#thank you arcane for changing my art style i guess

[shaottzang]

Oublie-moi, le pire, c'est toi et moi..

[aroaessidhe]

metal from heaven fans i have character design sketches for most of the cast I would love if anyone has Thoughts Ideas or Suggestions (gay sketches as a reward if you read to the bottom)

i did..... not quite every on page character, but pretty much everyone who's there more than once and at least vaguely described (or like. I'd do gwyar if it wouldn't be a spoiler)

all the character descriptions I have recorded are here by the way !!

some of the characters are described a lot but most are like.....their face/hair but nothing about their clothes, or the other way around, so for a lot of them I just winged it - part of the reason I wanted to do so many characters roughly was so get a sense of the overall styles and vibes? august said they were thinking about john galliano for fashion so I took a lot of inspo from that and also a heavy dose of western vibes.....fashion is not my strong point though. truly just stuck it all in a blender and slapped it on.

and also for most of these it's sort of first-or-second-pass designs - basically just getting an initial feel rather than really solidly Designed. so likely to change. I could definitely push a lot of them further!!!

fingerbluffs/choir etc!

sisphe is described with having sunlight trapped in her hair and then also a dark curtain of hair and it's PROBABLY dark but I did imagine her blonde initially because of that. going with blonde hair as a kid that got darker to compromise...

her disguise outfit isn't really described other than gloves but I kinda matched it to marney disguise (below)

harlow took me so long to figure out getting her face like I imagined and also like how I described....I'm not sure still. i love her sm

amon is accidentally giving victor arcane. the character archetype + colour palette I guess. I specifically made it blue/black with pink highlights because of the tullian gender colours though..

tbh I still haven't figured out how their bandit hoods work. I think they pull over from the back of the head but I can't figure out how to draw that in a way that works so they're bandanas for now

not pictured but what are we imagining the lurchers like. just fun punky sff motorbikes?

aristrocrats !!

i am pretty happy with my marney and goss (though goss could be shorter...)

wanna do more vikare outfits

yann i. chauncey supposed to be quite boring and nondescript but also. sure does like Like A Random Dude in this lineup huh

basically all of the bottom row are only lightly described so I just went with the initial vague mental image I had tbh!

could I put more effort into giving them more cultural distinctions / make the areas they're from more visually distinct? yes probably. it's hard to get a sense of some of that when some of the places are within ignavia and some are like.. separate continents - and there's no map to sort it out in my head. (you may notice i wrote where they're from in blue by the names though)

description: 'detailed traditional tullian/drustish/etc embroidery' me: here's some vague scribbles

could deffo get some more body diversity in here

anyway genuinely very interested if anyone is like 'I imagined x to be completely different in y way' or fancasts or anything else! i am so open to and interested in making changes if other people have thoughts (and like if you're not an artist so can't draw it yourself) (or even if you are an artist but don't have the time and want to make me draw it instead. i know the feeling)

----

thanks for reading here's sketches:

I promise I will post these properly on my art blog sometime. also if anyone has ideas for little sketches like these, of any particular interactions or whatever....

[bitchqueenofthebitchsquad]

Gripes about season 2:

My rambling and mostly incoherent gripes about arcane season 2 with headers to help me keep track of what I’m trying to say:

Is hanging out with your oppressor a desirable outcome of the struggle?:

Some people imagine that the greatest goal of a stratified society is for all the classes in that society to hang out more. Basically it's the idea that oppression wouldn't happen if we could all just get to know each other. But proximity doesn’t seem to prevent people from oppressing one another. Policy changes, social movements, revolutions etc. are what seem to do it. You know, systemic change. Arcane brings up system problems and then seems to lose interest. At the end of the show, the status quo is pretty much unchanged except that a few tokens have found their way into the hearts of their oppressors. Are we supposed to be satisfied by this?

When people with this “Lets all get along” mindset create art about oppression I find that, no matter how thoughtful, accurate, or heartfelt their description of the problems, the solution they come up with is always really trite and naive.

So for arcane we have Zaun, the under city that wants health and safety and Piltover which is wealthy but at the cost of the health and safety of Zaun. Instead of letting these two battle it out union vs cops/military/state violence style like in the industrial revolution (which is what I thought we were gearing up for) we get this weird moral about how if the two societies don't band together, some foreign other will come take over. 

