#the first one is based on how i posed my figures of them once

[te4k3ttle]

Collection of wips I've been meaning to finish for months but never got to it so they're getting posted as they are

[meanbossart]

Oh boy, VaM is kind of a trial and error experience LOL I couldn't really show you how to use the interface and stuff without a whole video or something, but it's not THAT difficult to get a hang of if you just give yourself a day or two to play around, not to mention the number of tutorials you find out there. Luckily, if you only want to use it as a reference software that makes the process far easier (to this day I have no idea how to animate on that thing, since that's not what I use it for)

As for how I use it, it's pretty self explanatory - if there's a complicated pose I want to draw but I'm either having trouble with it, or just want to double-check angles/anatomy, I will use it as a resource! I use for most of my "proper" pieces (y'know, the nicer looking ones) and every once in a while for my silly comics if I'm having trouble with a pose.

Lets use this drawing for example (the character on top of DU drow belongs to @namespara )

I don't draw a lot of mud-wrestling (shocking, I know) but I had an idea of the kind of pose I wanted them to be in. So the very first thing I did was make a rough sketch of what I was envisioning:

I often do a rough sketch first, even If I know I'm going to be pulling the program up because A) It's less tedious than adjusting the models over and over again until I pick a pose and B) because sometimes I'll decide I don't need the reference, after all, and so that's 30 minutes I'll have spared myself of playing around on the software.

Now, this is a pretty complicated pose! It's in a weird angle and the bodies are making contact in ways I'm not used to depicting, so I did choose to whip out VaM for this one. I went into the program and after some messing around, I flopped my little dolls together like this:

Now something really cool about VaM is that you can completely customize your models, and if you have the patience, I would definitely encourage you to do so! Obviously, you don't have to make picture perfect replicas of every single character you have, but as you can see here I have made a DU drow "decoy" to help me better understand some of his features when I draw him: he has a strong brow, a short nose, a square jawline - these are all going to look a very specific way from certain angles, and I might not always be sure of how to draw it right! So it's useful to have models that bear SOME semblance to the character so you can better understand how different viewpoints will affect their bone structure and mass.

Also thank fucking god for the elf-ear slider. Figuring out how to draw those shits from certain angles was a huge pain in the ass when I started drawing DnD races.

So, with the reference in hand, I go over the sketch again:

Now you may notice that I don't stick to the reference 100%. There's three reasons for this:

posing on VaM is tedious as hell. You can get something incredibly natural looking and picture-perfect to reference from if you wish, but it's going to take you hours to do. So, for the most part I just slap guys together until the results are "close enough" and use that.

In my opinion, you should always aim to ENHANCE your reference material, not replicate it exactly!

While VaM is a PRETTY DANG GOOD source of anatomical reference, it isn't perfect, I often supplement it with further reference from real life resources or make tweaks based on my own knowledge where I catch it falling short (and, antithetical to what I just said, I sometimes fuck the anatomy up further on purpose if I think it looks better that way LOL it's all jazz baby).

Then lines, color, yada yada. I don't have a tutorial on that and I don't think I could make one, because my process is chaotic as hell, but I do at times use Virt-a-mate as loose reference for lighting too when coloring - waaaaayyyy less so however, because that process is even more tedious and I feel like I often get better results by just winging it. It is a feature of the program though, and I'm sure it would be helpful for someone who has a difficult time visualizing lights and shadows. I only started using this program a few months ago, so I happened to already have a pretty good understanding of that kind of thing and just don't personally feel like I get much out of that particular mechanic.

Here's a few other examples of pieces that I made reference for (WARNING: Suggestive)

Now, for the question many of you may want to ask:

"Can I trace this junk?"

And to that, I say: Buddy, you can do whatever the hell you want with the reference material you created.

However,

If your goal is to learn and improve your art, and to recreate realistic proportions and anatomy from memory, tracing won't help you.

Developing your own style, your muscle memory, and personal technique will all be hindered by choosing to trace instead of drawing from observation, so I would encourage against it. Hell - even when tracing is employed as a technique, it's usually by high-skill realism & concept artists who are looking to either cut some corners, save time, or just double-check their own proportions in order to improve further - if you try tracing as a beginner, you will most definitely find the result to still look stiff and "off".

So trust me, there is so much more to be gained from drawing from observation. Make note of tangents, compare proportions, use all the elements of the picture to dictate where and how things should go - it will be a far more rewarding experience.

Hopefully this has been helpful! VaM is a really cheap program (you get it on the guys' patreon for I think 8 dollars, just google it!) and it's definitely been worth my money as an artist since I found it. Learning to use it can be a little intimidating at first glance, but as I said above you only really need a day plus one or two tutorials to get a hang of the interface.

A fair warning though, IT IS A SOFTWARE MADE FOR VIRTUAL SEX/ADULT ANIMATION So when looking it up expect to see a some spicy content.

[prostocupoftea]

Kinitopet Programmers AU

finally i am finished with this one, daaaamn

it is hard to draw pathetic men with midlife crisis when your style is mostly for anime boys

more info and sketch version under the cut!!

sketch version aka how it'll probably look like in comic version 'n some doodles

srry for my writing but i was too laisy to put it as regular text

It is a plot-based au, i already have most of the storybits and like... a vibe-chart (i tried to make a playlist for this au and understood that for different chapters and different characters that'd be a copleatly different music, sooo it's a chart now :) )

i will post a fog-o-wared timeline that im hopefully gonna reveal comic-by comic, but also maybe with just pure writing. Hopefully i can include songs that i chose for them into it but we'll see (:

aaand of course designs can change, hopefully not much but we'll see

Now about au:

Main story:

Story follows non-sentient AI Kinito, his creator Sonny and his beta-tester Victoria (oc)

Being literally the first AI (or RRA in-univere) ever, Kinito does not have any, and i mean, any ai safety features so of course his reponce to a goal phrased as "have user near me and/or interacting with me as much as possible" is digitizing them into his own virtual world while killing them in the process. why wouldn't it be?

So that happened. Like, a lot. And with Sonny and Vic too (at the different time but yeah)

Sonny is like "He kills people. We should turn him off because, you know, killing people is bad."

Vic is like "well, we will die if we do that, and it is not that bad here, we are kinda immortal. We should give him acces to changing his initial instalation code before admin priveleges and acces to social media so we can have everythin we want here. It is not that bad to digitize humanity, yk?" and yes i know it is 90, no social media, but shut up, if they made ai then, then i can make twitter then too

Sonny is like "...no??"

And then they fight about it for million chapters

Also they both can't do anything without agreeing bc they have two parts of that admin access key (the data you use to delete kinito in-game) so they are stuck with eachother (also that's why Kinito can't just kill them)

Little facts that may or may not to be important:

Kinito asks so many questions (and weird once too) and has most of the glitches because he needs to analise your responces to copy your mind perfectly (let's pretend that people wouldn't lie about that...)

Your house in your virtual world is made from important places from your memories and oh boy can i do character explorations with this one

I decided that Sonny and Vic are not related. There were thoughts about making then "The Kinito Brothers" (or, at least, siblings) that were mentioned in commercial, but nah, they are just coworkers now. And a bit of work-friends (bc if you interact a lot as a manager of the project and the best worker might as well be friendly)

Author has no idea how small dying toy companies that accidentally create technological marvel work. Author has some idea how AI-s work. So be prepared to be spoon-fed info abut which ai safety problem we are dealing with in which chapter (:

Kinito will mostly be unrendered (as drawn here) but for some cool moments i might pose him as for my other posts. Also his eye placement changes to the side that is most visible because i want him to be able to look to the right side sometimes--

Also when i say "fucked up mentally" i mean they have that them psychological problems with me projecting heavilly B) (guess on who i project most. trick question. all of them. the whole au is my problems split into three characters and forced to interact B) )

Also sea-creature analogies (that are gonna be mentioned like twice):

Victoria is a flying fish because deep character reasons

Sonny is a pufferfish because i said so

oh also there is 7 deaths in the plot as for now

on 3 characters

good luck figuring out who, how and when ((:

for my own sanity i will probably make little doodles where everything is great and kinito is a good guy and not a number-obsessed maniac (i mean... can u imagine not being able to feel any happiness from anything besides one thing... damn...) and you can differenciate them bc good-guy kinito will have a lot of stickers on him (i will explain it somehow but real reason is just bc it is cute af)

like this but even more stickers (he is unfinished here)

