#which means coming up with a pose or scene to draw them in is very hard

[mayordea]

hibiki koto is pretty so i drew her and thats it

[epiicaricacy-arts]

without the sour the sweet wouldn’t taste

why are you as a man eating another man’s ear after you failed to make him eat his ex girlfriend. 🤨🏳️‍🌈⁉️

im allowed a bit of toxic yaoi. as a treat

process discussion utc ⬇️

for those familiar with my work you’ll know that i like trying a lot of new styles and experimenting in order to achieve a certain vibe. usually those are heavy painterly styles such as the sunday art inspired by Yuming Li, which is what i’m familiar and comfortable with, both traditionally and digitally

what im NOT familiar with is watercolour. i’ve never had a good time with it 🥲 i just cant seem to wrap my head around the process since its requires me to work backwards (light to dark vs dark to light)

for this piece i just couldn’t imagine myself rendering it in my usual style. i needed to do something new so that i’d stay invested enough in the piece considering that it has two people, meaning double the work. for some reason i thought it’d be fun to do double the work with a style i am completely uncomfortable with but oh well!! i managed to do it 🤷‍♀️ i was specifically looking at the works of Ko Byung Jun, an artist i’ve seen all over my pinterest feed

while i didn’t end up really following the style super closely i still learned quite a lot just by looking at it while i drew. i tried my best to stick to watercolour brushes and an ink pen but as i was nearing the end i needed to make some alterations that i wasn’t bothered to try fixing with the watercolour brushes so i just went over it with my digital ones 🫡 i did my best that’s what matters!!!

i had to repaint rody a few times cause i just couldn’t get it right and the colours never ended up matching vincent. i painted them separately and i think i got possessed while painting vincent cause it happened in like. 40 minutes. and i couldn’t get it to happen again 😔 it didn’t really matter cause i ended up going ham with the curves tool as always but you know 🤷‍♀️

here’s the image without all the effects:

i find lately it’s been more and more common for me to be sketching several iterations of a concept for days, even weeks before i land on something i like. i have an entire separate canvas that i’ve spent 5 hours just doing thumbnails trying to figure out how i wanted to pose these two in a way that would showcase the characteristics that mattered in the story of this piece.

that’s my process for coming up with drawings: i find inspiration somewhere, i figure out the key concepts/characteristics/symbols etc i want highlighted, and i work around those. sometimes i have a composition in mind or just a general vibe i want to portray. for this one i wanted to make sure the towel, rody’s injured finger and vincent’s face could all be clearly seen, while also portraying the fight scene and the vibe i get from the reference song. almost all of my work revolves around a specific lyric from the song which drives the story of the piece. here i interpreted the line “without the sour the sweet wouldn’t taste” as a connection to all the little actions vince takes with rody that can be seen as “sweet.” drying rody’s hair, bandaging rody’s cut. i then asked myself how i could take those actions and make them “sour” or show them in a different light, in which vince is biting the finger he bandaged and pulling rody closer, preventing his escape with the towel he used to dry his hair. what im trying to communicate in this illustration is the idea of “if it weren’t for how i’m treating you now, you wouldn’t understand how kind i was to you then” in an attempt to illustrate the complexities of the way vincent acts towards rody.

i’m truly in love with the story telling of this game. it’s hard to really say anything about how the characters acted during the story because it’s so complex in how it’s done. it’s very hard to summarize their relationship because there’s so much about it i can’t explain without just quoting the game directly. i think it’s such a beautiful portrayal of obsession and just being fucking weird about someone. i wanted to ensure the elements i mentioned in the above paragraph because i didn’t want to be portraying vincent as solely a villain and rody as a victim. i wanted the storytelling of this one illustration to live up to my impression of this beautiful game and i hope i did it justice.

thank you for reading this if you’ve made it this far. i love rambling on all my art posts cause i think it’s so valuable for artists to expand on their work outside of the result alone. i hope what im saying is at most helpful to someone and at the very least a good read. i’m probably gonna take a bit of an art break after this since it took a lot out of me, plus im on the last days of my trip. thank you again for reading!

here’s my dog

[dreamerwriternstargazer]

So Oct 3rd is coming up :D spoilers for Oct 3rd below

As I was lying in bed debating whether to get up I realised I very badly want to make a piece for Oct 3rd, I’ve wanted to for ages but I’ve been hesitant and unsure

1. It means so so much to me, I want to do the scene justice

2. There’s just so much to do for that one scene you know? So many different ways to portray it I have loads and no ideas all at once

3. I don’t draw faces so portraying the anguish of the scene is a challenge, a welcome challenge! But a challenge nonetheless

So first, debate on what aspect I want to present, what is my focus. Of course I want to depict Mina’s anguish and pain, I think there’s not very many artworks that have her at the centre of the scene, it’s her and Jonathan. But I also want to do that too!! I want to show the comfort and support she has

Depending on whether I focus purely on Mina, or Jonmina together, want to be able to portray it so that in looking at the piece you feel a scream in your chest and can almost hear hers.

But can that be done in combining the ideas, having Jonathan present in a painting that has her anguish at the focus?

One of my friends suggested a wonderful idea to get around the issue of the face, *illustrate the scene through her reflection on a cracked mirror*

Which I think is stunning especially because oooh the mirror crack’d references there could be (though it’s a long time since I read that poem I’d better reread it and see if it’s relevant)

Also vampires, mirrors, the fact she’s obscured suggests her impending transformation

Also “foul bauble of man’s vanity” reference, nice visual parallel with Jonathan and losing his mirror.

The options as it stands:

1. Mina alone and reflected in the mirror, a piece highlighting her pain and fear and anguish as a victim and allegory for SA

2. Mina in the same pose, kneeling, blood spattered, shattered mirror reflection, but with Jonathan holding her tight from behind. I like this idea very much but how does it influence the message and idea? It must be said though she’s a victim she’s not *alone* in her victimhood, on two counts. Jonathan has suffered at the hands of the Count too, albeit to a different degree and it was because she didn’t want him to be hurt again that she didn’t scream out during the assault, and also even if he hadn’t been through it, he would still not let her feel alone. None of them do, none of them for even a second blame her.

3. Make a separate piece of Jonmina as well as the Mina alone piece

This option I’m considering because I can’t decide whether it would be better to have them in separate pieces or not. I like the idea of keeping Jonathan in the main one about Mina, but is that messy, does that detract from the pain and fear I want to portray? It’s supposed to be her perception

Or does it make it better and more complex, I can portray the actual scene, he is holding her she is not alone, but the mirror sort of represents her skewed perspective, so we have both pain and hope, loneliness and companionship in one

If it were two different pieces though then I feel like separate, the message for both only heightens. To combine I worry muddies them both, I don’t do justice to either the significance of his comfort or her pain. Which is why I could do a separate piece of him holding her after the others leave, lying down on the bed, alongside the first one of her reflected in the mirror.

(I feel like I would then need a third piece to make a triptych and complete a series but that’s a whole other discussion~)

Anyway, fellow Dracula/artist/both fans advise!! What to do what to do…

[jbuffyangel]

Hot and Cold: Arrow 1x22 Review (Darkness of the Edge of Town)

There is no episode that exemplifies the disjointed nature of Season 1 more than “Darkness on the Edge of Town.”  We have Exhibit A: an OTA field op and the smoaking hot chemistry of Stephen Amell and Emily Bett Rickards igniting in an elevator shaft of all places.

And Exhibit B: the other show. A frigid black hole I feared we’d never escape from.

Let’s dig in…

Olicity and OTA

Let’s start with the positive since there is soooooo much freaking positive! It can take time for a television series to find its footing in the first season.  Unfortunately, nowadays if the audience isn’t binging the entire season in 24 hours, the show gets canceled. But blessedly, this was 2013. Network TV was still the supreme ruler, and Arrow was pulling big enough numbers for the CW to allow for some leeway.

Twenty two episodes of leeway. Arrow finally found its groove and latched on to the mystical “it factor” that keeps an audience watching - Oliver, Felicity and Diggle. The chemistry and dynamic between these characters and the actors who play them is undeniable and it creates an action packed, laughing out loud, and sizzling hot episode. The writers are having FUN in “Darkness on the Edge of Town" and it shows, which means we get to have fun too.

Oliver decides to question his mother regarding the Undertaking, but she refuses to confess. So, Oliver and Diggle take a more brutal approach. The Hood kidnaps them both and beats the crap out of Oliver until she coughs up the information. It’s always hilarious when this show acts like David Ramsey can fit in Stephen Amell’s suit.

The burgeoning relationship between Oliver and Felicity is very much in its infancy. Oliver is fully in denial about feeling any type of way toward his IT girl. Never is that more apparent then when Oliver and Diggle return from the confrontation with Moira. Diggle gets a few solid whacks in, which I’m sure felt amazing given the absolute jackass Oliver was being the past few episodes.

Felicity has a much harder time concealing her feelings towards Oliver and it’s clear she worries about him. She is always the first to ask if he’s okay, offer a supportive ear to listen or shoulder to cry on. However, Oliver seems to draw a line in this episode when Felicity reaches to touch the bruise on his face. That small step was too much. He physically keeps her at arm’s length because the intimacy of Felicity’s concerned touch is not something Oliver is ready for. There is still a very big wall hiding all that pain, regret and unworthiness.

