#testing out a new art style and this is what i ended up drawing

[ghostlylicious]

GERALT WATCH OUT THERE'S AN EVIL, POWERFUL MAGIC-USER GOING TO MANIPULATE YOUoh wait you're into that

(press for better quality)

[toxycodone]

WHAT ARE YOUR DAISUKE HCS ??? GENERAL AND DATING ??? 🥺🥺🙏🙏

ship. daisuke jaurez (mouthwashing) x reader

content. general + sfw + fluff

an. ummm like and reblog and leave comments or I’ll shave Daisuke bald. also no weird babying Daisuke 💪🏽

General

This is pretty much confirmed he’s Asian + Latino but he’s definitely Japanese/Mexican to me. He’s so SoCal coded it’s absolutely ridiculous. I’m thinking like…he lived close to the border or is from San Francisco or LA and has a lot of family in SoCal.

As far as MBTI goes I’m saying he’s an ESFP/ENFP and as far as Zodiac goes I’m saying Gemini or Cancer.

In his formative years he had a “dank memes” phase. Like, middle/high school Daisuke was a total dork. He was a kid lucky enough to be diagnosed w adhd when he was younger so he was on meds and did EXCEPTIONAL in school. Lived off the praise of teachers. He was especially good at science and math. (Which is why his parents encouraged him to get a mechanic internship).

^adding to this he has adhd + depression (the depression is more of a byproduct of the ADHD tho) and he takes meds!! he probably takes stimmies so he’s personally really concerned about his heart health.

HE HAD AN UGLY DUCKLY PHASE. Glasses + braces king. And he was awkward asf. But he slowly grew into himself and his style. He still has insecurities though and doesn’t think he’s that attractive bc of it.

I don’t think he made it past community college or gen Ed courses though. (He has HELLA test anxiety and despite being smart he sucks hard at ACT/SAT). In college he felt really isolated and it was hard for him to get out there so. He kinda shut down.

To me he’s around 23-25 years old. Old enough to where the pressure to “do something with his life” and figure shit out is hitting hard. But also like, still at an age where you’re first figuring shit out. He’s really insecure about this. Not because he’s stupid or anything he just has NO idea what to do w his life and can’t figure it out.

He had/has a part-time gig at a local art store he absolutely adores. He’s an artist and participated in a lot of local competitions/collabs/etc. he’s made a lot of connections here and wants to be a full time artist BUT this is where his parents draw the line. He’s fought w his parents a few times about this but it ultimately boiled down to “we’re just concerned it won’t pay/etc.”

He begrudgingly accepts this bc he knows it’s bc his parents care so much about him and want him to be successful bc they think he’s a smart guy.

Loves, loves, loves traditions and holidays. He dresses up and decorates for them all. Gets way too excited about seasonal drinks and food specials too LOL.

This is kinda random but. Vaquero Daisuke. Idk what to do with this HC but I think he loves Western style and tried to do horse riding as a kid but his mom enrolled him in DRESSAGE as a kid and he was like THIS IS SO CRINGE.

still enjoys the rodeo though. If he could get back on a horse again he’d do barrel racing.

Grew up having to take his shoes off before going in the House so on the Tulpar he always leaves his shoes neatly by his door to feel some sort of normalcy 💔 (at home he usually kicks them off into a corner and it always annoys his mom)

He has a good relationship with his parents. They really, really try to understand their son and are really patient with him but they don’t want him to end up complacent (he probably has a cousin or two who are too spoiled and his parents HATE that.)

Specially close to his mom though. She spoils him bc that is her BABY and he’s such a sweetheart despite it all it’s hard for her not to (his dad is kinda similar too but is like. Trying to hold back.)

Thrifting god. (Canon from the devs btw.) It doesn’t matter that he has the money for new clothes, he has a passion for scoring unique finds. He’s also a frequent enjoyer of vintage markets and pop up shops. I also personally think he loves farmers markets.

Probably a furry (doesn’t suit up though) and definitely enjoys raves (ask him about his Kandi collection)

Also buys concert tickets for local venues in bulk (like he catches them on sale and like. For a month he’s going to a new venue every weekend for a show). He’s so proud of being into niche musicians.

an avid member of fashiontok. I really think he loves this and reads theories and shit. He has a pretty good following on his fashion/life account. But he really cares the most about his meme account (brainrot enjoyer)

He gets tattoos/piercings instead of therapy (has a belly button ring he adores btw and very much cares about his ear setup. He is still planning it meticulously)

There is 100% a cringy tattoo somewhere dumb he got either drunk or on a bet. Ima headcanoning he has a tattoo of a bee on his knee (genuinely thinks this is a fire tat btw)

Y2K BADDIE. His style inspo is so “male lead and or comic relief in a 2000s romcom”. He’s so nostalgic for the 90s too (he gives me gen Z who clings so hard to being a 90s kid but was like. Born in 1999/1998 LOL)

Brown eyeliner enjoyer. He looks gorgeous.

Has a pinup poster of some girl in his room but it’s mainly just for the aesthetic (again. trying to be like dudes from the 90s/00s movies/TV shows).

Romantic

Okay. This may be against the grain idk but I don’t think he falls first. He just really really wants to be your friend and then it hits him that he has a crush and is like. Oh.

I think he’s a total dork. He’s not 100% inexperienced or whatever and he’s an attractive guy!! But like. His rizz is 0. He’s not the type to like smirk and be sexy he’s just a dork and tells jokes and is a total sweetheart.

Crushing Daisuke is like. Insane. He actually is kinda okay at hiding it but he SO easily gets embarrassed while trying to showcase how cool and confident he is. Like. He won’t try insanely hard before he’s breaking down in laughter BUT. YEAH.

He finds himself trying to learn guitar to impress you or get a new piercing or tattoo bc maybe you’ll think it’s cool then he’s like “oh I’m cooked.” (Verbatim)

Calls you dude/bro/etc regardless of your gender or relationship status. You will be married and he’s like “hey dude”. 💀

He also likes calling you bae/babe (EWWWW *twirls my hair*) and POOKIE LMFAOOOO. calls you baefy too esp if it annoys you.

It’s his earnest attitude that is the hottest thing about him though. His attraction to you is so genuine. When he says he loves you, he means it. ITS SO…YEAH. There’s no doubt about it and the LOOK IN HIS EYES…MY GOOOOOD HES IN LOOOOVE. You are the best thing to him.

