OMG THIS IS GONNA BE LIT

-Wrote and co produced his solo In At thE CONCERT COZ WE LOVE A TALENTED KING

-Lovingly strokes suhos face during touch it

-Comforts kai, upset because he made a mistske in his solo, during cmb

-Danced to ka-ching with CBX

-Suho “after our concert ended at midnight yesterday, sehun and i went back to our door and boiled 20 eggs. 2 adult men peeled them seriously and ate 10 eggs”

-Kisses baekhyuns neck

-Eats pizza at the concert after holding back for months, members happy give us one last chance at seeing THE ABS

-Went crazy and got chanyeol too drunk on his birthday

-Fansites “please dont crop our watermark we work really hard for these pictures” Sehun ;)

-Cute instalive of him just trying on the filters and telling us not to be stressed and play

-SEHUN IN DEAR HAPPINES OMG GREY SEHUN IS DA BESTZ IN A THIN WHITE SHIRT OMG

-“OK!! goo” *pouts*

-“Hey dog, look at me~”

-“Cheese many manyyy”

-*is just standing there posing* Photographer “youre cute”

-Didnt know it was just him, kai and baekhyun in the lightsaber mv

-“Sehunnie makes the most delicious soju” byun baekhyun

-LEON KOREA

-Makes a personal training room in their dorm that can barely fit his own ass

-Supports suho at his musical despite both going through a tough time

-Struggles with the rudolph hat

-SINGING IN UNIVERSE YES DAS MA BETCH

-Subtly strokes suhos face on a national award show

-Make chanyeol kneel whenever he wants something from him. We love our king

-Curly haired solo on mbc gayo

-A beautiful family picture from Oh Sehun to end 2017

——–

Cr. Lerandomexotic

I had a lot of fun making this, just thought i needed to record sehuns never ending loveble antics etc

Feel free to add whatever else i missed

Hopefully he’ll just keep getting crazier next year too, and exo themselves will grow to be greatet and stronger

Like, reblog & excel

[vinku-iikku]

Yay I finally finished 2018 inktober! If you want to just scroll through them all please go here, and if you want to see some comments on each please look under the cut.

Day 01 Flowey and Overgrown Ruins This prompt I picked as is because as far as I remember Flowey stayed behind when the monsters left. If you can’t find him, he’s near the big root on the left. All other days the second prompt got randomised by a die (except when I reached the last two).

Day 02 Grillby and Exotic Flora Grillby’s on a journey to look at all the flowers that aren’t living in a wet environment. Maybe he’ll make some wine from the non-poisonous ones.

Day 03 Chara and Cave Entrance They are still curious about morbid things and places that could be portentially dangerous, practically running at danger.

Day 04 Undyne and Astral Plains/Dreamland Welp I’d rather have had her with some other prompt, but now she has an anime showdown/faceoff with a mean monster that harasses a moldsmal.

Day 05 Asgore and Rocky Ruins Asgore had a trip down memory lane and visited the place where their castle used to be, before the war. Not much is left any more.

Day 06 Frisk and Ancient Tree They are still precariously looking for adventure. I saw this article about a 800 year-old Finnish tree, as soon as I saw that top I wanted to climb that, looks like a perfect spot to see everything around you and chill for a bit.

Day 07 Temmie and Nature Untouched I did some research in a nearby forest for this one, the sales-Temmie has made a nest in a tree that has fallen down in a storm. The soil is shallow before solid rock so trees have their roots mostly close to the surface, when they fall the roots go up as well. Temmie on the left is sitting on an ant nest lol. There are seven Temmies in total.

Day 08 Muffet and Crystal Coves Crystal Coves is either a place where crystal business is the main employer, a cove that has crystals, or a cove with crystal clear water, I think. I tried to implement them all just to make sure. Muffet has now made a business in making spider-products with glass expertise.

Day 09 Fuku Fire and Freezing Fjord Finally back to the ‘monsters travelling’ theme, Fuku is taking a longer trip and is currently on a boat by Norway.

Day 10 Gaster Blasters and Townsquare The blasters are on their own for whatever convenient reason, Pap’s one is figuring how things work by destroying them, Sans’ is... playing with local children. :D The fountain is loosely based on Havis Amanda.

Day 11 Nice Cream Guy & Shanty Town He’s travelling the world and selling nice cream! Definitely inspired by Beadle in BotW.

Day 12 Mettaton EX & Cemetery This combination took me a moment, Mettaton is a bit loud and showy for a cemetery. Then I remembered that Napstablook said they’re already dead when you try to kill them, so here Mettaton’s visiting haunted places and telling everyone about this wonderful body he got and where to get one if you’re interested in becoming physical again. I worked in a cemetery for one summer years ago, felt weird pulling those visual memories to this...

Day 13 Toriel & Hall of Deities In order to become a teacher I’d imagine she’d have to brush up her knowledge on lots of things that’ve happened on the surface, and here she’s in a secret underground place with some sacred scriptures or something, she reads them and writes down notes and then returns the scrolls.

Day 14 Annoying Dog & Volcanic Terrain Another weird combination, but eh, it’s the dog. It’s feeding bones to the vulkins and admiring danger up close.

Day 15 Monster Kid & Path Along the Water I made a huge area with different textures so I could try learn something new by scribbling around, and I’m really happy how the boulders on top of the waterfall and the water itself look like.

Day 16 Doggo & Ancient Altar Room Took a moment to come up with an idea, then I read Doggo likes squirrels. So now he’s travelling the world too, and he always has time and seeds for any squirrel population he discovers.

Day 17 Alphys & Summoning Altar I thought I’d not be drawing Mew Mew, but here was a perfect opportunity for that! Alphys isn’t travelling, but discovering new things in her home, humans have such interesting books! All of the Japanese text mean something; the bowl has the kanji for ’love’, books under it are Mew Mew manga, there’s two yury books, a reference to Free!, Digimon, Pokémon, Rose of Versailles, Natsume Book of Friends... and it’s fine if you don’t get the one that says ‘corn’.