Source: @lyricalarrow

Admitting he remembers the exact day they met, however, is absolutely no problem. We shall come to discover just how much Oliver remembers about that day in later seasons. I have a lot of male friends and I guarantee you I don’t remember the day we met. However, the day I met my husband is burned into my memory.

The team determines the only way to stop Merlyn from leveling the Glades with a man-made earthquake machine is to find the location of the device. Unfortunately, Felicity is unable to hack Merlyn’s system so she needs direct access to his mainframe inside Merlyn Global Headquarters. LET'S DO CRIMES!

Oliver makes an appointment with Tommy (more on that later) while Felicity continues to up her adorability factor by dressing up as Big Belly Burger employee delivering lunch to a security guard otherwise known as John Diggle.

The burger is laced with benzodiazepine, so it knocks out the other security guard and gives John free reign to control the elevator & cameras. Do we know how Diggle is able to pose as a security guard? No. Do we care? Nope. Let the hijinks commence!

Oliver and Felicity make their way to the elevator, but not until Oliver unloads an unwelcomed dudebro hitting on Felicity.

Jealousy looks so good on him. The way Stephen Amell plays this scene, with his nails-on-a-chalkboard look at the word “sweetie” to robotically knocking the papers out of the elevator, is physical comedy at its best. Something Amell rarely gets to do, but he’s great at it.  

The mainframe is on the twenty fifth floor, but the elevator only goes up to the nineteenth, so Oliver and Felicity have some climbing to do. It seems Felicity is thinking of a certain kind of climbing as well and really who can blame her?

Source: @lyricalarrow

Oliver lifts her WITH ONE ARM out of the elevator, which is so freaking hot I cannot.

Then, very gently, bends down to wrap his arm around Felicity’s waist and loop her arm around his neck. Oliver is moving with the precision of a jungle cat, but it also feels like an incredibly elaborate way to grab hold of someone. It has a very superhero sweep-her-into-my-arms sensuality to it. The mission is giving Oliver plenty of reasons to touch Felicity and he doesn’t seem unhappy about it, particularly when he softly tells her, "Hold onto me tight."

Is it warm in here? Holy Moses, Oliver Queen. Get control. This man is a god to women, so he clearly understands the connotations of, ��Hold onto me tight.” There’s a thousand different ways to say that platonically, but nope! Oliver charges headlong into the blinking neon lights of SEXUAL INNNUENDO.

Felicity’s Freudian slip didn’t feel so Freudian either. She knew exactly what she was saying and leveled her full meaning in a single look. I thought the elevator was going to combust from all the heat. If you are looking for the text book definition of undressing someone with your eyes than look no further than these two. They way they hold the gaze. WOW. Can we have all the nakedness now?!!! It’s a sin against science for Oliver and Felicity not to bang regularly BECAUSE THE CHEMISTRY.

THIS IS NOT THE BEHAVIOR OF A MAN MADLY IN LOVE WITH LAUREL LANCE.

This scene has the classic Superman and Lois Lane feel to it.

Source: @olicitygifs

Oliver is doing his vigilante thing, but his partner in crime isn’t the leading lady of Arrow. It’s a supporting character who’s feeling less and less supporting with each episode.

Unfortunately, Felicity is about to be discovered while Oliver is held up by Malcolm Merlyn, Thea and Roy Harper. This is a very popular day to visit Merlyn Global. Oliver’s frustration under his cool and calm exterior builds the tension nicely and we do wonder how Felicity is getting out of this jam. Never fear! It’s John Diggle to the rescue. Top notch comedy from both Rickards and Ramsey.

Source: @olicitygifs

Their first official team mission outside of the bunker is a wild success. Felicity still has to search through all of Merlyn’s data to determine the location of the device. Despite all the heat, hilarity and hijinks on this side of the show, Oliver makes an abrupt decision regarding the other side of the show that makes absolutely no sense.

Lauriver and Merlance

Still feeling warm friends? Well don’t worry. I have a nice bucket of ice cold water to dump on you.

As predicted, Oliver’s love confession messes with Laurel’s mind and obliterates any clear path back to Tommy. He drops this bomb on her and they have not spoken for a WEEK. Of course, this is all Laurel has thought about and she makes a rather elaborate speech admitting she has feelings for Oliver too.

Yeah, none of this is a surprise. Tommy knew Laurel had feelings for Oliver. We knew Laurel had feelings for Oliver. Hell, even Oliver knew. The only one who wasn’t admitting it was Laurel, so at least she’s finally being honest about things. You don’t get a love triangle if the central figure in the love triangle doesn’t have feelings for two people. The issue is who does Laurel love MORE.

Laurel: Maybe Tommy was right. Maybe he and I weren’t meant to be.

She had a clear answer last week. It was Tommy. She absolutely wanted to get back together with him, but Oliver decided honesty was the best policy on this one subject only. This line enrages me because Oliver has distracted Laurel from the man she is truly meant to be with. I will die on this hill, friends. DIE. ON. THIS. MERLANCE. HILL.

Laurel: Tommy’s a good guy. Are you?

Oliver: I didn’t have an agenda. I didn’t mean to make it more difficult to fix things with Tommy.

Oh for fucks sake. Yes, you did Oliver. That’s exactly why you said it. This is just a straight up lie. Oliver absolutely wanted to confuse Laurel. He just doesn’t want to look like the bad guy for doing it. This is some A+ Ollie behavior.

After Laurel makes a wonderfully impassioned and heartfelt speech about her feelings for Oliver, after probably obsessing about it for seven days straight, Oliver dumps her. AGAIN.

Oliver: Nothing’s changed. My life hasn’t changed. I haven’t changed.

I am infuriated on Laurel’s behalf with this flip flopping back and forth. The time to make this speech was last week in the hospital hallway. That was the moment to let her go and put Laurel on the plane with the man she belongs with, but Oliver couldn’t do it because it was too damn hard. It was just cruel and horribly unfair to both Tommy and Laurel because Oliver has absolutely no intention of being with her. But now it’s too late. The information is out there. You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube, my dude.

Laurel pays her father a visit to basically get his permission to date Oliver again. Yeah, let’s make the man who lost his daughter to Oliver’s selfishness sign off on banging his other daughter again. This show.

Quentin’s speech is equally as empty as any speech Laurel’s made about seeing the change in Oliver because we, the audience, have not been privy to those moments. We’re just supposed to take their word for it even though the last time Quentin saw Oliver Queen he was trying to arrest him for drug trafficking. But sure, Quentin thinks he’s “changed.”

In order to make this storyline work, you have to give proper attention to the Lance family interacting with Oliver and the writers do not seem interested in doing that. All the important emotional growth takes place off screen and we’re supposed to accept it as fact because the characters tell us.

Meanwhile, they are organically growing the relationship Oliver has with Diggle, Felicity, hell even Roy! So we know the writers are capable of SHOWING these moments of character evolution. They just choose not to when it comes to the Lance family. It’s why the show feels so completely disjointed.

Oliver pays Tommy a visit and wants to have a chat.

Source: @queensarrow

So it's safe to say Tommy is still pissed.

Oliver encourages him to work things out with Laurel – kind of?

Oliver: Lord knows, I am guilty of a lot of things between us, but not you are her.

What’s infuriating about this conversation is that Oliver still refuses to accept any kind of responsibility in their break up. Oliver pretends to be a friend to the all feminists and touts Laurel’s independence and free will. She makes her own choices and she chose Tommy.

Tommy’s point is clear, even if it is self pitying; Laurel is not dealing with all the information. If she did have all the information then she would choose Oliver. From Oliver’s standpoint, it doesn’t matter because he can’t be with her.

That’s not reassuring to Tommy nor is it supposed to be. If the elements keeping Oliver and Laurel apart were removed (the Hood) then Oliver wouldn’t think twice about making a move on Laurel. And Tommy knows this. These are not the actions of a best friend, which is why he’s so pissed.

Now, Tommy’s big mistake was throwing in the towel too early. He should have NEVER given Oliver an opening with Laurel, but he did and it set them on this path. No we have to watch it play out.

Oliver: I promised myself that when I crossed all of these names off the list, I’d be done, but taking down these people, it doesn’t honor him. I was just treating the symptoms while the disease festered. I stop the Undertaking… I wipe out the disease.

Diggle: What are you saying Oliver? You would hang up the Hood?

Oliver: Merlyn’s plan is what I returned from the island to stop.

Does anyone else have whiplash? Oliver does a complete about face and determines he can be with Laurel since he only needs to cross one name off the list instead of dozens. He’s just missing one step, gee what could it be? Oh! I know. OLIVER STILL HAS TO CROSS MERLYN’S NAME OFF THE LIST AND STOP THE UNDERTAKING. Talk about counting your chickens before their hatched.

A hero’s journey is a very specific type of story. Joseph Campbell outline seventeen stages in 1949 and Christopher Vogler created an updated version in 2007 for screenwriting. I’m not going through all seventeen steps, but we can skip to the very last one regarding this storyline.

Freedom to Live/Return with the Elixir – meaning the hero has faced their internal and external struggles, has conquered the demons around them and earned the right to live as they choose. From a spiritual sense, the hero lives without fear of death.

