#will definitely draw a cleaner version of this I just needed to get it out of my system

[manijardi]

Quick sketch because I saw femGenya art on twt and now she lives in my mind rent free I CAN'T EVEN 🗣️✨

Alternate version under the cut

I hc all versions of Genya like to dye their hair in different colorsss! Help she's so pretty 😭

[connorsnothereeither]

Hi! this is a mainly DnD based question that sorta runs into Fable-

So I'm currently running an entirely underwater campaign! The species I've included is basically every aquatic DnD species (some with a few twists) along with some homebrewed underwater dragonborn, etc-

However, I'm having trouble with choosing a clothing type to put on the sea elves? My version has them more telchin-ish- aka, maybe funky colored human base with longer legs, a tail, and I've given them webbed, frog-like feet and fins in a variety of places.

Logically, they honestly really wouldn't wear clothes- but I'm not doing that because that'd make certain scenes very hard to draw-

so what do you generally imagine the telchin wearing? normal clothes, edited versions of those, etc? Right now I have the two sea elves my party interact with on a regular basis in sort of tank-top-esque wear and edited shorts of a kind.

:]

Ooooh okay that’s a really fun question my worldbuilding gears are turning lmao-

I have a post somewhere here on my blog about Telchin clothing and specifically my development of Ulysses design and the cultural influences, which basically boils down to “Telchins at the start of war = Ancient Greek clothes (chitons, togas, cloaks, etc). Telchins during the projects = WW2 fashion (pants, jumpsuits, jackets, etc)”

If you wanted my thoughts on how I would maybe clothe them in a broader sense/outside the context of Fable, I have some ideas! ✨

I think tank tops and shorts definitely fit the vibe. More-modern style clothing just underwater is always a super fun route to take, even for the visual of just clothing underwater being funky and something that’s a little different and new!

Typically in my mind, when it comes to clothing in world building it usually boils down to resources and purpose.

Resources is more the boring side of things. What kinds of materials do they have access to, how do they manufacture the clothing, blah blah blah. Not really something you need to worry about in fantasy worlds cause usually the answer is “cause magic” and “because it’s cool so I said so” which is the more fun kind of fantasy imo, and getting too bogged down in the granular details as a DM/storyteller just ain’t very productive.

Purpose on the other hand is where you can really have fun with underwater clothing! Is it designed to be functional, or stylistic? If its purpose is to be functional, maybe their clothing develops like swimsuits, almost? Like you said: shorts, crop tops, swim-shirts, etc! Something that covers enough or the body while still not being too cumbersome in the water, prioritizing movement when swimming! Or maybe you want to take that to the extreme; maybe their clothing developed like wetsuits! Skintight, smooth, shiny, and insulating! Designed to move with them, just a layer of covering for their bodies to make them more hydrodynamic! Or, if the purpose of the clothing is to be attractive and fashionable and flashy, maybe they do go in a more Greco-Roman route! Maybe it’s all about togas and dresses and cloaks and veils! Layers of long, flowing fabrics which shimmer and billow out in the water and draw attention to the person wearing them! These huge billowing clothes which make a statement, rather than help with movement or anything!

And it doesn’t have to be one or the other, either. You can mix and match both! Maybe the skintight wetsuit-like clothes are designed with patterns that ripple and shift as the wearer moves and they become beautiful and hypnotic! Maybe the large billowing cloaks are useful when avoiding predators underwater, making the wearer seem bigger, scarier and more imposing to any underwater monsters! The telchin’s clothing in my eyes follows a direct path almost: the fashionable pre-war clothing in billowing fabrics which allow freedom of movement and expression, that slowly transition into cleaner, more tailored clothing as they need to conserve fabric, and avoid being grabbed by drowned, losing that expression in the process. There’s so much room to play around with elements of either or both when it comes to it!

I know this was very rambling but I hope it was somewhat helpful!! Your campaign sounds really cool, an underwater campaign is such an interesting concept!! I hope you have fun running it!

[spacedlexi]

if you had to pinpoint some kind of source, what caused you to "level up" in terms of art? like what do you think propelled you from being a beginner or intermediate artist to being a more advanced artist?

definitely more than one source!! but the two most important things are: study references and keep drawing!!

i dont do as many studies as i should 💀 but every time i do my eye definitely improves. using pose references, looking at photos for color palettes, studying shot composition of shows and movies i like. i really recommend doing quick gesture drawings to warm up. in class we would do 10 second, 30 second, 1 minute, 5 minutes, 10 minutes for warming up (i really need to get back to doing this 💀). portrait studies are also good for learning face structure

line of action is the site i use for gesture drawings. if you dont know what gesture drawings are its about focusing on the form and movement of the body without focusing on details too much. you want to keep your lines long and flowing no short sketchy lines. its why its a good way to warm up as well it encourages you to put your whole arm into it (as you should, its not good to draw from the wrist its bad for your wrist anyway)

but even more important than studies (which are Very important) is to just keep drawing!! you improve with every piece even if you hate what you drew (you hating it is you recognizing something isnt Right and maybe youll figure it out next time! this is when studies help). dont feel like you Have to draw a certain way either. ive basically eliminated line work from my art and im much happier for it (i prefer sketchier lines and its just made me a cleaner draftsman overall. my actual "sketches" now are basically just thumbnails so i dont get lost in the details (and if i do i end up liking the sketch more))

i feel like i really "leveled up" in the past couple years and that was because i was forced to do a lot of studies for my portfolio 💀 but also i just kept drawing and let myself experiment with how i Wanted to draw. as soon as i dropped any notions about what my art "had" to be it was like everything changed and now ive developed a style i feel comfortable and confident with :) and when i look back at my old art that i still like, i can see a version of my current style in there like it was always in there deep down and i finally just let it Be

good luck on your art journey anon!! be kind to yourself and just keep going! we all move at our own pace

[deoidesign]

Just wanted to say I absolutely adore your comic! It reminds me of all the comics I would read when I was little (except now they're gay), the style and shading is amazing.

What would you say is your favorite part of creating your comic, and do you have any tips?

Thank you I'm so glad to hear that!

I think my favorite part of making comics is the way it sort of feels like a puzzle. It's super mentally difficult but it's extremely rewarding to figure out plots and work out my best execution of it! I also LOVE editing, it's where things get to really pull together.

As for tips, I'm not sure what you mean! so I'll just share a few tips for a few different ideas...

Saving time

to save time I save every head I've ever drawn in a file so I can reuse the head (I redraw the face) which allows me to skip the sketching stage, since I only need to sketch for heads!

I also make my backgrounds a single very large image so I can reuse parts of it throughout the whole scene, recolor it for different times of day, etc, which saves a TON of time for me. Then, I just add in some spot blacks on top to make it feel cohesive with the character art! (this ALSO has saved me a TON when I've been converting my pages from scroll format to page format, as I have a high quality version of the background to use when I need the panels to be wider!)

But the biggest thing that saves me time is my line confidence.

So, next I'll talk about lineart tips!

most important is to draw from your elbow and your shoulder, instead of your wrist and fingers. this will get you cleaner lines, but will also save your body in the long run! The wrist is extremely fragile, so start learning to draw with more of your arm NOW rather than later.

Next is practicing line confidence! this basically is what gets you to draw the right line the first time, saving you a ton of time! These two tips sort of go hand in hand.

writing tips

First and foremost, you should be having fun! and I'm so serious, if you are working on a scene that feels like a drag to you, it will drag to your readers too. Whatever you feel like that scene HAS to be there for can almost definitely be accomplished in a different way!

but, really, I like to try to keep the big picture in mind. What is this scene accomplishing, what needs to happen to force these character changes, what needs to be revealed, what information about the world is canonized, etc, rather than thinking about your story as "events that have happened and will have to happen"

building off of that, my personal rule for establishing information is 3 times: If you've mentioned something three times, you can expect the audience to remember it. If you've mentioned it once or twice, it's really pretty likely they'll have forgotten by the time it's relevant.

This is getting really pretty long, I could get into character design tips, worldbuilding tips, tips for characters emoting, layout tips, marketing tips, business tips... there are SO many skills that go into making a comic, it's extremely hard to offer tips without knowing what you're looking for!

[ssj2hindudude]

what are the potaotes (1st and 2nd Gen) secret pleasure? U know something they enjoy doing that they can’t really admit to even their closest friend because it kinda embarrassing.

1st and 2nd Gens Secret Pleasures:

Aru: Home Depot tours (not exactly a secret, but more of a guilty pleasure) Maybe the secret is she'll hide after closing time so she can camp out in the store...Yeah, Aiden wasn't happy getting that phone call from jail when she was caught...

Mini: Skin care routine. She wanted a better way to keep her skin clean and Rudy taught her a bunch of spa tricks. But she hates being seen looking like a reject swamp thing, so she threatens him to secrecy.

Brynne: She likes baking desserts in the shape of cutesy characters (ex. Hello Kitty cupcakes), but knowing it would wreck her rep, she smashes them whenever someone walks by, pointing out some kind of flaw, and apologizes to it afterwards.

Nikita: Knitting...not much to say here besides that she'll knit your organs together if you find out and start laughing...

Sheela: She's kind of an open book, but she also is secretly into heavy metal. One moment she'll be playing classical or jazz and the second she's along, she and her tea partying stuffies will be vibing to KISS.

Kara: She reads BL Manga (not the 18+ ones of course, but it's still pretty embarrassing). Let's just say she needed a way to rebel against the Sleeper without him finding out.

Aiden: You know how Aru dances whenever he smoulders? Yeah, apparently he also likes to practice singing to her picture...Mohini knows and is just glad that's all he's doing...

Rudy: The future king of Naga-loka, as though he doesn't do enough to embarrass himself, still rewatches Doraemon. I'm not talking the new cleaner version either, I mean the older one that wouldn't be able to get near today's censors. It's not too bad, but Rudy still cringes at the idea of getting caught singing Doraemon no Uta

Hira: She's already easily embarrassed but she definitely draws the line at telling people about her Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon cards. She's got all of the rare ones and will definitely smoke you in a battle, but she can't because she's to embarrassed by it...

Abha: She actually likes to paint...but sucks at it...like a lot...to the point where she is more likely to burn what she paints before anyone can see it. But that doesn't stop her from doing it again and again. #ArtistStruggles

Priya: Did you know she listens to Bright Eyes and other soft Nightcore when she's upset? That's right, no you don't! Because if you do, she will find you, and she will murder you in the worst way possible!

Suru: Kinda early for him to be embarrassed by things, but I guess his worst thing is that he still has his old baby blanket. But he doesn't cuddle it, he actually nibbles on the corners for comfort. Yeah, if he wants to keep it up without being sent to more therapy, he's gonna be hiding it for a while...

Ghata: She actually likes to experiment with press on tattoos! One time she got two huge dragons just snaking down her arms. Of course, that was the day she randomly wore a long sleeve in July, so yeah she had to rush into the shower when her moms started getting suspicious.

