#BlueBead Answers

[bluebeads-art]

Hey Blue I need you to know that I think about your “Isa Pink FLASHBANG” post I think literally Every Day and it always makes me snort out a laugh out loud. I haven’t figured out how to explain to my coworkers that I’m laughing thinking about that post, but that’s Their Problem. It’s both Gorgeous and *Absolutely Hilarious*

Thank you so much for the gift to Art- it is Beautiful and brings So Much Joy

YEAH the eternal struggle of wanting to share jokes with people that require too much context... I know that plight well... u_u

Heughdgjd thank you so much for the kind words!! It's always wild to hear about my art sticking with people?? Like, logically yeah it must for at least a few people, but since I can't read minds it's just not something I think about unprompted? So when folks like you mention stuff like this, it gives me that happy-surprised-confused "wwhhhat do you mEAn? that my creations have a lasting impact on people?? huh?!?? :O"

Especially when it makes people happy specifically, like YES... this is what I strive for... To improve people's days even if it's just in little ways. I love art I love making art I'm so glad I got out of my years-long art funk (even though I think I just hit a patch of burn-out, wHOOPS... Might force myself to take a proper holiday break after I finish the thing I'm working on and hope that I can continue this momentum afterwards. 😆)

[bluebead]

That kiwi video you reblogged recently is of a female kiwi! You should look up what a male kiwi sounds like :)

Now THIS is what I expected a kiwi to sound like! I knew plenty of birds had sexual dimorphism with their calls, but wow, that's quite the dramatic difference, huh? :0

[bluebeads-art]

your art is so amazing !!! i adored the 3d printed stuff (as someone who has had to design myself 3d printed merch before because i don't usually have much access to the merch in my fandom lol), it's so good?? and all your coloring is beautiful <3

all this to say it might not seem like i reblog much but rest assured all the stuff i liked (or didn't) went into my queue a few times over hehehe. i LOVE your art it's amazing <3

wishing you luck with the identity and health stuff, even if it doesn't get better i hope you find happiness within it 🫡

gah this got away from me sorry for the ramble

aaaaaaa I saw this message in a notification on my phone, said "I'll read that when I actually have time to reply," then the notification got dismissed somehow and if there's no notification prompt to remind me of something, it no longer exists to me. It's been a month I'm so sorry ^^;;

Thank you so much! I wish it was easier to convert more of my stuff to be 3D printable, but my usual modeling style is not watertight in the slightest and disregards gravity entirely. 😆 3D modeling has always been really cool to me because there's so many different workflows depending on what you're trying to make. Keeps things from getting stale!

Speaking of differences, I feel like people don't tend to mention my coloring. :0 I think my line art usually steals the show, heh. I used to be a lot more conscious about color theory and shading when I was younger, but these days there's no thoughts, only vibes 😂

Ok the line, "even if it doesn't get better i hope you find happiness within it" hit me unexpectedly hard (in a good way). Any nice messages I get always means a ton to me, but while I don't seem to be able to articulate why at the moment, I think that line will stick with me for much longer than usual. Thank you so much ♥

---

Speaking more generally (this message just gave me a good excuse to talk, heh)- spoilers; the artist in my brain refuses to die. So after, like, a literal year of not touching it, I've started working again on a 3D modeling project that I started in 2021 that has been haunting me ever since. Been trying to redesign a robot OC of mine Rayner, and I'm really particular about wanting his joints to work in a physical space instead of bending the rules artistically. I'm Really bad at designing complex hard surface objects in flat 2D though. However, there's a reason artists tell you not to character design in 3D, and that's because it's slow, it's easy to lose design cohesion, and most importantly it just sucks, awful workflow. But I am Doing it. And while I was super stuck for years and almost developed a friggin phobia of the project, I am now Doing It. And it's actually working out this time. The 3D model itself is MILES from being done, but the design almost is, and while that's a boring end result for other people, it represents a huge milestone and accomplishment for me in many ways.

I've been drawing a little bit lately too! But I feel my social media hiatus has given me a healthier relationship with posting? Like I have a few doodles that I could either post now or post soon, but I don't feel the same pressure to anymore? Where even if I never post them, I think I'm fine with that. I've always thought I made art for myself, but that's not exactly true because I was also making art for the sake of sharing. And while I don't think there's anything wrong with that, I think being able to separate the two and be content with simply just creating is healthy. Also I'm still not as active on social media in general anymore which is probably healthier as well LOL.

So I'll prrrobably start posting again soon-ish now that I've broken this blog's posting silence? Not sure how to wrap this monologue up. My physical health problems are going to keep on probleming, but in terms of artistic fulfillment I've been in a much better place this past month, and that's a huge yeehaw from me 👍

[bluebeads-art]

Hihihi!!! Im your secret Santa! I draw and i wanna let you know that im so intimidated!/pos your drawings are very good!!! Anyway bye!!!!!!! (I also just discovered you did "the cost of staying silent"?????? I love that fic!)