It��s similar with Vogler’s elixir stage. From a community perspective, the hero has found the magical way to heal their wounded land. They are bringing hope, life and freedom back to their loved ones. In doing so, it gives the hero a personal victory. They’ve earned the right to experience peace and joy, which can be represented in a wide variety of narratives.

Oliver is hero. Arrow has made his endgame very clear - save Starling City. Has he saved the city? Has he stopped Malcolm Merlyn? NO. So why is his leather clad ass running all the way back to Laurel Lance to enjoy the fruits an elixir he has yet to procure? If Laurel is endgame, this makes absolutely no sense. This is too fast. It’s too abrupt. It doesn’t feel earned because it hasn’t been earned.

Clearly, the initial plan was to put Oliver (Green Arrow) and Laurel (Black Canary) on parallel, if not intersecting, paths. I’m not saying Oliver cannot be with Laurel as they evolve into superheroes together. But this is the first freaking season you guys! He hasn’t done a damn thing yet! Neither has she. And yet, here Oliver is, knocking on Laurel’s door, looking for some fruit.

Oliver: Ever since I’ve been back, we’ve been doing this dance. We come together and then I pull away.  Something pulls me away, but I think finally that something might be over.

Laurel: What are you are trying saying?

Oliver: That you know me better than anyone. And that you are more important to me than anyone. I just hope I didn’t wait too long to say it.

If Laurel has no clue Oliver is the Hood then can he really claim she knows him best? It sounds good to say, and probably what Laurel is dying to hear, but it rings hollow because there’s no evidence of this anywhere on the show. Laurel was wrong about who Oliver is all season. We are just supposed to accept some verbal acknowledgment of change, that she knows him better than anyone, but without any television scenes to back it up. That’s not how storytelling works, Arrow writers.

Sorry to beat a dead horse, but I warned you I wasn’t done with this topic - Oliver is still lying to Laurel. There should be more talking. What are those things pulling you away, Oliver? Why are they over? Are you a hooded, crime fighting, serial killer who has been mysteriously stalking me all year? Those are just some ideas off the top of my head. There is no person on this planet that Oliver needs an honest conversation with more than Laurel Lance, but nope. They jump straight to sex.  

Let’s talk about the sex. This has been built up all season. These two characters belong together. They are bulldozing over Tommy Merlyn to be together because they are this passionate romance that time cannot quell. It should be like the fourth of July in Laurel’s apartment right now.

Source: laurelscanary

Instead, of heat we get frigid. Fish have hotter sex.

I’m willing to acknowledge "Radioactive" was the hit song of 2013 and every show on the CW was using it. It has a very sexy beat and big crescendo. It sounds like a good song to use during a sex scene.

Except for the fact that it’s called RADIOACTIVE with lyrics like, “This is it, the apocalypse.” This is not the romance your Plan A couple usually requires in a scene like this. They had Blake Neely for a composer. Where’s Oliver and Laurel’s love theme? We'll probably get it in the season finale but anything would be better than "Radioactive."

Source: laurelscanary

Next issue. Black socks and jean shorts?  Wardrobe – what were you thinking? Nobody felt the need to tell Katie to take off the sox? Details matter!!

Source: laurelscanary

Stephen Amell and Katie Cassidy kissing are like watching two pieces of flat cardboard trying to hump each other. Can they choose a direction? Are we biting or no biting? Are we using tongue or no tongue? Can Oliver unbutton his shirt or does Laurel need to help? Is Oliver going to drop Laurel while trying to get her sweatshirt off? It was just so awkward from start to finish. ZERO SPARKS.

Source: habibialkaysani

And for the coup de grace, they leave the curtains pulled wide open, so Tommy can see them screwing from the street. The look of utter devastation on his face is heartbreaking and that’s the final image they leave us with as their love scene fades to black. Oliver and Laurel reuniting are not framed as a good thing. It’s framed as a betrayal, because that’s exactly what it is.

Source: @queensarrow

Even worse, Felicity finds the device while Oliver and Laurel are asleep and HE LEAVES. No note. No, honey I have to run out and save the city real quick, but I’ll be back for round two later. Nothing. But please, tell me again how much Ollie has changed.

When I watched this episode live I was horribly disappointed the big reunion with Laurel and Oliver fell flat. This was really my last gasp trying to be a Lauriver shipper. And I use the term “trying” loosely. I was more or less looking for any redeeming qualities in this love story, but after this hypothermic love scene I was officially out. I could not ship these two. I could never forgive them for betraying Tommy. But I feared Arrow would never move on from Oliver and Laurel.  

Of course, their real intention becomes all too clear later. Arrow was trying to blow them up to make way for something infinitely better.

 Theroy

Speaking of flipping back and forth, these two break up every other week. Roy is clearly committed to finding the Vigilante, which leads them to Merlyn Global and a run in with Oliver, the disapproving older brother. Again, Stephen Amell’s acting is superb.

I loved the way he said “What” to Thea and the firm alpha male handshake he gives Roy, warning him to stay away.

Obviously, Roy accomplished his goal. He found the Vigilante. Roy just doesn’t know it. He thinks Oliver Queen is too much of a wimp to ever consider him as the man in the hood. Thea was good and ticked off with that “wimp” remark. Enough to dump Roy. She will not tolerate any slander of her brother. #QUEENSIBILINGSFOREVER

But this is like the fifth time these two broke up, so it’s losing the impact. This isn’t all about the Hood’s identity and thanking him for saving Roy’s life. He wants to BE the Hood, so Roy can protect the people he loves and never lose anyone again. The question is – who did Roy lose? Unfortunately, Thea storms out before we get an answer, but hopefully one is coming in the season finale. (No I do not remember who).

Long story short, yes I like these two, but the faster the Arrow writers move the characters into the Hood storyline the better. Otherwise they are just marooned on their own show like Laurel Lance Island.

Stray Thoughts

Yao Fei died! It’s so sad and traumatic. I forgot he’s shot in the head. Really didn’t need to see that twice.

Fyers is shooting down a commercial airliner to destabilize the Chinese economy. It’s always about money for these assholes.

Walter wants a divorce and I would say their differences are irreconcilable. Moira is getting what she deserves. You can’t kidnap your husband for six months and then offer him tea and crumpets when he comes home.

"Who the hell is Felicity Smoak?" Uh oh. Quentin has Felicity’s name. That ain’t good.

“Is the other archer working for Merlyn?” Please don’t make Diggle look this dumb again.

Merlyn versus Oliver battle was EPIC! The fight scenes this season are so stellar.

“Psychopaths are color coding themselves. That’s helpful.” HA!

Listen to the Watchover podcast reaction to 1x22!!!

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Disclaimer: Any gifs on the blog are not mine. If you would like a gif removed from my reviews, please message me!

[iztea]

How do you get the ideas for your backgrounds?

mmm ideas.... sometimes i draw the background directly from a photo reference (the happy case) so there's not a lot for me to change and i can have a rather peaceful painting process

othertimes, the BG is tied to the subject/concept/scene I'm thinking of, so it only makes sense that i have that as the background

for example, for this fem skk art, i knew i wanted to have chuu kneeling in a crater after destroying a city so drawing that background was just a logical follow-up because i already had the entire idea in mind

Here, I wanted to have Akiangel sit on a building, watching over the city. The ominous sign with "the day of salvation" and crow came later after I found this picture on Pinterest, so they helped further develop the concept, but the main idea was there and so on

The third background option happens when my painting doesn't depict a certain irl scene or landscape, nor do i have any particular references i can use. In that situation, I first and foremost think about the general composition, the shapes, how they flow with each other, how I can tie them to my main theme and what sort of symbolism or little easter eggs i can throw in there just to keep it fresh and interesting for the viewer ( aka the person reading this aha ;;) :-* )

For this piece, i started with a big circle for the background, and then I started breaking it up in pleasing, cloud-like shapes and swirls that constantly keep your eye moving around the picture (i mean hopefully lol). The composition was inspired by a) Dazai's Mayoi card ofc, that trad Eastern illustration style with the circle and then branches of trees, and also .. kazuha's splash art ok i admit it bshsj

for this one, the roses came much, much later. Again, I added that sort of golden arcade to better frame the focal point or the main subject of the scene which was ofc her face and/or outfit. Then, since it still felt rather empty, awkward, and directionless, I tried finding a pleasing, spiral line that would compliment the already existing shapes and that would, again, move your eye all around the composition. I figured since her outfit already had those small roses stuffed in her belt, those curvy lines could become some bloody, spikey roses and boom! here are the theme and elements for you: blacks-roses-blood-deadly-sharp-gold etc. I then had her crush some of those roses in her right (ik it's the left hand shut up) hand to balance out the busier left side

and a last example, sometimes I draw multiple character poses in one piece and they sort of become my background. Yet I still have some blank spaces left so i gotta figure out a way to fill them out. Here, since the pose where he's all curled up was inspired by the TDIPUD light novel, i drew him as a "corpse" in a pool of blood, and contrasted it with some nice flowery-ish patterns and swirls that sort of come from within that bloody mess ( someone also mentioned it looks like a womb which I found very interesting as well ). The cats also helped fill out the space. On the left side, i added that swirly black sun that drips into three squares that gradually fill up with straight blackness and raindrops falling below inspired by the "a conviction that the sun will never rise again" line. I don't think I should go into detail with the symbolism cause it's pretty obvious and not that deep so i won't but yeah, and that's my BG all filled up!