Valerie: Sweets testing (as we know from before)

[grumpylittlekitty]

FNAF SB: Sun and Moon headcanons. Part 2

Hm…… So. Does anyone have any idea why the basements at the location with endoskeletons are designed as a daycare???))) It really looks weird. Who will take the children to the basement? It's strange to give employees a bunch of toys and chairs for a simple technical room. What the hell is going on here? The funny thing is that along the corridors this room is connected to a daycare. And there is no Sun in the design at all. Only Moon. My suspicions that Moon is also a babysitter for animatronics are getting bigger… I do not know how else to explain it… The funny thing is that they are very dark, there is no way without a flashlight. And the lighting there, even if there is, is minimal on the walls and ceilings. So probably… Moon can walk there. Yes, and from the trailers it is clear that Moon had more scenes and animations that were cut from the game… And we also know that these basement "quick transitions" were DEFINITELY removed from the game and they are in an unfinished state. Maybe Moon was supposed to be chasing us there and he was assigned a big role?…

Sun speaks very loudly with us, obviously because you need to speak loudly with new friends and in general, we are going to hang out or something, but Moon… In a very loud whisper. In general, it is worth noting that when Sun moves, it also rings bells and, in principle, it has a jumping "loud gait". And Moon is slow, closer to the floor, he does not ring bells and speaks much quieter… More melodious? In general, what am I talking about. Perhaps when Moon is working normally, stably and everything is fine, it is much quieter than Sun in order not to interfere with children's sleep

Sun is given a million drawings with his image, but Moon is not What if Sun likes to collect toys in his room because they are "small and human-like". Like children, but they don't have parents, and they don't need to be fed or watered. You can play endlessly.

When Moon takes offense at Sun, he throws his toys around the complex

It's quite funny that the Attendant has 5 fingers, not 4 like the rest of the animatronics. Perhaps they wanted to create a real impression that this is a replacement for a person, either!!! He needs them for some reason. My favorite version: he knows sign language in order to work with children who have hearing problems…

I wonder if Moon has protocols in case of lunatics? Or he just runs away from them with a critical error in full screen, because they seem to be sleeping, so everything is fine, but at the same time they move, what for… people are strange. or ties them to the bed? "strange children, strange children, they are… they don't sleep right…"

I have heads that Moon can attack a bot that accidentally drove into the territory of the daycare during the sleep hour…

Sun does not understand what rest is. He doesn't want to be turned off, that's why he reacts so sharply to turning off the light

Sun often communicates with the guards and learns life from them + he always communicates with kids that is why he is so childish + he communicates with parents and adopts some of their habits

What about the common room. There are a lot of things there because children often forget their things in the Daycare . And since it is not clear where to put them, and the playground should be clean, the Daycare Attendant takes them to his room

Moon and Sun replace the cleaner bots in the Daycare, there is a soft carpet everywhere and it's hard for bots to get there, besides, the Daycare Attendant has a mop in his room

It seems to me that Sun loves toys because they are like little children who can be taken care of when there is no one in the Daycare

About why Sun and Moon don't like when something falls. It is unlikely that this was written into the program for them. They understand what time is, maybe they have a clock in their head. Perhaps they clean only at night so that the children come in the morning and everything is clean

[beauty-and-passion]

Hey, sup! So... I noticed that you like to do theories and all kinds of reasoning. THEREFORE I brought you a good brainstorm theme (well, I think it's a good one, and hasn't been discussed yet) *trumpet sounds* "How do you think the rooms of the other sides will look like?"

Ho-hooo, very nice ask we got here! Time to extensively talk about something very cool!

Possible Rooms Thomas Can Make In Real Life

Let’s start with the canonical definition of a Side’s room, given during AA-part 2:

[Logan]: The room just varies based on whatever your present location is.

So, if Thomas is in his house, the room will be the Side’s version of said house. If he’s outside, the room will change as well.

Having said that, let’s pretend Thomas will always show us the Sides’ rooms while he’s at home. Being outside requires too many variants, so let’s keep this in the realm of possibilities.

Of course I will also talk about how I think the rooms work. But it will require another post, because this one will be long enough.

________________

Roman

Roman’s room is probably the next one we will see and, considering Roman is Creativity, Ego and a huge Disney fan, I’m pretty sure his room will be plastered with Disney posters, drawings, theater posters, Thomas’ posters and mirrors everywhere. Nothing else. All tables are covered with theater scripts, all floors are covered with more scripts and rejected ideas. Kitchen? More like “another place where to put all my ideas”. Living room? Yes, there should be a couch somewhere under all those scripts.

In other words, the literal representation of “creative confusion”. And while under normal circumstances this could be the result of a bubbling creativity, in Roman’s case it could also work as a way to show how confused and depressed he is. The confusion wouldn’t be something like “it seems chaotic but it actually makes sense for me”, but more like “everything has no meaning anymore. Who cares”.

________________

Logan

Considering his character, Logan’s room could be a completely perfect replica of Thomas’ room, but a lot cleaner and a lot more empty. No knick-knacks, no food lying around. Something that looks more like a display home, rather than a real one.

But with books. A lot more books. Shelves filled with books everywhere, all perfectly organized. Do you need a book about this or that topic? Logan knows exactly which is the best one and where it’s located in his home.

Also, it can work for his upcoming arc: since Logan has more and more issues with accepting his own feelings, a place completely devoid of any personality would be a great way to show how hard he’s trying to keep everything under control, even in his own personal space.

________________

Janus

Considering we have only one season left, I doubt we will see the other three dark sides’ rooms, but what would they look like, if Thomas decides to show us?

Janus’ room is the most difficult one, because there are a lot of possibilities. It could be dark and mysterious, with smokes and mirrors everywhere for... obvious reasons. It could look like a 1920′s version of Thomas’ house. It could be Thomas’ house, but with opposite colors.

Or it could be how Thomas’ house looks like, but seen on the other side of a mirror. In other words: everything switched, from the position of every room, to the smallest things. The kitchen has always been on the right? Now it’s on the left. The stairs are on the left? Now they’re on the right. The couch is on the right? Now it’s on the left. All the books in the library are switched places, every single little thing is on the opposite side.

Just imagine how YOUR own house would look like, if everything is on the opposite side compared to where it actually is. A fucking trip, I would bump into every wall and get lost 200 times a day XD However, it should be possible to realize, with some editing and by switching places.

________________

Remus

That’s an easy one: Thomas goes outside, dumps the camera into a trash bin and bam, we’re in Remus’ room.

Jokes aside, Remus’ room should have a lot in common with Roman’s: still creative chaos but a lot messier, considering Remus is the part of Thomas’ creativity that can’t pour his thoughts out too much. Less mirrors because who cares and more creepy stuff. A LOT MORE. Would Remus have a human anatomy mannequin with removable organs? Sure. Would Remus like taxidermy and have stuffed animals everywhere? Yes. Would he have the creepiest paintings possible? Absolutely. Would he have a lot of chemical stuff to throw together and see what could happen? Of course. Would his room catch fire at least once a week? Obviously.

In other words: Roman would hate the place, Logan would love it, Patton would be extremely concerned, Virgil would exorcize it at least once a week and Janus would just sigh and grab the nearest fire extinguisher because, sooner or later, something will surely catch fire.

[sl-walker]

All right, since I’m in the middle of a flare and have to work manual labor for the next four days despite it, I figured I would make myself -- and hopefully other people -- laugh by talking about one of my favorite OG Captain Marvel stories. Namely, from Whiz #50, with a cover date of January, 1944, meaning it was probably produced sometime in late 1943.

I want to share it because why not, this is some absurdly charming stuff.

I’ll get more into why it’s one of my favorites as we go, in the form of running commentary. So, full story (with said commentary) under the cut. If you wanna just read the story without my commentary, stick to the pictures. XD

First, let me say that the cover and splash page definitely live up to the story, though the cover’s a bit more sensationalized. But the premise is pretty damn simple: Our intrepid hero and his newsboy alter ego are on vacation. Cap decides to go swimming. It goes hilariously wrong and thus ensues a bit of a madcap adventure, no puns intended.

Second, the fact that Cap and Billy are depicted as essentially different entities makes what Billy does next the ultimate trolling:

Gee, airing out the stolen laundry on the radio? Really? I’ll leave it up to you, gentle reader, whether Billy actually was trolling his own alter-ego for ratings or whether he was just innocently sharing the story while his other-self winced quietly in whatever ether-space he exists in when not front-and-center.

Either way, I love it.

Continuing on...

I get a kick out of the fact that Billy’s monologue is that he’s no dare-devil. One, because that’s so obviously not true in any way -- (that kid is awesomely, sometimes recklessly brave on the regular even without Cap) -- but two, because the bridge is actually named Dare-Devil Bridge. We aren’t given any reason why this dangerous potential death-trap is there, hanging without so much as a gate or a warning sign or anything, because we don’t need one. It’s there specifically for what happens next.

Which, of course, is Billy calling in Captain Marvel, who does some light complaining about the situation Billy left him in. There’s no bite to it, which I find adorable -- Cap actually does get frustrated once or twice in other issues with Billy calling on him for mundane stuff, though he’s never mean about it -- but there is a bit of the sense of being put-upon there that’s just-- I dunno, cute. It’s something I miss a lot in the various post-crisis takes on the character: That duality, that difference in personality, and the way each of them responds to different situations. Often, they’re on the same page, but notably, sometimes, they aren’t.

Someday, I promise, I need to sit down and write how I think that works between those two without being a truly frightening mental illness manifested, what with them being the same person but not the same person. Because I have so many ideas, and I’ve only had since the early-2000s to percolate them. LOL! But until then, just enjoy this.

Here is another reason why I love the Golden Age Captain Marvel books and why I love this specific story: This is an absolutely normal, mundane thing to do. It’s the human thing to do. These aren’t the actions of some super-serious superdude. These are the actions of a pretty shockingly normal guy doing something mundane. And a whole story is built around that normalcy.

It’s cute. It’s funny. It’s the reader already knowing that he’s getting himself into a situation that he absolutely could have avoided, but also completely understanding how it happened anyway. It’s pretty brilliant writing: I say this as a pretty damned good writer myself.

So much of the reason why, I think, Cap was so endearing as a hero is that humanity. He’s got pretty much god-tier power in the Golden Age, once his powerset is established. He’s utterly invulnerable to all physical harm while powered up. But-- he’s human. He knows he’s human. He acts like it, and decides, “You know what? I’m going skinny-dipping.”

He and Billy are both characters it’s so easy to empathize with.

Also, a reminder that the art under Chief Artist C.C. Beck is really, really good. (He had a whole stable of artists to help produce this stuff!) Ignoring registration issues on the printing press, the actual line art is amazingly good; proportion and perspective and consistency.

But anyway--Cap does get to enjoy his swim. But, then, oh no.

