#tend to use blue as highlights for black

[aceissomunster]

discowing + jaybin ! press for quality

txtless + ref under the cut

ignore my horrible art please i drew this on ibis paint x with my finger and the soft felt tip pen brush. and my crappy penmanship.

[gwenpendragns]

i was asked by @matthew-macfadyens for a colouring tutorial, so here we go ! i've been making gifs for almost 4 years now and finally feel comfortable and confident in my skills to make a full tutorial on my colouring process. there are so many different ways people colour gifs, and there's no wrong way, this is just how i do it ! i learned to gif by reading so many tutorials and picking and choosing what works for me, so hopefully this can help someone out !

if this tutorial helps you, please considering supporting me ! buy me coffee ♡

TUTORIAL UNDER THE CUT

what you'll need: - photoshop ( i use ps cc 2023 & frame timeline ) - basic ps knowledge ( how to make gifs, how to sharpen gifs, general understanding of adjustment layers, layer masks and blending modes ) - a whole lot of patience

helpful resources:

the beginner's guide to channel mixer by @aubrey-plaza

giffing 101 by @cillianmurphy

gif making for beginners by @hayaosmiyazaki

colouring yellow-tinted shots by @ajusnice

becca's mega colouring tutorial by @nataliescatorccio

@usergif

PART ONE: BASE COLOURING

- step 1: curves - step 2: exposure - step 3: colour balance - step 4: selective colour - step 5: levels - step 6: brightness / contrast - step 7: gradient map

okay so, before we get started, this tutorial is for colouring only. at this point, i've already gotten my screencaps, imported them into photoshop, made the actual gif & sharpened the gif. the above image includes what my typical adjustment layer stack looks like !

STEP ONE: CURVES

a lot of people do the majority of their heavy lifting in curves...i'm not one of those people. i've never gotten the hang of curves and haven't been able to fully taken advantage of everything it can offer. i use curves to mainly brighten up my gif and to start my process.

i use the "auto" button in the curves function - this automatically corrects the curves for your gif ( mainly the brightness / contrast )

you can see that the auto curves has brightened up the gif and evened out the brightness/contrast. i just find this gives a better starting point for the colouring process.

STEP TWO: EXPOSURE

this step is for, you guessed it, brightening the gif more and evening out the contrast and blacks. i don't have any real rules for doing this, the amount i highten the exposure and contrast is different based on the scene and the show, however, i tend to stay around +1 on both exposure and gamma correction.

exposure effects the brightness of the gif and gamma correction effects the blacks and contrast. this step also effects the saturation of the gif, so it's important not to go too crazy. i often end up coming back to this step every now and again to adjust and fiddle with it.

for this gif, i put the exposure at +1.18 and the gamma correction at 0.85

you can see this step serves to add some more brightness and contrast - it also adds some more saturation, that we don't always want, but don't worry, that's what the next steps are for !

STEP THREE: COLOUR BALANCE

i use this step to do a lot of my heavy lifting - i'm a whore for colour balance. this serves to even out the colours and help neutralize the colours for an easier canvas. it's important to understand the basics of colour theory for this, i recommend checking out the channel mixer tutorial i listed above, because a lot of those steps applies to colour balance.

essentially, there's three separate profiles to edit on - highlights, midtones and shadows. in each profile, you have 3 colour sliders. the top one is your cyan to red, middle is magenta to green, and bottom is yellow to blue. the colouring of the scene will decide where to move your sliders.

for example: if your original scene has a cyan tint to it, you'll want to pull your slider to the right, towards the red to help neutralize the cyan. if your scene has a green tint, you'll want to pull it left towards the magenta. as you move the sliders, you'll notice that sometimes it brings out other colours you don't necessarily need, you can adjust the other sliders to help neutralize further.

i always do my main correction in the midtones profile.

since this scene has a heavy yellow tint, my first step was to adjust the bottom slider. i pulled the slider to the right towards blue at +22. you can see this helped get rid of a lot of the yellow, but adding in the blue warmed up the reds and made it more saturated.

to help with this, i pulled the top slider left towards cyan to help neutralize that red.

i pulled the top slider to -28 and you can see this cut out that heavy saturation and redness. it's looking a lot better, but now it's a little too green for my liking. this is where that middle slider comes in!

i pulled the middle slider to -6 towards the magenta to help counteract the green that came in. ( i ended up going back in and adjusting the bottom slider to +10 instead, as it was a little to blue )

you can see this step really did the heavy lifting, helping to neutralize the canvas so that it's easier to work with...but it's not quite perfect yet!

STEP FOUR: SELECTIVE COLOUR

a lot of the same principles around colour theory apply to selective colour! this is where i go to adjust the colours according to what my colour palette is. for this gif, the overall colour is going to be purple, so i'll adjust the individual colours with that in mind.

i only ever adjust my red, yellow, white and black profiles! sometimes i'll do the other colours, but that's only for tweaking the final colour. i normally don't touch them at all.

ps: you'll notice i prefer a cooler toned gif, and almost always go for a more magenta looking red/yellow.

i always start with my yellows:

in the yellow profile, i pull my cyan towards the left to -38 (this helps eliminate the green in the yellows) and my yellow slider to the left to -27 (this cools down the yellows. i top it off by adjusting my magenta slider to -10, to help lower the saturation of the yellows.

you'll notice this step got rid of most of the green undertones - that's because the green was nested inside the yellows, so by taking out a lot of the cyan and yellow, you're left with a warmer yellow as opposed to a cooler yellow.

next i go on to my reds. this step will mainly effect the alys's skin tone, but i'm going to do pretty much the same as above but with much less dramatic of a change. lowering your colours in your red profile too much can lead to a very saturated gif, which is not what i'm going for.

i pulled my cyan slider to -19, magenta to -9 and yellow to -15. you can see this helped add some more cooler tones to the reds.

the next profiles are your white and black profiles. i use white to brighten the lightest parts of the gif. no rhyme or reason here, i just pull the black slider towards the left...usually around -25. for the black profile, i always move the black slider towards the right. anywhere from +3 to +8, depending on the gif. for this gif, i did +8. this darkens the blacks and, in my opinion, helps the gif pop!

you can see this step got rid of the yellow tint, gave the gif a more neutral look and adjusted the reds to better compliment a purple colour scheme !

STEP FIVE: LEVELS

this adjustment has three toggles - i'm not 100% sure what each toggle really does, i just know that by pulling the leftmost toggle to the right, it darkens your gif, and pulling the rightmost toggle to the left brightens your gif.

this step is so hard to explain, but really i just pull the toggles around until it looks good...sorry !

STEP SIX: BRIGHTNESS / CONTRAST

this step is exactly what it says on the tin...it brightens your gif. this step is based on your scene and personal preference, there's no real guide to it.

i always pull my brightness slider to the right ( brighter ) and my contrast slider to the left ( less contrast ).

STEP SEVEN: GRADIENT MAP

this last step is something i learned from @nataliescatorccio ! i add a gradient map to the top of my stack, and choose a lighter colour of what i want my overall gif to be. in this case, i used a very light purple!

i then set the blending mode to "soft light" and lower the opacity to anywhere from 20-30%. for this gif, i did 30%

this step will help make your colour pop once you do your main colouring!

PART TWO: PAINTING & COLOURING

- step 1: layer 1 - step 2: layer 2 - step 3: layer 3 - step 4: final touches

okay, so my actual colouring process is based in 3 layers. for this gif, i'm using a deep purple/mauve colour !

STEP ONE: LAYER ONE

between your brightness/contrast and gradient map layers, add another blank layer. change the blending mode of this layer to "colour" and set the opacity to 40%.

then, using a soft round brush with an opacity of 100% ( size of the brush is your preference, i typically use around 108 ), colour the parts of the gif you want coloured !

you can see this helps us get the canvas to a more uniform purple colour!

STEP TWO: LAYER TWO

for layer two we're going to do the exact same thing. add a layer above your previous, set to "colour" at 40%. we're going to go over the same areas!

you can see this helped get the purple so much more vibrant and closer to what our final colour is going to be!

STEP THREE: LAYER THREE

for our final layer, add another layer above the previous 2, set your blending mode to "multiply" and your opacity to anything from 60%-100%. for this gif, i did 60% !

now, our colouring is pretty much done but you can see that, now that our colour is down, alys's face is still a little too blue/green/yellow for the background purple. the next step, we're going to adjust and add final touches!

STEP FOUR: FINAL TOUCHES

at this point, i went back into my selective colour layer and adjusted my yellows & reds and went back into my colour balance layer to adjust everything overall.

at this point, i'm going to go in and add some adjustments layers above everything - i usually add some brightness/contrast, and a selective colour layer to darken the blacks.

which brings us to our final result:

[spockandawe]

It's time! for! 2ha!!!!!!! I've had 'the husky and his white cat shizun' on my radar as a bookbinding project basically from the very start, back when I thought it was impossible that any of these danmei novels would ever be licensed for english translations. But this book is so long, and besides, the translation wasn't complete, so it went onto the backest of back burners. Until now! So, the book has been licensed. It's started releasing! As usual, please support these authors, they have a passionate english-speaking fanbase, and I very much want them to enjoy that success in a practical sense and not just an abstract one. And I also want more of these novels translated, haha. But the nature of licensing means I've also gotten a lot more interested in preserving prior translations in formats that can't casually be yoinked from the internet.