That's a threat to Piltover, but for Zaun, which is already fucked up, how much would switching out their oppressor change their status quo? The devil you know vs the devil you don't I guess? 

Arcane manages to include some of my least favorite cliches. They have the savage imperialist foreigners, scary new technology that for reasons that can’t be explained destroys people's humanity (old man yells at cloud), and a visibly disabled big bad who loses his humanity thanks to his mobility aids which (again for reasons that can’t be explained) corrupt him. In fact almost all our main antagonists are disabled (Silko, Singed, Sevika kinda, Viktor). For me it fell beyond tropes and into the realm of stereotypes. 

In the end, when the evildoers are defeated, the status quo remains but now the groups are all hanging out a little bit more. This feels super hollow to me. Surely hanging out with the oppressors isn’t the goal of the oppressed. Oppressed people want access to resources and so they go to the places where resources are being held. If we could, we would just build resources and infrastructure in our own communities. Thats the story I would want for Zaun. I also think that a lot of these stories are interested in the aesthetics of oppression because they can use trauma to get audience reactions, but they dont necessarily understand or have anything to say about how oppression works or what should be done about it.

While internalized oppression complicates this, I still think that ultimately most oppressed people are making a pragmatic choice when they associate with the opposing class. Like, when I go to the white grocery store, it's not because I want to emulate white people or I’m itching to see them, it's just that their grocery store is way better than the one in my neighborhood. 

Instead of Piltover having to give up anything material the show is like "what if Piltover let a token Zaun girlie on their council?" And this is shown as a hopeful step in the right direction. But if you know you know. How many tokens have we seen who look like us but don't represent us, either because they are beholden to the interests that put them in power in the first place or because they don't really have power, they're just meant to make us feel "represented". Very uncool.

Episode seven:

In episode seven, Ekko gets to see a Zaun that is safer and healthier but also visually more like Piltover. That was a big miss for me. How cool would it have been to see the aesthetics of Zaun but without the blight? I also just hate the little fury professor. Rich, naive, old people are almost as annoying in media as they are irl.

Also why was the jinx in that episode so boring? I get why Ekko didn’t stick around. If I thought I was going to have to date homegirl I would've gone back to my universe as well. Hate to see an unambitious woman running around. 

Body augmentation:

Also I have serious hatred in my heart for the idea that augmenting the body is something to be feared.  Like, the narrative that changing your body is not loving yourself is trash. I understand that the writers were kind of trapped by the game lore but I’m complaining about what I didn’t like not making an argument for why things had to be exactly as they were. It would have been nice if Viktor could have just been a regular degular revolutionary who kills his oppressors because they’re unwilling to cede power instead of for “magic corruption” reasons. Like let the disabled man get prosthetics and fight the people who are responsible for his illness without implying that body modification, particularly life saving body modification, is hubris. And then when he goes and heals the junkies and sick people. Can someone explain to me what the problem was with that without integrating game lore? Like just textual evidence from the show, what was wrong with that?

Final gripes

Jayce killing Viktor is what prompts him to go on his glorious evolution thing where he integrates warwick into his body or whatever so isn’t it Jayce’s fault shit goes sideways???  So then how does the time travel make sense? Isn’t it Jayce who needed to be stopped?

Time travel is either writers jumping on the trend or a way to try and dig themselves out of a hole. Either way its lazy.

I have buckets of contempt for people who claim they love Black characters but none of their fanworks contain those characters. What do the girls get out of these kind of lies? Is there some social capital they think they’re gaining? Is anyone (anyone worth taking seriously) demanding they do this? 

Don’t think this was a shipping win for Jayce Vik actually although I agree it was very gay. Gayness/queerness that is only subtext, even if its barely subtext, isn’t explicit enough for me.

I might be reaching here but the whole “he’s taking peoples individuality” is giving anti communist dog whistle.

What I liked:

I liked when the lesbians were eating coochie

The show is so beautiful! I loved all of the glimpses of the arcane and wish we’d had more Sky and Victor wandering around in people's mind palaces.

[tizeline]

Your art is so cool!! Can you share you digital art process sometime?

