#was thinking about stuff i've drawn without posting while working on a drawing

[golyadkin]

don't remember when i last worked on this study but I'm never gonna loop back to it so here you go

[nana-b0b]

》🔞 These panels are censored, you can go to the last of the post to find out where to see them!

A little historical info to better understand:

♡♡♡♡♡!!! I really feel happy and overcome with these panels, I was thinking a lot about how to make them since there were several obstacles: I had never drawn something NSFW before as it should be 😅 I never got that far so to speak, there was always a line that prevented me from taking that step, since it is not the same to draw some small scene where you only see something specific to a whole pose as such and all that implies. But after many ideas and turns I managed to take that step (maybe small for some but for me it was like reaching the moon 😂) and the most important and most feared was that the essence of the drawings and the style would be lost but I could keep it well and make it coexist ♡.

Note: as for the text accompanying the panels I want to say that it's not my best work as a narrator hahaha I don't write anything since I was about fifteen and it was my era of fanfics and stuff, so I feel its very basic and empty! 😅 ♥!

Now, let's talk a bit about the panels! Well, as we all knew this moment was coming, it was no surprise -3- Ryomen really had to be patient to get what he had been thinking for a while, but he didn't want it to be something random as it could be with any woman he wanted, he was really curious to see how Aurora could look like with the full appearance of a lady of the Heian era and when he saw her, he just couldn't resist. One thing will be clear: Aurora won't wear black teeth again, there will be no way to paint her teeth again without someone losing a limb. As for her eyebrows: she's really mad about that, but I'll let it go.

And to close this post I come with a novelty (I've been thinking about this for days) now we are going to be able to have these drawings completely uncensored on patreon.

I'm not going to lie, using more than two social networks for me is already a lot 😥 if it were up to me I would only post everything in one place but we know how the rules are and we have to respect them, if just by showing a nipple (which is a pixel 😂 ) they almost censored me on Instagram I knew this would be difficult and Tumblr is not lagging behind, while there are things that it lets pass there are others that it doesn't and it's not nice to have to make such complex drawings so that the AI doesn't detect them as 🔞 since there comes a certain point that you get tired too and it loses the grace.

My patreon will be the place for all my works 🔞 without any censorship already, you are going to be able to enjoy both public and private content depending on the type of work ♡. I think also for me it's an incentive to be able to start letting go more of my ideas and continue with everything I want to do :)

To say goodbye first I want to always thank you for all the support you give me and all your messages 🖤 and second to warn you that this CAP of Ren will be in patreon already published privately but all the other censored drawings are public for you to see and enjoy them as they should ⭐

Here are the publications that I censored and that you can now see, there are not many at the moment x'D

[sleepy-pigeonn]

A Look Into My Hades Fan Animatic

I don't know to call this other than a collection of resources and reflections about the process of making the animatic. Hopefully it's interesting or helpful for someone. But feel free to ask questions if you'd like clarification/more info!

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Inspiration (A non-exhaustive list)

It's possible that I've seen/read fan works that may have inspired me unconsciously, so there's no way I can possibly include references to them all. However, the ones I listed here are ones I recall looking back at repeatedly.

The fancomics "First Flight" and "Bonehead Boon" by Liana Sposto

Robbie Elliot Art's animation "Take Tonight"

Toastyglow's animation "Glitter & Gold" and PMV "This Year"

Storyboards posted by Paige Caldwell (@/papernewt) on Instagram

Zag admiring some of these beautiful fanworks.

The following sections are below the cut: References, Songs, Script and Thumbnails, Studies, Drawing, Editing, Random Facts

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References

These were very helpful to creating the animatic!!

In-game references

Hades Wiki

3D Model of Zagreus by @/chunyou_ on Twitter

I also used screenshots I took while playing

General references

"How To Direct A Fight Scene" by Howard Wimshurst

Poses from the photo libraries of The Pose Archives and AdorkaStock

3D Model of Male and Female Heads by William Nguyen

I also just looked stuff up online or took videos of myself acting out some of the movements.

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Songs

I thought of basing my animatic on any of the following songs:

"Icarus" by Bastille

"Dirty" by grandson

"Underworld" by CYPRSS *

"I'm Still Here (Jim's Theme)" by John Rzeznik

"I'm Gonna Win" by Rob Cantor **

"Could Have Been Me" by the Struts

They all have a varied degree of "Zagreus vibes" but I wanted a song that could be used to show as much of the game as possible. "Could Have Been Me" was the song that I could imagine more things for, so it is the one I ended up using.

* Look at this awesome Zagreus fan art based on this song

** Some of the lyrics for this song are so fitting for Zag but others are pretty ooc.

___

Script and Thumbnails

I've seen other artists annotate the lyrics to the song they are working with and attempted that here. But that process is a little confusing for me, so I kept these descriptions vague. It was helpful in keeping track of ideas, since some of them are faster to write down than draw. Especially for fight sequences.

I used Storyboarder for the thumbnails. I opted for this program because (1) it lets you add an audio file and (2) it has very basic tools. It can be used in a more nuanced way than I did. However, with 3 and a half minutes of frames to work out I needed something that helps me draft down ideas efficiently and without overwhelming me. And this was pretty good program for that.

The script and thumbnails happened in tandem a lot of the time. Think of it as brainstorming, both in vague writing and loose drawings. At this point I am trying to see if these ideas flow with the song, if they are readable, if they achieve what I had in mind.

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Studies

Okay. So I am happy with my ideas. Now. How do I make sure the drawings are identifiable as taking place in the game?

This is where those in-game references came in handy. I looked back at my thumbnails and made a list of everything I would need. From characters to locations. Once I had these down, I made folders to make sure everything would be nice and organized.

I tend to avoid backgrounds like the plague. However, for some of these shots to work I need to give the viewer a sense of where the action is taking place. I know that I struggle imagining three-dimensional spaces while drawing digitally. So, using my thumbnails and the references I gathered, I did studies of all the locations I thought would be important using good old paper and ink. This also served to fine-tune shot compositions.

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Drawing

The animatic itself was drawn using Krita. Usually, I worked on all the backgrounds using the studies as a base and then added the characters. My drawings started very rough for a couple of reasons. The main one was that with ~200 frames ahead of me I was afraid of letting my inner perfectionist get me stuck. I kept reminding myself that, being an animatic, the drawings could be rough as long as they are still readable. As I got more comfortable using Krita, I was able to create cleaner backgrounds.

Even so, I hit an art block around the two minute mark where I Could Not Draw. This is where I heavily relied on those References I Keep Talking About. They were my savior and are the main cause for the more "finished" look towards the end of the animatic. I think the best example of this was the shot featuring Thanatos. I was deep in the art block territory by the time I needed to go from thumbnail (top left) to final frame. No matter how much I redrew them, I didn't like how they turned out (top right). To work this out, I found references from The Pose Archives and used them as a guide (bottom left) to get a sketch that I liked (bottom right). I felt this look was more sketchy than I've would like so I ended up cleaning it. I followed a similar process for most of the frames following this one. As a result, the final frames of the video turned out cleaner.

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Editing

Once I had all my frames ready to go, I imported them into HitFilm Express and made a composite shot where I basically just matched the timing of the frames to the music. Frames that have camera movements (like the very first frame) were made in their own composite shots. I ended up having to delete some frames so some sections didn't feel rushed. In the end, there's like 5 versions of the animatic because I kept making little changes. The biggest was adding Zag's dialogue at the beginning since I felt the video started up too quiet. I don't have any images for this stage. Please have this comparison instead.