Now, this is a big novel. This was 1.1 million words. The stack of pressed text quarto blocks was over 15 inches, and once I added covers (very thick, for reasons I'm about to cover) and boxes, this thing was 22 inches long. Oh my god. This sustained effort naturally overlapped with an international trip and two crucially Important work presentations. I almost died. I had to split it into multiple boxes because I wasn't sure I could laminate boards thick enough to support so much weight at so much length and still cut it with any precision, lmao

And those covers? I took inspiration from notebooks I've sent with cover flaps like these, and also decided to see if I could incorporate the strip magnets I bought for peller box experiments and barely used. The downside that didn't make itself apparent until late in the construction process was that laminating boards to match this depth made the covers REAL thick, and difficult to cover with a crisp finish. Duo bookcloth can get wrinkly and fragile when it's wet, so it didn't entirely take me by surprise, but it's something I'll be accounting for next time I try this construction!

I tried to stick to a black and blue and silver color scheme, because it matches the book, but I also accepted some gold highlights on the endpapers. The duo bookcloth tends to photograph with a bit more brown in the color shift than I see in person, but I think it plays out well in person or in photos! The endpapers make for a nice striking pop when the book opens and don't blend into the cover fabric, which was something I definitely wanted to avoid.

And, speaking of thematically appropriate, I found this image for chapter headers that was almost perfect, but the wrong kind of flowers. So I did change those to haitang blosoms, haha. That happened early in the typesetting process, but I did also have that on my mind as I worked out decorations for the boxes! Mostly, I just titled what book of the novel it was on the top and left it there, but the very last detail I added was a pair of foil flowers done in pink and silver, on the outside edges of the boxes for book 1 and the extras. I finished that last night and then went to bed SO excited to take pictures in the morning. I really had an incredible time with this book, and the whole adventure reminded me just how much I love 2ha. I'm so happy I did this, I really had just an incredible time!!!!!

[secondbeatsongs]

how to make neon signs in inkscape!

I lost my mind and spent a large amount of hours yesterday perfecting my methods and figuring out how to do this, so if you're interested in making something like this:

here's how to do that!

step 1: cover your workspace in a dark grey rectangle, and lock that layer down.

I've been using 80% or 90% grey - you want this so you can see your neon effect, but you don't want it entirely black at this stage, or you won't be able to see your shadow layer.

step 2: create some text!

pro tip: rounder sans-serif fonts look the best for this, because think about what a neon sign is made of - it's tubes, bent into shapes! so if your font or design looks too sharp and pointy, it'll feel unrealistic when you make it neon.

(this is, of course, a perfectionism thing on my end, so feel free to ignore any and all rules in order to make the thing that you want to make. as with all art, you can do whatever you want forever!)

bonus pro tip: if you, like me, have over 1400 fonts installed and programs tend to lag when you browse through all of them, nexusfont is a great free software that lets you sort your fonts into categories, search them, and preview what any text looks like in different fonts! I love it. it is my best friend

now I'm going to do this with a few different fonts, so that you can see how it works with them. so today, I'm picking Futura Round, Harlow Solid Italic, and then to challenge myself, Beauty School Dropout and Block

make the text white, and also select the text and go to Paths -> Object to Path, because some things don't work right if they're not paths.

let's start off easy with Futura Round!

Step 3: duplicate your text layer

now bear with me here. but you need to take the text you're working with, and either right-click duplicate or copy/paste the layer until you have seven total copies of the text you're working with.

arrange them like this, making sure the top one is the first layer on the list (and so on), and then in the layers tab, label them like so:

pro tip: if you don't have the layers tab open, go to Objects -> Objects and Layers, and that'll pop it right up

Step 4: blur time!

switch to the Fill and Stroke tab, and make these changes to the paths:

glow small: 15% blur, 100% opacity

glow medium: 20% blur, 90% opacity

glow large: 50% blur, 70% opacity

glow xlarge: 70% blur, 70% opacity

your workspace should now look like this:

this is good!

pro tip: these numbers are just loose guidelines! at the end, mess around with everything to make sure that the glow looks right to you! nothing is an exact science

Step 5: shadow and outline

for the shadow layer, make it solid black, and then change the opacity to 50%

for the outline layer, we're doing something fun and weird. so right now it's a fill object, but we want it to be an outline instead! so let's hit the X in the lower left to make it empty, and then shift-click on...for the sake of this, let's say blue. to make our nice blue outline.

now's the weird part

now. use the align tool (Objects -> Align and Distribute), select the outline layer and the main layer, and align them so the outline text is exactly centered on the main one.

then go to Paths -> Path Effects, and when the tab opens, select just the outline layer, then click the drop-down arrow in the Path Effects tab and select Offset

here's our goal right now:

we want to offset the outline until it fits inside the text underneath it, and also mess with the stroke layer settings until you have a nice thick outline that doesn't overlap itself.

mess around with the plus and minus buttons. there are no exact numbers here; you just have to know when it looks good! but for me, the settings were a -0.34mm offset, with a stroke width of 0.700mm

this is roughly what you want it to look like:

now, with the outline layer still selected, blur it out just a bit until it looks fuzzy, and like the white center is a highlight rather than a separate layer. for me, the right number was about 8.3% of blur, to get a result like this:

Step 6: layering and changing colors

okay! at this point your work should look something like this:

you now want to select every layer except the shadow layer, and use Align to center them all on top of each other.

pro tip: make sure to untoggle "move/align selection as a group", otherwise this will not work.

you should now have something that looks like this, with the shadow layer sitting all by itself somewhere off to the side

now's the fun part: colors!

since we've decided that this neon light is going to be blue, it's time to change the glow to reflect that!

here's what it looks like when you change all of the glow layers to be that same, #0000FF blue as the outline layer

and here's what it looks like when you take the glow small layer and make it just a bit lighter (#4343FF) using the stroke and fill tab

in general, mess around with the layer colors until you like how they look! I find that it generally looks better if the glow small layer is a bit lighter, and the glow medium layer is as dark as the original color. everything else is fair game.

also the main layer can stay white (if you want it to seem very bright), or you can make it a very very light blue if you want it to be a bit more subdued.

Step 7: final steps

take your sad, neglected shadow layer, and move it slightly up and to the right of your main layer, so that it works...well, basically like a drop shadow.

then take your original rectangle, and switch it to 100% black.

now. gaze upon your masterpiece

that's a good neon sign if I've ever seen one.

but now. now's when we lose our minds

Steps 8-??: perfectionism and nonsense

so let's move the Futura one aside (and hide it! inkscape lags if there are too many blurry layers visible at once, so hide anything you're not using!), set the rectangle back to grey, and move on to Harlow Solid Italic.

I've sped through a few of the steps here (out of order) so you can see what I'm doing. I've added outlines to the large glow and xlarge glow, and bumped them up a bit so they'll have a larger glow area in general

this time I've made the large glow a little bit lighter than the xlarge glow and medium glow, and made the main layer a very pale pink instead of just white. I also blurred the outline layer just a bit more, because this font needed a bit more fuzz to make it look good.

hell yeah. this rocks.

now, one detail for perfectionism: in neon signs IRL, if you look closely, there are wires attaching them in the back, often connecting each letter to the next. so...let's do that!

get your pen tool, set it to spiro path, and then make little droopy lines connecting each letter.

make these thin, 100% opacity, and a very light (almost white) grey color. then group all of them together, and move this group under the small glow layer

pro tip: some of the cords might go mostly through the shadow layer. if this is the case, just put the cord group one layer above the shadow layer instead, and then it'll be fine. but you might make the cord color a pale-greyish pink to make it look like there's glow hitting it.

ultra advanced technique: duplicate the cord group, make it black and 50% opacity, position it slightly up and to the right of the original, and then move it one layer below it. you've got cord shadows babey!

lookit that. stare at that beautiful perfection. I love it. this brings me joy.

and now: the one that will be the most work

let's gooo Beauty School Dropout!

this one I'm using as an example for what to do with a font that's a bit too pointy to look realistic

this font is really fun and bendy, but the ends of the letters are flat instead of rounded, and the corners are a bit too sharp. so...let's fix that!

now, there are several ways we can do this (after doing Object to Path ofc).

one way is to edit the path yourself, going slowly, and making sure everything is perfect, editing the nodes individually.

or, you could select the text layer using the node tool, then click the button in the top bar labeled Add Corners LPE, and then drag the little circles and triangles around to smooth out the corners

I've decided to do the LPE method, but the problem here is that if you apply the LPE effect before making sure all of the corners look good nodes-wise, it's hell to try and fix it. so before LPE-ing, look at all the spots that you're going to apply the effect, and make sure each has one point at each sharp corner, with no weird overlapping bits. okay? okay.

also for the line beneath the text, it looks like it's made up of a bunch of different segments

and since I want to keep this line because I think it looks cool, we're going to have to deal with that, and make sure that it's all one solid piece, otherwise the outlining won't work. so I've gotta delete all the extra segments, and then move the points on just one of those segments until it's the full original line width, before rounding those corners as well.

basically I've got my work cut out for me here, this will all take a bit.

...aaand an episode and a half of Supernatural later, here's this!

look at how nice and round that is! perfect for the rest of the neon process

and with cords, shadows, layering, etc

hell yeah.

more things: it's block font time

let's make an outline-style neon sign!

my seven layers:

for all but the last two, I've not used the fill option with them at all - I have simply used the stroke outline.

now don't be worried! the stroke-to-path still works just the same way even using an outline to begin with! so it's easy to get an outline of an outline, and do the offset thing just like you did before

however, because this font is more complex-looking, there will probably be some errors when you offset it

for example, it didn't fully outline the second half of the Os, so I just copied the left halves, mirrored them, and replaced the right half with the complete left half

pro tip: keep in mind that you have to re-apply the offset to any bits that you add to the outline layer!

doing the same steps as last time, editing the glow blurs as I see fit, once again we end up with beauty and perfection.

another thing you can do: turn off the lights!

