#turt talks

[turtblurts-pkmnirl-hub]

Oh, right! I should probably post this here as well! Kind of copy-pasting from Discord here, but I felt that this was a good source for new blogs to use so!

Hey guys! In light of recent news of Pokecharms going down for an indefinite amount of time, i took it upon myself to create a Trainer Card template using Google Drawings! It's free to use for anyone and totally customizable, and I left notes along the outside of the card to help with customization! It's also very easy for me to update, so if you guys have any suggestions for how to improve it, let me know!

https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1bZ1aux-YJlRD6l7Wsv_J9QHuCFwgzycxrzqDcemX29c/edit?usp=sharing

[itsjustaturt]

wait hold on. obligatory not-american card, I'm watching because unfortunately US politics affect the entire rest of the world as well. but I thought we didn't care about the illegal aliens in prisons what's wrong with those guys getting transgender operations all of a sudden

[flyhighturtle]

Ummmmm Ian Flynn literally just called his fans the bumblecult and you guys won't believe me when I say it's a cult with Mr. Flynn being treated like a god by his fans???? :/

Cult of the Lamb desensitized you all to this stuff, you all need to open your eyes and be smart like I am

[turtblurts-pkmnirl-hub]

what pisses me off the most is that while a lot of the important lore info can be easy to find from a quote, some of it comes from obscure bits of npc dialogue that are not recorded on bulbapedia. sure, they’ll tell you that someone/something said it somewhere, but not who, where, when, or what. like. guys. where’s the source for this information. where did we learn this. sometimes i really do need a direct quote because the context in which something is said can change the whole meaning and interpretation. please dont make me have to play thru the entire game just to find where this piece of information was given…

this issue was most prevalent when i was looking for literature in the pokemon world. pretty much everything in the canalave library is recorded in a bulbapedia page. but yknow what isnt? the paldean literature from the Naranja-Uva library. the alolan literature from Malie library. both of which contain interesting and important information regarding their regions’ history and culture! and i havent even TRIED looking for literature from the other games yet!!! and its like. i get it. hardly anyone cares about the books in a fictional library of a children’s game. but its like augh….

while im lucky that paldea gave us concrete dates and blatant history lessons in the game, a lot of older games dont exactly give us this luxury. we hafta resort to scouring through dialogue and environmental storytelling to pick up crumbs of the Pokemon world’s history and culture. which can be really hard to do when you cant access these games easily to begin with, let alone have the time to comb through thousands of lines of text just for the chance to find obscure information about a niche subject in a few throwaway lines of dialogue that most players didnt think twice about….

one frustrating thing about being a pokemon fan is so much of the lore is inaccesable if you cannot afford the games. For being like one of the most popular media franchises ever you'll be hard pressed to find a lore recap of any one game that doesn't brush over important stuff, give a very opinionated or memified veiw (saying the most unfunny and overused jokes every 2 seconds) of everything or spoil it in the first 5 seconds because everyone already knows about this obviously.

[fleshthatfalls]

real

[turtblurts-pkmnirl-hub]

i love designing pokemon trainers because like depending on the specific era of pokemon character design you can get wildly different interpretations of what makes a “good” pokemon trainer design.

like if you look at npcs from RSE vs ORAS there is a CLEAR difference in design philosophy despite them being fundamentally the same character.

and yes, part of it has to do with the style, proportions, posing, and just the general fact that there’s a 10 year gap between them, but its clear that the design philosophy itself changed as well. the ORAS youngster adds details that are visually interesting but not distracting— namely the sableye shirt, striped shorts, and band-aid over the nose. the shorts were changed to black so that the distribution of blue wasn’t overpowering, and also added the additional benefit of creating a value hierarchy that leads the viewer’s eye to the most important details of the design: the shirt and the face.

but im getting ahead of myself. i could talk design details all day but my point is that like. wowie! these are all pokemon trainer designs! they all look vastly different because they were all designed by different people and from different eras and yet we can still clearly identify them as pokemon characters one way or another!

a pokemon trainer outfit can be simple, kinda out there, or REALLY out there! you can do whatever you want forever and ever.

[itsjustaturt]

all I want for christmas is for paper rex to get an international trophy next year preferably at bangkok or at champs. santa can they stop throwing or is that too much to ask

[turtblurts-pkmnirl-hub]

switchin to my main hub blog for this lmao

np np!

oh btw i think one thing you might benefit from with ur traditional work is going into the phone’s photo adjustment settings and bumping up the contrast but lowering shadows!

For comparison:

This makes the lines a bit clearer and crisp while also lessening the effect of a shadow gradient on the photo from lighting!

