#they don't have the budget for the rigging

[raayllum]

putting on my clown cap because i still firmly believe that callum is either summoning the lightning or conducting the lightning (or both) and idk which i want more as an outcome - callum being able to channel it through his body without any consequence because sky arcanum baby (like zym) and it’s a variant of sky’s ultimate magic form (like heat being mode for sunfire elves) or callum channels the lightning but it’s similar to being struck by it and he gets permanent lichtenberg scars

[pearwaldorf]

I hate that you can't see a tweet thread anymore if you're not logged into Twitter (as a gesture of disrespect I refuse to call it by its rebranded name). Here is a copypasta of a thread from Dan Olson, a Canadian documentary filmmaker, expanding upon camera quality, the guilt trips Somerton used to goose his Patreon subscriptions, and how the best tools will never make up for lack of dedication or patience. I have added clarifications in [[double brackets]] where I feel it is necessary.

START OF THREAD

Okay, so, back in April I snapped at James in reply to a tweet that was linking to this video (which James has since delisted but not deleted) and I want to talk about the full context of that but I don't want to make a video, put your beatdown memes away. [[The video has since been deleted. I can see the title of the video is "Maybe the end (not an April Fool's Day thing".]]

The first bit of context is that I initially got keyed into James to fact-check his claims about indie filmmaking in Canada. As a filmmaker the entire Telos venture was immediately obvious as a juvenile fantasy dreamed up by someone with no idea how to make a movie.

Just wild claims about their plans that weren't worth debunking because they bordered Not Even Wrong. But in watching one of these pitch videos I noticed that he had a $4000 current-gen camera in the background as a prop, and that seemed both pretentious and weird.

You don't use your best camera as a prop, you use your second best camera as a prop. So being an obsessive weirdo I needed to know, and I watched his BTS stuff until I spotted his main rig, a $6000 camera with about $1000 in accessories.

Now, these in isolation are unremarkable because his Patreon at the time was bringing in ~$8000 per month, his channel was a full on Business business, and so investing in some professional equipment of that level is maybe a bit indulgent but justifiable.

What was weird is that he doesn't shoot multi-cam, doesn't shoot outdoors, doesn't shoot on location, and in a studio the two cameras kinda really step on each others' toes. Basically if you already have one and don't need a B cam there's no reason to get the other.

Again, on its own, this says nothing, it's just indicative of poor financial decisions, maybe impulsive purchasing, Gear Acquisition Syndrome. Biblical sins, but not crimes.

Paired with the constantly inflating fantasy scope of the Telos films it was clearly an expression of a very, very common bad filmmaker habit of "if I just get the right gear then my movie will basically make itself" Buying stuff because it feels like progress.

At the end of February he tweets "I want to start shooting anamorphic" and then three weeks later in March he posts the worst, out of focus, under-exposed "I just got a new lens!" video I've ever seen, showing off his trash-covered bedroom.

Based on what's available for his cameras and the lead time, that's enough time to get a Laowa Nanomorph or Sirui Saturn from B&H but not enough time to get a Great Joy from the UK or a Vazen from China. And with the flaring blah blah blah, $1300 lens.

Again, [gear acquisition syndrome] is not a crime and these lenses are budget options. Bit of a pointless impulse purchase since he only used it for the Showgirls video. But this is what he was doing just a few weeks before that above video came out: effortlessly impulse purchasing lenses.

James has (had?) a habit of regularly, aggressively driving viewers to Patreon by claiming that videos were getting demonetized. While tacky, it is something a lot of queer YouTubers have dealt with, so there's precedent there. But people were noticing he did it a lot.

Mid-March he humble brags about needing to work so hard to make 6 videos in April because he has over-booked sponsorships.

Then March 29th James posts this whole incel screed on Twitter about how sex work should be "subsidized as a mental health service."

[two image descriptions.

1. "For the majority of people sex (and human contact) can be imperative to a healthy state of mind. A kind and talented sex worker can make someone feel wanted for the first time in their life. I know sex workers who have pulled people back from suicide just by being there for them." 2. "Not only should (sex work) be legal, but it should be subsidized as a mental health service."]

He spends several days getting absolutely *roasted* for this, just dragged across the pavement and read for filth, and doubles down in the replies the whole way.

So this is the context immediately surrounding James waking up on Friday, and posts the above video and the below tweet.

[image description: "We just got the lowest Patreon payout we've gotten in well over a year. Like, a "maybe we need to rethink things" kind of amount... NOT an April Fools Day thing btw. But I don't know if we'll be making videos much longer."]

Now, this unfolds in kinda two directions. The first is that I'm convinced he was just lying about this income shock in the first place.

There's a million theoretical edge cases about what maybe happened and if maybe he just misunderstood the data or saw a glitch and panicked, maybe one of those happened, I don't believe it, I think he just lied because he was salty about getting dragged and felt owed a win.

A big tell to me is that he doesn't blame Patreon. He says he doesn't know what happened, but let's be real, Patreon screws up all the time, they're the first people anyone blames if anything confusing happens, just as a reflex action, even if it's completely not their fault.

The only reason to not blame Patreon is if you already know that it's not their fault and that any investigation on their part might reveal embarrassing details.

Instead he indirectly blames his viewers for not watching enough, not sharing enough, and not turning on auto-renew.

So regardless of the unknowable truth, this segues into the second, far more offensive direction of the messaging itself. "I don't know if we'll be making videos much longer." "Maybe the end" He explicitly framed this as an immediate existential threat to his channel.

In the video he is vague about everything, leaves a ton of hazy room for plausible deniability on how long the channel can keep going, but the messaging is "I need more patrons right this minute or my YouTube channel is over."

He repeatedly evokes all the "fun stuff" they had planned that would never see the light of day if this didn't turn around right away.

And his audience received this message loud and clear. Tons of people making far, far, far less than him left very heartfelt messages about digging a little deeper to subscribe or up their pledge or unsubscribe from other channels to move their pledge to his.

1200 new patrons in one day.

Since I simply don't believe the income shock was real in the first place that would put his post-"Maybe the end" Patreon income at around $10,000 per month. US. Add YouTube income, he's spent the last seven months making around $18,000 per month.

I have seen creators scale back their capabilities to the bone purely to keep making videos for the love of just, like, making stuff even as their funding evaporated and they needed to go back to a desk job to cover their bills.

You'd have to be so outstandingly reckless with your finances as a channel that a one month spook leads immediately to "channel over, sorry about all the fun stuff we won't get to do with you, our patrons, specifically because you, our patrons, aren't giving us enough money"

And not a spook where you then spend a couple weeks crunching numbers. Oh no. A shock so violent where less than two hours later you're weeping on camera about the channel being over.

Three weeks later he brought a brand new Sony FX6v for $8000 CAD to add to his pile of cinema cameras despite the fact that he was, but scant moments earlier, in such a precarious position that a single bad month would kill his channel.

He stole your money, and for that I'm profoundly sad and angry. That's why I snapped at him in April. I'm sorry I couldn't give you the full context then, and I'm sorry if that anger upset you.

END OF THREAD

[kianamaiart]

Hey Kiana, are you gonna be using rigged animation for your pilot? I’m an experienced Harmony rigger and would love to help out 👀 shooting my shot lol

waaah i super appreciate it! as of right now, i'm planning on keeping this an animatic (as i don't have much experience in animating and also don't have the budget hahaha). but maybe in the future!!!

[centrally-unplanned]

Got linked to these very good videos recently on all the fake branding around "No CGI" and "Practical effects" in big budget movies today - as is no shock to anyone virtually every single claim of "no CGI" in a movie today is just a complete lie (Oppenheimer is the only debatable exception). Jonas is a very good presenter, he respects your intelligence and has a breadth of cinema knowledge that makes this series more than its headline.