I'm going to use Beauty School Dropout and Harlow for this, but after making your beautiful neon signs, here's how to make it look like a turned-off sign, for if you want to make...idk, a gif of a light turning on and off, or a burned-out sign, or something like that.

so start with (ideally, duplicated copies of) your neon signs:

and then simply delete every glow layer, change the outline layer to 90% grey and your main layer to 70% grey, change the cords' color to a darker shade of grey than whatever it already is, and lower the opacity of the shadows by about 10-15%.

doing that, you end up with this

bam! lights turned off!

last thing: logos and other stuff

you can make neon signs with images as well as with text! the steps are essentially the same, though you may have to do more editing to make it look good, and use simplify on the path if it's too detailed.

and if you're using anything besides an .svg, you first go to Paths -> Trace Bitmap to turn your image into a vector! but unfortunately I've already used 29 images in this post, so here, just look at this Keith Haring thing I made as an example:

is it messier than the text? yeah for sure. does it have some pointy bits I could smooth out more? definitely. but, I've watched three episodes of Supernatural today, and that is more than enough time spent on this. so this is what you get.

but yeah, that's how I make neon signs in inkscape! I used to do it in GIMP, but this works much better, and looks so nice and clean! <3

(man, graphic design really is my passion)

[respectthepetty]

Semantic (Color) Error

Sang Woo and Jae Young are color-coded boys in love.

So what are their colors?

If you thought red and blue, you'd be WRONG!

The opening credits and scenes declare what they are:

Their colors are blue and green.

Sang Woo is a blue boy. He is confident, stable, and intelligent.

Jae Young is a green guy. He is lively, hopeful, and easygoing.

He even draws Sang Woo in his color on the wanted posters.

The only reason Jae Young wears red is to bother Sang Woo.

Jae Young borrows most of the red items from his friends.

He begins wearing red when looking for Sang Woo before he is aware Sang Woo hates the color *the "SINNER" jacket*

When they first meet, they both wear black, but Jae Young is backed up by his fake red. *the "DIE BITCH" jacket*

Black tends to be their neutral color.

When they're hiding out in the clothes, they are neutral in black with their colors behind them until the red light comes on, referring to Jae Young's fake red that bothers Sang Woo.

Exchanging colors

While at the bar, Jae Young is upset at Sang Woo for ignoring him, so he plays darts with his fake red and Sang Woo's blue.

He rescues Sang Woo, and they have a tender moment. The next day, Sang Woo tries on red.

And Jae Young picks up blue even though there is a red outfit he could wear.

But Sang Woo doesn't like this (because he has the fake red), and retreats into a dark blue while Jae Young remains neutral black. *see the barrier that divides them demonstrated by the wall behind them: Sang Woo in the darker color (wants to remain in the dark about his feelings) and Jae Young in the lighter color (because he is aware of his feelings)*

However, Sang Woo can't truly let Jae Young go and continues to use Jae Young's fake red when he usually uses black. *remember Jae Young placed a red pen on Sang Woo's shelf after the bar incident*

Sang Woo realizes he made a mistake and goes to see Jae Young at the restaurant. He is still in his blue, but now he is surrounded by Jae Young's real color, green.

Jae Young rejects him, but Sang Woo tries again, this time fully understanding how important Jae Young is, so he wears Jae Young's green to reflect that.

After this, Jae Young incorporates Sang Woo's blue into his wardrobe.

The two become closer, and eventually kiss.

Each is highlighted by the other's color: Sang Woo in Jae Young's green, and Jae Young in Sang Woo's blue.

But, per usual, Sang Woo is confused and goes to Jae Young's studio in Jae Young's fake red while Jae Young is in neutral black.

Jae Young makes Sang Woo realize what he has been feeling (no fake red anymore, but pure green). EDIT: @grapejuicegay spotted that when Sang Woo agrees to the two-week trial period, he does so in a blue and green thumbs up sweater.

Sang Woo decides to be honest in the same shirt he wore the first time he yelled at Jae Young and showed him emotion - the merged green and blue flannel shirt.

After that, Sang Woo is in love and in Jae Young's green

Until Jae Young tells Sang Woo he got accepted into an oversees program, then both boys are struggling with their feelings and retreat back to their colors *Sang Woo's beloved blue bike*

But all ends well, and they merge their colors and love together with a hint of fake red (blue bedding with green pillows)

And the Semantic (Color) Error was fixed!

[steelsartcorner]

If you wouldn’t mind sharing your secrets, can you drop a quick tutorial for the hades art style? You seem to capture it very well!

Hey anon! Thanks so much, I’m flattered you think so!

To be honest there's really no secret, just a lot of trial and error. I am an amateur, but I’ll point out a few of my observations of the amazing Hades team’s work that I attempted to incorporate into this Astarion drawing, especially SuperGiant Games art director Jen Zee. Everything below is just my layman’s observation of her much, MUCH better work. You should check her out yourself!

First off, here’s a simple split out of the whole process (this will be long, more below the cut:)

POSE & PERSONALITY

Hades art is full of personality so the first challenge was to pick a pose that illustrates just one or two aspects of the character. For example, Dionysus from Hades 1 below has a languid, draping pose that reflects his chill-guy party vibes. Just looking at him you get an immediate idea of his personality.

And as much as I love the later wet-cat version of Astarion as he matures as a person, for the purposes of illustration in this style I chose a pose and expression that leaned into his early, less complex, more wily self. The dagger, wink, jaunty hips and head tilt are meant to communicate, without additional context, that he’s both trying to be appealing and is not trustworthy. 

LINEWORK & SHADING

Next is the linework and blocking! The Hades art team tends to use a combination of near-mono-thickness black lines, where exterior lines are thicker and interior lines are thinner or have no lines at all. They will often forgo an interior line to communicate form via color blocking instead. The style also makes heavy use of absolute black for the deepest shades, especially on more sinister characters or spooky aspects of a characters design. (See: Zagreus’ three dog head skulls and his red eye perpetually cast in deep shadow.)

It took some back and forth to find the right balance of black shading for Astarion. Too much and he looked too sinister and not approachable enough. Too little and he looked too innocent. 

Picking a strong light source helped with determining the direction and placement of the shadows so that just enough was obscured/revealed. It also helps in differentiating forms from each other so that, for example, the arm doesn’t disappear into the chest and become unreadable.

Using heavy black shading was a particularly useful trick in Astarion’s case, because his camp clothes color palette is fairly monochromatic between his light hair, pale skin, and white/cream shirt. That much light color can easily blend in too much and become boring: the flats I used were slight variations of white, from a warm reddish-peach to a yellowy cream to a cool light gray for the dagger.

COLOR & LIGHTING

Last is color! In Hades 1 and even more so in Hades 2, the lighting schemes are deceptively complex. There are often multiple light sources and use of bounce lighting to add a lot of visual interest. For example, check out this lighting on Polyphemus from Hades 2:

Not only does he have a cool moonlight hitting him from above, he also has a warm orange rimlight lighting him from the left, AND cool lavender bounce light bouncing off the ground and hitting him from below. All these combine and layer on top of one another to help emphasize the forms of the cyclop���s musculature and the textures of his sheep wool coat. 

I don’t think I was as successful in my own lighting scheme, because I’m an amateur, but I determined that the scene in which I was placing Astarion has a high sun and was outdoors. This means that the light hitting him from above would be a light, warm yellow and the bounce light hitting him from the left would reflect the nearby water and blue sky of the environment. 

To achieve this, I made use of different layer modes in my art program (Clip Studio Paint) to apply purple shadows (via the Multiply layer mode) and highlights (via the Soft Light layer mode) in a light sky blue and a light yellow for the primary and secondary light sources.

I ran into trouble with the blade, because it was also a light metal in an already light-color-heavy color scheme. At first, it was blending in too much and hard to read. So I decided to give it a bit of a magic teal glow to help it stand out, which meant adding a few specks of magic light reflecting back onto the face and clothes as well. 

INTEREST & DETAILS

Speaking of, Hades style art makes extensive use of adding little speckles of high-saturation color to add visual interest and cohesion. See this Zagreus portrait which is primarily made of grays, a tan bone-color, and reds: 

But sprinkled in are neon teal and magenta that don’t relate to the lighting at all. It’s just there to break up the blocks of color, bring unique colors like his green eye into the rest of the portrait, and direct the viewer’s eye. These highlights are slightly less bright in Hades 2, but still there, such as in this depiction of Apollo, who mostly glows with a warm sunlight but also has random pops of sky blue and green flecking his armor and hair.

The pops of color are often placed more centrally on the figure to keep your eye on the important parts of the portrait, like near Apollo’s face and on his armor. The color pops aren’t as frequent at the extremities; too much on the arm and your eye would be drawn away from his face.

I took a similar approach where I grabbed some of the brighter colors (like Astarion’s red eye, and the teal glow of the dagger), to add dabs of color that normally would not “make sense” from a lighting perspective, but add a little visual interest:

Also I totally studied their approach to Apollo’s curly hair to create the impression of Astarion’s curls!

Anyway, I think that's all I got for now, I hope this helps! There's more but this is already REALLY long so I'll stop here. In the end, it's really just a process of observation and replication of things you love in artwork you admire. Give it a try, it's a lot of fun :)

[tangledinink]

I love your style and how you utilize halftones and textures and colours. It’s just so tasty! I’m curious if you’d be willing to show a bit of your process on how a comic page comes together?

Ah, thank you! ; w ; And sure, I can try, at least! Usually I start with some kind of a script. Sometimes it's a bit more detailed, like this:

... And other times they look more like this.

It just depends on my mood! But either way, I typically have a pretty good idea in my mind's eye of what the comic is generally going to look like. Once I know what I'm making, I do all the rough sketch pages.

