anthuan0

[anthuan0]

People playing Elden Ring and looking for the "good" demigod to root for are missing the point. Pick your favorite mass murdering war criminal megalomaniac with mommy issues and endlessly simp for them like the rest of us, cowards.

[anthuan0]

Some funky video game edits I did when trying something new, I really like how these came out!

[anthuan0]

[anthuan0]

Yo can you please draw Beat and Yoyo hanging out at a mall?

sory that this took so long to make I wasnt feelin too good 💔

[anthuan0]

only one of them is getting groceries im afraid. the others have lost the plot.

[anthuan0]

Mirage 2

[anthuan0]

FF6 Lizzo “Boys” - Made them into gifs so you can watch your favorites on repeat

[anthuan0]

Nilah Icon by WuMei！

[anthuan0]

life guard nilah

[anthuan0]

Didn't expect the default character to be the one my brain latched onto, but here we are

[anthuan0]

Part of a Casvus AU. Magistrate coverup? 👀

my little magnum opus🥹🥹 i love corvus n caspian sm

[anthuan0]

Fanart I did of Furia eating a happy meal!

[anthuan0]

Paladins

Paladins Character Design Chatter #2

People thinking to seem the last one of these was rather insightful, so i decided to make some more! Let's pick up where we left off with Androxus skins, and see what else the guy has to offer.

Let's get started with Huntsman

Huntsman Androxus recasts the character as a werewolf hunter who is himself slowly succumbing to lycanthropy himself, hiding most of his body under protective closing save for his right arm which has fully mutated into a werewolf's hairy appendage. I have no idea if the skin was inspired by Bloodborne, but I really wouldn't be surprised if it was. That isn't to say I think the skin is a ripoff; To its credit, the skin feels far from derivative, even mixing in some elements like Androxus's boots and the wide-brimmed hat that integrate an almost cowboy-like aesthetic into the look, something I've never seen before in this kind of context. It builds a strong image of a fierce hunter who's dedicated himself fully to his craft, with bulky clothes clearly meant to protect his body more than his sense of fashion. That said it is missing something, lacking a certain roughness you'd expect from that premise. His cloak is torn, but only fashionably so, and the metal bits on his boots and hat are polished to a shine without a hint of tarnishing, rust, or even dirt or grime. It kinda cheapens the look, actually, almost like Androxus is cosplaying as a werewolf huntsman with a brand new costume he bought for a con he's attending, rather than actually being fully immersed in the role, a true step down from Steam Demon in that regard.

Huntsman's weapon, called the "Huntsman's Hatred" by the game, is just as Bloodborne as the skin it is paired with, resembling the Hunter's Blunderbuss from that game to some extent, and it really pulls the look off. If Bloodborne had a revolver in it, this would be it, the weapon nails the aesthetic perfectly. Also to the weapon's credit is that it actually does feature a substantial amount of wear and tear that I felt was lacking from the main skin; The barrel is covered in scratched, the metal is discolored, the top of the barrel blackened by the explosive gunpowder loaded into the weapon, it truly does feel like a well-worn piece of kit that has served dutifully as a hunter's sidearm for many years.

While I do like a lot of what Hunstman Androxus goes for, though, I'm gonna give it a 8/10 overall. That cosplay energy I mentioned before really does cheapen the look for me overall, the boots in particular just looking kinda silly and the werewolf arm similarly looks a little too cartoony, too groomed almost. The weapon is very good, and honestly if it weren't so good I'd probably have given this skin a 7, but I have to give credit where credit is due, and that gun is just simply badass.

Next up is Fallen.

Fallen is a skin that's supposed to portray Androxus as a fallen angel, and to be honest, if it weren't for that name I do not think I would be able to tell that about him. Angels in Paladins canon are a different beast than what you're probably envisioning, they're less guardians and protectors and more magical cops, enforcing order and dispensing punishment against those they deem irredeemable across the Realm, and this skin is supposed to represent an angel whose vision of 'justice' became twisted and corrupt, cast out from the divine realm known as the Pyre. It's a decent premise but this skin just doesn't really deliver on that premise. The onoxiously bright blue cloak, ghost-arm and the ghostly visage under Fallen Andro's hood feel a lot more in line with an undead ghost or revenant character, maybe even a lich, and as a result the halo feels very tacked on. The skin is unfortunately the victim of a lot of cool design decisions that overall don't add to a cohesive vision. The giant orange pauldron on his dominant arm is cool but doesn't quite match his silver boots, and the glowing cloak is cool but kinda just... doesn't work and makes the blue highlights elsewhere in the skin pop significantly less.