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Random Facts ✨

Adding color was a last minute decision, it was mainly because I thought a colorful sunset would be prettier. My original plan was to shift the gray tones of the background into more yellowish tones once Zagreus reaches the surface, but keeping everything monochromatic.

If you pause quickly on the very last frame you'll see I accidentally made Zag's leggings black instead of red. I was on auto pilot at this point. Adding color was worth it overall but so time consuming. My respects to people who do fully colored animatics.

I wish I made Meg a pinker (or blue) hue rather than purple. In my mind I saved purple for characters related to Nyx (hence why Hypnos, Than, Chaos, and Charon have shades of purple). But I guess it is a sweet detail because of how Meg confides in Nyx in the game.

I kept a log of all my progress. Apparently getting the thumbnails done took about five months (August 2023 - January 2024)?? Anyways I leave you with these entries.

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Thank you for reading! I hope it goes without saying but I really appreciate all the support this animatic has received. All the hearts and comments and tags, they mean a lot.

[imflyingfish]

Hi fish hi fish!! :] hope you're doing swell- wanted to ask for some advice

I've been trying to learn how to draw wheelchairs for a while now, hardest part has been finding refs with people in em, do you know what terms to search up to find stuff like that? All good if not, just know you're pretty well acquainted with drawing em so figured I'd ask

First off I'm going to state that I'm not a wheelchair user. I have researched them in the past and have asked a family member who uses one for advice, but still don't take my word as absoultely reliable. The majority of my knowlege/observations comes from watching family members with chairs so it may be biased. I'm going to be mostly talking about manual chairs but the same suggestions should apply to powered.

Searching up "wheelchair drawing reference" can help, but I discourage using google images. Often the images will be unrealistic due to them being stock images, or of the wrong type of wheelchair for what youre drawing. (One that comes up a lot are foldable wheelchairs which are more associated with hospitals than practical life).

Instead, try to use reference collections made by wheelchair users. This is a really good collection by Criptid Cosplayer in both manual and powered wheelchairs. They also have a small guide to designing fantasy wheelchairs which was interesting.

I also reccomend learning what the different parts of a wheelchair are and do. This will make it easier to understand how the user uses the chair, the shape of the chair and make it easier to remember the different parts while drawing. I don't have a specific source for this using photo reference since I looked at real wheelchairs for this. However @/calvin-arium has a good guide to drawing chracters with wheelchairs with drawn diagrams here.

Also ensure you observe how real people use wheelchairs. I find that tutorials for using wheelchairs are a good source for this since they break down how each movement works. This will make it easier to draw Wheelchairs in montion/natural posing. Wheels2walking has a good video explaining rolling and one here for wheelies.

Other tips:

Give your characters wheelchair gloves, especially if they're going to be going longer distances than just being inside. Not all users use gloves but they do help protect the hands.

Consider if the character needs additional support/what type of chair they're needing. E.G. Seatbelts, cushions, cupholders, additional storage space, hight of handles/if they have handles, back height ect.

Check what type of wheelchair your character needs. One of my OC's needed to always hold a megaphone as her main weapon, so I gave her a powered wheelchair with a headrest to ensure that I could still have her move around the battlefield without taking away her disability. Other times you will need to consider the type of chair around their disability rather than design/character function. Make sure you research the type of chair for the disability and adjust if needed.

Wheelchairs have different functions. Sports wheelchairs and off-road wheelchairs look very different to regular wheelchairs so keep that in mind. Always research the right wheelchair

Also consider if your character can move their legs or not while posing.

To draw the wheelchair start with a circle with the figure to get an idea of the pose. Treat the chair as an extension of the character while drawing. Don't worry about the anatomical accuracy of the chair before you have a good idea of the pose/a basic sketch or thumbnail

Remember to draw the wheelchair using perspective. or dont.

Wheelchairs are even cooler decorated. Some people use stickers, covers, lights, fabrics, spikes.

It's okay to draw wheelchairs badly. I see a lot of people avoid drawing them for fear of getting them wrong but thats just. counterintuative. Make sure you research (even further than this post links to) and stop avoiding them.

Okay yeah, thats all I can think of for now. Keep in mind that I'm not disabled and so not everything I say is guarenteed to be accurate. But this should be enough to help you out I think.

If anybody else wants to add on to this feel free

[hornystiel]

hiii!! offering my 2 cents on the subject of "old man". younger generations in general use it very loosely but it's without ill intent, rather it's coming from a perspective of "that man (dilf) is so hot i need them but i could never because they'd see me as a child so i gotta call them old instead". like they're out of my league but i'll blame it on the age difference you know?

and in destiel's case i believe it's affectionate, they're old compared to most queer couples represented and they're getting older together and it's hopeful to see that :)

~ a gen z mutual who's too shy to come off anon ly 🤍

hi! a literal wall of text ahead

okay i actually have a lot of thoughts about this topic and i really hope i won't sound rude but i just want to talk about it for a sec here. and below will be purely my own musings which probably won't coincide with a general fandom views on the matter and it's wider than this question and destiel but well

anyway

i totally get what you're saying about younger fans calling them old because they're too young for them but still hot etc etc. i know that's not some ill intent, clearly. however, what bothers me about the question of 'old' age in fandom spaces is this - for some 'old' starts somewhere around 35+ and they mean it (i wonder what they call a 50 yo? a corpse probably). and yeah of course for 16 yo 35 is twice their age but i wouldn't have even the slightest problem with it because i've been in fandom spaces since i was maybe 14 and stumbled upon people of different ages and backgrounds and we can all coexist quite fine. but what i see now (and maybe again, that's like a recurring generational thing, i don't know, i'm not that old and i wasn't in english spaces until i got at least 18-20 so) - those younger fans repeatedly saying 'you're 30 and in fandom? get out. go find some appropriate hobbies for your age group, like fishing hehe'. like it's fine to be horny over some dudes twice (or even more) your age, but people who in reality are not even that far from you, because usually it's 20 somethings who write such things - and it's a crime. you're suddenly gross. i wonder what those kids would do without all the stuff written, drawn and giffed by those who have a child on one hand, a full time job on the other, and their age appropriate hobbies in between. like when i was a tiny fan i was like 'holy shit that person somehow found a way to update that long ass sherlock fic while being neck deep in her family things and work i wanna be like them!" and it also gave me hope about the future of my fandom life. like age shouldn't matter. but now i see this shit, the whole 'more than 3 yo age difference is pedo' talk, 'adult creators shouldn't post anything because children can see' talk etc etc. and i know, of course, that that's the general internet censorship on the rise and neopuritanism is dancing tango with it but still.

what i'm saying - i do have a problem with younger generation using the term old very 'loosely' because they wield it as a double aged sword. you're either some hot dilf who can be forgiven for your shitty fandom takes because well you're hot (and i'm not talking about anyone in particular here rn) or you're a gross 30 smth in fandom space who shouldn't draw porn because teens can't click the block button

AS FOR DESTIEL

short answer - i don't like what the people who call them old add to their characters and lives when they do that.

long answer under the cut

all of that is what EYE don't like in most popular fandom hcs and i usually just scroll past the things i don't like, i don't want to start shit publicly (and because of what, takes?), but here you can read what i usually think when i see them.

first - if we're talking canon ages. 40 smth and this is dean's age at the end of the show - is NOT old. at all. i can't even call him that affectionately. because this is the tragedy of it all - he dies YOUNG. very fucking young, he didn't see any calm life, didn't pursue his dreams, didn't have a normal life and love and then he died. in a way, and i see some others think the same, calling him old is like 'welp it's not that bad, he lived long enough, seen shit'. but the thing is - he didn't? literally. so no, for me he's young, died young and it's fucking awful. not talking about cas here because well, billions years, old, young, he's everything (<3)

if we're talking about post canon fics where they settle. you can all burn me at the stake but sadly my spirit will just repeat the same shit - making them some kind of a wannabe hetero aging couple is not only boring as fuck, but also completely out of character for them?

