#so much pAInter art recently

[just-a-joey]

pAInter practice

[artbyzephra]

From sketch, to...

... Final piece. Commission for MercuryF0x, Process video can be found here (it took a bit of energy to edit so please give it a look).

Bonus headshot detail - first time detailing something like this and really happy with how it ended up.

[kibo-no-akademi]

//Man, can you believe it? It's been 10 years since i created Cateline... 🥺💚

[feminist-space]

"Artists have finally had enough with Meta’s predatory AI policies, but Meta’s loss is Cara’s gain. An artist-run, anti-AI social platform, Cara has grown from 40,000 to 650,000 users within the last week, catapulting it to the top of the App Store charts.

Instagram is a necessity for many artists, who use the platform to promote their work and solicit paying clients. But Meta is using public posts to train its generative AI systems, and only European users can opt out, since they’re protected by GDPR laws. Generative AI has become so front-and-center on Meta’s apps that artists reached their breaking point.

“When you put [AI] so much in their face, and then give them the option to opt out, but then increase the friction to opt out… I think that increases their anger level — like, okay now I’ve really had enough,” Jingna Zhang, a renowned photographer and founder of Cara, told TechCrunch.

Cara, which has both a web and mobile app, is like a combination of Instagram and X, but built specifically for artists. On your profile, you can host a portfolio of work, but you can also post updates to your feed like any other microblogging site.

Zhang is perfectly positioned to helm an artist-centric social network, where they can post without the risk of becoming part of a training dataset for AI. Zhang has fought on behalf of artists, recently winning an appeal in a Luxembourg court over a painter who copied one of her photographs, which she shot for Harper’s Bazaar Vietnam.

“Using a different medium was irrelevant. My work being ‘available online’ was irrelevant. Consent was necessary,” Zhang wrote on X.

Zhang and three other artists are also suing Google for allegedly using their copyrighted work to train Imagen, an AI image generator. She’s also a plaintiff in a similar lawsuit against Stability AI, Midjourney, DeviantArt and Runway AI.

“Words can’t describe how dehumanizing it is to see my name used 20,000+ times in MidJourney,” she wrote in an Instagram post. “My life’s work and who I am—reduced to meaningless fodder for a commercial image slot machine.”

Artists are so resistant to AI because the training data behind many of these image generators includes their work without their consent. These models amass such a large swath of artwork by scraping the internet for images, without regard for whether or not those images are copyrighted. It’s a slap in the face for artists – not only are their jobs endangered by AI, but that same AI is often powered by their work.

“When it comes to art, unfortunately, we just come from a fundamentally different perspective and point of view, because on the tech side, you have this strong history of open source, and people are just thinking like, well, you put it out there, so it’s for people to use,” Zhang said. “For artists, it’s a part of our selves and our identity. I would not want my best friend to make a manipulation of my work without asking me. There’s a nuance to how we see things, but I don’t think people understand that the art we do is not a product.”

This commitment to protecting artists from copyright infringement extends to Cara, which partners with the University of Chicago’s Glaze project. By using Glaze, artists who manually apply Glaze to their work on Cara have an added layer of protection against being scraped for AI.

Other projects have also stepped up to defend artists. Spawning AI, an artist-led company, has created an API that allows artists to remove their work from popular datasets. But that opt-out only works if the companies that use those datasets honor artists’ requests. So far, HuggingFace and Stability have agreed to respect Spawning’s Do Not Train registry, but artists’ work cannot be retroactively removed from models that have already been trained.

“I think there is this clash between backgrounds and expectations on what we put on the internet,” Zhang said. “For artists, we want to share our work with the world. We put it online, and we don’t charge people to view this piece of work, but it doesn’t mean that we give up our copyright, or any ownership of our work.”"

Read the rest of the article here:

https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/06/a-social-app-for-creatives-cara-grew-from-40k-to-650k-users-in-a-week-because-artists-are-fed-up-with-metas-ai-policies/

[obscuretobyfox]

The recent UNDERTALE/DELTARUNE Newsletter revealed a ton of concept art for enemies, done by Splendidland! There's way too much to make individual posts on, so I'll just post all the art with notes here!

"My friend Samanthuel (aka Splendidland) did a ton of concept art for Chapter 2! Sadly I couldn't use all of it because many of the concepts didn't end up aligning with my final vision for the game, but the designs themselves are super amazing! I'm thankful I got to use any of them.

Specifically I really wanted to use the paint enemy as a miniboss, since I thought it would be really fun mechanic.

Below were her notes on all of them! She also provided ideas on how she thought they could be used." - Toby Fox

"I was given the broad theme of "cyber world" and told to pretty much just design whatever I wanted, expecting only a handful to actually make it in. I made all of these within a couple days, just making whatever came to my mind." - Splendidland

(From here on out, all quotes are from Splendidland.)

"01: Hacker Guy (idk what their name is), wants to discover the secrets of the world and has special abilities, though they aren't aware of them. "Hacks" by randomly smashing keys and even swinging their mouse around in the air, could keep escalating in silly ways.

02: Handsome Face...

03: When they stand over a spot that can be "hacked into", their cursor shaped head turns into a pointing finger. They don't notice this change, so it's up to you, the player, to help them."

"04: heheh....

05: Funny Egg, their body contains a virtual pet. Can the fate of this pet be altered? Maybe not... Has an existential crisis if the pet dies, as their body is a battleground of life and death.

06 :Broken Image, their life is in ruins

07: Recycle Bin

08: Trash Fly, represents uncollected "garbage data"

09: Kiss-kiss"

"10: Painter, would basically be like Adeleine but with crude ms paint effects, especially the airbrush."

"11: Diskette, spins in place until talked to. "despite my looks, i am totally unable to save your progress"

"12: some kind of "internet" thing idk

13: "Data", little icon like creatures who march onwards with unknown purpose. they take part in the festival."

"14: Popup. hides underneath a tile and springs upwards annoyingly. touching its forehead makes it return underground temporarily. a pest."

"15: Virus, its head sways back and forth as it tries to hover in the air."

"16:Anti Virus, is it a cop or a doctor? maybe they see you as an enemy as you're an "outsider"?

17:Corrupted data or something"

"18:"Cyber World", a rough vision of what a world inside a computer could look like

19:Cyber House"

"20: Masked Dancers, they participate in the festival, each colour has a different movement pattern and dance style. very rough concept" Which one is your favorite? Mine is probably the tiny data creatures!

[vilhelios]

— I THINK I LOVED YOU IN ANOTHER LIFE .

( WHERE I WAS THE SEA, & YOU WERE THE SHORE . ) ; general fluffy romantic headcanons for rafayel / qi yu from love and deepspace <3

CW: not beta read, general rafayel story/lore spoilers, may be slightly ooc, tooth-rotting fluff, very slight angst !!!

— RAFAYEL is a terribly sweet, loyal, and affectionate lover. sometimes, you think he is something like a lovesick puppy—always ready to greet you at the door with a warm hug when you return from a mission, always eagerly awaiting your phone calls and texts. always at your side. when he calls you darling and holds you close, burrows his head into the crook of your neck, you can't help but feel like your being has been warmed by a pleasant summer sunbeam.

despite this, sometimes he feels like he's drifting somewhere far away from you. a receeding ocean tide, sea foam dissolving from your fingertips as you dip your hands in the waves. he's somewhere you don't understand, when he looks into your eyes and searches for an iteration of you in the reflected image of his own eyes—perhaps he is 800 years away, a lifetime and more. and yet, when you gingerly cup his face in your palms, feel him lean into your touch, you know he returns to you.