I do this with most of my BGs, it's mostly just abstract shapes; I'm very fixated on making the overall composition look okay and for the piece to send a message ( most of the time ), so i don't think of backgrounds as a separate entity, they are part of an already existing idea, generally speaking.

This kinda turned into a composition discussion midway......... sorry about that....... To be completely honest with you, I have plenty of BG ideas, they kinda just spawn in my brain so i'm not exactly lacking in that department. Having to draw them and finding refs is the hard part for me

[straycalamities]

so for some Reasons, the same reasons zombinoslayer is on indefinite hiatus, i have a question on like. Say there is a Truffula Flu-oriented plot, story. Y'know a narrative. Coming up, but the way it's being made is basically prose-based, how would you prefer to see that formatted onto a tumblr askblog/archive thing?

it does deal with two characters and two characters only (so far?)

rp-style is out of the question because of editing reblogs being killed

but...i have a few thoughts, but i'm not sure which one people would like to read and digest the most

for more clarity on what i mean with terms/styles: click under the readmore

when i say "prose-style" i mean it's written like a novel. it's 3rd-person limited and past tense.

The sun was baring down hard on Mikey's back as he trudged down the sidewalk. He drug his feet, pose hunched. Why did he have to run out of eggs on the hottest day of the year?

when i say "script-style" i mean that it's written how you would read the script for a show or a play. this is how i treated zombinoslayer's big scenes. it'd have progressive images for each action/dialogue, wherever i deemed an image needed/important

Mikey: [The sun is bright and harsh. He is walking down the sidewalk. He looks exhausted.] Why did I have to run out of eggs on the hottest day of the year?!

and when i say comic, well, that's obvious. i'd do my best to translate everything as well as i can into something that is heavily image and dialogue based that has comic frames and such.

pros and cons of all these being:

prose pros (lol): it keeps all of the character's inner feelings, struggles, and thoughts and even some motives out and easier to see, which with these scenes and with how these characters are, might be important or even very enlightening for people i also don't have to draw as much because i would only be illustrating significant parts and to make the posts look more appealing/interesting. thus updates would happen more frequently. easier to plug into a translator if english isn't your first language the images would be illustrations i'd actually put effort into since there would be so few of them

prose cons: it'll be a lot more reading overall less left to interpretation, i guess? less pretty pictures? it takes a lot more cerebral energy in some cases to take in prose and turn it around in your mind i just get that for some people, they don't like walls of text. like i, for one, have gotten very bad at reading so i get it

script pros: more pictures to look at then prose-style scenes move by more quickly and smoothly, everything focuses more on actions and interactions so maybe things are easier to digest than prose-style still translator-friendly updates still more frequent than comic-style, but less frequent than prose-style most likely full-color images. may or may not have a bg in every image (just think zombino-slayer style? but i might not render every time either like i did there because that was..phew..that took a lot out of me)

script cons: more images to draw for me the format might be wonky to some none of those inner thoughts/monologues, a lot of depth and inner feelings/struggles/references made in the characters heads are left out. it all focuses on the external with hints to the internal left to expression, body language, and dialogue and the reader's own bias/experience

comic pros: ALL THE PICTURES YOU COULD WANT! everything's images! if you're most comfy with reading comics or manga already, you'd dig this (obviously) the least reading and it's all together in one image (well multiple) very easy to soar through and take everything in since the focus is on images and dialogue Only (maybe narrative notes or thought boxes when really important) easiest to share i'd think? and easiest to get a feel for what's going on in a scene without having to study and/or think too hard about it

comic cons: oh my god all that drawing...updates would be slow as molasses tbqh.. unless i decided to do manga-style aka B&W or limited grayscale/monochrome. even then though again, everything internal would be left to the hints you'd get from the external i could give with imagery, panel-shape, dialogue, and such not translator-friendly (i know there's the google image translator, but i'd be handwriting the text (i just like how it looks best) and it's not always friendly to handwriting)

--

as far as specifics for each style, we'd work that out once one is picked

other notes: i do think i'm a pretty strong prose-writer, but i also think i'm a pretty strong comicsmith. so i don't think it's really up to what i'd, personally, be able to pull off best with the skills i own :3 (and i mean script-style is the most simple of the three. and i've already done it. it'd be almost identical to zombinoslayer. and it'd be most similar to Camp Entre's rp-style i think? even though Camp Entre was much more dialogue-based than anything else

i know i haven't uploaded too much of either, especially my writing, but trust...i'm pretty good at it. at least that's what people tell me.

[mega-ringsandthings-world]

Okay, I said I was going to get into some supermarket wine and do this, I'm sans the wine but lets still do it. to be fair this is something I cooked up for my lougetown au but it works for canon mihawk too So, rough outline of my backstory for Mihawk (things will be altered from time to time) consists of him being more a less closely related to Imu (yes that one) due to some fuckery the WG was doing, think proto-seraphim project, and having been spirited away as a baby after the project was voided to save him. He was taken to and hidden away on some nowhere island where his caretakers/parents surrendered him to the care of a religious order stationed there in order to cover any trace of their association with him, but kept watching over him in secret. Officially he was a orphan the church took in, and he was raised there for the first few years of his life. Given his rather obvious physical likeness to Imu (the eyes) he was mostly kept away from the island's population as a child to prevent anyone looking for him from recognizing him, hereby meaning he was sent to watch sheep and water tulips on a mountainside with a stack of books for company when he wasn't napping in the monastery, weeding the gardens, or being a consummate atheist on main, thus leading to the introvert-cottagecore aesthetic he has going on in the future. When he was very young he witnessed a swordfight (the swordfight was on his account but he was too young to understand what was going on) and ever since then he was fascinated by the art of the blade. That, combined with him being a precocious child and being influenced by the books he was reading (he took a further interest in sword-fighting from some stories he read) he'd sneak off his mountainside from time to time to steal a sword and pick fights in the town below, and subsequently get his ass beat/get bullied by other kids in the town, because he was the defacto quiet kid and kids are assholes and thought he was witch. Or something. The town kids were also the ones who coined the name Hawkeyes. After almost getting killed and almost killing someone else at one point, his secret caretaker/parent, who up until this point had been posing as the local blacksmith, stepped in to train in him, since as he was getting bigger and drawing attention to himself, (and potentially drawing dangerous attention) he needed to learn to defend himself. Of course, actively training him in sword-fighting encouraged Mihawk's obsession in swordsmanship and led to him getting faster stronger better in the blink of an eye after a few bumps in the road, he had all the town bullies in a chokehold a year in and was constantly getting into arguments with the brothers/priests for trying to practice inside the church. Sometime later his caretaker/parents had reason to believe that the WG was not looking for him anymore and decided with the brothers/priests to allow him some more freedom, said freedom led to him killing a marine who challenged him when he was fifteen. (it was also due to the marines threatening the town) When he was told that the marines might come to hunt him down for that, Mihawk decided to hunt them down instead. Before leaving the island, he had the blacksmith make him a sword and his kogatana, which he designed to honor the church that raised him. Before he left, the blacksmith also encouraged him to seek out Yoru, in the hopes that looking for it would distract Mihawk from gaining a large profile. It did not work, and Mihawk quickly gained the title of the marine hunter. After Mihawk left, the caretakers/parents took a risk and reached out the WG and made a deal to ensure Mihawk's safety going forward, something that led to Mihawk being offered a warlord commission in the future. What Imu thinks of him is mystery, but Mihawk was allowed to roam free. For the time being.

Present-day Mihawk is blissfully unaware of anything going on behind the scenes of his life. He takes his past at face value and doesn't care to try to find anything out about it.

[fairykery]

If not canon, then why flashy?

Eyesex and a smile?

The guy that hates physical contact is smiling as kohaku hugged him? Not only that but he also looked into her eyes tenderly? LIKE? The other girl going "it wasn't that type of hug" was just referring to the fact that they aren't gf and bf because technically THEY AREN'T and the one girl still assumed that they were. So when they got touch- feely and the girl covered her eyes thinking they were a couple(thanks to the kiss situation) the other girl calmed her down saying they weren't really a couple sharing a hug; but two people that care about each other hugging. While Senku did not return the hug because he is never/and has never been forward about that type of situation, Kohaku is the first he's smiles at, lets hug, and has had people wonder the state of their relationship when being hugged by. She is also the only girl he is close with, that has been hinted at having feelings for him.

The KISS

Sorry, No I get it. It was too soon for this to be a romantic moment. I get it. It was for the sake of comic relief. But if you pay attention. The context of the scene didn't necessarily have to be written romantically, NOT EVEN for the sake of the plot. Cause them kissing had nothing to do with the situation; BUT the mangaka STILL specifically chose to go THAT route with the scene. He, HIMSELF, chose to use a romantic excuse(even if a comical one) as a plot device to move the story forward. And on top of that made them kiss(even if they were both uncomfortable by it still at this point in the manga). With that, making Kohaku the girl he's closest to who he has had the most physical contact with and even shared a kiss with(even if it was just a chin kiss and they both were practically uncomfortable for being forced to do.). No but seriously, the mangaka using SenHaku as a plot device to move the story forward WHEN it is NOT needed should provide some insight of what he thinks of the pairing. Which is that: "it is fun to write about" and "he likes to write about it".

NO TIME?