... And then I line it!. For Gemini, I go for a dark blue rather than black 'cause I like the way it feels, and it lends to the overall 'papery' vibe. I usually lay down a grid pattern at this stage, which helps a lot with keeping panels and dialogue straight, and with perspective. I always do the gutters and the words first, then the figures and backgrounds. I been leaning a lot into really heavy shadows recently-- one of my professors in college told me once that a black-and-white comic page should be about 50% black and 50% white, and I've been trying to bring that to the table, lol.

I can ditch the grid at this point, and I put down a really light, pale-gray 'wash' on all the panels. It's a pretty subtle effect, but helps separate the panels from the 'background' of the gutters/negative space, and also just adds texture.

I lay down all the color next. Flat colors first, then a second pass over some parts to add depth/shadow, and then all the spot-colors like Leo's red stripes, light gray eyes, etc.

I use a pretty fine-grain half-tone brush for the background, and then a slightly more defined one (layer set to overlay) on the characters.

Once that's done I go back in and add highlights and such (white shine to eyes, hair, etc.) and go and add light outlines to any areas that need a little help being defined-- like Big Mama's arms and hands, for example.

And then the absolute last step is adding paper grain textures and gradient overlay over the top of everything!

(A lot of the brushes I'm using for this comic I got from True Grit Texture Supply, just by the by for anyone who's curious.)

... With Swanatello I kinda tend to just. Go for it. I (sometimes) start with a vague script and then I just draw it. 🤷🏻‍♂️ No thumbnails, no sketches, no heroes, no gods--

Just Swanatello.

[rawcherrycake]

As promised, a render tutorial!! (Featuring Donnie as our model, because of course)

Reminding the process can vary from piece to piece and it's usually really messy, but this is just the general workflow.

Let's start with the sketch: it's an absolute mess, but it's just to get the idea down. There isn't any real science or pressure in it tbh, but i'd recommend looking for references either for poses or inspo (palettes, styles, aesthetics etc.) REMEMBER TO FLIP THE SKETCH BEFORE JUMPING TO LINEART! If you use liquify or transform afterwards it can look blurry and weird.

Once you got that done, it's lineart time: I tend to keep my linearts raw and crisp, meaning i don't usually erase lines that stick out. Note that i use a medium/big sized brush + high pressure sensibility, making the lines very variable

Add a base: A solid color will do, it's just so we don't go out of line!

Colorful tint: On a clipping layer on top of the base we'll put some colors (1-3) that match the theme/environment, this will give the actual colors some variation and depth

Painting down: The color picker will be your best friend in this process. In the same layer with a soft blending brush you'll gently add your character's colors, trying to avoid using small brushes. If you need to fix something grab the color in that specific area with the color picker, since most probably it's a different color than the one in the ref. Make a mess, basically

Shadow makes a big difference: On a different layer you'll block down the shading, the color will vary on your environment/style but i'd recommend not using pure black or just purple on all drawings. Put layer in multiply and lower opacity to liking.

If there's shadow there's light: Same as shadow, the color will vary depending on enviroment/style. I went the easy way and picked a light yellow in a lower opacity.

Bounce light: Basically the same thing, just this time it isn't a single color. You'll pick the nearest color for bounce light on a lower opacity.

My favorite part, texture: I love this because i can experiment with different brushes! I put all the color layers together into a single one, but that's optional. I'd just say go nuts, see what seems right. Usually i don't add much texture to skin, but did for Donnie's goggles, plastron and bandages! (+ changed the lineart to an off-black color)

Finishing touches: I'll go with some warm/light color with an airbrush and highlight some important parts like the face and chest, overlay and lower opacity.

I'll also add random noise, overlay and a really low opacity.

Now, since i use Krita and it doesn't have the color aberration option i do it manually, but if your program does have it then go ahead and use it on the lineart!

The way i do it is cloning the lineart three times and paint them in red, blue and green, moving them just a little to different sides, overlay and lower opacity

In the end i suffer my way through the background and crop the drawing! And done!

Hope anything of this is at least a tiny bit coherent xD like i said, my process is a mess and i just do what feels right

[zephyrine-gale]

Your art is so pretty!!!!!!! How do you pick colors and color!!!! All your works are so vibrant yet cohesive hhhh so nice to look at <33

thank you!! I made a little guide :> it's mostly about hair color picks but this is how I choose my colors in general!

i tend to stick to a similar value with all my colors! the only colors that get a higher saturation tend to be the highlights

and a way to make your colors pop is contrasting your warm and cool tones :> with yaoyao, I have a warm-tone base with a cool-tone shadow and kazuha's is a little more messy, but the bright teal pops in contrast with the red and warm tones.

this chart is helpful too if you're stuck on what kind of color scheme you'd like to go with!

I tend not to use pure white/black in my base color or lineart either my whites will either be warm/cool grays depending on the character! and I tend to have cool blue/purple blacks color has so much personality so I love adding lots of it :>

I'm physically incapable of base coloring as a solid color to save my life... it takes a while and most of it is intuitive at this point so it's a bit difficult to explain for bigger pieces, but I hope this helps!!

[otaku553]

Hi! Do you use a filter or gradient map to get such pretty and muted colors?

I tend to naturally use muted colors for a lot of my pieces! Case in point, here are a few examples of flat colors on some of my recent pieces:

But you’re right, I do also have a small trick with gradient maps! The key to the sort of muted effect is, I think, texture. If you have texture, there’s often a subconscious feeling of groundedness, like you’re observing something on paper instead of through a screen. It helps also to darken the colors a bit!

First, using a bunch of texture brushes, on a new layer on top of your flats, I add a few loose strokes in gray or black here and there where I plan on darkening the color, usually following along the shadows a bit! I have a folder of crunchy brushes specifically dedicated to this step, including procreate’s nikko rull brush, the medium nozzle airbrush, and the burnt tree brush:

Then, fill any blank area with white and apply a gradient map! Usually this is a good stage to play around with hues over the value range, since these will subtly affect the color later! I usually prefer to use warm maps with a bit of blue or cool gray tossed in here and there, or gray maps with a bit of red! There’s a lot of options here if you play around with making your own gradient maps :)

Then, change the layer mode to linear burn and turn down the opacity until it looks subtle!

I learned this trick last year from a YouTube video studying another artist’s style, and it really is a nice quick way to give large blocks of color a bit of visual complexity and break up the monotony! Here’s the video for anyone interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgqpVKzuiXM

Occasionally I’ll also use this slightly in reverse and use a contrasting bright color with a texture brush to give a velvety feeling! This is most notable in my Taranza piece, I think:

Without the green highlighting bits, the green is so dark it could almost be mistaken as black, but with the green highlights it becomes a lot more readable! Also note the texture between the green highlights and the base dark green!

This is definitely one of my favorite shortcuts for getting deeper colors and subtle hue variance on my pieces :D I hope this helped!

[38sr]

Hi! I really love the way you color, and I was wondering If you could make a tutorial about it, I of course completely understand if you Can't/don't want to do it thanks in advance If you decided to do it and have a good day/night.

Hello hello! Ooooh, a color tutorial! I've never done one before so I'm not sure if I'll be any good at it haha. But I don't mind sharing my thinking process when it comes to coloring my works. So when it comes to color, I very much have a traditional painter's approach since that's how I learned color in art college. My painting professor never allowed us to use black or white paint, we could only use other colors to create darker colors or new colors altogether. And you're probably thinking, "What the hell? That's insane." And I wouldn't blame you haha. But this approach helped me a lot to not rely on tints (colors mixed with white) and shades (colors mixed with black) when I color. For the most part, I purely thinking about value and hues when I'm coloring.

Finding the right values:

So for this drawing, I did two different takes (one with direct harsh lighting and one without). The reason why I'm showing this is because when it comes to color it's very important that your values aren't clashing with each other. When I started out, all my coloring felt flat because I was using colors with the same values so there was little to no depth. A lot of people don't realize this but color does have value!

If we put the primary colors on greyscale, you notice how each color has its own value. Blue tends to be a dark value, red has a mid to dark value , and yellow is a much lighter value. This is why if you ever look at my work, the color I use for shadows lean into blue/purple tones. You can also have warm shadows since red does have a deeper value compared to yellow. But these values are when the primary colors are at the highest saturation. What would happen if we knocked down the saturation levels?

The values start to become more similar. Since we're not always using the most saturated colors, it's important to understand the values behind the colors you'll use. Once you unlock that, you can pretty much do whatever you want with color haha. That's why I hardly ever use black or white in my digital art when mixing (also I don't mix color with a brush, I just pick from the color wheel which might be insane).

While it's not wrong to use white or black to create darker/lighter colors, color in real life doesn't always act that way. Shadows and highlights can have color. For myself, letting go of white and black has opened a world of color combinations that I didn't think of before taking my first ever traditional painting class. Now, I can freely pick colors and experiment with palettes since I've blocked out what values I need (like the image below).

Even if I'm using blending modes like in the next image, I'm always thinking about making clear value separations. If I can't understand the image in black and white, then I'll have a hard time seeing it in color.

And when you get very comfortable, you can start placing characters in different color environments and match them (which essentially is the job of a color designer in TV animation).

The right image is the official color palette for my character which already uses a lot of blue/purple for the shadows. But on the left side, she's in a night-time environment so I leaned even more into the cool colors to the point that the white T-shirt is actually a very very light purple/pink color haha.

Or like this example where the left drawing gives a more sunset/golden hour lighting while the right one is more blue hour/night time lighting. But you can read the colors clearly 'cause the values are clear to begin with. While that wasn't really a tutorial this is pretty much my thought process when I'm coloring my digital works. ^^; I very much do follow an academic approach to color theory but even then I think it's okay to break the rules. As long as you have understanding of colors' value, I think you'll be able to unlock any color style you want! I hope that answered your question and was helpful!