Something that I thought was interesting that he alluded to was a cool industry shift that has occurred around the ease of special effects meaning that people involved don't even know they are happening. If you were an actor in a movie in ~2010, and a shot was a "VFX" shot, you would see greenscreens/bluescreens, you would see rigging equipment, you would maybe wear a mocap suit or tracers or something. You yourself had VFX skills, you were part of the project. And audiences learned that too, they learned to expect to see bluescreens or behind-the-scenes footage of those things.

But that is increasingly outdated now - still used for ease or specific shots, sure, but its not necessary. You can completely redo the backgrounds, build rig models for actors, clone objects from the frame, and so on just from the native footage, the tech is that good. So you will sometimes shoot a scene and it will look normal to you, and then be changed in post, you don't even know. At one point he tangents to discuss how marketers will lie about the actors "doing their own stunts", which seems credible to audiences because they know that for stunts you do things like hiding the actor's face or having specific cuts to mask the actor switch. But they don't have to do that anymore! You can just composite the actor's face onto the body of the stunt double, and you don't notice. That old "trick" you had to tell isn't functional, and being used *against* you.

It really reminds me of Dan Olsen's idea of "Bakshi's Vision", where the distinction between an animated film and a live action film becomes too blurry even bother with. Obviously that won't become literally true, but you can see the shape of it more and more.

[crisscross-sonicsauce]

Differences between the models from Sonic 2 and the Knuckles Show Masterpost!

I'm sure there are more but these are just what I've noticed so far...

(Also, this is kind of hard for Sonic and Tails because we don't see them much, but I'll do my best)

::Knuckles Show on top Sonic 2 on bottom

Okay, first...

Textures

For the most part, they're less furry.

Comparing these you can see that the fur around his muzzle is shorter or at least not as well defined. This is true for the rest of them as well. Everyone looks "smoothed out," especially around the face.

Another example...

You can see the fur around his ears is actually less fuzzy, and the triangle shape of the inside of his ears is more obvious. (Almost like he got a trim or something haha.) This is true for Sonic as well, especially the ear definition bit. Tails' cheek fluff is also more shapely and long, evoking his game design more. His forehead tufts now face slightly different directions instead of all pointing right.

This goes for Knuckles' chest pattern too...

The shape is SO much fuzzier in the movie.

His body fur is also less voluminous in the show (likely the cause of the aforementioned definition.) I think this goes for everyone else too (Except for Tails maybe, I can't really tell since we can't see his body that well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.)

Another one...

They got rid of his nosebridge pattern. The delineation between his muzzle and head color is much clearer. (You can also see the muzzle fur and ear change here.) I'm actually kinda sad about this one :( It was one of my favorite parts of his design. It could be due to the fur shortening and just for the show, but I'm not sure... :/

Exceptions

Tails' tails actually appear to be MORE fluffy.

and Sonic's chest fur is WAY fluffier

If I had to guess, I'd say most of these changes were made to cut down on rendering time. Switching out the movie's "denser" textures for these "lighter" ones cuts down on the budget without sacrificing the looks. Very smart, very smart. (Obviously, I don't know for sure that they did this, I'm just guessing based off of the differences.)

Structure Changes

Here are some things I noticed about how the bones of the models have changed (meaning not due to textures) (It's mostly Sonic lol.)

From the images above you can see that Sonic's shoulders are broader and his arms are thicker. His upper chest area is now more prominent, giving him a body shape closer to a "V" than the rounder "0" Sonic from Movie 2. It's really obvious in the second picture.

His quills also don't start on his upper forehead anymore, now beginning further back. His quills also appear to be thinner. They blend in with his fur more than before. (See below.)

He also emotes differently. His face rig must have changed with his model, because when he furrows his brow the way pictured above his face wrinkles like 3x more than before, haha (I hope that doesn't stick around, it's kind of weird to look at lol.) Actually, now that I think about it, it might just look that way because the show's less voluminous fur is not hiding it as much.

Yeah, that's definitely why haha. You can actually see the indents of the same crease placements in the movie model.

Also, is Tails taller?!?!? He sure looks taller here! But it could be a case of forced perspective since we can't see their whole bodies.

Knuckles' eyes are very different. I don't think the other's eyes are different, but we see them for like two seconds from afar so...¯\_(._.)_/¯

Also, I might just be imagining this, but it looks like everyone has more "neck" than before. Weird sentence, I know. You can kinda see what I mean here...If this is the case, it was likely done so posing is easier for the animators.

And generally, everyone is at least twice as vibrant, especially Sonic! Just look at the comparisons. My boys are G.L.O.W.I.N.G! Beautiful!

I think that's all I've got. If I can think of any more I'll make a part 2. If you noticed something that I didn't, leave a comment and I'll add it. Or add a reblog of your own if you want^^

(This took way too long (¬_¬"") )

[tossawary]

I think SVSSS as a 2D cartoon would be the best moving medium for it imo.

I mean, personally, yeah, that's how I'd enjoy seeing it as well! My ideal slightly pretentiously artsy SVSSS screen adaptation would probably look only a little more detailed than linograph prints (2D or shaded 3D?) (someone hit me up in like two weeks to draw an example of what I mean, if I don't remember on my own, I don't have access to art stuff right now), very stylized and vibrantly colorful, because that's one of the art styles that I particularly enjoy.

I'm not a personally a fan of the 3D SVSSS show because I find the characters a little too doll-like and same-facey for my tastes? It's fine! It works! It's serviceable! It's just all, backgrounds included, a little... safe? I tend to like over-the-top bright colors and intricate details and impractically weird shapes and yet also coherent world production design in my fantasy, which is a lot to demand of any production, perhaps especially with animation productions, which are always squeezed for time and money.

(EDIT: I know the SVSSS show was under heavy constraints and the results are impressive considering their resources; it doesn't change the fact that I just don't like the art style and nevertheless find the results underwhelming. I don't like a lot of "realistic" modeling / rendering styles, not just "anime" ones, even if they are extremely technically impressive. Believe me when I say that I know the vast majority of the entertainment industry is overworked and underpaid and creatively restrained.)

Slightly tangential general note: I don't think 2D is inherently superior to 3D (EDIT: NOT trying to imply asker is saying this, just having some general thoughts), especially because, with the realities of production, each have their advantages. 2D has a lot of stylistic advantages still, but 3D shaders are catching up and doing some incredible things these days! More advanced puppet controls and particle effects and such are doing some beautiful things for 2D shows as well these days. A lot of stuff has been subtly mixed media as soon as 3D became possible. It is potentially possible (note: not saying any studio would actually greenlight this) to do an equally slightly weird and artistically stunning 3D SVSSS show, given the freedom to work. (Good boarding and writing is also sooooo important in both mediums, obviously, it's not just about the art design. You can get away with incredibly limited animation with good boarding, writing, and art design.)

Another slightly tangential ramble: both 2D and 3D have the potential for stiff animation and poor character acting, which also comes down to production limits and animator skills? (I often think of character animators as a type of actor!) There are a lot of 2D shows that I don't really like because I find the animation incredibly stiff, both puppet and handdrawn (there's great 2D puppet stuff out there these days), which pretty much always comes down to production limits (deadlines and budget and software, saving up their animation for the coolest scenes). One of my favorite things about Studio Ghibli films (which as features get a lot more space to focus on art compared to the demands and restraint of television) has always been the squash and stretch in otherwise relatively realistic action, making things like hugs look SO nice for example. But 3D stuff is getting better at that these days! The ways characters slumped into each other in "Nimona" for example was great. And it's just fascinating to look at the elasticity / stylized sculpt of expressions in "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish" compared to the technical limits of the models / rigs in "Shrek" or "Shrek 2".

Adding these side notes because I want to be clear about my respect for both 2D and 3D artistically! A lot of video games are doing cool stuff in 3D that looks very close to 2D with stylized shaders, which you can sometimes spot by the large or small rotations in character action / acting, which is difficult (and therefore often expensive) to do in 2D with all of those extra drawings / angle poses. Also, I think the current push towards funky shaders in 3D is so cool and it's hard not to gush about them!!!