— RAFAYEL'S art studio is admittedly, a mess. there are days where you'll enter that room spotless and leave with splatters of some new shade of red and his beloved blues all over your clothes and skin. some days, this happens purely on accident—a trip right into a canvas here, a palm pressed onto wet paint there—and on others, rafayel seems to delight in using you as a canvas.

— when RAFAYEL kisses you (in that gentle fashion, where he cups your cheek like if he doesn't you'll slip like seafoam from his hold), those soft lips of his taste of cherries and grapes and strawberries. and perhaps that best encapsulates what loving rafayel is like, this sweetest red, red, red: the way his cheeks and ears flush when you press a kiss to his cheek; the colour of his eyes when the morning's rose-gold sunlight hits the pink in them just right; the bleeding, beating heart he offers to your awaiting hands. eventually, he pulls away to let the both of you breathe, and when he presses his forehead against yours, glances at you with that charming smile of his, you're enveloped in warm crimson all over again.

"there." rafayel smiles, leans back to admire the flamulla he'd painted on your cheek and the pout that graces your lips. "a cute flamulla for the cutie that keeps distracting me."

"you weren't even painting anything when i came in!" you scoff, dabbing the paintbrush he'd given you into the paint upon the palette. while he painted moon jellies, flamulla, and blowfish on your skin, you'd busied yourself with painting seashells on his. some of the clamshells are too close together, the venus combs look a little too spiky, and some conches don't look quite right. when he looks like he's about to chuckle at the sight of them, you poke him with the other end of your brush; "hmph. you're just a meanie."

"how rude!" he feigns, hand to his heart. "this is how you treat me for making you look like one of my most precious paintings?"

— you notice, eventually, that RAFAYEL always gifts you red jewelry (if not pearls, of course). the little treasures glint in the sunlight; rings with a ruby or red spinel centerpiece, a necklace with a red coral pendant, fire opal earrings... they're beautiful and never gaudy, as to be expected from a man with an eye for aesthetics, but it still perplexes you.

you ask him why, while he helps you put on his most recently gifted necklace as you two get ready to attend his aunt's opera show. your painter answers with a thoughtful hum, deft fingers clasping the necklace for you: "red disappears the fastest in the deep sea, so i never got to see it much." rafayel presses a kiss to your cheek, then, before settling his chin on the crook of your neck. "what better way to appreciate a colour i missed out on for so long than seeing it on you, darling?"

— RAFAYEL'S smug and haughty countenance seems to crumble at the mere press of your lips against his skin, little pecks gracing each beauty mark. the first kiss is placed on his cheek, a little ways away from his eye, his head cradled in your palms; you feel how he heats up beneath your touch, a light blush dusting across his cheeks and a bright vermillion burning at the tips of his ears. the second is placed on his chest, your lips and gentle, roaming hands sparking the rapid thrumming of his heart.

— RAFAYEL sees you in everything. in the morning sunlight that filters into his kitchen, in the cherry blossoms that land on his hair, in the sea breeze that rushes past him as he walks along the shore. the mundane of daily life has become filled with so many traces of you that he cannot see them as anything other than beautiful. there's a piece of you in every one of his paintings now, a streak of your favourite colour intertwined with his reds and blues. he made the pigment himself, of course, extracted the colours he needed from your favourite things.

THE LOVERS ; Rafayel (20XX) ; Oil on canvas

This painting consists of only two colours, and depicts the view of a simple shoreline, with waves lapping at the shore. Although simple in essence, the two paints were handmade (as is the norm for pieces by Rafayel) with pigments extracted from materials that represented himself and his beloved. Upon closer inspection, one may notice the difference in brushstrokes between colours—where they start to blend, so do the strokes, perhaps one hand guiding the other. As per the words of the painter himself, this artwork is meant to represent a "marriage and a transfiguration; the way two souls are forever intertwined and changed by love."

a/n : pretty privilege is real because rafayel acts a lot like marius but i like him infinitely more than i do lu jinghe 😭👍 my love/obsession for this pretty little fish has made me rise from the grave of uni work and writer's block... please fill his tag i need to satisfy this itch in my brain that he gives me <\3 might write some more for him + him as abysswalker <3 (p.s. that final hc is perhaps the cutest thing i thought to do)

[shegatsby]

Okay I just had an amazing idea! Imagine reader as Hannibals patient and both of them meeting in an online portal similar to tattle crime where you can chat privately, they start talki g and develop like a relationship but for the sake of their identities they keep their real names out of the chat when one day the reader texts hannibal that they're at the psychiatrists office with a picture of the floor attatched, Hannibal obviously realizes its the floor of the waiting room, during the session he acts like nothing happened but at the end of their session hannibal adresses the reader by their username. The rest is up to you!

A/N: Hi, thank you for this request I really loved the idea. I changed it a bit because we all know that Hannibal would never leave anything to chance, of course he is gonna stalk you babe ;)

Warnings: Stalking.

Words: 1.442K

It was late in the evening, Baltimore’s  cold weather made you stay under your fuzzy blankets with a hot cup of tea. Your laptop on your lap, you logged onto your account in Tattle Crime. It was a blog about your city’s newest crimes, recently you have been on that blog a lot, there was a serial killer on the loose, people were wither sharing info or commenting about the gruesome  murders. Everyone was talking about the ‘’Chesapeake Ripper’’ you’ve always been interested in serial killer’s mindsets so Tattle Crime was a useful blog on that to feed your curiosity, how you were oblivious to what’s to come…

You read some articles which compares the Chesapeake Ripper to other serial killers and you left a comment under it, saying that comparing is false, because he is something we have never seen before etc. It was your honest opinion, his killings and presentation of the bodies were more meticulously sophisticated. You referred to the killer as ‘’him’’ due to the fact that most serial killers were male.

You opened a new tab and surfed on the internet, you were watching your favorite old Hollywood movie when you had a notification from Tattle Crime. The blog had dm box so that users could communicate which you never used before but someone sent you a text. The user didn’t have their name, their handle was ‘’Botticeli’’ the last name of the famous painter, Sandor Botticelli, your handle was ‘’Hekate’’ the witch goddess. You didn’t like putting your real name out there and appearently so did the person who messaged you.

‘’I am interested in your thoughts regarding the Chesapeake Ripper, I would love to hear more if that is convenient for you.’’

It was strange but you loved to chat about your favorite topics, since you weren’t busy you decided to text back.

‘’Hello, of course. I would love to chat about him, he is such an enigma.’’ You sent and waited, for some reason your hands went cold, you had a strange sensation in your stomach.

You had messaged a stranger online for 4 hours, the conversation was vibrant and it was obvious that the guy you were texting was knowledgeable, you learned that he was a 40 year old man, living in Baltimore, you told him your age, you were at university, you and him respected each others’ private life so not much info were exchanged other than nice conversation about art, literature and murder. Later you said your good nights and you turned off your laptop and went to bed straight, you had morning classes.

It was snowing, you had dark circles under your eyes but you made effort in your appearance, you wore a nice winter dress with long boots, hair tied and a light make up to cover the tiredness. In the mean time Doctor Hannibal Lecter was on his office, getting ready for his patient. He was facing his laptop’s screen, on the screen he had information you, thanks to his work with the FBI he had privileged access to get peoples info. He learned your address, university, your Instagram, everything. He decided to message you again.

You were at the cafeteria, eating and looking at your notes when you got a notification, the stranger you had a nice conversation with last night messaged you again. ‘’I apologies for keeping you up so late last night, I hope you had some sleep, good morning.’’