I like how he reponds with something that implies. "Maybe i'll blush later....not rn we gotta find a way out of here". Can we also take a moment to realize the mangaka/writter interrupted this moment before Senku could respond to the: "and the way i see it that is so very-" from kohaku? Subtle behavior on his part. Is there something on Senku's mind he doesn't want fans to know for the sake of avoiding ship wars? I wouldn't be surprised if this was what was stopping him from making the ship more explicit. Cause shippers get kind of crazy with the wars and MOST mangakas KNOW this and dont want that to affect the sales.

BRIDE STYLE?

He specifically chose one of the most romantic tropes to draw them In? Sorry no. This has nothing to do with their dynamic; but he still drew them like this? In THIS pose? Mangaka definitely shipped them.

Nah; but like never have i ever seen him so touchy feeling with anyone?

idk idk they remain sus. Especially with all of his guy friends hoping him to experince romantic love.

SenHaku also kinda parallel His adoptive dad and his lover(maybe not in the sense of dynamic; but in color aesthetic and how they are portrayed in the covers)

[also look at them being bride style like the senhaku cover lol]

I don't know why people say this ship is impossible because Senku says he isn't interested in romance. Like he also hinted at the fact that he has sex drive, just not a crazy active one where he would attack a female for, especially one stronger than him.

And if you ACTUALLY pay attention every time that topic of romance comes up is not that he COMPLETELY dismisses it. It is more because he does not prioritize it or care to look for it, especially considering that he is so goal-driven. At the same time, it is already revealed that not everything he says(especially when it comes to relationships/bonds)does he mean. He only, like i said, likes to remain goal-oriented and doesn't want anything to distract him.

He also acted pretty detached towards his own father and rejected his overly affections of love. So much so, that Byakuya tried to adapt to his own love language of science. But at the end of the day,it is not that Senku is 100% against those concepts(of romanticized bonds) it is just that he finds them to be waste of time. But despite that, he is still human. He still feels despite how much he doesn't allow himself to do so:

And Riri herself pointed how Senku only acts tough and detached when it comes to relationships/bonds(when talking about his care for the village) but a part of him does care. This is because she is the only one whose seen him cry at his father grave, despite how detached he acted about his father dying at the beginning. But again, he remembered that he had a goal, and wiped his tears; because for him "there's no time for that". It's all about prioritizing his goals, especially when about science.

And there's ALOT of emphasis on THAT.

Even so, so many characters in shounen have ended up marrying/having feelings despite saying/or there being no indicator that they are interested in romance. It is a common trope of it. So even if it were because Senku is not into romance it wouldn't sink the ship. I mean look at Sasuke(another goal-oritented character) said that romance had no place in his revolution; but at the end of the day married sakura and even gave her a ring to ward off insects

[note: is important to note that sasuke was not rejecting sakura here. More like trying to convince kakashi that romance had no place in his revolution. Because he was goal oriented, like Senku(that and the fact that he was still struggling with his darkness). In fact Sakura said that she wanted things to go back to the way they used to be and he assumed that was romance, without anyone saying anything of that sort. And Sakura had already left it clear that she wanted team 7 back; but then sasuke mentioned romance lol]

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Something else worth mentioning is the fact that Senku hates clingy overly-romantic girls or the girls that fall in love too fast with him, as we've seen him cringe or act annoyed with those type of acts. But still, he was able to manage to say something about a type, despite his dismissive behavior. Even tho it was just to brush the conversation off, the fact that he answered his type of girl with "someone that could bring him materials" and then calls Kohaku a lioness, and him as a scientist knows that usually a lioness is one to provide their mates with food from hunting. I don't know. It seemed like a sweet nickname to give her. Especially when in his time period, that type of nickname is considered flirtatious. What is more, is that he initially brought Taiju back because of his usefulness in strength(and the fact he knew he could trust him) & Senku himself noticed the exact same quality in Kohaku.

So someone that could fit his description of his type would definitely be kohaku and seeing that she is the girl who he is the closest, and HAS brought him materials before so i dont see why not. I mean he was already pretty impressed with her first meeting her. Even after having worked with her, he was still impressed by her strength, and doesn't stop talking about it:

There's also people who always dismiss Kohaku's feelings. I mean i think it's already pretty clear

His physical aspect she seems pleased with

And well he already fits the EXACT description of her EXACT type. So it is 100% safe to say that she has feelings for him. It may not be explicitly stated but it was just the right amount of sublte. Similar to Mikasa Ackerman/Touka Kirishima, whose feelings were never explicitly stated; but were always quite obvious. That was the type of subtlety the mangaka was aiming at. And i think there's a reason for that.

Because Senku hates fast paced relationships/love at first sight/mushy girls. Building Kohaku's feelings in a slowburn manner makes Kohaku stand out from all the other girls that have feelings for him/have flirted with him/felt attracted to him. Because, as i said, he doesn't like that kind of stuff. And since he is still sciency I don't think he would ever fall for a romantic type of girl; but rather a useful one that can serve as his partner. The way I see them happening would be by Kohaku being accepting of his anti-romantic nature, and Senku seeing her as worthy Mate that he could reproduce with so that the sciene can live on and keep developing. While he did teach Chrome alot, Chrome also says he wants Senku to live. I think he also meant it in a metaphorical way. Chrome, next to his other male friends kept pushing for or looking for an indicator of him feeling attraction for a girl/or at least want him to understand romantic love so that he doesn't keep downplaying the feelings that they have towards their crushes. Even Gen seemed pretty excited at the thought of him kissing a girl lol. So it's safe to say that the mangaka writing this was him rooting for the same thing for Senku; but not in the way that we exepect.

Again, if he ever did develop a relationsip with kohaku to another level. I dont think he would confess/or admit his physical attraction to her, if he did feel any. I think he would find himself content that he has found a useful girl, that can bring him materials, and doesn't ask much of him(in a romantic light). This would push Senku to allow Kohaku as his partner. I don't think Kohaku would mind it either as long as she knows Senku is willing to reciprocate in terms of just the right amount of romantic gestures/or sexual entanglement(when senku finds the time for her)

Because as he has stated he does not NOT have a sex drive(just not active) nor is he COMPLETELY against chivalry (which is rooted in romance).

So i think if he did develop feelings for Kohaku he will not do much to figure out the why and would instead only try to rationalize it by saying Kohaku is the perfect partner. He would agree to a wedding for the sake of his friends and act like he was peer pressured to doing it, and would probably ONLY compliment Kohaku's looks by saying something like "You know, according to the symmetrical proportions of your face, you'd be considered to be living up to the beauty standards of my time" and Kohaku would be fine with that thanks to the reassurance of her sister about how "he is not the type of guy to be completely against the tradition of bonds/feelings. He just doesn't prioritize them". So kohaku would be fine with that. Especially because she herself has been swayed by his way of living.

As long as she knows that Senku considers her his mate, partner, and important person, I think she'd be okay with that. Especially since Senku is logical enough to understand that he needs to put effort into the relationship with his mate. So he'd do soft gestures for her that will keep her happy in order to maintain their relationship, even if she doesn't ask for it. And that will be enough because by the end of the day that's what most relationships are, Senku just doesn't feel the need to romanticize them, unless it's for the sake of following through with a logical situation. And well him maintaining his relationship with Kohaku would be logical as it would avoid conflict and prevent him from seeking a mate elsewhere. We all know Senku doesn't like to bother with those things. He just goes with the flow of whatever is convenient.

I also think that even though he doesn't like physical contact he'd probably do soft things like touch her hand in reassurance,(he's held her hand), smile at her(as he has done so before), look tenderly at her with pride(has looked and felt proud of her) and lean on her when he is tired(they have leaned on each other metaphorically). Those would be indicators.of him caring for her, but he won't ever stop to think about them, even if his heart rate actually does start to raise he will only rationalize it with talks about "dopamine/serotonin" and Kohaku being his chosen partner; but overall, he'd be most ecstatic about having a partner by his side, and the fact that he cares for such partner. Kohaku won't ask for more and will come to understand that she has what any other girl has(when it comes to romantic relationships), and she SIMPLY has a partner that tends to rationalize everything and dislikes romance; but is willing to do it for the sake of logic.