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

What do you think of a Lila character arc in which she learns that actually doing good and making her own visible achievements is more likely to get her better results than lying about her accomplishments and trying to sabotage others to make herself look better in comparison? That is, she figures out that if she really wants to *securely* get ahead in the world in the way that the show portrays her as wanting to rather than getting the 15-minutes-of-fame intervals created by her lies that she has to then keep feeding into, then she has to work WITH people instead of AGAINST them. Note that this is NOT a redemption arc that I’m describing; Lila would still not care at all about others or how they feel outside of direct usefulness to her in this scenario, but she would figure out how to employ her skills in a way that boosts HER up instead of tears OTHERS down (ex. lying and manipulating the reputations of individual people > acting and being an influencer on social media for sponsor brands) as well as how to network better and with WHOM it’s actually worth it to network with in the long run (could’ve seen that drop-of-a-dime betrayal from Gabriel Agreste in “Revelation” from a mile away, just sayin’). Lila would still be vain, vengeful and attention-focused the entire way through, with these being core qualities that don’t change about her, but while learning when to stop putting energy into her spite for someone due to either the actual “slight” against her being small in the grand scheme of things or the untouchability of her target in any way that really matters, as are the cases with Ladybug. In fact, this idea came from those posts that people have made since Season 3 and beyond pointing out two major character plot points of “Volpina” that conflict with common sense in hindsight concerning Lila. 1) After being deakumatized and calming down about the whole situation, Lila should have, while still not liking Ladybug, NOT continued to go after her from this point forward after realizing that Adrien was the only one who saw that whole outing of her lies and wasn’t angry at her for it as well as let her Ladyblog comments fade into obscurity as a safety net once considering how big of a public figure who does tangible good for the public Ladybug is and the reputation risk for little reward it would pose for her to keep talking about the hero at all. 2) If Lila really had done her research on the whole class and was as socially smart as the show wants her to come off as, she should’ve seen Marinette as someone to be “besties” with before her first day at school even started given her public accomplishments and connections up to that point (the sunglasses and album cover for Jagged in the music industry, her parents and great uncle in the food industry, her own merit as an up-and-coming fashion designer whose bowler hat design genuinely impressed Gabriel Agreste, who is known to not be impressed with or humor things he views as a waste of time as with Simon Says, etc.) the same way she did with Alya and the Ladyblog. Whether she still clings to Adrien given he’s still open to being friends with her as long as she stops lying (which she’s already resolved to do about Ladybug at minimum at this point) or she still gets annoyed with him trying to “lecture” her and decides he’s not worth the annoyance of putting up with over her two intended “besties” (Marinette and Lila wouldn’t be clashing since Lila would be trying to come up with a new game plan for school instead of lying now that Adrien’s aware of her and Marinette would still feel apologetic from the ending of “Volpina”) is up to preference, but I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on all of this regardless.

There's a lot here, so I'm going to start this post by stating what I think you're saying so that you know where I'm coming from in my answer in case I'm totally off base. The argument appears to be that a social climber (?) like Lila should have an arc where she learns that lies can only get her so far and that she's better off trying to make as many real connections as she can. The lies won't totally stop, but lying should become a last resort for her. I fully agree with that analysis. It's one of the many issues with Lila's writing. In the majority of the show, she is written like a compulsive liar and not like a clever manipulator.

A lot of the problem comes down to Lila's total lack of motivation. We don't know what her goals are and it feels like the writers don't either. It's why I put a question mark next to "social climber" in the last paragraph. I don't know if that's actually why she is! That makes her incredibly hard to write well.

When Lila's introduced, it comes across like she just wants to be seen as cool by her classmates. As the show goes on, that continues, but we also get this sense that she wants greater power of some kind and has some sort of master plan going on. Those are clashing behaviors. The kind of lies she tells at school are far too risky for someone with a grand plan. They put her at far too much risk of being outed.

For example, if she is actively manipulating a bunch of women into thinking that they're her mother, then why tell her classmates that she was out of town working for a charity with a well-known public figure like she did in Catalyst? That puts her at risk for a call home or even just having someone meet one of the mothers and mentioning the trip, which would make said mother start asking questions. Lila should be doing everything in her power to keep that from happening. She should want to blend in, not stand out. Canon even shows us how easily her lies would be outed if anyone other than Marinette cared to do basic fact checking:

Lila: (Waves) Hello, everyone! Miss Bustier's class: Hi Lila! Miss Bustier: We can't wait to hear what you've been doing since our last video chat. Tell us about your week in the Kingdom of Achu. Lila: It's absolutely amazing! Prince Ali invited me and my parents to his gorgeous palace. Marinette: Excuse me, Lila, but Prince Ali couldn't possibly have invited you because he is in the United States. Lila: (Laughs) I never said he was actually there, Marinette. I just said he invited us, that's all. His parents organized the visit- Marinette: She's lying, and I'll expose her for the fake that she is. Alya: Oh no, Marinette, not that again. She's not a liar. You're just jealous of Lila because she tried to hit on Adrien.

There is no point to this lie and it actively undermines Lila's character. This lie makes it look like she has no master plan and just lies compulsively for the thrill of it. The kind of character who tells lies like this one would not be capable of setting up multiple fake identities.

If you want to make Lila a master manipulator, then she needs to be written like she was in Oni-chan, which is one of the rare episodes where canon wrote her well:

Lila: What's the worst grade you've ever gotten? Adrien: An A- in math. Listen, Lila, you should forget about this. My father can be harsh with anyone he thinks is an intruder. Lila: (laughs) We're not doing anything wrong. Leave this to me. [Scene change to front the the mansion] Nathalie: I'm sorry, Adrien, but you know your father- Lila: Excuse me, ma'am. But is there any way I could ask him directly? Just in case. Nathalie: Mr. Agreste is busy designing and must not be disturbed for any reason. Adrien: I told you so. Lila: Oh, Adrien. I so wanted to help you make up all the schoolwork you missed due to all the modeling you've been doing lately. What will your father think if he finds out about your lower grades, Adrien? Who will he believe? Nathalie: Adrien, have your grades gone down? Lila: He’d never tell you himself up when I saw Adrien crying the other day because he only got an A-, I just felt like I had to offer him my help. I would’ve taken half an hour. (Nathalie raises her eyebrow at her) I understand. You’re only doing what you think is best. I did what I could, Adrien. Good luck. Nathalie: If it's only half an hour...

Lila is still a little too much here, but this is a kids show, so it makes sense to play up the lies a bit. With that context in mind, this is close enough to quality manipulation that I would feel like I was being a total nitpick if I complained about everyone being too gullible and Lila being a bad liar. Instead, I'm going to praise this writing. This is how she should have always been written. Minor lies used to get her connections or to manipulate her connections, but as much truth as she can manage to keep herself from being outed. Every lie should have a purpose and be carefully thought out. That's how manipulators work.

The Ladybug thing you brought up is another problem. If Lila's goal is manipulation, then she absolutely should have "forgiven" Ladybug and pretended to change. The lines she gives are those of a petty brat, not an evil mastermind:

Ladybug: I... totally overreacted and... never should've spoken to you like that. I'm sorry. Lila: Forget it, Ladybug; you were right. We'll never be friends. 

While I hate the writing in Volpina, making Marinette feel guilty for confronting Lila could have been an excellent setup for Lila gaining power. If Lila went on to make the appearance of changing her behavior and Marinette believed that Lila was sorry, then you could have used Volpina as a semi-clumsy, but ultimately functional setup for Lila being a liar in the audience's eyes, but not in the eyes of the cast. Instead, Lila is enemies with both Ladybug and Marinette, which is the least interesting way to play this on every level.

As you rightly pointed out, Marinette has connections. Lila should want to be Marinette's friend! It would be far more interesting if Marinette trusted Lila and Lila was cool with Marinette while hating Ladybug. That's how identity shenanigan setups are supposed to function! It's not supposed to be just about the romance unless it's short form content. Imagine if the show had let Lila and Marinette have a cool dynamic too. It could lead to all sorts of interesting situations like Marinette picking Lila as a temp hero!

But, as always, that style of writing does not work in an episodic show and it definitely doesn't work in a formula show. Lila is simply a terrible pick for Miraculous at a fundamental, structural level and I have no idea how anyone is excited about her being the new main villain.

[slayfics]

Kai has you sale bullets.

Warnings: violence, blood, AFAB reader

1.3k words

The sound of the car hummed. A few heads turned to glance at the all-blacked-out car. A dark tint that was surely past legal.

You watched the buildings pass as the driver turned down an alleyway. You and Kai sat in the back, a briefcase between you both.

"You understand the plan?" Kai asked gold eyes sliding over to you.

You nodded, as the car came to a stop.

"Good tell me," He urged.

"You want me to sell the prototype bullets to these guys, make sure it's the correct amount of money, then come back," you answered, fidgeting in your seat re-adjusting your much too tightly fitting dress.

"Emphasis on the sell, make sure they understand the true potential of what we're offering them. These bunch aren't too savory, so you'll need to be stern," he added.

"If that's true, should I be going in alone?" You asked, feeling the unease kick in. It was your first official sale and you wanted to believe Kai wouldn't put you in a potentially dangerous situation, yet your hands still shake.

"If I hear any unnecessary ruckus I'll come in," he spoke attempting to soothe your nerves. "Besides, it makes a better statement if it's only you. Shows our buyers we pose no threat to them, and we are confident in our product." He concluded.

You nodded and took a deep breath. Uneasily grabbing the suitcase.

"I'll be right here," he reassured you once more.

You gave him a faint smile before leaving the comfort of the car. The alleyway door was cold and grimy. It didn't look like the base for some dangerous villains, but you figured that was the point.

The door opened to a long dark hallway with a dim light at the end. You strode down the hallway attempting to have your strides sound as confident as possible, the sound of your heels echoing loudly.

Following the dim light, the hallway opened up to a plain room. It became clear this wasn't the real base for this group. Just a safe meeting point they had decided upon. Information you noted to inform Kai about later.

The room had one large table that five men were sitting around, one dressed in a vest lazily on top of the table feet dangling as his eyes widened at the sight of you.

The man who sat at the head of the table let out an amused laugh, "I didn't know the Yakuza had any women working for them," he commented. You recognized this man to be the leader of this group.

"Damn you aren't bad looking either," The man in the vest said jumping off the table to move closer to you.

"As flattered as I am let's get down to business," you redirected the conversation.

"Alright then, exactly how much is this product?" The leader asked you.

"As my boss probably already explained, these bullets eliminate quirks. To date there hasn't been anything else that's-," You began your sales pitch before getting cut off.