Not sure if it’s different on Android phones but I’d imagine they’d have something similar?

But yea, for sketched graphite pieces, if you’re looking to get crisp lines and get rid of the “cloudiness”, this is a good way to do it!

((OOC: Is that art of the Pikachu traditional, or is it digital but meant to look like it’s traditional? If it’s the latter then, from one traditional artist to another, please tell me how you got the picture quality to be so good.))

// Hihi! Always willing to help a fellow artist out!

For the first question, it’s a traditional watercolor piece! With this blog I’m always trying to emulate Sugimori’s gen 1 art style, so I try to use watercolors for the blog whenever I can! I’ve tried doing the digital watercolor made to look traditional before but it just. never really comes out the way I want it? Genuinely its just easier for me to bust out the ol’ watercolors n do that shit irl. I’ll get to those materials in a sec, actually!

For the second question, tbh all I did for the picture quality was take a top-down with my phone and crop it? I CAN tell you that it’s better to take a picture at x1 rather than try to zoom in, as the camera quality dips significantly if you try to zoom in or out.

Here’s the full picture I took. I just cropped it afterwards.

Other tips I can give for picture quality is uhhh

Make sure your area is well-lit! Phone cameras will automatically try to compensate for dimly lit areas by increasing the ISO, which adds visual noise and dips the quality.

Hold the camera still. A moving camera creates blur. Cool for abstract photography, not so much for capturing traditional art lmao

Clean the lens. If you notice that your photos seem a bit fuzzy and… heaven-like? Might be a sign your lens is hella smudged. Run a cloth over that thang.

Try to take the photo from a top-down view! Taking the photo from an angle distorts the art. I know iPhone has a fuckinnnnn feature to fix angle distortions but I’m gonna be so fr w/ you I wouldn’t rely on it to solve this issue.

Be careful not to cast a shadow with you or your phone. If you are, don’t be afraid to take a step back! Remember that you can always crop it later! Crop, not zoom!

And as for the materials! uhhh hold on lemme grab the fucjin.

The watercolors are this Artistro watercolor paint set I got on Amazon. A fellow art student recommended these to me and tbh I love using them when I can. It comes with a watercolor brush that has a water compartment in the brush itself, which is really fuckin neat tbh.

The pens are your standard Micron pens that most traditional artists like to use. The ones I used in the art itself are raised slightly. Don’t mind the dirt or whatever on them, the heat melted the rubber band I used to bind them together and got stuck on ‘em :/

Something to take note of with watercolors is the kind of paper you’re using for it! Different papers will grab onto watercolors differently— you’ll want more thicker, more porous/rougher paper for watercolors. Smoother and thinner paper is harder for the paint to soak into— you risk the paint running or taking longer to dry, or oversoaking and tearing the paper.

If you don’t feel like going hunting for dedicated watercolor paper (aka me), then a safe bet is to use mixed media paper! There’s tons of sketchbooks in fuckin uhhh Walmart or whatever that will say “Mixed Media” on them. Those are always a safe shot since they’re fairly porous and thick.

I’m down to answer any more questions you may have on @turtblurts-pkmnirl-hub!

[souploover69]

something fucked up happened

[seagull-scribbles]

Out of Touch Turts-day

[vshushmshu]

pickup lines

usually the red eared slider’s flirts and compliments were flowery, over the top with heaps of silly, and you would roll your eyes at each and every one. grand sweeping gestures, an arm slung around your neck, or running his thumb over your knuckles with a wiggle of brows that didn’t actually exist. it was entertaining, something you would never actually admit outloud, so you never really shut down his teasing. you only let it happen for the hell of it. yeah.

a wink that looked as if his eye momentarily had an uncontrollable spasm, “i would never play hide and seek with you, because someone like you is impossible to find.”

you grimaced as he walked over to sit beside you on the rooftop, “i honestly wish i could hide from this.”

finger guns, “are you from tennessee?? because you’re the only ten-i-see!”

a huff, looking over the city once more before you stopped patrolling for the night, “new york, buddy.”

“you never humor me…”

“you have no idea.”

an irritatingly wide smile, leo splayed out on your bed, “this might sound cheesy, but i think you’re really grate.”

you turn from your homework to cock a brow at him, “…puns? really? you’re stooping to puns now?”

“hey, a turtle’s gouda do what he’s gouda do.”

“i hate you.”

“awww, i love you too!!!”

you were drawing with mikey when your self-proclaimed bestie barreled in, “i seem to have!! lost my phone number!!!! can i have yours?”

the orange clad turtle seemed to be holding in the fattest cackle, so you ignored him to look at leo with a fairly neutral expression, “i thought you already had my number?”