what i usually see in the posts with 'old men <3' there

some variation of a white picket fence house

baby jack

dean being some kind of a soccer mom who bakes and argues with other moms

cas being more of a dad shaped thing who gardens and Doesn't Get It at the parents' meetings or somewhere equally boring and somehow still clueless about a lot of human shit

them creaking every part of their bodies (jesus my joints have been like this since i was 14, and my back is bad now when i'm only 30 where is my retirement pakige?)

probably forgetting smth but you get the gist. and, again, not saying that that's ALL i see with the old men posts and art etc (some hcs are wild and i LOVE them), but the majority? yeag, i've been permanently a destiel blogger for 4 years now, i've seen the popular stuff

doesn't all of that remind you of a typical heterosexual family on some conservative cable tv show? if not i'm happy for you, but i can't help but see how the roles are set in stone and i don't find it endearing at all. that's one reason. and also i'm a strong believer that a baby won't fix dean. jack won't fix shit and here's another stick to my pyre - i don't care about him at all and i think that dean especially should focus on himself and his own shit and his shit with cas if they settle together, not be thrown into the baby routine again. the fandom likes to remind everyone how dean raised sam and it's mostly true but don't you think for one goddamn second he would want/need to live for himself and not over obsess about bringing up another kid? sure he loves them, but if every person with dean's baggage were trusted with kids as a cure-al ...well. and again very hetero, 'you should have a child, that'll fix your hysteria!' i'll even say, very real life stuff, just not the one i want to see here.

another reason is this - they are freaks.

they are assholes, freaks, serial killers, undead creatures, bad people...who are very much in love and very soft with each other and their family but they are still freaks. and i don't understand how them getting old will so fundamentally change so many aspects of their characters that they become typical suburban mom and dad combo. maybe i sound like a person who doesn't want them to be happy, or who doesn't get the 'it shows that their life is finally calm and they can pursue Normal Hobbies and Raise Kids and Build a Farm (idk how that is a calm place have you ever been on a farm with animals that you should watch and take care and kill if needed. another talk for another time) and To Love is to be Changed' etc etc etc. believe me i get it all perfectly, just not for them. if it tickles your pickle, by all means. what tickles mine is cas getting the weirdest (and often dangerous) hobbies (and this is why i got him driving a motorcycle, boxing and skydiving in my old men cheating fic) and he's an impatient guy so i don't think he'd love gardening really, he'd be mad at the plants and kill them or grow them as fast as his grace would allow (yes i'm also against human all the way cas, baby we're getting a bingo here). and dean of course should have ties with his community and i've already talked about this but i see how they are out of active hunting, but still help those who are still in it (if the supernatural isn't wiped completely and i don't see why it should be), maybe they always have a place in their home for those who come to regroup or just to chat or smth. and dean is an overprotective and micromanaging asshole so he would want to still have the gist of it all (and cas would want to unwind by killing some things from time to time)...and they still sleep in the same bed, eat the food they cook together, wear matching tatts maybe as a wedding gift to each other, and have dogs, cats and whatnot.

what i want to say - i don't get why the weird and the sweet can't coexist. why should they lose all of their insane bits. they loved each other WITH them (cursed or not remember) why should they change so drastically to fit the 'happily ever after' narrative.

anyway i can probably write a lot more but that's a long ass grumbling as it is.

sorry your question became the starting point for this rent i genuinely hope i didn't offend you and if you finished reading all of this woah you are a hero <3

[naughtynoodle056]

I wish I could comment but I can't so:

oh my godddd I know this is kind of counterproductive or, like, just pointless for me to say this as a white person adding noise to the conversation but please please PLEASE DO NOT LET THOSE PEOPLE GET TO YOU!

I've only found ur acc recently since I've joined tumblr instead of lurking and your art is some of the best I've seen.

I have Aphantasia and general face blindness irl, so defining features (not even ethnic features, just general appearances) in drawings are the main thing I've had to focus on my whole life because I struggle to accurately display them in my art.

I've practiced and studied countless art styles and ways people have drawn and depicted eyes, eyelids, mouths, hair, skin, lips, noses, faces, body types, etc. Of course it differs depending on the art style, but you literally managed to perfect the way you draw individual features in your characters that make them not only stand out from eachother, but as characters with unique and diverse backgrounds.

I don't wanna clog up ur inbox too much, so without repeating the whole thing again, I will say that I also saw @cheeseburgersinparadise's comment on your post and I was thinking the exact same thing.

Idk what these people want you to do short of making racial caricatures or stereotypical depictions of people.

So here's some things I really enjoy about your artwork instead:

Little differences in body type are noticeable and really cool to see

you're very consistent in your character's personalities and depictions, so even if in one drawing they have their hair tied up and in another it's just completely natural, I can still tell who it is at just a glance!

Despite what the armchair critics say, the skin tones you use are really good and I can tell they're well thought out.

Your lineart is awesome. I've never been able to use the uhhh the one effect (I forgot the name) that makes the lines all sharp and stuff without my drawing looking like a SBAHJ comic parody/shitpost, but in your drawings it looks super neat and has a cool kind of side effect where it highlights the colors and stuff, making it all really pop but at the same time feel really like.. story and held together? I'm terrible at describing visuals I'm sorry but just know it's good! You know how to actually use brushes and effects/overlays.

facial expressions. You nail them every time. 'nuff said.

Same Face Syndrome fears you.

"try exploring shape language" idk what crack these people are smoking because your art is like the pinnacle of good use of shape language in drawings. It reminds me of Canadian cartoons (IN A GOOD WAY. I GET CANADIAN RADIO/TV SIGNALS, I GREW UP WITH IT) where it's like 'less is more' in terms of line detail and instead putting the focus on the basic shapes in a way that can make even the quickest sketches/simplest versions of a drawing look lively

if nobody else got me, the tumblr crowd got me fr 🥹💖

It's hard to articulate how much this means to me (hence why it took a bit for me to answer this ask lol) because like. I don't know if y'all remember that one episode of iCarly where one of Spencer's favorite artists just blew him tf off and it lowkey ruined his life for a while, but I felt just like that fr

It can be really frustrating sometimes being a silly kink artist(TM) and feeling like because I have a particularly cartoony art style and don't often draw the most extreme WG art, I get kind of overlooked and treated like IDK what I'm doing sometimes, y'know? I never went to art college and studied drawing there, other than one cartooning class I took for funsies at a community college, my knowledge comes from what I learned throughout grade school and studied myself with online resources or books at the library. So sometimes it DOES FEEL A LITTLE like certain huge artists who did go to college for that turn a nose up at artists like me.

It's the craziest feeling when someone makes a criticism on your work that's just like, objectively unhelpful or even hypocritical, and then doubles down and like subtly paints you as one who just can't accept criticism. Because if I couldn't, then you wouldnt have such kind specific compliments on my art hahaha. My lineart is so clean because I took the advice from an art teacher when I was 16 and it was shaky. I keep facial features and whatnot simpleish and cartoony so I can depict expressions in a more fun way.