You couldn’t help but smile, he was formal yet you could sense some kind of kindness and concern.

‘’Hey, no need to apologies. I enjoyed our conversation last night. Morning!’’

For days you messaged back and forth, everyday without being to open, he told you his day, and you told him about your day, over the days you learned his habits, he was an early bird, loved to read and keep his mind busy, he also mentioned the dinner parties he throws every once in a while. You were intrigued, but kept your cool.

After a month you were having mental problems, your assignments were too much and you had some problems from your past, ever since you mentioned your problems he was being more kinder than usual, he was giving you affirmations such as;

‘’You are a smart girl, you can do it.’’

‘’I believe in your abilities.’’

You liked the way he talked to you. Neither of you asked for a phone number or even an email address which felt safe.

One day he suggested that you should see a psychiatrist, since he had access to your university he could see your grades and they were dropping and he didn’t like that. He wanted you to succeed.

He sent you a list of psychiatrists and made some recommendations, you were falling into his trap and he was enjoying it, he wanted to see you and this was the opportunity. You said you would think about it and in order to give you some time he said it was okay.

When you had a melt down while studying you decided to think about Botticelli’s list of psychiatrist and you sent a mail to the Doctor writing that you needed an urgent session, thankfully Doctor Lecter replied quickly, you were too busy to notice how odd it was to reply to you in a minute. He wrote that tomorrow at 6 would be convenient for him, it was convenient for you too because your classes end at 5 pm. Of course he knew that and you would be his last patient of the day.

After your classes you got on the bus and went to the Doctor’s office. You clung to your long coat and walked into the building, the warmth welcomed you, there was a desk but no secretary was in the view, you knocked on the grey door and waited, your heart beating at a rapid speed.

A tall man opened the door, his three piece suit made him look intimidating, he was standing proud and tall.

‘’Miss Y/L/N I presume?’’ he questioned, his maroon eyes scanning you, he was really good at hiding his excitement, there you were, the woman he had been messaging over a month was standing right before him. ‘’Dr. Lecter, it’s a pleasure to meet you.’’ You extended your hand and he gladly took it, he noticed how soft your hands were, there was a certain feeling in his chest, ‘’Please come in.’’

His office was grand, the fire place was lit which gave the room a cozy feeling and yet it resembled the museum, formal. You sat on the leather armchair and he sat opposite with his leather notebook and silver pen. He started the conversation, as he was speaking he made notes of her manners and behavior, you had a simple jeans and a black top, even though your outfit was normal Hannibal found you elegant like a swan.

During your session you had a feeling as if you have met him before, he was kind but his voice and his demeanor made you think before you speak, thankfully he made you comfortable by talking art and literature, his replies sounded familiar, you thought as if you were talking to your new online friend.

‘’Dr. Lecter, I must say I’m here because one of my friends recommended you to me.’’ You confessed, ‘’Oh, did your friend ever came to me before for a session?’’ he asked looking curious as if he wasn’t about to reveal himself to you.

‘’No, I mean I’m not sure, he is an online friend so..’’ you replied shortly, looking around.

‘’Oh really, Hekate?’’

You froze, did he just addressed you by your username on Tattle Crime?

‘’I-I’m sorry..?’’ you stuttered, you must have heard it wrong.

He placed the notebook and pen on the nearby table and stood up, fixing his clothes he came up to you, you had to look up, he extended his hand to you, ‘’Botticelli,’’ he said, ‘’Nice to finally meet you in person, I must say, I didn’t expect such a beauty, your intellect matches your divine face.’’

Your first reaction was to get up and run to the door, it was locked.

You turned to face him, his hands in his pockets, he was smiling ear to ear, ‘’You wound me Hekate, I thought you liked me.’’ he started to walk to you, your back pressed to the locked door, he stood before you, one of his hands found your heated cheek, with the back of his hand he caressed it gently, ‘’Do not be afraid, all I want is for you to be mine.’’

[ilikethisacompletelynormalamount]

Andrew Scott, Vogue: April 2024.

by Zing Tsjeng, Photos by Annie Leibovitz

Ripley, in other words, is the hero of the tale. “That’s why he fascinates so many,” says Scott. “There’s been so many iterations of him. I think it’s because people root for him.” Actors like Alain Delon and Dennis Hopper have tried the role; Matt Damon played him as an obsequious, lower-class naïf; John Malkovich, as a slimy, camp killer. Scott’s Ripley is different; a watchful loner escaping rodent-infested poverty, more at home among art than he is around people. Musician and actor Johnny Flynn plays his first victim—the monied Dickie Greenleaf—and Dakota Fanning is Dickie’s suspicious ex-girlfriend. “I find Tom quite vulnerable,” Scott tells me. “I don’t think he’s necessarily lonely, but I certainly think he’s solitary…. He seems to me by his nature that he just can’t fit in. He’s trying to survive.”

In Ripley, Zaillian extracts maximum Hitchcockian dread from every creaky footstep. But most sinister of all is Scott’s face, which exhibits a sharklike steeliness throughout. It’s a performance that exudes queasy force. Is Ripley a scammer, a psychopath, or both? “There’s so many things lurking beneath him that I’ve been very reluctant to diagnose him with anything. I never thought of him as a sociopath or murderous,” Scott declares. “It’s up to everybody else to characterize him or call him whatever they want.”

As we weave through tourists near the Tower of London, barely anybody notices Scott, save for a faint glimmer of recognition among mainly young women. He seems to draw reassurance from it. “I don’t like to think about it too much, if I’m honest,” he muses of fame. “I find it a little bit, er, frightening.” He is known but not blockbuster-recognizable, although he is in the upcoming Back in Action with Cameron Diaz and Jamie Foxx. What stunts did he do? “I can’t give that away, I’m afraid, or somebody from Netflix will come and shoot me in the head.”

What’s been on Scott’s mind the most hasn’t been acting at all, in fact, but art. As a 17-year-old, he was offered his first movie role on the same day he was given a scholarship to study painting. He chose acting, but has recently been thinking about Oliver Burkeman’s philosophical self-help tract from 2021, Four Thousand Weeks, which makes the case for focusing on the five things you truly want to accomplish. “For me at the moment, it’s like, What do you want to do? What do you want to say?”

He scrolls through his phone to show me his work. There’s a watercolor of a couple arguing in a restaurant in rich reds and greens, line drawings of friends and people on the beach, and two self-portraits. “It’s a bit weird,” he acknowledges of his depiction of himself, all bulbous forehead and Pan-like tufts of hair. His brisk, nervy lines are reminiscent of Egon Schiele or Francis Bacon, who turns out to be one of his favorite painters. “Well, God, I’ll take that,” he mutters at the comparison. He would like someday to go to art school. “I don’t ever regret it,” he says of acting. “But I suppose you just get to a stage where you think, What else? That’s one of the big painful things in life for me, where you can’t quite live all the lives.” As he gets older, he feels the tug toward revisiting old working relationships, including with Waller-Bridge: “We’ve definitely got things cooking,” he smiles. “I’d love to work with her again. She’s just a singular, wonderful person.” For her part, Waller-Bridge says: “I’d love to see him do a fully unhinged slapstick comedy character. Someone who is outraged at everything, all of the time.”

As we round the pavement and the Tate Modern looms back into sight, he recalls a poster he received in 2017—a monstrously large graphic that detailed every week in a human life span. “It’s your entire life if you live to 80—you have to fill in all the bits that you’ve already lived,” he remembers in awe, “a visually terrifying gift.” What did he do with it? “I didn’t hold on to it for too long.” Easy come, easy go: We finally finish our loop around the Thames and, as Scott disappears back into the throng, anonymous just the way he likes it, it occurs to me that the actor has many lives to live yet. ■

[trungles]

Cross-posting an essay I wrote for my Patreon since the post is free and open to the public.

