#the lineart took like 2 days for no reason

[llegato]

ugly squid

[forgettable-au]

Whats your process like for making the pages/script/comic in general? any advice you could give?

Hii:D

I'm gonna ramble about this a lot, so I'm adding this read more <3

That way this post won't be super long on the main page

If you DO want to see everything go ahead!

So! Right now I work on the pages from monday to saturday :]

I divide work like this:

Monday-Tuesday: Script, storyboard and dialogue bubbles!

Wednesday-Thursday: Lineart for the 4 pages! 2 pages each day

Friday-Saturday: Color the 4 pages! 2 pages each day

Talking about writing

I don't have the full script ready yet because I realized

I SUCK AT WRITING, NOT IN A "My writing is so bad way" BUT IN A "I can't write words without getting confused" WAY

That's one of the reasons why it took me SO long to start this thing! Because I wanted the script to be fully ready! And I couldn't do that because whenever I'm writing I get super confused😭😭I don't know how to explain it but I NEED visuals ??? I need to see how the dialogue I'm writing is gonna look???

So now, whenever I'm writing, I'm also drawing at the same time! AND FOR SOME REASON THAT WORKS, AND SUDDENLY I CAN WRITE

I REALLY DON'T KNOW WHY THAT IS BUT, UH, IT WORKS FOR ME!!! THAT'S ALL I NEED!!

This does NOT mean I'm improvising the story! I do have the full story ready and outlined! I'm following that outline :]

I realized having everything ready might work for some people, but it wasn't working for me D:

So, uh, my advice for writing is to trust yourself and to try different methods! You'll find something that works for you :]

I DO recommend having an outline of the story before beginning!! You don't need to know everything from the beginning but you need to know what NEEDS to happen and a basic idea of how it should end :]

Now about the making of the comic pages

Pls look for references constantly!! Very important!!

There's many different ways to make comics!

I always look in pinterest for panel layout/color pallete inspiration

I use clip studio paint to make everything, it's super useful cause it has a LOT of features that make the process MUCH easier (vector layers, a paint bucket that actually works, special comic configurations, a panel tool, 3d viewing which is super fun, predetermined speech bubbles, the story editor, etc.)

It takes me like?? Approximately 2 and half hours to make one page?? Some more and some less

But I'm also an easily distracted person so sometimes 2 hours turn into 3 because I spent 1 hour getting distracted with other stuff 😭

Uhhm, so yeah!! I think the layout is my favorite part, my least favorite part is adding the speech bubbles...ESPECIALLY if I have to add Wingdings

Andd I think that covers most of it? If you all have more specific questions let me know because there's a LOT of stuff that goes into making these😭😭but I get better and faster each time! My first pages took me like 4 hours on average...some would take me 6 hours...THAT WENT DOWN A LOT :D

[sebdoesthings]

[Please click for better quality!]

I have finally... FINALLY finished this. This was meant to be a relatively quick thing, but of course because I have literally zero chill it took upwards of ten hours across three days.

Under the cut are some ramblings about symbolism and my process, as well as the original redraw "meme" this is based on:

Ramblings:

So this originally started as another ship, but then I realised that longing look at something you can never have is very Reki post episode 6. I deliberately chose a cool toned colour scheme for the whole picture except Reki, so he'd stands apart more and look out of place to visualise how he feels that second half of the series.

I also initially planned to make Langa's scarf blue (like i think it is in canon, in those baby pics? I didn't check because I scrapped that idea before I would have needed to) but then decided against it for two reasons:

1. it would've been too much blue, and a separation between the light tones of the head and torso areas divides up the picture nicely.

and 2. I wanted the very dark tone to be somewhat sinister and give the impression of a noose around his neck, symbolising Adam's hold on him :)

Partway through the lineart i made some very subtle changes to Langa's expression compared to the original billboard, which just looks radiantly joyful. To fit Langa's conflicted feelings (on one hand he's thrilled to be skating against talented skaters in the tournament, but on the other he's anxious and worried about having made a mistake and drifting apart from Reki). To show those things, I gave his eyebrow a little quirk that creates a little wrinkle, and the corner of his mouth a tiny line of tension.

I also really liked the "It's like burning" line from the billboard, and thought it fit really well with Reki's pain as well. Even among all the snow, what he feels is burning him up. And as @piiloh-case pointed out to me, strong temperatures always feel like burning, whether they're hot or cold.

This last thing has nothing to do with symbolism, but I tried out a new colouring/shading style and I'm really liking it :) I think I'm not made for the soft shaded look, so I might go with this in the future.

[dianagj-art]

How long do you typically spend on a drawing? Of the ones you've posted, which took the longest? Which was the quickest?

It really depends on what I'm drawing and how "finished" I do them

For example these kind of skectches don't really take me much time to do (specially when the poses are very simple), I can do a bunch of these in a few minutes no problem, then there are the ones when I add grayscale or colors that take a little longer

Then there is this kind of drawing that are finished with lineart, colors and shadows but each of them took me a different amount of time

The Gemini one took me hours to make (how many I dont really remember) I spent a lot of time on the sketch mostly because I was trying to figure out how Leo's arm worked, then spend around 3hrs doing lineart and chossing the base colors, and I had to do it twice because...

reasons...