Hellooo! Thank you so much!! :D

and fsjfdshjf oh no. Coincidentally I was recently joking with myself about how I mainly want to be a Cool Talented Artist Person because when Cool Talented People interact with me I feel weirdly honored, and I want to pass that honored feeling along to others. But then I realized Oh No, but Cool Talented People can be intimidating! I don't wanna be scary though!!

All that to say please don't worry too much because I've totally been there and I feel for you. ^^;

Also I'm like impossible to disappoint because I joined the ISaT Secret Santa because I love clobbering people with gift art. Getting clobbered in return is a rare bonus! :3 Like really rare! I have a folder of all the gift art I've ever gotten so I can cherish them forever, and there's not a whole lot considering that folder is 18 years old? (oh god it's 18 years old...) Because speaking of being intimidated, interacting with people is hard! So I've barely ever engaged with art trades, gift exchanges, etc etc until now. So no matter what, getting gift art means a lot to me!

Good luck and have fun! :]

Edit: ok I've been overthinking how my wording here could be misinterpreted for like a full day lmao, so I gotta specify that by wanting to be a Cool Talented Artist Person I mostly just mean that I want to get good at art to be an inspiration to others in the way other artists have inspired me. My ego is of reasonable size, I swear. 😂 But also I spent like 2/3rds of my life with self esteem in the negative numbers, I've earned a LITTLE bit of ego, as a treat.

[bluebeads-art]

Hey I just wanted to say how much I love your Submas reunion comic. The emotions, how the hug in the first panel looks, both Emmets and Ingos expressions. It’s so lovely! Also I can’t help but admire the simple details such as the wet spots on Ingo’s shoulder where Emmets cried on or the slight trembling from Emmet. And the absolute joy of seeing Ingo smile! This comic is a treat and I want to say thank you for sharing it!

YESSS I'm glad people are noticing my little attentions to detail! Another detail is the side of Emmet's hair that was smushed against Ingo's shoulder is extra ruffled.

Thanks for the nice comment! I'm happy people are enjoying my work. :D I spent 24 heckin hours working on it because I kept getting carried away and refining things, hahah.. The woes of being a slow and methodical artist... But it's worth it for all the silly and wholesome reactions people are adding in the tags. The incoherent emotional yelling fuels me... >:]

[bluebead]

hey, i really love your necrodancer videos on youtube and this is the only place i could think to message you! two questions - first, could you tell me the other modded soundtracks that you use sometimes? the only one i've been able to find is revibed. second, how did you get ring of peace in your hard mode chaunter run to add a full heart to all hosts? does that still happen in 3.7.1?

Thank you so much! :D

All the modded soundtracks I use are credited in the descriptions of the videos that they appear in, but to save you (and myself) from having to skim through videos to find them, I have a text file with all their links for convenience, haha

"Revibed of the NecroDancer" by Suizin "Cryptunes" by AuroraBlis "Reanimated Remixes" by Tucker Hux Murray "Double Chiptune Multimix" by SoloMael

I think those are the only ones that I've used in videos? Any other soundtrack you hear is probably one of the official ones

For the Chaunter question, I'm not sure? That's how it used to work, but maybe v3.7.0 changed it. v3.7.0 made it so that they can keep empty heart containers between hosts, so I'm guessing that changed how Ring of Peace works too?

[bluebead]

theres a new gundam show starting right now if you ever wanted an easy in...👀 it doesnt require any prerequisite knowledge. its gundam the witch from mercury

I actually started watching it the night I reblogged that Gundam post, heheh. I'm intrigued so far! I've only seen up until episode 2 and just noticed there was a prequel episode though, so I haven't had much time to form an opinion yet other than dang it's pretty to look at

Glad to hear you don't need any prerequisite knowledge, since the show has brought up several things that I'm like "I have no idea what you're talking about." So I couldn't tell if that's just lore I lacked or if it's the show's way of organically introducing concepts

[bluebeads-art]

Aye I like your art!!! I found you through the submas post yes, but your other art is so cool too!!!! Also heck yea sky cotl good

OK, BUT CONSIDER... skykid train boys... Their coats are already very conical, so they'd fit the cape format nicely. :] I already had some subway master inspired cape designs floating around in my brain, but I'm always iffy on drawing crossovers since it functionally cuts your audience in half... With people needing to be interested in both fandoms to fully appreciate it and all.

Tangent aside, thank you very much! :D Those are magic words to me, since what I feel like drawing or modeling is constantly changing thanks to hyperfixations. So when I get a big boost in followers due to some fandom thing, I think to myself, "I hope y'all know what you're getting into," lmao. But train brain doesn't seem to be stopping any time soon, at least.

[bluebeads-art]

Hi!! Sorry if you get asked this a lot but what software do you draw with? Your lineart is so crisp and I love the texture of the one in the Submas comic :O

Thank you! I use Clip Studio Paint! I've used it since.. man it's been a while. Like 2014? It's a really good program and it goes on sale often. 10/10 would recommend. The UI and its wordage for things takes some getting used to though, like inverting colors being called "reverse gradient". It adds new features at a good pace too! They recently added liquify tools, rendering Photoshop CS6 even more dead to me.

