#world's smallest animals

[markscherz]

What is the best toad you have ever seen? (doesnt have to be one you saw irl, just the best toad in your opinion).

Look, there are 647 toad species in 53 genera, and I have seen many of them, some of which are truly glorious. So it is hard for me to say that any one is the best I have ever seen. But to just choose one group for the sake of argument:

I am a huge fan of animals evolving mittens instead of fingers, like what we see in bolitoglossid salamanders and the web-footed sand gecko, Pachydactylus rangei. In toads, the arboreal African genus Nectophryne have done this gloriously. And they're also exceptionally cute for true bufonids.

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[c-rowlesdraws]

April 27th is World Tapir Day! Celebrate a vey special day for some very special animals with artwork I've put on some stuff! Available now at redbubble.com/people/c-rowles -- click "Explore Designs" on my page to see them, along with even more art!

[littlesmutpanda]

I was watching a skeppy animatic with "the worlds smallest violin" and it occurred to me that skeppy might actually play the worlds smallest violin beings that he's canonically 2'2

[luchicm04]

World's Smallest Violin🍜

Sadly I missed it when I was a kid, but I ended up watching all 220 ep on youtube in a month. It's one of my fav animes rn I don't care if people say it's basic and generic (it kinda is)

Posted date: 05/06/22

(Full Gallery Here)

[loveisinthebat]

Micro Monday

[thechaotichorselord]

piano playing!

it’s a little long but if you like AJR you’ll like this :)

and yes this is me playing as you can tell by the frequent messups

[idlespright]

This spring I saw an illustration by Shirley Barber for "The Fairies' Cook". It made me think of all the colors outside when seasons are changing. And so I painted a picture, in my mind at first, of how live would be for a humanized rabbit, living in an apple tree cottage, going out for a picnic with friends.

It's still mostly a story in my head (but now it can become one in yours, too).

[beansforwhat]

Thumbnails done :)

[mishalogic]

One of the Worlds smallest animals

Dwarf three-toed Jerboa! ... Animal kingdom

[doorbloggr]

Artists and Violins

Media Recommendations #42

Sunday 18/12/22

Content:

Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken (anime)

World's Smallest Violin (song)

It's almost Christmas, which means the school year is winding down and I have more free time to enjoy media. Expect at least one more Media Recommendation this year before Christmas.

Anime and animation in general are often misunderstood areas of media. What goes into the planning, storyboarding, and backgrounds? How is sound approached, and how do you pair it to the imagery? Hands Off Eizouken is a fairly meta series about how anime is made, but also about business and artistic minds. My enjoyment of anime these past few years and of being an artist meant I HAD to recommend this series.

I also want to recommend a song by AJR called World's Smallest Violin. I've been in an introspective mood lately, especially on my mental state and self-esteem. And this song tells a great message about the millennial struggle of sweating over the small stuff, which boomers will call us snowflakes over.

So with that intro, onto the recommendations.

Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!

Science SARU/ Sumito Õwara

Pitch

Asakusa Midori is a highschool freshman and a big anime buff. Asakusa believes anime is all about setting and concepts. She has a wild imagination and gets lost in her own worlds, which she details in her sketchbooks. She is grounded by her friend Sayaka Kanamori, a realist sort who has a mind for money making. Kanamori and Asakusa meet a student model named Tsubame Mizusaki, who is big into anime technique, especially character animations and anatomy.

Midori wants to join the Anime club, but her eccentricty over detail has socially isolated her. Tsubame and Midori bond over their love for animation, and share their ideas with each other. With Tsubame's skill in character design and anatomy, and Midori's skill in concept and settings, they discover they have the skills to make their own animations, and with Kanamori's connections and business know-how, they would be able to start their own club, "Eizouken", or the "film studies club".

We follow the journey of the girls as they go through the processes of designing a world, and then a story. From storyboard to key frames, to full animations. But Anime is not just animation, the importance of outsourcing other processes through other school clubs, such as backgrounds, sound design, music, voice actors, and funding. And although Kanamori does not have any skills or interest relevant to animation, without her negotiations with these other resources, and a level head to push the others towards the deadline, the club would definitely have fallen apart.

My Thoughts

As an artist and general fan of weaboo culture, I gotta say I appreciate series that give a behind the scenes to the processes of it all. But while My Dress-Up Darling was a focus on fans of anime, Hands-Off Eizouken offers a focus on the types of struggles creators must endure.

I might do some more comparisons of series here, but I feel a good contrast is K-On! K-On is about the struggle of an artist (here a musician, Yui) on their journey to be good in their medium, and how her mesh with the others in the group obstruct the band from success and notoriety. Hands-Off Eizouken presents a group that are already very good at what they do, the struggle is putting those skills together, and a much greater focus on reaching the audience.