[finnfrei]

Hey there, i love your art very much!! Especially the recent BG3 portraits. As someone who's switching to digital art and works with colour for the first time, could i ask: how do you figure out the right colours for your drawings? Do you premake a pallete, or pick one colour and then work from there or something else? Any tips would be welcome, keep drawing ❤️

Hey! Ah, thank you so much, I really appreciate it!

That’s a tough question to be honest. I find myself struggling with colors almost every time.

As I start an illustration I mostly have a rough idea what I want it to look like colorwise. Basically there’re two ways for me when it comes to coloring.

1. If it’s something more simple like a portrait or a character design, I tend to pick one base color and paint the whole object. From there I adjust each separate part such as hair, clothes, etc by moving slightly along the color wheel and changing the darkness and saturation depending on whether for example hair should be darker or lighter. For me personally in that case I prefer using analogous (picture below) colors and maybe add some complimentary (on the opposite side of the wheel) colors for highlights or backgrounds.

2. If I get too lost in the color choices, I scroll through illustrations of other artists I like and choose some that would suit the general mood best. Procreate and, I believe, CSP have a function where you can create a color pallet from a picture. I’m sure you could find some similar web or app, if your software doesn’t have the feature. Then I just use the colors from the pallet and build up on them, adjust according to what seems to work best for me.

Although if I had to give some basic tips based on personal preferences:

1. Never use black, avoid using white. I prefer using dark and saturated blue, purple, red instead of black. Light and less saturated base color instead of white.

2. In general I prefer working with more saturated colors, but got to be careful, not to overdo it, not to create crazy colorful mess. But again that’s my personal preference.

3. Avoid using too much different colors. I mostly try to stick to three, max four colors in one illustration and just use their adjusted versions (darker/lighter, more/less saturated) for shadows and highlights.

4. Contrast is more important than colors.

Guess, that’s what comes to mind first, hope it makes sense at least a little. In general I’m really chaotic when it comes to colors, so I’m probably not the best person to give advices. However, if you have any questions, I’ll be happy to try and help as much as I can.

Good luck on your creative journey!

[y-rhywbeth2]

Lore: Elven Culture #1

(An incomplete compilation.) Link: Disclaimer regarding D&D "canon" & Index [tldr: D&D lore is a giant conflicting mess and it's borderline impossible to cover everything. Larian's lore is also a conflicting mess. You learn to take what you want and leave the rest]

Elves Physiology | Culture | Surface Elves | Religion | History | Homelands | Half-elves --- WIP

--- How to flip somebody off in elven culture. Random elven pan-cultural highlights ranging from marital traditions to poker.

Key elven philosophical concepts that inform their entire cultures. Farming, architecture, opinions on undeath, stages of life (Astarion's 200 years too old to be acting like an ardavanshee, but there we go)

Default elven society, including the family units (Clans and Houses), nobility, and the absolute monarchies with the divine right of kings that're tasked with herding cats.

Forewarning, this is a long post! And I still cut stuff... I was going to include the specifics of the seven individual surface elven cultures, but it was getting too damn long.

---

Random little things before we get into the wordy stuff:

The equivalent to giving somebody the finger amongst elves is to crook the middle finger inwards towards oneself and then bring it upwards in a diagonal movement across the body. For the greatest show of insolence, the elf in question may then hold eye contact and slowly lick the tip of that finger. I have no context for how this come to be, or why it's insulting, but I'm sure it's quite the story.

Elves rarely make their piercings out of metal, instead preferring to craft them from the bone of their ancestors and departed loved ones.

The elven term for their own people is Tel'Quessir ("of the people," or simply "the people). The name refers to the fact that all elves are inherently spiritually linked to each other, the Seldarine and the Weave. They are capable of a form of low-level telepathy where they can share emotions, surface level thoughts and reverie with each other. As a result, non-elves who are not part of this interconnected whole are N'Tel'Quessir or N'Quess - "not of the people."

The elven spirit, or soul, is referred to as ues. The ability for elves to link their minds and share feelings and thoughts is a state referred to as "communion."

The elven term for "stick-in-the-mud" is irrquarlan - which I'd imagine is often used by moon and copper elves to refer to sun elves.

When an issue is considered to be "black and white" - as in a choice lacking any moral ambiguity, where one is wrong and the other right - elves would say it is "sun and moon," as in anybody with working eyes can tell the difference between sunlight and moonlight.

The elven equivalent of "no shit sherlock" is “Trees grow, no?”

Elves have a gambling game called kholiast, involving a deck of over 1,000 cards. The hands are determined randomly by dice roll, and the point system would apparently "drive even the most dedicated Candlekeep scholar completely mad." Needless to say, moon elves love it and probably invented it.

Haven't found much on elven coinage, but the one familiar in human lands is the "blueshine" coins; silver coins with a blue-green lustre bearing the image of a crescent moon (the holy symbol of Corellon Larethian). Presumably equivalent to a silver coin in any currency.

While they can be made of the materials used in reality, elven bowstrings may be crafted from spider silk (especially if of dark elven make), elven hair, and sometimes magically-treated spun silver.

Elven fashion varies by specific culture, location and individual tastes. The trend is for loose and flowing garments with no footwear (except for the sun elves, who refuse to go out in public without some kind of shoes). An alternative to shoes is to use some kind of minor magical accessory that allows one to hover just above the ground, able to glide around without getting one's feet dirty or damaged. They tend to have few or no taboos about nudity, so garments may be quite revealing. Elves believe that their dress should be a reflection of their home nation, and the peace and prosperity that it cultivates.

-

The generic term of reference for ones committed romantic partners is one's "mate." Elves practice marriage, and the terms "husband" and "wife" have been seen, although it seems "consort" is just as - if not more - popular.

Elven marriages may be sealed through the use of one or two lower level High Magic rituals;

Quamaniith, "the vow made tangible," causes a vow made to be woven into physical form. In the case of a wedding, it's about the size of a fist. It usually takes the form of a stone, carved with inscriptions relating to the vow, though artistic mages may craft a figurine. When used for marriage vows, the created object is called an Aestar'Khol, a "marriage stone." Should the two divorce, or betray their vows, the stone will shatter. There is no other way to damage it, it will always remain perfectly unblemished.

U'Aestar'Kess, "One Heart, One Mind, One Breath" - this ritual creates a permanent passive mental bond between an elf and another living being (who may also be an elf), and it sees use most often as part of marriage rites. It allows the linked beings to know instinctively when their partner is in danger, detect and sometimes share their mood, and if they concentrate they can communicate telepathically.

-

Due to the fact that elves don't sleep, instead spending four hours in reverie, an elven home will not include a bedroom. Personal rooms resemble something closer to studies and sitting rooms; furnished with comfortable chairs, lounges and divans, furnished with personal affects and whatever projects the owner might be working on.

The other side effect of the reverie is that since elves have a full 20 hours of activity, can see just fine at night, and don't necessarily have fixed sleeping hours, elven communities don't fluctuate in activity levels. Villages, towns and cities will be as busy in the dead of the night as they are at every hour, and elves have more free time than others.

-

Elves have perfected birth control. While technically the magic rituals involved in this came about for practical reasons - including ensuring a child would not be conceived in harsh conditions like famines, plagues and wars, where its birth would cause suffering for both it and its family - elves now just use it as an everyday thing when they don't want to get pregnant. No elf will be having children if they don't want them, those who do want them will only be conceiving them when they intend to, and attempting to change their mind will be considered an infringement of their personal freedoms and bodily autonomy, and be met with hostility.

-

Linguistics: The elven language is called Lalur, "the Singing." All elven languages are written in the Espruar script, which has two forms. One features more loops and curls, and the other features a series of curved lines, dots and dashes, which has come into fashion more recently. Another elven language is Seldruin, which is almost extinct. It's the language used in the casting of elven High Magic, and is written in a unique script called Hamarfae.

Local dialects, informal and formal registers and drifts occur all over the place.

Elven accents are usually described as "musical" - they tend to pronounce "s" softly, drawing it out and their voices shift up and down the vocal register more than is usual. Elven vocal chords are odd, allowing them to reach over an octave-and-a-half, which they can sustain for longer than a human could. Elven vocal chords are capable of producing two completely different notes at the same time. The overall effect of the elven voice and accent is likened to chiming, or little bells.

Elven songs are usually either wordless vocalisation, or feature multiple overlapping voices singing different lyrics. The typical "mood" of the music varies by culture: for example, sun elves prefer solemn songs with gravitas; wood elves enjoy a good rhythm; moon elves prefer something fun, whimsical, and sometimes bawdy. Some elves have a rare genetic quirk that allows them to use their vocal chords to speak two different things at the same time; the "secondary" voice is much fainter, and limited, but in music is allows the singer to produce a layered, echoing quality.

Elven musical performances feature galadrae - three dimensional illusions depicting scenes to go along with the song, not dissimilar to what one might see at a modern concert.

Musical instruments most often seen are woodwinds and strings, especially harps (which are strongly associated with elves). Elves are the only people thus far who have worked out how to build their instruments to be capable of sustain. Elven music has been compared (out of universe) to Enya, Loreena McKennit, Genesis and ELO.

Music and song is an important part of romance in elven culture... alongside erotic dances, apparently. But anyway, courting is accomplished by writing each other love songs and singing them to each other, or by composing poems for similar effect.

Non-elven languages are rather charmingly referred to as Glahkery, which translates into something like "strifeful sounds."

-

Key Philosophies: An important part of elven cultures is the concept of laraelever - technically referring to undamaged forest, "as it should be." This does not mean nature should be "pristine" or untouched by humanoid life. It means that the way the world is found in its untouched state, unmodified by another's desire, is how it is meant to be. The lives of others should not impose on the world more than they need to. The natural world is to be without blight, unburnt and unharmed by careless logging, overhunting or depletion of resources.