Ask and ye shall receive:

(Also thank you!!😭)

Aight so I have A Few digital art processes due to me being inconsistent and not being able to commit to one thing (I prefer calling it ✨having a creative and curious mind✨ but eh) so my processes are subject to change, but here are my more recent methods of drawing digitally.

First of all, my art software of choice in the last couple of years has been Procreate, with some of my most commonly used brushes being these:

Spectra is my brush of choice when it comes to sketching, I really like the texture and it has a nice feel when it comes to both size and opacity based on pressure.

Next up is lineart, what brushes I use in this stage goes hand in hand with what type of colouring process I'll use. When it comes to drawings with more flat shading (such as cellshading) I'll usually use Narinder Pencil. Again, nice texture, and I like it for situations where I want thinner lines with less variety in line-thickness.

When I use a colouring and shading process that's more complex/fully rendered of whatever tf you call it, I tend to use the Niko Rull or Eaglehawk (first drawing is the Niko Rull, second is Eaglehawk)

They are also the brushes I use for the actual rendering process of this particular colouring style (yeah guess we're going into to colouring stage now)

I have no idea how to describe my actual process on how I render my drawings lmao sorry I guess?? I kinda just improvise and hope it ends up looking decent haha. As you might be able to guess though, I am HEAVILY inspired by Arcane's art style (that show Awakened something in my istg) so uhhhhh go watch other people's tutorials on how to emulate the Arcane art style or smthn I dunno.

I will say though, the rendering process and the final look of the piece ends up being slightly different depending on which brush I use.

Niko Rull is rectangular as a base shape, and it doesn't really shade that easily on it's own. Because of that it takes a while to make the shading look good (trust the process!!) but I really like the end result (textureeeeee)

Eaglehawk is easier to blend and shade with (as in it takes a shorter amount of time) which leads to the end result being more smooth

Back to the drawings that use mainly flat shading! Here I will often use Eaglehawk to add that sweet sweet texture I keep going on about, basically I will just colour the areas that are either darker and/or more saturated (for example the cheeks, nose and ears in the latter case) with what is usually a warmer tone on a layer set to multiply, then I adjust the opacity to my liking.

Then I'll just cellshade using the Medium Hard Airbrush. I like using a cooler tone like blue often (like I did here in this example) but that changes a lot depending on what I think'll fit the art piece. Draw that on a layer set to multiply and again adjust the opacity to whatever looks good.

In the final stages of the drawing process I'll just add a bunch of filters until it looks good lmao. I am Bad At Colour Theory™, even though I KNOW the theory part of it, I have such a hard time actually using it practically. Basically, making the colour palette look good is HARD so I'll just CHEAT by using layers that's filled with a colour (whatever fits) and set it to like multiply or overlay or something like that and lower the opacity a bunch and BOOM people will think I know what I'm doing. One of my favorite is covering the entire drawing with a layer filled with a light blue colour, set that layer to Difference and lower the opacity to like 5%. The effect is subtle, but I like it.

Also, MORE TEXTURE!! Static texture!! Well, in procreate it's called "Noise" but it basically adds this static like texture to your selected layer. Use it on a layer that's filled with gray, set it to overlay lower the opacity a bunch and it gives this really nice grainy feel to your art. The colour filters I tend to use on all my coloured drawings, but the noise texture I mostly use the art with flat shading.

So yeah, sketching - lineart - colour flats - shading/rendering - add a bunch of filters - finished art piece, nothing really unusual there.

And lastly, some extra things I do:

In the lineart stage, I'll colour the sketch like red or something to differentiate between the sketch and lineart more easily.

I'll also lower the opacity of the sketch layer to help avoid accidentally drawing the lines on the same layer as the sketch (iykyk)

When filling in the flats, I'll first use a deep, saturated red or blue, and when I'm done filling in a section then I'll change the colour in that area to what it's actually supposed to be. This makes it easier to notice if there's a spot you missed to fill in because it'll contrast more!

I tend to prefer lineart that isn't pure black in my illustrations. With thinner lines I'll colour them a dark brown, blue, green etc, while with thicker lines I'll do the same but also lower the opacity slightly so that the colour underneath effects the lines colour as well.