"Save me the speech, just tell me the price sweetheart," the leader pressured.

"First time it's 5 million Yen a bullet," you spoke, opening the suitcase to display the bullets inside.

"Wow, no wonder he sent beautiful women to give that news." the leader mused.

"For that price do you come with them?" The man wearing the vest asked stalking closer to you.

You attempted to keep your stance firm, but you couldn't help the way your legs trembled. It was painfully obvious to you that you were outnumbered in this room. It wouldn't be unimaginable that the men would gang up on you.

Kai wouldn't let that happen though, right?

"If you can't afford our product, what makes you think you can afford me?" You hissed back at the man drawing closer to you.

The man's face flashed with anger as he reached out to grab your face in his hands, fingers pressed firmly into your cheeks he directed you to look him in the eyes, "Do you talk back to Overhaul like that?"

"Careful," his leader called out to him. "Overhaul has a distaste for germs, he's not going to like you touching his things."

"Thing about germs hu? No wonder you look so scared. Not used to being touched, are you?" The man taunted further squeezing your cheeks tighter. "That's a pity that he doesn't enjoy you to your fullest potential."

Reaching your limit, you struck the man across the face with the back of your hand. The man stumbled back hitting against the wall. Your slap and the man thudding against the wall echoed down the hallway.

Loud enough for Kai to hear in the quiet alleyway, you thought. Yet the man was looking up at you with venom in his eyes now and Kai wasn't coming. Your blood ran cold.

Were you just another disposable pawn to Kai?

"Fucking bitch doesn't he teach you how to behave," the man barked, heavy hand coming up to slam your head against the table.

The commotion was now undoubtedly audible from the alleyway, but no intervention from Kai came.

Head pressed against the table the man continued to spew insults at you. Making a quick decision you grabbed one of the bullets from the suitcase and jammed it into his hand. Enough pressure that the quirk-eliminating effect was activated.

"The hell!?" The man exclaimed, stepping backward and freeing you from his grasp. Pulling the bullet out of his hand he began to panic. "My quirk won't activate!" he yelled and looked at his leader.

His leader simply shrugged, "I told you not to touch Overhaul's things. We'll take five of those sweetheart," he said sliding another suitcase across the table to you. "And make sure to extend my apologies to Overhaul for your head." The leader said noting the blood that now dripped down your forehead.

You opened the suitcase ensuring the correct amount was inside before leaving five bullets on the table, and scoffed, "No need to apologize, my head is exceptional." Giving a wink you turned to stride back down the hallway.

Hand gripped so tight on the suitcase your knuckles were white. Just hold it together for a few more moments, you told yourself.

Entering back into the car, a flood of emotions rushed over you.

Kai took one glance at the blood dripping down your forehead and scooted away, "You look filthy," he commented.

"I THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO COME FOR ME!" You yelled, the pent-up emotions flying out. The gravity of the situation you had just been put in crashed down on you.

"Stay on that side," he instructed, disgust on his face from your open wound.

But his comment was drowned out by your panic state, "I SCREAMED! DIDN'T YOU HEAR?!" You yelled at him. "I DON'T WANT TO DO THAT AGAIN KAI!" You cried, tears flowing down your face now.

"Quite down, and stay over there," he instructed once more.

"That man threatened me and what was I supposed to do- there were five of them!" you gulped.

Unmoved by your fear and the situation he had set you up to be in Kai removed the glove from his hand, swiftly pressing his hand over your mouth silencing you. You felt a pain that could only be described as every cell in your body being on fire.

"Do I need to remind you of your place?" he asked calmly.

Eyes widened, panic re-setting in, the reality of death set on your chest. You shook your head no, silent tears now running from your eyes trickled down Kai's hand.

You were just a pawn.

A pretty salesman.

In too deep to run away now.

sinners: @mintsbubbletea @lalachanya @unofficialmuilover @starieq @that-one-fangirl69

[writingquestionsanswered]

hi! me and my co-writer ans in the planning phase. we dont how to end out story. its an abrupt ending, when tension an high and we dont know how to pick that moment or how to create that moment. thanks!

Stuck on Cliffhanger Ending

Even if your story has a cliffhanger ending, the story still needs to follow basic story structure:

Through the setup and rising action, you make numerous promises to your reader by laying out threads and posing questions. The climax and falling action should resolve the main conflict, and the resolution allows you to tie up most of those loose threads and answer most of those unanswered questions.

Cliffhanger endings happen during the denouement, at a crucial moment when a significant question or plot component is about to be resolved. Again, you want the main conflict to be resolved and most of the loose threads to be tied up, but this particular unresolved component will be something that won't ruin the story if it isn't answered right now (or ever). Usually, the answer is just about the be revealed when something surprising, shocking, or suspenseful happens to interrupt it. To figure out a good cliffhanger moment in your story, you first have to figure out your purpose in having a cliffhanger. Are you trying to draw the reader into reading the next book? Or are you simply trying to end with a gut punch?

If you’re just looking for a gut punch (with or without a coming sequel), look for an unanswered question that doesn’t need to be answered in order for the story to be resolved. For example, maybe one of the story’s many questions was the parentage of your orphaned protagonist. If the identity of the parents isn't crucial to understanding the story, and if you've already laid out options, you could have the character in the process of finding out when someone bursts through the doors and makes an important announcement. If you're going to have a sequel, it could be an announcement that sets up the conflict of the sequel... like that the antagonist they just vanquished has escaped the dungeon and taken refuge in the mountains. If you're not going to have a sequel, you would want it to be something that doesn't ignite a new story that will never be told. For example, maybe the protagonist is just about to open a book that reveals who their parents are, and then someone bursts in and says, "You've got visitors!" When the protagonist asks who it is, the character says, "Your parents..." Those are good gut punches. They'll leave your reader reeling, speculating, and wishing for more, but you're not leaving anything crucial unresolved.

Another example would be when your characters have spent the whole book fighting and triumphing over an alien invasion, and after all of the mourning, celebrating, and rebuilding, your character goes to bed one night, turns off the light, and hears the telltale hiss of one of the aliens. Again, GUT PUNCH! Is there really an alien left alive? Is it going to hurt or even kill the protagonist? Does this mean the fight’s not over? Does it mean the fight is really just beginning? There are lots of questions, but the answer could just as easily be, “It wasn’t really an alien, it was the wind. Or, it was the air conditioner turning on.” So, you’re not leaving the actual story unresolved. Your protagonist isn’t dangling off the edge of a building when the last sentence ends.

If you’re trying to draw the reader into reading the next book, you generally want to end with a new or re-stated question… and I don’t mean a question that you literally ask. I mean a question that the reader will ask themselves based on whatever you’ve laid out. For example, the reader might think, “The protagonist defeated the evil king in this battle, but the evil king is still out there. Will the protagonist be able to defeat them once and for all?” Or, it could be a new question that’s presented during the resolution. Like, maybe the protagonist defeated the antagonist in this big battle, but at the end, during the big celebration, a message is delivered to the protagonist letting them know the antagonist has struck again, in a new place this time. And your protagonist tells another character to gather the rest of the team. The reader is left with the question, “Where did the antagonist strike and what was the result? How will the protagonist respond? What will happen next?” Again, nothing of the main conflict is left unresolved. That’s a successful cliffhanger ending. :)

Happy writing!

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[tokiro07]

Ichi the Witch ch.6 thoughts

[Let's Goooo Alreadyyy!!!]

(Topics: direction - art/narrative progression, character analysis - Uroro, thematic analysis - truth and lies)

The Clothes Make the Manwitch

I think we're officially out of the groundwork phase, cus this chapter really wanted to get things moving along. I really felt Kumugi's plight as the rest of the cast zipped along through the different departments to get Ichi set up for his first official mission - I wanted to hang out and chat with those cute girls for a little bit!

And based on how they blushed at Ichi, I think they did too 👀

I think Usazaki was just showing off with those designs, honestly. Those girls were clearly incidental characters, one-offs who didn't even warrant getting names (heartbreaking...), but she still went ham on the details, conveying their personalities and tying them into their respective jobs flawlessly. Maybe she figured if they were never going to show up and give her any trouble, she might as well make them as realized as she could while she had the opportunity

On the flipside, I saw a handful of comments complaining about how simple or plain Ichi's new uniform is, but you have to remember that Usazaki is going to need to draw this outfit a lot, in all kinds of poses and scenarios. There's already a surprising amount of detail on it, like the embellishments on the collar and shoulders, the thigh-high boots, the ornate knife handle...it's not a ton to keep track of, but they're finer details than a lot of protagonists tend to get in my experience, and ones that are likely to get a bit finicky as things go on

Moreover, though, Ichi already has an over-the-top, extravagant outfit: his Uroro form. Having a plain and unassuming base form gives contrast to his super form, which will help the latter stand out so much more when the time comes for him to use it. Do you really want Ichi's base form to overshadow his super form???

I didn't think so

Now the question is, when will be the next time we actually get to see his super form?