Day 18 Photoshop Flowey & Windmills and Grasslands I think the modern wind generators look super cool. I tried to make Flowey as cute as possible so he’d be more fun to draw there, this is some dream stuff or alternate universe since Flowey did stay behind.

Day 19 Papyrus & Desserted Drylands I’m pretty sure that’s an accidental typo, but since it was Papyrus I wanted to roll with the new pun meaning. First thought was Papyrus somehow being in the drylands and dropping a huge cake, thus ’desserting’ it, but that would’ve been a bit mean. This cake is made with 100% organic sand (some of which he ground himself when grooming Rocky), the tiny cow ornaments are modified mouse skeletons. :) The chef hat would be straight but there wasn’t enough room on the page of the notebook I draw these on... I remembered he had a triangle on the battle armor, but didn’t remember what way it points so avoided it by replacing it with a heart. :D

Day 20 Sans & By the Beach Sans is getting some more sand for Papyrus with his shortcut, then he took a nap unfortunately close to the tide..? The shore felt a bit bare so I added some animals to keep him company. I h/c that animals don’t mind having monsters around unlike how they usually try to run away when a human is near.

Day 21 Shyren & Buried Statue(s) She’s doing that Disney princess thing where you sit down and start singing and all small animals within hearing range come to listen.

Day 22 Asriel & Underwater Temple Another dream thing since Flowey stayed behind, this is how he imagines the oceans look like outside.

Day 23 Lesser Dog & Market Place Some people have to learn the hard way to not trust a dog that has opposable thumbs.

Day 24 Box Mettaton & Merchant’s Store Any website run by a popular monster must get an insane amount of curious folk, which leads to ad revenue being a good way to fund the next tour. There’s some.. insider jokes there if you’re in any kind of website business.

Day 25 Rocky the pet rock & Eldritch Forest I don’t actually know what the latter means, looking at Google images it’s probably just a forest that’s very dark or something. Wanted to try a different perspective for a change. Rocky has a bowl of food there but I can’t really think of any non-sad reason for why it’s in this forest.

Day 26 Froggit & Inn in th Middle of Nowhere Had to take a break for one day, regardless I’m proud of myself on being consistent this far despite everything going on. I first only had the top Froggit and the bg in the sketch, and didn’t like how it looked. Somehow adding more Froggits made it look a lot better to me...

Day 27 Burgerpants & By the Docs Birsd with human arms and birds sitting like humans will never not be hilarious to me.

Day 28 Bratty and Catty & Deep in the Woods Tried to play with perspective with this one, it’s kind of the opposite of the Rocky drawing.

Day 29 God of Hyperdeath & Idle Portal I had a hard time coming up with anything for this, so now poor goat is somewhere in a completely white dimention and the only way out is not active, though he’s quite chill about it.

Day 30 Amalgamate & Abnormal Formations This and last one’s world I didn’t leave for the die to decide, I really wanted to do Tetris with Napstablook and out of the two still left this prompt suits Endogeny more anyway. There’s a forest in Poland where several of the trees bend to north like this.

Day 31 Napstablook & Puzzling Platforms Only one I did during morning, my hands shake more then so all the lines are more or less wobbly. Every Tetris piece has it’s own signature design except the L-shape which is just blank to keep it interesting. Napstablook is enjoying game music while inside the game, maybe ghosts can possess videogames..? This also shows the notebook I drew all of these in and the tools I used most of the time.

It’s hard to tell if I’ve improved at all when comparing these to 2017 inktober, I haven’t draw regularly through the year and the main focus point this time was on backgrounds and not so much on lines and characters. I did learn new things and that’s always exiting, I think my trees, glass and rocks look way better than before I started, and I did some progress in shading metal too. All of these took 3 hours or less to finish, some only took an hour. I didn’t need to erase pencils like last year because I used a trick where I placed the sketch under the notebook page and my tablet with 100% brightness and a white bg under them, and traced that with ink. The notebook paper is pretty thin, you can see the Amalgamate drawing’s clouds showing through in the Napstablook photo. Anyway, this was fun, and I think I’ll try do it next year too!

[groundramon]

Homph I finished tri and I wrote down my thoughts as I was watching because I had too many funny shitposts and nobody to share them with bc charlie hasn’t watched tri yet

PS i wont be reblogging tri spoilers (besides MINOR stuff like, digivolutions of already confirmed digivolution lines or non-spoilery shitposts, but I’ll try to tag shitposts as #tri spoilers anyways [digivolutions specific to tri ill tag as well but not ones that were already basically confirmed]) for a while so ur safe here!  I’m just gonna like everything/most things because then I can rb em to hisyaryumon lmao (also u should check out hisyaryumon....its me n charlie’s digimon blog)

EP 1:

- ok. alright. ok. good. they’re dealing with kari’s emotions now instead of just. nothing.  ok. alright. cool.  Still dont like how obscure/”artsy” they’re being with it, this is digimon not kagerou project, but ok.

- Also. I stand by tk and kari being one of the few good straight ships in digimon.  just saying.

- kari: this is my fault... me: god damn it shut up you little brat also me: god relatable ALSO me: ill take whatever display of emotions i can get

- I love how nobody believes tai is dead like.  They’re upset and worried but they’re also like “nah. he cant be. that fucking asshole just left us in our time of need” (actually only matt is the last one)

- Gabumon i would die for you also im crying and I think that’s the first time tri managed to make me fucking CRY

EP 2:

- I had thoughts but then the 02 kids happened and I entered another plane of reality.  I don’t feel real right now

- the only one I can remember is evil!gennai being a dumbass and being like “SUFFER AND SQUIRM YOU PATHETIC HUMANS AS YOU FIGHT OVER THE LAST SEAT” 1. humans are KNOWN for their ability to care for others you dumb obvious fuck and 2. is. is the entire tube going? because that tube can fit too people if they squish.  This isn’t a joke I’m serious it can.