Fallen's weapon feels similarly... confused. The colour scheme is a lot more balanced with the gun, at least, and without the cloak and arm blasting your eyes, it'sd a lot easier to appreciate the oranges and reds that balance eachother very nicely, with glowing blue detailing that really does pop. That said, it's still not perfect, particularly the weird chain detailing which, while it does make sense for an execution to have, just feels a bit... clunky. Maybe if it were longer and hanging more loosely I'd vibe with it more, I guess. Still, it's an overall solid design, it's biggest crime is I just don't have a lot to say about it.

Fallen Androxus is a 4/10 I'm sorry. While the premise of the skin is neat i genuinely just cannot get over the cloak and the arm, they absolutely destroy the skin in my eyes, and even as a base it wasn't particularly fantastic with its weird mismatched design details. That said, the gun is a very competent design on its own, and honestly if you made the cloak stop glowing I'd probably pop it up to a 5 just on its own, and it'd get a 6 if you made the arm less blue on top of that. As it is, though, it's a bit of an eyesore, and doesn't do anything particularly fantastically unless you really like the halo, which is admittedly very cool-looking

And now for Battlesuit Godslayer!

Battlesuit Godslayer is our first foray into an actual recurring skin line rather than being a one-off like what we've seen so far. The Battlesuit skins reimagine various Paladins champions as giant mechas inspired by the likes of Gundam, Evangelion and especially Earth Defence Force. Naturally, Battlesuit Godslayer is the archetypical villain mech, deployed against the other Battlesuits to stop them from saving the day. It's a design that works quite well, replicating that bulky mechanical sci-fi feeling classic to the genre, and that context makes the glowing green parts most Androxus skins possess all the more fun. I can see an action figure of this thing having glow-in-the-dark material or even bits that light up green when you press a button on his back. The weird winged jetpack thingy he's got going on is also very fun for a champion who spends so much time airborne, and I can totally see that being a major source of his power in some theoretical anime. If I had to leverage any criticism against the skin, though, is that I think the waist is a bit too busy, especially with that weird codpiece looking thing, and the arm just fails to look sufficiently mechanical, likely limited by the animation rig that the skin could not change.

My positive sentiment that I feel towards Battlesuit Godslayer in general, though... doesn't extend to the weapon. It just looks like a toy gun, which in a way is on-theme for sure, but the cartoony factor is dialed up just a bit too high that I can only see this thing firing out foam darts, not laser blasts. The weird fin at the end of the barrel as a "sight" looks ridiculous and the lower half of the gun's jaw is just far, far too bulky even for a skin that takes pride in looking like it's covered in armour plating. This isn't helped by the cylinder which clashes with the rest of the gun's colour scheme in a messy-looking fashion and together with the barrel makes it feel almost cobbled-together in a fashion.

Overall, though, I remain positive on Battlesuit Godslayer, but my dislike for the weapon leaves it a 7/10 in my eyes. It's certainly not a bad skin, and if I played Androxus I'd probably want it myself, but it fumbles just enough that I can't bring myself to shower it in praise. I'll cut this post off here, but we actually have one more round of Androxus skins to go after this! Not all champions will be this laborious, Androxus just happens to be rather spoiled when it comes to his skin selection.

[anthuan0]

Paladins Character Design Chatter #1

So I recently got back into Paladins: Champions of the Realm, a little hero shooter from Hi Rez that I loved a lot from 2016-2021 and is still going today. It's been fun, and I realized just how much I fuck with each of the game's character designs, and the designs of each of the game's major skins. I decided I'd go through and see if I can't manage to chatter up and semi-review each of the game's characters in alphabetical order as well as their skins. Note: For the most part, I will only be touching on a skin if it has a unique voice pack (this is most of them) or have some other significance (for example, the ones that were distributed during very short periods of time such as Strike Maeve.) I will also be touching on each skin's weapon as you are actually allowed to freely mix each skin with another skin's weapon if so choose, so each are meant to stand on their own.

That brings us to our first Champion of the Realm: Androxus

Androxus is the edgy cool-boy anti-hero archetype in a nutshell. He's the face on all of the promotional art, a portrait of him serves as the game's icon on the console versions, and his splash art is the game's steam banner, and as a mascot he certainly is visually striking. The distinct horns on Androxus's mask, the green glow in his eyes and on his weapon, and of course, his prominent fucked-up looking arm make it clear that this man is twisted, corrupted by something, and he is drenched in sinister energy. Simultaneously, though, the dark bandages he wears, his torn sleeve and the weathered cape make it clear that he is not invincible, he's taken wounds in battle, and he's still alive regardless. It's not a perfect design, mind you, and it's certainly not treading any revolutionary new ground, Androxus does not reinvent the wheel of a badass anti-hero, but it serves the purpose of selling you on this amoral lone wolf killer exceedingly well.