You know how some people draw everything on like 1-3 layers? Yeah I'm the opposite, ONE MILLION LAYERS BABEYYYY you can never have too many!! (actually you can there's a limit but eh)

Sometimes, when I need to come up with a pose, I'll try posing in different ways myself to get ideas. I wont take any reference pics of myself tho because yikes

That's all I can think of for now! There's quite a lot to go into when it comes to art processes and I'm not great at explaining things, so if anyone has any questions just ask! :,)

[jusadode-blog]

Juicy, love ya to death but what the heck is this Arcane (????) Thing you've been going off about for a bit now?????

If it were not for the fact I read tags, I would have been confused yet honored by the name Juicy. Hope you’re ready for the long-post of a lifetime mate.

Okay, so “The Arcana” is a free to play visual novel-like game which is pushing out new updates every blue moon for phones with a lot of romance, mystery, danger, and all that fun stuff. This description is gonna focus mostly on the romance since the story is full of spoilers from the get go. There are currently three main possible romances including:

Julian [my beloved~] (male), Asra (who is Nonbinary [I just found that out from the wiki] and uses he/him pronouns), and Nadia (female).

Muriel [my cave husband] (male) has just been added for a chapter, and will likely get plenty of updates soon, and there is another two characters (including another girl) who appear like they will be romancable in due time.

A mechanic I adore is that you can pick your pronouns as he/him, she/her, or they/them as well, and change them and your name at any point in the game without issue.

On the website I used, it says it’s rated 12+ however I would estimate it more appropriate for ages 16+ due to the nature of the usual sexual tones and scenarios.

The story is a LOT to take in, and I’m still wrapping my head around it all.In the first so many chapters: There’s a magical kingdom. Count’s dead, been dead a while and it’s my boyfriend’s fault? Countess wants to kill him, I personally didn’t want to and am making choices against such. Heartbreak and shenanigans ensue (and by shenanigans I mean things I cannot explain without spoiling other things, which would spoil other things, which would…). So far I’m pretty sure I’ve been guessing in the right direction although I’ve been making almost every wrong decision possible this latest chapter I did [whoops].

Which, by the way, YOUR CHOICES MATTER. Characters can die later in the game if you choose too many wrong, as well as may be less likely to befriend you or more likely. There are also two endings in the works, however it seems like it’s pretty easy to change the course of the ending you’re on the path towards as you can just go back in a chapter and change your choices. However, the games mechanics are still a bit hidden behind the curtain as it’s always updating, and some choices repercussions from the first few chapters hasn’t even played out their purpose yet.

MAJOR WARNING! Some choices have time limits! I made a questionable decision in the beginning because I wasn’t expecting it.

The art is so gorgeous, the story is VERY intricate and has so many questions arising each and every tap of a page, and the characters are so delightful I feel a sting in my chest in how some of my choices may affect some others. However, I will comment that I went in almost completely blind and so I had no fucking clue what was going on for a good 5 chapters but just now understood a major plot thing and now I’m dying while waiting for my keys to recharge.

Recharge? Well, here’s the more boring and stressful (but understandable) details:

For each chapter, you must spend a “key” to read it (or reread it). These keys recharge every SEVEN hours, and cannot hold more than three at a time.

There are coins you can earn for free in game through a daily free spin and the “heart hunter” minigame, which are then to unlock bonus content and “buy books” which allows all choices in the book to be unlocked and unlimited rereadings, and you can also buy the coins and keys if you want, but ultimately you neither need them to complete the entire basic story, nor get most of the content. However, it can be quite frustrating as some of the choices are so insanely painful to click the opposition of as the alternative seems rude or even ooc for yourself to click despite not having any repercussions.

You can easily save up coins though with a bit of patience, even though I dropped some of my day 1 freebie coins on a dumb but very much appreciated scenario, I already have saved up about 200/500 coins for a book, so I imagine F2P only players might suffer a bit at first but can still enjoy it entirely. According to their tumblr page @thearcanagame , they are attempting a new method to allow users to get free coins through watching ads willingly, so it may become even easier for F2P only players to enjoy more content [however, if you’ve got the cash and enjoy the game you should support it! the devs are pouring their blood, sweat, and tears into this game man!]