- oh yeah also when i saw whomstever the fuck his name is (adult guy who i love but fuck names) and he was all bloodied i was like “its a cold day in hell when i see blood in digimon” (I think there was blood in an earlier ep but shh idc)

EP 3:

- didn’t nishijima start off as a fucking life coach to these kids.  What the fuck he was supposed to help them find a career not emotionally scar them by bloodily dying in front of one of them

- im realizing that the reason hackmon was always in his cloak, in the shadows, standing still is that they cannot animate him in any normal position for the life of him.  I drew him with better anatomy when i was 14 and didn’t have a tablet.  No seriously, look:

I didn’t say it wasn’t bad, you guys are just underestimating how bad the anatomy on this poor creature is.  Why cant ppl draw dracomon or hackmon correctly imma cry

- ordinemon has the best reaction faces

the best part about these two screenshots is that they literally cut one to the other, first the first one to the second one and then it cuts back to the first one.  They were really proud of these stupid ass expressions.

- I started overcoming my dissociation shock from the second episode and my hypercritical mind was analyzing the shit out of everything that happened (it is Not happy) but then evil!gennai called kari and evil goddess and idk if he’s exaggerating to make her feel bad or if she’s literally a fucking god of chaos and destruction and either way im like

she did kinda like.  Watch wizardmon die, watch tai die, watch gatomon get absorbed.  The dark ocean is just a metaphor for depression and honestly if 02 wasn’t all over the fucking place I think Kari would’ve had some pretty decent development in it.  Actually you know what, I’m using that as an angle to approach Tri at now, wish me luck bc i might actually give it more leeway now

EP 4:

- I’m not dissociating but I forgot to say anything again and I already forgot what happened

- Cant believe mei is fucking dead

EP 5:

- I like to imagine that Tai got there like a few minutes ago, but he was like “well damn guess yall figured it out without me.  alright ill just. see if I need to do anything” and then meicoomon was Still Bad so he waited for when she struck just to make the most badass entrance possible.  Fucking extra ass bitch

- I forgot to write anything again but uhhh I wasn’t satisfied so anyways lets just get into the Juicy Details

Originally I was actually planning to be kinder to Tri than I expected.  Was very invested during it.  ���Round the end of the last ep I realized hmmm no this isn’t working out.  Where are the 02 kids.  You should’ve brought them in to save the day.  That would’ve been SO cool and SO fun.  Fucking cowards.

god I’m kinda tired so I’m going to address a couple things I still had problems with, note that this isn’t everything it’s just everything I felt comfortable yelling about without rewatching past eps.  Like I forgot nishijima was all bloodied and presumably died in the last part until they brought it up and I was like “????” ALSO DID THE LADY WHO WAS HIS PARTNER OR W/E KILL HERSELF WITH THE GUN SHE FOUND, I JUST REALIZED LITERALLY AS I WAS TYPING THIS THAT SHE FOUND A GUN AND THEN I THINK IT CUT TO BLACK AND I’M

DID SHE FUCKING KILL HERSELF WHAT THE FUCK

anyways my problems:

1. They did joe. really dirty.  I’ll write a more proper rant on this sometime later (mostly bc charlie is MUCH better at talking about joe than I am) but basically I can tell you that his character development in the movies squandered his OG character development.  He’s basically an entirely different person.  Like Tri joe isn’t bad, besides being largely neglected (yes he has a whole half a movie to himself, no that doesn’t make up for it all), its just...not OG joe.  He’s a fine character just not the same character, and its NOT fine when you put the two together.

2. THEY DID THE 02 KIDS EVEN DIRTIER IM SO BITTER sorry you nostalgia-blind, money-hungry fucks at bandai, but the 02 cast is PART OF THE ADVENTURES UNIVERSE.  The only people who hate 02 are ones who like the characters but hate the mess of the storyline at the end, or are completely irrational and elitist about their love of the digimon series and would greatly re-evaluate their opinions if they watched the original series and 02 back to back.  They couldn’t even show them in some kind of group montage at the end??? Standing in the background when they call Mei???  Why couldn’t they call mei from a home phone also, but that’s a less important problem idc that much.  It was a cute scene besides the lack of 02 characters.  Whatever.  AND THE PROBLEM IS LIKE kari and tk?  This entire time???  Were like “oh they disappeared. oops” instead of being frantically searching for their lost friends???  Like i get tk and kari probably have fucking ptsd and can’t express any emotions because they watched important people die in front of their eyes at an incredibly young age but also 1. they didn’t address the ramifications of ptsd, so fuck that theory/excuse and 2. THAT??? WOULD ONLY MAKE THEM LOOK HARDER??? and put on a brave face as they look, but inside they’re so scared and so worried.  Not just “oh sweet, they were found/saved, theyre in the hospital but that’s fine” like WHAT theyre fucking assholes if that’s what they’d canonically do lmao.  God I am SO bitter over the ENTIRE thing with the 02 kids, it would’ve been BETTER if they were deleted from the fucking canon entirely.  Would I have still been bitter?  Yes.  But at least I wouldn’t be madder at TK and Kari too.

3. I stand 100% by the notion that Digimon is not and will never be cut out to be an adults’ franchise.  It wasn’t designed for adults, and it can’t be skewered towards adults.  These particular characters were designed for kids to relate to and find entertaining.  They do not work when placed into an adult setting.  Like, can you imagine a character like Ed from FMA going to the Digimon world?  I guess in a way that’s just Marcus but like.  Just imagine the FMA cast in Digimon Adventure.  It doesn’t work.  Digimon Tri is basically that except real.  Also Data Squad was darker than Adventure so my joke doesn’t even work.