[quibbs126]

So I’ve been drawing this today

It’s a redraw of this picture I made a good 3 or so years ago

Funny enough, this isn't technically the origin of the picture either, as I made a pose base for it that I just ended up reusing with these two, which was originally taken from a Pokémon anime screenshot that featured Jesse and Steven in wedding outfits (I don't think I have a picture of that original)

Anyways, so I made this because I was drawing these guys again, as you already know, and I just wanted to redraw this piece, seeing as how I was already redesigning them. This also gave me a good time to figure out Rasmus' green design

Also note I ended up asking my friend for ideas with the trio's new names, and she suggested Cinder for Rasmus. The name fits his theme, but I don't know if I'm personally sold yet. Personally, I like Cedar but upon looking it up, cedar isn't really a dark brown color, if anything it's more red, so

I did end up changing his colors to a more yellowish hue, which made me think of olives. So I think I might make his birth name Olive

I feel like Olive is seen as a more feminine name, while Basil would be more masculine, when it's the opposite here. Ah well

I tried to give them more "western" style outfits, but I really did end up just making something up. I think it turned out fine though

The flower in Periwinkle's hair is supposed to be like a rose, but I don't actually know how to draw roses, and can only vaguely remember how a super cartoony rose I saw was drawn, so have a flower that's kind of just...something

Also, she doesn't normally wear a flower in her hair, but the depicted scene is supposed to be when they got married, so it's a special occasion. They eloped to be together, so their marriage wasn't really much of anything other than paperwork and a nice dinner, but it was still a very happy day for them

I was originally going to give them the normal colored outlines I give characters, but I got this dark blue and was like "screw it, make that the whole outline color" and so I did. Gives me a blue ballpoint feel and I like it. I did do Olive's horns a different color, but I usually draw those horns like that, it just doesn't look right with normal line colors

And I just realized I forgot their tails. They do have them, but I keep forgetting they exist when I draw them. I mean I suppose they aren't that important, but still

Also, while I wasn't able to portray it, Olive is supposed to be very fluffy. It didn't feel entirely right to have his chest fur be out so you can see it, and I was struggling with giving the characters chin fur prior, so I didn't put that. I do have to come up with a solution to that. Also, while Olive was fluffy and soft, after his transformation his fur basically singed off and he hasn't been able to grow any more than short, rough fur. It is something he mourns but isn't that pressing in the grand scheme of the disaster he found himself in

Also while we're here, I might as well explain some backstory between these two

So Periwinkle comes from a rich, aristocratic family while Olive came from a somewhat poor one, where he and his mother worked at the local tavern. Olive's parents had him young and on accident, and a few years in his dad dipped due to his rising music career (though he did regularly send them some of his earnings), and Basil's pretty bitter about the whole situation

Anyways, so Perri and Olive eventually met and fell in love. However, Perri's family disapproved of their romance due to Olive's status, and Basil disapproved because this was exactly how she got into her situation (it wasn't exact, the two couples had very different relationships, but it was close enough for Basil to see their relationship as rubbish). So they eventually decided to run away so they could be together, with some help coming from Perri's sisters, who thought that Olive's status also didn't matter and they knew he was a good guy

Things would end up going horribly for them, but at least for a couple years, they were happy together

And yeah, that's this. Legit, I'm really proud of how this redraw came out, and I like looking at the clear improvement

[thefloatingstone]

How do I give my anime designs more character? I don’t want them to look bland, especially not the girls!

I had a whole different argument here and suddenly realised I was answering a question you didn't ask. I'm sick at the moment so my brain isn't working the best so forgive me if my answers seems a bit all over the place.

Most importantly, and something i think a LOT of modern anime does badly these days, is to not be afraid to PUSH the expressions of your anime girls.

if you'll forgive the mini-rant; modern anime has a really bad habit of not allowing female characters to have "ugly" expressions. Or when they do, they make them simplified emojis or make the one second of extreme emotion SO extreme it becomes completely off putting. Especially as there will be a tendency to only push an extreme expression in one single episode during a "dramatic scene".

This results in most girls in modern anime looking more like the limited expression range of a Vtuber than actual characters. There ARE exceptions, but this is a MASSIVE issue which was not the case in the 80s or 90s and only really started becoming more common around the mid 2000s.

Comparison examples! (you know I love those). I am using still images instead of gifs so the animation doesn't mask the drawing. But I'll show some animated gifs later in this ask

This extends beyond just facial expressions tho. Or rather... it doesn't.

Most modern anime shows will have the characters pull expressions in their face, but have their bodies relatively static, even in extreme emotions. If you compare the two screenshots above, the more modern example has a more extreme push to her eyes, but in the Dirty pair screenshot, not only is Kei's mouth open very wide, but her head is tilted backwards and to the side, her shoulders are drawn up, and she gives the impression even in a still image that she is in the middle of a physical reaction to something which annoyed her. Similarly, Yuri down there is also annoyed, and even though we only really see her eyes, you can tell she's hunched over and seething. In the modern anime screenshot she's just.... got the default "these are my angry eyes!" face with nothing really happening elsewhere.

Her shoulders I guess are kind of drawn up but so barely you wouldn't be blamed to think they always look like that.

And this comes to the second point.

DRAW FROM LIFE AND/OR PHOTOS.

There is NOTHING wrong using a pose doll to figure out a challenging pose. I have used pose dolls when I am unsure how a certain pose looks from a specific angle. But looking at real life, whether photos or if you can, life drawing, will be your biggest tool in figuring out how to breathe more life into your poses and art.

Now, to answer the ACTUAL question you asked about design;

I have to admit that character design is not a strength of mine. I have little to no practice with it myself and when I design OCs I end up not liking them or not enjoying their designs. I feel someone far more skilled at the design part of design might have better input, but I can tell you what I know just from observation;

The first BIG advice is; do not confuse interesting design with clutter.

This doesn't mean strip down your character design to look like a Y/N drawing, but more have every element you introduce into your design be there with some kind of thought in mind as to how it applies to the character and who they are as a person. This is a mistake I often see made with characters both OCs as well as professionally. Where character designers seem to think adding MORE to a design will make a character more interesting to look at. (PreCure has this problem a LOT)

Giving your character too many details without some kind of larger unification or idea, makes them harder to envision for people, because there's too much visual noise.

If I tell you to think of Link from Legend of Zelda, it doesn't matter WHICH Link you picture 9although at the moment it's most likely TotK or BotW Link), Link has unified design elements which means regardless of how detailed or cluttered his outfit becomes, we all know what Link looks like;

1: Blonde hair on the longer side usually, with fringe and side bangs 2: blue diamond shaped eyes, pointed ears, light skin 3: wears some variation of green. Can dress in other colours but Green is an identifying colour. Even in ToTK and BotW where he is most often shown in blue, Green is still the vast majority of the outfits and gear he will wear 4: boots and light coloured tights/pants 5: Twink

You don't need to look at a picture of Link to know this is what Link looks like. Other details like his earring, belts, gloves, bracers, undershirt etc are all there and enhance these elements and distinguish one Link from another exist, but they are not the unifying elements to Link's character design.

On top of this, all of Link's character design make SENSE for his character, what he does, where he comes from etc.

He is a Hylian so he has pointed ears and is generally elf-like in appearance. He spends most of his time in European forests so he dresses in green. When he wears other colours it usually corresponds to where he is currently traveling. He carries a sword and shield so he has a belt with scabbard. He carries an entire pantry worth of food with him, so he has various satchels and bags on his person (but not too many or the design becomes cluttered). He wears light protective gear to show he gets into fights but they are usually not heavy in nature because Link is nimble and relies heavily on movement.

This doesn't tell us anything about his personality because Link doesn't really have one, but it's a very strong character design all the same and informs us what kind of character he is and what sort of life he leads as well as what sort of background he might have (He is a skilled adventurer. Not a rich sheltered boy who has never been outside of a city before or something of the like).

Now I'm gonna compare him to the character design of a Mass Effect character which I don't THINK you'd have played since your profile says you're a teen and the game is rated M 👀 (or you might have, idk I'm not your mom) but ANYWAY! Looking at a character design which tells us about their PERSONALITY as well as way of living.

I'm not going to use any of the aliens as examples because then you have to bring in the subject of alien species into the equation and how they stand apart from the various other members of their species and etc etc. So we'll talk about a human character.

So... this is Jack

Although you may think her tattoos make her design cluttered, they don't because you don't really need to know what every individual tattoo looks like. You just know "Jack is covered in Tattoos".

So just looking at her, you can pretty much instantly pin down her personality. That being; she will most likely fucking stab you if you say one thing to annoy her.

She's like a punk on steroids. Shaved head, heavy make up, COVERED in tattoos, both ears capped in some futuristic piercings, some or other heavy duty uniform except she decided she'd rather walk around fucking topless and boots that could crush a man's skull.

Everything about her design screams "don't fuck with me I am VERY unhinged and will kill a man for less than the $4 in his pocket".

Jacks' entire personality is on display in her design. And the design as a whole present a single concept of who she is as a person, while ALSO tying into her backstory and lifestyle. (escaped prisoner from high security facility, still wearing the prison uniform, has been in an unknown number of gangs, has an extremely casual approach to sex and sexuality, uses her intimidation as a first line of defense to prevent people from getting close to her indicating a painful past)

And then you compare her to her design in the following game

This is a great design because it not only informs you on Jack's personality, but also her GROWTH AS A CHARACTER.

Her design is, at least compared to her first appearance, softer. She's grown her hair long enough to tie it into a ponytail, making her appear more feminine. But she still shaves the sides so you know she can still shank you if she wants.

Her outfit is still VERY revealing but she's also dressed borderline decently. She is not as defensive any more and could probably even walk around in normal society without getting a ticket (and then shooting the cop in response).

However even covered up, she's wearing a leather studded jacket, and she is still displaying her tattoos on her chest and hands proudly. She's still the same person... just less likely to murder you (although the option is still there if needed).

Now compare these character designs to some others which I would count as being "too busy" and tell me if these designs tell you ANYTHING about what kind of personalities these characters might have, what kind of lifestyle to they live, what do their environments and world looks like, or what it says about them

Fun fact; that last one is NOT a magical girl, but is in fact an alchemist who is living in a slowly dying world whose resources are being depleted and the future looks grim and hopeless as humanity tries to navigate this slow apocalypse.

I have no idea if any of that made sense or is useful in any way, but hopefully you get what I mean?