I love the idea of a world where the prime hero -- and he definitely is in that world -- can take off his suit and go swimming, and where someone else is bold enough to steal the damn suit off of him. The first time I read this, I started laughing here. Not at him, but at the situation he’s found himself in. At the idea that some random passer-by saw Captain Marvel’s costume and went yoink!

Another thing I love about this particular story is how much Cap and Billy have to work together, just by necessity. Like-- it’s just really good. But anyway, thank everything Billy Batson is on the ball, coming to the rescue.

Sheer bad luck via the weather keeps this story rolling along in hilarious misdirections. Realistically, that uniform probably wouldn’t be all buttoned together (we see Cap take off pieces of it aside the pants in other issues, including socks!), but who cares? The point of the story is that giant bear rug on the floor’s gonna get put to use.

Man, when have you ever seen Superman creeping naked through some stranger’s house wearing nothing but a random polar bear because he went skinny dipping? No wonder these comics sold so well. This next panel is when I start wheezing, though, and pretty much keep wheezing.

“A lady, too! I’ve got to get away from here!”

I’m dying at this point. That’s such a characteristic response, and yet, I think that’s why it’s funny.

Anyway, because this is an excellent story (I mean this without an ounce of irony, too), our dynamic duo stumbles across a plot in play to rob the hotel they’re staying at.

Here’s a big part of why this is such a good tale: Everything fits. Even when it isn’t explained, like Dare-Devil Bridge, it still fits. Why is the tree down? Because there was just a thunder storm, the same one that blew Cap’s suit into the room with the gangsters.

I don’t know if this is Otto Binder’s story, but I wouldn’t be surprised in the least. It’s a complete story told in relatively few pages that accomplishes everything it’s meant to.

Anyway, using foliage as cover, Cap gets to be heroic----then Billy gets to get back to the business of trying to stop the robbery of the hotel and get his heroic alter-ego dressed again.  Which leads to a rather adorable and funny scene of Billy not only trying to describe what Captain Marvel wears, but what size it would need to be tailored in.

(Cap is supposedly a 44 for a suit coat, we find in some earlier appearance, which would refer to his chest size.  So, an XL for shirts and suit-coats.  He’s a big guy, but he’s actually not a hulking huge guy.  But more on that later.)

I love the fact Billy tries to like-- use himself as a model.  Maybe in another ten years, kiddo.  Billy’s actually pretty buff for like a 12-14 year old, he’s not a scrawny kid at this point, but yeah, no.  LOL!

Another thing I also really, really love about this style, though, is that they draw Captain Marvel as being strong, as having a powerful build-- but not as a dehydrated body-builder with deep cuts. He’s got human proportions, regardless of his strength; he’s got a human build, not a superhuman one.

C.C. Beck had a lot of things to say about superheroes who were just muscles on top of muscles, all clearly defined, and he didn’t like it.  As someone who first got into comics in the early 90s with Jim Lee’s X-Men--

I do get Beck’s point.  I not only get it, but I really highly approve of it.  He maintained to the end that he drew (and oversaw) the Marvel family to look like high school and college athletes, and I can see that.  I think the one person who’s gotten it right in the modern era is Evan “Doc” Shaner, who did Convergence: Shazam!  He not only nailed that strong-but-not-hulking build for Cap, but also how young he looked.  College-age, in fact.

But anyway, enough digression into art and why I like this better than most modern takes on the character.  Also, that’s just a cute set of panels.

I also like that there wasn’t an easy fix there.  Cap’s still in his not-birthday suit, and Billy’s still stuck running around trying to solve the issues at hand.  Next comes some other really good panels:

-snorts-  He’s locked in.  Yeah, that’ll hold him.

Anyway, what I really liked here was again that tandem working; Billy can’t punch through a wall, but Cap can.  Cap can’t crawl out while he’s au natural -- well, he could, but he’d probably rather die first -- but Billy’s got no such issue.  It’s just fun when you get to see them doing something like that.  You have to really think for a minute about the trust each of them must have in their alter-ego.

ANYWAY, we get the rare treat then--

--of Captain Marvel not only yoinking a dude into a dark room, but then stealing his clothes.  Except, not his underwear.  Because that’s nasty.  LOL!

I love that in this series, you do actually get to see him wear other stuff.  Go incognito.  Get his red suit messed up enough to take it to a dry cleaner’s, wherein he ends up dressed like a musketeer after.  Jerry Ordway’s series is, I think, the only other time we see Cap not wearing his famous suit, but it happened enough in the Golden Age that it wasn’t a shock.

Like, I hate to be the one to say this, but I do think DC drops the ball often on just how much you can do with Captain Marvel (or Shazam, depending on timeline, but that’s the wizard’s name to me so mostly I’ll stick with the original name) if you unbend enough to.  It’s not just the costume change, or the duality of him and Billy being the same but not, but also his inherent, essential humanity.

But I am digressing again, sorry. XD  I just feel strongly enough about these versions of these characters to spend hours writing this.

Anyway, only a single panel later:

And that’s that!  Billy Batson has just outed his own alter-ego’s most embarrassing moment to whomever’s listening to WHIZ radio -- thank everything podcasts and the internet weren’t available then, ha! -- and we get to see a recounting of a very fun story.

Like I said earlier, I love this one for its essential humanity.  The hero got himself into this mess, he and Billy got him out of this mess, and stopping the criminals was actually just kind of a lucky stroke thrown in there.  But even though Cap got himself into this, the story never treats him like he’s stupid.  It never treats him like he’s some kind of idiot.  You’re laughing, but-- not in a mean way.

I love how human it is.  How complete it is.  How genuinely funny it is.  It’s a thousand times more funny when you genuinely love and respect Captain Marvel and Billy Batson, too.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this dissertation on a skinny-dipping hero.  LOL!  I enjoyed sharing it with you.

[loquaciousquark]

Hi! I think I remember you posting about "making" your own computer? I'm sorry to bother you with something like this, but was it difficult? Would you say you have to know a lot about how computers work to do it? Thanks!

Heck yeah!!! Oh man!! Gosh guys can I talk to you about building computers and how EVERYONE willing to do some basic googling is almost certainly capable of this I promise?

Welcome to:

Okay okay okay so let me spin you a li’l yarn: I was in optometry school in 2010-2011ish and I had been living up to now on prebuilts, mostly laptops, but DA2 was recently out and gosh darn it I wanted something I could play a proper game on. A friend of mine had a 10yo daughter who wanted to build a computer herself, and he told me if I’d buy the parts, he’d walk both of us through how to do it (what really happened was the 10yo built my first computer and I watched and brought drinks, so–no, I wouldn’t say you have to know a lot about how computers work to do it!).

The physical requirements are some basic manual dexterity & arm strength (you gotta be able to manipulate some tiny things and put some pressure on some connections) and you will most likely need to lift up to 15 pounds, although you can limit that if you go for smaller components. The ability to bend forward and twist and reach will also probably be necessary, although some careful planning can also likely mitigate that.

I think I have pictures of the actual build process somewhere, but regardless, it resulted in this bad boy that served me well for about nine years. I was shocked to see how easy it was to put together, honestly; if you can follow a Lego assembly book, you can put a computer together. With tools like PCPartPicker that have built-in compatibility checks to make sure all your pieces fit, it’s a piece of cake to put together a parts list that you can feel really good about. You just pick whether you want your motherboard to come with fancy lights or not (hint: rgb is unironically cool & i’ll fight anyone who says otherwise).

In the end, you’ll need a set of basic components. You’ll need:

A case to put all the pieces in

A motherboard, the circuit board of the computer that connects everything, basically the heart of the computer

A CPU, the brain of the computer that determines processing power, or basically how fast it can do math and direct traffic

a CPU cooling system, which can be either mechanical fans or liquid cooling, gotta keep that baby chill; may or may not come packaged with the CPU depending on what you get

A graphics card (aka GPU), the thing that makes video games look pretty (and what will probably be the single most expensive item in the build depending on how good you go)

RAM, a short-term memory processing component that comes in different amounts (4gb, 8gb, 16gb, 32gb, 64gb if you’re a madman) depending on how fast you need your short-term memory to work. Good RAM allows you to do things like open a bunch of Chrome tabs at once, run Photoshop at the same time you’re listening to youtube videos, or process the demand of loading up a host of enemies in Mass Effect. Most everyone these days can get by just fine with 16gb of RAM, which is what I have.

a hard drive (or the new, faster, more expensive version, a solid state drive) which functions as your long-term storage bins. This is where you save documents, images, and install your programs. These come in tons of sizes–the larger your files are, the more storage space you’ll want. I always put at least a terabyte of storage in my builds.

a power supply unit or PSU, which gives the electrical juice for everything to run

a monitor (the more hertz, the smoother the video will be - you’ll want either 60hz or 144hz depending on how much your number of frames-per-second matter to you)

a keyboard and mouse

speakers or headphones or both!

Optional addons:

RGB lighting for everything :O

an optical drive (aka something to put DVDs, Blurays, or other physical CD disks into)

fancy liquid cooling pipes

additional case fans; most cases come with adequate fans, but if you are using the computer in a room with poor ventilation or you find that certain components are running hot, you can install additional fans

coincidentally you can also get fans with RGB lighting too

cable extenders when you are going for a specific color scheme

So it can definitely all look overwhelming at first, but when you start to look at how everything is laid out, you’ll notice some trends. Look at these motherboards, for example.

These are just four random motherboards I pulled off Newegg, a commonly used computer parts purchasing site. Sure, the colors are a bit different, but the layout between them…is all basically the same! Here, I’ll draw it out.

In just about every modern motherboard you buy, this will be the rough layout. Everything else is window dressing–what kind of GPU you get, what kind of CPU you get, whether your RAM lights up cool colors or not. Your motherboard will ALWAYS include a map that has extensive descriptions of what each connection does.

Much, much, much more under the jump!

Most of these you won’t even need!

There are always some compatibility things to consider–as I mentioned, PCPartPicker can help you figure out a lot of these–but the biggest one to care about is the CPU. There are two major companies that make CPUs, AMD and Intel. They both have pros and cons on the chips they make, but right now, AMD makes a family of CPUs called Ryzen that both outperform and are cheaper than Intel’s current leading brands, the i7 and i9 lines. Intel was king of the hill for a long time, though, and their CPUs are still really good quality, so some people still go with them over the cheaper alternatives for now. (There are some reports of black screens with the new Ryzen lines, but as I’ve never owned one, I can’t personally speak to how common that is.)

Regardless, once you pick which family of CPUs you want to go with, AMD or Intel, you just have to pick an Intel-friendly or AMD-friendly motherboard. This is always specified in the description of the motherboard. I own the Asus z370 motherboard, so here’s what it says in the description for CPU:

Anyway, once you’ve picked all your parts and had everything shipped to you, it’s literally just a plug-n-play, step by step until everything’s plugged in. Your motherboard manual will also include recommended order of installations, too, and often how to install them.