The bottom left with Coin Toss Michael, took me less, even when it was a challenging pose I managed to figure that out quick enough, the most time consuming part were the chains because I hand drew them. I don't remember how long it took me to do but I did it in one or two sittings, probably took me aorund 5 hours to make (and maybe thats too much, might have been less)

And the bottom right was a fast one too, probably managged to do it in under 3 hours (I think the hardest part was to match proportions with Trainee that is cropped out)

And then there is things like this, I actually have the proccess recorded (minus the sketching and planning) and can tell you that it took me around 15 hours to make these two pages (I might one day edit that and make a speed draw)

But again, it really depends on what I'm drawing because this commission (that aparently I haven't posted yet) that I also have some of the proccess recorded, it took me around 2:30 hours to do inks, colors and shading

Most of the time I dont really time myself, when I know more exact times are when I record my screen for future speed draw videos (that I always forget to edit) or because I was watching something in the background so I know it took me X amount of movies or episodes or youtube videos so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Oh! there is also this lil animation I did that took me 4 hours, I only know that because it says so in my tags

[hinamie]

sorry if youve talked about this before, but do you have any tips relating to your coloring process? i ADOREE the way you render things and it looks soso cool and once i saw a post where you said your art typically only took a couple hours and i was in SHOCK. cuz ive been working on a yuji piece that has a similarish (not really but idk how to describe it…) coloring style and ive been working at it for. about a month now…sorry this is rambly i hope u have a good day!!!

hi!!! first of all thank you so much I'm happy you like the way I render! honestly it Is still the aspect of drawing that takes the longest for me, I've only recently started to come up with ways to streamline my process (mainly through keeping my layers/brushes limited and overall being less anal about details) . these days my average drawing does take about 2.5-4 hours I'd say, with Big Illustrations obviously being the exception

i wouldn't beat yourself up too much about taking longer to finish a drawing tho ! it took me. a While to learn how to speed up and honestly my biggest piece of advice is loosen up and let certain things look imperfect or unfinished ! and if you're like i was and want to work at getting faster then i would recommend practicing churning out sketchy/rough pieces and see what tricks and habits you can implement or adjust to save time

all that being said I realize haven't done an updated overview of my colouring/rendering process so I guess this can be that ! I'll put it under the cut because i too like to ramble and this Will get long

lineart and base colour/underpainting

my lineart is nearly Always on multiply. it helps the lines stand out less starkly against the colours and makes it so that I don't have to change the colour of as many sections of lines later on

the base colour layer is honestly completely optional, tbh i sometimes skip it so you don't Have to have one but i like it for a few reasons: - I like to keep all my colours on the same layer so if i'm going for a painterly style this serves as an underpaint layer of sorts . having this means that when i paint, whatever colour i have here will blend with all the other colours i use and help them look cohesive - even if I'm not painting, i still like to work with all my colours on the same layer and it helps me make sure I'm not missing any spots, which helps when it comes time to section individual areas off in the next steps

2. flats

lock transparency button my beloved . this makes it so that you're only able to paint on areas where there is Already colour (which is where having an underpaint layer comes in handy)

not much else to say about this step, just choosing colours rly !

3. shading

here's where the fun starts ! since i'm working all on one layer, i use the wand or lasso tool to section off whatever area I want to work on, then go in with (usually) one of the three brushes below: from left to right 1. my favourite dry brush that i use to cover large areas, it has an amazing dry paint stroke-y texture and i use it in everything. great for skin/clothes/hair/fur/organic material...she does it all 2. smaller, blendier/smoother brush that I use to soften out the rougher edges left by the first brush. I find it's really good for hair and small clothing creases 3. rough pen brush that I use to add little bits of flavour in the form of crosshatches or stray lines, usually to hint at individual hair strands! I also use it to line sometimes but I'm using it less for that recently

also, since the lineart layer is set to multiply, it's super easy to colour directly under the lines on my colour layer and use that as a way to make certain lines Darker . it's most obvious at the eyelashes and under the jaw but I do it everywhere

4. finishing touches and texture overlay

here I add another layer above the multiply/lineart layer and use it to add highlights and other details! this is also the layer i use to paint directly on top of any areas that got messy or need extra definition

my texture overlay of choice is just a rough monochrome static file that I got on the csp assets page but use whatever you'd like tbh ! set the layer mode to overlay and adjust the opacity to your liking (I also like to rasterize the layer to make it easier to work with but it's not too consequential if you skip that step since you're basically done by this point anyway)

And done ! slap a signature on that bad boy and send it <3

[asp1diske-art]

Your technical skill with lineart and shading is amazing in itself, but it's your ability to convey emotion and atmosphere in your work that is trademark to me :) its incredible how you can show through gesture and body language just what these masked, expressionless characters are feeling, and how the environment itself conveys that. Your lurien comics, especially the one that ends in something along the lines of "I return to the kingdom you abandoned" are I think the spark that made Lurien go from Some Guy to Deeply Interesting for me, and your use of color pop and shaky line contributed so much to the feeling in those comics. You are one of the artists whose skill at evoking emotions I aspire to <3

Oh wow, I've been reading and re-reading this for the last 20 minutes this is amazing.