It also applies to the elven approach to life and the passage of time: things will generally occur when they're ready and grow/proceed at the speed they're intended to. One should never rush. Non-elves and younger elves tend to find this attitude incredibly frustrating, while "adult" elves find them dangerously impatient.

This may also be a part of why elven cultures tend to value independence and individual freedom - that one must "accept life as it is", implies you can't force things to be anything else.

The "way life is supposed to be" does not include dark magics that tamper with natural cycles, and the elven word for undeath is mormhaor - "corrupted death." Undeath is a blasphemous attempt to impose one's will on the world and force it into a shape in the most horrific way possible, and is heavily tied to the loss and violation of free will, and its believed that undeath destroys the soul (whether this is correct or not in D&D varies by source). The state is generally considered worse than death - the elf is cut off from their people, their gods and their path, and denied their chance for spiritual enlightenment and the afterlife. The sole acceptable form of undeath exists in the baelnorn; a form of elven lich that was created willingly and is sustained by positive energy instead of negative, in the name of continuing some duty or other for the sake of their people. They are sponsored by the Seldarine, and tolerated by the elven deity of death. Elves respect their sacrifice, but are usually still uneasy around them.

This philosophy appears in the rest of their societies in the way that they build their homes and furniture; a chair may be "constructed" of wood that was carefully grown into shape and harvested with careful consideration to the timing, rather than by unnecessarily cutting down an entire living tree and taking more wood than is technically needed and whittling it down to shape.

Elven architecture is built to complement its natural surroundings, blending in with it. The design concept is that a building should seen as much a part of the landscape as the trees or mountains and enhance their beauty. To help these buildings blend in, elven doors are designed to disappear into their surroundings, and they can be incredibly annoying for outsiders to spot (elven children grow up learning to see them, and so elves don't have this problem).

Buildings are preferably constructed by growing trees into shape rather than by constructing from timber or stone. If they are made of stone, they're still usually "grown" by shaping them with magic, creating a seamless mineral structures.

From non-elven perspectives, an elven city resembles a garden or park more than a settlement. They favour building in the trees themselves more than anything else (for example, the city of Suldanessellar in Baldur's Gate 2 is built on platforms built around the trees, high in the canopy). The higher constructions are linked by bridges and swinging ropes.

Ground dwellings are typically built for children, the elderly, and the disabled, and others who might be unsafe with heights and getting up and down them. It's also where elven realms that have contact with outsiders build their inns, taverns, warehouses and businesses. Elves don't clear the area a great deal when building their ground dwellings, their roads and streets are built around pre-existing natural structures and can meander a lot.

The ground level and higher parts of the city may be linked by teleport magics and enchanted platforms that function as lifts/elevators.

This preference to leave things untouched doesn't mean that elves never alter the world for their own desires - especially since obsessive, eccentric artists are a staple of the elven population. Wealthy Houses are known to make roofing materials out of precious stones. Some cities, such as Leuthilspar, get artistic with their roads. The main road there is magically constructed from some kind of glassy, clear crystal and is nicknamed the Diamond Road.

Each building typically belongs to a single Clan or House (often the building is an entire living, ancient tree), and if they belong to a culture that builds tombs, they will also have a family tomb. The rest of the city, outside of residential buildings, is not considered owned by the elves but simply under their care and stewardship. It belongs to the other lives as much as them. Elven communities often have neighbours from other fey races; dryads, faerie dragons, treants, fauns, nymphs, pixies, etc. Elves and fey tend to be relatively close, and the elven and seelie fey pantheons are often worshipped by all of them.

Elves do not farm in pastures and fields - it's more that they cultivate the world around them without disturbing it too much (I don't remember the technical agricultural jargon here.) They'll try not to disturb the rest of the ecosystem too much, but elven farmers will nurture the plants they desire while removing harmful plants and pests. They don't introduce plants or disturb the soil, merely encourage what's already there for healthier and higher yields of whatever grows. A lot of outsiders can easily stroll through a farm without realising it. Farmers are the only elves who count the passing of years, due to the need to keep track of crop yields and the ages of plants and animals. The equivalent of a year to elves is a grouping of four years known as an aeloulaev, or more commonly as a pyesigen - "four snows" (plural pyesigeni).

While Houses might have their lorekeepers, who preserve and record history, the typical elven opinion on time tends to be that "history is the weave of things outside of life, not for those still within its loom." They see history in their reverie, they don't need to worry about it in their waking hours.

-

Yet another elven philosophy is of the Road of Life: a multi-staged, twisting spiritual path every elf walks, and one with many potential branching paths to explore.

It is, in part, a shared path because all elves are part of the greater whole that is the Tel'Quessir - but at the same time, no elf can walk the path for another. All should care for the community and support fellow elves in being able to walk their path, so that the community can support them as they walk theirs; “We are on this shared path together, but at the same time all of us are finding our own way.”

Elves under 100 years old are walking the first section of the road. Their life experience and perspective is the equivalent of a human of the same age. They don't yet perceive time and think in terms of the passage of decades and centuries as a "mature" elf does, and from their elder's perspective are incredibly (annoyingly) impatient. Due to this gap in understanding, young elves often find themselves more comfortable in the company of humans, who share their feelings and perceptions.

It's the elves in their first stage of the road who are usually found adventuring and living in human cities, they're "whimsical dabblers, ‘flighty’ and inclined to plunge into something new or [grow] tired of something and move on without feeling the need to shoulder responsibilities, or [care] overmuch about consequences," "...almost like the humans in their passions of youth, and they adapt to their more transient surroundings. They eat over-spiced animal flesh and other abominable foods; they wield simpler, cruder, combat-oriented human magics; and they even mate with non-elves."

These younger elves, in the throes of rebellious youth and lack of patience, may be prone to selfishness, ruthless ambition and disrespecting their elders as they turn their nose up at elven values. This particular phase is referred to as Ardavanshee - "the restless young ones."

Older elves mostly leave the youth alone to make their own mistakes, assuming they'll grow out of their crueller and selfish behaviours with time and experience.

An elf under 90 years old is not considered experienced enough to be allowed to hold leadership positions.

All elves will begin their journey on the road with a basic magical education during childhood: Magic is an everyday part of elven cultures at every level of society, and every elf grows up surrounded by it. Even the copper elves, who have little interest in arcane magic, surround themselves with druidry.

Basic martial training in traditional elven martial arts is also part of the standard for all elven cultures, involving the bow, sword and rapier - elven blades tend towards being long, very thin and flexible. Elves have a long and bloody history of conflict, and every one of them is be expected to be able to defend themselves and their home, should the need arise.

Whatever other education their family sets for them, elves have childhoods much like any other race's children. They learn their history through creative retellings form their elders and are let loose to run around and engage in physical activities - climbing trees and swimming. They're taken to play in the outdoors and encouraged to take interest in the natural world, learning of the animals and plants they share the world with.

Reaching the elven age of majority, and the second stage of the path, occurs some time in their second century of life (120 years old, on average). As they mature and outlive the human lifespan they tend to settle into the elven ways, and focus on their spiritual ties to their communities and faith.

Mature elves typically take things very slowly. They spend a lot of time in contemplation, consider all facets and nuances in a problem, and try to predict all potential consequences that could be born of a choice (even those domino effects that may occur decades after the fact). They prefer to implement these choices very slowly, watching what ripples are caused through the course of years and responding accordingly - they may continue, stop, or make revisions as they go.

Occasionally an "adult" finds themselves drawn back to adventuring and a faster paced life outside of the elven homelands. This is accepted as simply a natural part of that elf's particular path.

The other branch on the road is one where an elf finds a passion and devotes themselves to it; fine art, playwriting, magic, architecture, the martial arts, literature, faith, music, whatever. They become hyperfixated on whatever has caught their eye; they keep the company of others who share their interest and talk about it to the exclusion of almost everything else (others are warned to beware engaging an elf in conversation about a topic dear to them, because they will tell you every single detail there is to know and will not stop).

Elves will dedicate months and years preparing for their projects; spending time in reverie and contemplation as they meditate on ideas, praying to the gods for guidance, and traveling leagues to gather materials and discuss with experts or observe others' works for inspiration.

The last stages of the road are stages of seeking spiritual enlightenment; they reflect on their long lives and many, many experiences with the world and contemplate the bigger picture and the nature of the universe and the People. They will begin to feel the Seldarine calling to them in their reverie, summoning them to the afterlife in Arvandor (Sehanine Moonbow's call, in particular).

The mythical final stage, occurring past 700 years of age, is one where an elf's contemplation successfully leads them to enlightenment. They become at peace, and their understanding puts them in perfect unity with the universe. These elves are faced with the choice of returning to Arvandor to join the gods, or to remain in the mortal world and use their wisdom to guide their people. Thus far the only elf said to have achieved this state was the elven queen Amlaruil, who chose to stay behind.

---

All this philosophy aside, elves still run businesses, have class and wealth divides and squabble amongst each other for power and prestige like anybody else does. The common elf is a priest, a guard, a farmer, a hunter, a cook, a maid, a tavernmaster... In daily life, most of the daily function of the realm involves cultivating the plants that grow in it (farming, construction, maintenance) and security (scouting, guarding, patrolling).

Although, elven society is steeped in magic all over the place, so in regards to things like maids and household chores, elves are more likely to simply use magic to clean the house and lessen the amount of physical labour involved.

---

Society (Houses and Clans, and the Government):

The concept of the Merchant Clans and Noble Houses aren't unique to drow; these family dynasties are part of larger elven culture, be they categorised as high, wood or dark. All elves are part of a larger extended family, known either as a House or a Clan, from which they take their surname.