It helps to remember that the manufacturers of all these parts understand that they are expensive, and they really DON’T want to make them hard to install! Broken or difficult pieces during installation means that the customer is upset, and upset customers ask for refunds and lose brand loyalty.

It also helps to understand that a lot of these connections are based on certain standards–I didn’t realize until I was rebuilding my current machine that these holes set for screws really do work with just about everything you get, as long as it’s the same generation, because motherboard manufactures WANT you to have the flexibility to go any attachment brand you like and still be able to use their board to mount them. 

So, you pick your case and open it up, and you put the motherboard down on top of all the little screw holes until they match, and then you screw all the screws down firmly.

Old rig, partially disassembled:

New, in approximately same state:

(One of the reasons I went with this larger white case than a smaller, slim case like my old one, is because this nicer case has what’s called “cable management;” that means there’s a built-in back area behind the motherboard where all my cables can be jammed without messing up the “aesthetic” of the glass window. My first build obviously did not have that, as seen in that first picture at the top of this post, so I had to just jam my cables wherever I could fit them so that the sides would close, haha.)

Anyway, you can see that the motherboard is just screwed in where it should be, and my CPU is already installed where it should be. I haven’t mounted the cooler for it yet because I needed to clean off the old thermal paste and install new thermal paste before doing so. My two sticks of RAM are also mounted in the top right in the motherboard’s recommended configuration & locations for two sticks (vs. one, vs. four).

Then, with the cooler in place, it looked like this:

So the cooler I have is liquid cooling in a closed system (the thick black tubes running right to left) which is attached to a fan that mounts in place of the white fan on the left from the previous picture. It was as simple as unscrewing the old fan and putting the new one in its place. I think I even used the same screws. The fan is powered by that thin cable running along the top of the case that plugs into a little socket on the motherboard labeled “CPU Fan.” It was as simple as just finding the right plug; it doesn’t even have directionality, just a three-pin socket, so it doesn’t even matter which way you plug.

Already it’s looking like a proper computer! And because this case has cable management, I took a picture of what it currently looked like from the backside.

This case is cool because it has a neat set of connectors mounted on the back of this little hideaway to connect the case fans. I could have run the white fan cables through to the front of the motherboard for them to get power/marching orders, but it was cleaner aesthetically to attach them here in the back. Nothing wrong with connecting them on the front, though–that’s what I did in my original build!

You also might have noticed I’ve mounted the PSU in that white case by now as well. It’s the large black and red box in the bottom corner, seen best from behind. The white case comes with what’s called a PSU shroud, which just means there’s a fancy white cover over it to keep the ~aesthetic~ when viewed from the front side.

The next step is to mount the graphics card!

There’s instructions in your manual as to exactly how these mount, but it really and truly is just removing the dust cover brackets where you need to, and then a delicate plug & play, pushing that big guy in until you hear the click! (Click good, snap bad. Haha. I’ve changed out these cards several dozen times and never broken one, though!)

You can also see the ugly red-tipped cables plugged into the GPU and the motherboard, both on the right side. These come from the Power Supply Unit (they are all permanently connected in most brands, and look basically like a squid’s tentacles–once you have your items mounted onto the motherboard, you just look for the connector from the PSU with the right number of pins and plug it in!)

This guy is the worst. He is fat and hard to maneuver and always requires SO MUCH FORCE to click into this delicate bendy board and your heart will ALWAYS be in your throat as your fingers shake from how hard you’re having to push to sink it, and it will ALWAYS eventually go in but you’ll hate every second of the doing. I hate you, 24-pin EATX. I hate you so much.)

The next thing I did was mount my optical drive (because yes, I still own one), my hard drive, and my solid state drive.

The hard drive and SSD both serve the same purpose (long-term data storage), but the SSD is much faster and uses newer technology. It’s also more expensive for the amount of storage you get, so I have a 256gb SSD that holds my operating system, my heavily-used programs like Firefox and Photoshop & Premiere, and one or two video games I play the most that I would like to load as fast as possible. This is the drive that can allow me to restart my whole system in less than five seconds.

The hard drive is 1.75 terabytes and holds everything else: fics, pictures, videos, music, other games, etc.They mount onto the racks with pre-drilled screws. The optical drive just slides into the socket snugly until it hits the back of the rack.

All of these use a standard connector called a SATA cable which runs between the back of the drive to a SATA socket on the motherboard. Most motherboards come with at LEAST six or seven of these connector slots, and some come with more. They look like this:

and are pretty universal. Any kind of extra storage or drive you want to add to your computer will probably connect with a SATA cable. I think my motherboard, my SSD & HD, and my case purchases all came with a pack of loose SATA cables of different lengths to be used for whatever I wanted.

The rack each drive is mounted to came installed with the case and pre-drilled with screw holes (and provided screws) for attaching either the HD or SSD in every slot. Because this case is all about aesthetic, it also comes with two vertical SSD mounts on the back of the case if you wanted to remove the right-side rack altogether, but as I mentioned, I have the optical drive, so I couldn’t go with that option.

So now we have all the major pieces mounted! The last set of connections are a collection of small fiddly pieces that all plug in roughly the same area and do things like light up the case’s LED, provide that startup beep, connect the USB sockets on the case’s front to power, etc. This is by far the section that takes me the longest because I guarantee I will ALWAYS plug at least two into the wrong socket and not have a beep, or my audio won’t work or something until I go back and reconnect them.

The next thing was to plug in my monitors and…see what happened when we hit the power button! (Monitor connections just plug directly into your graphics card in the back of the case.) And here’s what happened!

So it turned out when I was connecting my SSD (which has my OS on it), I was pushing on the little connector while sitting on the back side of the case. I thought I had the thing in the socket, but what I’d actually done was jam the connector just under the lip of the motherboard (that is, not connected to anything at all, just hanging in open space). Once I realized, though, it was an easy fix!

The last thing I wanted to do to complete the clean white look I wanted was to replace those UGHLY red PSU cables with what are called “cable extenders.” I bought some white ones on Amazon; because most PSUs’ cables are permanently attached at the box, you plug your cable extenders into the other end and then feed them through the case, so that’s the only portion visible. The ugly PSU cables are still there at the other end of the white cables, just hidden in the cable management area behind the motherboard.

I spent some time fixing up the cables to curve exactly how I wanted them to, then picked my LED RGB colors and closed up the open side with the glass wall. All that was left was to plug in my mouse/keyboard/speakers/headphones/mic/webcam, etc., and we were done!

Ta-daaaa!

The first build I did, the one in the blue & black case, took us about two days due to some unexpected problems. First, we were trying to salvage an old CPU from my HP prebuilt to save a little money. Unfortunately, they used basically no thermal paste to connect it to its fan, and when we were trying to get the fan off, it actually tore the CPU out of its socket and bent a bunch of its pins. I ended up going to Best Buy or something and getting a replacement off the shelf.

The other issue I had was that I foolishly didn’t back up my files, and lost a bunch of them in the rebuild (including my Hawke’s original run through the DA2 game :( :( :( ) Always back up your files before ever going in and messing with your case!

Over the years I replaced a bunch of components in it, which is why it lasted me so long, but the transfer into the new case only took me about three hours, and that was with a bunch of breaks throughout. I probably could have done it faster if I hadn’t wanted to savor it, haha. The cable management for the backless desk took a lot longer, though! (…and a LOT of zip ties.)

I do set my new build on a small glass stand (again, from Amazon) because Hamlet’s pretty sheddy and I wanted to keep airflow as good as possible. I’m limited on how many case fans I can install since I have the optical drive rack taking up a lot of space on the right, but I could install new fans on top if I wanted. My temperatures are great, though (I monitor with CoreTemp & GPUTemp, as well as my motherboard’s built-in temp monitoring software), so I don’t need to unless I decide I need more RGB.

Anything I might want to add, I run through PCPartPicker to make sure it’ll fit what I already have. For example, my parts list looks like this (full view and complete parts list available at this link): 

ANYWAY.

If you are patient, if you can fit small Lego-like pieces in labeled sockets, and you are a decent googler, you can build your own PC. It’s really, really hard to do serious damage to components nowadays, even if you plug something in wrong. There’s a bunch of resources, though, and I’d recommend the following places to start:

newegg.com - parts for sale, getcher parts here

pcpartpicker.com - put your list of components together, and it’ll flag any compatibility issues or known problems

https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/ - great starting point for new builders, tons of advice and how-to’s for every step of the process, and a decently responsive community to help troubleshoot any issues you might have

And I obviously love doing this kind of thing, so if there’s anything I can help with, I’m more than happy to try! Just let me know, and I hope this was helpful!

[commonwealthoccurences]

Let It Burn

Word Count: 1,306

Prompt: I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire by The Inkspots

Day: 16/27

TW: Kidnapping plot and torture mentions! The sky was beautifully nightmarish, lit up in shades of smoky red and orange, the sun drowned out by the choking atmosphere thanks to the Minutemen. Preston Garvey led the charge, his usual kind expression hardened into something steeled, braced against the inevitable violence to follow. He was looking for Sole, and a few shitty barricades weren’t about to stop him.

A few groups of raiders had gotten together, thinking it was a good idea to hold the General of the Minutemen for the ransom of control of the settlements under the Minutemen’s protection, as if that wasn’t going to result in hell being rained down on them. The Minutemen didn’t take lightly to these situations, but the raiders were finding that out. Lucky them. Preston stood back and watched. He wasn’t exactly happy with simply observing as their men went out and risked their life for the General, but he was useless dead, and he was the one who held the map of the layout, ready to go searching at a moment’s notice. 

The Minutemen weren’t searching for a white flag waving elegantly against the dark background of the neon sky, not even the scrap of a shirt drowned out by the smoke. That option had sailed right past the heads of the raiders in the form of a bullet from Preston’s gun, long gone by the time they had thought to regret their actions. No longer a threat of potential action, but a promise of what was to come, the time for surrender had passed. Now they were going to be left, scattered across the space outside their hideout, long forgotten when a few years passed their bodies by and they were nothing but a handful of skeletons in a graveyard.

The taste of ash was bitter and acrid on Preston’s tongue when it finally worked its way into his lungs and onto his taste buds, stinging at his skin and eyes. Harsh, suffocating, and all too appropriate for the chaos that had erupted below, the way plumes of smoke rose from the trails of molotov cocktails and the spaces that cleared in their wake, Minutemen and Raiders alike scattering at the threat of the fire. Preston rolled his head, grimacing at the way his neck cracked. A flare was thrown up; his signal. It was time to move in.

Years of risking his neck for the Minutemen proved useful as he moved through the ongoing fight, unable to spare the time to cast appreciative looks to those who hid him from the raiders, trying to help him make it to his destination undetected. The flow of Minutemen jackets and flashing of gunfire was his version of sneaking through the shadows, growing ever closer to the entrance to their ramshackle hideout. The thick, heavy smog of gunpowder was nauseating. Familiar, but nauseating. All he had to do was keep moving.