Hello everyone! I hope you're relaxing as best you can this holiday season. I recently went to see Miyazaki's latest Ghibli movie, The Boy and the Heron, and I had some thoughts about it. If you're into art historical allusions and gently cranky opinions, please enjoy. I've attached a downloadable PDF in the Patreon post if you'd prefer to read it that way. Apologies for the formatting of the endnotes! Patreon's text posting does not allow for superscripts, which means all my notations are in awkward parentheses. Please note that this writing contains some mild spoilers for The Boy and the Heron.

Hayao Miyazaki’s 2023 feature animated film The Boy and the Heron reads as an extended meditation on grief and legacy. The Master of a grand tower seeks a descendant to carry on his maddening duty, balancing toy blocks of magical stone upon which the entire fabric of his little pocket of reality rests. The world’s foundations are frail and fleeting, and can pass away into the cold void of space should he neglect to maintain this task. The Master’s desire to pass the torch undergirds much of the film’s narrative.

(Isle of the Dead. Arnold Böcklin. 1880. Oil on Canvas. Kunstmuseum. Basel, Switzerland.)

Arnold Böcklin, a Swiss Symbolist(1) painter, was born on October 16 in 1827, the same year the Swiss Evangelical Reformed Church bought a plot of land in Florence from the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Leopold II, that had long been used for the burials of Protestants around Florence. It is colloquially known as The English Cemetery, so called because it was the resting place of many Anglophones and Protestants around Tuscany, and Böcklin frequented this cemetery—his workshop was adjacent and his infant daughter Maria was buried there. In 1880, he drew inspiration from the cemetery, a lone plot of Protestant land among a sea of Catholic graveyards, and began to paint what would be the first of six images entitled Isle of the Dead. An oil on canvas piece, it depicts a moody little island mausoleum crowned with a gently swaying grove of cypresses, a type of tree common in European cemeteries and some of which are referred to as arborvitae. A figure on a boat, presumably Charon, ferries a soul toward the island and away from the viewer.

(Photo of The English Cemetery in Florence. Samuli Lintula. 2006.)

The Isle of the Dead paintings varied slightly from version to version, with figures and names added and removed to suit the needs of the time or the commissioner. The painting was glowingly referenced and remained fairly popular throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The painting used to be inescapable in much of European popular culture. Professor Okulicz-Kozaryn, a philologist (someone with a deep interest in the ways language and cultural canons evolve)(2) observed that the painting, like many other works in its time, was itself iterative and became widely reiterated and referenced among its contemporaries. It became something like Romantic kitsch in the eyes of modern art critics, overwrought and excessively Byronic. I imagine Miyazaki might also resent a work of that level of manufactured ubiquity, as Miyazaki famously held Disney animated films in contempt (3). Miyazaki’s films are popularly aspirational to young animators and cartoonists, but gestures at imitation typically fall well short, often reducing Miyazaki’s weighty films to kitschy images of saccharine vibes and a lazy indulgence in a sort of empty magical domestic coziness. Being trapped in a realm of rote sentiment by an uncritical, unthoughtful viewership is its own Isle of Death.

(Still from The Boy and the Heron, 2023. Studio Ghibli.)

The Boy and the Heron follows a familiar narrative arc to many of Miyazaki’s other films: a child must journey through a magical and quietly menacing world in order to rescue their loved ones. This arc is an echo of Satsuki’s journey to find Mei in My Neighbor Totoro (1988) and Chihiro’s journey to rescue her parents Spirited Away (2001). To better understand Miyazaki’s fixation with this particular character journey, it can be instructive to watch Lev Atamanov’s 1957 animated film, The Snow Queen (4)(5), a beautifully realized take on Hans Christian Andersen’s 1844 children’s story (6)(7). Mahito’s journey continues in this tradition, as the boy travels into a painted world to rescue his new stepmother from a mysterious tower.

Throughout the film, Miyazaki visually references Isle of the Dead. Transported to a surreal world, Mahito initially awakens on a little green island with a gated mausoleum crowned with cypress trees. He is accosted by hungry pelicans before being rescued by a fisherwoman named Kiriko. After a day of catching and gutting fish, Mahito wakes up under the fisherwoman’s dining table, surrounded by kokeshi—little wooden dolls—in the shapes of the old women who run Mahito’s family’s rural household. Mahito is told they must not be touched, as the kokeshi are wards set up for his protection. There is a popular urban legend associated with the kokeshi wherein they act as stand-ins for victims of infanticide, though there seems to be very little available writing to support this legend. Still, it’s a neat little trick that Miyazaki pulls, placing a stray reference to a local legend of unverifiable provenance that persists in the popular imagination, like the effect of fairy stories passed on through oral retellings, continually remolded each new iteration.

(Still from The Boy and the Heron, 2023. Studio Ghibli.)

Kiriko’s job in this strange landscape is to catch fish to nourish unborn spirits, the adorable floating warawara, before they can attempt to ascend on a journey into the world of the living. Their journey is thwarted by flocks of supernatural pelicans, who swarm the warawara and devour them. This seems to nod to the association of pelicans with death in mythologies around the world, especially in relationship to children (8). Miyazaki’s pelicans contemplate the passing of their generations as each successive generation seems to regress, their capacity to fulfill their roles steadily diminishing.

(Still from The Boy and the Heron, 2023. Studio Ghibli.)

As Mahito’s adventure continues, we find the landscapes changing away from Böcklin’s Isle of the Dead into more familiar Ghibli territories as we start to see spaces inspired by one of Studio Ghibli’s aesthetic mainstays, Naohisa Inoue and his explorations of the fantasy realms of Iblard. He might be most familiar to Ghibli enthusiasts as the background artists for the more fantastical elements of Whisper of the Heart (1995).

(Naohisa Inoue, for Iblard Jikan, 2007. Studio Ghibli.)

By the time we arrive at the climax of The Boy and the Heron, the fantasy island environment starts to resemble English takes on Italian gardens, the likes of which captivated illustrators and commercial artists of the early 20th century such as Maxfield Parrish. This appears to be a return to one of Böcklin’s later paintings, The Island of Life (1888), a somewhat tongue-in-cheek reaction to the overwhelming presence of Isle of the Dead in his life and career. The Island of Life depicts a little spot of land amid an ocean very like the one on which Isle of the Dead’s somber mausoleum is depicted, except this time the figures are lively and engaged with each other, the vegetation lush and colorful, replete with pink flowers and palm fronds.

(Island of Life. Arnold Böcklin. Oil on canvas. 1888. Kunstmuseum. Basel, Switzerland.)

In 2022, Russia’s State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg acquired the sixth and final Isle of the Dead painting. In the last year of his life, Arnold Böcklin would paint this image in collaboration with his son Carlo Böcklin, himself an artist and an architect. Arnold Böcklin spent three years painting the same image three times over at the site of his infant daughter’s grave, trapped on the Isle of the Dead. By the time of his death in 1901 at age 74, Böcklin would be survived by only five of his fourteen children. That the final Isle of the Dead painting would be a collaboration between father and son seemed a little ironic considering Hayao Miyazaki’s reticence in passing on his own legacy. Like the old Master in The Boy and the Heron, Miyazaki finds himself with no true successors.