[copperbadge]

Ho Bisogno di Aiuto, Per Favore

Okay, I give up, I cannot find this on my own.

I'm reaching a point with Italian where I can move away from Duolingo into more independent learning. It's not that I'm good at the language, it's that I understand the theory well enough that I now just need practice, and the best way to do that is to find Italian texts and start translating them. Finding them is no issue; Archive Of Our Own has Italian-language fanfic, which has the benefit of sometimes having translations already posted so I can check my work.

But what I'm looking for is a program that will help me structurally, and all the keywords I can think of are just returning 1. software that does the translation for you, 2. language learning apps I don't need, and 3. professional translation software that is far beyond what I need and also very expensive. What I want is simple and yet I don't know if it exists or how to rig a homebrewed version if it doesn't.

I want a program (preferably with a mobile app but I'll take what I can get) where you can paste a page of Italian text into it and it will automatically put a line beneath every line of Italian where you can write an English translation. Basically I want the digital version of this, but for grownups learning a language instead of kids learning handwriting:

and I really just have no idea how to source that.

Anyone got any ideas? Fanfic translators, what do you use? Professional translators, are there basic free or low-cost programs that will do this? I've got a budget of around $150 for a one-time purchase or I'm willing to pay up to about $10 a month for a subscription. Or if there's a way to rig this myself in Office or Drive, I'm willing to do the work. I just don't know how to find this. Which is embarrassing to admit as a researcher, but sometimes being a good researcher is knowing when you have to ask a human instead of continuing to bang your head against the internet.

[kustas]

I recently witnessed someone on twitter with the spicy but interesting position of: the only people vehemently bitching against 2D puppets are the animators who have to use them. So, what's the tea, why's this debate even a thing, and is one side wrong?

Rigged 2D animation, also known as puppet animation, and prolly other terms I'm not aware of. Most 2D animators I know treat it with disdain as something they're forced to work on to survive instead of "real" animation (=hand drawn in this case), and while I've encountered less negative sentiments towards the medium coming from fans, I have seen several people complain about it unknowingly, correctly nailing visual aspects they don't like without knowing their cause. Additionally, it can be really hard to tell apart what's rigged and what's hand drawn in 2D, with many series mixing both to their advantage.

The reason for rigged stuff being so prevalent is that it's cheaper and faster. Where hand drawn requires redrawing your entire character/thing frame by frame to make it move, puppet animation uses, well, puppets, ready-made articulated models you just need to pose. It's also possible to use interpolation - instead of deciding by hand every image between two poses, you let the computer calculate it and come later to tweak how each part moves to make it look good. There is little to no drawing involved in rigged 2D, asides of rare shots that need a little part drawn over when the puppet can't do something specific, or drawing the eyes/mouths/hands/etc when you're making the puppets themselves. Notice I said series and not films in my previous paragraph - this is because animations with longer runtimes and/or shorter production times benefit strongly from this medium. You will not need to clean, to inbetween, to color and whatever other steps can go in hand drawn 2D when you have puppets. You can use the interpolations to your advantage on some movements. It's near impossible to be off model. You don't even need to draw!

And most animators uh, they're here because they like to draw. You can say animating and drawing are two different things, that is true, I've even heard it from the mouth of an insanely talented hand drawn animator called Liane-Cho Han who described himself as a poor drawer despite an impressive 2D portfolio. Poor drawer, good animator, it blew my mind at the time but when I started animating I understood what he meant. But puppet animation is still animation, and much closer to how 3D animation works, with stop-motion being comparable to hand drawn in terms of difference between these mediums. Yet you don't see industry-spanning bitching about 3D vs stop motion! This leads to my next point: puppets are limiting.

One of the advantages of hand drawn animation compared with other animation techniques especially those using character rigs is that you're not limited to said rigs. You can just draw anything, regardless of digital puppet constraints, of art style, of physics. If you can put it on paper, you can animate it. Puppets, both 3D and 2D, have limitations - the art needs to be made (sculpt, drawings) and be placed on a complex invisible digital skeleton allowing you to correctly manipulate your character, which is a job in itself. The more stuff you want your character to be able to do, the more complex it gets. You can't automate all of it. This means productions with lower budget and/or ambitions will tend to have simpler rigs which allow less. An example is angles: when you're hand drawing a character and want to pose them, you can pick whatever angle you'd like for all body parts. Rigs might not give this as an option, especially subtler angles of the head and foreshortening. This might make some movements you had in mind impossible, with a need to stylize your poses and your breakdowns. Not being able to have these angles can make for animation that looks stiff or awkward and can be very annoying to work with depending on the animator.

That artificial stiffness is to me, one of the telling signs something is rigged, and part of the reasons I don't like it myself! That's right, I'm with the haters here. Except stiffness doesn't necessarily mean something used digital rigs, and stiffness isn't inherently a bad thing - as with all art styles, it can just be that, a stylistic choice. Enters a director who's work I'll use as a counter example to the dislike of 2D puppets, both from an animator's and a hater layman's point of view on the results: Michel Ocelot.

Famous in France and way less internationally, two staples of his work are his fixations on fairytales and Africa. Fittingly, his most famous movie is probably Kirikou, a feature film which mixes both. Ocelot's work is stylized in a way unique to him, which can make his work very repetitive, but also makes it instantly recognizable. Some of his staples include static shot compositions, actors that talk like they're reading their lines out of an old book, busy backgrounds and folk tale tropes. Stiffness is just a part of what his movies look like, as are art styles that take inspiration from traditional art and past periods. He started out working before digital puppets were a thing, and while he's embraced digital techniques, releasing a full CG feature film in the 00s before it was the norm, he has worked without, including on Kirikou which is animated the old way.

The earliest of his films I've seen is called Princes and Princesses, it's already got everything typical of his work, and one of the latest of his films I've seen (and among my personal favorites of everything he's done) is called Black Pharaoh, and while decades and different techniques separate these two, they're both based around, you guessed it, puppets. P&P is a blatant hommage/reference to animation pioneer Lotte Reiniger, who used literal paper puppets to animate fantasy movies who's style is very reminiscent of the graceful, slightly simplified illustrations popular at the time. Black Pharaoh uses digital 2D puppets and is entirely animated using the (meticulously researched) style of ancient egyptian wall paintings. Both of these films tell a story, not like movies usually do, but like an orator retelling a tale does. And it works! The characters don't move in a 3D space, but it doesn't matter, they're from a fresco or are paper. The character's don't move realistically and it doesn't matter either, they're not trying to trick your eyes into looking real, they're characters of a story. Ocelot's films are a case where using puppets and their limitations works in favor of the film, not otherwise, and his stuff that's not made with puppets looks like it could be.

I'll briefly talk about a film I hate here to make the final point before my conclusion, netflix's Klaus. This is a film who's insanely impressive animation has floored people regardless of how much they know about animating. Unlike a lot of "this looks very cool" (actually p easy to make) animations you see going viral online, here everyone's right, it is indeed insanely hard to animate like that. Klaus was hailed because of it's uncanny ability to look like modern CG while being entirely hand drawn, which I think is stupid, because it's a lot of effort and talent wasted for a result that looks incredibly generic. Would this film have been bad if it had used CG? Why do people think hand drawn is better than CG in the first place? That I can't answer but the reason studios use it is money: either because it's trendy and will make more money because it's trendy, or because it's cheaper to make, which depends on what you're trying to achieve. In the end, they're techniques. Techniques have pros and cons and things they're better at than others. Time and money are essential to producing a film wether you like it or not.

So: are people wrong to hate on puppets? Nah, it's a question of taste. You can hate the look a technique gives and that's fine. But "ugly" is subjective and it's important to be aware of that if critiquing stuff is your job.