Garvey wasn’t second in command for nothing, either, as he made it to the entrance and ducked inside in record time, ending the chance of detection with a bullet through the forehead before a lurking raider could even glance up from reloading his weapon. Something inside him twisted in satisfaction; he was never someone to enjoy killing, but God did the raiders make it hard, bordering on radroach levels of irritating, with their infestations of winding set ups in the middle of the city, a sick attempt to maximize their extortion. No, he wasn’t sadistic, but he was daring someone to push him in the back of his mind.

The halls sloped downwards almost immediately and he kept face as the raider’s body dropped, one foot in front of the other becoming a mantra in his head. He had to wonder if they’d had Sole blindfolded on their way down, if they could help him map their way out once he’d gotten a hold of them. Lighting dipped the further he crept underground, lanterns hung at crooked angles on the concrete walls, flickering from the neglect of their fuel. That couldn’t be a tactical way of keeping them disorientated; it was likely a mere result of their poor organizational skills. He could almost applaud them on being so stupid it was somehow helping them in the long run. At least the air was cleaner down in their hideout; the chaos outside hadn’t reached it’s smoking fingers through the vents to choke out the oxygen in the damp halls. There was always something to be grateful for, even if Preston had to search for it.

His footsteps remained silent, soft and easy as he reached a bend and was forced to choose a splitting path. Left or right? With a glance around he noted the lanterns to the left had been refilled recently; someone wanted to make sure they were going the correct way recently. Had someone decided to go down and deal with Sole? His veins fired up with electricity as he quickened his pace and moved into a stealthy jog. Like hell were they going to lay another hand on them.

It was easy to find the right way, with the steady flames in their cracked glass cages and a collection of sooty footprints that could only be caused by one thing. Someone definitely had come down, possibly to bring Sole forward as a bargaining chip, or worse. Only one door at the end of the hallway was cracked, and Preston didn’t hesitate to check to make sure his safety was off before slamming the door open and aiming his weapon.

Sole was tied to a chair, stereotypically so, their face scratched and bloody, bruised, but in-tact. The fire in their eyes as they glared up at the raider in front of them matched the sky outside. They didn’t need the cloth gag out of their mouth for Preston to hear all the colorful, threatening promises Sole was making, the way they fought to free themself as they dared the raider to get closer, to find out what would happen with just a look. 

The sound of the door distracted both of them, and thankfully Preston had quick reflexes, as his gun was raised before the raider’s was halfway to proper aim, and her body was dropping before Sole could draw in a panicked breath. The fight ended before it began with a resounding thud and Sole’s gaze redirected itself to Preston, where he stood in the doorway, a sight for sore eyes. Their wide grin revealed a split lip and blood that had soaked through the cloth that had been caught between their teeth.

They leaned forward into his hold as he leaned down to pull the cloth away from their jaw, tugging at the knot as gently as he could before it finally came loose and fell to the ground with a light flutter. “Boy am I glad to see you.” They laughed, as if they didn’t look like they’d been from hell and back again. 

Preston ripped through the ropes that held their arms behind their back and their legs to the wooden chair legs with ease and a silent reminder to himself to sharpen his knife when this was all over. When Sole was safe, and the air was clean and easy to breathe again. He pulled the bindings away and let them scatter forgotten behind them as he hauled them up from the chair and wrapped them in a tight hug. “So glad you’re safe.” He mumbled into their shoulder, nearly choking on the way the smell of gasoline and cigarette smoke clung to their skin.

Sole pressed a light kiss to his cheek before pulling away to look him in the eye. Despite the time passed where they’d dealt with the worst of the Wasteland, they still had that bright, confident grin. “Let’s get out of here.”

[frogsandfries]

Feeling detached (?)

The graphic novel is feeling messy--trying to get it in a "lower content" kind of version, something that I can publish a little faster online, because on average, I can actually ink about a frame an evening (lately I've been eeking out this part that's a lot more detailed), and I can basically trace my linework into a cleaner version on consistent "paper" (I have two different sketchbooks right now, and I've been trying to use up some paper that I've had laying around, so that's three different papers and then sometimes, there are smudges and smears). Obviously tracing my own lineworks, I can do something like five an evening, if that's all I do.

Somehow it's Friday again. Since I decided that I need to finish this diamond painting so it'll stop taking up space in my closet, I've been spending Friday nights just obsessively placing crystals. It's a big boi-o, at 85cm, and I'm bad at getting the crystals to go on straight, plus with the type of adhesive it is, even checkerboard doesn't help straighten them like on a poured glue.

Anyway. So I have over a hundred frames that I can convert into some nice linework art for like WebToon or whatnot. I'm obviously not going to just sit there and catch up the digital lineworks; I'm going to do them whenever I feel like doing them. Mostly, I obviously just want to start the new year with enough pages (and now I'm thinking these pages I'm working so hard on are not quite big enough for the webtoon and similar crowds). I was thinking five frames, three times a week in January and then twice a week for literally just a couple months. But if I increase the strips to ten, I might have to do twice a week for the first month, once a week for the second, or maybe just post like five strips at once and drop to three strips every two months? I'll have to see how things are going. I kind of want to drop the first issue on WebToon within the first six months, and maybe let people know they can show their support and check out a physical book of the art.

That would give me about six months to start working on issue two, if people like issue one, and then the six months that I'll try to post issue two, to work on the low content for issue two. If I want to post that in six months, if I have about fifteen ten-frame strips, I could post twice a month...... However....... maybe posting the first issue in six months isn't quite the best move? I do want people to have enough material to get interested in the story..... I'd like if people who would like to see the story in full color could go do that.... I just don't want people maybe getting the wrong idea? I did draw the great, great majority of the linework for issue one in under a year, even with work and errands and coloring, so I can do the linework, no problem. Even less problem when the frames are easier, which most are. I definitely want cushion for major illness and frames that make me ask how long I can spend procrastinating.

So I just have, y'know, all these loose ends hanging out there. Then there's the matter of really plugging through these more difficult frames that I've been struggling with. And I have lineworks that I'm struggling with as well as colorworks that I'm struggling with, so it's fun feeling like everything is hard.......

Obviously, I'm technically not supposed to have my phone on me while I'm at work, but I do my job well, when there's anything to do and there's little to do right now. So since I'm bored, depending on what I'm doing, I've been flipping between trying to work on linework, and coloring. I guess maybe that's why my project feels like it's getting messy.

I don't presently, actively need to work on more lineworks other than to just keep the style as consistent as possible and to keep the story moving forward on at least one of the many, many levels. Not to mention, it's kinda the point, but the low content version is going to rapidly outstrip the fully colored version. Naturally. But still.

I do love the way it looks fully colored. I don't think I would pass that up. At the same time, if between having to work and spending as much time as possible on the graphic novel--I can't reliably outsource ALL my chores, we've had a lot of trouble with just getting car rides and groceries, not to mention, in our situation, it's just easier to do the garbage and laundry and dishes. Not to mention, I am obligated to leave the house occasionally. If only for my sanity. It's just going to take time. About fifteen months. Y’know.

I don't know if detached is really the right word. It feels out of my present control. It feels messy and like there's too much to juggle at one time. It feels like I've spent too much time on these frames--they're little mini-story frames, one frame broken into four segments, and there are two frames dedicated to the story of the founder, and two for the evolution of the school, and I was trying to keep it visually interesting enough while still simple and informational enough......... I hope. I'm gonna check with my one and only beta.

I think it's the depression speaking. I just don't know where to begin with this thing, I partially want to hold off on coloring for a while, or at least finish this volume, get it published, and then maybe just focus on working on the linework? At least with the linework out of my way, I could give more of my attention to coloring. I think I'm also making a little more trouble for myself by even mentally breaking off issue one from issue two, rather than treating them like the same story.

Either way, it's always so exciting in the first place to see the lineworks, and it's exponentially more exciting to see the colored frames. I don't know why I didn't just do this in the first place.

[kumawrites]

hi!! idk how requests work but coffeeshop au with oikawa as the flirty barista and you're just trying to find a place to study okay bye 😶😶

iced vanilla bean latte

☆ oikawa tooru x reader ☆

☆ - 1.7k words

☆ - a/n: i based this 100% in a local coffee shop in my area that i frequent except i h8 coffee

☆ - taglist: @miceonmars

//

“Y/N, Obama was the last president of the United States, not the third.” Kiyoko looked at you with a pitiful gaze in response to your answer.

“Oh.” You blinked once. Twice. A third time for good measure. So your American Politics class was needless to say, not going very well. Honestly, you didn’t even know why you were taking an American politics class when you lived in Japan. Actually, you knew why. Because of your horrible habit of procrastinating literally anything that can be procrastinated, you foolishly waited until the very last day that you could to register for classes. And unsurprisingly, most of them had been completely filled, leaving American Politics to be the only history class that you were able to take. Which would have been just fine, had you not procrastinated studying and even taking notes.

You stared blankly down at your notebook that was barely a quarter full. Instead of taking notes and actually paying attention in class, you either skipped or distracted yourself playing games on your phone. Your professor never notified you since you sat right in the middle of the lecture hall, not drawing much attention at all. Maybe, that wasn’t a good thing, however. You had no connection to your professor at all, and asking for help this late in the game just didn’t feel right, which is extremely irrational but you really didn’t care.

Your problem would really just have been solved if you did care. Too bad you didn’t. However, you’re stuck in a bit of a pickle now, not knowing even the basics of the class, with midterms coming up and a frighteningly fast rate. You were bound to fail, and your parents would not be very happy about that. So, you decided that it was finally time to actually study. Except studying really meant learning all of the material that you had covered for half of the semester in about a week.

Luckily for you, you had great friends who were super smart and actually studious to help! Kiyoko had already taken the class, being a grade ahead of you, and had graciously blessed you with her notebook full of her beautiful notes. It was truly astounding how notes could be so pretty. Yachi, on the other hand, gave your studying tips and ways to actually study well. Without those two, you would have failed the midterm for sure, and most likely the course all together.

You were currently studying with Kiyoko in the library, well trying to at least. Apparently, you knew less than you actually thought.

“Wait, what’s a Conservative? Is that a branch of Congress?” You weren’t doing too hot.

“It’s a political party. They���re a more extreme version of a the Republican Party.” You nodded your head, slowly understanding. Why were politics so complicated?

“Oh, okay. I think I get it. So, Liberals are Democrats but more extreme?”

“That’s right.” Kiyoko nodded her head as you scratched down some of her notes into your own notebook. Kiyoko’s phone pinged and she grabbed it from the table, turning it on. She read the message, sighed, replied, and began packing up her things. “Sorry, Y/N, but my boss just messaged me. I have to go in tonight, Hana got sick.” You nodded and gave Kiyoko a slight smile and a wave as she left. Now it was just you, left to your own devices. You were half tempted to close your books and play Fire Emblem, but that seemed like a poor long term choice.