Hell, that artist's "fair criticism" about leaning into ethnic features more may have been referring to the fact that Shay doesn't have a noise here. This is seen in some other pieces of mine, too

but that was intentional... a gentle nod to certain anime facial expressions were they leave the nose out for Extra Effect

It's a little ode to the funny facial expressions in Sailor Moon that do much of the same

Speaking of the lineart effect, heh, I'm soooo touched someone noticed it omg?? ;0;

I like to duplicate my lineart and put the top layer on multiply with a lighter (usually warm) color and guassian blur it and then the bottom layer with a bright (often brighter) and then guassian blur it even more before setting it to glow dodge :^)

I feel vindicated that I wasn't just like. overreacting when I was DEEPLY offended by the "helpful criticism"

I feel like whoever made the skin color comment just. forgot about the concept of lighting in a dim room 💀💀💀 It was so crazy to me that she was talking to me like I haven't been drawing these characters for years at this point and use the same base skin color like. 98% of the time

ALSO DW I THINK THE CANADIAN CARTOON COMMENT IS A BIG COMPLIMENT CUZ I USED TO WATCH A LOT OF THEM ALL THE TIME!! 6teen is one of my dearly beloveds fr and a friend of mine said my art style reminded him of that so 🥺🥺🥺

TLDR: thank you for being a real one and the heartfelt ask I will be mentally hanging this up on my fridge 🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾 (also sorry Tumblr is wack and wont let you reply to posts smh)

[taralen]

Announcement? Other things!

Hey, everyone, so besides commissions and all my SPECIL SALESMAN art, I would also like to share more things (like original art) and draw fanart for other things. Spamton G. Spamton is a mainstay on my blog. He is very important to me, and if you don't like him, then too bad!

My range of interests is absolutely massive, and as one fan/friend of mine said to me years ago, "You're like a mystery box of surprises!"

Here is what I plan to make art and possible theories or analyses for:

[[please note that a lot of my interests are 17-18+, but anything uploaded here will be kept SFW or cropped. All NSFW stuff will go to my Pixiv account. I highly recommend to NOT look up the origin if you are a minor or sensitive to explicit content.]]

Queen's Blade Franchise (17+) - I really want to make more art of my favorite character, Alleyne the Elven Fighting Master, and possibly her apprentice, Nowa!

Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni (17+ GORE HORROR. Do not look up if you are sensitive.) - Recently fell in love with this series. I consider the original anime from the 2000s to be a masterpiece. I want to draw my favorite character, Takano!

Taimanin universe (17-18+. Seriously don't look it up if you're a minor lol.) - I really love some of the characters of this series, like my waifu Ingrid. I've drawn her before, and I want to draw her again. Funny enough, one of my pieces is featured in the mobile game Action Taimanin as a poster on the wall for a level. Sometimes, I see people use my art as an icon. It's very flattering!

Dragon Half (15+) - One of my all-time favorite mangas ever made from the 1980s. I think it's long overdue I make a fanart for it.

Winx Club - I have numerous unfinished fanarts for this series. I love it so much, even though Sailor Moon is superior lmfao.

Shoujo Tsubaki (18+. BANNED WORLDWIDE. DO NOT LOOK IT UP if you are sensitive or if you are a minor) - I watched this two nights ago, and it's so sad... I plan to do an analysis of it. I honestly don't think it's the worst thing ever, but I can see why people find it offensive, as it touches upon A LOT OF taboo topics.

Psychonauts - This game series man... So good. I want to draw something of my favorite character, Helmut, and his husband, Bobby. I just absolutely adore them. 😭

Touhou Project - It's been a long time since I've drawn proper fanart for this series. I have A LOT on my DeviantArt account, but I'd like to draw my favorite girls again.

Super Mario Bros - Peach is my original waifu. I've tried drawing her many times in my style, but I've kind of failed. I also really like Princess Daisy's N64 version and want to draw her again. Rosalina/Rosetta, I will also think about it.

The Legend of Zelda - This one is a little... Difficult for me. This is one of my favorite game series ever, but I really struggle to make art for it. I want to since it heavily inspired my work, but damn is it hard... Hopefully, I can break out of my shell for this.

Various other Eroge titles (18+) - Eroge are any games with erotic elements that originate from Japan. There are so many I like that range from simply being romantic to utterly insane. If you're a minor, do not look up anything.

Runescape - How I love thee. It's been a while since I've drawn fanart for it. I love the Elves haha!

Creepypasta or ghost legends/stories - I've been listening to a lot of these lately and I feel a bit inspired to draw some of the things that pop up in my imagination.

That's all for the non-original stuff. I'm still hesitant to post OCs here because they got 100% ignored last time. xD

Stuff of mine I won't ever upload to this blog:

18+ NSFW. Obvious. Do you want me to get banned?? I can draw fanart for something adult without it being NSFW.

Fetish stuff. I know I get commissioned a lot to draw fetish art, but all this will remain on DeviantArt.

Anyway, that's all I can think of right now.

[chacusha]

Kind of a random post, but sometimes I see a post going around Tumblr telling people to not think of their art as "content" but rather just call your art "art," call your fiction "fiction," etc. Don't call it "content." I am too lazy to find the post in question, but in any case, that's not the only place I've seen this sentiment, so the original post isn't necessary -- I now regularly see people outside that post criticizing calling one's fannish or creative outputs "content" (presumably after having read that post).

And while I can kind of see the connection between "content" and "content producer" and this sort of undesirable culture of, like, overwork, monetization, obsession with clout/following, and/or pressure to constantly produce and not go too long without a lull in a stream of "content," I'm just not sure it's the word "content," or thinking of your fic/art/whatever generically as "content," that's the issue? I think that pressure would still exist regardless of what you call your social media posting and, conversely, I think "content" can be a very innocuous and appropriate way of thinking about one's outputs/contributions/whatever you want to call them, at least in a fandom context.

Cutting the rest because this got kinda long:

Like, I am not someone entirely immune to the pressure to create ever more art, but output/productivity/clout/monetization has never been something I really struggle with or which motivates me on social media. I don't have productivity goals (in the sense of sheer volume -- I do have big projects I badly want to finish because they burn a hole in my mind, and I sometimes need productivity goals in order to make any progress on them at all). I also don't attempt to make money off any of my art (it actively kills my art drive to do so), and so I'm also pretty indifferent about the popularity of what I make (aside from social factors or other natural artist desires to want one's talent/skill/achievement/etc. to be recognized, which I don't think is unusual or unhealthy for an artist unless it becomes pathological), because I am not financially dependent on my social media posts having far reach or anything like that.

But specifically when it comes to fandom, when I contribute to a fandom, I tend to be very multimedia in the way I do that. I write fic, I draw, I make graphics, I write meta/essays/manifestos, I make memes, I create events/communities/social activities, I collect reference material, etc. etc. The easiest, most succinct, and most accurate way to describe what I do is that I produce... content for my fandoms. I guess you could call it "outputs" but that sounds robotic and business-speaky. Or you could call it "works" but I don't like that because fan stuff is what I do as a break from work; they don't feel like work and I wouldn't describe them that way. Also, calling some of things I make "works" sounds a bit grandiose for what they are! Calling all those things "art" doesn't work either because I need to be able to distinguish my art-qua-general-fannish-activities from my visual/drawn art, and, between those two categories, I don't think the word "art" is an appropriate way to describe the first, especially when it fits the second much better (it depends on context, obviously -- sometimes "art" is clear as a generic, but if I'm talking about both things at the same time, it will not be). "Fanworks" doesn't work either because not all the things I produce are fanworks. It's... content. Like, maybe I am missing something obvious, but I literally cannot think of a better/more accurate way of talking about my collective fannish output (other than "my collective fannish output").