Elves will generally be loyal to their Clan and House before their nation, and they have their own laws that members must follow, generally set by the matriarch or patriarch (the later only existing in non-drow cultures). Some have multiple leaders, ranging from a duo (House Nightstar is governed by twin sisters) to a council of elders. Each clan/house has different methods for choosing their leader/s, some are hereditary and others are elected. For larger Houses that span multiple regions, there will be a hierarchy with local leaders who answer to a family head that oversees the entire bloodline.

Elven nobility belong to Houses, which are generally known for each having certain political ideologies, and they often specialise in training their members in specific skills.

The elven concept of "aristocracy" is granted by a ruler, who makes that elf and their clan a Noble House as a reward for some exceptional service to elvenkind (this is very hard to achieve). The status cannot be revoked by a ruler, nobles can only be exiled and stripped of their House name by their own family.

Some families restrict their membership, and will not acknowledge the spouses or children of their relatives who are of certain elven cultures, non-elven races or half-elves. As a rule of thumb, moon elven culture would frown upon excluding anybody of elven blood from the family. Everybody tends to make an exception for drow - you are not bringing a dark elf into this family tree. Houses may adopt others into their family, and it's also possible for a House to adopt N'Quess into their ranks, usually as servants (so one could find a human cook who happens to be a member of an elven House).

Houses are generally associated with a specific elven culture, although the family usually contains a mixture of backgrounds. House Le'Quella, for example, has prominent mixed moon elven and green elven ancestry. The copper elves have mostly abandoned the concept of Houses, though some prestigious and historically important ones remain. Green elven cultures have long forsaken the concept, along with most of the trappings of the elven society that caused them thousands of years of suffering. Sun elves pay greater attention to their elders and important ancestors, and consider their Houses more "legitimate" than moon elven or wood elven Houses, and take House politics and affiliation far more seriously. Due to this, their Houses usually hold greater status than those of other elves'. Within the vast majority of dark elven societies, House affiliation and prestige is a matter of life and death, and being without a House to protect you leaves you open to enslavement and death.

Each House has two colours associated with it (sometimes they have more, less strongly associated colours), as well as an insignia (for example House Aelorothi's colours are pale blue and green, with a red swan for a crest. House Starym's colours are silver and maroon, with two falling silver dragons on the crest.) It seems like Clans may also have colours and insignias, but that may only be for the most prestigious of them. Even within the larger Houses, there will be members of the House who are nobility, and those who are common servants and footmen.

Clans and Houses are not tied to specific realms, and members and family units may be encountered anywhere in the world. "It's a mistake to think of elven Houses as equivalent to human [noble] Houses [...] in some respects you can almost think of an elven House as a small, extremely long-lived organisation with blood-ties."

Some Houses have existed for over 10,000 years, and these houses usually boast the highest status.

Status is a fluctuating thing; it depends on many factors such as wealth and prestige, the actions and reputation of its members, its relationship with other houses (feuds and alliances), how many powerful and talented mages - especially High Mages - it hold in its ranks...

Elven Houses may have smaller, related Houses attached to them called Septs, much like human dynasties have cadet branches. Septs are formed when a noble marries a commoner and takes their clan name, rather than having their lover marry into their House. A Greater House has many Septs, and a Lesser House fewer or none.

Arranged marriages do - or did - exist. They're primarily practiced as part of House politics, mainly by sun elves, and this historically caused some irritation in the time of Myth Drannor, when the Houses started using arranged marriages to call dibs on promising mages to bolster their own family's retinues and reputations. When elves marry, the elf of the less prestigious Clan/House will be considered as marrying into their spouse's more prominent Clan/House.

Surface elven Houses are as prone to intrigue and politicking as their Underdark equivalents, but they are significantly less likely to murder over it.

-

Most surface elven realms are city states, ruled by a Coronal, who is "speaker among the trees with Corellon's voice and bidding."

While this means that Coronal has absolute authority, the assumed role of the ruler is to keep the peace and maintain harmony between the various elven peoples and Houses within their realm. On an individual level, elves won't necessarily respond well to attempts to meddle in their personal lives, and sometimes trying to organise the masses is like herding cats.

The Coronal's word is law, but the entire realm may discuss and debate it before that word becomes law, and the Coronal cannot pass a law before at least a month has passed since its proposal.

While elves must accept the law of the land once made, mass migrations of entire clans and houses are known to occur in response to an unpopular proclamation as the elves leave for somewhere they don't have to listen (assuming the response isn't something more along the lines of an assassination...). While they might move to another elven settlement entirely, these elves won't necessarily leave the geographic area, they may simply settle on a patch just outside of the Coronal's jurisdiction and govern themselves. Sometimes elves just build an entire demiplane (small alternate universe) and move there instead.

In larger realms, such as the former empire of Cormanthyr, the Coronal oversees the realm and the individual cities within are been governed by a local council made up of the heads of the most influential Houses, who govern the minutia of daily life in their own city and have no influence outside of it.

Coronal is not usually an inherited position (especially in the modern day). How one achieves the position varies by place. In Cormanthyr, this was determined by blade-rite. The applicant draws an enchanted, sentient blade from its sheath, and the sword judges their intentions for the power they seek. If it decides they don't have the Tel'Quessir's wellbeing at heart and will abuse their power, then it kills them on the spot.

Rulers are advised by a council of elders, who as always are usually the family heads of the local Houses.

Larger surface elven society saw a slight shift towards matriarchy in the reign of Queen Amlaruil Moonflower on Evermeet, and women usually wield the most influence in elven politics.

The entirety of elvendom was technically ruled by a (popular) royal family at one point, situated in Evermeet. However the queen has vanished in the last century, and it seems the monarchy no longer applies. Even when she was alive, some of the elves were merely humouring the notion and didn't pay it much mind. Loyalty came mostly because she was likable and her people felt she cared for them and served them well.

Nobility is defined as the Houses in "good standing." Those who possess more "wealth" - although elves don't value things like gold the way others do, so they don't put the same weight on it - and those who have a fancier family history, which gives the family more weight when councils convene to make realm-wide decisions about enterprises and social policies being made for the good of all.

Some particularly arrogant Houses feel they have "claim" to a particular patch of forest, in the same way a human noble might claim estates, but nobody else would agree with them, and collective elven society considers the world outside of their front doors to be public property that happens to be under the People's care.

While no house is beholden to the realm it resides in, and owes no duties, society expects the elven aristocracy to provide warriors, funds and resources to the wellbeing of the realm as a matter of honour. In peacetime this means providing the guard patrols and hunting parties, and providing for the sick and elderly of their communities who require aid.

---

While the dwarves and some human cultures can give them a run for their money, elves are quite possibly the proudest people on Toril. Theirs was the first and longest humanoid empire, theirs is the greatest grasp of magic, theirs is the longest lived of the common races of Toril, theirs is the blood that runs in the veins of a god... Suffice to say, the People tend towards being arrogant and stubborn. It never occurs to a number of elves that their ways might not be the way, and between that and their resistance to being governed when the rulers want to change things, the dwarves have invented a saying regarding attempting to change their minds on something: "If you want to tell an elf what to do, be sure to bring your axe."

Where the halflings and gnomes blend in, elves (and dwarves) are the most likely to stand out as distinct, separate cultures within human cities. On average they're proud of their history and their ways of life, and won't be trading them for others. How aloof they are exactly will depend on factors like personality, and how fairly treated they feel they are being by their neighbours.

[thefreelanceangel]

Tagged: Character Details

Imayo Mikomori

BASICS:

Nicknames: N/A Age: She believes she's roughly twenty-five Nameday: 15th Sun, 4th Umbral Moon Race: Raen Au Ra Gender: Cis Female Orientation: Pansexual (in theory -- she's never had a partner) Profession: Tattoo artist (specializing in irezumi) - herbalist/alchemist - exorcist

PHYSICAL ASPECTS:

Hair: Inky black, with dark blue highlights Eyes: Crystalline white with black limbal rings, no discernable pupils Skin: Deathly, ghostly white with blue undertones, with a disproportionately large percentage of her body covered with reptilian dull black scales Tattoos/Scars: A thin, ragged line across her throat, now concealed by the scales which grew over her throat when an alchemical tonic caused a physical reaction. Notably, Imayo no longer has horns. The same tonic that caused excessive scale growth also caused her horn material to die and slough off. She now must rely on a linkpearl to hear most high-frequency sounds, and keeps a linkpearl embedded into a scale where her right horn used to be.

FAMILY:

Parents: Hisako Mikomori (M) [Deceased] / Tomoki Koizumi (F) [Deceased] Hisako Mikomori, the last living Mikomori of a declining samurai family, volunteered as a miko to serve at an isolated shrine in order to provide her ancestors with the proper homage. While serving, she was introduced to the Koizumi family who wished a 'ghost marriage' made to placate the restless spirit of their eldest son, Tomoki. Hisako agreed to perform the ceremony and was cast out of the shrine five months later when it became evident she was pregnant. No one believed her tale of Tomoki possessing a pilgrim to the shrine to have a proper wedding night and she was forced to live on the Koizumi family's sufferance. Siblings: N/A Grandparents: The Koizumi patriarch, Takamori, returned Imayo to the shrine her mother had served at and died shortly after Hisako Mikomori's suicide. In-Laws & Others: N/A As a "shadowborn" (the product of a ghost marriage) Imayo is considered bad luck [at best] and shunned by the majority of Kugane's populace. Only the desperate come to her small herbalist shop for aid during daylight hours. Her closest affiliates are criminals who come to her for irezumi tattoo work. They provide protection on a "tit for tat" basis, including guarding her shop when Imayo's called away by the priests of her mother's shrine to perform exorcisms.