It’s really important to him you have a close relationship with his parents. Like, don’t worry it’s not difficult. They may be a little ehhhh at first (I don’t think Daisuke’s judgement is 100% great w romantic partners) but once they see you two interacting it CLICKS. You become a part of the family. You’re always invited to bday parties and dinners and cookouts and everything (his mom is so cool and you guys mix drinks together and his dad has a green egg or blacktop he’s so proud of and teaches you how to use it)

Sends you tiktoks as a means of affection. Like. Your notifs are clogged and it’s because he just has so much to show you (THERES SO MANY ROMANCE ONES MAN then it’ll be like the most brainrot shit you’ve ever seen)

PHYSICAL AFFECTION IS HIS LOVE LANGUAGE OH MY GOD.

Literallt he’s to kiss you every time he sees you or he’s gonna go crazy. He’ll pepper your face in kisses. He can’t resist you’re just SOOOO cute he loves you.

He holds you like a teddy bear when you guys cuddle. If you have your head on his chest you can hear his heart just SLAMMING against his chest and he tries so hard to play it cool but he’s just too full of love.

But he also loves resting on your chest or thighs. Bro falls asleep on you a LOT.

He plays with your hands and fingers. I like to think he does this when you speak to him and then he starts wondering what your index finger would look like with a pretty engagement ring and fantasizes about proposing and a wedding and then you say something and he snaps back into reality.

Passes the orange test or whatever the fuck that is his parents always cut fruit for him so he does the same to you. Will just cut up and apple and be like “hey do you want some?”

I think what he appreciates the most in return from you is verbal praise/reaffirmation. He trusts you so much to be honest with him and values your opinions a lot SO. When you tell him you like him and that he’s handsome and stuff he can let out a sigh of relief bc he actually believes you. You help build up his self confidence. ❤️

@mochiiniko (tagging bc I answered ur ask!)

[dwcmarshalarts]

I adore your style and content - I’m considering doing masters studies of some of your pieces just to try it out, but I’m still fairly new to art. I was curious if there’s any part of your process or any particular advice you’d have?

Gave this answer before to someone who asked me the same question, and I think it still counts! 1) Build stamina. You can do this by drawing often- and with intention. Start your drawing with a warm up- something light, not overly serious. Focus more on the literal mechanical feeling of your hand moving to draw. Then focus on the heavier stuff after you’ve both literally and mentally warmed up, setting the stage for more involved drawing. Make this a routine and drawing overall will be less tiring over time.

2) Focus on replicability, not detail. This goes hand in hand with the previous point. A lot of people develop a kind of perfectionism early on, where they get overly attached to a specific sketch and don’t wanna budge from it, and put details until it “looks good,” even when the subject as a whole is wonky. I like to equate this to “too much icing, not enough cake,” or “building on sand foundations.” I’ve been there before, and it can hold you back. Instead of focusing on a specific piece and how you rendered it that one time, focus on how you render it such that you could do something similar, easily replicate the concept. Once you’ve built more stamina, you can open up the gates to tackling the same subject matter in different ways.

3) Mind your mark making. Some folks agonize over the tiniest detail, sometimes for hours. At the end of the day, that itself doesn’t necessarily bring improvement- that’s more of a test of patience. Unless someone specifically asks, you don’t- for example- need to draw every single ridge of every knob on a switchboard in great detail. These things can be implied through mark making. Remember, a lot of drawing isn’t about literally making something for people to see- it’s tricking the eye into believing what’s drawn is actually there. You’ll be amazed at what detail can be like even when you don’t define every part.

4) Drawing is more seeing than “making it up.” * Don’t be afraid to use references and such. It’ll help you render form than imagining it- sometimes the imagination can conjure things incorrectly. *Even seasoned artists who don’t typically use too much references need to do studies from life or books every now and then to reinforce skills.

One point I didn't add before for style things specifically is: 5) Look where the artist got their inspirations from if you want to learn from them. No art exists within a vaccuum, everyone has their influences. Trying to do a study from someone's art will only take you so far- because then it'll feel more like mimicry than actual, learned study. Research or try to see parallels with artists that you might think had a hand in influencing a given artist's style. Notice the patterns there- certain textures are invoked here, this form was defined like this, etc. A lot of folks confuse wanting "more of a thing" as opposed to "what makes that thing desirable/unique." If you'd like to know where some of my influences come from, I'd say look at the works of Squiddy, covers for Hellboy comics, and the Snowpiercer graphic novel.

Addendum: If you're looking to draw anatomy specifically- study from real anatomy, and learn how to do those before you begin to "break the rules" (exaggerate, anthropomorphize, etc). For resources on that, I'd recommend the Morpho books (all of them haha) and Dynamic Human Anatomy by Roberto Osti.

Hope this helps somewhat, feel free to ask if I missed anything.

[squidpedia]

Hey! How do you do lineart & Sketches???

You’re one of my biggest inspirations for drawing and I really love your art style!

UM??? THANK YOU?? I 🥺🥺🥺

I’ll try to word this as best as I can but I am honestly terrible at text descriptions/explanations sometimes, so I’m sorry if anythings unclear or odd. My process also varies sometimes depending on the artwork

Sorry for somewhat long answer ahead!

Usually for any artwork that I know will take a longer amount of time, I start with a really quick 1 minute sketch to get the proof of concept down. It doesn’t have to look good and the proportions may be very off and really messy but thats ok, my main goal is just to get the whole idea down and interpret it again later. I write notes next to the sketches sometimes if I have a specific thing I want to include later like for the coloring or lighting.

After that, I usually make a revised sketch on top of that and keep tweaking or redoing the sketch until I get something I like. This is also where I reccomend you start checking proportions and flipping the canvas. The first and third image had to be revised before I was able to make lineart I was happier with. Some other times I just jump straight into the lineart if I think the sketch already looks ok (but this is kinda risky as I usually end up having to resize a lot of the lineart later when doing this, which can end up dropping the quality of the selected area and making it slightly blurred compared to everything else. Sometimes I just end up redoing the lineart entirely for the selected area when this happens).

When coloring the lineart I try to mostly color lines that exist inside the silhouette of the person, but I’m also kinda loose with this rule and also will color anything on the edges if I think it looks better in a certain instance.

I’ve been trying to keep my lineart much thinner and enjoy using Procreate’s ballpoint pen for lineart. For sketches I usually use whatever feels most satisfying or convenient or just try a new brush for sketching to spice up my process every now and then.

In worst case-scenarios, if I’m really struggling to get something I like when sketching, then I just keep redoing the sketch and trying to figure out what I don’t like about it. The undertale the musical gif had something around 6 redo’s before I finally liked it enough to give it lineart

Sometimes I also try making quick messy color mock-ups of my sketches to plan out colors or specific effects for later to test what colors I like and what I think would look good for later. I also might write notes if there’s any extra details I think of that I want to include later

Thats everything I can think of, I hope this helps and sorry again for this being a pretty long answer, its the best way I could think to explain my process, but I hope its a bit helpful at least!