“yeah, but i kinda… deleted it just to make this work..”

“…you’re stupid. i’m friends with an idiot.”

he pouted, until his phone lit up at an unknown number’s message, “and i’m friends with a meanie pants… oh! thanks!”

you shoved your phone back in your pocket while mikey eyed the two of you, his red striped brother already tapping the number into your contact once more, “sure, mhm.”

nabbing a piece of popcorn from your bowl, eyes scrunched from his simper as he glances at you, then lets his eyes land back on raph and april’s mario kart game once more, “it’s a good thing i have a library card, because i am totally checking you out.”

“…aren’t you illiterate or something? do you even know what a library is?”

“shut the fuck up….”

he looked up from his comic as you flopped onto his bed, just having listened attentively to another one of donnie’s infodumps, “did you just come out an oven?”

you huffed, draping an arm over your eyes, “no, leo.”

said turtle leaned over to poke your cheek with a snicker, “‘cause you’re hot.”

“goddammit, leo.”

“is this hogwarts express, because it feels like you and i are going somewhere magical.“

you stared at him as he gestured to a newly opened portal, “man, i swear, are you getting these from buzzfeed articles?? ain’t no way you pulled a harry potter line out your ass like that.”

“…is your name google? ‘cause you got the answers for everything i’m searching for.”

you swore you saw the face of a slider caught, and your eyes twinkled in amusement, “so, you are.”

“LEAVE ME ALONE.”

“your hand looks lonely. want me to hold it for you?”

you readjust your grip on your weapon, eyeing him in a sort of flabbergasted way, “lee, we are literally in the middle of a FIGHT.”

“right, whatever.”

you both were on your phones, the turtle laying on you scrolling through god-knows what, while you watched a video essay on something you were to inevitably forget about. you snickered at an elaborate joke about something or other, and the slider grinned a little, “roses are red, violets are blue. with a smile like that, looks like i’m doomed.”

“…”

you were tempted to kick him off, something inside you churning, but you just refocused on your video once more. his face seemed a little surprised in your peripheral vision, but at what, you couldn’t be sure.

leo sat beside you in blankets, barely conscious in his goofy pajamas during the latter end of a movie night, everyone else already asleep (except for donnie, who could care less about anyone else as his eyes stayed glued to the screen projected on the wall, hyperfixated on a jupiter jim movie he’s no doubt seen a thousand times over), “are you- did you fell from heaven- cause- fuck. i forgot how that one goes.”

you hid a grin behind a facepalm, equally fatigued as his head dipped to rest lightly on your shoulder, neck giving up on keeping it upright, “of course you did.”

sometimes though, those bits of flattery are uttered so quiet, barely above a whisper, the turtle holding such reverence in his tone. like now, just before he drifts off to sleep to no doubt drool all over you, the slider makes himself comfortable buried in your side. you still when his cheek rubs against your shoulder, a content sigh escaping leo while he wraps his arms around you in your shared blanket nest, “hm mwarm… i wish this would last f’rever..”

you can’t doubt that it’s sincere when it’s said like that. you look away from the movie to stare at him with tired eyes, face warm while you fiddled slightly with your fingers, buried under the blankets wrapped around your own body. leo started snoring in record time, light chirps coming from him every time he shifted in his sleep, and you rest your head on his. maybe you wished that too, maybe your mouth twisted into the smallest of frowns, but you decided not to dwell on it.

letting your eyes drift close, and pulling the red eared slider closer, you knew you were going to wake up to dumb pickup lines that held a bit too much sincerity in them. maybe you were glad.

[turtblurts-pkmnirl-hub]

takes a bow. and thus concludes tonight’s horrors.

for now

GOD OKAY THAT WAS THE LAST OFFSCREEN POST GOD YAYAYYAYAYA ESPER YAYYYYY

[katsettee]

I totally get people talking about rottmnt and not being into because of the cartoony madness and exaggeration. I get it, it’s grating for some

But that acceptance goes OUT the window as soon as the same person vehemently swears up and down 2012 is the best tmnt rendition 💀💀

The incest one??? With the horrible writing? THAT one?

[turtblurts-pkmnirl-hub]

lays down on the floor. sometimes i think abt older Rat,,,,,

[itsjustaturt]

it is my god given job to make every single one of my mutuals' 0 note posts into 2 note posts

[turtblurts-pkmnirl-hub]

call me icarus the way im girlbossing too close to fucking sun

the oroblem with having friends in this community and collaborating with them is sometimes i look over at the discord chat and i watch as my friend decides that its their turn on the wax wings