So, emotions!

If there is one thing I'm proud to have accomplished during my time in Hollow Knight, it's the skill of expressing tone. Because here's the thing, facial expressions are just one of the many components of tone. (I even wrote about this in another ask some time ago.) Colors, gestures, camera angle, lighting, paneling, lines and narration - all of these come together to convey the mood of the scene.

Check out these wips from the Watcher and the Watched comic, for example.

You can see that color played a huge role in setting the atmosphere in the comic. It shows that this comic is taking place in the Watcher's Spire, but it also gives a dark, subdued feeling that wouldn't come from idk, a yellow background. The backlight emphasizes the ominous tone of the last page. As does Lurien's pose - coupled with the butler looking up and Lurien looking down, it makes it look like Lurien is looming over his butler (and the reader). All this builds up to deliver Lurien's lines with maximum impact.

So yeah, a lot goes into conveying tone in comics, and I'm very happy to hear that it was recieved well!!

The Lurien, Dreamer comic. It's almost 2 years old now but it's still one of the favorite comics I drew about him. Together with the City of Tears comic, it's the epitome of my interpretation of Lurien. My characterization of Lurien's relationship with the Pale King was quite different from the usual fanon at the time (I don't know how it is now, I haven't gone into the tags in years haha) and I wasn't really sure how people would take it. So I'm glad to hear that it got you interested in Lurien!

It's the one that took the longest too lol. Usually I draw comics in a single setting, but that one took 3 days. Besides Two Ghosts (which was an 18 chapter+@ comic that was over 50p and took about 2 months), no other comic has broken this record. I put in a lot of care into it, and it still holds a special place in my heart.

Honestly half the reason I use messy, sketchy lines is that I suck at drawing clean lines lmao. But I like to think that I've made the best of it and utilized it as an art style. In that comic especially, because the whole thing takes place in the dream realm and I wanted to give a rough, unreal feel to it.

I'd show breakdowns of this one too but the file is so big it keeps crashing lol. (Pro tip - draw your comic pages in separate files. Don't be like me and draw 300dpi 10p comics with 30 layers in each page in a single canvas. It will crash and you will be sad.) But drawing the White Palace was a interesting challenge because I usually draw in highly saturated colors whereas the Palace is, well, white. So I had to work out a way to color this without making everything looking grey, while also making it recognizable as the palace. iirc I used a lot of overlay & burn & dodge layers along with a few difference & subtract layers to give the white a slight yellow tint to stand out from the dark blue. (I'm pretty sure they're the culprits crashing the file.)

Sorry this got long, I really took this as an invitation to ramble about my art hkfsldjkflj

Thank you for all the compliments! It's an honor to hear that my art could be someone's aspiration, and I'm very happy that all my Lurien art got someone else into Lurien. I hope you have a nice day :D

[batbitesthebat]

Kwazton kwazton kwazton kwazton

(Erm i write a lot after this)

Am I the only one who feels like when I post art here the quality lowers so much??? Should I make a deviant-art account for more art because one of the main reasons why i even have a tumblr is cause i wanna keep track of my art and like whats the point if its gonna be super low quality

It took me an hour and 30 minutes and i used ibispaint for the art and flipaclip for the first draft (sketch?)

As you can see the "sketch" and the final drawing are pretty similar. So why even bother doing this??? Simple. I HATE DOING LINEART IN IBIS!! It feels so weird. And I'm used to FlipAclip, but it exports everything in 2 pixels!!!!!! So i do FlipAclip for rough lil drafts to base my lineart off of , then ibispaint for the rest. I know i know i know its lame and embarrassing but what EVS man. Oh man its 1 in the morning i have to get up at 6 for school tomorrows not gonna be a good day. 😢 goodnight Love, BatBites

[k0nstanta]

hii!! i was wondering if I could ask what is your usual colouring process? how much time one fully coloured piece and doodle take! I adore your ocs so much they inspire me to draw more myself:3 they feel so alive!

hi anon! thank you vey much, i'm very happy to hear that you feel inspired!

i wrote up a little something for your questions under the cut:

so, first of all, the way i color things ranges from drawing to drawing, especially if i feel like playing around in the process. sometimes i decide to try something out (palette, filter, technique, brush etc) and if i really like how it looks i may recolor the entire drawing lol. point is, there's a lot of sidetracks to my process (especially now, since i'm trying to get used to a different art program than the one i used previously) but the very basics of it are as follows:

1. i sketch and line whatever it is that i want to draw (this might take a while depending on whether i have a solid idea right away or not; in the latter case i might do some thumbnails first to figure out how i want the drawing to look. you can't really see here, but when i line things i usually draw on the same layer as the sketch, and after i'm done i adjust the brightness/contrast settings of the layer to get rid of the sketch underneath. it might seem like i'm just making my life harder this way, especially since this method only works if you sketch with a lighter color (or make it lighter in settings before starting lineart) and your lineart is drawn with a solid opaque brush (which is how i always draw), but it helps me to not get caught up on trying to make the lineart precisely follow the sketch. it also makes changing things on the go much easier, since i only have to erase on one layer.