Was that tweet right? Yeah, pretty much, lol. For many if not most animators it's a technique they're forced to use, that removes a major reason they like their job from said job, and can be frustrating to work with. It's worth noting a lot of the work you'll get nowadays is on cheap productions, and the techniques they'll use most will be associated with the slop they are. Doesn't mean you'll inherently make slop. A technique is just that, a technique.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

aita for wanting a 200$ refund on a 400$ model that was REALLY below par in both quality and customer service?

This was one of my first monetary experiences with my own credit card and account, to preface.

So, I'm learning SFM and have regular dates with my boyfriend in vrchat. Between the two of us we knew enough to make models of myself in both, but not enough to make one for my headmate that me and her would both be satisfied with.

TL;DR, the first modeler we went to cancelled after we proved too impatient for them and they didn't need the comm money, so we put out a post calling for 3d models and asked our moots to spread it on here and on Twitter.

Eventually, we found a few artists that were within our post-high-school graveyard shift budget, but then an artist appeared in our asks that was interested in our order. Now, from the very BEGINNING they were blaring Sus alarms in our head with how they typed, their profile, their portfolio, the whole thing, but we still talked with them about it and eventually got to dming on discord over it.

We agreed on 350 with a down payment for the model, and she went to work. Somewhere along the line it increased to 400 with a down payment but I don't remember the circumstances for why.

I was a little impatient at times, but she still did good work, even if she misinterpreted our suggestions sometimes and was high at least once when we asked for an update.

We'd assumed that she would rig it for SFM and VRC as a part of the main payment. She then told us it would cost extra for the rigging.

We were understandably miffed but she justified it with money problems, so we sighed and went with it. When it was finished, she sent us a ZIP file holding all of it, and...then we didn't have any idea how to get it working.

She helped us, thankfully, but the whole thing was really annoying for our computer illiterate phone-dwelling ass. And then we had no clue about unity because it had been years since we'd made the other model with a base. Then she joked about having a $140 fee for it and that was pretty much the final straw for us, deciding to just pay someone else to port it for us because we were getting genuine headaches from it.

Since then, we've been using the model as planned, but have noticed a lot of clipping issues with it, it turns out the person we found to port it actually does similar quality models from scratch for like a FRACTION of the price, and despite us telling her it was going to be used on Oculus(i refuse to call it Meta) Quest, it was INCREDIBLY unoptimized for it.

This is a first world problem to hell and back and I'm not actually going to do it because I don't want to deal with her again after all the miscommunication but

Aita for being suspicious enough I've been scammed/fed a sob story to want at least a partial refund here?

What are these acronyms?

[crooked-wasteland]

How did you calculate the estimation of how much each Helluva Boss costs to make?

I should clarify that my estimation for the cost and income of the series is extremely generous. The pricing for YouTube views can be as high as $0.05 per view which would increase Medrano's income by 46%, though that is something reserved for only exceptional creators. It's less money for YouTube in that case, and her sporadic uploading schedule would make such a deal undesirable for Google.

If you were to ask me how much I actually think the episodes cost, it would be closer to $500k. However, there are multiple factors I considered when I came to my generous(?) estimate.

Firstly, I looked into how much it cost to make a professional animated episode such as Rick and Morty, which is between $1.2 and $1.5 million per episode. To be honest, I think there are some episodes of Helluva Boss, specifically Truth Seekers, that cost at least near that threshold.

Which it should be noted that Rick and Morty should actually cost less than Helluva Boss due to the style the shows are animated in. Rick and Morty reduces the labor needed for their animation and thus costs by utilizing rigging in their animation, save for select scenes. Medrano pushes her animators to draw nearly every frame by hand. At least she did for the earlier episodes.

The fact that the animation has been declining has not been lost on watchers. And this is the second factor I took into account: Medrano's attitude towards animators and the cost of animation. We saw this during the Hazbin debacle where they ran out of money for the series in the final episode. Which is something we really need to interrogate. A24 is not known for expensive advertising, in fact, they often rely on social media and word of mouth which keeps the budget for a project low.

For example, Elemental was a financial disaster for Disney despite making back the budget for the movie, that's because they spent another several million for their ad campaign which ironically turned audiences away from the film. That counts towards the performance of a movie and a series.

If A24 was unwilling to go over budget for the last episode of the series to be made, her niche form of advertising her streaming cartoon series on a historical theatre marquee in Hollywood was not something they would have shelled out the extra thousands for. Which means the money most likely came from the initial budget for the show. And between paying animators and having a marquee (which to mind you the theatre never had a showing of Hazbin in the building, it was solely for advertising), she chose the marquee. Paying cleanup artists the equivalent of $4 an hr to make her series.

And it needs to be said, that sort of advertising is a waste. Like crypto bros buying ad space in Time Square for their NFTs, this sort of advertising doesn't actually draw in new audiences, but, in the words of Dan Olsen:

"All it's good for is internal propaganda. Making insiders feel like the money that they've spent is buying credibility."- Chapter 5: The Unbearable Cringe of Crypto

We also know that Medrano has a penchant for hiring animators fresh out of college, self-taught with no professional experience or references, and fans. This means she finds people who don't know the value of their work and are easier to exploit, or are simply so sycophantic and blinded by social media clout that they agree to work for what amounts to exposure.

As such, I significantly low-balled the cost of every episode to show just how rough things are going financially. But there is an aspect I didn't touch: Patreon.

Medrano sees a daily rise to her Patreon of around 3k paying members with her monthly total being 11k. It's estimated she makes about $5k a day through her Patreon, which is $150k-$200k a month. It's also worth noting others have pointed out that she has significantly increased the cost of her Patreon tiers, and the massive drops at the start of the month with the gradual rise are members dropping said memberships and rejoining throughout the month, going up and down tiers. She's squeezing the Patreon crowd the most, as that is her actual fanbase.

Add to her income average of $375k from episodes and Medrano can absolutely afford to pay $500k per episode as I actually suspect she does. However it is still clear she is losing money in regards to merch and has had to change manufacturers and how she stocks her store.

The reason I low-balled the cost was to simplify the maths involved and highlight how the show itself is not cutting it to keep Medrano's business model afloat. Obviously when we expand the scope, numbers get larger and more moving pieces come to light. But the merch must first come from Medrano's own income, and we know she first cuts her animators before risking her own income. So she has decided to take the money from her audience in the form of merch quality rather than take a haircut from her lifestyle.

Ironically, she makes and keeps more money when she isn't pushing new merch.

[sweetlikehoneystingslikeabee]

Halloween HCS - Rogues Party

Alright everybody it's that time of year. My personal favorite time of year, the spooky season. So what better way to celebrate than to write Halloween headcanons for all the rogues? Going for general plus what they're doing this year specifically. Also surprise, I've added Music Meister (Clarence Rinette fan name is from @itsmalachitenow)

TW: spooky shit, murder, gore

Riddler

Thinks himself the belle of the ball, so to speak. Decked out in full elaborate costume. He has a ridiculous budget for this. Sometimes he stays in and gives out candy, but normally, he either wants to set a huge heist or go out to party. He needs to peacock every once in a while, or emotionally he'll start to wither. Matching costumes with his s/o are a must ;)

This year, he's assisting Jonathan in his haunted house venture (discussed below). The moment Jonathan announced to the dork squad what he'd be doing, all of them teamed up in their own ways to assist in making a horrific Halloween experience for the people of Gotham. Edward put himself in charge of animatronics and robotics.

The theme ended up being a literal haunted house, the entire building one giant horror maze save for several control rooms and employee areas- Which means a lot of hidden hydraulics in the walls and moving pieces Edward gets to crack his knuckles and puts together. He even rigs a set-up for an actor to fly across a room in ghostly pallor.

His pièce de résistance, however, is the start of the maze in the Library that has a hidden passageway that opens to the inside walls of the house. That plus some spooky elevators that transport guests to different levels- Jonathan couldn't have asked for better technical aspects.

The whole night he's hanging out in the control room, cackling when one of his devices gets someone. There will be parties on other nights he'll go to. He wouldn't miss this for the world.