Also, you can replay the prologue at any point! The choices affect later choices still (so be careful going back on your awnsers, as you may miss how such affected things and character development based on such), but that’s always an option.

Now for me to just swoon:

Julian is the biggest fucking edgy dork and I just relate to him so much and have fallen so fucking hard for him man, he’s so stupid yet so sweet? Like this idiot is out here isolating himself with all that “I DON’T WANT YOU TO GET HURT!” nonsense all dramatically and (someone) and I are just ready to beat his ass and take him down from his drama for five minutes to let him know he’s loved and needs to chill. He’s so energetic and fun, and just brings a sort of energy into the room when he arrives and shifts everything onto it’s side where things don’t really need to make sense anymore, as long as it’s dramatic, as long as it’s grandiose, it’s all good.

[But he’s also an idiot so don’t let him get himself fucking killed doing that]. Like, when I first saw the art and stuff of him I poked fun at him myself, but now I would honestly commit treason for this man. I really wanna look into the Asra’s route eventually as well, however his character seems far less relatable to me and somehow even more moody? That might be because I keep picking the wrong fucking choices though.

A final note, I’m trying to prevent this game from becoming my SpIn because there are SO MANY SPOILERS OUT THERE, but it’s obviously already taken over my life and I can’t stop thinking about it and how much I want to continue and all my questions, HOLY SHIT ALL MY QUESTIONS, and also I really don’t know who to trust or even if I shouldn’t trust anyone, as well as just I don’t want anyone to die ;.;

Honestly if you like dating style games, or love mystery games and can handle a nice romance on the side, I highly recommend this game. I’ll give it a 8/10, with the two points marked off mainly because I couldn’t fucking click “Kiss me you fool” on a thing where I fucking 100% would have said that in real life because I HAVE NO MONEY YET.

Thanks for dropping in, hope this answers your questions!

[infinite-xerath]

Regional Magic

So I’ve thought the magic in Runeterra quite a bit lately, and last night I had a bit of a revelation: what if the nature of the arcane itself actually changes from place to place? It might explain some of the differences and slight inconsistencies with how spells seem to work in different areas of the world. Below are my observations about how magic seems to work in different regions of Valoran.))

Shurima: We’ll start with perhaps the most obvious one. Shuriman magic, due to the region being based off of Egypt (and perhaps a few other surrounding nations) appears the most ‘supernatural’ in nature. Now, obviously, magic itself is somewhat supernatural, but Shuriman magic seems to be especially so. Thus-far, Shurima seems to contain the highest number of ‘curses’ we’ve seen in the lore so far; Xerath cursed the queen so she couldn’t have another healthy child, Nasus can curse people to age or “WHITHER!” as he calls it, and Cassiopeia was transformed due to a curse put upon her by the snake statue. There’s also Amumu, who was resurrected through a curse that seems to be different from typical necromancy.

Furthermore, Xerath is revealed to be able to call forth great storms by ‘calling forth spirits in the depths of the desert,’ and Azir is able to resurrect things by manipulating sand. The magic of Shurima certainly seems to take a lot of inspiration from the Egyptian aesthetic it was based on.

Ionia: Now let’s look at an example of magic that is perhaps the most contrary to the others. Ionian magic seems to be rather spiritual in nature; the most obvious example of this is Karma, who quite literally wields the power of her spirit, an ability she apparently gained through ‘enlightenment.’ Of course, there are other examples, such as Shen, who wields magic in the form of his spirit blade used to combat demons, and Zed, who summons shadows born of an unknown power he stole from his master. Yasuo can manipulate the wind, but he does so in a matter quite obviously different to how Janna does it, using his sword to stir up the air around him. Irelia controls blades through sheer will, and characters like Yi can heal themselves or move at immense speeds through sheer concentration.

Ultimately, Ionians seem to harness magic through their martial arts, developing fighting styles based around their power, and using it more to compliment their skills in other areas rather than focus heavily on magecraft (Syndra being the obvious big, floating exception.)