I guess my primary point is that Tri isn’t mature enough of a setup for an adult audience.  It puts a focus on being “complex” and “philosophical” instead of working within Digimon’s constraints and making something good and adult out of that.  Like!  Digimon is a fucking TOY COMMERCIAL.  Don’t give me messages about the futility of human life.  I want bad puns and emotional characters.  That’s what Digimon has ALWAYS been, and ideally always will be.  Tri could’ve made itself more mature by dealing with the ramifications of the Digital World’s events, how it affected the kids psychologically and dealing with healing old scars.  It would’ve been a more mature take on a story we loved and would use things we loved about the story already - the fact that it took so much time exploring characters’ emotions and was surprisingly mature for the time - to make itself better.  You need to take the aspects that drew adults to the show and amplify them, not just slap on a complex story and unfunny dialogue and be like “oh this is fine, right?”

It’s not that Digimon can’t exist as an adult property, its just that if it repeats what Tri did, it’s got no merit and in my eyes the franchise is dead.  If it survives I guess I’ll be happy that people can still enjoy it but I find it unsustainable and unsatisfying to fans of the older series.  Tri is just a fuckfest of highly specific nostalgia that tries too hard to appeal to old fans without capturing what made the original series so magical, and in part thats because the original series WASN’T FOR ADULTS.  I don’t know about the Digimon Story games, bc they’re T-rated so perhaps they’re a better take on an adult Digimon story than Tri?  But you either need to make your own characters and lore specifically for an adult-oriented Digimon season, or perish.  Also, please make it a series and not a group of movies.  Getting four eps every 6-9 months was hell.

I stand by saying Appmon is a more faithful Digimon season than Tri to Digimon’s original spirit.  I believe it holds more potential for success than Tri and better embodies the spirit of the older Digimon seasons.  It’s dumb, its corny, it has horrible puns, but I LOVE it because it also has a deep dark story and emotional moments.  If you dislike Tri and you agree with things I said that make it unlikeable, I highly recommend giving Appmon a chance - if you watch a few episodes and think “oh yeah, I guess this is decent” you’re going to like it.  It’s everything Digimon has always been and hopefully always will be, just with a different concept.  And hopefully the end of the series doesn’t leave a sour taste in my mouth and I have to redact this statement haha since I’m not done with it yet, but I’ve heard good things about it so I’m hoping not so.

Overall, if you watch Tri, don’t get your hopes up.  It resolves everything okay-ish but it’s a pretty forgettable anime on its own and simply doesn’t work as part of the Digimon franchise.

I am, however, pretty interested in what evil!gennai said at the end about Diaboromon and Daemon.  It raises interesting questions about the timeline too.  We know Daemon is in the dark ocean, so perhaps that’s a hint at a future project?  (They did confirm a future project btw, in conjunction with tri being over)  But what about Diaboromon?  I dont believe that Our War Game (I think thats what its called?) took place after Tri, based on the outfits and ages and stuff, but I also don’t remember the movies that well.  Could Diaboromon still be out there too?  It’s interesting.

However, because of the lackluster performance of Tri, I don’t have my hopes up and I really hope that this “next project” goes in a different direction.  Although I guess if they include the 02 kids, I’ll be somewhat less salty...

Side note, did they ever explain why the gennais went evil?  Like ?  That’s a pretty important thing.  The gennais helped SAVE the human world in 02.  And I get that apparently Tri is ignoring 02′s ending but still.  It’s shitty, because Gennai was still a good guy in the original too (and also they cant just keep is younger look and act like 02 never happened)  MAYBE its something I missed but I dont think so.  God there’s just.  So much wrong with Tri.  I’m very displeased and very bitter and I wanna get back to Appmon asap.

It’s got good moments, its got bad moments, I dont know, I don’t care.  There’s nothing wrong with you if you like it, there’s nothing wrong with you if you don’t, and there’s nothing wrong with you if you flip flop and are split like me.  I just wish Tri fulfilled its potential instead of becoming a boring mess.

[mysticsparklewings]