2. after i'm done lining, i underpaint with a solid color (usually the skin color, but sometimes something random), then block the alpha channel and color over it with flats;

3. i don't color everything at once, instead going piece by piece, which helps to keep the drawing balanced color and contrast wise. i pick a desired area with magic wand and then go about rendering it properly (which usually involves adding some value variance with an airbrush and then laying down shadows/highlights/etc). you can't see this here either, because for some reason i forgot to do it this once, but i also usually lower the opacity of the lineart layer halfway when i color. it helps me concentrate on colors and how they look together better;

4. when i'm satisfied with color, i recolor the lineart to be whatever color i think fits the piece better and change lineart layer settings to either multiply, color burn, or linear burn. after that i just play around with filters, add decorative details, and clean everything up. it's also worth noting that sometimes i starts trying out filters/effects directly while coloring because i want to explore some alternative colors or palettes; i also have a tendency to pick very pale & unsaturated colors so messing around with HSB (hue/saturation/brightness) & depth/contrast settings while coloring helps a lot.

5. cropping it & there you go!

this one took me 1,2 hours. depending on how complex the drawing is it might take me much longer (especially if im working on a commission) so i'd say my average time drawing is somewhere between 2-6 hours. if a drawing takes longer than that i break it apart into several days of work. don't draw for too long! it's bad for your health.

as for sketches, as i mentioned previously, it all depends on whether i know what i want to draw or not, and if i do, i usually just go straight at it:

this one took me 20 minutes. on average, a doodle can take anywhere from 10 to 40 minutes, more if i want to make it look fancy, but at that point it enters the vast limbo between sketch and finished piece.

that's it! sorry the gif quality is really bad, it's the best i could do. here's a video of the same stuff, hopefully in somewhat better resolution

[ikilledamanforthisurl]

who's lila yammerings (i should be asleep

thinking about Who's Lila again and i really do love how the three layers of the mystery as broken down by Flaw Peacock includes kindof commentary to the "all interpretations are equally valid/correct" writing copout that isn't just the opposite statement or a rebuke of it, but also something that ties it all in with the rest of the game's infohazard/memetic properties themes. like yes, broke = all interps are valid + woke = there IS a correct answer as this is a mystery, but also bespoke = the correct interpretation comes from the unconscious mind of all people, a zeitgeist, et cetera.

it can be equally as much of a copout- because break it down, what tf does that imply? that the interpretation that takes us at large is the most correct? so the most popular theories, and that the most widely accepted aspects of the game, are what is true? whichever red herring that turns out to be when it is handed to the public? it can totally be a copout. not for lack of effort or intelligence or artistry, as FP's video is nearly 8 hours for a reason, but also it can be copout. a REALLY COOL copout though. i can't picture of any other story that i know that does this, nor could i think of a better story to do it.

because it's all about the cultural zeitgeist and memetic properties. beliefs and feelings and ideas and superstitions that trend. Lila is the mystery but she is also a demon, she is also a trauma, she is also a metaphor, she is also a delusion, she is all of these things, but above all else she is what YOU hear she is. the most popular, most widely accepted interpretations are what get shared, and spread the furthest. unrelated people hear about it, maybe give these opinions the time of day for a quick read, and Lila has fully cemented herself in those people's brains as that interpretation, even if alllll that information they just took in winds up being dead noise that the brain scraps entirely with time. she WAS there, however fleeting, as is her abiding by her, or the, laws of memetics

and to me, this is the interpretation. but that doesn't change how people at large are viewing her and i certainly wouldn't know better as i haven't bothered looking into it. idk yall im not gonna ask. regardless she is whatever we first thought she was, and unless you dig deeper and find out more, she's infected you thus. just like how the Dada Dog was originally just some guy's silly drawing, but evolved into an alt-right symbol of actual genuine murderers. somebody took the Dada Dog and maybe unintentionally recontexutalised it when putting it next to their personal dangerous rhetoric, and their ilk ate it up like flies to the point that there was nothing left of the Dog but the picked clean, bare bones of its lineart and sombre expression

my best guess are that there are three layers to the current zeitgeist of Lila as well. 1. the unknowing crowd, who have maybe seen a few pictures at most and maybe a little bit of the game, assuming she's a trauma metaphor characterised as a paranormal thing possessing dear William. 2. the initiated, knowing a little more and who may lean towards her being a demon taking advantage of kids with issues. and 3. whoever was insane enough to dig this deep and grasp that she is exactly what we think she is

Conclusion: Poor William

[lionews]

"Anybody got anything to say about Xy/the custom decor process in general? Im not an artist so i dont know how it works, but i just read an interesting post on Wolvden (i know its not the same game, but, yno, same team) about how the rejection/approval times can take up to months, Xy will condescend and mansplain about the art process and decors get rejected for the most asinine reasons. Anyone can confirm/deny?" OH BOY! Now this is my niche! I have been making custom decors for around a year now, and have over 50 approved decors as of now. And god damn, I have a scathing review for the custom decor process. First Claim: rejection/approval times can take up to months Yeah. Sounds about right, especially for Wolvden. I've never submitted a custom decor there (I've rolled over a grand total of 5 times on that site) but unless you're well known to the art team (took me a couple of months of weekly decor submissions to get to it) responses will take anywhere between 1 day and 2 weeks,

Second claim: Xy will condescend and mansplain about the art process

In my experience, it hasn't ever seemed that way. BUT, Xylax has a habit of being very unclear in his denials. As in, he will give a reason, but like... how the hell do you fix it? He will deny detailed decors for being 'too pixelated' when there are official decors with the thinnest lineart known to man. I'm looking at you, African Flower Ornaments [White]. Where the FUCK is your 1.5-2px thick line art.