Another helpful use of the word "content" is when you're in, like, rareshipper hell (which I am). Then it becomes very tempting to be like:

...whenever someone posts anything related to your rarepair, no matter how small, off-the-cuff, or modest. Or really:

Like, there's a level of desperation you reach in a tiny fandom where literally anyone contributing anything feels like a life-restoring drop of water in a desert... When you're desperate for literally anything, it seems fine to say what you are craving is "content." I suppose I could also say, "Finally, some good fucking literally-anything-at-all for this fandom" instead. But the word "content" does the job.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I think the word "content" is getting a weirdly bad rap here. I do get the mental adjustment someone is urging you to make when they say, "Please don't think of your fic/art/whatever as content" because thinking of it as content first and fic/art/whatever second is an indication that you might be too preoccupied with ensuring you're always producing a steady stream of content without much care over what that content is, or thought as to why you feel pressured to keep churning out content. It could also indicate that you view your role as a fan or creative person as being a "content producer," someone whose value is dependent on how much you produce and whether you're producing, which can often be unhealthy (unless you do that for a job, are paid based on your level of output, and absolutely love your job -- then that's great!).

So I think that's a very valid and important PSA to make to creatives -- you need to be cognizant of when, like, you're becoming alienated from your art and especially your hobbies/fandoms/things you do in your spare time. I just also think there are legitimate uses for the word "content" specifically, especially in fandom (e.g. to describe your collective fannish output or your collective fannish intake when you're very multimedia in inclination) and so I personally haven't found the whole "content (derogatory)" attitude in fandom/on social media to be helpful to my particular situation, to be honest. Not contradicting the general sentiment of that post and its advice, but I just think thinking of your work as "content" is okay/appropriate, actually (situationally).

Anyway, sorry, I wrote a mini-essay again (I thought this would be "short").

[nekosd43]

so in September I started a huge sketchbook and a discord channel with an extremely small group of friends. I historically have been really bad with sketchbooks, because I never finish them and I don't use them as SKETCH books (my brain tries to make me make every page a finished piece).

The goal was to just draw shit WITHOUT posting it on social media. I was getting too in my head about everything I make needing to be online, and it was making my art suffer I think. Not everything needs to be a finished piece, not everything needs to be shared.

(I did post it to the discord channel so the handful of friends could see it, so I could trick my brain into thinking it wasn't a "worthless" drawing, and they could help encourage me to keep going. it's worked really well, I've gotten way more comfortable drawing without feeling like I MUST show it to the entire world)

I'm actually on pace to probably finish this sketchbook within a month or two, which is INSANE for me I usually take forever before abandoning it eventually. And while not every page has something amazing on it, every page DOES have something on it that I'm happy with to some degree because I just let myself Make Stuff. Some of it is weird, some of it is badly drawn, but all of it is honest and fun and part of me.

A part of me is really proud of all the work I've put into it and wants to do one of those Sketchbook Tour videos... but I worry that goes against the thesis of the whole exercise? Like the point was I DON'T have to share it, it's just for me, it didn't need to be a complete piece for internet consumption. But at the same time I'm like... wow! There are hundreds of drawings in here! I did all those! I did all those for FUN and I had fun and I like them! I'm proud of that and I want to share it!!! So I'm butting up against myself on this one.

I've still got 40~ pages to make up my mind about it I guess.

[iraprince]

PLEASE forgive me if someone has asked about this before, but how do you start a digital sketchbook? What's a good page goal to reach, in your opinion? Your art rules <3

thank you so much! tbh tho i think that totally depends... mine tend to be 13-ish pages plus cover, but they're BIG vertical digital pages with several irl-pages-worth of sketches crammed in. and there's not really any specific reason why i do it that way! that just happened to be the number i landed on when i put my first one together (and now i don't remember why), and then i just kept them all around the same length for consistency.

most of the time when i see other ppl's digital sketchbooks they're way longer than that, though i'm not sure if maybe most people don't cram as many separate drawings per page as i do? also, if this matters at all: my sketchbooks don't sell well a la carte at all, they're primarily a patreon reward and then i offer them as itchio downloads just in case someone wants to buy them one at a time... once in a blue moon someone buys them that way, but it's rare. so i actually really can't offer any advice on what ppl look for when they're buying digital sketchbooks, or what would make a digital sketchbook sell well — because mine don't, haha!!

but if i had to guess, more pages released less frequently (i.e. collecting up all your art from an entire year) would probably do better for standalone sales. i keep mine short bc then i can release them a little more frequently, again bc mine are geared at patreon.

as for how to start or any other tips — tbh, mine are just a combination of what i'm already doing, both digital and traditional scans! warmups, character design, concept work and doodling, stuff that just normally doesn't get posted. it's rare for me to draw something specifically bc i'm like "oh, i want this to be in the sketchbook pdf" — the only stuff i usually draw bespoke is like, filling in empty spaces after i've puzzle-pieced existing work together. and especially if you're doing stuff for patreon, that's my general advice: try to make as much of your workload stuff you would already be drawing anyway, rather than giving yourself NEW tasks on top of everything else.

my actual technical process is very simple: i have a big old multi-layer document, with folders for each page. (since these are always intended for digital viewing, i make sure the width of the page at 100% zoom is nice and comfy on a computer monitor, to spare ppl a bunch of annoying scrolling side to side; and when i put drawings together on the pages i try to make sure they're sized nicely in the same way, so you can see the entire drawing without having to scroll around it.) every once in a while i go through my digital warmups and copy them over and arrange them nicely on the pages, and the same with scanning in everything i've drawn on paper every week or two; once the pages are filled up i save each folder as a separate page and then stitch it all together into a pdf! nothing fancy.

[tallbluelady]

between you me and those two lalafall t posing that azure dragoon in submission in the corner there what is your favorite part about screenshoting writing or otherwise producing content for your character?

Buckle up cuz I've been rotating this concept in general for a while!

Okay, back in college (I still feel weird saying that) I lent a friend my notebook cuz he missed a lecture one time. He noted that I doodled all over them, and asked why I did so. My answer was something along the lines that I was going to burst if I didn't.

And it's still true for me to this day. I have to write or draw or do gpose/screenshots cuz otherwise I'm going to explode. An idea comes to me and stares me and compels me to execute it. Hell, when I get a good shitpost idea, it feels like my third eye snaps wide open and I cannot get any rest until I make some sort of token effort to try and make it real in some fashion.

As for a favorite part? I don't know! The Defunctland tweet about film making being the worst thing other than not making films is pretty accurate on occasion. I mean, I do enjoy the fruits of my labor. I was scrolling through my own blog smiling at the stuff I've made before I started writing this answer. But depending on the creation, creating the thing is more important to me than having the created thing.

Like this essay of an answer! Not only do I feel obligated to answer you, but I have to admit that writing this is going to be more satisfying to me than coming back to it later and reading it. And that's been true for most of my life. I remember goofing off with spriting at a young age and just enjoying editing the visual of Pokemon trainers without worrying about posting them for a while. It's just been this last year and like, high school that I would get consistent feedback on my creative endeavors. College and working at my last job didn't leave me with enough energy to do creative stuff and present it in a viewable fashion. So that leaves me wrapping my head around the idea that I am having positive human interactions because of my blorbos and blorbo related content.

As for Rowan being the central character of this content? She's more or less the character I've always made creative content for. Whether it be in a Night Elf form or original Elf form or Elezen form, she's just been the vessel for any creative endeavors that need a person-shaped avatar to fill. Now I can confidently say that Rowan is probably distinct from her predecessors by virtue of being worked on so much more lately, but she's just drawn from the same primordial muse ooze that I've always been drawing from.

I think I hit all the points I've wanted to here. Well, the peer-reviewed, undiagnosed ADHD is probably a big contributing factor as to why I feel like I'll burst as a way to combat boredom (and for how this reads lmao).