The Enemy Within

I absolutely adore that Ichi and Uroro have firmly established themselves as enemies, and that they're able to actively communicate and even fight with each other, it's everything I wanted Yuji and Sukuna's relationship to be (at least for now), but with that comparison in mind, there's definitely a question of how long this dynamic will last

As I recall, Sukuna was honestly a pretty minor factor beyond JJK's introductory arc, with Yuji only getting possessed by him twice in the beginning, once in the middle, and then once at the end. Everywhere in between, he was mostly just chilling and waiting, at worst mocking Yuji but never really actively hindering him

Uroro's role is still pretty ambiguous, as he doesn't seem at all capable of possessing Ichi, but he does seem capable of manifesting a physical form that can oppose Ichi. Depending on how much influence he has, he might actively be able to prevent Ichi from using Ultra Amplification or at least interfere when Ichi is trying to use it in battle

Sukuna wanted Yuji to find all the fingers so he could get stronger and escape through Megumi, so any time Yuji was in danger, he was incentivized to at least keep him alive, but Uroro needs Ichi to die in order to escape. He has no reason to ever help him and every reason to hurt him, so the gimmick of the hero and villain inhabiting the same body is greatly amplified in this case

The fact that Ichi can literally feel the malice coming off of Uroro from within his own body to the point of needing to resist gutting himself illustrates this antagonism wonderfully. If Yuji needed to constantly suppress Sukuna, Ichi needs to actively ignore Uroro, and Uroro is absolutely going to make that as difficult as possible

Fortunately, Ichi's sense for malice also acts as a bit of a lie detector for Uroro, which it looks like he's going to need

Unreliable Narrator

We've been wondering for a while now how Uroro actually feels about other Magiks, and this chapter's opening seemed to confirm an earlier assertion that he views them as his friends and brethren, lamenting their enslavement and discrimination at the hands of the witches, until Ichi easily saw through that lie

As Ichi says, Uroro's reaction to seeing Raiko being hunted in ch.3 didn't at all fit the idea that Magiks suffer any kind of injustice. His objections were half-hearted, and his lackadaisical attitude in ch.1 suggests that he has no interest in killing witches for the sake of freeing his captured kin. He kills and destroys for fun, not survival or revenge, but his position as the King of Magiks makes for a convenient excuse that surely he wants his people to be freed from the oppression of witches

Except...his story that humanity appeared and started subjugating Magiks is contradictory to the story we were already told. Ch.1 told us that it was the Magiks who approached humans, offering them dangerous trials seemingly unprompted, luring them in with the promise of power. That fact alone makes it obvious that Uroro was lying to gain sympathy

Or was he? Just because he doesn't actually care about the subjugation of his people doesn't mean it didn't really happen. We were told that a single Magik happened to appear to a single witch one day, which may well have happened, but was that really where it began? What prompted that Magik to do such a thing?

@wickedsick once suggested that there may be some kind of internal conflict in Magik society, like a feud between Uroro the king and a Magik queen to help enforce the themes of gender inequality. To turn the tide of battle, it would make sense for some Magiks to give themselves willingly to witches who could wield their power more effectively and defeat their enemies for them

If that's the case, though, then of course some Magiks would view the situation differently. History is written by the victors, and the witches seem to have the advantage at the moment, but Uroro was there, so his word is arguably more weighty than a disembodied voice that presumably is meant to represent common knowledge. That doesn't make him trustworthy by any means, but it's far too early to assume that there's no truth in what he's saying either

This goes for the Witches Association, too, of course. Shirabedonna's opinion may be irrefutable among the witches, but we only have her word so far that anything she says can be taken as gospel. If anything, with this chapter starting with someone lying to Ichi's face, then thematically we have to assume that Shirabedonna's assertion that anything she says is patently correct is, in and of itself, a lie, or at least a misdirect

To have a member of your organization declare with confidence "if I say it's true, it must be" is to have them declare "I can lie with impunity." If it should come to pass that there's some kind of mole within Mantinel, Shirabedonna's position as the foremost authority on facts would make her the perfect cover, even if it's just because she's susceptible to deception magic

For now, though, the status quo is that the witches are good and the Magiks are bad, so we won't worry about how things will shake up until they do. That said, it looks like Nishi already has a pretty good idea of how to pace out the escalation rate

Raising the Stakes

After Uroro's introduction in ch.1, a bird-man with a jewel-encrusted throne on his chest, Raiko honestly seemed like a pretty dramatic step back. However, this was a pretty clever trick narratively, as Uroro's outlandish appearance set the town for the types of strange things we should expect, while Raiko's relatively normal appearance recalibrated us for what's to come

Despite having lightning powers, Raiko was ultimately just an extremely large fox, even in his hunting behaviors, making him a familiar target for Ichi. Aesthetically, Hisame is just a shark, which is itself a lot more unusual than a fox, but it also has the added wrinkle of apparently being able to fly, making it two degrees further away from the ordinary than Raiko was

The next Magik, then, will likely be something a bit more fantastical, but still fairly standard. I imagine a unicorn or a jackalope would be good next steps, since they're just regular animals with horns they shouldn't have, followed by uniquely-shaped creatures like dragons and culminating in more imaginative creatures like that crustacean-man-thing or that biblically accurate angel we briefly saw in ch.2. This kind of progression would help keep the visuals from getting stale, especially if Nishi jumps back and forth a bit rather than forcing Usazaki to constantly find ways to outdo herself

If we got an Eldritch Abomination right at the beginning, then we'd expect a bigger, better abomination next, then a bigger one, and a bigger one, and so on and so forth. By establishing that mundane forms are to be expected, we not only have a much wider range of possibilities going forward, but we also can approach the early-story Magiks with a sense of familiarity. We know what a fox is, and fox-hunting techniques are easy enough to learn. Same for sharks. Tentacle creatures sleeping in volcanos? Fishnet-clad sexy legs chilling in abandoned libraries? Not so much

By the time we get to the more unfamiliar territory, we should have a deeper understanding of the Magiks as a whole, bridging the information gap between the ones that are "just animals" and the ones that are inconceivable monstrosities

Until then, let's enjoy life!

[anloartreduster]

Hey guys! How’s it going? Hope, you’re all doing well (: ! I’m finally able to post something after a million years later as I’ve finally completed both my work and finals for this college semester, so I’ll be posting more this winter break for sure. This is one of the projects I’ve been wondering on the side lines that’s been delayed so many times, but finally, since everything is over things can start rolling along. In this post I’m just going to be talking about my thought process throughout my drawing!

Q. What is this mural for?

A. This mural is for students who go into the student engagement lobby in my college, which I also go there, although more specifically it’s going to be located in the gaming room.

Moving forward with this project, I had decided that I didn’t want the character to be human, but instead I thought an animal would be best suited for this composition. In fact, I remember my high school teacher talking about how humans find anthropomorphized animals more relatable, how we empathize with them more, and how we can find many examples of that idea throughout comics, along with other pieces of literature. Originally, I wanted to make the character a bird, but after some rough drafting I found that would be challenging and maybe a bit too much for the piece, so I settled for a cat.

Afterwards, I made a few palettes to test them on the cat to see how they would possibly look and what would make an interesting character design. Most of these cats, specially 1,3, and 4 were based off cats I found off Pinterest since I don’t know many cat breeds myself since I’m mostly into birds. Next, cat 2 is based off the Maneki-neko which I’ve seen back in my old neighborhood in restaurants and, maybe once, at a family friend’s house. Last, the 5th cat is from a suggestion from one of the people who showed me Morgana from Persona 5.

I held a voting on my instagram to which the 4th cat got the most votes, although things would end up taking a completely different route.

This is one of my projects where I struggled the most with creating as many thumbnails as possible… my professor in my summer semester for 2D design told us 15-20 thumbnails would be good as that allows for a lot of variety and would be a good way for trying to expand our creative boundaries by trying new ideas or at least figuring solutions to our problems. Sadly, I’ve only made 7 in total to which 4 of them aren’t included in this post. My brain was really stuck on this idea of doing this specific perspective, along with pose, for this character. Within all the thumbnails, I tried adding items from serveral different board games and adding a controller to really communicate the idea of “this is a gaming room where you can play anything you want with your friends.”

This is the stage where a lot of things just got thrown away as it made the piece feel oversaturated with ideas, so I just boiled it down to a cat jumping up in an energetic pose with a controller with the phrase “let’s game” at the topic. I was going to add one more videos, but it seems that I’m only allowed to insert one video. In the first video, I had realized that I had already a pre-picked palette for this mural I had done a while back that I ended up using then boiling it down to a more simpler palette as this is the first time I’m doing a mural and I don’t want to do anything crazy nor out of my abilities.

That’s it for this post! I’m going to be making some more blogs about different projects during this winter break (: Hope to see you all soon on the next post!

[dumpsterfire-allavita]

Context- I had been commissioned for this piece. Being in a financial pickle I picked it up and immediately set to work on it. Since I’m in need of money I put my all into the request to make sure it checked every box they could need. It turned out amazing I think! However I just checked our chat where I put the almost finished piece to find their account deleted. What’s worse is I had given them an update without my signature on it since it was unfinished and all…so if you see it floating around please message me!

Without further adeu~ the piece!

╔══*.·:·✧ ☎️ ✧·:·.*══╗

Information

I was messaged by the user Freaky (later changed to Dust) for the commission of their two Characters Brimstone and Karma. Ecstatic we began consultation!!

They decided on a photo reference from the anime “Soul Eater”. They liked the old anime style and requested their piece would be similar. That meant a full body with simple background but a lot of technique put into the old anime style! Ofc I wouldn’t shy away from the challenge (since my bills won’t shy away from me- the apple did not work on the doctor….no matter how hard I threw it)

Upon requesting their budget they said between 130-200$ which worked fine with me. I always tend to under charge anyhow. Due to my needs this time was no different. I assured they would receive updates to let them know how the piece was going and that I would collect their input on any fixes needed. They agreed and without further wait I began.