As for line art brushes, behold my favorites ranked by crispiness. I wanted the scale the image up for better visibility, but Tumblr shrunk it anyways. :(

●For most of my art, the default G-pen is my bestie. I used it for every single drawing I did last year. I use high pen stabilization (usually hovers around 25-50) and do the thing where you try to get a single good looking stroke by undoing and redrawing the same line over and over until you get a good one.

●Real G-Pen is a default brush I don't use too often. But it's basically the same thing with a lil more crunch.

●Textured pen is a default brush that I also don't use often, but it spawned most of the textured brushes I do use.

●Textured pen ...2!! is a custom brush that's basically just the textured pen with these settings:

Can you believe the default textured pen doesn't actually use a texture? Madness... Anyways I used this brush a lot around 2016.

●Textured pen (crispy) is what I used on the subway masters comic! It's Textured pen ...2!! with "emphasize density" checked for the texture. I don't know what that setting actually means, but it deepfries the texture to hell and back. That sucker is barely aliased, but that's what gives it extra crunch.

●No aliasing is just a pure pixel art pen. It's there to show just how crispy the crispy pen is.

Let me know if you have any more questions!

[bluebead]

they took away the monkey chair :(

Yes but ONLY on mobile for some reason? I can see it just fine on desktop 🤔??? Must have happened recently too, because it was fine when I queued it like two days ago

Functional webbed site moment, I guess?

Edit: Turns out it was just stored in my browser's cache. I cleared it and monkey is no more 😔

[bluebeads-art]

That sounds like a cool concept!!! They could be the, mantamas, Manta bosses, skymas?

Also ofc!!! You're an amazing artist!!! Proportions, colors, brushes, all that good stuff!!!! YOU KNOW HOW TO DRAW HAMDS

You're among the art gods 😔🤚

[previous ask]

I hadn't considered the mantas! At first I was thinking, hm, there's no trains in Sky (yet), but there's a whole lot of boats. So maybe their outfits would lean more sea captain-ish? Although in the Season of Flight mantas tow boats around, so I guess the difference doesn't matter! They would totally idolize the Lively Navigator, heh. That's most likely who they'd pick up pointing and calling from in the Sky universe.

And aaaAAA thank you! You flatter me so much, I'm cry.. 🥺♥ My advice to other artists is use references! Although I'm immediately going to contradict myself and say I should get better at not being so dependent on them. So the train twins are looking like mighty tempting doodle fodder. 👀 (I'm so bad at doodling because I get carried away easily...)

[bluebeads-art]

ingo used tackle

it's super effective!

LMAO YEAH

There's a joke about humans being weak to tackle in here somewhere, but I don't know enough about pokémon moves and types to make a good one 😂

[bluebeads-art]

The SECOND I saw your pfp I immediately realize it's a Skykid

Yes! >:D They're a little fella I designed almost exactly a year ago! Sooo glad we got another coat cape this season, they’re awesome

[bluebeads-art]

Wait ur the same guy who drew the submas comic and the flamethrower moth???????? Das so cool

Yeah! I’ve been messing around with different brushes and art styles this year, so it’s pretty easy to imagine they were drawn by different people.

I normally only use that crispy textured pen that you can see in the comic when I’m trying to draw faster, because the imperfections in the pen itself kinda shorts circuits my line art perfectionism. But I gotta say, it absolutely Did Not work this time. :’D  Or if it did, then it would have taken a horrific amount of time to finish otherwise.

[bluebeads-art]

Oh my god please draw more SubMas you draw them SO WELL I BEG YOU

BIG THANKS AND I WANT TO but I have a painting to finish and I'm side-eyeing Elden Ring and Risk of Rain 2: Survivors of the Void REEEAL HARD. I got the perfect storm of art motivation and inspiration right as several cool games were releasing, and I'm tearing myself apart. ;v; But the power of blorbos compels me...

Painting first though. Poor thing's been in WIP limbo for a month and it's looking way too cool to go unfinished.

[bluebead]

just wanted to say i found your 3d art years ago and am finally learning blender myself, and every time i’m demotivated looking back through your progress is super inspiring <3 your work’s amazing 3d and otherwise, love that you do both it and 2d; hope you’ve been well and keep it up!

Hearing that people are inspired and motivated by my work means so much to me. ;0; Thank you so much!!

And yesss, I'm always glad to hear I've gotten people interested in 3D modeling! It's such a useful skill. But yeah, it can get pretty rough to learn.

A cautionary tale I tell people is to avoid stretching yourself too thin and getting overwhelmed. When I started out, I tried to learn everything at once: Sculpting, retopology, normal map baking, texture painting, shaders, and so on. I got to a point where I started to comprehend just how little I knew vs how much there was to learn, and I had a bit of a nervous breakdown. 😅 I recommend working on lots of small projects like simple characters or props to get used to the flow of things without over-complicating it. That way you also get the positive experience of having a finished project.

I'm glad I persevered, and I wish you the best in pushing through those challenges as well! 👍 And you've given me motivation to face the 3D modeling project I've been procrastinating on for... [checks file date] 14 months. 😂