[dorpyscorpyy]

Showing off my 2020/21 Assassin's Creed art because why not

I was 11/12 when I drew this anyway 😭 (I think only the last drawing is from 2021/22?? I can't remember)

Let's start with Desmond's famale copy who would be specifically a direct descendant of Connor (she was Desmond's romantic partner too so...technically they were cousins???)

Yeah I know AC has a protagonist named Layla now but that was in 2020 so whatever lol (I remade her story now and she's called Millie and have her own lineage. I even took inspiration from some elements of my family to create one of the assassins in her lineage.)

Desmond miles cearense (Brazilian meme where people from Ceará have huge heads) (And I needed to say that sorry Sam)

Yes, I'm the girl with the ponytail over there 😭 (In case you can't see what it says, "bro, why you, connor and arno is so hot?!" (Damn I developed brain meltdown writing this))

I used to be a fangirl of Desmond, Connor and Arno for some reason (I still am, to be honest lol. Only Connor changed though...Altaïr and Ezio are there. Desmond and Arno remain the same. Connor is cute but he's not really my type.)

AC ocs (aka just self insert to be shipped with the game characters because I really wasn't in the mood to write a decent story for them)

What even is this outfit 😭 Not even for me to do some details on the front of the outfit but no, it's just the outfit of a fashion-savvy or lazy assassin

And yes, Kally was supposed to be Myllie's daughter with Connor who would unexpectedly appear in France during the French Revolution and met Arno??? (I heard somewhere that Arno and Connor had met, but I just ignored that fact and told myself it was an "AU")

And yes, it's kind of like Layla would suddenly appear from Myllie's lineage because I didn't intend to make Kally have children, at least not important ones for the brotherhood lol (Btw only Layla/Millie and Kally were remade, I definitely don't want to remake this disaster called Myllie bc she just wouldn't fit in this era 💀)

Anyway, let's stay away from these OCs for now. (I assure you that only Layla will appear, but it's not a big deal)

This was supposed to be Desmond in the art style of a specific friend of mine (who went by Eddsworld Loves Tomtord, Luanne, and other names I don't want to mention)

I miss them :( (They gave up on YouTube and disappeared from Discord, they probably got a social life I guess.)

Layla in a hood (or it was supposed to look like that)

Yes, her blouse was just that 😭😭 I thought it would be modern for her and also it was kind of an attempt to test out other styles, and it looked much better in my head. (I didn't hate it, though. I was trying new things after all.)

FeM! EdWaRd KeNwAy

Just Edward with long hair and boobs, nothing unusual (I really don't know how Mary/James would fare pretending to be a woman in this universe, because logically he would just be himself????)

James Cearense Kidd (I know these jokes aren't funny, I just didn't want to leave anything vague :I)

I used to have a great admiration for them (I still do, but I just can't follow the whole game knowing that she dies and Edward can't do anything :(()

Jon (Arno) Dorian

It was supposed to be Jon, a character from Eddsworld, wearing Arno's clothes but it can be seen as Arno himself if you ignore the floating heads (Yes, that's Tom and I shipped TomJon, I even used fanarts of them on my old Youtube channel and Amino 😭)

Btw I still posted both drawings on eddsworld and assassin's creed amino communities

Finally the last one (I really didn't expect that I had so few AC arts, to be honest lol. I ended up seeing this artbook and it seems I was still more into Mortal Kombat at this time.)

Yes, I used to ship Ezio and Connor (with no genderbend thing, but I imagined that Ezio would probably flirt more with Connor if he was a woman lol)

And I believed that there weren't that many arts of this ship (and technically there really aren't, I rarely find anything related to these two. But I recently discovered that there are things about this ship on AO3 lol)

And yes, I look like a fushoshi here and I'm not proud of it.

And while I was writing this, I ended up remembering that there was a specific art of Edward with his group but I don't remember where I left the drawing (or if I threw it away) 😭

There are probably a lot of AC arts that I have done, but I could only find this artbook, which is a little sad though :(

And wow, I really evolved after these arts... I really enjoy looking at my old arts because of this. It reminds me of how much I worked hard to get the skills I have today :) (although I still don't feel so satisfied with them lmao)

[kozachenko]

I've crawled out of my cave after playing Final Fantasy IX for a long ass time what have I missed?

Artist's Notes:

I'M BACK BABY! A while back I made a post with a new style experimentation thingy but I ended up deleting it because it was just kind of a boring face thing, I was planning on doing more art but then I started playing Final Fantasy IX and uhhhh yeah so that game has kind of taken of my brain for the past two weeks and I am 20 hours into the game because I love it so much. I wanted to draw Vivi because Vivi is just really fun to draw ok? I've kinda been feeling really burnt out with my lineless style, mainly because of how hard it was to do lighting. I'll show one of my initial art style tests on the bottom of this post. Again, used to have it be an individual post but it was just one face so it was kinda boring, so might as well include with this one on the subject of art styles. I wanted to kinda mix some aspects of my older style with the sketchy shading lines with a more painterly way of doing the lighting (mainly in the shadows). All in all, I think that's my favourite part about this drawing, it feels nice to finally be able to do some proper lighting again, and I want to experiment even more with my lighting and rendering in future pieces. Also, part of the pant shading got kinda lost in the sketchiness, so for next time I'll probably focus on the clarity of the more sketchy parts of the drawing, since I did go with my initial sketch for the final drawing. I also gave up on the background since I had no idea what to do for it, and I didn't put too much detail into the staff as I forgot which one I gave him in my current playthrough and I didn't want to risk spoiling myself via looking up references, but that's ok I like how the singular yellow circle on it matches Vivi's eyes. Also I was having a bit of trouble figuring out how to draw his body and how to pose him, but I like how the pose turned out a lot. It was inspired by his idle animation when in a battle in game where he does a little shimmy.

Ok I need to talk about Vivi's design because I love it so fucking much oh my god-

I absolutely love how his face is just in complete shadow and only his eyes stand out, it's so cool and unique and I love how they recontextualized the original black mage design from the classic Final Fantasy games. How they did it I won't say because I don't wanna spoil the game, but someone give this poor baby a therapist because he goes through a lot. Actually, same can be said for all of the FFIX cast, they all need therapy (again, I won't spoil anything, please go play the game for yourself).