The Master of the Tower's beautiful islands of painted glass fade into nothing as Mahito, his only worthy descendant, departs to live his own life, fulfilling the thesis of Genzaburo Yoshino’s 1937 book How Do You Live?, published three years after Carlo Böcklin’s death. In evoking Yoshino and Böcklin’s works, Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron suggests that, like his character the Master, Miyazaki himself must make peace with the notion that he has no heirs to his legacy, and that those whom he wished to follow in his footsteps might be best served by finding their own paths.

(Isle of the Dead. Arnold and Carlo Böcklin. Oil on canvas. 1901. The State Hermitage Museum. Saint Petersburg, Russia.)

INFORMAL ENDNOTES

1 - Symbolists are sort of tough to nail down. They were started as a literary movement to 1 distinguish themselves from the Decadents, but their manifesto was so vague that critics and academics fight about it to this day. The long and the short of it is that the Symbolists made generous use of a lot of metaphorical imagery in their work. They borrow a lot of icons from antiquity, echo the moody aesthetics from the Romantics, maintained an emphasis on figurative imagery more so than the Surrealists, and were only slightly more technically married to the trappings of traditionalist academic painters than Modernists and Impressionists. They're extremely vibes-forward.

2 - Okulicz-Kozaryn, Radosław. Predilection of Modernism for Variations. Ciulionis' Serenity among Different Developments of the Theme of Toteninsel. ACTA Academiae Artium Vilnensis 59. 2010. The article is incredibly cranky and very funny to read in parts. Contains a lot of observations I found to be helpful in placing Isle of the Dead within its context.

3 - "From my perspective, even if they are lightweight in nature, the more popular and common films still must be filled with a purity of emotion. There are few barriers to entry into these films-they will invite anyone in but the barriers to exit must be high and purifying. Films must also not be produced out of idle nervousness or boredom, or be used to recognise, emphasise, or amplify vulgarity. And in that context, I must say that I hate Disney's works. The barrier to both the entry and exit of Disney films is too low and too wide. To me, they show nothing but contempt for the audience." from Miyazaki's own writing in his collection of essays, Starting Point, published in 2014 from VIZ Media.

4 - You can watch the movie here in its original Russian with English closed captions here.

5 If you want to learn more about the making of Atamanoy's The Snow Queen, Animation Obsessive wrote a neat little article about it. It's a good overview, though I have to gently disagree with some of its conclusions about the irony of Miyazaki hating Disney and loving Snow Queen, which draws inspiration from Bambi. Feature film animation as we know it hadonly been around a few decades by 1957, and I find it specious, particularly as a comic artistand author, to see someone conflating an entire form with the character of its content, especially in the relative infancy of the form. But that's just one hot take. The rest of the essay is lovely.

6 - Miyazaki loves this movie. He blurbed it in a Japanese re-release of it in 2007.

7 - Julia Alekseyeva interprets Princess Mononoke as an iteration of Atamanov's The Snow Queen, arguing that San, the wolf princess, is Miyazaki's homage to Atamanoy's little robber girl character.

8 - Hart, George. The Routledge Dictionary of Egyptian Gods And Goddesses. Routledge Dictionaries. Abingdon, United Kingdom: Routledge. 2005.

[milkycarnations]

Hear me out Bloody Painter gets jealous and shows reader who they belong to👀

I'm sorry I kind of suck at ideas this is just what I'm thinking

Ooomph, no I quite like this one though. Don't come into my ask box apologizing for Helen asks. Helen is always welcome. Divider cafekitsune.

Let Me Get What I Want | Helen x afab!reader | 896 words

one-shot masterlist | mdni | cw: scarification as a display of devotion, knifeplay, obvious heavy trigger warning for anyone who struggles with self-harm, sadomasochism, minor body worship, he/him pronouns for Helen this time, not super nsfw simply because I don't see Helen as much of a jealous/hate-fuck type of person. I'd been trying for a few weeks but I just wasn't sure where to take it sexually!

Helen sighed. It was a strange sound to fall past his lips - something he'd only hear perhaps when in the throes of pleasure - but today, Helen sighed just from the thought of you. It wasn't like craving you was bizarre, far from it. Helen thought about you all of the time. Hour after hour, day by day, months on months, you plagued Helen's thoughts. He couldn't help but think what a sweet, little plague you were - working your way in and taking him over. You consumed him.

So today, just like most days, Helen cleaned the hairs of his paintbrushes by the workroom sink, the colors bleeding out into a muddy brown mess. As he worked the bristles against the cloth towel, he envisioned the appearance of your flesh. He thought about your hair follicles and the pores on your skin. Helen thought, was it really possible to adore someone so much - right down to the cracks on their heels and the blemishes on their cheeks? Why did that have to be such an unwelcome concept?

Under Helen's firm touch, the paintbrush frayed and shed strands of horsehair. His pale and slender hands paused in place.

No, it was far more than a sigh. Helen was terribly jealous. The paintbrush fell from his hand with a clank. Twisting his torso, he glanced back at his recent portrait. There was a fiery warmth in Helen's face as he looked at it. You were such a radiant thing. The fact that you hadn't sent so much as a glance his way this evening was maddening.

He was now staring down the painting, observing the contours of your body and the light bruise he'd put on your breast, simply a smear of pigment. He needed assurance - reassurance that you were his. So later that night, he prophesized an idea.

"Are you familiar with scarification?" he'd ask randomly, suddenly as you lazed against the couch - draped against it like a Greek statue. Whether you knew of it or not wasn't exactly of importance. Rather, all Helen cared about was whether or not you agreed.

"Etching, branding, scaring," they continued, "that sort of thing. It's beautiful, isn't it?"

You thought about it deeply - for the first time in perhaps, ever. Scarification.

He added, "Do you think, maybe, I could do that to you. Etch my art into your skin."

"I'd have to think about it." you'd respond. Scarification, like a tattoo, but a different flavor of commitment. If the scaring took well, it'd be a part of you forever. You had no doubt that whatever Helen had in store would be exquisite, but it still was a lot to take in.

Helen wouldn't bring it up for another few weeks at least, letting it fester and stew in your mind as you went about your work and daily tasks. It nagged in the back of your mind for quite a while. You asked Helen for a mockup.

"Could I just see what you were thinking?" you'd ask, imagining the stencils tattoo artists would place upon their clients. Maybe - if you just saw what he had in mind - it'd be easier to agree. So that evening, as you laid spread over the mattress, Helen free-handed over your hip, penciling in intricate designs around the curves of your body in washable marker. After he'd finished, you stood in front of the full-length mirror in your bedroom with an intent curiosity.

"It looks... beautiful."

Even through simple lines, Helen's artistry shined through. They'd captured everything about you, the shapes complimenting your body wonderfully at the same time - trailing from your side, down the swell of your hip and stopping just above your knee.

"I'd be honored if you accepted." he added. His excitement was evident in the subtle shifting of his feet, his hands subconsciously smoothing out the fabric of his button-up.

When the moment finally came, you laid against the table awkwardly, feeling a bit more uncomfortable than usual. Once more, Helen had stenciled a design into your skin - this time with a more permanent marker.

"It's okay if you want a break. Just tell me." Helen said, pulling a sharp exacto-knife from a rolling cart. You took in a deep breath as you anticipated the pain. You'd already taken some pain meds, just to ease your mind, but you knew it'd still hurt tremendously. That initial breath turned shaky as the blade made contact with your skin. It was a sharp, biting pain - but it wasn't anything you hadn't felt before with Helen. There were already quite a few scars on your back. You let Helen take his time as he carved out chunks of skin to make the most beautiful mural.

"Does it hurt, dove?" the words came soft - a loving message of reassurance. You nodded your head. It did.