Velvety Birthday Cake

As a little thank you for all the birthday wishes; here's some art from me to you! :3 And oh boy, was this a wild time to make!  I mentioned in my 2019 Art Summary! that I wanted to do another custom Shopkin drawing to celebrate my birthday as I did with Birthday Wishes last year, and I...half-way stuck to that idea  I ended up going with a Num Nom instead of a Shopkin, as just like with that other Shopkin, until now I had only ever drawn 1-2 Num Noms on a dry erase board for fun, and also looking through the different Shopkins I was considering, none of the ones I picked out felt quite right. Then it occurred to me since the Num Nomes are more strictly food (more specifically sweets) oriented than Shopkins, that to be sure there was at least one red velvet option to choose from (since once again my birthday cake is to be of the velvety and red kind ). I was right! And in fact, I had a couple of different options to choose from. I ended up going with the series 4 Num, Velvety Cake, and "borrowing" the candle from the Birthday Polish-it Nom. (Although it occurs to me just now that I kinda didn't have to "choose" between the candle and Velvety's berries because the whole point of some of the series 4 Nums is that they have holes in the top for the Polish-it Nom tops to stick out of... Lesson learned for next time?) The main customizing I did here was, naturally, the berries from Velvety's design got taken out, partially for the sake of simplicity and I thought those and the candle would be too crowded, and also because, frankly, I don't think I'd want berries on a red velvet cake.  Even raspberries, and I generally really like raspberries. I'm just not much of a mix-fruits-into-baked-goods person. The other custom thing was making the...I assume cream cheese frosting because that's was everyone else and their mother pairs with red velvet...into chocolate frosting because that's what I prefer. (And highly recommend if you've never tried it! Red velvet is a derivative/cousin of chocolate cake, so the flavor profiles go together very nicely!) The thing about this drawing from start to finish that held me up the most was figuring out the mediums/textures to get and use correctly. Originally, I thought I'd use much more of the Faber Castell gelatos for this, but 1. I didn't have nearly the color selection I needed, and 2. Even if I had, the tips of them are bit chunky and difficult to get in exact spaces. I learned the latter point first-hand at the end when I went back to darken up the lines/rough edges on the chocolate frosting with one. I managed in the end, but it was much trickier than I had even imagined it would be. Speaking of those "rough edges," they're honestly where a lot of the problems came from. In addition to not having great solutions for how to get just the right texture for them (crayons ended up being my main source on that after the gelatos didn't pan out so well), I also had a hard time getting the right colors. Like I side, I don't have a huge color selection for the gelatos, and the crayons...well, despite having the full Crayola 152 set, there actually wasn't a ton of variety over there either, mostly because a lot of the crayons color out more pastel than they look, so you get a lot that look pretty same-y and too light. So I did have to supplement slightly by using color pencils in the lines too. Ten years later once I had the lines figured out though, then it was time to move out to actually coloring the thing, and this went slightly smoother since I had better-ish ideas of how I wanted to go about it. I'd decided to use a watercolor base on the body (all the pinky-red you see), then use alcohol marker as a base everywhere else, and supplement any shading as necessary with colored pencils. When I went in with the watercolor I tried to get some shading in and get a little of a "cake" texture; dots/holes. However, whatever I managed to do for texture ended up getting lost under the pencil shading later because the watercolor shading needed some serious help. Fortunately, my colored pencils were able to mostly salvage that. For some reason, the two sections farthest to the left came out slightly more pinky/purple, but there wasn't much I could do to fix that. Other than that though, after I went in with the pencils I was pretty happy with how the body was looking, if a little pink for red velvet, but in my defense, the official artwork is too. So then I did marker bases and basic shading for the candle, flame, frosting, and her eyes and mouth. The candle and her face were pretty straight-forward, aside from the mouth being simple gradients. The frosting was a bit trickier, given the way the shading goes and how I had to blend it out. Still, even that ended up working out better and more quickly than I anticipated. I did have to go back over my thick lines for the face with one of my markers to get it back to the proper hue after my colored pencils and the surrounding watercolor paled out/wore off the original lines pretty noticeably. And I was so nervous the whole time because I was using the brush tip and concerned that at any moment I might apply just a little too much pressure and ruin everything. But fortunately, that's not what happened. Then I went back to add the shine on the frosting, which took more patience. I'd put pencil on, blend it out, and repeat several times over before the shine was exactly how I wanted it. Naturally, the white accents on her eyes and a teeny tiny bit on her nose were done with white gel pen...not much else to say about that. Then it was time to do some sort of background. After some thought, I wanted to go with my PanPastels. And while I really wanted to do pink and yellow, I went in telling myself no, that it had to only be yellow because I physically can't get my pink one separated from the little tower to use it. (All five colors I have screw together into one cylinder and you unscrew the little tower to get the one you want; at some point, the pink was twisted on way too tight and now I can't get it off to save my life.) But after I did just the yellow...It was missing something. Then I got an idea and went digging through my old makeup. I ended up using a little of an old pastel pink eyeshadow and a blush, neither of which I think I've used in the last 2-3 years (and probably shouldn't at this point because makeup does expire, usually within a year or so) and blended some pink into the yellow, mostly on the corners. Which created this nice glowing effect and a really pretty shade of peach/orange. It's an unconventional "mixed media" method, but I'm so glad I tried it; makes me want to get more cheap eyeshadow & blushes just to use them as pastels!  (Although I'm pretty sure for fine art/art you're seeling the original copy of that's probably not the best thing to do since it's not made for that, but if you really wanted to...!) I couldn't decide where to sign it, so I added my signature, subtlely, in-post on the computer. Which was way more difficult than it should've been because my tablet is out of commission and I'm using a completely different set up that doesn't work anywhere near as well. But it's there and it's done. (However, once I get...some solution sorted out...I may update this piece so it's all a bit nicer, we'll see.) Unfortunately, I discovered that apparently, I hit some pink/purple/dark reddish-maroon colors that my scanner (or maybe computers in general?) can't pick up accurately, much like on I'm Not Dead. And you know what the kicker is? It was on the lines and rough edges where that happened! The parts I worked the hardest on! BOO!! >:( (And the shading on the frosting wasn't quite right, but that was slightly less concerning.) I think I managed to mostly fix it with the overlay trick I used last time, but it's still not quite right. :P But hey, it's still pretty cute, it's done, and I can move on with my life now.   Thank you again to anyone that's sent me birthday wishes or been kind enough to help out with the tablet situation I’ve been dealing with; it really means a lot and I can't put into words just how much I appreciate it all! You all are bright lights in a sea of darkness.   ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble |   Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

[socialfairytale]

Evaluation

My project has changed a lot throughout the course- my final outcome has differed greatly from what I set out to make at the beginning, mainly due to the fact that I was trying a lot of new things and they didn’t all work as expected. But i’m glad that my project evolved. 

The social issue I decided to choose for this project is the Environment and Climate Change- I wanted to make a game concept that would encourage people to fix the planet before it’s too late. There are many issues that are affecting and changing our planet currently, most of which are direct result of human activity. We are responsible (directly or at least for the majority of) for the Earth’s changing in climate- we release too many greenhouse gases through various means such as transport, factory farming and deforestation. 

One of the things that has remained consistent in this project is that the social issue being a key part of the game - I haven’t diverged much. The character design and game themes definitely incorporate some fantasy themes (such as the main character) but the underlying issue about the world being uninhabitable and ruined is still a very obvious feature. I would have created a project that more subtly related to climate change, but it’s something i’m very interested in so I thought it would be a good idea.  I was aware that a game based very obviously on a social issue may not attract a lot of attention as people tend to avoid things that are ‘politcal’ but I think it works - I tried to make the character design and magical elements very visually appealing so the game so that it would appear more interesting and attractive to play upon a first glance. 