While I do love almost all the characters in the game, even though Vivi is most fun to draw, my favourite character has to be Zidane (the main protagonist of the game). He's a really fun protagonist, and they could have easily written him as a misogynistic jerk who doesn't respect women but they didn't, and I really appreciate that. He's just an overall cool dude who's a really nice older brother figure to Vivi and also just has a cool character design (who I also want to draw eventually). Initially in the game I was planning on grinding levels for Vivi to make him the tactical nuke of the party, but then that title went to a different character (who was initially multiple levels behind the group since I grinded the party in the starting area way to much before they joined, but now they are two levels ahead of everyone and have pulled the team through a lot of tough battles, again I won't say who it is because it is kind of a spoiler and the way the gameplay actually ties into their character arc is just so good omfg). Once I eventually finish the game I'll probably write a full review on here, so no spoilers until then lol

Also, I've kinda been burning out a bit with making Touhou art, which also made me a bit burnt out with Touhou stuff in general (although I will continue keeping up with the manga) so getting into other things (i.e. Final Fantasy and even Fallout since I've watched the first season of the TV show which is a whole other post for another day) has helped me refresh and given me something new to think about. I've ended up in the exact place I feared ending up, where I would start drawing fanart for it not because I wanted to but because I felt like I had to, so I'm taking a bit of a break. When I do draw Touhou fanart again I'll try to draw for the sake of myself, and to all the other artists and fanartists on this platform (and on any social media for that matter), take care of yourself and don't forget to take breaks when you need to!

(Ok part of that last paragraph was definitley influenced by the good ol' "it's 9:00pm and I need sleeb, but the message at the end still holds up, always take care of yourself)

Oh yeah, and here is that one style experiment I did btw

Man I really fell down the "Yoshitaka Amano art enjoyer" to "Final Fantasy fan" pipe line didn't I?

[green-alien-turdz]

Art tips for beginners? :3

I'm gonna try n be helpful here, but please keep in mind that I've been drawing my whole life, so I can't give you the perspective of someone who is just startin out.

1: Don't give up. Cheesy as fuck, I know. But you are gonna get pissed n fuckin angry when somethin doesn't turn out how you wanted it to. Don't let this discourage you! Use your mistakes and errors to keep on improving. There's no need to tear up drawings or delete anything that you aren't 100% satisfied with because you are growing in your abilities. AND TRUST that it is so rewarding to see your progress over time.

2: Challenge yourself n expect to hate it. Try all sorts of styles (cartoon, realism, or even just photo studies), do few details, do loads of details, do timed drawings, etc. Test the limits of what you can do. Similar to the previous advice, you need to allow yourself to be angry n hate the product that comes from this because you will eventually start finding your own creative style n process.

3: Don't pressure yourself beyond belief. You will not be an 'amazing' or 'visually appealing' artist from the get-go. If you are gettin burned out, allow yourself to take a break from time to time. With this though, once you start gettin more comfortable, even when you're burnt out creatively- I HEAVILY encourage you to keep doing small drawings OR other creative things to keep your mind going.

4: Experiment wit different mediums n shit like that! Explore! There is so many different forms of art to fuckin enjoy. Digital, traditional, watercolour, acrylic, clay, fuckin anything. When you get into non-digital mediums, keep cost in mind, but there are plenty of cheap alternatives that are great when you're startin out (also once you get 'better', you can control these much better, n they don't look like the initial cheap product). I personally use a lot of dollar tree shit n I used to steal from the art class in my school (but that was more out of necessity, if you can avoid it, please do. You can get in HUGE trouble if you're caught). But the main message is to experiment n try new things because there's so many different mediums out there.

5: Take in the world around you. Look at everything n think about how you could portray that in art. Really study the world. The faces people make when they don't think they're makin any, the grime that most people ignore building up on everyday objects, how people's body language says a LOT about how they feel, the way light casts in obscure ways, etc. Instead of just viewing the things around you, really look and take in the experience of bein human. Even impressionistic art holds these intricate details. You just have to be open to the experience.

6: Appreciate, but don't compare. I cannot stress dis shit enough, your art is your own, it is no one else's, so there's no need to harp on "oh this person draws x,y,and z better than me" n blah blah blah STOP! Dawg, you are doin your own shit, don't worry about if you're not on the same 'level' as others, or don't have the same 'capabilities' as some mfs. When you see other people's art, appreciate the things that they can do, but appreciate what you can do too! Especially when you're first really gettin your foot in the whole art shit, it is important to not judge your abilities compared to others who may have a lot more experience under their belt. I think it's totally okay to look at art n be like "oh that's super cool, I'd definitely like to improve on things like that", but never use it to put down your own art. This shit is subjective bro, you'll get to where you want to be. It takes a lot of time, it's not linear, but you WILL. It may not be how you expected it to look at first, but that's okay! Give yourself grace. Art is for you, at the end of the day.

You are gonna fight with yourself n the art itself, but that's totally normal! Art is one of the best forms of expression n I really hope the best for you. I know I was vague as shit n this isn't no tutorial on how to draw a realistic portrait or some shit- but that's because there's no right way to do this. Go balls to the walls or just dip your fuckin toes in. Approach it how you want, there's no right or wrong way to do art. I hope that this was somewhat helpful n I wasn't just spewin shit outta my ass n I truly wish you a good art journey

[egg-noodle]

You have so many unique ways of stylizing you characters! How did you come to developed the very geometric one? Also, how do you decide what art style to use for each work? (Rooting for your recovery. Ganbatte!)

There's quite a long story behind this haha. I injured my wrists in my second year of uni and realised I couldn't continue with how I had been drawing up until that point. I had to have a very hard think about the direction I wanted my art to go, since I wanted to be able to create for as long as possible. So for 6 months I went full research and analysis mode into artists who were making minimalist work. Who was currently successful? What parts of their work did I like? How could I switch to drawing completely differently than what came naturally to me while still feeling creatively fulfilled? So I had all my research, and then I spent the next 6 months trying to test out as many styles and techniques as I could, to see what felt right to me. This was around 2012, from memory? Concurrently to all this, at uni we were given all these little drawing exercises to do, and I remember one of them being 'draw a character in 4 lines'. It was meant to be a gestural exercise, but it really resonated with me, the idea that you didn't need a lot of detail in order to communicate what you wanted. So that morphed into my overall goal: minimal output, maximum message/connection. Then in my third year at uni, we got taught the Point < Line < Shape hierarchy, which is how you can control what your eye is drawn to first. It was meant to be used for creating appealing compositions (e.g. draw a bird, a tree, and a mountain in as many different configurations as you can), but I ended up applying it to my character design, and I've never looked back.