"It's almost finished, my love. Don't worry." he added, pushing the blade just over your hip bone.

He took great care of it once he'd finished - cleaning the wounds, bandaging it well, and placing sweet, gentle kisses over your body. He was ecstatic. It was taking quite a while to heal, but he was psyched to paint you with the new addition. You were his muse - the thing he'd loved to paint and draw the most, and now you'd carry his art on your skin for the rest of your life.

[junabuggy]

Greetings fellow human, I recently found you and I must say, I love your writing and especially the layout of the posts.

I might also suggest an Idea for you with Alastor.

How 'bout a very passionate painter reader getting their nightly inspiration and staying up all night, also listening to loud music. And maybe being a little messy with the paint, like it somehow ending up on the face or different unusual spots.

Would love to see you write it in whatever form you prefer. Hope to read something from you soon.

And keep in mind, you're doing a great job and keep being amazing <3

Alastor x Painter! Reader

A/n: Omg I used to paint a lot and the places said paint would get?? How it ended up like literally all over me I’m not sure 😭😭 Also thank you so much !!

Warnings: None :3

Fluff✔️ Comfort❌ Angst❌ Smut❌

📻𖤐 Alastor finds you very talented and enjoys getting to see all of your little creations and masterpieces !!

📻𖤐 Bonus points if they’re a bit disturbing or dark, he’d love stuff like that (“Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable” — Cesar A. Cruz)

📻𖤐 The only thing he isn’t particularly fond of in regards to your passion, however, is how little sleep you’re getting because of it.

📻𖤐 Your sleep schedule is completely fucked because of how often you get inspiration while trying to go to bed at night, because of course you just have to get up and go paint it every time.

📻𖤐 Oh and how messy you can get whilst you paint… which Alastor doesn’t actually mind as much as he wants you to think he does.

📻𖤐 He can shake his head and tut about it all he wants but he can’t deny the fact that getting to clean you up is something he enjoys doing for you.

📻𖤐 Plus, it’s always entertaining to see all the peculiar places the paint ends up on you each time he does. From your cheeks to your arms to more unusual places like your ears… it genuinely never does get old in his eyes ♡

It was another one of those nights. You were lying in your bed, trying to get some sleep and all of a sudden you got an amazing idea for a painting !! You couldn’t help but get up to go bring your ideas to life on a fresh canvas :-)

You went on with your usual routine, playing some music as you got your stuff all set up. Once everything was ready, off you were into your own little world as you painted away at 2:30 at night

Fortunately and unfortunately for Alastor, your room was right beside his. The walls were quite thin in the hotel.. even so, the loud music blaring wasn’t exactly hard to miss but it was even harder to fully relax with it playing.

You usually stopped your painting at around 7 or 8 in the morning so he figured this was going to be a long night….. he sighed to himself and went back to reading for a while (or at least attempting to for around 10 minutes or so.)

Eventually he did recognize a song you had playing, you’d played it for him before. It was after his time but he did quite like the melody

That’s when he got an idea of his own. his undying grin growing slightly as he bookmarked his book, set it to the side and made his way next door to your room.

He knocked on your door three times, waiting outside of it patiently as he heard you set your painting materials down. His ears twitched slightly.

Once you answered the door he waltzed inside cheerfully, not giving you a chance to speak or ask why he was here.

“Salutations my dear!! Up to the usual, I assume?” Alastor would ask, taking a curious look at the canvas you had been working on before glancing back over at you.

You gave him a smile and nodded “Yeah.. got a little inspiration and wanted to paint it before I forgot it.”

“Hm. Well, would it be too much to ask to pull you away from your work for a while?” He raised a brow as he tilted his head ever so slightly to the side, offering you his hand; offering a dance. And honestly you weren’t too surprised.

With a giggle and the grow of your smile, you happily took his hand and let him pull you closer to him as you two began to dance to the song playing in the background, your little masterpiece-in-progress long forgotten as you swayed with your favourite Radio Demon.

𝐏𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐳𝐞, 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐲 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 ◟( ˃̶͈◡ ˂̶͈ )◞

ᯓ��� 𝐣𝐮𝐧𝐚𝐛𝐮𝐠𝐠𝐲

[artbyzephra]

From sketch, to...

... Final piece. Commission for MercuryF0x, Process video can be found here (it took a bit of energy to edit so please give it a look).

Bonus headshot detail - first time detailing something like this and really happy with how it ended up.

[xcerizex]

"dammit, he's a fool in love. someone punt him."

Alkaid and MC making everyone feel single like the sickening couple they are.

A collection of people wanting to deck Alkaid.

(alkaid x little painter, modern au, fluff, rage, blonde violence, except it fails, everyone wants him to explode, 1.9k words)

"Hm? Miss Unique!"

You turn around in surprise as Stella calls out to you from the entrance of the hall. Dropping your things, you make your way over to meet her.

"Stella! I didn't expect you to participate in events like these."

St. Shelter Academy had recently proposed a collaboration event between the astronomy department and the art department as an advertising opportunity. Currently, the hall is decorated with small exhibits showcasing team projects worked on by both astronomy and art students alike.

Having been praised as one of the leading stars of the art department by O'Connor, you've been saddled with the task of being the main spokesperson for the art department, often spending time arranging discussions between students from both majors.

As laborious as it is, it has its perks.

Stella nods her head with a hint of pride. "Usually, I wouldn't. But when I heard that you'd be here, I just knew I had to take the opportunity to study you again."

You're not sure how you feel about that.

You take the chance to flash her a smile and move on in an attempt to get back to work. But then you hear her speak, and you can practically hear the scowl on her face.

"Alkaid."

You see him smile as he approaches, footsteps slightly giddy and bubbly as he makes his way towards you.

He nods his head towards Stella in greeting. "Hello."

The scowl on her face smoothens, but her vindictive aura remains.

"I didn't expect you to be a part of this event at all. Are you sure you're not too busy?"

Her sentence conveys worry, and her tone suggests spite. You notice a few colourful balloons bounce on the ground and take interest in them instead of the one-sided cat fight happening in front of you.

"Yes, well..."

Alkaid smiles, just a tad bit more smug than usual. "The professor had requested for me personally, so it was quite difficult for me to refuse. I'd be troubling them."

You snicker inwardly. But your amusement doesn't last for much longer.

"I also heard she would be here too, like you." Alkaid picks up a heart-shaped balloon from the ground and hands it to you, his smile softening.

"After that, I had no other reason to refuse."

Great, now your heart is melting and it's all his fault. Your cheeks flush in embarrassment at his sweet words as you take the heart-shaped balloon from him, squeezing it lightly.

Still, you don't want to lose to him. So you tug at his sleeve to whisper softly;

"I'll make you a custom balloon later."

He smiles widens at that.

And Stella has heard everything.

"Ugh, gross."

Stella picks up one of the balloons from the floor and specifically throws it at Alkaid with as much force as she can. Unfortunately–the truth is as such–it is but a mere balloon, and everyone watches as it floats past it's intended target, the Pikachu ears crumpling as it bounces off the floor.

"..."

"I apologize."

The first one to speak up is Alkaid, but all that does is rub salt into the wound. Fortunately, Stella has had plenty of practice maintaining her composure in front of him, so all she does is jerk her head in an odd sort of way in response to his words.

"Whatever."

You take the chance to catch her up on the collaboration plans and watch in real-time as Stella's simmering anger cools off, her eyes twinkling with interest the longer your discussion lasts. Once you've made sure she has the necessities down the pat, you watch her enthusiastically say thanks for helping her with her research as she bounces away to help out.