But, uh, yeah. Thanks for the ask, anon. I hope it wasn't far more than you bargained for XD

[actualaster]

I posted 17,814 times in 2022

932 posts created (5%)

16,882 posts reblogged (95%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@galahadwilder

@shining-bewear

@xsuicunex2

@kaen-ace-of-diamonds

@domidoom

I tagged 7,438 of my posts in 2022

#queue it for science - 2,455 posts

#videos - 331 posts

#a classic - 288 posts

#miraculous ladybug - 182 posts

#aster no - 176 posts

#ladybug comic - 165 posts

#miraculous au collection - 151 posts

#pokemon - 146 posts

#scarlet lady au - 145 posts

#??? - 129 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#i...  i don't think im gonna be able to blast through the last 2/3 of the paths plus the post-game in time for the dragon tera type 'zard :(

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Western fandom went wrong right around the time children decided fictional characters were real people and had to be judged as people rather than tools to tell a story and that as such they should have human rights

205 notes - Posted February 10, 2022

#4

This year's pumpkin is Guilmon! :D

All in all about 3.5 hours to make, about 15 minutes tops to draw the outline right on the pumpkin, no test-sketching.

I've never drawn a guilmon before lol

(For some reason my art always improves when I carve pumpkins...?)

See the full post

252 notes - Posted October 30, 2022

#3

H E L P

THIS IS THE ICON OF THE OFFICIAL TUMBLR TWITTER ACCOUNT

953 notes - Posted June 19, 2022

#2

As of late March 2023, eShop for 3DS and WiiU will no longer allow purchases.

The good news is Pokémon Bank is going free to use once purchase goes offline--but you MUST download it prior to eShop going down.

2,112 notes - Posted February 16, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Something that fully healthy people don't really seem to understand about chronic health issues is what running on an energy deficit is like long-term.  It's more exhausting than you can possibly imagine if you haven't experienced it.

How does that work? Well, it's sort of like this. Everybody has a certain amount of energy.  When you're healthy and well-rested, you feel pretty good.  There are artificial boosters that give you more energy, too.  You can do all sorts of stuff.

When you get tired, you can still do some stuff but you can't do as much and what you can do might suffer from lack of energy. Except that's essentially your every day existence with chronic health issues.  You go to sleep tired, and wake up tired--sometimes more tired!

Your energy levels rarely reach "full"--that is, there's few points where you are in a "well rested" state where you feel pretty good and have "normal" levels of energy.  You're *always* operating in "low battery" mode rather than being fully charged, and you drain *fast*.

This makes doing basic tasks much harder than need be--things that drain a little energy you notice a hell of a lot more when you're already dead tired than when you're well-rested.  Like how when your phone drops from 10% to 9% you notice more than from 100% to 99%.

You can do some stuff--but you have an upper limit of what you can do that's a lot lower than other people. And functioning while running against a deficit at all times means a *lot* of careful, conservative planning to husband your strength for when you need it most.

It means sometimes spending 30 minutes deliberating what you should buy when you reach the store because you're trying to guess "will I have the energy to prepare this food after shopping?  Will I later this week?"  You hedge your bets when you can.

It means skipping out on a lot of stuff you'd otherwise love to do because you just can't be sure you'll have the energy to do it without landing yourself in bed for the next 3 days by pushing yourself to collapse. It's depressing. And it's exhausting.

EDIT: This post is for people with physical AND mental health causes for their fatigue and exhaustion, by the way! I know there are posts that really are meant only for one or the other and it's rude to hijack them, but if you find this resonates with you then you're welcome to it regardless of the cause!

2,190 notes - Posted August 5, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[jekyll2life]

A Formal Apology for my Sudden Disappearance (10/18/24)

Hello everyone! It's Jester.

After a very extended break, I wanted to come back here and re-invigorate some life into this blog. But first, I believe I owe all of you an apology and an explanation for why I disappeared so suddenly and for so long.

At the beginning of this year, I found myself at a new job. And while I found my work very fun and fulfilling, it also left me significantly busier than I was before. I tried my best to keep uploading at my regular pace, but within three months I was burnt out. Maintaining the schedule on one platform was barely manageable, let alone two. So unfortunately, I decided to drop Tumblr first. Since I only use Tumblr on desktop (I don't have the Tumblr app on my phone because the version on the Apple app store censors certain tags. And trying to upload through browser causes it to crash), uploading pictures takes more time than uploading to Instagram directly from my phone.

As I've said though, I only managed to keep the schedule on Instagram for three months before burning out. Between March and July, I spent more of my time prioritizing my duties at my new job. Then once my tenure was over, I ended up moving to a different place, which was a hectic process all on its own.

As time passed, I became interested in other things, and debated about quitting altogether. The thing that ended up bringing me back was, quite fittingly, Jackson. With more free time after the move, I made Jackson a new outfit that I wanted to show off. And that ended up getting me to take pictures again. XD

Even so, it took me some time to find a new schedule that was actually sustainable for me. I've been getting more into drawing lately, and I wanted to find a balance between taking pictures and my other interests.

Which leads us to October. I've found a schedule that works for me now, and I believe I'm ready to go back to posting on two platforms.

Upon logging in again though, I found that I received multiple messages worrying about my whereabouts. It warms my heart that you all care about Jackson and his humble clown human so much. I'm really sorry I made you all worry. Tbh, I didn't think my online presence had much of an impact, so I didn't think about any possible consequences of just up and vanishing the way I did.

Thank you to everyone who sent me messages of concern while I was gone. I'm sorry I vanished for so long without saying anything, and I promise next time I take a break I'll say something before leaving.

In the meantime, I've loaded up the queue with all the photos I've take over the past few months. Lots of new pictures are coming.

Additionally, I've closed my Etsy shop in favor of getting a Ko-Fi. All the sewing patterns I've had before are there now, as well as some physical doll clothes and stickers I've drawn myself. Feel free to check it out if you'd like.

As always, I hope you all look forward to the continuation of Jackson's adventures. 💛

Sincerely,

The Clown Behind the Camera 🤡

TLDR: I disappeared from the internet because I was overwhelmed with irl stuff. But I'm back now.

[amalgamgooze]

"comic creator," in the beginning and ever shall be.

Okay. They're not good comics.

They haven't ever really been good comics and I doubt they'll ever be good comics.

In fact, I don't think I'll be sharing them any time soon.

But I'm drawing comics for myself again.

I drew comics nonstop back in like, elementary and middle school, and I stopped for a while after seventh grade.

It's been too long since I've drawn a square on a sheet of paper and started telling a story in that panel.

So tonight, for old time's sake, I've picked up the pencil again and have started drawing panels for another (angsty) comic.

...

Everything I've done these past seven-or-so years.

All the little practices that I did with the intent to get better at something.

I'm starting to see it really pay off now that I'm trying *actual* projects again.

And all the studying too.

For a long time, I was afraid that I wasn't really absorbing any information when I researched concepts (like posing and character design) without immediately putting them to practice.

And the semi-passive research too.

Most of the media I've consumed has been through an analytical lens (which, that doesn't mean I didn't also enjoy what I was experiencing!). As I've grown older, I've become better at analyzing stories and cinematography and stuff like that, and breaking it down into what makes what work.

...

But enough about growth. This isn't about how much I've grown.

It's about where I've sort of paradoxically come from.

Listen. I could talk about my own development and personality for HOURS. There's so much nuance and stuff that I'm still trying to figure out.

But it's not narcissistic self-talk. I'm not trying to, like, make myself the center of attention 100% of the time all the time.