SKILLS:

Abilities: As a 'shadowborn,' Imayo has a particularly strong affinity for the dead and serves as a reibai (medium) or exorcist when needed. She is able to see, hear, and speak to the dead. She is also capable of creating ofuda for protection, banishing spirits, and can sense yokai. Years of careful study have given her a wide range of knowledge about the spirit world she interacts with daily. She is also knowlegable about herbalism and alchemy, concocting tonics and potions to sell as they're requested. Hobbies: With … a lot of time on her hands, Imayo practices calligraphy, sewing, herbalism, the tea ceremony, Doman mahjong… She also reads excessively and studies cookbooks, curious about cuisines in other lands.

TRAITS:

Most Positive: Imayo is resilient. Despite her precarious start in life, her precarious position in society, and her lack of… basic human connections, she still finds beauty in the world and is determined to create a life for herself in which she can find a measure of contentment. Most Negative: Imayo expects to be rejected and will often read rejection where perhaps none was extended. She's reluctant to open up about her birth, her health, her life in general as she's received poor responses in the past and just… doesn't want to get her hopes up again.

LIKES:

Colors: Vibrant sunset colors are Imayo's favorites. Rich, warm colors seem so out of place in her life (she tends to wear black and grey as she feels that beautiful colors are wasted on her particular coloration) that she appreciates them whenever and wherever she encounters them. Smells: Pine (which she loves the scent of, but also can't smell without feeling a pang of sadness) and roses Textures: High quality silk, worn tatami mats, book pages, warm living skin beneath her hands when she's creating a tattoo Drinks: Green tea, hibiscus tea, sakura tea, sake, fresh well water

OTHER DETAILS:

Smokes: Never. Imayo's health is particularly fragile and she can't risk anything that might cause her chronic illness, such as smoke-damaged lungs. Drinks: Rarely. She will very occasionally have a small cup of sake. Drugs: Only medicinal herbs. Mount Issuance: Animals dislike Imayo's presence, becoming unruly and edgy when she's nearby, so she's never sought to purchase her own mount. If she needs to travel, she's made arrangements with a fellow merchant who has an elderly chocobo that is… as accustomed to her presence as an animal can be. Been Arrested: No.

Tagged By: @gatheredfates

Tagging: @luck-and-larceny; @dumb-hat; @otherworldseekers; @chainsofaether; @sealrock; @ungrateful-cyborg; @iron-sparrow; @ahollowgrave; @shroudkeeper; @pettyeti and I think Sea and I will overlap if I'm not careful, so if you see it, YOU'RE TAGGED.

[ello-sims]

Whew, long time no upload! Partly a busy start to the summer but also because I wanted to finally, at long last, get this followers' gift out for you guys! I hit 2500 + followers a little while ago and was just so overwhelmed that my little lockdown escapism has been shown so much support. Thank you guys! I come armed with gifts to show my appreciation, in three parts and I'm super excited because I'm sharing stuff I've not done before. Starting off with some default eyes 😌

Maxis eyes defaulted with @entropy-sims Remussirion’s Indel eyes 4to2 and @mouseyblue Black Eyes.

(non-squished preview - thanks tumblr...)

This mouseyblue set (which I can't find an original link to, just in her mediafire file grrr) has always, always been my favourite and I always hoped they'd release an eyeset in a similar style to make a full set of defaults but they never did. When I ran across entropy's eyeset I thought the size, shape and placement of the highlights could work and they do! I think they look really good as a complete set!

One thing to note about these defaults: as I believe mouseyblue wrote in the original download, making sims of certain ethnicities is kinda hard because the brown eye colours are always too pale. I made this set because I wanted a dark eyeshade that I felt could be used convincingly on black and asian sims. I also wanted a paler brown as well so sacrificed the dark blue for it. It's only an aesthetic difference and if you take my set out, they'll go back to having blue eyes. With this default though, sims like Dustin Broke will now have brown eyes instead of dark blue for example.

While I was at it, I also chucked the rest of the indel eyes set into wardrobe wrangler and geneticised/townified them so you can enjoy the full spectrum of this gorgeous set. Entropy has kindly allowed me to share them with you too. Please remove her set if you are using these ones, as they will conflict. I haven't done any supernatural versions as I don't tend to play with them but happy to add them if anyone would like them! 😊

indel / black eyes as defaults | indel eyes geneticised

As I said, Mouseyblue's set is my fave, so why default one swatch from it when I can default all of them?

Maxis eyes defaulted with @mouseyblue Black Eyes

(non-squished preview)

I thought these might be useful for simmers playing in a hood/world with a dominant ethnic group or you just really like the aesthetics of the dark eyes 😊 to get the most out of this set, I suggest downloading this mod alongside it, so babies have an equal chance of getting any of the 'shades' in this set. Not a requirement though!

Download Mouseyblue's black eyes as defaults

Just a quick reminder that you can't have both defaults in at the same time. indel / black eyes defaults and indels geneticised are intended to be used as a set so you can download both!

And that's part 1! Look out for the next two parts in a little bit 😊

[riacte]

Been reading dearly beloathed (and thoroughly enjoying it mind you) (the GC screenies chat loves Reina btw) and I’m genuinely so curious as to how you imagine their superhero fits/ them in general. Obvs tachy has his angler fish get up but what about Balefire and the rest :0 do you have any designs or descriptions or just ideas for the characters designs :D?

Hi thanks for reading and glad you like it! Quick Picrews from this link:

(Left to right, top to bottom: Lyra, Ben, Archie, Reina, Cora, Balefire/Uma)

Then my art: Uma with various shadow blobs, Lyra + Ben (part of this larger piece with their OC predecessors)

More detailed descriptions:

Balefire: brown skin, shoulder length black hair, brown eyes, thick eyebrows, strong nose, has a prominent glare (at least, from Tach’s pov). Slightly shorter than average. Fairly well built. Has a black scar on her chest from Tach. Likes wearing yellow. I haven’t quite decided on her hero costume but it’s black + reddish orange and has flame motifs. She probably added some phoenix motifs after her reappearance. (She didn’t start off with them.)

Tachythanatous: was obnoxiously into emo culture as a teen (belt buckles, straps, studded pads, metal chains, etc). Anglerfish inspired helmet with a dangly light that changes colours. The dangly light has a practical purpose of providing a light source in case he’s trapped in complete darkness as his shadows cannot appear. (Think Pride from Fullmetal Alchemist.) Sometimes he makes the light multicoloured so he can vibe to Caramelldansen. Dressed in black + dark blue. Probably has platform boots for the heck of it. Has a swishy cape because he’s dramatic. Surprisingly skinny (his suit is well padded for protection). He doesn’t have much strength as he heavily relies on his speed and his shadows. Without his speed and shadows, Bale can easily punt him into the sky while he goes “YIPPPPPEEEEEeeeeeeeeee 💫”.

Tach is usually in his suit. If he’s not, he’s covering up his skin with long sleeves + pants. When Bale stayed with him, sometimes Tach was too lazy to suit up so he would just walk out with a big black rectangle covering his body like a glitch in the matrix. Like imagine a stressed out Balefire with a headache coping with a complete 180 of the status quo waiting for the kettle to boil and then this floating black rectangle ominously enters into the kitchen like 🧍 “morning nemesis”.

Lyra: light skin, straight black hair with blue highlights, black eyes. Puts on hair clips and likes wearing her hair in a braid (she’s been growing out her hair for a while). Has a stoic resting face so people used to be intimidated by her until they learn she’s just a shivering pathetic wet cat. Her ears turn red when she blushes. Tall and lanky. Doesn’t like to show her legs and wears trousers and long skirts. Wears blue, grey, black, and yellow.

Ben: tan skin, short cropped hair, big brown eyes. A bit scrawny. Dresses like a tour guide at a marine park (orange shirt, cargo pants). Likes clothes with pockets despite owning a pocket dimension. (Maybe it’s his brand?) He’s clumsy and falls over like a piece of toast.

Archie: fair skin, wispy blond hair, watery blue eyes. Wears glasses. Likes vests and jackets. Wears in shades of green, beige, and brown. He tends to layer clothes and wear clothes made with different materials to practice his superpower of phasing through matter (one of his fears is phasing through a wall but leaving his clothes behind). Also wears accessories such as watches, hats, and chains to train his powers. Has a stocky build but born with a weak constitution.

Reina: fair skin, long straight blond hair to her back, brown eyes, short and stout. She later dyes her bangs black. Wears black and shades of pink (in particular magenta). Likes alt fashion (short skirts, corsets, platform boots). Occasionally wears plum / dark lipstick.

Cora: dark brown skin, shoulder length curls, dark brown eyes. Medium build, average height. When she’s in class, she wears a doctor’s coat. Dresses in shades of purple, green, and white. Her family wants her to dress “demurely” but her actual taste is more casual. Wore more androgynous clothes but leaning towards more feminine clothing lately. Occasionally wears silver eyeliner.

All of the kids can afford whatever they want to wear because the gov pays them to go to hero school. They’re rich kiddos lol.

These are the tentative designs I have of the main cast. Everyone else is more vague lmao

Arcus/Kai: brown hair, brown skin, well built. Has weather manipulation powers so his suit is probably sapphire blue with bits of dark grey

Cinder/Lillian: short hair in a bob, “mousy”, wears glasses, doe eyes, was weak and scrawny during her Academy years. Suit is a mellow yellow with white.

Moxie/Mona: black hair, black eyes. She looks lively and mischievous.

Sentinel/Milo: he’s like your fun uncle at BBQs. Probably wears his hair in a messy ponytail. Suit is maroon probably.

Harrison: brown hair, handsome, photogenic (which Ben complains about in his inner monologue)

Esme: freckled skin, sharp eyes, brown hair in two long braids

Here’s some art I drew of Bale and Tach :)

Also glad your gc likes Reina :D yes yes this is good info to me for plot reasons…. :)

Thanks for the ask <3