『•🪱•✎•🪱•』

[ T o o l s ]

✦ Cheap sketchpad

✦ Mechanical Pencil 7.0 lead

✦ My Phone (to send to the iPad)

✦ Fathers IPad (Im broke don’t judge)

✦ Procreate

✦ Color Pencil procreate brush pack

✦ Lineart procreate brush pack

✦Paint procreate brush pack

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ˏˋ°⁀✎ 🫎 P R O C E S S 🫎 *ੈ✩‧₊˚ˏˋ°⁀✎

Once saving the many provided refs I began by creating character reference sheets. Due to the customer not being artistic they provided me with several other commissioned pieces of their characters. Not all…looked the same… so I created these sheets to compile the parts that fit the personalities portrayed. Then I checked in with the user to figure out which features looked most like what they imagined for the characters.

Then I continued with the base sketch of the pose. The original reference for the pose didn’t entirely fit the characters so I chose to tweak it. I think I like the way they interact on the piece. I even made them doing rock paper scissors if you pay close enough attention! Karma lost but well…Brimstone would get what was coming for it later lol.

After all that it was finally digital art time!!! So I put my color references sent to me before adding the anime ref and my character refs. On the iPad I started with adding the details of the characters and sketching the pieces in further.

When that looked good I shifted the background a little to see it all before doing the motorcycle. (This is the first one I’ve ever drawn too- I know it’s funky! Don’t look too close)

Once the sketch was confirmed I began lineart. The title was changed to say Brimstone in big and in Japanese it reads “Freak Karma” the user of the customer and their second character.

Following that was color blocking which absolutely murdered me! I simply started with a big blob and did Alpha lock. Then I continued to block out base colors. Probably the worst experience of my life…goodness..

After I did a big dark brown layer with the opacity lowered for the look of a darker environment. From there I lightly erased the spots for lighting.

Then it was additional coloring and shading to the color block layer followed by additional erasing on the shadow layer. Building it up until I was satisfied.

Finally I did two layers- a layer for specific color lighting such as the flames reflection and the color to their skulls and a layer for the black and white liner.

All that was left was adding noise, Bloom, and a little bit of halftones to achieve the desired look.

With everything done I added my signature into the mirror on the bike!

ALL THIS ON ONLY 4 LAYERS! Due to the sheer size of the canvas (6000 pixels by 5000 pixels (ish)) I was only able to have 4 MAX layers. So pain…

🪳✨ Time ✨🪳

//this is the longest I’ve ever spent on a piece btw! (These are timed and rounded down to the simplest form. So these are all slightly UNDER what I actually did.)

Ref sheets 🎨 45 min

Layout Sketch 🔆 24.3 min

Digital Sketch 🛏️ 1 hour 30 min

Lineart 🍿 8 hours

Color Blocking 🥲 23 hours

Lighting + Final touches 👍 1 hour 25 min

Total- WAY TO FREAKING LONG! This has 26,543 strokes on it!!!!

Anywho! I hope you enjoy the piece as I sure as heck have not due to my suffering and now lack of money that I now have to try and find elsewhere with bills gripping my now every thought.

If you’d like to commission me I’ll have to ask for a base payment upfront now due to this situation. I am unable to spend such time to provide my very best just to be left when I truly need the money.

Thank you for your time!

[kay-then-i-guess]

So, I had this idea as I'm getting close to finishing the Election arc of my Roleshuffle AU to go through my previous comic pages and point out everything I did wrong :) This is all for funsies, and I feel like my art has gotten a lot better with the Election arc. Plus, I think it's very important to go back and critique yourself to 1: see how far you've come and 2: to better understand where you tend to make mistakes. So, let's get critiquing!

Soooo starting off, I really didn't know how to make a comic. I had only done very brief, minor comic making before, so this was a completely new field of art that I wasn't used to. You can immediately see that problem in the first and second panel, since they. They aren't a panel. Nothing about them (minus the speech bubbles) indicates that this is a comic. I think the first would have benefited from each item being properly separated, and the other would have benefited from an actual image behind it; not a gradient. Speaking of the items, that's supposed to be Sam's hand at the top, and it is freckle-less (no clue why I forgot to add those lol). Some other consistency things that are weird is that L'manberg has no tower entrance, and there aren't any trees surrounding it in any other drawing. On notes of consistency, the sword there is supposed to be Techno's, but the design changed later to have a gold hilt. I guess that change never reached this panel, so now that just looks like a random sword stuck in the ground. Nobody's sword in the comic looks like that haha. Similar deal with Techno's crown: the spacing of jewels is not consistent with how I draw it in the rest of the comic.

Moving on! The next two panels of Connor aren't bad, per se, they just aren't good. (I'm mainly bothered by the fact that he doesn't have teeth in the first one.) Also, because I didn't want to draw hands and cut his arms off, it just looks like the framing of the panel is all wrong. Plus, I don't think I've seen anyone pose like that in real life. He looks like he's about to hug you, which is not the vibe I was going for. In both of these panels, we have what will become a reoccurring problem throughout: loooooong neck because I didn't draw a base figure before drawing the clothes. Connor's face should either be longer in these panels, or his shoulders should be higher. Either way, the neck does not look right. Another reoccurring problem you'll see is dull coloring/shading. I'm still working on this, to be frank, but these images all look rather dull. There's nothing unique about the lighting/colors, so it doesn't really pop like it should. Either I needed to add more dynamic lighting or be better at highlights.

Yet another case of long neck. Oh, and weird positioning on the facial features. The eyes feel stretched across his face instead of, well, where they should be. I also think in these opening panels I really fail to encapsulate Connor's personality. I was really banking on the fact that he's a silly little comic relief character in the canon dsmp, but his delivery is very dry/flat whenever I watch old clips of him. Therefore, in the early bits, he just seems a bit off because of the high energy I gave him. Next up we have a bad case of something that looked good in the sketch but did not come across after coloring. What I wanted to happen was his face to gain some anime-type shading that screams "oh no", but it just wasn't strong enough, so the end result just seems like I copied and pasted the same panel for no reason. Also, in the lower image, Connor's face does not look right. I can't really put my finger on why, but it's either because his eyes are uneven or that the facial features, once again, kind of stretch across the face.

aaaaand I originally wanted to go through the whole first part of my comic, but this is turning out to be very long. So that's a tomorrow project. Hope you enjoyed my critique!

[phantombanquet]

【NYLON JAPAN】 Dramatica ACT 4 Interview

Original Article

translation by phantombanquet

What day is it today? It's the opening day of the stage play!

From left to right: Ikkei Yamamoto (Hokuto Hidaka), Taiki Yamazaki (Shu Itsuku), & Kazuma Yasui (Wataru Hibiki)

Today is the opening day of Theatrical Company Dramatica ACT 4 / “Witch and Gingerbread House”!

Once the curtain rises, an enchanted world of fairy tale and mystery awaits.

Taiki Yamazaki, Ikkei Yamamoto, and Kazuma Yasui pose in outfits inspired by the idols they play.

Take a look at the elements that are reminiscent of Shu, Hokuto, and Wataru!

From left to right: Ikkei Yamamoto (Hokuto Hidaka), Taiki Yamazaki (Shu Itsuku), & Kazuma Yasui (Wataru Hibiki)

QUESTION: Today is finally the opening day of Theatrical Company Dramatica ACT 4 / “Witch and Gingerbread House”! This work is a unique 2.5 dimensional stage project in which the idol characters based on the popular app game ‘Ensemble Stars!!’ act as actors in an original story separate from the game's story. Please tell us the things that you keep in mind on stage when playing a role in the theatrical company ‘Dramatica’.

Yamamoto: As for the theatrical company ‘Dramatica’, I am conscious about the process of creating the stage and amount of time needed to interpret the role as a character since I think these are very important. For example, I played the role of Goku in Dramatica ACT 1 / “Journey to the West- The Eternal Legend,” but rather than deliberately expressing “Hokuto playing as Goku,” I think asked myself, “If I were Hokuto, how could I put a lot of effort and stress in playing as Goku?” and I think it is important to worry together with them during rehearsals. I felt for the first time that when the character and I—as the actor—are in harmony with each other, the two roles in my mind become one. And I think it would be great if that aspect becomes the charm of the theatrical company ‘Dramatica’.

Yamazaki: When I asked to play in ACT 1, someone pointed out that I was acting too similar to Shu Itsuki. It's always a difficult thing to figure out the amount of seasoning to use. This time in “Witch and Gingerbread House,” I also still want to retain the character of Shu Itsuki in some parts of my performance.

Yasui: It is really difficult to play the role as Wataru-san. Since his character is an acting genius, I can never fail. During ACT 1, I honestly felt like throwing up because there was so much pressure (Laughs). But after finishing ACT 1, I think that pressure has changed for the better. I realized that if I think too much, I would get stuck. It's hard to express it well, but I believe I am more conscious of how much I can match with Wataru-san's mindset when he does theater performances.

QUESTION: All of you appeared in ACT 1 and ACT 2, what can we expect to see more of this time around?

Yasui: Although I play the same ‘Wataru Hibiki,’ the character I play changes drastically depending on the performance, which is always very refreshing. Of course, this time, ACT 4 also has a different role to play! Moreover, there will be interactions with idols who have not appeared before, so I hope you look forward to seeing how this will cause a chemical reaction to spread. I am sure that something new will happen that wasn't present in ACT 1 or ACT 2.