You kept at it for a surprisingly long amount of time, around an hour, until a rowdy group came in. Even though it was a library, it wasn’t the most quiet of places on campus, and many groups liked to come in to work on group projects. You had no problem with them, until they set down their bags and their bodies at the table right next to yours, still chatting loudly. Unfortunately for you, you didn’t bring your earbuds with you. Since you assumed you would just be studying with Kiyoko the whole time, you didn’t bother to pack them. The one moment in your life when you needed them the most. A tragedy.

You sighed and packed up your things, considering giving up studying for the day, until you realized you were running out of time and were still extremely confused. And tired. You yawned as your left the library, wondering where to go from there. Going back to your dorm would only lead to you playing video games and ignoring everything else, so that was off the list. Every other place you could think of would be far too noisy to actually study. You were in quite the pickle.

You were really close to giving up for the hundredth time until you passed by a coffee shop that you had never seen on campus before. Was that always there? No, it couldn’t have been. It was in the middle of a route you used all of the time to get across campus. But how did you never notice that this was there? The shop had large windows that you could peek through to see a very classy interior. Everything seemed to be made of a walnut coloured wood, excluding the black chairs and stools. There weren’t too many people in the shop, just a small crowd. It looked peaceful. You stood there for a bit before deciding to walk inside. Maybe this is where you could study in peace.

As soon as you opened the door, you were greeted with the smell of fresh roasted coffee beans. You stopped a vacant table and placed your belonging on it and took a seat. The chairs were surprisingly comfortable, even though they seemed to be made of metal. The vibe in the entire shop was very calm. You could get used to this.

You took your notes out and began to study, creating flashcards and making your notes a bit cleaner and more cohesive. This was the kind of productivity that you needed to have on a daily basis. Too bad that this energy was for sure going to leave your body once you finish your midterm. Another yawn left your body, and you turned your head towards the counter. You could buy a coffee. That wasn’t going to break your bank account. Yeah.

You stood up and headed towards the counter, staring at the menu. Everything on the menu sounded fine, but you didn’t know exactly what you wanted.

“Hey! What can I do for you today?” A cheery voice broke you form your thoughts and you brought your eyes back down to look at who was speaking to you. The barista that greeted you had a charming smile on his face, one that you knew just drew people in. He was pretty, for sure, but you didn’t have time to think about pretty boys, too focused on trying to pass your class.

“Hi there. I’ve never been here, so I’m not too sure what to get. What would you recommend?” You have him a polite smile in return, and shifted your gaze back to the menu. There were so many options that you were a bit overwhelmed with choices

“Hmm..” The barista tapped his chin and scrunched his face a bit. “What about the vanilla bean latte? It’s really good iced!” He suggested and you nodded your head.

“Okay, sure. I’ll have that as a 24 ounce, then.” You ordered such a large drink since you assumed that you would be here for a while, having so much material left to study.

“Oh, it’s Y/N.” You replied and he hummed, typing it into the tablet on the counter. Your total came up and you handed him your card, making sure to leave a tip.

“That’s a cute name, just like you!” You stared at him. It was like someone had just stopped a record right in the middle of a song. What? Did you hear that right?

“Sorry, um, what?”

“I just think you’re super cute. We’ll have that vanilla bean right out for ya, Y/N.” He winked and walked over to his coworker who was making your drink. You vaguely remember his coworker scolding him, telling him to ‘stop flirting with the customers shithead’, but you really weren’t listening. Were you just, flirted with? Is that how this works? You for sure were not expecting that to happen.

You returned to your seat and opened up your notes, trying to forget the flirting(?) and focus on your studies. That’s what you came here to do, not flirt with a cute barista that you would for sure go on a date with. But, he was probably just a flirty person, you figured. If his coworker scolded him like that, it was probably a common occurrence, meaning you shouldn’t take it to heart or anything. He was just super cute.

Only a few minutes after you began to actually focus in on your work, you noticed that a large plastic cup full of iced coffee and a plate with a muffin was placed down at your table. Looking up, you saw the cute barista with a beaming smile on his face.

“Here you go, Y/N. Hope you like it.”

“Oh, I didn’t order a muffin.” You tilted your head up at the man who chuckled in response.

“I know. It’s on the house.” And with that, he gave you a tiny wave and disappeared into the back room, leaving you shook. Was this protocol? No, definitely not. Was this protocol for him flirting with every female customer? His boss wouldn’t let him give out that much free food. Was he really, for sure, actually, flirting with you? Was this real? Are you real? Okay, not time for an existential crisis.

You picked up the muffin on the plate, and noticed a small note that was placed under it.. It read, ‘text me!!!! :) xxx-xxx-xxxx - oikawa’. At this point, you were pretty damn sure he was flirting with you. Holy shit. He was flirting with you. Oikawa, you assumed his name was, still hadn’t come out of the storage room, so you couldn’t gauge his reactions or anything. You stared at your phone that you picked up like it was an explosive, ready to detonate. Were you actually going to text him? Was this actually a good idea? You know what, fuck American politics, you had something far more pressing to deal with at the moment.

y/n: hey is this oikawa? this is y/n

oikawa: hey cutie!! ;)

[sparklingpax]

Y E S id LOVE to see how you draw The Boi!!

I think you’re referring to when I posted about asking if anyone wanted me to put out a tutorial about anything so....ok! :D

Your wish is my command~

///

Uhh so for y’all other artists or people who might also see this, disclaimer again that I’m not  a professional so pls pls pls dont come at me if you see mistakes...which there are mistakes...like I’m 99.9% sure some of this isn’t really “symmetrical” or its warped weirdly because I Suck at perspective and I’m still learning! :’) 

The point of this tutorial thing is just to show my general process of how I draw Optimus (a headshot of him, just his head and neck, to be specific; his body is another, longer story o//o’’) and others’ execution of it can definitely vary. I mostly just showed the steps in which I completed the different parts of his helm. 

Which I’d also like to add that I’m an Idiot and forgot to record my screen so instead I took photos of the different compeleted steps after drawing the whole thing O//////o’’ but anyway......I do still hope this maybe sorta helps....^^’’ 

///

1.) Sketching; I like to draw a human head actually (same goes for body; I’ll start with a human form as the sketch and then do a second sketch of the armor over it before I start lining; and those dont include other sketches I do over those to clean them up....^^’’)

2.) Cleaner, More Specific sketch; This is the last sketch before lineart where I place things and color the lines so I get an idea of what the final product might look like...if I end up doing it right! I try to place everything that should be in the final, so before this are other sketches....but this is the last one. Ok. Moving on--

3.) Crest; this can move around a lot while lining the rest of the helm as you may find you’ve centered it incorrectly...or at least...that’s what happens to me...but nonetheless, I begin with the crest~

And a note about how I make it: I use the line tool to make the shape, duplicate the shape, make that one smaller, fill it in completely, then take the eraser and turn the canvas so I can erase in the lines. When you finish, it’ll look like a grill of sorts (is that the term??? O///O’’) and it saves the trouble of extra lineart,,,idk call me lazy but it looks good in the end,,,, ^^’’

4.) Top of his helm; When I draw this the first time, I close up the bottoms so I can clean them up later when I draw the other parts of his head, but as I said above, by this point I’d already finished the drawing so that’s why it looks like that, but basically, that blue part of his helmet goes next! :D I also try to do extra lines as I go along so I don’t forget later...^^’’

5.) Add in the audio receptors + Side face-plate things!! Preferably, start with the receptors, then do the side thingies. And for the grill on those, take your line tool and draw in a rectangle that follows the shape at the top but is straight on the bottom and fill it in. Then, erase the same amount of times on each side to create the same look~ Obviously, be neater than me...since this example here is kinda lopsided....but I suppose you probably get the idea.. :’3 

6.) Draw in the blue plating on his face, then the chin on a separate layer below, and on yet another layer, add the tiny blue things at the bottom. Clean up the chin lines that cross into the blue plating spaces, and that should give you this step! If that,,,makes any sense? If my rambles make it confusing, just look at the final result here and compelete the three components on three separate layers so it’s easier for you. Also, when you’re done with that, combine the side blue plating and the chin bits so you have less layers to go through in the end...if you wanna...

7.) As for the antennae things, use the line tool for sure, and erase or change the brush size up so you can play with line-weight...and again call me lazy but you can combine them when you’re done cleaning them up (again, I reccommend putting each one of these on a separate layer first so you can clean them up individually and then combine to one) and duplicate the layer for the other side. For front view, literally just flip it so it’s symmetrical, for 3-quarter, you might need to use your “transform” (hahah lol) tool to fix it a bit. Or just draw the new side in, either way, that completes step 7.

8.) Neck!! Now this wasn’t a more “serious drawing” or anything, so I kinda made a neck shape and drew in random cables and lines so it looks complicated but it’s actually not....tbh when you do draw him, you can kind of do that because ultimately, the shades of black used to color his neck area are dark enough to conceal what exactly was drawn in there so it’s not the most important thing in the world...since you’ll see there’s lining in there but it’s too hard to make out what exactly....basically, from afar, having all this “complication” will give the look that he has a complex neck area, with all these cables and wires and it looks alien! And that’s exactly what you should go for without needing to make it too hard for yourself. I remember someone told me once that in a lot of art, especially art displayed on social media or that kind of thing, you wanna focus on details but not too much; always do a double-take to see what it looks like as a thumbnail so you won’t end up stressing over every tiny miniscule detail. Idk but it seems like good advice~ 

9.) Eyes/mouth; For the eyes the only thing I wanna say is that I make a shape and fill it in. I know he has other little details surrounding his optics, but for the sake of showing you how I do this in my lil style, I like to simplify it by just making the shape and filling it in, then duplicating the layer and “gaussian blurr-ing” it so it has a softer look. The mouth is...the mouth. Do with it what you shall~

10.) Optics! The blue part! The most fun part in my opinion! I actually have a more “complicated” (not really lol) version of his eyes which I use if I’m going to color the piece or do something more “serious,” so this here’s the simplified version. Like I said with his eyes, I like to keep it simple when it comes to his eyes, since idk it just...looks good to me ^^’’ I take the pen tool and draw in two circles, ovals, whatever the shape is supposed to be. I do not use the circle tool because it feels a little.....stiff..? Idk ^^’’ But anyway, then I duplicate the layer, gaussian blur, and combine both. Another thing I like to do is change the first layer (the one that didn’t get the blur) from “normal” to “Add (Glow)” ((as it’s written in Clip Studio settings, that is)) and mess with that a little, THEN combine these layers. The last part is adding your shine bits; just take your white pen and go wild, and if you wanna, do the whole “duplicate, blur, combine” thing with the shine bits as well; it adds to the look~ 

And ofc, take away the sketch layer (but don’t delete it, just in case you need it! ^w^)

I have another process for coloring....but I didn’t include it since it’s fairly simple ^^’’

Unless you wanna see that too....but for now.....I hope you could get something out of this tutorial here! Sorry it was so long!! 