Xylax's standards move based on how the hell he feels sometimes. I got this denied, but this decor is approved? (both are mine, btw.) Winter Mane [White] - Denied 3/4 times. Might start work on it again, if I can get it approved. Was denied... for line art being too light and not having a fur texture. Lovely. What the fuck.

Monstera [Green], my first ever approved decor.

Not to mention the decor submission process just feels totally outdated, like a lot of the rest of the site. I really hope it gets overhauled, or, at least, when decors are made to be able to fit mutations, they add that to the custom decors ability. I would hate having to spend 70gb per piece of decor for my decors to fit all major mutations (Felis, Ferus, Smilus, Primal, Leopon, Tigon, and the Jaglions) I've been told Spirited will be added to the custom decor submission categories for posed decors, SO, it's not out of the range of possibility. Thank you for coming to my ted talk

.

[queerdraws]

i love your postcard artwork for the zolu playlist SO much!! the colours are so so good and i love the brushwork! i think my favourites are a tie between the one for chikai and the one for simple song <3 also, I was wondering if you could share what brushes you used + how long they took you! looking at your art makes me want to draw again after not doing it for so long

Thank you!! and wow i think this is the first time someone's asked me for my brushes, this is like a digital artist rite of passage!

Answers n screenshots n stuff under cut (I went a little to ham on this oops)

While we're talking settings I want to give a quick PSA to all digital artists:

CHECK UR ASPECT RATIO!!!: (MOST IMPORTANT SETTING BY FAR)

DO NOT DRAW WITH THIS ALL MESSED UP, IT WILL DRIVE YOU CRAZY. It's probably good to check this after every system update (I don't, but, you know...). Windows likes to mess w your shit when it updates.

If you have a really tiny tablet you might need to trace outside a bottle lid or something.

Okay now on to the meat of the post

-- Brush Stuff --

I use Clip Studio Paint. For my playlist drawings I think I only used these brushes (these are my main 3 in general) (p.s. they're all default brushes! but i've adjusted the settings):

1) Gouache This is most of what i used for the postcards. I nuked Color Stretch because i hate it (it blends colors together as you're painting, like painting over wet paint. I prefer things to look more crisp)

2) Real G-Pen Used this as little as possible, to keep the painterly effect. My preferred fine-detail pen, has a nice crunch to it. I've fine-tuned my setting further in the thickness dynamics / brush size dynamics settings because I mostly use this brush for linework and wanted it to handle really, really naturally and precisely

The random box is checked by default, probably to make this brush feel more like handling a real inkdip pen (I don't like that)

3) Mapping Pen Least used. I generally keep this brush at the 50-70px range. It's unpleasant to use for detail work (the taper is really fiddly at my tablet pressure settings) but good at filling in large areas very opaque very quickly, with a crisp edge (Also, doesn't lag as much as the gouache brush at large-ish sizes). Has enough wiggle room that it can be used to approximately fill tighter spaces at large brush sizes. Used for when I needed to quickly color over an area that wasn't working or quickly fill in background color that didn't need paintbrush texture. Did not realized the stabilization was set to 10 until just now. I usually turn that waaay down to prevent lag (my laptop isn't very old but it's a sensitive beast)

Other stuff that'll help:

General pen pressure: (under File -> Pen Pressure Settings)

tweaking how CSPaint handled my pen pressure helped a lot with making lineart look more natural. It's worth messing around with this and trying out different settings for a while to see how they feel.

-- How Long it Takes 2 Draw --

I don't really keep track of how long art takes me from start to finish, and making the playlist drawings was kinda nonlinear 😅 sorry!

-> I started out sketching really quick composition and color ideas as the songs were playing, limiting myself to just the duration of each song (so like, 5 minutes for this part) -> i did that again at least 2 more times per song -> after that, idk. I would work on one pic then get stuck and move to another. Some I could hammer out in like... 5 hours? Some took me upwards of 20 (30?) hours for no real reason (I have "will graham clock" days, where I'll try to draw a face over and over and it'll look really strange, like will graham's clock drawing every time) (this seems to be either a vitamin deficiency or a brainfog inflammation type thing 4 me 😵‍)

I'll use ur two favorites as specific examples: -> Chikai was one that went pretty quickly (with the exception of their arms and the clothing folds there giving me trouble). Probably took 4-6 hours? -> Simple Song had a couple different versions, partially because I initially had the cards all laid out landscape-style, and I decided I actually wanted them all portrait-style & repainted it after it was already done. That aside, the colors /atmosphere on that one gave me trouble and the general composition / perspective had a lot of tweaks (I was trying to figure out if I wanted it to be a kinda flat stylistic perspective or if I wanted it to make more literal sense, trying to figure out what to do with luffy, trying to make him not look Too baby boy sweetie pie). Probably took 7-10 hours...?