I currently am a freelance animator and designer, and no matter the job, there's always a style that I need to emulate, so a fair chunk of my professional work also bleeds into the art I do in my free time. As for how I decide on which style to go with for what pieces, I don't really have a system for it haha. I use my Likes on all my social media as one giant reference folder, so I just scroll through those until I find a technique, a composition, a shape, a colour palette, etc that I think I would like to try. I'm still in the habit of researching and analysing other people's work constantly, so there's always something new I want to test out for myself. TL;DR I injured my wrists at uni and searched for a way to draw without injuring myself further haha.

[projecto2-game]

DevLog 2 - The Devining

well. it only took 3 months. but here is our new devlog! or however you call it... We did write a whole devlog for early march, but with school and work taking up most of our schedule, we did not post it, and most of our progress fell to the sands of time.

Snail (@snailmusic) -

Yeah I didn't do nearly as much as freep, so most of those changes will be down there. part of the reason though is that ive been doing a lot of work on my music (haha yes self promo) so if you want to check that out it'd be great! (most of yall are just from my acc so you probably alr know) (my current style of music is probably not representative of O2's audio style or vibe, still working towards that)

The main thing I did was improve trenchbroom (level editor)/qodot/godot interop, which can bring us closer to building some levels (and who knows, a little alpha test in the future ;)). It was actually realllyyyy annoying due to a lack of documentation for qodot 4 (and also ill admit it, a bit of my stupidity) so there was a bug that I couldn't fix for a long time but eventually it was fixed and now it works great!

I also started looking more into the art style of the game, and I'm even learning a bit of how to draw (thanks to my friends! I wouldn't be able to learn like at all without them lol).

^ guy on a cube

oh yeah speaking of outside help im getting this is (very slightly) now bigger than us two! the others aren't doing too much we can note right now (one doesnt have a tumblr acc either) but when their contributions come more into play we'll include them here.

See ya next time!

Freep (@freepdryer) -

Back in march, i spent a lot of time working on the AI, getting it to move… and run away, sort of. But more of that will come later. 

Lots of these last week or so has been on the character controller, and reinventing the wheel to introduce a state machine and get a lot cleaner code so its easier to revisit if we ever had to.

Im proud of the work that we've done so far, as we come close to a prototype with *Gameplay* 

New Things

Changed the look of the enemy slightly to remove the “amongus factor”

Rewrote the entire script for nav pathing

New enemy prototype can now feel pain / has a health pool that can be depleted using bullets from the player

Added a new line of sight for the enemy to check whether or not the player is in the area to follow

Added the ability for the enemy to hide - WIP - enemy can hide but isnt very good at it. Kinda like a child who turns away while hiding in the corner. 

Enemy can also detect when youre in a certain range, I will be adding more flags later on for detection (when the player shoots, sneezes, or explodes on accident)

New testing map!

New areas for target practice, line of sight testing, following and hiding

New player character controller!

Rewrote the entire script for the inclusion of State machines

This was painful.

Added 6(?) new states for several movement states

Added animations for 

Walking

Running

Jumping

Crouching

Fixed the stair problem

Whats next?

Continue work on enemy AI - finish hiding, add roaming, add attacking

Dunno? 

Fix the stair problem again, but more?

Weapons!

The end?

Thanks for coming to our devlog! We will be back hopefully very soon!

[emberfrostlovesloki]

Criminal Minds April Prompt List

All photo credits at the end

Good evening loves! We made it to March! I love the idea of the team during Spring time and I thought I'd make some March/Spring prompts because it makes me happy. This prompt list is inspired by the always amazing, @imagining-in-the-margins who always make the best prompt lists. I will link here new prompt list here once it comes out as well. For my prompts, I won’t write for all these prompts, but I will for at least a few.

The rules for using these prompts are that there are no rules! You could use any Criminal Minds characters, OCs, reader inserts, etc. You could draw, write, make mood boards, or imagine anything else. I have included 31 prompts for each day of the month. I also get inspiration from plain old words, so I’ve included 10 Spring words that might inspire something. Lastly, I’ve included a few dialog and art prompts too. You can find that all below the cut. If any of these prompts inspire you to create, I’d love to be tagged to see what you have made. This is all just for fun. I wish everyone a great start to the month. Please know I’m proud of you wherever you are right now. Love - Levi 🌼

You can find all the prompts below the cut

General Prompts

Rival April Fool'sprank war with Characters A and B where members of the team get roped into the pranks.

Characters A and B run into each other at a concert.

The cooling/AC goes out at Character A's apartment so they have to strip down to the basics while Character B fixes the problem.

Character A gets a text from a wrong number from Character B but they suddenly want to talk more.

Character A hates sharks and Character B agrees to watch Jaws with them for the first time.

Character A meets Character B on a cruise vacation.

The BAU men have a Bachelor Party for Character A.

The BAU women have a Bachelor Party for Character A.

Character A agrees to meet with their long-distance partner, Character B, for the first time.

Character A goes a bit overboard for the baby shower for Character B.

On a case at a sleepaway camp the team all have to bunk together in a cabin.

Characters A and B go camping together for the first time.

Character A reminds Character B that all bodies are swimsuit/bikini bodies.

Character A says they'd do anything for a popsicle, so Character B gets them one.

Character A gets back into an old sport and the BAU team shows up for their first game to cheer them on.

A big test has Character A stressed out more than normal and Character B comes and helps them study and feel more relaxed.

Chacters A and B chaperone the Sadie Hawkins dance together.

Character A quits coffee for a month and suffers which makes Character B want to be there for them more than usual.

Character A takes Character B to a place that is very important to them and explains why.

On a hike Character A becomes exhausted and Character B carries them the rest of the way back to the car.

Character A hears that Character B's child is being bullied, so they make sure to go and give the child some love and advice.

Characters A and B go to the roller rink together.

A case that takes place in a theme park!

A case that has a killer inspired by slasher films of the 70s/80s.

Character A asked Character B to be a model for their next drawing/painting/work of art.

Character A gets their identity stolen and Character B helps them out with getting it sorted.

Character A makes an OF account and Character B stumbles across it.

Characters A and B go skinny dipping for the first time together.

Character A gets a new tattoo/piercing and shows Character B. Character B is obsessed with it.

Character A falls in love with Character B; they have completely different fashion styles.

Word Prompts

Bonding

Park

Floral

Popsicle

Sunburn

Dancing

Fingertips

Full Moon

Show-off

Peaceful

Dialog Prompts 

“Sweetheart, you're so pretty, let me get a picture of you."

“Hey guys... I've got something to tell you...” 