The work I have created - Echo - is for a game concept. I created some concept art for the character and landscape, made some pixel animations to show how the game could potentially look, and made a model of the main character’s head. The model was created so I could get a better idea of how the character could look from all angles, thus making it easier to draw. I am also very interested in modelling so I thought making a model would be a lot more interesting than just two dimensional artwork.

The Character Design/Concept

I wanted to create a concept for the game’s main character. At the start of the project I envisioned them to be a cute & brightly coloured animal - to try and contrast with the bleak reality in which the game is set. I made a pinterest board to try and establish the kind of look I wanted it to have, and came up with some concepts. At the time I was also really inspired by Kitsune & their magical connotations in Japan so I wanted it to look somewhat fox like. 

I jumped straight into the character design without really considering the rest of the work I wanted to do which would involve it - which is where I started to make some questionable choices. I decided to give Echo four ears to make them look very unique and otherworldly - but didn’t really consider the practicality of having these, nor did I think ahead to when i’d actually have to make them later. I also have a tendency to design the character’s appearance first before coming up with their personality - which also meant that the second set of ears didn’t really have a purpose of being there. Alongside this I also gave them an enormous mane and extravagant tail to help them stand out - this was also annoying to animate. However, despite the impracticality of their design, I really like how the final appearance turned out - it definitely looks aesthetically appealing and different compared to something you’d expect to find on Earth.

Another problem I had when drawing the character was trying to establish their anatomy and keep it consistent when creating the concept sketches for them. I wanted to make Echo walk on two legs yet still have an animalistic appearance so I made them anthropomorphic with shorter digitigrade legs than those of a human - this made a lot of poses quite difficult to draw as his body proportions were very different than the references I used - so in some sketches his legs are far too long. 

I created several pieces of game art featuring Echo although I’m not totally happy with any of them- this is due to my experimentation with new programs and different techniques. All four of the artworks were created outside of my comfort zone - 3 of which were created using Procreate and a shading style which I am not as proficient in - and the final one was created in Paint Tool Sai with a wacom intuos (which was a vastly more complicated task than using my Cintiq). I felt that some of the work just didn’t have atmosphere I was trying to create- some of the pieces looked flat, and using the iPad to paint meant that I didn’t have access to my usual tools for painting. To improve next time, I will practice more both with procreate and the Intuos tablet, but also try and create some artwork that i’m actually happy with by spending a lot of time on it rather than giving up after 2 hours - which was very common with a lot of my work in this project as I felt like the deadline was approaching too fast. 

I really like Echo’s overall character design but I think that it could have been developed a lot better if I had spent more time on it, and used more realistic animals as reference material. My favourite parts about their design are the glowing colourful ears and tail, as well as the mask, which I think gives them a very mysterious and ethereal appearance (which I think it suitable considering they’re meant to be a space deity). If I could design them again I would have also created a wider range of concepts before creating the final design so fast, as I ended up having some really cool ideas later on. I would have also reduced the number of ears and made the tail/mane smaller to try and make this character actually easily reproducible. 

I did also design Radio and Pix, the other two main characters, but these were done very quickly near the end of the project so they are also not as developed as i’d like them to be. I think my target for next time would definitely be to not try and rush my projects as much and actually put thought and consideration into them. It would have also been nice to do more environment design as this was something I was really keen to explore at the start of the project but didn’t have enough time to explore - I would have rather put more time into this than trying to create finished artwork of Echo. 

Pixel Art/Animation

For this aspect of my project I aimed to design some animations and sprites/environments to show what the actual game would look like if it was made. This was one of my first experiences with pixel animation and sprite artwork which made it quite a challenge for me, especially in the beginning.

Animating in pixel art is a really different experience, as I found that almost every pixel had to be placed perfectly to make the movement look smooth - quite often I found that just by changing a few pixels on one frame completely changed the shape of the head in another - but this paid off as I got used to it. Overall, i’m really happy with the way my weapon summoning animation turned out - I think the movement looks really fluid and even though it’s small and pixelated, you can still make out the individual parts of the character.

Some parts I should have done differently were definitely the smoke animation and effect - I made the smoke and staff Glow using an overlay layer on Photoshop - which messed up the transparencies of the finished sprite. When I tried to export it as a gif with no background, there were white pixels surrounding the body due to the partially filled in pixels from the glow layer, which the PNG could not interpret properly. To fix this, I added a grey background to the animation when exporting it so that it would display correctly on my blog - but this was only a temporary fix, as It would have had to be transparent to import into Unity, for example. I think that the glow could have worked if it was added afterwards once imported into the games engine rather than as part of the animation, but it worked to show my ideas.

Another problem I had was with the animation cycle itself - this was another project which I rushed into a bit - as I ended up not being able to loop it due to Echo taking a step forward midway through, so ending up in a different location to where they started off. I should have also made the overall pixel sprite smaller I think and maybe tried a lineless style - as the 120ish pixel height of the character meant that it took a while to replicate for each frame.

In term of success though i’m happy with the actual artwork of the pixels - I also really like how the icon of Echo and the dialogue box turned out, as they fit together well and match the aesthetic of the game. As well as this, the text animation I created also looks really cool I think - there isn’t anything I would change about that. The pixel art backgrounds I created also turned out pretty well, but I think it would have been nice to create a more refined and clean, lined background rather than the sketchy lineless style it ended up having. 

Model/Mask Attempt

This was the project I had the most difficulty with out of all three I attempted. I started off wanting to make a super sculpey model of Echo, which soon changed into a wearable mask of his head, and then finally changed into a small model.

The first thing I tried was making the mask in Blender - which I have no experience with - which may have been the cause of some of the difficulties I had. I first sculpted the shape of the mask and decided to try and print it out as a pepakura file - which didn’t work initially due to the high number of polygons. if I was to make another pepakura mask I would instead work with a very low number of polygons instead to start with rather than trying to retopologise the model later which was also rather tedious. 