In-progress landscape versions: (varying levels of in-progress)

Misc in-progress of Chikai and Simple Song:

Simple song looks kinda sequential like this lmao. Luffy looks like he's A-posing and floating away to the boat and then sitting down pleasantly in it. Wonderful. --

Anway -- hope any of that was helpful!

[catesartworks]

Answering Asks about Isekai Maid! Pt.2

Asks are down below under the cut, and there are a bunch! Some of these are a bit old, sorry I couldn’t get to them in time. ( T w  T  )

Warning, I’m going to talk about topics like stalking, sui//cide, slavery, and domestic abuse. There’s also some swearing in the asks as well. 

Someone else does it, I have no presence on TVtropes. :P

Thank you! Yes, I really enjoyed making Phantom in the Mirror, it actually helped me a lot and without it I wouldn’t have a lot of the building blocks to make Isekai Maid.

I liked Melissa a lot, Yona and Yuri. Wish Yuri/Melissa were endgame, honestly, but I do like Nine too!

As for dislikes, I feel like Nine’s brother was a bit underdeveloped and I wanted them to really dive deep into his character and why he is the way he is. We get some of it in the side stories, but I really feel like there is something missing about him to make him whole...!

I want an anime dang it!

I think it’s a matter of framing. So much of Otome Isekai in general is about reframing certain scenarios and looking at other character’s points of view. I’m sure that if we were following these characters in a comic/novel, we would be conditioned to accept whatever they do, even if it seems cruel because in this genre many protagonists believe that the ends justify the means as long as they have the excuse of “I need to survive at any cost.”

So Otome Isekai protagonists can justify having servants/commoners dragged away and executed/punished because they “didn’t know their place.” They can excuse things like slavery because “oh well, it’s the world I live in can’t stop it!,” and freely indulge in buying people. And there will be readers who don’t look past the in universe justifications and accept it at face value.

Yes, Phoebe wanted to make sure that Clara didn’t have any allies. Interestingly enough, the original book that Phoebe and Clara were isekai’d into, “Flowers Thrive in Autumn,” was poorly received by audiences because of the tragedy elements and the ultimate fate of the original Phoebe (dying from domestic abuse) and Clara was one of the most hated characters in the book.

Helen, the reincarnator, was one of the readers who couldn’t stand her and thought that Clara didn’t deserve to have a happy ending because she felt it was at the expense of Phoebe. She was also a fan of the prince character, who was a minor character and she wanted to use him for protection. Phoebe reasoned that if Clara had any help or allies whatsoever that it would cause a butterfly effect and the story would make Phoebe die once again.

One week. I work a lot of hours, it’s difficult to keep track because it can vary a lot.

I do 15 hours to do sketching, resketching based on the 3D model where I draw over the rendered image and lineart/flats.

6 hours to render the backgrounds in Blender (I have a specific process where I keep the model and size reference and lineart separated and have to save 3 files at a time).

Roughly it takes about 9 hours to add shadows, textures, and effects (5 hours if I book it!).

2-3 hours for writing dialogue, and about an hour and a half before launching the comic online to check for spelling errors.  And that doesn’t count when I have to reupload chapters after the fact when I notice errors, which can extend my schedule by one day or so.

Sometimes it’s more, since my schedule slips up and I don’t pull all nighters anymore (too tiring!).

Yes, Phoebe is aware that Joshua’s death is an accident. But she felt that Phoebe took most of the brunt of the blame and thinks that Clara should take most of it.

I think that there are so many things in the world that are normal, like demons being such a real threat where they have to alter funeral practices to keep them from spreading, to magic schools and teleportation, that the idea of reincarnation isn’t too far fetched.

Thanks! Unfortunately, I have had the displeasure of watching that film for a film class. It wouldn’t surprise me if readers who justify slavery in stories like Death is the Only Ending for the Villainess, would look at Scarlett O’Hara and think of her as an inspiration.

We already have a lot of slavery isekai (which, honestly...why.), and while it breaks my heart that people justify and gush over slaveowners like Penelope and Scarlett O’Hara, it’s nothing new and is a sign that these kinds of stories are doing harm in how we depict human suffering in slavery.

Even back when the movie was released, people thought of Scarlett as a role model, even when she was the face of the exploitation and gleefully participated in the cruelest forms of human trafficking and suffering. As long as it convenient for the protagonist to do so, people will just about justify anything they do.

Thank you! I find most of my designs from Dover Books, such as “Victorian Fashions: A Pictorial Archive, 965 Illustrations (Dover Pictorial Archive)“ and “Victorian and Edwardian Fashions from "La Mode Illustrée" (Dover Fashion and Costumes)“ You can find them on Amazon or online

Erica did regret it, and she did try to call it off, but it was too late. Erica at one point, truly did love Clara and thought of her as the daughter she never had, but she was also very subconsciously jealous of her older half sister, Misty (Clara’s mom) and took it out on Clara.