The school band in K-On never really have to struggle to reach their audience, and the only places where balance matters is Yui's attention span having to battle guitar practice and school studies. In Hands-Off, since Kanamori is such a realist of a character, the grim reality of anime is put in scorching spot-light. Anime is time-sensitive, so animation tricks have to be deployed such as long wide shots, looping movements, flipping and rotating frames, and smears, in order for the projects to be finished in time. It is Kanamori that suggests taking on other artists and sound engineers to take the workload off the main animators, and she makes sure that corners are cut where possible so that they have something to show when the deadline hits.

Anime is not about individual frames, it is about the whole at the end. Sometimes scenes have to be cut, animations have to reworked for the resources available. And most importantly, if nobody knows about the project, all the work may as well have been for naught. Advertisement is important.

Hands-Off Eizouken is a very important series that I think any artist should watch. Not just animators, but anyone who wants to pursue art seriously. The characters are endearing, the animation is amazing, the soundtrack is fun, and the series comes together as a whole. Because every moving piece is important. Please watch it.

World's Smallest Violin

AJR

AJR is an indie pop trio, three brothers with an overall upbeat tone and penchant for mixing genres to great effect. The first song I heard of theirs was "I'm Ready", a groovy motivational beat that sampled a line from Spongebob Squarepant ("I'm Ready" obviously) as it's central motif.

Admittedly I hadn't kept up with AJR beyond this song for a long time, but I recently heard a newer song of theirs called "World's Smallest Violin", and after my own emotional turmoil I've been through this year, I thought it a good a time as any to recommend this song to others.

First, musically, it is a really fun sounding song. It sort of has a Country undertone, but at the same time has the pace of Big Band, that come seamlessly together with acoustic clapping and the aforementioned Violin.

But lyrically is it is a less happy song, but it's not a sad song. More like a cry of desperation and a call to arms for confidence. Another call to Spongebob here, the World's Smallest Violin is a mocking call of pity. Oh boo hoo, let me play a song on the world's smallest violin. It is a mocking phrase meant to belittle insignificant problems. And the verses of this song are about explaining how "bigger" people in your own life have dealt with issues bigger than any you've had to deal with.

Although human society has progressed in a way that means that life is easier for newer generations, boomers will often try to sell this as a bad thing. But without trying to sound too snooty here, according to Maslow's Hierachy of Needs, the human experience is about securing basal needs so that more specific and intricate personal problems can be addressed. So yeah zoomers and millenials have more personal problems to deal with, but they're not insignificant.

The bridge of World's Smallest Violin explains that although:

"Next to them, my shit dont feel so grand/ But I can't help myself from feeling bad/ I kinda feel like two things can be sad".

Just because it's a different or "smaller" problem, doesn't mean it's not a problem.

The final part of the chorus goes:

"The world's smallest violin/ Really needs an audience/ So if I do not find somebody soon/ I'll blow up into smithereens/ And spew my tiny symphony/ Just let me play my violin for you."

Even if it is a problem that only the World's Smallest Violin is needed to play for, we need an audience. Someone to comfort us, someone to at least LISTEN. Because much of the struggle today's youth have with mental illness is because parents and carers do not recognise them as problems. The issues are repressed, the stresses increase tenfold and everything becomes worse.

Sure people before us have fought in wars, and conquered technologies, created the foundations for modern infrastructure, but that doesn't mean there aren't problems anymore. We've worked on the big things, so now we need to work on the small things. And it starts with listening to the world's smallest violin.

It's a good song that tells a good message. Give it a listen.

[spiribia]

gw2 version of cosmetic minipets tend to just very visibly be scaled down versions of the full size model which looks proportionally weird at the worst at times but also gives way for the bizarre potential of having a tiny version of this established npc dressed up like an elf and not wearing anything else for some reason scuttling after you with obviously sped up normal running animations

[flamboyant-king]

Magfest was fun! Walked around as Cammy, made a lot of “merch,” talked to a bunch of cool dudes, traded wares, met new friends and finally met old ones, got a jello shot from a Raccacoonie cosplayer, ate so much awful food, learned of new games, and got inspired.

I made so many buttons of cammypus and other funny creatures, folded 50+ origami boxes for the perler bead crafters, and drew on any paper I can find. It was nice and now I have no money.

[autistic-autumn]

you all post shit like this as if philosophers haven't been thinking about this for thousands of years now.

all time favorite quote

[loveisinthebat]

Ultra Micro

[meowmoedotcom]

World's Cutest Small Cats You’ve NEVER Seen Before!

meowmoe.com

[pepper-rex]

i think its funny that i can recite the entirety of heavy is dead from memory but not because i am a tf2 fan. i used to just watch the video every single day back in 2020 for no apparent reason. i guess it was just that good.