Look at real life. Don't rely on just referencing other anime and pose dolls. Don't clutter a character design with details that don't mean anything. make the parts of your character design you use have meaning or purpose. Even if that purpose is just "to give them a silhouette different to the other characters so she's easy to identify by sight"

[adickaboutspoons]

Why are Ivan and Fang backing Izzy up in the doggy heaven scene?

So follow me here; we know by this point in the show that Izzy is a bit of a petty tyrant when it comes to giving orders, but we also know that Ivan and Fang don't particularly respect his authority.

After Izzy grabs Fang by the beard in ep 2, we hear Ivan and Fang discuss how unnecessary, unwelcomed, and unfair it is for him to do so with a strong implication that it happens with fair frequency. Perhaps it's just that I've worked for pettier tyrants than Izzy, but my co-workers and I knew well that any complaints or even questioning unfair managerial decisions had to happen well clear of the job floor or we would absolutely be censured or met with far less favorable circumstances than whatever bs had already been imposed. So for Ivan and Fang to be having that discussion within earshot of Izzy tells me they give approximately zero fucks about whether Izzy will be upset by their "insubordination."

Then, in ep 5, we get unmistakable confirmation from Fang that this is the case. Izzy tasks him with watching to make sure Lucius scrapes the barnacles off the hull, but it only takes a few words from Lucius to convince Fang to haul him up and skive off. Clearly Izzy's orders were not that important to him. When Wee John tells him Izzy is looking for him, Fang replies with a "let him look." He then proceeds to dish about Izzy's unfortunate nickname and the circumstances under which it arose. Even when Izzy wanders into the room he can't be arsed to get up from where he's posing for Lucius' drawing or even cover himself. Clearly he is not the least bit worried about getting in trouble over not fulfilling his assignment, nor does he show any deference to Izzy's face.

Then, toward the beginning of ep 6, we've got Ivan questioning whether the plan to kill Stede is off and Fang agreeing that it probably is. Izzy insists that it's still very much on, but Fang and Ivan both push back on that assertion. Fang notes how Ed is having "an awfully nice time" telling ghost stories with Stede's crew. "This is the most open and available I've ever seen him," Ivan says. And not in a way that suggests any disgust or derision. He sounds genuine and possibly even a little admiring. I wouldn't go so far as to suggest that either Fang or Ivan sound relieved to think that they're not going to be killing Stede, but neither would I say they sound at all disappointed.

So what did Izzy do to get them so riled and willing to back him up? And how did they get them to the point that they agreed with him that Stede, a whole ass human man, was essentially the same thing as a pet?

Did he play upon their sad memories about their pets until he achieved affective override and harp upon Blackbeard's policy, which he well-knew they opposed? Did he promise them a chance to confront Ed about the unfairness of this policy and the emotional turmoil engendered thereby?

I mean, it seems the most likely course to me, but it also seems to give Izzy a bit more credit for subtlety than I'm strictly comfortable granting him. After all, he's not a great tactician like Ed, nor a master manipulator like Calico Jack. Don't get me wrong, we do see him attempting to be manipulative a few times; clearly when he lied to Ed about telling Stede that Blackbeard wanted to meet him, he did so with the intention of evoking Blackbeard's wrath toward Stede, and we see him finessing Stede toward the fuckery after Stede's gotten frustrated and called it off. It's just that Izzy's not very good at manipulation? I mean, it works with Stede, but lbr, Stede barely needed the nudge because doing a fuckery was something he wanted. It backfired spectacularly with Ed. More often than not, Izzy is more of a brute-force-it kind of problem solver (for certain values of "solving" problems). Maybe I'm not giving him enough credit?

Thoughts?

[dokidokitsuna]

Working on Magical Friends: Doki’s animation “pipeline”

…Since this is still an incredibly basic 1.5-man operation, it’s not much of a pipeline. ^^; But I wanted to put together a little thing to show the public how I do what I do, and if this sounds doable or interesting to you, I’m always on the lookout for more volunteers! dokianimara@gmail.com is my official ‘art business’ email, just FYI~

So let’s start by taking a look at this GIF preview of a finished scene:

I chose this sequence because it’s probably the longest and most complex one I’ve done so far. The character rotates, the scene pans up, I got some spinny light effects in there, lots of weird stuff I’ve never done before. (●u●;;) But it came out alright in the end, so let’s examine it.

So before I start thinking about animating, I refer to the work of my storyboard volunteer, Greytan. They actually gave me just one simple shot:

Which I extrapolated into…what I did. ^^; I don’t mean to ‘ignore’ their boards, and I hope they don’t feel slighted when I do things like this, it’s just that they are genuinely a much more skilled and more professional animator than I am, and our brains just don’t work the same way so sometimes I have to diverge a bit. :P Or, y’know, sometimes I come up with a great idea of my own that I really wanna try, which is probably what happened here.

Anyway, my first step after looking at boards is to grab a pencil and paper and draw the shot: a picture that lays out what the scene will look like, with either the starting frame or a key frame, and the background included. As you can see, I doodled some of my ideas for how the sequence would progress, which is good, because after drawing this I wouldn’t return to this shot for like 6 weeks. ^^;

When I finally did get back to it, I grabbed a second piece of paper for Step 2, which is the actual ‘animation’: using the shot as a base to draw the rest of the frames that will go into the sequence. This is where my lightbox comes in handy, although usually I can see through the paper well enough to just draw wherever. ^^ [Fun fact: in my early days, I would just scan the original shot, erase it, and replace it with the next frame, drawing each new frame on the exact same piece of paper. I am…very glad I don’t do this anymore]

Now, animation is mostly guesswork for me. ^^ I mean, my guesses are pretty good, but they’re still guesses, which is why I call myself an amateur. It’s not me downplaying my skills, it’s just me admitting that they aren’t based on solid expertise or experience (yet).

When I animate a shot, I try to make sure each frame looks like it has movement in it all by itself. Gesture drawing, dynamic posing; those are things I’m already good at, so when I animate I make ‘em work hard for me. >:3c

The end result comes out looking kind of like a sprite sheet:

And I do use these drawings kind of like assets; Step 3 is to scan them (along with the initial shot) and use them to ‘construct’ the frames that go into the video editor. This is the step that takes the longest, where I clean up the sketches and color them and paint the backgrounds (separately, if necessary). It’s not as difficult as Steps 1 and 2, but it’s a lot more tedious.

So naturally, sometimes I like to make sure my sprites actually work before I start all that…work. ^^ So I throw together a test animation based on what I have:

And this did help-- it assured me that the first half with Mago would probably look fine, although the second half with the magic light-thing probably needed to have a cleaner sense of direction and more frantic movement as it ascended. When you’re working with a low frame-rate, you generally want things to move a LOT or hardly at all; you don’t want any of that in-between stuff. So I took that into account when preparing the “finished” product. I put “finished” in quotes because I’ll probably adjust the timing of the frames a little when I move to the video editor (Step 4, which I’m not going to talk about here). But yeah, that’s pretty much it. ^^

Generally when I think about adding artists to the team, I’m thinking about them doing Step 1, Step 2, Steps 1 and 2, or Steps 1-3 (so basically, completing a full sequence of frames that I can just add in). For me to hand sketches to someone and expect them to do Step 3 alone would require a level of trust that I’ve never had in any fellow artist before…but idk, anything can happen in the future. ^^;

[nagirambles]

Rambling about Fairies - Rhodonite Chapter 3

One thing I’ve noticed from Kyouta Shibano’s paneling is that they love to draw them in powerful poses like this. Though Levy doesn’t get a fight scene in this spinoff, she still comes off as a very competent wizard worthy of her S-class candidate name, and that is my biggest grief with her character in canon. 

Usually when she’s put with Gajeel, she becomes the one needing to be protected and passive (Tenrou), which ever so gradually takes away from the most charming part of her character, her ability to passionately and boldly lose herself in a job despite being a support role. (Deciphering runes in Fantasia.) 

So I love it when Levy takes the active role in things, especially put together with Lily to make up for what she doesn’t have in visual charisma. Since Lily always takes passive, servitude roles in scenes, she’s very firmly the leader of this situation, and that means so much to me.

[faintprojection]

Darth KOTOR Post Mortem

While they're still being posted, I finished drawing @darthkotorcomic a little over a week ago. While it might not look like it, this was a deceptively challenging project for me and I find myself wanting to talk about it. So... here we go.

The comic was a challenge I set myself because I was finding the experience of a dark side play through of KOTOR 1... unpleasant. But mixed with these odd moments where the game didn't feel like it was reacting appropriately to the things it let your character do. I wanted to see how it worked out, but I needed a reason to push through. Making short comics riffing on the experience ended up being that reason. But there were a few non-obvious obstacles here.

First, color blindness. I've got some moderate red/green color blindness. At the very start I'd planned to stick to black and white to dodge this, but very quickly decided that wasn't going to work. I tried to compensate by using a color picker to get colors from screenshots, but that had its own challenges. I assume there's probably some color weirdness in the result. Not much for it.

The second is I'm one of those people who can't really picture things in their head. Which means I struggle to picture what it is I'm trying to draw. Even trying to draw a character or scene from reference the moment my eyes leave the reference it just tumbles out.