Penguin

When he was younger he disliked Halloween because of bullying. That his face was horrific enough to scare anyone. It killed the fantasy and fun of wearing a costume. Even as his mother kissed his forehead and asked why he wasn't going out with friends-

Now he quite enjoys it. He doesn't really dress up per say, but there's always some fun parties to go to. Have some drinks, mingle, make some connections for the next big crime he's planning, then pass out in a pile of Halloween candy wrappers on his fancy chaise lounge. He'll do his best to save you your favorite if you tell him.

Now, if his s/o wants to dress up, it's a slightly different story. He'll be surprisingly anxious about it. Certainly it's not a lack of money or that the idea is displeasing to him. He doesn't want to be an "ugly" monster, but he "can't" play someone handsome. There's definitely a mental block there that he can't quite get past emotionally.

HOWEVER. If you suggest a mobster for him and being his little moll/arm candy? Period piece? He can do that. Big old cigar and everything. Probably commissions Jervis for the work. The guy will make sure it's all accurate.

He rolls up to the Halloween party at Harley's place with a box of "goodies" he has one of his underlings haul in. Expensive chocolates filled with liquor. Don't ask where he got it. Tonight is gonna be a fun night.

Mad Hatter

Halloween is a special time for Jervis when he can get really wild with costuming. Besides patching and creating things for other rogues, of course. If there is any kind of contest, he is likely going to win it. In fact, he's been banned from several around the city for winning too many times. If his s/o doesn't ask him to do their costume, he will pout a little. Even if he can't do the entire thing, let him help! He has an eye for this, you see. And maybe one year, they'll dress up as Alice, for him?

Of course he gets put in charge of costuming for the Haunted House production. Period accurate post-WWI clothing? Give him something difficult to do, why don't you? He does have to be told to keep eyes off some of the scare actors because they're all so pretty and lovely and look so good in his outfits, maybe they'd like some of his special tea- Jonathan helps him keep on point. There will be no Alice searches here.

For the majority of the night, he's manning the backstage area with Edward. Checking cameras that things are running smoothly. Then being available for actors who need a touch up! When one of the actresses comes in crying because some creep grabbed at her, Jervis is scuttling into the behind the scenes walls before Edward can stop him.

He comes back, slightly ruffled and helps the young woman calm down with (non-drugged) tea before sending her back off ready to go. The dork squad can drag the creep out from under one of the beds later and really put the fear into him. Maybe they'll kill him. Perhaps just a maiming. Depends on how lenient they feel later.

He's going to keep the costumes afterwards for different potential projects later unless an actor gets particularly attached. You never know when you'll need something like this!

Scarecrow

His Halloween consists of three things depending upon the year and the current situation: An elaborate spooky plot, a Halloween party to top all others, or a haunted house. Sometimes involving fear toxin! Sometimes not! Again, depends on how he's feeling.

Originally, he had intended on doing everything for himself for the haunted house. He's more than capable of doing it all himself, certainly. Yet, when he mentioned it to his closer companions (or as some call them, "the dork squad"), they all insisted on helping him. Annoying but... he supposes it's rather nice to enjoy this holiday with friends outside of Arkham. He's very clear, however, this concept is his and he has final say.

The story... Oh, he has fun with this. An old spinster and her daughter waiting for the prodigal son to return home from the war... several years too late. The daughter lures inhabitants to the home where the two women overpower them to keep them "forever."

His favorite part of the haunted house besides the writing, is the cellar. As the participants have been led upstairs, then faked out down to the cellar- it's a graveyard of bodies buried in the walls and the ground. Writhing. Trying to get out. They exit with the serial killer chasing them out of the hatch that leads back outdoors. With a ramp for accessibility, of course.

It's a hit! There's a line out to the street and the ten dollar ticket entry fee is definitely racking up some nice change as a bonus. He sets himself up as a scarecrow in the field at the exit, giving one last scare to the guests as they leave. He didn't even need to pump fear toxin in this time!

At the end of the night, the dork squad has drinks after the closing and Jonathan has to admit it wouldn't have been the same without his friends.

Reads "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" at least once. As is tradition.

Music Meister

Normally, Clarence Rinette is quite busy this time of year! If he's not involved with a stage production, he's decorating his home to the nines for trick-or-treaters. Big crafty, theatrical nonsense. Don't ask him how he paid for all this (he got an amazing deal through some vocal persuasion-). Someone once tried to suggest becoming a scare actor- but the truth is if he scared a child, it might actually make him cry. SO! He couldn't be a full on jumping at people scare actor.

Then he hears about Jonathan's plans for the season. Oh-ho-ho! A haunted house? For him? ("No," Jonathan quips, "it's not for you at all-") Well, he's got to be involved in this. It's a theatrical production-! ("It's not a full on production-" Jonathan informs him) ALRIGHT- but it's environmental storytelling. That's set-design. That's him!

People might not expect it of him, but he's done a bit of everything in the theater world. Backstage, lighting, sound, set design and building- and of course as a singer and lead, where he truly belongs. Yet, he's having a field day bringing in furniture for the haunted house. Setting up spiderwebs and aging some of the walls and props. Atmospheric sounds and smells for some of the rooms.

He's also in charge of assisting Jervis with makeup and making sure actors are ready- Before dressing up as an actor himself, you know. Gives himself a guide role in the Library to hype people up with the "history" of the house. Plus the hidden passageway reveal. Loves every second of it.

Victor Zsasz

Hardly registers Halloween. Every day is Halloween to this guy. Look at the people he associates with! He's surrounded by dead things all the time. How is this one time of year really that much different except everyone else is on the same page? What, he's supposed to dress up? He's got killing business to do.

Picture it. His target is walking around Gotham, feeling tipsy in their angel costume. The biggest Halloween party in town always spills out into the streets. A figure is closely following them in a full latex mask and black outfit. "Fake" machete at their side. The angel stumbles into an alleyway, the figure following close behind. The figure is Zsasz, in case you didn't guess, and he's got an angel to carve up for dinner. Cuts their heart in half as he leaves it next to their corpse. Takes a couple of their teeth for souvenirs. The rest he'll toss in the harbor. Have fun identifying that, GCPD.

If for some reason he IS home, he'll pass out candy to kids. Hawaiian shirt to cover his chest of scars. Spooks teens away that he thinks are too old. Gives handfuls of candy to everyone else. Has a straight face for every single person and the parents are definitely checking that candy when they get home (it's fine).

Might be convinced to dress up if his s/o really begs. He'd like it if they dressed up in something suggestive (for him) but he'd understand if they didn't want to. He will let them know that whatever they wear, he's probably taking it off with his knife by the end of the night.

Killer Croc

Normally, he actually doesn't like Halloween much. People assume his face is a scary costume which, frankly, is a pretty awful feeling. Sure, he can walk around easier, but it doesn't stop the stares. Now people feel inclined to ask him for photos. Or worse, they just take them without asking. More than usual.

Several parents at the daycare he sometimes works security at decide to do group trick-or-treating. They tell him he doesn't have to join in or... you know, he probably has plans, nevermind- He's already agreeing. Chaperone, he can do that. Better than staying home to watch the tube and not answer the door all night. He always leaves a bowl of candy but they always end up knocking anyways.

One of the kids gives him kitty ears and he rolls with it. If anyone asks, he makes a graveled, growling "meow" in his voice that makes the children giggle. Waylon watches the groups of people around them, glaring if any of them even look like they might try to pinch someones wallet or start bullying.

There is one Incident that occurs at a place with a porch in the downtown area. Waylon recognizes it from a mile away. A guy in a reaper costume is sitting on a chair. The other college kids are drinking beers telling kids to go up. That it's safe. They won't get scared. Then the man in costume scares the life out of them to the raucous laughter of all of them.

One of the parents seems to be trying to ask them if the children are going to get scared. Of course the people at the house lies. Instead of guiding the children away, however, Waylon grabs one of the kids by the hand and steps onto the porch to the man in costume. Leans down and gives his best crackling "meow" into the masked face of the man. Do it. Scare this fucking kid. He can smell the fear on the reaper as the kid pulls him away.