After retopologising the model, the option to 3D print it was available - unfortunately since I hadn’t planned this from the start my model also was not suitable for this. I think that all of these attempts didn’t work properly since I hadn’t researched them enough and built them with these results in mind - I had to strongly rework my model again to get it to work in a 3D printer. Despite this difficult stage though I do really love the look and anatomy of the model I made - it actually looks how I intended it to and has the perfect cartoony/realistic mix I was going for. The 3D print had to be split up into sections and then printed one at a time. This process had some flaws which I would execute differently if I had more time - I didn’t realise how difficult it would be to make the 3D model look presentable (sanding and filling etc) so I should have printed it in a higher resolution to start with, as it was too low res to make a smooth model out of. On top of this, there were some scaling issues which meant that several pieces were very slightly different sizes to each other. To fix this, I should have kept each piece on the same document and scaled them all up together rather than each one individually. That being said, the mask I did 3D print did end up fitting my face which I consider a definite win, as I measured it all beforehand in the hopes that it would not be too small or big for my head. I should have done a lot more research into 3D printing before rushing into it. 

Unfortunately due to the quality and mishaps with the 3D print (the hollow surface meant it could not be properly sanded, and one corner was missing due to the supports collapsing during the printing process - causing it to droop down and break off), I had to move to a different method. My main regret during this stage was my time management - I tried out 3 different techniques during 3 days and none of them worked to my standard so I scrapped all of them. The first was the EVA foam patterned model. I really like how all of the edges are crisp and fit together really well but unfortunately the pattern was not able to capture the exact head shape, which ended up looking a bit weird. I think this could have been remedied if i’d kept working on it and made manual adjustments. The foam I used was also far too thin (5mm) which caused the model to be very weak as it kept squashing and changing shape. It would have worked a lot better if i’d used 10mm foam I think. 

The two upholstery foam attempts were actually probably fixable, again if i’d spent more time on them. The carved block head especially, I think it would have worked a lot better if my electric knife had been sharpened. I like the way which they started to turn out but I got a little too ambitious and removed too much material too fast. These two attempts were another case of me not doing enough prior research into them beforehand, and could have turned out a lot better if I watched more than one tutorial for each.

The last thing I resorted to was a super sculpey model, which has turned into one of my final outcomes. While it is unfinished, I am really really pleased with how it looks for the most part. I used my original 3D sculpt as a reference to model the head out of super sculpey, then sealed and painted it with acrylics. I’m really happy that I used sculpey as the material as it keeps its shape well and was very smooth - although I think it could have been smoother if I had used some sculpting tools or turpentine to help even out the surface. 

[ethicallysourcedhumanmeat]

Lost Boys: Day Two:5

[ < ][first][ > ] [AO3][Masterpost]

He’s on the train back from his meeting with the director when he wonders if No would be at rehearsal; He wants to tell her about getting the part.  Elle had seemed so excited she’d even left him a really cute voicemail while he was on a call with his agent just now but for some reason he wanted to tell No about it.  He couldn’t really figure out why, he hadn’t really gotten to talk to her all that much, but he wanted to know her better.

Maybe it was the intensity he saw when she was rehearsing, Elle was so cute but No, well she was definitely attractive, nope, this was a professional interest.  Watching her fence, watching her run lines, she could match his intensity if she did musicals, and she could sing if she got past her stage fright.

Yes, getting to know her was purely professional.

Standing on the train back into the city he sees a boy with blue hair and remembers the chat with V from earlier.  It had been weird, something had been off, and Elle’s demeanor had totally changed for the brief time they were talking to him.  She must be a fan, god she’s so cute, that’s probably why V was strange, he could probably tell.

When he gets inside he doesn’t have to ask if anyone has seen her.  Most of the performers have stopped to eat, and being Friday the space is pretty empty but No is on the stage, the bright white of her headphone cord flares out with her movements, stark against the dark coloured tank top she wears. 

She’s dancing now?  God was she just good at everything?  Well, not good, there was something not right about the way she moved, she seemed to struggle with her feet.  Maybe he could offer to help?  But she stops and pulls her phone out of her shirt, makes some notes, stretches and starts again.

“Hyun, you’re back,” the director slaps him on the back.  “Did you forget something?”

“Oh, I, uh, just thought I’d—”

“Don’t hurt yourself kid, you don’t have to tell me which one it is.  You’ve got perfect timing regardless; I just got the first draft of your script.”

*

Nina had been happy to see her.  Noelle had arrived at the end of one of her classes, a bunch of grade school kids ranging in skill from constantly laying on the ice to practicing camel spins when they thought no one was looking.  She tried to sneak in and hide in the bleachers with the parents but Nina clearly saw her, she supposed being a head taller than most of the parents with a bright blue skate bag over her shoulder probably wasn’t the subtlest she could have been.

Nina had practically slammed into the boards and screamed her name.

“When you said you might stop by later I thought you meant my house for a drink, you know since your short break has turned into six whole months.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to get your hopes up it’s just been really busy at work, and I’ve been spending a lot of times at rehearsals, I keep meaning to come back it’s just—”

“You do you babe,” Nina had laughed and planted a comical sucking kiss on her cheek.  “Get your skates on and help me round up these little monsters!”

She’d meant to, she really had but when she was lacing up her skates her phone had chimed and, well that had been the weirdest conversation she’d ever had.  V was Jihyun, she’d known that, it was his Photography Psued, but he’d been cold.  Maybe that’s who he was now, no one seemed to find it out of place, Zen had seemed so happy to see him. 

Was she crying, shit, it had been so long.  Did he know it was her?  No, why did she care.  She didn’t care if Jihyun knew, so what if he’d been like that on purpose, it was probably for her benefit, this was why she didn’t call him.

“Hey, if you didn’t want to skate with the kids you could have just said,” Nina frowned down at her but her face softened.  “Noelle, what’s wrong? Sorry, I didn’t-”

She shook her head. “No it’s fine, I got distracted by one of those sad dog transformations on facebook.”