Third, I am both untrained and unpracticed. I've fiddled with programs like GIMP and Inkscape off and on over the years, but I basically haven't tried to draw since I was a teenager, and even back then I wasn't drawing much.

And finally, I have a habit of getting caught in revision loops with anything creative.

With those in mind, here are the strategies I used to get this done.

First, breaking big problems into smaller and smaller problems until a big, unmanageable task became a lot of small manageable tasks. In this case, that meant making drawing characters, drawing scenes, and posing characters in scenes separate problems. There are probably better tools out there, but I knew I could do this with some very basic vector graphics tools so that's what I did. Hence, the character template.

Inkscape doesn't do character skeletons so no arms or legs to fiddle with. Also no mouths or eyebrows. I figured I could do a decent range of expressions by manipulating the hidden rectangle you can see in the color block version, which ended up being mostly true. I never did find a good way to convey an eye roll.

The second thing I had to do was time boxing every task. I didn't use a rigid timer or anything, but if I spent more than a few hours working on any individual character or scene I'd stop, look at what I had so far, and if it at least vaguely looked like the thing I was trying to make I'd stop and move on. I just accepted that this was going to be a bit of a sloppy project. The goal was for a thing to exist, not for that thing to be perfect, or even good.

With that in mind, I also didn't spend much time writing any individual comic. I'd play the game until I had 3ish events pop out at me and spend a little time riffing on those moments before making whatever I'd come up with. Then repeat the cycle.

The last thing was actually sharing the comics here. Making them public forced them to be done. Which helped maintain forward momentum.

The result of all this is... fine. I ended up making 45 comics in 35ish days, heavily weighted towards the end. I don't know that I got much better at drawing in that time, but I did get a lot faster. Some are more amusing than others. Some characters never looked quite right. I need to work on posing (especially eye lines since Player is slightly shorter than everyone else). If I could go back I'd probably find a different way to do the dialog bubbles. And I have mixed feelings on the early choice to have Player and Bastila speak in different fonts than everyone else.

But at the end of the day, goal achieved! A thing exists. I hope it amuses you.

[unknownadvisor]

whcih one of ur ocs is the most likely to be like. in an action pose idk how to phrase this

assuming that you either mean which one im most likely to draw in an action pose, or if you were taking their photo who would be most dramatic... (they're practically synonymous)

this is going to be a long post, and probably include some of my oc's that are not up on artfight right now! for those folks I'll tack on a headshot piece. ( it will not include 7 or 8 of my ocs, who i will likely rank seperately later; this is because they're part of a webcomic im in the process of drawing still. after I publish the first chapter publicly, i will return to this. ;) )

Bastard he's dramatic, he's flamboyant, he has lived too long to care. he used to be human, and if he still was, he would have died centuries ago- if not because of old age, then because he's utterly stupid. he knows he's indestructible, so he sits in lava pools for fun. he lives for nothing but a good time. he would dive headfirst into lava to pose, or he'd do something dramatic with a sword or bow.

Lunelle she's also very dramatic! sort of like a cross between cosplayer instagram poses and like. i'm gonna kill you poses. she likes to take photos with her friends and show off her teeth, so she'd be smiling brightly. however, she is a hunter, so as far as action poses go, she could also be in the middle of killing something! so could bastard, but he more lives alone in the woods at this point

AR135 ...yes, he is where the name aries comes from,,, photo at bottom he is a criminal! if his coworkers were to take photos on the scene he's probably strangle them but it'd be really easy to get photos of him locked and loaded, covered in blood, or committing a felony. in his day to day life, he would probably pose really domestically though

Ryn getting into nonfancy territory; this one is not as in he would pose dramatically for a photo, but rather it would be spectacularly easy to get a photo of him fighting for his life or dying. for a normal photo, he would probably set down his clipboard and stand with his hands folded, asking "Is this pose okay? ... Alright, are you done now?" after a minute or so. check his source material! he dies often to 'melting love' if it means anything to you haha

Nala not an oc that's very primary for me; from roughly 4 years ago, so i dont remember everything as well as i should- whoops. her photo will be at the bottom! she lives in a mostly normal world with touches of magic, but she always lands on her feet ( wink wink) so she would likely jump a railing just for a cool photo.

Charlie (photo will be at the bottom!) a s:ctol oc from like 2 years ago. He's not one of my primary oc's and I don't draw him a lot, but he's worth noting here simply because he falls off of islands a lot and it would be terribly easy to catch that on camera.

Marmora marmora doesn't like having his photo taken, so the only reason her pose would be dramatic is because he would either freeze in whatever he was doing, or she would scramble to cover her face and get away. because of how tall he is, it's rather easy to get a photo unnoticed. unless you're trying to take a photo of her face.

Adlon (photo at bottom :] ) he's very stoic, so i imagine it wouldn't be easy to get a super nice or interesting photo. they actually are a lot like vega? star based "of another world" character, but ofc different source material and different history by a long shot. his whole thing is that he was exiled from his own world under suspicion of murder, and they now travels from world to world through doorways. he used to be a noble, so he's used to posing sitting cross legged, looking straight ahead, not interested at all. the only reason he's not at the very bottom is because if he was in the middle of casting a large ritual or even small magic it'd technically be an 'action pose'. he can cast forth 'shadows' of himself too that can help carry things or complete simple tasks, so that might make for something interesting. ive drawn him dancing with one and reminiscing before.. :)

Merlot another one who's not fond of photos, but would pose politely. he would not really ever be in an active pose though, unless maybe he was playing the lyre and really into it, but that's sort of it ... technically that is not all of them but some of the others are almost more minor,,, somehow all of my winged oc's got left out. i would have included one or two but i straight up do not remember their names, therefore theres no way they're major enough to wedge in here haha. all of the drawings for those who aren't on my af are also very old, so please excuse any poor anatomy or roughness! photos (in order of listed) vvv

[gay-trashcan-cat]

how the fuck do you infuse so much personality into your doodles. are you pulling a fnaf and putting human souls in them?? if so, could you tell me how to do it?

ok first off, THANK YOU? got me going teehee blink blink face. Didn't expect to have an art question but I'm very glad, it's my first one so I'll answer to the best I can!

When it comes to personality in drawings (assuming your talking about characters), I often like to think about my characters as friends or someone you know. Often times I'm just saying to myself, "OH! Character would definitely react like this or say this!" (like how you would say your friend would do something unique only to them in a silly situation) Stepping into you characters' shoes or viewing them as a buddy can help you apply and do a bunch!

Though I do understand that you can know a ton about a character but still struggle on what to apply to a drawing with them in it!

There are a few things I tend to do and add when it comes to drawings!

First off is expression, putting some extra thought into expressions can really help add more to your character. Especially pushing expression! (Won't go too deep with expression because that's a whole other can of beans)

My silly goofy cat is a real happy and loud guy, so a simple smile won't always cut it! Really pushing that joy and loudness helps add more to him as a character!

Another thing you may have noticed in the drawing is how I added some (very silly looking) arms to the surface he was near! This moves on to the next thing I often do. Body language! (Which could also be seen as, gesture/posing)

Though relatively the same expression (note the eyes size difference makes the first doodle look more aware/awake, that just shows expression can change even with the slightest difference, this was accidental though), the change of the pose adds story to the character. The first drawing comes off as a more plain hello, while the second drawing adds more excitement and characterization to the goofy guy! As we see how he waves his hand quickly with joy while his left foot taps up with energy, most likely meeting up with a friend! All this movement also makes your characters look less stiff and lifeless.

I also like to add my own stylistic ways of movement or little reaction marks, I'm not too sure what to call them exactly tho (what I mean are the extra colored bits around the character below, they dont always need color though).

This is just a nice way to add more flavor to a drawing! And you can always experiment, or mix and match to see what you like.

Another thing I do is try to imagine scenarios or scenes that would work well with what I have in mind. To get to that point I'm often writing it down or doing thumbnails and lil roughs before I actually make my sketches that I post (insider secrets right here!).

(Here's an example of my drafting process with poses and expressions for this ask I did a while ago, yes it is cursed so read at ur own cost❤ )

Another thing would be textures, you often see me switching colors and brushes, even software's as I draw! that's why every doodle feels a little different, which I feel helps give off different ideas and emotions (or laziness who knows).

Some other factors that play into the "personality" of my drawings is the reactions, with cause and effect. Which has actions that make a new reaction for each character (or even object) that is exaggerated. Like someone making a disgusted face to someone vomiting, even a cat knocking a cup over, or a cat getting scared by a glass breaking (this could also just be a continuation of the last statement). Possibly even the IRS coming for you after evading your taxes and you having to jump out the window.

I mainly use this for comics! But you could do this in a single drawing, I like to have a moment kind of frozen in place either after or in the middle of an action (sorta lets your brain imagine the in-betweens). Though when it comes to exaggerating your reactions or causes, it takes some practice and imagination, so don't be discouraged if it takes some trial and error to get the hand of it! Honestly I'm still practicing too.

Other things that help me put some more life into my drawings is well... life itself! lots of interactions, faces, and poses are based on things I've seen in real life, from watching people (while in the bushes).

Though that isn't the only thing! I also use what I see in media, or photos! even some shows and movies, since there are so many good scenes or frames that can be used as great inspiration!

lastly, yes I do put human souls in my drawings, as well as sacrifice some squirrels here and there to my Elmo shrine, but thats not tooo important right?