It seems as if you've contributed to your own demise, and you can only hope that the day she finds out you're an alien never comes.

Thankfully, Alkaid is still standing there. So you sigh dramatically and turn around to hug him by the waist, rubbing your cheek on his clothes.

"I'm tired."

Running around, setting up meetings, and directing booths and teams has slowly drained you of your social battery. You have half the mind to complain to St. Shelter Academy's admin system about O'Connor's habit on dropping all sorts of work on his students, specifically you.

It's the same for Alkaid, being an astronomy student comes with all sorts of time-consuming assignments and projects, leaving him little time to breathe. Recently, the both of you haven't had much time together. So as taxing as this event has left you, you're glad for the opportunity to spend more time with Alkaid again.

He accepts your embrace, fondly reaching up to wrap his arms around you and squeezing you gently. And when you feel his chest tremble in an exhale, putting just a tad bit more weight on you, you know he's tired too.

But you also know that he would rather collapse in secret than worry you about it, so you pull back and pinch his cheek.

"Ow!"

You see his left eye squint in slight pain as his cheek is stretched, leaving his face deformed, but he doesn't complain and simply leans in closer.

"Go sit down over there. I can't focus on the job if my boyfriend keeps hanging around 5 meters near me; you should be taking a break."

His eyes stare back down at you, and he raises his eyebrows while rounding the edges of his eyes to create a puppy stare. But you don't fall for it, you can't!

"Go listen to her, lover boy."

A sour voice interrupts their sweet nothings, and they snap out of their little world to see one of Alkaid's classmates watching them from the side, holding a roll of tape in one hand, and a small telescope in the other. Neither object has ever looked as terrifying as they did today, and the both of them pull away reluctantly upon seeing his deadpan expression.

"Alright then."

Alkaid finally agrees to your suggestion, but not before bringing up your hand and pressing a gummy into your palm.

"See you then."

You happily unwrap the gummy and plop it in your mouth before taking off back to work, waving goodbye to him. Alkaid's classmate watches the whole interaction with his eyebrows twitching and his hands gripping the roll of tape in an effort to restrain himself from throwing it at Alkaid, as he hands him the telescope they had been working on as a project for the event.

"I'm begging you Alkaid, if you're going to flirt with your girlfriend, do it somewhere else where...," he gestures to the entire hall. "All of us don't have to see it."

Alkaid spots a few miles away his classmates watching him with tired expressions on their faces, the occasional art student glancing over with red ears, and Stella glaring at him again. Once she realises he has caught on to her, she promptly whips her head to the other side in an effort to hide her animosity.

Alkaid gives off an apologetic smile as he takes the telescope from his hands. "That's rather restrictive."

"Well, restrain yourself."

"I'll try, but I make no promises. It's easier to show sincere love if done in the moment, in my opinion."

"WHICH IS ALL THE TIME, UNFORTUNATELY FOR US."

They hear someone groan somewhere off at the sidelines. "Good grief he's a goner."

"I need to hit him actually."

Alkaid clutches the telescope in his hands a little tighter. "Huh?"

"Someone hit him, I don't care what you use. Anything is fine."

"Wait, what do you- WOAH!"

"And that concludes the event's itinerary."

You clap your hands with a sense of finalisation, and most of those around you scatter off with new tasks on hand. The majority of the planning has been done, so all you have to do right now is wait for the final results of the posters to be sent to you for approval before you're done for the week.

Slumping down on your wheely chair, you spin around a few times to get rid of all the built up stress plaguing your shoulders until someone grabs the armrest to stop you midway, and you bump into their arm.

"Alkaid!"

He smiles at you. "Yes?'

He did that on purpose! But all your pettiness is long forgotten as he places a warm flask of mocha coffee in front of you, the steaming and comforting aroma instantly calming you down. You relax back into the chair.

"Thank you, Alkaid."

The others are still there.

An art student watches the entire show with interest, but Alkaid's classmates–already tired enough as it is with him–simply scrunches up their noses at him before resuming their work.

After taking a sip from the flask, you stretch out your legs while yawning and patting his arm, which is still holding on to the chair. "Okay then, once I'm done with the coffee, I'll get to work on that balloon."

He blinks his eyes in surprise.

"There's no need to if you're tired. The balloon can wait until after the event."

You refuse that, and shake your head. "No, I want to do it now. I want to make a balloon of my boyfriend and hang him up in my room."

Okay, maybe that sounded a little weirder than you had expected but hey; you're sleep deprived, no one can blame you. So you play it off cool and pretend you don't notice.

"I hope he deflates."

Someone chimes in, and another comment follows.

"I hope your cat punctures a hole in him."

"I hope he explodes and flies out the window into the sky."

Well damn, they're upset today. Or maybe this is how they show their affection.

You try your best not to laugh at their feral wording as Alkaid simply shakes his head in exasperation. Taking the time to savour your coffee, you listen to Alkaid tell you about his day, which consisted of working on small collaboration projects for the event, Sparkles swiping his cookie jar into the sink, and people throwing all sorts of objects at him out in frustration. The remaining students slowly leave one by one, until there are only two astronomy majors left to witness this sickening, homely show of bubbly love.

"And done!"

You screw the cap back on the flask, and gather your remaining items before you take off for the day. As you zip up your bagpack, Alkaid spins the wheely chair around to make you face him.

You feel him poke your forehead and whisper, "Beep."

"Alright then, let's go."

You feel your heart swell in affection, and promise yourself to make the balloon as durable and high quality as possible.

"I hate him actually."

"I should deck him, actually."

You calmly stand up and try to push the flask into the side pocket of your bag, as one of Alkaid's classmates stands up ominously, gripping a rolled up poster in his hands. Sensing danger, Alkaid takes a small step back.

This is not going to end well.

So once you've slung your bag over your shoulder, you quickly grab his hand and pull him along as the both of you rush out the hall in hurry. You hear him laugh behind you, but you focus on getting the both of you out of there as quick as possible to evade the impending, explosive violence.

You make a mental note to keep that balloon as safe as possible.

a gift for @zedieame !

[thebrokenmechanicalpencil]

OK so yep turtle child. I seem to have fallen back into all my old artistic phases once again, Tmnt included in that roster.

I get a brain worm sometimes, it sits and annoys me and wont go away because of course I cant be inspired to draw normal things. Oh well, this is Mucha (pronounced Moo-kah) named after a painter from the art nouveau period. He is the son of our favorite leader in blue, Leo. YES ok wait before anyone gets me, no oc shipping made him. He and his cousin's were made through the art of ✨science✨

Lets say in the bay movies (because those have a soft spot in my heart I'm so sorry I know theyr kinda ugly-) some baddie gets the blood samples from the brothers and instead of trying to make a pandemic (havnt watched the movies in forever forgive me) they try recreating the experiment to try and create super soldiers (overused plot line dontworryaboutit) they mix the mutation agent with four turtles they have on standby, along with the DNA of each brother. Welp mutation happens but before they can get too far the boys swoop in thinking it was some sort of beep bop and rock steady situation. They discover the four recently mutated infant turtles and the rest goes from there.

sorta like the last Ronin but no sads, and before you know it the baby turtles have favorites and now they are sorta parent big brothers. As they get older and the babies grow they lean into the fatherly aspect. Or something.