Yamazaki: During ACT 1, I started out feeling rather clueless about how to do it. But once it begun, I felt a great amount of strength to stand alongside with my colleagues. It is a memorable work in which we put in a lot of effort to establish one new genre. This time, since I also performed in the previous two productions, I am much more familiar with various aspects, so I hope to create it a work that will make people think, “This is Dramatica!”

QUESTION: In addition to appearing in Theatrical Company Dramatica ACT 4 / “Witch and Gingerbread House,” Yamamoto-san will also be in charge of directing the play. Please tell us your expectations in terms of the stage production.

Yamamoto: The most important thing is for the audience to enjoy the show, and I hope that my direction will help them immerse themselves in the performance. I would like for the audience to finish watching the play without leaving the world of “Witch and Gingerbread House” until the curtain rises and falls. Hence, there are various production devices, such as stage sets moving along with the scene and the changing of the lights, but I believe that it is ideal for the audience to enjoy this real-time changes than stress ahout them. The appeal of theater performances is that it allows you to enjoy the phenomenon happening in front of your eyes as a form of entertainment. Without that, it wouldn't be any different from watching a drama or a movie. I hope I can direct in a way that will make the audience feel the fun and greatness of theater as a ‘real’ thing.

QUESTION: Lastly, please tell us the appeal of Theatrical Company Dramatica ACT 4 / “Witch and Gingerbread House.”

Yamazaki: In this case, the visuals are full of Shu's worldview, and are quite dense and extremely detailed. I will be performing with Mika Kagehira (played by Hiroki Ino) from the same unit for the first time in a while. In addition to Mika, there will be idols other than members of Dramatica who have not met in the previous stage plays, so I hope that you look forward to seeing how they will interact with each other!

Taiki Yamazaki

X (formerly Twitter): @TTTTTTAIKKI103

Born on October 3, 1995 in Shizuoka Prefecture. He won the Judges’ Special Prize at the 23rd JUNON SUPERBOY CONTEST. He began his acting career in 2011, and in 2017, he appeared in Uchū Sentai Kyuranger Hebitsukai Silver/Naga Ray. Currently, he has been active on several stages including “Ensemble Stars! THE STAGE” series as Shu Itsuki, Musical “Thrill Me” as Him, “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” as Anthony, and numerous other roles. In addition to acting, he has a wide range of activities, including music where he performs under the name Nemurinitsukumade Tsukiatte. The Theatrical Company Dramatica ACT 4 / “Witch and Gingerbread House,” in which he plays the role of Dicy¹ (played by Shu Itsuki) will be performed from August 23rd (Friday) to September 3rd (Sunday) at Shinagawa Prince Hotel Stella Ball in Tokyo.

Ikkei Yamamoto

X (formerly Twitter): @IKKEI_YAMAMOTO

Born on June 1, 1989 in Tokyo Prefecture. He is active in 2.5 dimensional stage plays of various well-known works such as “Ensemble Stars! THE STAGE” series as Hokuto Hidaka, “The Vampire Dies in No Time” as Draluc, Musical “Moriarty the Patriot” as Louis James Moriarty, “ROCK MUSICAL BLEACH ～Arrancar the Beginning～” as Byakuya Kuchiki, and others. In recent years, apart from acting, he has also expanded his range of activities, including directing. The Theatrical Company Dramatica ACT 4 / “Witch and Gingerbread House,” in which he plays the role of Arc¹ (played by Hokuto Hidaka) will be performed from August 23rd (Friday) to September 3rd (Sunday) at Shinagawa Prince Hotel Stella Ball in Tokyo.

Kazuma Yasui

X (formerly Twitter): @XOXO_KID616

Born on February 12th from Aichi Prefecture. He has appeared on several popular 2.5 dimensional stage plays such as “Ensemble Stars! THE STAGE” series as Wataru Hibiki, “Tokyo Color Sonic!! the Stage” as Kairi Kurahashi, and others, as well as in the Off-Broadway Musical “bare” starring as Jason. He also performs music under the name ‘Yasui Kazuma.’ The Theatrical Company Dramatica ACT 4 / “Witch and Gingerbread House,” in which he plays the role of Patty¹ (played by Wataru Hibiki) will be performed from August 23rd (Friday) to September 3rd (Sunday) at Shinagawa Prince Hotel Stella Ball in Tokyo.

TAIKI:

Shirt ¥44,000, pants ¥44,000 (both GALAABEND / SARDIVISION PR), belt ¥7,150 (Wrangler / Edouin Customer Service), ring ¥63,800 (GARNI / Garni Tokyo), boots ¥45,100 (YOAK / Hemto PR)

IKKEI:

Shirt ¥89,650, tank top ¥80,300 (both SHEK LEUNG / INNOMENT), shirt around waist ¥60,500 (FACETASM / FACETASM AOYAMA), pants ¥39,600 (SHINYAKOZUKA), ear cuffs ¥10,890 (JUSTINECLENQUET / The Wall Showroom), tie ¥15,800 (Queen & Jack / Esteem Press), shoes ¥36,300 (Timberland / VF Japan)

KAZUMA:

Shirt ¥48,400 (RequaLL / Esteem Press), skirt ¥38,500 (GALAABEND / SARDIVISION PR), pants ¥22,500 (COS / COS Aoyama Store), glasses ¥36,300 (GENTLE MONSTER / M), necklace ¥28,000 (Marland Backus / Marland), ring ¥55,000, heart ring ¥30,800 (both from LAMBDA), shoes ¥46,200 (MIKAGE SHIN / Sakas PR), socks: stylist's personal items

MODEL: TAIKI YAMAZAKI (IMAGENE) @RRRRRLIGHT103, IKKEI YAMAMOTO (ARTIST JAPAN) @YAMAMOTO_IKKEI, KAZUMA YASUI (KETEL) ＠NATSUNOYASUI

PHOTOGRAPHER: NAOTO KAWATAKE ＠NAOTOKAWATAKE

STYLING: SHO FURUKAWA @SHOFURUKAWA_

HAIR: HIROKI KITADA ＠HIROKI_KITADA

MAKEUP: HINATA SAKURAGI ＠H__PPPPP

EDIT: SARA OMORI, AIRI ASAHI

TEXT: AIRI ASAHI, AYU TSUCHIYA

DIRECTION: YURIKA NAGAI

WEB DESIGN: NAO WATANABE, ANJU OKAWA

translator's note:

¹ - There are no official released English localization for the names of the characters in ACT 4, so I've decided to translate them literally instead. This will change once an English localization of their names is released.

additionally, this isn't fully proofread (English & Japanese because both are not my native languages) since i just translated this by myself. if there are any errors, please feel free to correct me through dms 🙇🏼

[sergeant-angels-trashcan]

I CANT. I'm also getting the dinkate vibes off of ghostkate and it's making me a bit feral. Kate making bets on every shot she makes and calls them in even when no one responds she legally owns half of the teams guns. Someone gives her their jacket and the whole team heart eyes at how small and scary she is while she is just >:( she gets hurt on a mission the they all turn into rabid guard dogs and she makes them get her everything. Kate wears ghosts skull mask and talks in an absurd British accent and gruff voice and stands next to him in the same pose and Johnny is like why am I blushing Ghost pretends to be annoyed but is actually fond. Kate watches them train a couple times and then uses their moves against them. Kate sees ghost without a mask once and falls off a building and has to get grappling hooked back up to the roof.

we're gonna get a little nsfw here, yall been warned also oops it became poly!141.

oh my god ohh my goddddddddd kate hustling the 141 i am SCREAMING

like it would only work for real when she first joins up with them because eventually they WILL learn that she does not miss shots. Or she'll make them take bets as a form of caretaking. "If I make this shot you have to go take a nap" "if i don't make this shot i'll do your laundry but if i DO make it you have to tell me what's bothering you"

before that, though. i wanna say she technically owns Price's car, three skull masks, something with the MacTavish tartan, and like two of Gaz's jackets (sometimes more, sometimes less. she steals his jackets. they're in civvies to go do something and he'll say "that's my jacket" and she will lie to his face about it. gets to the point that he just starts putting things in the pockets when she's wearing them, she may as well carry his phone since she's WEARING HIS JACKET). This is also how she got keys to everyone's off-base housing. All of them regret this fact. Soap was coming home from a bar one night with a pretty hot girl and they're running into walls, etc, for some reason they go through the kitchen and the girl shrieks because there's a person??? on the counter????

it's Kate. crouched on the counter, tucked into a little ball. she's....sleeping???? she blinks up at him and informs him he's out of bread before tucking her head back down

The girl doesn't stay. Obviously. And Soap has to figure out why a terrifying pocket-sized sniper is sleeping on his countertop and not Ghost's??? Ghost is BAFFLED by this question. Why is she more likely to be on his countertop than anyone else's. Which is how Soap finds out that Hawkeye and Ghost AREN'T doing the nasty??? (Maybe they are and just lying about it. Either way, Gaz and Soap get a lot flirtier with her. Ghost h888888 it. But also it's kind of cute. He's conflicted)

It also leads to the entire team realizing they have no idea what she does when they all head off base

JOHNNY SEEING HER ACT AND DRESS LIKE GHOST AND BEING LIKE OH NO IS THIS A THING FOR ME. If she wasn't doing the bad accent he would be DEEPLY into it

that night Ghost comes up to her and tells her she can't ever do that again, and he's so serious so she's apologizing, she didn't mean to insult him or hurt his feelings--

which is not the issue at all but kate won't let it go until finally he says something about how he can't be half-hard as he's yelling at recruits!!