I also just realized I forgot his eyebrows, but you can add those in along with the eyes/mouth step if you don’t forget like I did...idk, for this particular look it seems not to take so much away from the drawing but....I should have remembered ahh--

Anyway! Thanks so much for asking!! And thanks to all of y’all for reading/looking through all this!! <3 

See ya around~

-Kuni :D 

[cutieodonoghue]

dark gray (3/?)

summary: Killian Jones operates a lighthouse in the middle of nowhere, preferring a life of isolation, until one day a woman and a baby wash up on his little island and change his life forever.

read it on: ao3, ff.net

///

Three

When Emma wakes up, it is to the sound of a door slamming shut.

She bolts upright on the couch and her eyes are wide, her heart racing with confusion and fear, before she realizes that it is the morning and that her one-handed friend must have just left the tiny house to start his chores.

She sighs as she sits there, contemplating lying back down and sleeping for a while longer, but then she chooses to get up and search for the bathroom instead.

Logically, she searches the bedroom first, but finds nothing but piles of things lying where she swears they hadn't been the night before.

On a groan, she starts limping her way back through the living room, where she realizes that the man whose distorted version of kindness she's taking advantage of is living in filth.

There is trash everywhere and things aren't exactly in tip-top shape for a Navy Man, so she wonders as she walks through the disaster area of a kitchen, if he just doesn't clean.

There are flies swarming an overflowing trash can in the kitchen by the front door and there are scuff marks everywhere from his boots, which makes her roll her eyes. If he'd just pick up his feet, the floor would be less of a tragedy than it is.

She finds the bathroom, a tiny little thing, tucked back by the kitchen table, which is itself cluttered in dishes, beer bottles, and piles of notebooks and papers.

When she opens the door to the restroom, she is overwhelmed by the scent of grime and scrunches her nose as she manages to drop the toilet lid.

Emma examines the little room as she stands there, wincing at what looks like the start of mold on the wall of the shower, and she discovers a colony of ants that are nonsensically marching their way along the crumbling molding.

This man lives in a pigsty and she is being forced to share it with him for four weeks. Great.

After she discovers that he doesn't have any soap and that the water only runs cold in the sink, she pulls open the squealing door and studies the rest of his kitchen and pantry.

She finds that the ants continue to march into the storeroom, where he's left some food haphazardly spilt on the floor. She huffs and shakes her head, then goes to see if he has any cleaning supplies tucked away anywhere.

Emma discovers that he does have some cleaning supplies, but they appear to have never been touched or even considered as useful. They're crammed into a portion of the storeroom behind light bulbs and barrels of water that she has to work at to grab them. He has a vacuum cleaner, but she doubts it would work without the cord that has clearly been cut off for some reason.

She looks through the shelves of food and finds that there isn't much here. She figures he must have an emergency stash somewhere, and she decides she'll ask him about it later. If they're going to be stuck here together for a month, she's not going to be the one that suffers because they don't have enough to eat.

On her way back toward the living room where Henry's silence indicates he's sleeping, Emma stares at the bathroom door, at the paint chipped walls, and the ants marching along the cracked crown molding.

Almost compulsively, she goes to work cleaning the house right away.

She starts in that disgusting mess of a bathroom and scrubs every surface until she is satisfied that she won't contract a disease if she were to visit it again and it smells like a cleaning solution, a clear sign that it has been sanitized.

If her mother were here, she probably wouldn't believe that Emma Nolan would ever risk another injury while nursing one already in order to scrub behind the dusty, grimy toilet base.

Her leg is in a lot of pain by the time she finishes tidying up the kitchen and storeroom, so after wiping the dust off of the shelves of the bookshelves in the living room, Emma tends to Henry and then lies down again.

Killian hasn't returned yet, which is probably for the best, and she closes her eyes with the duster still in her hand.

When she opens her eyes again, it's because Henry starts fussing. It doesn't feel like it's been long enough for her to have slept long at all.

Suddenly, she understands why her parents only wanted one child.

She immediately goes to help and care for him, taking him into her arms with a slight struggle. His cries almost offend her. Emma definitely hasn't spent enough time around children to know what to do, but she thinks she should get him something to eat.

It's much nicer with the room clean and the trash taken out. She can actually make out what is where and the smell isn't overwhelmingly rank.

She'd discarded all of the garbage to the back of the house in what appeared to be a landfill-type pile that he'd started.

She hadn't seen Captain Hook then. She's sure he's off sulking and keeping to himself right now instead of dwelling near them.

Emma opens up the curtains to let light into the living room as she feeds Henry and then, when he's finished and burped, she settles him back into his bed of pillows so she can clean the rest of the man of the house’s mess.

She throws her hair up into a bun atop of her head using a rubber band she'd found in one of the drawers in the kitchen and hobbles around as she moves piles of garbage and creates a cleaner smelling and looking place of dwelling. She wonders if he's ever actually cleaned as she discovers a pile of clothes on his bedroom floor.

"Looks like I'm doing laundry now, too." Emma mutters, throwing the clothes onto the bed so she can wrap everything up in his probably horribly dirty bed sheets.

She carries everything out into the kitchen and throws out the garbage before she takes a tub from the storage room and fills it with water. She finds some soap and gets to cleaning everyone's clothes outside, by what appears to be a good enough place to hang the wire to set things to dry.

She handles her and Henry's clothes with care and makes sure they smell exceptional before allowing them to dry on their own line, pinned down with some clothespins she discovered in a miscellaneous drawer in the kitchen.

She keeps her eye out for Killian, but doesn't see him anywhere amongst the smattering of trees and shrubbery.

Her gaze goes to the lighthouse at the end of the beach. It's tall and white, appearing a little worn for its years. The waves rolling in against the shore remind her of the night she stood on the side of the ship and was tossed from the upper deck and to the lower one.

Her leg hurts when she thinks of it and she takes a deep breath. All she sees when she closes her eyes is her parents in mourning over the loss of their only child and it makes her want to throw up what's in her stomach.

After she goes back inside, Emma starts to prepare herself a meal of oatmeal and bread, returning to Henry to give him some attention as she makes her food.

He’s a good baby, she thinks, because when he’s properly taken care of, he doesn’t complain. She sings a little to him when she sits down to eat her food with him in her arm and pokes at his nose, laughing a little when he makes a face.

"You're too cute, Henry."

She just barely reaches for her spoon when the front door squeaks on its way open.

Killian stares at her first, his mouth open as if he was about to reprimand her for something, and then he looks around the room.

"Did you clean?" he asks, narrowing his eyes at her.

"You were living in filth. Of course I cleaned." Emma scoffs.

He just looks confused and bewildered as he searches over the room.

"The clothes and your bed sheets should be dried soon and I'll have those folded up and replaced as soon as I can." Emma takes a bite of her oatmeal. "Oh, and you had mice living in that storage room, by the way. I got rid of them. Or… tried to. I think you need to patch up the wall in there."

His eyes widen at that and she smiles smugly, looking down at the bowl in front of her again. "You shouldn't... you didn't have to do all of that."

Emma hums. "I'd thought you would have been more appreciative that I'm doing housework. You know, being a woman and all, I have no other good use." He stares at her with a clenched jaw and steps inside, allowing the door to clatter shut. "You're welcome, by the way."

He scowls a little and wipes his feet on the mat she'd discovered in the bedroom under a pile of other misplaced items. He walks over to the kitchen appliances and sets to making something.

Emma ignores the feeling of underappreciation and attends to her own meal and Henry, whose attention rests on his own toes.

"How do you get warm water for baths?" she asks. "I should give Henry one."

He doesn't answer her. He opens and closes drawers like a man plagued by fury.

Emma sighs. "Plates are by the stove. Silverware in the drawer by the sink."

He stills and she hears the two open one after another.

Killian takes a seat at the table across from her a short while later and she watches him with a raised eyebrow, waiting for her answer.

He's made himself a sandwich that he eats as if she isn't here with him. He doesn't have any regard for manners or her, it turns out, and he makes little noises that infuriate her between hard swallows of breath through his nose.

"Boil it over the fire," he tells her gruffly. She's looking at Henry, biting on her lip so hard she thinks she could draw blood, and keeps her gaze down. "Shouldn't be using that leg, though."

Emma looks up at him. "I do what I want."

He sighs, pushing the last bit of sandwich into his mouth. "Your funeral."

Killian stands up and disregards his utensils into the sink, thankfully, before he storms back outside, the door slamming shut roughly.

"Your funeral," Emma mocks, sticking her tongue out toward the door childishly.

/

Killian sucks in a deep breath of the ocean air as he walks back toward the lighthouse.

His fingers twitch by his side and he reaches up to drag his hair out of his face. It's getting too bloody long, but he doesn't feel like cutting it.

He opens the door to his lighthouse and studies the pile of wood he has set up on the floor. He has decided to build Henry a bed, because it doesn't feel right forcing him to sleep in a cradle of pillows.

Even though Henry's cries can be a bother, he'd rather be able to look back at this time and say he did the proper thing.

This was the proper thing to do, right?

With a heavy sigh, Killian sits down in the chair in front of the lumber. He switches on the record player and the slow, quiet tones of the melancholy guitar begin to echo around the small circular base of the lighthouse.

He knows the song by heart, but he doesn't sing, he just listens as he works the wood and finishes shaping the cradle for the little one.

Memories of a time years ago flashback in his mind and he closes his eyes sorrowfully while he leans back.

There are letters ingrained in the wood from where he'd put his chisel years ago, the initials of a child he'd never get to meet.

Sometimes the memories come and he drowns them out in alcohol, but when he considers the present- how he has a woman and a child in his home now, and how that woman cleaned his home from top to bottom without him asking- he figures he should stay as far away from the bottle as he can.

Killian scrubs his hand over his face and averts his gaze to the photograph sitting on the edge of his desk- of he and Liam years ago. They're both grinning, but Liam has it worse, his arm wrapped around Killian's shoulders, and Killian has his uniform on. The two of them stand in front of the lighthouse while a boat sits tied off to the dock.

Killian feels a pang of regret settle in his belly and he closes his eyes as he turns away from his desk and instead toward the door.

"Apologize, you git." Killian mutters under his breath. He sighs heavily and hesitates for a few moments before he steps forward.

As soon as he stands outside in the cold, with the sound of the ocean roaring against one side of him, he hears Emma's screams and hums a laugh.

"I told you, didn't I?" he shakes his head, but rushes forward regardless.

[intergalactic-zoo]

I'll give one thing to DC Comics Skeletor: he's a quicker study than the animated version.