"Don't scare any more kids." He tells the college students. Shaking, they nod before going to check on their friend. Genuinely, he's very proud of himself for handling it in a way that didn't phase the kids.

Harley Quinn

If she's dating someone, there's a 90% chance they're doing some kind of matching costume situation. It's like. The rule for couples! They'll be really cute or really scary or both! Joker would NEVER do anything like this with her no matter how much she begged and pleaded. Consider this part of her getting to just be happy with herself and the things he wants to do with her life.

This year, she is throwing a party and it is going to be talked about for years afterwards. She figured if Jon isn't doing it this year, it's her time. She and Ivy attend his haunted house the night before in support. At one point she almost jumps into her friends arms with a particularly well timed jump scare out of the wall.

The theme for her party (that no one is expected to dress for) is undead glitz and glamor. We're talking the Hollywood Forever Cemetery kind of style. There's skeletons dressed in 40s and 50s red carpet affair around the apartment. Harley herself is a zombified Marylin Monroe type. Curled blonde hair and full makeup, one side of her face "split" to show fake teeth on her cheek.

There is a photo station for everyone attending with a camera she borrowed from Edward for high quality shots. Plus a polaroid. For funsies! It has props and a cardboard standee that Harley painted herself to look like an old fashioned hotel ballroom.

There's old halloween movies playing in one room for people who need a break. Food on the table in one room. Another is playing some spooky music for dancing. Everyone has a little something for them! Everyone gets a tad too drunk but overall it's a great time.

Poison Ivy

Pamela is always doing a sexy costume. She and Selina have a slight competition each year on who can show off the most tasteful amount of cleavage in an outfit and have the most heads turn. It's not malicious or catty (ba-dum), but rather a friendly thing where it's the two of them in on the joke. One year Harley convinced them to do a very cute-sy group look as the Gotham City Sirens. There's several lovely posed photos from the beginning of the night and then a very drunk selfie of the three of them at a pizza place at the end of the night. The latter is Pamela's lock screen on her phone.

For the party, Harley asked for some minor assistance which roughly translates to "keep me reigned in or I'll go way overboard." A lot of shopping and keeping in budget. Dressing up the skeletons and helping to decorate. She even allowed Harley to borrow some of her "spooky" looking plants to add to the aesthetic.

Pamela asked Waylon (who already had plans) for some recipes and added her own recipes to the mix. There's some that are more elevated since it is an adult party. There are plenty, however, that are incredibly cheesy- like crushed oreos to mimic graveyard dirt. She dresses up as a spooky Mae West with floral/vine theming. Full curves on display. There's several non-rogues who try to hit on her and she kicks them from the party.

Two-Face

His costumes are usually incredibly on the nose. Angel/Devil. Black and white vs color. One year they even did Roger and Jessica Rabbit from "Who framed Roger Rabbit?" Before you ask, obviously Jessica was played by Harv, one fake tit barely held in a dress. What normally starts out as a night out going to a party ends up with very drunk Halloween karaoke where Two-Face sings duets, both parts.

If they have an s/o, the dynamic changes a little. Do they want to do a trio costume? A couple costume and Harv and Harvey have to just agree on one harmonious look? Honestly they're fair game with whatever. It's not often they've had a third that wants to be involved in the holidays with them. Being a kind of sort-of trio can complicate things or put people off.

This year in particular they were a blend of rollerskating Ken and white fur coat Ken from the new Barbie movie. It is... hideous. It is garish. Who the hell agreed to make this- Harv is struggling with the one rollerskate on his side but at least Harvey has them standing upright. He agreed on a whim to be white fur coat ken and now it's kind of itchy.

The photos at the party, however, are fire and Harley makes copies for herself because it's so delightful. In hindsight, they had so much fun and it was one of the best years.

they do sing "Barbie Girl" by Aqua and "Barbie World" from the movie with Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice as a theme by the end of the night. There is video.

Black Mask

Ironic or no, he loves Halloween. The mythos of wearing the face of a monster to prevent yourself from being haunted or taken by spirits? That's SO his thing. Before the incident in which he "gained" his new face, he would drop insane amounts of money for costumes and sfx. Movie-quality for the big parties at Sionis. Due to being a makeup company, they had some big ones over the years for Halloween.

Now he tends to get busy, but appreciates the masks on the market. If there's a particularly good one he finds that can be set permanently, he'll add it to his collection. If an s/o happens to show him scare maze videos with their different sets and makeup, he might actually find a special interest in it.

When he finds out Harley is throwing the Halloween party this year, he's throwing his own opposing party. A better party. A party with blackjack. And booze!

The party ends up being a lot of underground folks and their partners trying to out-look each other and network. If Roman doesn't have a partner at this point, he has some arm candy in a "sexy" whatever costume to make him look good. When a partner is in the mix- he gets to drop the money on THEM on wild costume and sfx shit. Think of Heidi Klum Halloween but a team effort. Plus bonus: to do the sfx, he'll have to make a mold of your face that he gets to keep and look at amongst his collection.

Mr. Freeze

He's working, leave him alone.

Used to really like passing out candy to the kids with Nora. Fell out of it for a long time. Some years due to incarceration. Others, because of his own mourning. Now he tends to be working towards a cure in solitude far away from civilization to not be bothered for things like holidays.

What he does this year is very dependent on if he's seeing someone or not. If he's seeing someone, he rather wants to stay in and celebrate "normally." Small decorations around the house. A bowl of candy and he dresses up as a space man- The two of you sit in front of the house passing out candy. He delights seeing the kids and complimenting them on their costumes.

If he's by himself, he ends up going to Harley's party and sitting by himself with a drink in his hand for most of it. So awkward and uncomfortable but there is something about his friends not wanting him to be alone. They convince him to a group photo that he ends up framing to put in his lab next to Nora's picture.

Either way, Christmas is his time, so the moment it hits midnight October 31st, everything Halloween is GONE. Now that he's celebrating holidays this year, he's had to restrain himself hard-core so he's not that guy rushing everyone to Christmas.

Ra's al-Ghul

Does Ra's really celebrate holidays? Not unless he's with someone where that's important to them. Let's be honest, he's so old, he was there for some of these celebrations in their infancy.

His idea of celebrating Halloween is recounting the traditions surrounding it. And getting really creepy and ancient with it. I'm talking Samhain kind of thing.

He does not give out candy. If his s/o is into that, he'll kind of participate and not really Get It. Don't expect dressing up, either.

Lots of Edgar Allen Poe readings.

Bane

Didn't celebrate Halloween as a child and constantly forgets about it as an adult. Waylon reminds him to have a bowl of candy the week before because otherwise, Bane won't have anything. This has resulted in him opening the door to some very irate children wondering why he's a weirdo with no candy. Children are harsh, they'll tell you!

If he's out and about for Halloween doing villain stuff, people compliment his Luchador costume and he dies a little inside. While it sucks for him, it is one of the funniest things to see in person. No one is scared of the luchador in Gotham. The children are downright delighted. They want photos with him. There's multiple kids that run up to him speaking the most rapid-fire spanish you've ever heard in your life. There's several in their own luchador costumes that are losing their tiny minds at him. Changes his mood immensely for the better.

He absolutely gives extra candy for cute costumes and little kids, the sucker. He sees a toddler dressed as a pig and he's just cooing "pobrecito cerdo...."

Might go to Harleys party once the kids stop coming. Just to say hi and grab a beer. Feels pretty happy with himself.