I'm just more fascinated by what I was. Honestly, I'd probably be fascinated by who a lot of people were.

...

Math used to be such a miniscule part of who I was.

I was more focused on Making Stuff.

Like, Any Stuff.

Business models for lemonade stands.

Presentations on the history of board games.

Ideas for inventions and mobile apps.

And, of course, comics.

I'd stay up late at night, drawing comics on a clipboard under the light of a desk lamp that'd been clamped onto my bed.

...

God, I wish I were still that productive, hah.

...

And now here we are.

I make music, games, doodles, blog posts, and, well, math stuff too.

...

I guess I was kind of always a "smart kid" in that regard.

But I don't think that meant I was supposed to go into STEM or stuff like that.

...

I don't know. It's probably just better for me to make the things I like to do solely as passion projects.

...

Yeah. I think I'll leave it at that for now.

TLDR: I've re-realized my passion for making comics, but it's also evoked some confusion in me.

And I guess my internship also starts tomorrow.

Yippie.

All I can hope is that they make me do more programming this year.

Because I love programming and math.

[dashawfrostart]

This Week In "Time & Again" #3: Gettin' Technical... Again?! And A Little Cynical

Hello again! I must admit... My weekly blog posting schedule has slightly shifted - first, because I posted the Halloween poster a.k.a. The First Teaser a bit later due to the creepy holiday itself, and second - because a bunch of life stuff is happening (yup, don't underestimate me, I do have a life outside artworks! 🤣). Usually everything has been fairly straightforward and gradual in my life, but there's a bit of certain activity going on in it right now, more than usual. And potentially also non-artistic side projects in my life. Because of that, I didn't get a chance to draw as much as I anticipated to during this week (already last week?! wowie!!!.. time flies, indeed!). But nevertheless, I tried my very best to go ahead with "Time & Again", for this is a project of the greatest importance to me. Slower or faster it's reaching its "well done" state - it doesn't matter. As you know, I'm not big on time limits 😁 At this point of time, the product is still very undercooked, so I'll be cooking it until done (even though I absolutely can't stand it when the packages say "cook until done"... because would you PLEASE be more vague?🤣).

To my surprise, I do not have an awful lot to say today. One might even say I'm ruining the format, for the previous posts I made had quite a (relatively) high word count. That said though - and some people close to me know this very well - every time I say I don't have much to say I end up writing twice or thrice as normal. Which leads us to conclusion that, perhaps, I actually do have things to say?!.. Either way, I'm sure you're not yet tired of me rumbling on and on about strange things that only some people - primarily digital artists - understand... Namely my habits of work. I am sure quite methodical in the way I draw, perhaps oddly. So I'll continue being technical for a while, until I run out of techy topics to talk about. And when I do... then I'll just spam more pictures 😁

However... A small demonstration of progress would be good for a wee little "teaser" of sorts:

(Note the layer names. I often make typos when I rename the layers - and I just don't bother and leave them as is, because it doesn't really matter. Pains me as a languages and grammar nerd, of course, but also entertains me a bit 🤣 Also, the cigarette smoke has been drawn on a separate layer as well, and it humorously states how I feel about this particular habit of this charming dirtymouth individual. Eeeew, Lothar. Not cool.) I do not always do that, but sometimes I start off drawing the outlines of the characters' bodies and end up "wrapping" clothes around them afterwards, like on the screenshots above. I think the reason why I completed the work on Chapter 3 so unbelievably fast last year was due to the fact that on majority of the frames Lothar appeared topless... Because I've noticed that when the characters don't have much clothes on them, it takes significantly less time to draw them. But of course!.. In this case you don't have to draw every single fold and wrinkle on shirts and skirts, extra seams on jeans, or additional stylish detail on any piece of garment that looks far too plain without it... Drawing characters naked - or half-naked - sure saves an artist a TREMENDOUS amount of time and effort. ... I suspect this is also the reason why in a lot of modern comics and mangas - and animated shows, too - the artists tend to include a lot of nudity in their projects... Why yes, isn't it obvious?! Because who, pray tell, wants to spend extra hours drawing all the clothes anyway?! Come on, clothes are overrated! I'm sure of it now.

... That was plenty enough of cynicism and sarcasm for a single post, I guess. Alas! I'm rumbling, again! That was not planned by me! So let's move on to the main part of this post now! Finally, on to the techy stuff, as promised! Yum! 🤤

First of all, I would like to mention a very important change in the way I work on my graphic novel now. One fine day, not long ago, I have discovered something... that turned my digital artist's world upside down. And the name of the phenomena that shattered my whole life was... Krita's weighted smoothing for the brush. (ok, ok... that sounded very exaggerated and pompous. But oh well!)

The screenshot on the left shows the brush settings I used all the time prior to Chapter 5. I used amazing Krita's Stabilizer smoothing, because I found it quite useful back in the day as I only started to use my Huion graphic monitor. I was so fascinated with it... It truly felt magical after a few years of using "a blind", screenless Wacom drawing tablet (which I will never ever go back to, for, to be honest, I have no idea how I was able to draw anything 🤣... tried using it a couple years ago just to see the difference, and I ended up exclaiming, "How in the ❤❤❤❤ do you even draw on this thing?!", and I set it aside for good... to collect real thicc layers of dust on the shelf 🤣). The right screenshot depicts the current settings I use for the weighted smoothing. Those are the Krita defaults.

An unskilled eye would probably not even notice any remarkable difference between the two as they watch somebody drawing in real time - or if they compare my older works versus the very latest ones. I must admit, the difference is sure very subtle. But to me, there's enough of a difference in how it FEELS when I'm drawing. The lines turn out better overall, somehow it makes me feel as if I'm drawing on paper rather than on a slippery screen. I could say, to me weighted smoothing imitates pencil drawing on paper very well. Which ultimately means... it's easier to draw in general. Thus, the digital artworks look more like my regular artworks on paper. It makes me happy that I can just be me when I'm drawing on both paper and on the graphic monitor. Back in the day, I was very worried about how switching to digital format was gonna impact my peculiar art style. Turns out it hardly does. ... Not that drawing on a graphic monitor has ever been challenging to me, for I learnt pretty fast, and yet, at times something felt a little off. So right now, I ponder, there's gonna be much less "off" and much more "awesome". Which is indeed lovely.

Now I question myself on why I've never used this brush smoothing before, for I truly think it would've made the process of work much faster and the final result a tad nicer. This proves that one needs a perspective, a few types of materials to compare before springing to any sort of conclusions. Seems like back in the day weighted smoothing simply didn't get enough attention and any sufficient "test drive" from me. But I am very happy I discovered this wonderful thing now. And I'm gonna stick to it - quite possibly forever from now on, as I will keep working on the rest of "Time & Again" chapters as well as everything else including random little arts with the other characters that I love to sporadically work on every so often, and the pieces for my online greeting cards store, and such.

... Like I already mentioned in the beginning of this post, as I write - I might get seriously carried away. And I see this post keeps growing bigger and bigger in size, again, so I should better wrap it up and save a little more exciting information for the next post (that I will hopefully try to schedule properly in order to restore more or less consistent posting timeframe, for now it's aaaaaall over the place!.. no promises tho).

I'm afraid, no animated gifs today. But for a nice goodbye, I'll drop a little "teaser" picture - a very rough sketch for some other "Time & Again" artwork that I'm going to finish up shortly (hopefully).

You will most likely see the end result of this particular artistic torment as a layout element on my social pages.