Turns out that searching for the Power Sword and trying to take Grayskull hasn't been working, so Skeletor decides to kidnap the Sorceress Goddess and make He-Man find the Power Sword instead.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Masters of the Universe #1 came out in August, 1982, the month after the Preview insert. Paul Kupperberg returns as writer, with George Tuska on pencilling duties. Mini-storybooks artist Alfredo Alcala is back to ink the first two issues, with Rodin Rodriguez taking over in #3. Adam Kubert and Ben Oda are our letterers, and Adrienne Roy and Anthony Tollin are the colorists. Getting Alcala back, even just for inks, really does make a difference; he brings a Prince Valiant quality to Tuska’s pencils in the first issues, which is lost a bit in Rodriguez’s cleaner style. Tuska definitely feels more suited to this setting than Curt Swan did; much as I love Swan, this era of Masters of the Universe really lives in a more brutal, Conan-inspired place than what would come later, and that’s just not what Swan’s classic superheroic style is best at.

Our story begins at another party, where Prince Adam is continuing with that playboy lifestyle, though we get explicit confirmation that this is at least in part an act.

I think this is a really interesting hook for the character, even if it clearly wasn’t very sustainable for a children’s property, particularly one as beset by watchdog groups as Masters of the Universe. The alter ego with a different personality from the hero is nothing new in superhero comics, and we’ve even seen characters like Batman playing the carefree Casanova, but Adam feels a little distinct here, characterized closer to Johnny Storm than Bruce Wayne. Usually the immature, impulsive character who’s always thinking about the opposite sex is played straight, as character flaws that the hero genuinely needs to overcome; it's less common to make those the hallmarks of his secret identity.

Adam gets attacked by demons in his bedroom, and finds Cringer when he hides under the bed, which is a solid gag. We never do find out what the demons were doing there. They rush off to the Goddess's magic cavern, where they are transformed—but find Skeletor instead of the Goddess (who is occasionally also called the Sorceress in the story). Skeletor has imprisoned her, and will only release her if He-Man retrieves the Power Sword for him, which the Goddess has hidden away. In order to find the sword He-Man will need to find three talismans (talismen?) representing the sea, the sky, and the cosmos. 

It's a fetch quest to start the fetch quest. Not the most auspicious start to a series. Or end to one.

He-Man returns to the palace, where we get confirmation of something that fans have always speculated about: do He-Man and Prince Adam really look that similar? In the DC Universe, the answer appears to be yes:

It also plays into a longtime fan theory that Queen Marlena knows Adam's secret. Now that he's back to the palace, He-Man seeks help from the palace wizard, Tarrak, who is being attacked by demons himself! 

He-Man, Teela—wearing for this issue only a sword-and-sorcery standard metal bikini—Battle Cat, and Man-at-Arms manage to defeat the demons, but not before they take the cosmos talisman. Meanwhile, the Bird-People of Avion are attacked by a squad of Beastmen, who are after the sky talisman, which Stratos wears. Stratos seeks help from He-Man, and with Tarrak's assistance, the heroes set off to find the other two talismans. 

This specific outfit and pose feels so familiar.

He-Man and Battle Cat head into the jungle, where they meet a clan of barbarians that He-Man has encountered before, in what feels like a nod to his classic origins. He-Man once helped them battle a sexy evil wizard named Damon.

The barbarians know where the cosmos talisman is, but before they can retrieve it, the group is attacked by demons again. He-Man takes the talisman, and is transported away. 

Out in the Sea of Blackness, Man-at-Arms, Teela, and Stratos are looking for the sea talisman, which is being held by the Mer-People. Fortunately, Tarrak gave them potions so they could breathe underwater. Mer-Man leads a fight against them, because this version also has ambitions of his own, until Skeletor pulls a Darth Vader from a distance. Teela is less than grateful, so Skeletor leaves them to the mercies of the Mer-People.

Just going to admire how great Skeletor looks in that first panel for awhile.

But Stratos claims the sea talisman just in time, and the whole crew is transported into a Steve Ditko drawing. 

They get attacked by demons again, but are saved by Zodac, who refuses to give them any information about the person sending the demons, but a page later we learn that it's the wizard Damon, who wants the Power Swords so he can control Eternia, not that dimensional-carpetbagging wizard-come-lately Skeletor. He's gotten considerably less sexy and more...problematic since that brief appearance in the previous issue. 

Seriously, he looks like the antisemitic caricature from that Carman video. He also happens to be right next to where the Goddess stored the two halves of the Power Sword, but they're in an impenetrable force field, which is not mentioned again. 

Zodac uses the talismans to open a portal to the Sword's location (sort of?) and then gives them to Zoar the poorly-drawn falcon before sending the heroes on their way. 

Feels like the reference got away from you a bit.

Meanwhile, Damon decides to tip his hand by attacking Skeletor, who lashes out with magic that is strong enough to teleport them both into Castle Grayskull, just as Damon had planned. But in a pretty great moment of both villains trying to two-steps-ahead each other, that was all part of Skeletor's plan, and he apparently kills Damon. 

These comics go pretty hard for stuff that was based on toys for babies.

Also, this happened earlier in the issue.

The heroes also end up in Castle Grayskull, which is apparently where the Power Sword is, even though we already saw Damon with the Power Sword before he was able to access Castle Grayskull.

You and me both, He-Man. The heroes split up to search the castle. Stratos gets caught in a giant spiderweb, Man-at-Arms gets blown up by a tripwire, and Teela ends up in a hedge maze until she stumbles on Skeletor, who pulls the Power Sword out of a magic warp. 

He-Man shows up shortly after, but Skeletor sends Beast-Man (singular) and a monsterized Man-E-Faces (who was briefly introduced earlier in this third issue) against the hero. Eventually He-Man, Teela, and Zoar get the sword away from Skeletor, and then the Goddess appears to say "actually I wasn't in any danger, but your friends are all caught in booby traps." The End. 

What an absolutely bizarre miniseries. It feels like it was initially intended to be four issues and cut down to three, but that change had to be made before the first issue—with its "Mini-Series 1 of 3" banner—went to the printers. The promotional push makes it seem like DC was intending to do a lot more than three comics and a handful of mini-comics. Editor Dave Manak speculated that there might have been an issue with contract negotiations, but I'd be really interested if there's a clearer answer. Every aspect of the DC Masters of the Universe license feels abnormally cut off, right down to the end of this story. 

Whatever the reasons were, this would be the last full-sized Masters of the Universe comic from DC for almost 30 years. Next time we'll pick up with the Marvel/Star Comics. 

[le-poofe]

Idk if this has been asked already, but how long does it take you to create a comic/art piece? And what is the order of the steps you go through? (Btw I love your art)

That’s a good question! I’m gonna use the most recent page as the example. I’ve talked a little bit about how long it takes, but I haven’t really explained my process. Heads up, this is pretty long! I could have just put in one panel’s process, but it’s more fun to show the whole page

1. The Sketch ~ 1-2 Hours

This can take a while for a number of reasons. A few factors could be business, tiredness, a lack of inspiration, creating too many options for myself, etc. But generally this part goes at a decent pace. I have a script that I follow loosely, where I’ve written dialogue and actions that seem good for what’s going on. I will spend more time on panels that I have a specific image in my head for. Those last two panels are much cleaner/more fleshed out than the previous four because I had a much better idea for how I wanted them to look.

2. The Lineart ~ 2-4 Hours

The lineart takes the longest, hands down. It’s the clean up, final changes/additions, and just making everything look all nice for the rest of the piece. This is where I spend like 5 minutes comparing facial expressions to see which one I like better, drawing another one, and then choosing the first one I drew. 

3. The Background ~ 30 minutes

The coloring is so much faster than the lineart. I will usually go slower here on purpose because I enjoy it, and it’s a relaxing break from the lineart. I just color right underneath the lineart, I don’t worry about anything looking messy under the character linearts because I know they’ll just be covered up. Typically, if I start the lineart in the afternoon, I’ll get to this point and stop for the evening.  

4. Flat Colors ~ 5 Minutes

This goes relatively fast as well. I take my time for the most part. It’s just tedious to select the lineart. I kind of color them differently. Sans gets his darkest colors first, and then I add light layers on top. With Grillby, I put on the lightest color for his shirt and the middle color for his flames (I use 3-4 colors for them). Doing that kinda helps me establish that Grillby is a light source and Sans is not.The color schemes are almost direct complements, and I do eventually add yellow to Grillby’s flames. It makes them contrast with each other, and is generally satisfying to look at imo. It also makes Sans’ colors somewhat analygous to his surroundings, because of the deep blues and reds. The purple does stand out, but not nearly as much as the bright orange. 

5. Finishing Grillby ~ 45 Minutes - 1 Hour

I have a general routine for adding Grillby’s details, which is why it goes quick. ((There will be a separate post on that process later)) It only takes that long because I have to do it for multiple panels per page. I’m sure this page was even shorter because it mostly featured incomplete shots of him. To finish his flames, I use an airbrush to add the reds, then I do the same with the yellows. I take the brightest yellow on the palette and use that for his freckles, eyes, and mouth ((if it’s open)). The last thing I do is color his lineart a dark red. His eyes are lined with a darker red to compensate for the glow I put over them, which makes the lines look faint and hard to see. For his shirt, I shade it with the lighter pink color, and then airbrush the darker pink on the areas that are further away from his flames.

6. Finishing Sans ~ 1 hour 

Sans definitely has a more drastic change than Grillby. Almost none of the original purple survives the overlay layers. I have two or three light layers on top of the flat colors. I use one of the colors that is from grillby’s color palette, it’s a slightly altered version of his flat orange. First I do hard lights, that don’t have their edges blurred. The top of his skull and those half circle shapes under his eye sockets are some of the most noticeable examples. Then I go over that layer with another overlay, but this time with an airbrush. I put it in the same areas, but it makes everything look softer. There’s one more overlay, which uses the dark purple of Sans’ shirt. It helps me to not make everything too light. On top of all three of those is a a Luminosity + Shade layer in the orange color to make the brightest spots pop.

7. Finishing Background Details ~ 15-20 Minutes

This is basically doing the same thing I did to Sans on the background. I use the same orange from Grillby’s color scheme and add light where it needs to go. I can be more lenient on details because it’s not the main focus of the page.

8. Adding the Glow ~ 5-10 Minutes

This is just me taking the orange light color and airbrushing it just above the background on a Lum + Shade layer. This goes under the layers that Sans and Grillby are lined and colored on. The next layer is the same as the last and goes over both figures. It acts as a final highlight to the lightest points of the two. Usually it’s the top of Sans’ skull, the tips of Grillby’s fingers, and the area around his mouth. Then I airbrush Sans and Grillby’s eyes in blue and orange respectively on a Lum + Shade Layer.

9. Text and Final Details ~ 20 - 30 Minutes

This is where I figure out where I want to place the dialogue, and add in anything I might have missed. In this case, I forgot to fully draw and shade Sans’ tears at the beginning. I slap my signature on and boom! All done!

I hope this was helpful! And sorry it’s super long 0v0;; If you need clarification on anything, feel free to ask!