Erica and Misty were half sisters on their mother’s side. Their mother had slept with one of her Limpetta butlers, a man named Calvin, when she was an unmarried woman, and gave birth to Misty, who she adored. But her father forced her to give up Misty to Calvin and had them hidden away.

Her mother was then made to marry a much older man who was very wealthy. She gave birth to Erica, and while she showed her love but it was always underwhelming. When her husband died from old age, her mother wasted no time in finding Clavin again and marrying him, forgoing any inheritance she may have gotten as his wife and instead giving it to Erica.

Erica felt forgotten and familyless, but tried to maintain a relationship with Misty and be friendly with her. They were close, but there was always a lingering estrangement because Erica could tell that her mother loved Misty more than her.

When Misty got married and had Clara, Erica was given the chance to name her. Erica was touched and remained close to Clara. But the resentment still remained, and came again to the surface after she lost her son. She felt that Clara belonged to her more than Misty, and was the last remnant of her son but hated that she was alive while her son was dead.

I’ve watched both! ( T 7  T   ) Sorry, but I always watch Otome Isekai when it gets an anime adaptation.

Callisto...🤢🤮 Can’t stand slaveowner characters....I’ll take your word for it, I didn’t like him honestly!

Yep! She survived the Three Week Riot, her name is Tabitha Nguyen.

Sorry this answer came so late, but as soon I saw this message (back when the episode was posted) I updated the content warning!

Pretty much. Clara said in passing to Phoebe that she had other lives, but never elaborated much. Phoebe kind of just assumed that she was also a reader who coincidentally read the same book.

Prince Dimitri’s reason (or justification by the original author) for acting the way he is is due to his mother’s death. As a child, he lived the first eight years of his life as a commoner with his mother, a noblewoman. He was the king of Kolt’s son, and his mother wanted to raise him away from the palace life.

He asked where is dad was, and why he wasn’t with them. While searching for his dad, he accidentally revealed to someone in his village information about his noble mother’s whereabouts and they told the king. This lead to the king tracking them down and forcibly making his mother come back to the palace with him.

In most scenarios like this is Otome Isekai stories, the mother is able to repair her relationship with the king as he will be a good father to his son and she doesn’t have a choice either way (so, yeah, kidnapping and gaslighting). But this story took a deadly turn, as the king threatened to execute her for hiding an heir from him (he thought he was infertile and never took a wife).

He applied so much pressure on her that she broke psychologically. She took her own life. Dimitri felt immense guilt and felt that his want for a father lead to his mother’s death.

As a result of his own guilt, the king allowed him to get away with practically anything, even killing people. But Dimitri later kills his father, and there is a coup within the aristocracy that tries to execute the prince, which is how he is almost killed by assassins and meets Clara, or Phoebe depending on the timeline.

The thing is, Phoebe did have feelings for Dimitri, but she wasn’t sure his feelings for her were real, or that he was even a real person. Even years into the marriage she felt like this. Phoebe doesn’t think that the people around her as as real as her, think as deeply as her, or have true autonomy. She thinks that she lives in a world fully of puppets.

To her, all she did was be in the same place as Clara and say the same things as her. On one hand, it could mean that Prince Dimitri is his own person who chooses to be with someone different this timeline. But on the other hand, because she did what Clara did, it also means that he could swayed not by the individual actions person who saves him, but falls in love due to someone fulfilling a role and might as well just be a piece of code going through the motions.

To Phoebe, Prince Dimtri, unlike her father, was faithful and that was good enough for her. She wanted an attack dog that could protect her from her bad ending.

Nope, she’s a different character.

[reversedumbrella]

tags by @bingusluvr5

i'm really embarassed rn. i never expected someone to comment about the speed specially considering it took me extra time to make this one. i wasted 2 days helping my mom in a festival and then was DRAGGED to a 4 day vacation with no computer. my hate for france GROWS. half the time between posting issue 1 and issue 2 I was barred from working hjjghjghgjgj.

my speed comes from a lot of things

i'm on college break so i have all day to myself. also my method.

i use the comic industry timeline. i pencil (rough draft), ink (lineart), color (with the exception that i color flat the whole thing first and then shade). and only move to the next step once all pages are done. this means i can keep the current headspace while working. different steps damand that i think of different things

panel frames and speech bubbles are in a vector layer so its easy to adjust

color fill. good line art makes it easier to color fill

simple shading. if i could i'd shade everything like the covers

small number of brushes (3+eraser)

cutting corners. you'll see a lot of mistakes big and small that i refuse to fix, like painting the journalists microfone. i didn't want to pick a color so i didn't and everything got easier. the max shirt is supposed to look like that. i refuse to shade it but its an artistic choice not laziness

my current *estimate* for how long it can take me to do one issue is 1 week if i go all in. im not going all in for every reason imaginabe, so its actually to 10 days. it took me around 9 days to make this comic so it checks out

also the reason it feels very canon is because i understand DC better than everyone working there

reminds me of my terumob comics i posted every other three days (with the exception of the three week break for college work :/)

[fainthedcherry]

Happy Valentine's Day. I planned this animation for the 14th. So here it is. I'll probs spend a week or 2 off social medias now again, when it's personal reasons like talking to people or commenting on art again. I just. Don't feel feel well and ready, to talk to people yet.