“Do you want to go to the pool later today"

“_______ I swear if you don't stop teasing me about my hair cut you might regret it.” 

“________ you look sad. Would you tell me why.” 

“_______ can I have a sip of your drink? It looks so so good!” 

Art Prompts

The BAU sitting around a campfire

Any BAU member being starstruck another member of anyone at all.

A BAU member reading to their kid.

BAU members swapping clothes.

Text Break Banner by @cafekitsune

Tag List: @tgskitten @geminitapestry @silk-spun

Want to be added to my tag list? Please see this post, CM Tag List (linked)

Want to request a fic or mood board? My requests are open. Please see this post before requesting, CM Request Post (linked)

Photo Credits

Top: Left (@hotchs-big-hands) Center (@shakespearesdaughters) Right (@ur-daily-inspiration)

Middle: Left (@shakespearesdaughters) Center (@lilacprentiss) Right (@lovesdaya)

Bottom: Left (@thyme-in-a-bubble) Center (@kiernanshayemckay) Right (@aaronwhorechner)

[neptunianrefrain]

my real actual life got in the way, so it's time to play catch up! this post will be a compilation of all days missed.

OC-tober day 4 - underappreciated OC -skipped

sorry for skipping a mandatory day, but literally none of my ocs specifically come to mind. because like all of them are because i forget they exist, there's no one guy that specifically gets that title. and i'm not drawing all of them there's TOO MANY

OC-tober day 5 - redesigned OC - skipped

no specific redesign i want to talk about :P

OC-tober day 6 - past

not many of my ocs get backstories, since i don't often have them for long enough to care about those sorts of things... but all of the ocs i've spoken about so far do have at least something within their past! so let's talk about them!

gio was born in the philippines, to a family who didn't really want him. his original birth name was marikit. through some kind of program he was adopted out to a family in canada. this family adopted 3 other children due to fertility issues, though they did manage to have one biological child. they let him change his name to georgia. his life was pretty normal. in his teens, he started to figure out he was trans. by the time it started to click, his mom died. so that kind of got in the way of things. there's also an abusive ex somewhere in there but i haven't figured that bit out. anyways now he's an adult and looking into transitioning. now his name is giovanni. he really likes g names. he fully transitions over the course of several years. during this time, somewhere towards the end of his transition hes like late 20s or something, he meets and soon falls in love with a guy named michael (who belongs to my moirail @dialtone-town,) starting a long and loving relationship. eventually mike's sibling dies and mike fucks off to new jersey. this fucks gio up for a while! and eventually he has to go to new jersey for work shit. and he meets mike again. and theyre friends now yaaay

starlight has a vague backstory involving his development, as he was a custom order. there were several prototypes made of him, that still exist somewhere probably. they're more so an oc that exists to exist instead of an oc that exists for a story.

victor is still very new, but i did come up with the idea that her coding - that is to say the very makeup of her being - was intentionally messed with by another gem to create a reliable hitman, though they fucked up and victor immediately killed them, now continuing to kill as she lacks purpose beyond this.

chartreuse probably served the gempire at some point. eventually rebelled and had a bit of a turbulent life, had a best friend for a while but he fucked off and became a massive bitch. now she's part of a major rebel group, serving as the lead engineer.

OC-tober day 7 - likes

most of my ocs like similar things to me, or things that fit their sort of vibe. it's kind of hard for me to come up with likes and dislikes sometimes... but i try my best!

gio loves all kinds of video games, particularly liking ones with interesting stories or game mechanics. he also tends to enjoy science fiction, liking both sleek and elegant futuristic tech, and rough and war torn machinery. he watched some anime as a teen, and still finds new animanga to enjoy to this day.

starlight enjoys futuristic themes and styles, such as cyberpunk, and cassette futurism. he also enjoys fashion, especially alternative styles. and by god does he love playing weird indie video games. sometimes he does play more normal video games. sometimes. loves music, genre and language mattering not. he WOULD pass those "do you really listen to anything" tests. he also loves creation, making art and music and writing. he loves creating as much as he loves looking into what others have made.

uhh victor. victor likes killing people. chartreuse uhh. she likes something probably.

i have other ocs i cld maybe put here but i don't want to introduce them now. blehh

[doe-prince]

Hi ratt, I popped in from the GS discord!

A question: where do you get your inspirations for the initial worlds/premise(s) of your comic works? Namely GS, I guess, but others too. Is it a specific few things or do you draw from more broad sources?

2: Do you have any advice on following through with said concepts to a full or consistent execution? I’m always stuck in the shiny new idea phase :/

Sorry I worded that weird but hopefully you get me. Keep up the stellar work please. I’m a big fan! ❤️

Hello hi!

I honestly don't know, sometimes a theme or thought starts haunting me and I need to make something out of it before it runs me insane. One photo can fuel the whole project, I think something like that happened with Corpse - photos of sheep with livestock guardians, the design of anti-wolf collar, religious imagery and upbringing being hacked into the back of my mind. For GS especially, a secret: I'm just into writing characters. The world, logics, customs, even the plot come later, and even those I like to keep vague to a degree. I think about what kind of characters I want to write about, and then what kind of events would bring their most interesting parts to surface. Godly missions with high stakes are just a stage for me to write about siblings with multiple issues and big bleeding hearts.

2. I can't offer smart advice, but if you want to try it like I usually do, just hold your nose and jump in. I often get incredibly invested in those shiny ideas, but if I notice I take too long to get into them or start planning too much, they fade. They're not shiny anymore, and if they're not shiny, I don't want to work on them.

I came up, scripted and drew Corpse in one month because I was so excited. I started GS with very little lore in my head, just because I wanted to test the art style and get to know my characters, and here we are five years later. (This choice has bit me in the ass a few times because the foundation was barely there, and despite me having a lot more knowledge and lore in my head now, I still have to build on the foundation ignorant little ratt made back then. It's wobbly! But with a bit of sneakiness and torturous brainwork you can always flesh it out later and make it carry its weight.)

Obviously just jumping in doesn't work for everyone, especially if you're a planning kind of person unlike me, but it might give you a kick to get truly invested. And when you're invested, you want to work on it to see where those characters go. You want to take them to the end and tell them they did a great job.

[bvannn]

Weekly Update November 15, 2024

I’m in a real bad spot again, everything I’ve been trying keeps going wrong, but i did get some art stuff done.