Nina shook her head.  “You didn’t, but you don’t have to talk about it, what’s up?”

Noelle leads her friend back to the ice and explained the situation to her, of course Nina was already familiar with the source, just like she’d hoped and after two hours on the ice, not only did Noelle have more reference shots than she knew what to do with, they’d managed to work out a simple standalone program that Noelle was going to animate in her non-existent free time as plan-b.

Just like she’d hoped Nina didn’t even want payment, Noelle simply had to commit to coming back to their skating family, teaching a group class once a week, and consider coaching private lessons.

“I know you’ve got a lot on your plate but as soon as you finish this project I get you one day a week, guaranteed, that’s all I ask.”

Noelle had laughed and agreed.

With that worked out she went home, proper home, and packed a bag.  Her things, Darryl’s things, her computer and tablet, she even grabbed her favorite mug out of the cupboard.  She collected Darryl from her neighbor and thanked her profusely.

“Are you moving Noelle?”

“Oh no Ma’am,” Noelle smiled up at the older woman from where she knelt in front of her dog, “just house sitting for a while.”

“Oh that’s very kind of you.”

She drags 2 suitcases, a gig bag, a laptop bag and a giant dog into the elevator.  Her phone chimes again as she drops everything in the entry way.  Darryl saunters past, laying one big slobbery kiss on her forehead before surveying his temporary kingdom and Noelle lets herself fall gently to the floor where she lays face down while she fishes her phone out of her pocket.

“So are you married to your dog?” 707 laughs on the other end of the phone.

“It’s an open relationship,” she grunts.

“So is that a family thing?  Does Chief Han have a ferret his girlfriends can never live up to?”

Noelle sits up cross legged and laughs.  “You know we’re not really related right?  I mean big bad hacker did a background check on me so...”

“Hey the internet says you guys were doing the incest, who am I to question— No, No, Elle don’t hang up I’m kidding, I’m kidding.”

“It’s not funny, that ruined my life, okay, and it was a stupid rumor nothing ever happened.”

“I could get rid of it if you want,” his voice is earnest, softer than she’d yet heard.

“It’s been so long, the damage is done.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, “I’ve already got a program that can do the job, just a little tweak, it’s already going along, hungry little buddy, no more nasty rumors about you and your not-brother.”

She laughs despite herself.  Where was this guy 8 years ago?

“Byebye,” he chirps and the line goes dead.

*

She’s sitting in her car in the free parking lot a few blocks from the rehearsal space when her phone chirps again.  She’d gotten groceries and decided to pack dinner for herself; she’d eat it when she got home probably, she rarely ever had an appetite when she was rehearsing.

She pulls her phone out of her pocket and checks the notification from the messenger.  Zen is excited about a new role, written just for him, Jesus where do I find fangirls?  She swallows her jealousy and cheers him on.  She’d flirted with him earlier in the day and she was tempted to call him and flirt again, it would stem the disappointment.  He was on his way home.

Fuck it, she does call him but it goes straight to voicemail.  She leaves a message for him, conscious of the pitch of her voice, a little higher than her practiced speaking voice, a little more femme than she normal goes for, 707 had been clear he couldn’t know that she was Elle.

Her agent is more than apologetic and she feels her body tense in anticipation as he lifts her off the floor in an bear hug.  She shrugs and hangs her things up, switches to her slippers and scouts out the stage.  She should be running lines, finding someone to read with her at the audition, they’d specified they wanted the performers to bring a scene partner, someone not vying for a role in the showcase. 

But she really needed to get the flow of this choreography down, she had the foot work down when she’d left but Nina had been on her about her arms.  She had slacked on her workouts, and her core had suffered, it was hard to keep her arms moving the way Nina liked to see when she was distracted by her posture, the way her stomach was jiggling, the way she felt so wobbly.  Nina could see it too; she hadn’t added any jumps despite Noelle’s history.

It was probably the weirdest dance, so much should happen while she was gliding, she stops and makes a few notes and scans the stage, maybe if she had a balance beam to stand on it would be more effective.  It’s a stupid idea.  Min-ju corners her.

“So that’s cool, are you going to a really slow rave or something?”

“Do people still go to raves?” she laughs. 

Min-ju cocks her head to the side.

“Thinking of getting back into skating.”

“That’s random, are you giving up the dream then?”

Noelle laughs, “which dream?”

Min-ju throws her arms to the sides and spins in a circle. “This one, of course.”

Min-ju isn’t there to rehearse, she tells Noelle, but she didn’t want to admit that she just didn’t have plans for Friday night, she’s still young and excited to be disappointing her parents.  She tweaks some of Nina’s program and runs line with Noelle for another hour or so.

“So did you hear about your boyfriend’s new role?”

“My what,” she chokes on her water.

Min-ju laughs.  “Or your hero or whatever, Zen,” she fakes a swoon when she says his name and Noelle laughs.

“Yeah, I heard something about it.”

“Can you imagine,” Min-ju swings her feet dreamily, “do you think they’re really adapting it especially for him?”

Noelle shrugs.  “I should apologize to him for yesterday.”

“Eh, whatever.”

“Is he here?”

“Do you like him,” the smaller woman whispers.

“I’ve only talked to him once,” Noelle frowns.

“Then what are you so worried about?”

“It’s manners, MJ, I literally fell on him yesterday and then whatever happened on that stage last night.  He was really nice, that’s all.”

“Okay,” she draws it out and squints suspiciously.  “I think I saw him in the reading room when I came in.”

Noelle’s phone chimes again in the hallway.

“WooOooOOOoo,” 707 warbles into her ear, “it is I the ghost of boyfriends yet to come.”

“Oh my god,” she groans.

“Just a friendly reminder that Zen does not know you’re Elle.  Remember No and Elle are separate until the party, when you can finally be—”

“Please don’t.”

“Noelle.”

“Please never make my name a pun again.”