now of course she has to find out if it's a mask kink or if it's a his mask kink and Ghost is vehemently denying it's a kink at all (it totally is). Soap gets dragged into this conversation and is like, yeah, this is absolutely a kink. don't worry simon, he totally gets it

widely agreed upon that Hawkeye + Soap is the cutest drunk combo. they will sit across from each other and try to imitate each other's accents. VERY funny when kate has been stressed out and parts of clint's midwestern accent she picked up start to come out (y'all)

(Also widely acknowledged if not spoken about that Kate and Gaz kissing would be very pretty. Am I saying that Price and Soap try and get them a little drunk so they make out? Maybe)

Price keeps track of who she is hanging out with because there are certain combinations that are...inadvisable (he completely ignores his effect on things. The ones in parenthesis are ones he pretends dont exist)

(Price+Ghost+Hawkeye: honestly they just sit and vibe with each other for hours. If they need to get something done Price and Ghost will let Hawkeye body double them for the ADHD. all of them have leadership roles and don't want to make any decisions during their time off so they have a "wheel of activities" that they spin)

Ghost+Hawkeye: never a combo Price worries about. if he can't find them they're probably napping somewhere or at a range shooting something. sometimes they disappear for a few hours and you'll see something on the news about, like, a child abuser getting their hands broken before they were carted off to jail, but that has nothing to do with them

Ghost+Soap+Gaz+Hawkeye: they generally just chill together, decreasing their chances of getting involved in shenanigans. Hawkeye and Gaz will probably wind up in the walls or ceiling at some point. only becomes worrisome if they start discussing conspiracy theories

Ghost+Soap+Hawkeye: now this is a chaotic grouping but it's mostly horny, so there's less to worry about

Hawkeye+Gaz: something is getting set on fire or they're going berry picking, no in between.

(Price+Soap+Hawkeye: Hawkeye and Price butting heads the whole time. Soap thinks it's hilarious. Actively tries to get them to fight, is not sneaky about it. Loves when they figure him out and focus all their attention on him.)

Hawkeye+Gaz+Ghost: if they do anything that's not outdoorsy, it's a whole Thing. The last three times they went out to eat together they uncovered various smuggling rings. It took Ghost an hour to get them to leave the smuggled sloth last time. He got the silent treatment for two days.

(Gaz+Price+Hawkeye: ends in tears most of the time. Either Gaz and Price vs Hawkeye or Hawkeye and Gaz vs Price. If Hawkeye and Price manage to work together Gaz stops functioning. They bark out orders at the same time? Both say he did a good job? Gaz cannot be expected to function under these conditions)

(Price+Gaz+Soap+Hawkeye: terrible choices have been made. someone is getting injured. three of them lowkey trying to impress Price and they don't even realize it. from an outside perspective it seems calm, trust me it's not)

(Price+Hawkeye: Both of them trying to be in charge. whatever they were supposed to get done doesn't happen but they do come up with an apocalypse contingency plan)

Hawkeye+Gaz+Soap: worst possible timeline. something is getting blown up. something has already caught fire. they are accompanied by an animal or have rescued a small child. The Hague is being reconvened. they are dancing on kissinger's grave. it's pandemonium. someone will probably get a medal for it. Get Ghost over there IMMEDIATELY

Nickname drift where when Kate gets irritated at Soap she calls him Mr Clean and he's like "It's SERGEANT Clean to you, lass!"

Kate getting hurt on a mission!!!! the whump i live for. if she gets hurt on a west coast avengers mission, the task force is PISSED AS FUCK. FUCKING. UNACCEPTABLE. BULLSHIT. if you can't take care of her you don't get to have her!!! again, i feel like Price is the most terrifying one, here. The others are all very visibly angry and loud about it, and Price is standing in the back, looking calm as he comes up with five plans to dismantle this team

if she gets hurt on a task force mission....uh the young avengers are PISSED AS FUCK. if you can't take care of her you don't get to have her! no it's not important how we wound up on this secure military base!

Clint is revoking everyone's Hawkeye privileges as they speak

She doesn't even ask them to bring her stuff. They just do it. They have to be forcibly removed from her room. Clint's like, yall cute but I'm in charge. Gets annoyed at Price at some point and turns his hearing aids off. Clint and Ghost getting very territorial and legitimately hissing and growling at each other. Kate is on very strong painkillers and thinks she made that up.

one night Kate hangs out with a different group on base and 141 is like "are we not good enough anymore? what did we do? does she not like us?" hardcore mopery happening. but that's what happens when you refuse to play darts with your hawkeye!!! also, she's probably hustling the other guys. Gaz promises he'll play darts with her. wraps his arms around her waist and gets her pinned to the couch so she has to hang out with them

alternatively, the 141 sees her hanging out with other people when they came TOGETHER for weekend drinks and Ghost goes over to her and picks her up, carrying her back to the 141 table. Not! acceptable behavior!!! but she did kinda like it. tbf if someone tries to hit on one of the task force she's like haha. no (: will sit in laps, play with hair, spill a drink, whatever is needed. just need them to be weird little freaks about each other

Gaz says something about "age before beauty" and she's like WOW fuckin RUDE and that's how they find out she's older than Gaz. Literally none of them caught that.

ugh i am having so many thoughts about this crossover and i accidentally started writing a real fic about it. save me.

[13eyond13]

23 + 25 for GriffGuts!

Omg thank you @ofdemonsandangels !! I'm v excited to get Berserk asks ♥︎

I'm not sure if the request is for the individual characters or just the ship or both, so I'm going to cover all my bases and answer for ALL THREE.

GUTS + favourite picture of them:

First thing that came to mind was his sword + moon pose! I just feel v fond of and oddly protective of and affectionate of him when I look at it. I just love when he's being all pensieve and secretly sentimental about stuff by himself...

GRIFFITH + favourite picture of them:

Hmmm. There's just something about the way Griffith's drawn in the later part of the Golden Age that I like the most. Def the biggest fan of his design when he looks like this:

His scary blazing eyes during the second swordfight in the snow really stuck in my head, and are some of the first panels I picture whenever I'm picturing Griffy!

GRIFFGUTS + favourite picture of them:

This fanart is pretty fantastic... if I didn't already know the pairing and saw it I'd probably be like damn, this looks compelling, who is that? 👀

https://www.tumblr.com/13eyond13/742518174586748928?source=share

BUT also so is this fanart (got those scary blazing Griffith eyes down perfect, and also ahhh the wings and the scratches on Guts' back!!)

--

GUTS + what was your first impression of this character? How about now?

I first started reading Berserk at the end of 2023 without knowing much of anything about it other than it had a character named Guts with a huge sword, that some fans shipped him with a character named Griffith, and I had heard that the art style was apparently pretty amazing and crazy as well. I fully did not expect to like Guts that much or relate to him that much going into things, and assumed he'd be a super boring edgy hyper-violent macho 80s meathead muscleman without much personality. And upon reading the first few chapters I certainly wasn't feeling extremely fond of him yet (especially during stuff like the very opening scene where he's banging some demon lady and then killing her, which once you actually get to know him is like one of the most odd and out-of-character things for him to do, and I think shows Miura hadn't really figured Guts as a character out totally yet). It actually didn't take THAT long for me to realize that there was more to him than that and to warm up to him a lot, though. Even partway through the Black Swordsman Arc I feel he started intriguing me with some of the more unexpected stuff he was doing and the mysterious hints about whatever had taken place in his past that was currently haunting him so much. And certainly by the time you start seeing his childhood memories and the Golden Age and getting to know why he is the way he is I was feeling very attached to him and invested in him emotionally! He's by far my fave of the bunch, and he just feels very much like a living breathing being to me in canon much of the time. One of my all-time fave characters now.

GRIFFITH + what was your first impression of this character? How about now?

I knew basically nothing about Griffith going into things initially. He came off pretty goofy as Femto to me initially, so at the start of the Golden Age I remember just being like, omg so how does this pretty femboy guy become that weird bitchy Batman in the labyrinth that Guts ends up hating so much? 😅 I also did not expect him to be so outright gay for Guts as he is in the manga, and had previously assumed the fandom's shipping of these two was probably based mostly on your typical barely there homoerotic subtext or whatever. Very surprised to find there was just so much blatantly going on there in the text and that it was basically directly discussed by the characters and almost written like a straight-up romance, and all of this stuff seemed very intentional and deliberate on Miura's part to me too. I remember especially being impressed by how bold Griffith was about just straight-up announcing his interest in/attraction to Guts to his face (and how much Guts actually seemed to be into him back too, even if he's a bit slower and more shy and furtive about it – which to me is much more unusual than having a queer-coded villain guy expressing obsessive interest in the male protagonist – he usually isn't also equally interested back like that!). I think Griffith is at his most interesting to me during those early parts when he's being very upfront about his emotions with other characters and a bit vulnerable like that, especially because we spend so much of the rest of the story only ever seeing him from a very guarded and emotionally closed-off dead-inside sort of distance as a character. He maybe isn't my favourite because I don't relate to his personality that much, and sometimes his ethereal otherworldliness and mysteriousness made it harder for him to feel as real to me as the others do – Guts and Casca often felt a bit more human and down-to-earth and easier to emotionally attach myself to and to know things about for sure, so I found myself caring about those two the most whenever I was reading it. And then of course there was a long stretch of the story there where Griffith genuinely shocked and appalled me with what he did to everyone (I had zero spoilers for what was actually going to happen during the Eclipse and did not expect it to be anything nearly as bad as what happened lol). At times I really loathed him and got super angry at him as a character, but I also appreciated that he drew such strong emotional reactions from me and was always making the most interesting things in the plot that I actually care about happen, too. Whenever I was super mad at him I would be furious every time he showed up and did literally anything onscreen, yet also would get so frustrated and bored and antsy whenever he would disappear for hundreds of chapters at a time, too 😅 I feel like that made it much easier to understand why he drove Guts so crazy, because I was being driven a bit crazy by him too... Can't live with him and can't live without him! I remember finding Guts the most interesting character in canon when I was actually reading the story, but I find that Griffith is the most fun one to think and talk and speculate about with the other people in the fandom after the fact. I appreciate him a lot now as an interesting character and an antagonist, but he isn't exactly a beloved blorbo to me the way Guts is so much as he is the guy I like to rotate on a spit in my mind and listen to other fans talk about and to contemplate the most, maybe?