And for now - doooooodly doot doot! - I wave goodbye and leave the online world for a while to keep working on my obsession... and to eat some peanut butter, too, of course. See ya next time! 👋

[therobotmonster]

Okay, that post had thousands of notes and you didn't link to the actual evidence, so I had to go digging:

So, what we've got here is this background:

From their next game which is apparently hollow-knight-esq, and its being said that it's swiped from this:

It's an underground ice cave with generic "tribal" banners.

I mean, they probably took inspiration, the game is a Hollow-Knight alike, after all. At most you could call it an homage. But plagiarism? I don't think it comes within arm's reach of that, not without more points of connection.

I've personally busted on them for not making their designs very distinct, but here's the deal, any time there's an IP lawsuit, more than just the case in question is at state. Precedent is at stake. And that precedent rarely shakes out in favor of the average artist.

If stuff with this level of similarity gets determined to be infringement, lots of homage and parody is suddenly on the chopping block, and a lot of fair use too.

Expys are a long-standing tradition, and because of the inherent stupidity of "Pokemon with guns", they have a strong argument for the intent to parody.

But lets talk about the fakemon situations.

Here we've got Arsox and Flairees, a fakemon from Pokémon Sage.

So we've got fire-ungulates, a wooly ram and what appears to be a goat. A similar critter with a similar element is not enough to draw a connection, nor is a color shcheme, as russet-brown, cream, and orange is a basic fire colorscheme.

The two animals have entirely different distinctive features. Arsox leans heavy on the wool-as-fire thing, and has huge horns. Flairees has a lot of actual fur, and it's distinctive traits are the helmet and the fire mane and tail. Similar foreheads, but again, they might have seen this, they might have come up with it entirely independently.

If I have 20 fan artists the job of doing a fire type sheep or goat pokemon, I bet I'd get at least 2 or 3 that would be similar enough to either of these to raise an eyebrow.

pyroaura98's Mega Delphox is pretty eyebrow raising, at first. But I'm not super into pokemon, don't know much past gen 3, so I looked up actual Delphox.

So.

Delphox is a girl fox with a design that evokes a witch (baggy sleeves, 'skirt', magic wand, the ear-flames are kinda like flowing hair).

I mean, it is possible someone at that japanese game studio saw that particular piece of Mega Delphox art and either intentionally swiped it or did so subconsciously.

None of us were in the room. But it's also entirely possible that two different artists were looking to do a spin on Delphox, one intending to make a Mega form, the other looking to file off serial numbers while keeping it an expy, and came to the same very obvious decisions:

Swap the colors around. Intensify the saturation. Witch her up.

There's only so many ways to make her witchier, and one of those is a giant hat.

However, one of the previous accusations of ripoffery, a fakemon by Pupeh on Twitter/X, and Hangyu, was similarly damning... until it was shown that Hangyu was in a trailer 2 years ago, and Pupeh made theirs in the last year.

Thing is, the process of creativity to create a transformative idea is the exact same one that makes "original" ideas. Both are only slightly divorced from the process of plagiarism. New ideas are the novel assemblage of old ones filtered through our perspective and experience.

If the idea is insufficiently novel compared to the one it's drawn from, it's plagiarism, if it's sufficiently novel we call it transformative, and the less we're aware of the influence, the more original we consider it. And the thing is, we associate certain ideas with each other, and those associations form webs and chains. If you've got two people with similar interests and similar tastes working on similar ideas, they're going to follow similar paths of association.

DC's Swamp Thing and Man-Thing never became a point of legal contention because they were both riffing on the Heap. A whole lot of the franchises you know and love have just as naked lifts as what Palworld's got going.

I'm not here to defend Palworld. I think they flew too close to the sun in several areas. I'm just very concerned that this is not very strong evidence of actual plagiarism, and if that's where the line is, a whole lot of parody, fair use, and homage is on the chopping block.

You don't want the level of protectable concept to be as simple as "fire sheep/goat"

Also, semi-related, why do people keep making pokemon fan games?

You know they're going to get shut down the second Nintendo or the Pokemon company hears about it. Your hard work and loving tribute to their franchise will be turned into lost media because you dared to try and give them free advertising.

Because Nintendo hates the idea of fanworks, and they don't seem to keen on fans in general. They made a guy a debtor for essentially life for selling DRM workarounds (EDIT, see below), they will kill youtube channels for playing hacks of their games, they won't take your tribute in the spirit it is offered.

You should be serial-number-filing your mon, Zelda, mario, and Metroid-likes from day one. It will give you a chance to actually build on your work and let your work survive for longer.

Edit: See, sometimes I have to make a point about fact checking by accidentally misremembering what Nintendo did to Gary Bowser, it's "just" a lifelong debt, not a lifelong prison sentence.

Alright, guess this toy's gonna talk about Palworld, because it's seen Discourse™️ start to crop up about how "supporting the game is immoral because it's stealing designs from Pokemon!"

Now look, this toy's not about to sit here and tell you that all of the monster designs in Palworld are completely original and the game isn't, on some level, a bootleg. Obviously a lot of the designs are bootleg pokemon. That's not the point it wants to get at. The point is that it doesn't really matter.

First of all, nobody is being hurt by Palworld having knockoff pokemon among the ranks of its monsters. Game Freak is not some tiny indie developer struggling to make ends meet having their work unfairly co-opted by a big, bad corporation. Pokemon is, in fact, the largest, most profitable media franchise of all time, and Palworld is an indie game. The reason that something like this would hypothetically be scummy/shitty is if someone were taking someone else's work, changing it slightly, claiming it as their own, and thus depriving the original creator of credit/visibility that they should've had. But that literally can't happen here, because everyone already knows what Pokemon is. So unless it gets found that they're stealing designs from fakemon artists or something (there was one alleged instance, but it seems to have just been a coincidence of two different people having the idea of "what if Chimecho but with big, bulky arms?"), Palworld is hurting nobody through having bootleg designs, so the moral argument against the game falls flat.

With that out of the way, there's a much more interesting topic to discuss here: Why is it that when someone's fangame gets C&D'd, everyone immediately jumps to the creator's support, accurately assessing that our copyright system is broken and primarily serves to hurt independent artists, but the moment a developer makes the changes necessary to make sure their fangame doesn't get hit with a C&D (and to allow them to make money off of it), it's suddenly bad and cringe and unoriginal?

The argument that "Palworld is lazy and unoriginal and therefore bad because the monster designs are too similar to Pokemon's designs" is something that this toy would be willing to hear out if Palworld were a turn-based singles-format RPG with similar systems/overall structure to those found in Pokemon games, but, uh. It isn't. It's a third-person shooter with monster-catching mechanics and, like, Factorio-ass automation and base-building, from what this toy can tell. And it doesn't know if the game is good, as someone who has not played it (or even really seen gameplay of it), but it can absolutely tell you that the game's not lazy.

Sure, they could have done more to make the monster designs feel more unique, and that's absolutely a valid criticism for the game. This toy doesn't want to come across like it's saying otherwise. It just wants people to recognize that that's kind of a nitpick when the game is, on a mechanical and genre level, something completely different from anything any Pokemon game ever has been or ever will be, and that nobody would be complaining about laziness or a lack of originality if this came out as a fangame literally just using actual pokemon. In that reality, people would've been popping off at how high-effort it is, actually. And like, even putting money aside, this game literally could not exist as a fangame. A while back, someone uploaded some videos on Youtube showcasing a fangame they were developing that was an FPS where the enemies were pokemon. They got hit with a C&D and their Youtube account was terminated within a couple days of the videos being uploaded. The game was not monetized, and in fact, never even had a download link, to this toy's recollection. Palworld would have suffered the same exact fate if it wasn't its own IP.