Noxus: This one’s a little trickier, since Noxian magic doesn’t seem to have an obvious theme at first when looking at its mage characters (Swain, LeBlanc, Vladimir, etc.) However, it can certainly be said Noxians are known to use magic that would be rather deadly on the battlefield, such as necromancy to raise up defeated soldiers, blood magic to sap their enemies’ vitality, or rune magic to strengthen their weapons (see Riven.) LeBlanc’s illusion magic could make it easy to disorient the enemy and confuse them, and Swain... Well, he’s getting a rework soon, so I’ll leave him alone for now.

As a whole, Noxian magecraft appears to have evolved primarily to be useful in combat and warfare, and they’re willing to harness whatever dark or immoral powers they deem fit for the sake of victory. After-all, the Black Rose is apparently harboring tons of artifacts from the Shadow Isles, thanks to Elise.

Demacia: Needless to say, Demacia doesn’t have much in the way of magecraft, since they’re a nation founded on the idea of fearing magic. They use things like petricite to dampen magical powers, or Demacian steel to ward of the undead. The only real examples of characters with a somewhat arcane nature in Demacia are Lux (the only real mage we know of in the nation), Poppy (her hammer is enchanted), and Galio (he’s made of petricite, but can come to life when he absorbs magic for some reason.) It’s tough to really narrow down a theme, but there are two possibilities to discuss:

First is the obvious idea of elemental magic, which is, of course, primarily made obvious by Lux and her affinity for wielding light magic. Of course, there’s her skin which has her wielding several elements as well, but seeing as how that’s not entirely canon, we can’t really rely on it too much. The other possibility is that, just as Noxian magic has evolved to be aggressive and brutal on the battlefield (as expected from a nation of conquerors), Demacian magic might be centered more around protection and defense. After-all, Poppy’s hammer can only be wielded by a true hero who stands up for justice (supposedly), and Galio’s job is literally protecting people from enemy mages. This would fit well with the theme of Demacia seeing themselves as the Vanguard of Valoran, after-all.

Freljord: Now this one is probably the hardest to get a firm grasp on. The only true ‘mage’ character from the Freljord is Lissandra, who wields the power of her corrupted True Ice. Indeed, perhaps one could argue that True Ice is simply the over-all basis for magic in the Freljord, since plenty of people seem to enchant their weapons with the stuff. However, if one looks closer, one can see an almost shamanistic style of magic-wielding from the northerners, even if it’s scattered somewhat loosely. Sejuani and Olaf both received prophecies from seers, which could be false, but we know that seers are at least a thing in Valoran thanks to Malzahar’s lore. There’s also Gregor, whose spirit is bound to the Howling Abyss, surrounded by large stone tablets with markings on them.

Last but not least is Udyr, who can call upon the power an ancient spirits; a skill that he, in-part, learned to harness on a trip to Ionia. One could also bring up the Primordials (Ornn, Volibear and Anivia), however they seem to be more along the lines of ‘embodiments of natural forces’ rather than full-on magic users.

Bandle: Alright, there’s a lot about Yordles that still hasn’t been revealed to us just yet, so I’ll refrain from touching on this one too much. All I’ll say is that their magic is blatantly styled after faeries, with their glamours (which may or may not be partially science-based?), and of course Lulu’s whimsical, nonsensical spells. I’ll wait until Riot gets to revamping Bandle’s lore properly before saying anymore.

Targon: And finally, let’s examine the last major location on Runeterra with a heavily magical presence: Mount Targon. Needless to say, though the ordinary mountain dwellers don’t seem to have much in the way of magical skill, the beings that reside at Targon’s peak (and beyond), wield magic that is very-much celestial in nature. They can harness the power of the sun (Solari), moon (Lunari), the stars (Taric and the Protector), and... Uh... War, I guess? IDK Pantheon’s the odd one out, not having an obvious space theme, but he has a star dragon at his beck and call, so... That sorta counts, right? Anyways, yeah, Targon seems to harness the power of the cosmos itself when channeling magic.

So yes, it seems that magic and how it’s wielded by mages actually evolves differently depending on different regions and environments, much like how humans do. Each area of Valoran seems to have its own unique set of rules for how spells can operate, which might explain why you don’t see Noxians conjuring up storms, despite how powerful such an ability could be (you’d think somewhat else would have figured it out after Xerath), or Freljordians incorporating a touch of magic into their fighting styles like the Ionians do, despite both seeming somewhat spiritual in nature.