GRIFFGUTS + what was your first impression of this ship? How about now?

All I knew is that a few of my DN mutuals who I think have good taste liked the ship, which made me mildly interested to see what I thought about it myself going in, though I didn't really expect to be that into it myself. Then I was taken aback by how strongly the story seemed to be actually based around the relationship between these two and how actually gay it was between them both, haha. I was conflicted a bit about it and whether or not I actually cared to ship it as I was reading it, particularly because of the grosser stuff that Griffith does during the Eclipse really putting me off him for a good chunk of time. But I think after I finished the manga and sat chewing on it a bit longer I kept wondering how the story might have changed if those two had been able to communicate a little better with each other and make some different choices and have some important realizations pre-Eclipse. It's one of my absolute fave tropes as well, the codependent besties that maybe actually both secretly have feelings for each other that then turn into enemies, when you can also see that maybe they probably actually could've easily turned into lovers instead. And I just feel like at the end of the day even though it's clearly never going to be a happily ever after or whatever at this point that I think they both still kinda love each other too, whether or not they admit it or whether anybody approves lol. It's one of those ships that to me is just like, why do I ship them? IDK bro, because they ship themselves... ask THEM why they're still into each other even now and even despite everything... I feel like I'm just simply sitting here listening to what they're saying and picking up what they're putting down lol

[character ask meme]

[choco-worms]

Could you show your sketching process? Like what base skeletons you use for the characters to make it so dynamic? Maybe using cuddy x cameron or hilson :)

Of course!! This is going to be long winded so Ill put this under the cut hahah

Im gonna follow my process chronologically with a few of my works to explain my different approaches!

HILSON

So especially for poses including two people i often use an app on my phone called "Magic Poser". This helps me understand the perspective and scale of the characters a bit better since this is something I struggle with. So ill take the models and pose them how I want them. What this app REALLY helps me with light sources since that is customizable too^^

So then I enter a phase where I am studying the pose. For this drawing I did it traditionally. first thing i do is break down the figures volumetrically, which is a figure drawing method where you break down the figure into simple box like forms. This helps me gain an understanding of how the shapes are interacting with space.

After that, I draw over the forms adding things like hair and clothes and building the specific face/body shapes of the character.

I do also use the little "circles" to mark joints when im drawing fast!

After that I scan the pencil sketch I do into Krita, and follow my work to get some lineart!.

CAMCUDDY

This one was a similar process, but i ported the reference image straight into my drawing program.

After that i do a volumetric sketch over the reference to break it down.

And then i do a more creative pass where i make these boxy dolls look more like the characters im trying to draw!

from there i do a final line art pass, and then i sit back..... and stare at it..... because even though model references SEEM fool-proof there are often things that just dont look right! Its really important to remember to not use those kinds of references as gospel, it should be a convenience and assistance rather than a crutch. So ill often go in and change things, either outright erasing and redrawing or using the warp tool to move stuff around! These models are only so helpful if once ur done you look at the drawing and it just looks straight doo doo lol.

FREESTYLE

While I do use models alot for something i want to draw really fast, its important to not rely on them! That can make your art become super rigid if you don't push yourself.

For drawings I approach without, i kinda go buck wild! Here on this one you'll see i kind of blend my volumetric phase with my detailing phase:

With these looser drawings i focus on shape and gesture. Then ill just do a final cleaning up pass for the line art.

I have a really fast and dirty drawing style that doesnt always lend itself to "perfect anatomy", but im far more concerned with visual appeal rather than realism.

Alot of the confidence I have with anatomy comes from yearssssss of drawing casually, and my classical study in college!

RESOURCES

I do really recommend some level of classical study when it comes to drawing the figure! Here are some video's on it I have watched and studied during my time in college that I really recommend:

I hope this was helpful!! haha sorry i get really nerdy about drawing process :))) If you have any additional questions let me know!

[brodorokihousuke]

How did you make the custom Apollo animations?

- one very tired fool who thought it would be fun to attempt similar model shenanigans with Athena

Keep in mind three things,

one- I have never touched 3d animation before and this has just been me beating the shit out of this program until it does what I want, so this might not be the "right" or easiest way to do anything

two- I am using 3DS max for this so this might not apply to blender or any other program.

three- I'm going to assume you know how to load models and animations, at least directly from the game files

Also this is a very slapdash tutorial so you can send any other questions in, knowing I won't hit everything at all.

The easiest thing for you to do, amateur to amateur, is pick an animation that makes a good base. This can just be the neutral pose, a talking pose, whatever. I don't like dealing with talking and blinking so I usually make sure I have those loaded beforehand.

Before you worry about animation, spend time posing and adjusting things that aren't going to be moving, and just generally solidifying the pose. It's much more annoying to do this after you start animating. In my... very non-professional opinion.

Once you have that down, look at the bottom of the screen.

It's a lot, but you're going to be staring at it if you want to animate. What I do immediately is click on that little icon directly below the frame slider, at the very left edge. After that, click "Editor" and then "Curve editor". Then just enlarge it a bit, and...

boom, animation curve timeline. Let's get an actual animation to show what this actually represents...

I'm selecting bone15 here, which corresponds to his left upper eyelid. The red peaks in the curve timeline represent him blinking. So basically, this is a linear representation of all of the moving parts in the animation over time... very fun.

If you grab onto a node and move it around, you can see the effect it has, so this is one method of adding animation points. Another method is to move to the frame you want, and, after turning on "auto key" move the model to the pose you want.

this automatically adds animation keys when you move things around, which is better than physically editing the timeline sometimes. I do both depending on things.

I'd honestly just suggest screwing around in here with no goal first, as that's how I started. But, as for actual things...

Don't move the parts themselves, move the bones. If you must, messing with the mesh is possible (I had to do it for his jacket in the bashful emote) but it is very very janky. Try to stick to rotating things instead of moving them when messing with joints. "," and "." advance 1 frame back and 1 frame forwards respectively.

As for how I edit them out, you probably see my great green screen up there. It's just a flat plane turned green. I just screen record the animation and use websites online to crop out the green, turn the video into a gif, and resize it to my liking. I... should probably figure out how to directly get a transparent video or gif out of the program, but oh well, this works.

[nectar-cellar]

So I’m struggling to find my sim style rn and I was wondering how you make your sims? Like what’re the key features? Do you also use a base? Ur sims are just so cute! Also ty for being an amazing s3 simblr <33

hiii! aww thank you so much 💖 yeah i do have a male and female base sim, but i only have their basic settings saved, like their head size, head width, eye size, basic proportions like that to save a bit of time when i go to make a sim. i usually don't like the sims EA generates, so my base sims have most settings set back to zero and then just scaled down and moved a bit to make a blank canvas with nice basic proportions.

i like having reference pics whether that's a real person or a character or a piece of artwork, or even another simmer's pics, anything that inspires me and helps me visualize the sim i want to make.

sliders

the more you make sims in TS3 the more familiar you'll become with the sliders, what each one does, which ones you're always using vs which ones you don't tend to use, different combos of sliders that give you exactly the look you want. i feel like you just have to make a lot of sims, mess around with the sliders, in order to learn what works for your style and what doesn't.

my process

i'll start by choosing the sim's body type, their skintone, their hair colour, hairstyle and eyebrows. this is easy when you have a reference picture, or it can help you start to figure out the sim's general vibe if you don't have a reference to follow.

having a good skin is so important. idk how to explain it but there are some skins that i just cannot make look good on my sims. starting off with a pretty skin will make everything so much easier.

in my personal opinion i think the nose is the most defining feature of a face, so my next step is to shape the nose. upward or downward sloping, big or small nostrils, thin or wide, etc. (if you like to use nosemask makeup, i suggest putting the nosemask on first before moving the sliders.) i'll make the basic shape according to the reference pic i'm using, or just according to what i feel like making that day.

once i'm happy with the nose i'll go to make the eyes and lips. the nose helps me decide how big the eyes should be, how close/far apart, how the eyebrows should be shaped, etc. same with the lips - i like to apply the lipstick first before i shape the lips because the lipstick can sometimes change the look significantly.

the last thing i shape is usually the cheekbones and jaw shape. then i move on to applying their makeup and setting their outfits. don't be afraid to try out and discover your go-to makeup, for example mine is always dark under-eyes for my male sims, and cc eyelashes + some kind of lipstick for my female sims.

live mode

sims look different in live mode vs cas so i always look at my sims up close in live mode, pose them, snap some pics from different angles, and see if i'm happy with their features. then i go back in cas and refine their features some more. make the eyes bigger/smaller, make the mouth wider/narrower, stuff like that.

it takes me a long time to make a sim i'm happy with but i really enjoy the process !