I tried writing some shorter songs on a whim with some 16 bit soundfonts and i think they came out pretty well. Add 3 more to the ‘songs i finished but can’t release yet’ pile. Also made some midis for two more vocal parts, one for a cover (FF), one for an original (LF), both of which have finished instrumentals. Started tuning FF, am going to try some of the new strategies i tested a few weeks ago. Another vocal original, BATB, that I’ve been on and off working on is probably done? I think? I finished mixing the vocal part, another one for the pile. Also fixed a random glitch that would sometimes happen where an instrument would randomly play a phantom note that didn’t exist in the midi part at the very start of a song, which was causing issue with three songs. Also re-edited Blow Off Steam, since the mixing was fucking awful idk what was wrong with me to think that would be passable. I’ll release it on YouTube once I have motivation to open my computer. I really need to just sit down and draw some cover art but every time i try everything in my life keeps going wrong I’m cursed i swear. It’s fine it’ll get done eventually, i started on one of them this week and so far it looks good. I thumbnailed some more that also look fine. I just need life to cut me a break so i can draw. I just want a break. One break.

I tried working on the comic this week too, got about half of page 12 inked. The comic looks great and is fun to read through and i love how it’s coming out but again every time I try to work on it bad things happen to me that get in the way. I want to give a deadline and say ‘oh, it’ll be done on (x date)’ but I can’t. I don’t know what’s going to happen. Maybe today I’ll go look at tapas and see how things are over there, since I can’t really work on anything. I haven’t really thought about how I’d go about releasing the damn thing once it is finished other than ‘probably not webtoon, I’ve never heard anyone say anything positive about webtoon’.

I made storyboards/thumbnails for another animation project, smaller one for one of the smaller unreleased songs I’m sitting on. I looked into after effects again and it should be able to do some of the effects I thought I was going to need to learn blender for, which is great because I don’t want to mess with blender yet. There’s a certain character who I’ve only really drawn a couple times because I wanted her to have a really unique visual style, so once I have myself together I’d like to try drawing her and rendering her with the new tricks I learned in after effects, but again things need to get better first, and that’s unlikely.

Last bit of hope for progress next week would be the epithet erased TTRPG. I finished off the first tileset I had done and actually sat down to turn it into some maps, and it works really well. Ended up watching through the original anime campaign a bit further too, which inspired me to get some statblocks done and some character minis sketched. Also completely rewrote stage 6 for the second time but I think this time it’ll stick. A couple more NPC ideas have been floating around for that and I might post a mini once I have more. Again I’m hesitant to post anything visual for that, since my plan is currently to turn the campaign into a prewritten module for other people to run, release the module for free so everyone can play, and then release the optional maps and minis as a paid package, so I can make a bit from my work but also make the system more accessible to people for free. The fifth anniversary streams are this weekend, including one that is set to cover the updated system book, hopefully that should give me the motivation to get going, and then if that goes well that should give me motivation for my other projects. Everything I’m doing is intertwined with each other and with my mood, so if nothing else bad happens I should be getting better, but again there’s still a couple things that can go wrong and they certainly will because I’m not allowed to have anything.

Sorry again for how gloomy this post has been, everything seems to be going wrong but I’m going to keep trying. I might be slow again for a while but that’s fine, that’s why I loaded up my queue with old art. Thank you everyone for sticking through it, and I’m glad you guys have been enjoying the old art. I shuffled the queue so some of it isn’t as old as others, but even so a good number of you are seeing pieces for the first time. I really hope I’ll have something big to show soon!

[sothasil]

Hi! You're one of my favorite artists ever, and I would love to do some studies of your art! What are some of your favorite pieces that you've done, and how do you pick your colors? There's a lot more questions that I could ask, but figured you wouldn't appreciate an entire list of questions XD

Hello and thank you, I am honored! Feel free to send me all and any questions! I'll answer these two, starting by:

How do you pick your colors?

As I change art style with pretty much every illustration project of significance, this varies a lot. Here are, from most to least common, ways I pick my colors.

Eyeballing it. Unfortunately my most common... What I will do a lot digitally is lay down a color background, and flats of a few colors, then manually adjust each until they look good together by selecting by color and using adjustements. I then paint over it all.

Using a limited palette, eyeballed. Same as before, but this time I force myself to only use a few colors. It helps me, as constraints do.

Using a reference, eyeballed. This happens a lot when I mimick an art style. My medieval drawings for example, are often done by looking at images of actual medieval art to get an idea of what colors to use to look medieval.

Using an existing image, pipetted. Rarely, often as a challenge or if I'm super stuck, I'll just take a pic with colors I like and pipet from it. This website automates this if you want a good easy starting point!

These can be combined around. I'll post examples now, explaining how they use each.

This is a sketch for a drawing I ended up doing way different. This is the first method - I used a flat layer for the characteres and three colors for the sky to test out atmosphere. This is how I plan out most full paintings, just trying to nail down a mood I have in my head. I fiddle around until I like it or, like in this case, fully give up and iterate further. Here, the composition was to be redone too as I did not like the body language. I was going for "bright hot sunny day under a weather that feels wrong".

For this comic, I combined a very limited palette and a photo ref to pipet from. I was looking for the stark cold/warm contrast of a mid-season bright night by a fireside. I took a google image photo of a campfire at night that was already edited. The photo itself looks unnatural but conveyed what I wanted. It's still on the file itself! From it, I pipetted a few colors I found "summed up" the palette and did all with them.

While my own habits make me prefer painting as you would in traditional methods, with directly picking the right colors, I will often digitally alter with overlays and layer blending modes some colors and gradients, etc, to alter a drawing to fix it's color palette. The following is a quite egregious example, because I first drew the character in flats before putting him in a full scene. Here is a before/after summed up.

The shadow is a layer, the bright yellow light zones also, and the orange "transitions" of light zones on the skin a third. There's also an overlay over the full character to blend him in. I do this by...making a full flat color of a layer, fucking around until a blending mode does what I want, and adjusting hue/brightness/saturation and opacity until it looks good.

Another WIP where I was struggling with the overall palette. I was going for late 60s psychedelic. You can see in the top right the original color. I thought it looked too...new, so I added a yellow layer on top, and fiddled with it. Final choice was the following setting. I then put it with my sketch and color blockout in a folder and painted over it.

For this sort of adjustement, the "Color Balance" modifier in CSP, Photoshop, and others is also a godsend - but one I often use for fine tuning a finished piece.

This being said, there's some rough rules to coloring which are...born from studying color theory and doing studies. I am guilty of doing very little studies...so I'll just sum up the basics of the color theory rules I use.

For "default" shading, I use a color that is darker, more saturated and with a slight hue diff. This is my "don't shade with black".

Using a shadow that's cooler will make the light look warm.

Vice versa.