[incognita-soul]

hey, i saw in your bio that you work on tall ships and i was wondering if u had any advice.

i’ve been on 2 tall ship sailing trips before (+some dinghy sailing) and got my competent crew recently so i’m pretty inexperienced. on those sailing trips i’ve met young adults who were working on the boats as volunteers. i’d like to be able to volunteer on tall ships one day.

do you have any advice for the best way to gain experience and learn stuff? (if possible on a budget). i’m taking a gap year next year and i’d really like to take the chance to go sailing and get better at it. (i’m in the uk if that’s relevant.)

absolutely no pressure to answer and i’m sorry this is so vague and clueless! anyway, thanks for taking the time to read this. your blog is cool :))

Heya! Thank you, and I'd be happy to give you my two cents! All of my boat experience has been in the US so take my advice with a transatlantic grain of salt, but here goes!

Firstly, two trips and some dinghy sailing and a competent crew cert is actually quite a bit in comparison to your average person starting out in the world of boats, so don't worry about feeling too inexperienced! You're already on a good track. I've been working on tall ships in some capacity for over 10 years and I still don't have any specific certifications (I've got a lot of experience and sea time, I just haven't had time to take any of my courses and exams for actual licensing).

Facebook is (unfortunately) still the best place to network, especially for international opportunities. There are a variety of groups that you can join. I'm personally in Schooner Bums, Tall Ship Opportunities, Women Who Sail, Crew Finder, and a few other private groups specific to the organizations I've worked for. A lot of organizations will post to these groups with job opportunities with specific requirements, so it's fairly easy to get the info you need. I'm sure there are a few groups specific to sailing in the UK. In the US, we have Tall Ships America, which is an organization that provides networking, training, and job opportunities for mostly US based sailors and boats. I'm not sure if the UK has an equivalent organization, but I do recommend even though you are UK based you should peruse their website, especially the Billet Bank, which is where job links are posted:

You're in the UK, so there are a shit ton of boats there but as far as I know most of them are museum boats that don't do a lot of sailing. I will say from personal experience that museum boats with a good volunteer maintenance program are great places to start for establishing a strong set of foundational skills (knots, understanding and maintenance of the rig, carpentry, etc.). You might not get much actual sea time with a museum boat, but you will learn the things that will make you a better sailor. I got into tall ships by working as a historical interpreter and then as part of the sailing/maintenance crew here:

https://www.jyfmuseums.org/visit/jamestown-settlement/living-history/ships#ad-image-0

Most tall ship organizations are based around education, both for the public and for the crew, so it's easy to find a boat with some sort of introductory training program relatively near wherever you live. These range from expensive pay-to-play working vacation type experiences, to paying a fee to participate in a structured comprehensive training curriculum after which you can become long-term crew, to volunteering weekends sanding and oiling blocks in exchange for the opportunity to sail.

Since you said you are taking a gap year, my advice is look for a short-term comprehensive live-aboard program that gets your foot in the door for staying on as regular crew, potentially even paid crew. Idk any specific ones in the UK, but here's the one that the last boat I worked on offers as an example of what i mean:

If you've got time before your gap year starts, try to find something local, like volunteering for a mueseum like I mentioned earlier, so that you get used to the vocabulary and foundational knowledge of boats. That way you can really get the most out of a more immersive program later on and you won't feel too much like an oversaturated sponge trying desperately to sop up more information even though your brain is leaking out of your ears.

I'm not sure if you're wanting to do tall ships longer term or just something one-off for the gap year, but if you're in it for the long haul just be prepared that it's a lot of hard work for not much financial return. I don't mean to discourage you, it's just good to know that upfront. On Lady Washington we have a saying that "we work on an 18th century boat for 18th century wages."

Unfortunately the tall ship industry is kind of hard budget wise. Most training programs cost quite a bit of money, most jobs are either volunteer or don't pay very well (industry standard deckhand pay in the US is about $1000/month), and most higher level positions require various levels of certifications (for which course and exam fees can run pretty high). You can do it on a budget, especially since most long term positions are live aboard so you don't have to pay for rent or groceries, but if you want to make a career out or it, it takes a lot of years of working for less money than you're worth before you start earning real money back.

Despite all that, working on tall ships is still an incredible and fulfilling experience that I recommend to anyone with a love of the sea and learning practical skills!

Sorry I couldn't give you more specific information, as I have yet to work on any UK boats. Good luck, and please tell me when you find a program that works for you!

[residentshitcunt]

The funniest thing for me personally, coming out of all the James Somerton shit, is the camera choises that he made. I've seen a couple of his more recent videos, there is nothing there that requires spending more than a couple of grand max on a complete camera rig. If what you do is sit in front of a stationary background in controlled lighting and talk at the camera, you can make that work with fucking 8-bit footage (I wouldn't for the sake of flexibility, but it's very doable), keeping in mind it's gonna compress down to a garbage-fire bitrate for streaming. And you go from a Ursa Mini Pro G2 to an FX6? When you're supposedly running out of money? Everything about an FX6 is more money. You need FF glass, you probably want AF lenses, probably mirrorless ones too (no sigma 18-35 1.8 for full frame), and for what, slightly better low light performance (not an issue on a professional set, most cine cams shoot at low EI values) and AF, which again isn't an issue shooting with cine lenses because they don't have fucking AF motors. "I wAnT tO sHoOt AnAmOrPhIc" buy a flare filter and crop your footage and spend the money you saved hiring people to do what actually needs to be done to make a good film, which doesn't involve blowing your budget on camera gear.

[gachabastard]

Happy Halloween 🎃 Limbus Halloween headcanons

Yi Sang - Lights off, curtains shut, leaves a bowl out with candy and a sign that says "take one." If someone takes more than one there's a BB gun rigged to shoot at them. Does not dress up dress up willingly, but if forced he'll put some fake blood on his face and call himself a zombie.

Faust - Not home, she's off doing something else unrelated. Leaves out bags of Sprite in a bowl on the porch. Doesn't really dress up but does put on a little pumpkin pin on her lapel.

Don Quixote - Out trick-or-treating dressed as a knight, but not for herself. She takes the candy to less fortunate kids.

Ryoshu - Sits stock still in a chair on the porch dressed as a scarecrow and holding a candy bowl. Whenever someone goes to take some candy, she moves and scares the shit out of them. Keeps a count of how many people pissed themselves.

Meursault - Hands out candy normally. Dresses normally too, except for the cat ears.

Hong Lu - Turns his whole house into a walk-through haunted house and gives out whole trash bags full of candy to anyone who can make it to the end. Dressed as a vampire.

Heathcliff - Goes out walking down the street handing out candy to kids he encounters. Also has cans of spray paint and toilet paper rolls for the troublemaker teenagers. Wears a low-budget werewolf costume.

Ishmael - Only gives out Swedish Fish. If someone complains she takes the Swedish Fish back and gives them a can of tuna. Wearing one of those Left Shark costumes.

Rodion - Having a fucking Halloween rager and is half-plastered by 5pm. Giving out little bottles of booze to the adults, and packets of pretzels to the kids. Dresses as something mundane made sexy, like a sexy stapler or a sexy rotary telephone.

Sinclair - Dresses as a 1920s flapper girl solely because I think he'd rock it. Decorates the house nicely and hands out full size candy bars.

Outis - Dresses as a witch. Her whole bowl of candy is only Twizzlers, and everyone only gets ONE. Not one package of Twizzlers. One Twizzler. She's opened all the packages, and the Twizzlers are loose in the bowl. You get one.

Gregor - Doesn't dress up but all the kids think his fake bug arm is SOOOO COOOOOOOOOL. For one night he's all the kids' favorite. Has to gently decline photos in case any adults recognize him. Pools together as much money as he can to buy full size candy bars to give out since the kids are nice and deserve it.

Charon - Goes trick-or-treating while dressed as Mephistopheles, is eating the candy as she goes.

Vergilius - Is taking Charon trick-or-treating, occasionally testing pieces of candy for "poison."

Dante - Spends the whole night fielding comments like "I don't get your costume." They're not dressed up. Forgot to get candy so they're passing out mundane household objects.