Now this is the baby who gravitated toward Leo and he to him, and has Leo as a top roll model in his life. Sure all the boys help raise the new set, but again the kids all have favorites. Naturally. (I will mess with this later, but for now this is the wobbly idea) Well Mucha has Leo the stern when leading, silly when the weight is off his shoulders, overly bossy and slightly controlling Leo. Leo who would die for his family but can be cruel and very blunt. Who is also really young in his own right. Being the top role model for a child. Well they have a relationship were Mucha adores him, wants to be like him. But can never seem to live up to his expectations, tries so hard to impress him. He has a loving father figure who teaches him but also tries to helicopter him so much. Control so much, who is blunt when frustrated or angry. This kid is terrified of disappointing him, but wants deep within himself to impress his father his OWN way. Being Mucha not little Leo. He falls where Leo did when chosen as leader, under pressure without his parent even realizing it.

Leo does love him, but as we have seen he is a control freak. So his child naturally rebels, snapping and arguing with him when he's having a bad day. Not wanting to listen to him, because Leo wont listen to MUCHA. As Mucha gets older their relationship becomes strained.

K well I'm stuck in this now. This was mostly a thought post, read a thing about Leo wanting so badly to be a parent. Started wondering how it would go, will continue to work on this. Probably. The reason Mucha's art is so angsty is because that's where the pen went. Hes actually not that bad, usually.

OH well the second, white turtle. He gets his own post later :D

[triglycercule]

who asked for this. nobody. but unfortunately as a creator i actually have to CREATE for my au 😞😞😞😒😒😒 jk fashion au ink and swap designs ig,,,,,,

ink. ink. ink. she's totally not holding a gun to my head as i type this,,,,, because she CANT break the fourth wall ok she totally doesnt realize that she's forever gonna be stuck living life as a high schooler with no chance of ever graduating or progressing in life,,,,, BECAUSE THERE'S NO ANGST IN JK FASHION AU HAAHAHAH 😁😁😁😁 anyways she's soooo silly :3333 i'm not a connoisseur of anyone that's not the mtt (biased 🙂🙂🙂) but i wanted her to be silly but also a bit freakish,,,, ya!

what do the people think about INK???? featuring everyone in jk fashion au so far 😇😇

dream: "ink is another one of my close friends. she's been there for me when even nightmare couldn't, and i've supported her likewise. sometimes her head is in the clouds, so i send her texts to remind her of things like homework and such. maybe she forgets lunch sometimes, so swap and i give her a share of ours. and when ink wants to talk about anything she's thinking of, whether it's a painter's use of color or the reason we exist, i'm always open to listening. she's an amazing person, really."

nightmare: "ink. ah, that girl is an enigma, truly. somedays she supports me on my path to world domination, and other days she just laughs at me and says as if it were a fact that i would never achieve it! ugh... but despite my slight grievances, she's dream's friend, and i've grown fond of her. quite often, without me even requesting, she gifts me paintings. now, they may seem normal at first, but recently i've discovered a pattern with them. as if ink had peered into the mind of god and depicted it visually, the paintings assist me in handling dream appropriately. i must say, she's skilled as well..."

killer: "see now ink? she's my type of gal. we get along pretty well, hehe! we're on the same wavelength or something, i dunno. not like she can predict what i do, but i wouldn't be surprised if she could, but ink and i just click. we talk about all sorts of silly stuff; similar sense of humor, after all. ink and i can yap about different shows and movies we've watched and stuff, she gives really good insight on the more technical stuff like color psychology and framing, and she once drew me art for one of my big follower milestones on twitter! she's suuuuper cool, haha!"

dust: "okay, just... keep this between me and you, but i think ink has some sort of secret sixth sense? i dunno. nothing against her, she's a fun person. just that, uh... sometimes she just comes up to me when i least expect it and starts asking me about my progress on my writing. which is... confusing. i've only ever told killer and horror about my writing, so i don't know how she knows...?"

horror: "y'know, dust and i have a bit of a bet going on. all jokes and all, but i've got a feeling ink's pulling some sort of elaborate spying prank with how much she knows about us... dust doesn't think so. but i'm betting 20 bucks she does. like, once i was at a vending machine and the stupid thing didn't give me my goddamn candy bar, ugh. i had to stay cool. but then ink just pops out of nowhere, says its okay for me to drop the act and get mad around her, and then does some sort of vending machine trick to get the candy?? yeah, she's definitely a wizard or something. in a nice way, i guess."

NOW SWWAAAAAAPPP she's silly. i included the bit of her getting into trouble because of her good will SOLELY because swap gets bullied a lot in other aus 💀 (askerror, something new, etc,,,,,,) i also read a canon underswap doc??? SWAP IS SO SILLY!!!!! i cant really explain her personality through text i'd need to draw comics for her which uhhhh,,,,, (looks away)

THOUGHTS ON SWAP????

dream: "ah, swap! she's one of my dearest friends, i truly care for her deeply. out of sheer coincidence it seems, that she, ink, and i were chosen to be the star students of the school, but surprisingly it works out well... swap's truly a delight. she's a great motivator, and she's saved me from a few situations that would've ended up terribly had she not been there, hehe."

nightmare: "sometimes the world hates me. ah- well, what i meant was, the path of fate has me set on a predetermined path of struggle! and yet, when even i, the queen of negativity, could not stop my kin from slipping on a ridiculously placed banana peel and almost breaking her neck, swap was her knight in shining armor and caught her. needless to say, just as fate despises my bloodline, fate also has angels sent down from heaven. i do suppose swap is one of those, bless her soul."

killer: "heh, swap?? that girl's a riot! couple years ago i tried convincing her to show me some of those sick moves she learned at kickboxing, or karate, taekwondo, whatever... she broke my wrist, haha! but then i pulled a knife on her and then we both got in trouble. hah, good times, good times. no, i didn't stab her?! in fact, she's very good friends with mr. mew and the grumpen, thank you very much! a friend of my kitties is a friend of mine!"

dust: "she's nice. her type of energy is something you only see is like... a sugar-rushed ink, and killer normally. but anyways, swap's a good help around the school. she's a bit ridiculous every now and then with all her "the magnificent swap" and how she's a bit of a showoff, but whatever. aren't we all? anyways, at least the scavenger hunts she makes during school dances are fun."

horror: "swap is uh... she's something. gotta admit, she's pretty normal compared to some of the people at this school. but man... enthusiasm, much? eh, whatever. i'm not the type to complain when her burritos are to die for. we're partners in cooking class... let's just say, she carries us hard."

anyways jk cross and epic soon. sooner than you think heheheh

[retellingthehobbit]

Pls don’t feel pressured to answer this at all, I literally just wanted to ramble in your inbox bc I just pulled up ur blog to see if there was any new updates at all and MY GOD???? YOUR BACKGROUNDS ARE LIKE. JAW DROPPING GORGEOUS??

Also that most recent Thorin drawing (not the “heart of the mountain” post, but the one of him you posted at the end of July this year), HES SO PRETTY ??? Outrghhhhhhhh my god, every time I come to check up on your blog, it’s such a whiplash because I’ll be coming back like “I wonder if they’ve posted anything new lately” and HELLO you’ve somehow achieved classical painter level skills since I last looked at the blog????

But anyways yea I just wanted to drop in here and say I NEED TO EAT YOUR ART SO BAD ITS SO PRETTY AUGHH

AHHH thank you so much!!!! 😭😭😭❤️❤️❤️❤️ I’m glad you’re still following, and I appreciate this comment so much!!! I think the long hiatuses do give me a lot of time to improve my art skills.

One of the biggest changes I’ve had in the past year(s) is using 3D models to help block out backgrounds, which really has leveled up a lot the background art from what I used to paint before :3. Here’s a behind the scenes photo I posted on my patreon a while back haha