There's a bunch of stuff to remember in how colors relate to each other and pipetting images who's atmosphere you think is interesting really is the best way to learn... It's learning how to black-blue/gold-yellow dress in your own art for the lack of a better word...But the basics will be:

Don't trust numerical values, but look at your colors in context. A same hue, brightness, saturation can look so much different. This is how Rakkan's beard looks whiteish here despite being a light very grey brown.

All this but...colour is such a wide topic, I can't really say a lot but can also type for hours... if you have precise questions about a piece in particular I can explain :') I hope this wasn't too vague and was instructive!

Speaking of particular pieces, answering your question last under the cut:

What are some of your favorite pieces that you've done?

In no particular order, illustration only.

Including this in another poast bc staff's new post editor limits the amounts of pics I can put in response to asks. Insert colorful language here...

Frankly twas hard to pick I am rarely fond of what I draw

[zombeebunnie]

Game development Trembling Essence update:

Hello again and welcome new followers! I'm here with another update, thanks for being patient! Here's a look at the kitchen I redid! I think out of all of them so far, this one is my favorite! :]

This update is a bit delayed because of things outside of my control. I don't want to rush update posts about the game so I decided to make up for the days I missed. I want these to be good enough to keep you guys informed! :]

I wasn't able to work on certain CG's as I had originally hoped but to be fair, I take this as a good thing. I'm really trying to keep my art style accurate because Noah tends to look drastically different at times and I really want to keep him consistent or at least try to keep it pretty close. Because of this, I'm going to put a small pause on those specific CG's since trying to draw them a certain way becomes extremely exhausting and time consuming for me.

As far as writing goes, I was able to get a better idea of where I wanted to add CG's and where to remove them. It's been pretty great for the most part and I'm starting to get a good rhythm going. I'm mainly focusing on stabilizing the branching routes and then going back and adjusting them based on how you interact in the game.

But as I was checking through everything, I realized I got carried away by accident and ended up making a lot of branching routes starting from parts of Day 3. I won't specifically say how many but it's more than 10+ and at this time, I'm still testing each route to see what I can do to keep them unique and different so the player(Y/N) can have a good amount of variety. If it's too much for me to do, I might condense one or two together but that's only if certain routes have a lot of similarities or if a specific branch itself isn't really necessary to have.

I'm still testing/fixing up the parts of Day 3 and adding various dialog changes but I did do an attempt at adding in the Day/Night setting just to see how it would go and so far it's pretty nice!

I think that's everything I have to report right now so thank you guys for all of your support on everything, I really appreciate it! :]

[kozachenko]

So a little while ago I did this background thingy of my interpretation of Hakugyokurou in Touhou 7, then left it at the sketch and forgot about it for a while. Then after changing up my art style a lot, I came back to this and decided to finish it as a way of testing out how my new style would look on backgrounds. Then when I finished it, I also didn't look at it for a while, until today where I decided that I liked it and wanted to post it.

Artist's Notes:

IDK how much this actually looks like Hakugyokurou tbh, but I liked the idea of there being a fuck ton of trees that just kinda grow on the stairs and Yuyuko's garden being on an island of some kind, though tbh as I write this now, this same feeling could be accomplished with just having the stairs be on top of a hill with the trees soooo... oops. IDK how mythologically/lore accurate that would be, but hey, just a cool idea I had. I feel like we need more fan interpretations of certain Touhou locations because I think those could be really fucking cool, like, I should do more of these myself because I have a fuck ton of ideas (plus I need the practice with drawing backgrounds so win-win).

Even if this... doesn't really look like Hakugyokurou in Touhou canon, this was still good practice for perspective, as well as getting better at drawing backgrounds/environment pieces (plus what annoys me is that I wanted to make the tori gate red but had to make it pink because the red was too much for the colour scheme and I should have adjusted the rest of the colours but I don't feel like going back and fucking with this piece now because I feel like I am going to end up like Sisyphus pushing a boulder up a hill with this drawing).

I think the reason we don't see those as often is because there's a lot more consistency with the location designs in Touhou than the character designs. Like, in the mainline games themselves, Marisa's outfit changes every fucking game, and small details in how characters outfits are drawn also lend themselves to that looser character design base. As long as you keep the core design philosophies of the character (i.e. Reimu keeping her loose, baggy clothes, Yukari with her hat and ribbons, Keiki with her headkerchief (I FINALLY LEARNED WHAT IT WAS FUCKING CALLED WOOHOOO!!!! I COULD HAVE JUST LOOKED IT UP ON THE WIKI THIS WHOLE TIME YAAAAAY), and many more examples) you're basically good. However, the actual locations in Touhou have been so set in stone with all the printed works that I think it's a shame we don't see any more variations of how they could look.

I'm not saying to completely ditch how each location is portrayed in games (also don't take this whole thing as me completely dissing the canon looks of the locations) but, treating the locations like character designs in and of themselves. Like, take Sakuya's canon design and her Touhouvania design. Both of them are very different takes on the same design idea. Yet you still recognize Touhouvania Sakuya as... well, Sakuya. And also, keeping the same mythological/historical/irl inspirations for said locations (again, don't know if having a floating island in the Japanese netherworld is accurate but it was a cool idea)

Some other location ideas I have include:

The SDM looking relatively normal from the outside but when you go inside it looks like a fucking gothic cathedral/castle because Sakuya keeps fucking with the space time continuum and there is also an organ the size of a fucking house in there that Sakuya dramatically plays. Also having it be surrounded by trees and having some mountains surrounding the misty lake would be cool as well.

Keiki's base in the animal spirit garden being reminiscent of the ancient technology in Laputa, some of the zonai technology in ToTK and some of the Lanayru desert buildings in Skyward Sword (i.e. Lanayru Mine, the shipyard, etc), as well as a lot of the other ancient technologically advanced sky people ruins seen in some other Zelda games, but with the clear Kofun era theming she already has.

Old Hell having a mix of western influences with it's prodominantly Japanese ones, mainly inspired by how the Palace of Earth spirits looks significantly more western than the rest of Old Hell (though that could be because it was more recently built idk), as well as there being emblems from the time that Old Hell was actually Hell being strewn about in the ruins of old hell, also being inspired by a Japanese historical anecdote about how certain families had specific crests/emblems representing them and how when a new clan would take over everything would be replaced with that families' emblem although my memory is a bit foggy (since I saw it a while ago) and I got info from a Youtube short so take this info with a huge grain of salt (and it anyone actually knows if this info is legit or not, please correct me if I get anything wrong).

Overall, don't think this looks too much like Hakugyokurou, but I am glad I drew this anyway because I needed the practice with drawing backgrounds.