[starcatttt]

lmk Season 5 trailer spoilers below the cut! (Bonus ramble about my thoughts about it too lol)

Link to the trailer if you haven't watched (first one I found): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEYwtKDD9NE

Sooo uh, I have some thoughts about the new info regarding the switch from Flying Bark to Wildbrain Studios. Literally just some random opinions I have about it so far, nothing super serious lol.

First up though, definitely no hate to Wildbrain or the animators who worked on this whatsoever, animation is SO difficult to do, and the expectation for the show's quality was definitely set very high early on, even in season 1. Other people have probably said this better than me, but absolutely no hate or harassment to them.

For my opinion on the animation in the trailer, I can't say I'm the biggest fan? I don't think its horrible. I think it will definitely get better when the episodes actually start releasing.

But for now, some or a lot of the shots looked stiff and kind of like they were sliding a PNG for the movement in some scenes.

Speaking of, I found this and idk (a scene in the trailer)

Its the same PNG face, just flipped. Not super happy that they just used the same image you can find just by looking swk up, but it's not terrible? Just wanted to bring it up ig.

For me, I think the biggest thing was the proportions and movement. It sort of felt low budget, and I'm not sure if that's the case, or its just the studio getting used to the monkie kid style.

I'm not a big fan of the rigging animation either, probably because of the stuff I said earlier. Again, how its done in the trailer looks really weird in some shots, same in how its very obvious how they use rigged puppets instead of handrawn animation. It makes me kind of worried that we won't get any of those cool fight scenes we got before (like swk and Nezha or MK and Azure). I hope it'll get only better in the future, and I'm pretty sure it'll at least be decent.

I think its going to take a WHILE to get used to the change, and it personally really threw me off this morning. It feels pretty sudden, mainly because 1, the trailer dropped out of nowhere, and 2 nothing about the switch until today gave me emotional whiplash lol.

I actually am still excited about the new season, and will definitely watch when the English dub drops! Guess I just wanted to dump my thoughts here and see who agrees ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

tldr: I thought the animation looked off, same as the style and stuff, but I'm pretty sure it'll get better once the season actually comes out.

Can't wait to watch it though! AND remember to tag spoilers if you post about it!

[zoomzooml]

Dragons:TNR Jörmungandr redesign (rework?) concept

(Also I know that my design pushes beyond limits of TNR animation in more than one way but here I just had fun lol)

I feel like he is not intimidating enough in original. He is very small for an "Apex predator of all dragons" (and let's remember that TNR has Giants Realm so-). I expected him to slide way longer when he was escaping his prison. He also had a lot of troubles with catching dragons (it was honestly sad to watch) And yes, as far as I know snakes are expecionally challenging to rig and animate and TNR doesn't have movie-level budget, but c'mon. It's The Final Boss. (*I think that in concept art he actually is longer so perhaps they shortened him to make animation easier (and cheaper??) considering mad speed seasons were coming out)

Sidenote - that poor danger noodle had so little of any kind of build up. It's really sad. And the first time we see him live he: did shitty jumpscare (build up was actually decent imo, but sound effect and bad animation humbled it), had short, off-screen fight with Sky Torcher after which he didn't even kill him (though he did at least leave some nasty scars and broke Torchie's tooth), and then fucked away. For me it was very underhelming.

Low quality clip for those who didn't watch (I hope Tumblr won't take it down).

Coming back to the design. I really don't like his colors. He got wings but to compensate I decided that he's not a good flier. In my mind he is an ambush hunter. And I know that THE Jörmungandr, the spawn of Loki from the myths, did not have wings, and this is pretty consistent as far as I know, but it is not THE Jörmungandr, so yeah

He is in some way mix between King Cobra, Moray Eel and sea snakes (Yellow-Lipped Sea Krait mostly). I changed his hood to be more similar in construction to a king cobra. In short, it is a bit of loose skin and ribs with the ability to move. In my design, the tips of some of the ribs poke through the skin. Now I don't think TNR would be able to animate it (But i'm not very familiar with 3D animation, especially for shows) so in show he probably would just have hood always flared. His head and sail are inspired by mooray eel because they are dope and I love them. I feel that aspects of sea snakes have died in design - they have a paddle at the end of the tail, but this has already been included in the OG design, so I don't feel the need to talk about it. However, like Sea Krait, Jörmungandr is semi-aquatic. He is much slower on land than in the water, but the difference is not as great as with Sea Krait.

I increased his size - and if he wasn't inprisoned he probably would be about 15-25% longer by now. He's old enough to be a Titan Wing but he isn't normal size - he stopped growing a bit after outgrowing average dragon of his species (let's remember that Red Death is Titan Wing as well!).

*Jörmungandr is longer but Red Death is more massive. Avarage serpents are slightly shorter than Red Death as well.

To be honest, I'm not sure if I didn't overkill it with his size. On the one hand he is large, on the other hand he is mostly long and not that massive. Idk

In addition to the scars, I think Jörmungandr would also be covered with small amounts of moss and other vegetation that started growing on him when he wasn't really active (his cave is very wet/moisty). To survive he spent almost his entire life in a state of brumation, being more active when he sensed meal approaching his reach.

Now, in my mind The Jörmungandr is the name of this particular dragon, not the whole species (Midgard Serpents? IDK), and at the same time he is not a "real" Jörmungandr from the myths. Because words cannot describe how I hate that plot.

I don't know how exactly he got his name but I think it was not because of how big he is, but because of his intelligence and mischievous soul. Again, idk.

Jörmungandr is a tragic dragon. In my version he was not trapped by Hiccup (in my version Hiccup never come back to Hidden World, because c'mon. I don't really like THW but if TNR is continity to that franchise they should follow established canon and not wreck last movie and make it completely insignificant. It loses all it's value if Hiccup, his family and perhaps other vikings, just come back and maybe even lived in the Hidden World anyway! If we have to have human marks and structures, etc. in the Hidden World, I would do it more in the style of “Haddock's Cycle” than “Hiccup and Tom.” Essentially, the creator of these changes is perhaps one of Hiccup's descendants, Tom's ancestors - the "soul of the dragon" that Hiccup and before him his mother had, summoning them to the world of dragons to see "Is it finally time? ”, but it never is, not yet anyway. Idk, I'm trying lol)

I have two concepts: There was once a main entrance to his part of the Dark Realm accompanianed by the waterfalls of magma, but now there's only basalt wall. This would make the closure possible for natural reasons and give Tom an opportunity to show off his geoligical knowledge some more.

Or he was caged in human-build prison, but not by Hiccup. I did that little sketch of how his page in Dragon Book could look in this scenario. Clearly different artstyle than Hiccup's to show that he was not the one to write about this individual (tho in show there's already different styles so--) But at the second thought it can be just illustration for species as whole, so anyway

In both cases, there are ways to enter his personal prison but he is too large to use them. They are still usefull as this is the only way prey will come to his reach. Not many dragons can escape his jaws.

He has spent most of his life in a rather hostile environment to which he was not adapted, which has left scars on his body and psyche. When he's not hunting, he sleeps. Hunger has halted his growth.

Jörmungandr is a damaged, dangerous dragon, the victim of fate and unknown past.

The psychological damage has made him hyper-aggressive, even by the standards of an already aggressive species. I don't think he could ever satiate his hunger either - if he could he would hunt and eat until he consumed everything in range or died of overeating.

For this dragon, it seems too late for a happy ending, unfortunately.

Now about the Midgard Serpents (placeholdern name, I have no idea how to name them) as a whole. Apex Predator may be a bit much, given the existence of dragons like Red Death, Purple Death or Bewilderbeast. However, Midgard Serpents remain one of the dragons that feed almost exclusively on other dragons (and sometimes even other members of their own species - they're cannibalistic), and they're damn good at it. When they feel best in the water, they can follow their prey in the sky or on land. They grow quite large and still are able to take down prey more massive than themselves (mostly thanks to venom and poisonous gas).

I think they are the main predators of 'Deaths and Bewilderbeasts (and other equally large dragons) in the earlier stages of life.