Sorry that this is so bad, I just had to join a trend for once. It was too funny, not to, at the time when I started working on this. Unfortunate timing, of real life events, is what made me stop working on this. So sorry that this looks like such a mess, haha. I work a lot in colours, when animating + I'm new to using Opentoonz. I only took a 1hr detour, to learn how keying works. I can do it now, but...It's still wonky, as you can tell in the vid.

I got nothing else to say, I just..Hope you find this OK enough, to consider this a post, worthy briefly disappearing for. I never usually post my animations in this...State of disarray, I guess. Typically they're fully shaded, linearted, you name it. So..This is kind of. Giving me anxiety to post. I never posted something so...Unfinished-looking before, in regards to animation.

[toki-macross]

This was another Christmas' present for my nephew. They were visiting, and at night, I worked on this to eventually give to him. (Actually later inspired him to ask for his own Faux Stainglass making stuff.) Click below for the crazy process to get it made.

Now... I was in my families guest bedroom, since my bedroom was larger and better for my brother's family to be in. Previously in this room, was our collection of weapons. Because my family appreciates the astetic and well, also the use in some regards. Though mainly machetes and hatches, for outdoor yard work. A bunch are just wall hangers. Though some are sharp, and some are heavy.

(Dad has taken them down, so he can build a better, safer case to put them in. So smol children can't get grabby.) Trying to get the piece done in time. I realized that it was late, and I needed a good straightedge. Now, I grew up in a family, that had many sharp things about the house. With my father being a woodcarver. I was taught at an early age, to appreciate and respect sharp things. For being useful, and also dangerous. As an adult, I think I own... (counts) um... ALOT of sharp and pointys in my bedroom. But my bedroom also doubles as my workshop, so it makes sense. Though, I do have some collection stuff in here. But mostly functional blades, like my exactos, box cutters and the like for crafting/building.

And the reason I tell this story, is because it was second nature, to just do this...

Reached back, (since I couldn't go to my room to possibly grab the Jill Ruler) And took out the collection's oldest resident. My father's Machete he brought to America from his birthplace in Columbia. It's older then me by a long shot, probably 50-55 years old, and beloved as a main staple when it comes to outdoor wood chopping. It is certainly a first reach when needing to do things, and using it as a straight edge was normal for me... But as I was working on it, forgot that this isn't normal and had a chuckle about it. And sent pictures to friends who know me, and they were amused. Note: it is sharp, and can be dangerous. Treat any sharp object with respect and care. Don't just grab things willy nilly. So, with a straight edge secure, I started working on the design.

The process of making Faux Stainglass, usually takes me 3-4 days. Sketching and doing the lines, is day one. Because the liquid leading needs to ideally, cure overnight. I tend to sketch out the design, then overlay it with Sharpie. Since the general thickness of a basic sharpie, is about what the lines are in Liquid leading. (Though a properly skilled person, probably could make the lines how ever they want. I am still learning)

As you can tell from my Wobbly lines. It also doesn't help that often these projects were at minimum, a year apart. If not several. So any good lineart skill I gained, might have been downgraded as I worked on a new project. Day 2 is color, which then needs to cure overnight as well.

And this is what it looked like, before drying. So, there is some color change as it becomes more transparent. Day 3-4 is letting it cure fully. In case various sections might have had too thick of paint, and it taking longer to cure. Mainly a choice I make to make sure that the piece is finished, before being presented as a present.

[the-ninja-legacy-whip]

I'm quite curious but how long does drawing usually take for you? Let's say for a tarot card for example?

Depends on how lazy in depth I want to go with it. Fully rendered stuff with glow and shading and effects and all the stops can take up to 2-3 days (if not a week, time permitting), but a quick doodle/sketch for an ask or something only takes an hour or so. On average a “usual” piece of mine doesn’t normally take more than 6-8 hours (unless it’s really detailed, like pieces for DTIYS or scenes with multiple people), but that’s cuz I’ve learned how to cheat the system :P

(but yeah most of the Timelapses I have saved are around 7 hours for the whole process)

Drawing/sketching by itself varies. Everything I do is initially drawn by hand, and while sometimes I can nail a sketch, like, right away, other times I can spend hours trying to get it up to snuff, or I only finish it like halfway and just touch it up digitally instead to attempt to save some time. Just depends on the piece, my mood, and the time on my hands snksnk

For the tarot cards specifically, ahhh…I’d put them around 6-8 hours each, so around my usual time, but the simpler ones like Jesse’s and Nya’s took less than that, while more complicated ones like Jay, Dareth, Lloyd/the FSM, took several days. I’ll consider it a sign of trying to improve each time, haha.

The initial sketch takes an hour or two, the cleaned sketch + lineart can take up to four (mainly cuz I have a shorter attention span during this part), and coloring, again, depends on the specific piece but can usually be done in a few hours too.

But also, with the tarot cards, part of the reason I made it a year-long project to begin with was to ensure that I would have enough time to make them mostly the best they could be! If I had attempted them all at once or back-to-back I probably would’ve given up, so I’m really glad I can say I’m almost done!!