Androxus's gun, on the other hand, is comparatively more inventive. The barrel of the gun is the top jaw of a very prominent mouth with sharp, gnarled-looking teeth built into the weapon, as if the gun itself is gritting its teeth with malice. If Androxus himself didn't sell you on the idea that this guy is fucked up and evil, the revolver certainly will. The revolver has a break action reload and when you reload it in-game, the unspent casings drift away before disappearing, as if they were simply the ghosts of the bullets you fired, which is a really fun touch. My only issue with it is that it maybe doesn't look rough enough? Besides some scratches, the weapon itself looks to be mostly pristine which conflicts with Androxus's otherwise very war-torn design. Maybe if it looked a little more beaten-up it'd fit a tiny bit more.

Overall I'd probably give my boy Andro an 8/10 rating. He's very effective at what he does, but what he does is admittedly not super special all things considered, and I can't say he sticks in my head anywhere near as much as some other antihero designs.

This leads me into Steam Demon, the first skin Androxus ever got back in 2017, and boy what a start it was. Steam Demon completely reimagines Androxus as a steampunk/chempunk gentleman scientist using his experiments as weaponry, his mask turned into something of a protective gas mask and his cursed arm turned into a brass metal prosthetic. The vials of mysterious green goo in Steam Demon's weapon and arm, as well as the capsule he wears on his belt is immediately recognizable as a dangerous, further reinforcing the fact that he is a man of science and proposing the idea that he might just be a little bit reckless in pursuit of his research. This adventurous scientist-explorer angle is further reinforced by the fact that Steam Demon's trousers and his boots are caked in mud, and together with the prosthetic arm and hand cannon, overall builds a cohesive image of a man who's unafraid to get his hands dirty in the name of science, literally or metaphorically

Steam Demon's weapon is also quite the interesting piece of work. The razor-sharp teeth resembling that of a demon or a beast are gone, instead replaced with the teeth of, fittingly, a clockwork mechanism, leaning further into the steampunk aesthetic. The weapon itself is also notably not a traditional revolver, instead being a bizarre chemical apparatus of some kind, and the cylinder is instead a small vial of mysterious green goop that is almost certainly highly toxic. When used in-game this weapon actually has a unique reload animation where Androxus will fold the weapon and let steam out of the vial before closing it again, a neat twist on the formula and keeping the weapon recognizably break action.

All in all, I'd have to give Steam Demon Androxus a solid 10/10 rating, honestly. While there are a couple things I'd change here or there, the horns kinda look a little silly on this skin without any real demon iconography to pull from for one, I think this skin accomplishes everything it sets out to do with flying colors, using the tropes of steampunk and chempunk to make a design that just truly sells the concept without ever feeling like it's trying too hard or not hard enough. Paladins actually doesn't have any other steampunk skins or iconography anywhere else in the game, which is really unfortunate in my opinion as they really knocked it out of the ballpark on the first try. Oh well.

Whew, that was more words than I was expecting to have for these. I think I'll have to chop these posts up into 2 or 3 skins at a time so I don't burn myself out. I hope this was insightful or at the very least entertaining to read, and I hope to make more of these in the future. Tata for now.~

[anthuan0]

Blood Omen:

Legacy of Kain

So I finally beat Legacy of Kain, I started it years ago, but never finished it but I'm glad I wen t back and did so now I do what I do and give my raw no notes thoughts on the thing.

First of all the best thing about the game aboce the amazingly realized world and dense story and lore is definitely Kain himself. Of course everyone knows how God his voice acting. It gave so much flavor to the over the top dramatic dialog writing. Shoot I love everyone's voice acting they really sell the almost Shakespearean( I think that's what they're going for) cheesiness of the whole thing that I adore.

I find his relationship with his vampirism to be the most interesting part of the game. He knows he's cursed, but he never tries to resist in his new bloodlust. This is just who he is for now, and he has no qualms partaking in a little bit of blood. I especially love the line near the end where he resents the villagers for trying to justify their bloodlust with righteousness instead of just admitting they like how killing vampires feel. But I also like that despite having all this new power, he's still aimless just doing what he's told cause he already got revenge against the people who killed him.

However I find that there's a shift when he meets Vorador. Kain is put off by seeing Vorador how Vorador, despite being this ancient powerful being, is perfectly okay staying on the outskirts of society living a hedonistic lifestyle dining. I feel like that meeting with Vorador is the real birth place of the ambition that is so critical for his character. That seed of wanting something more is just watered by learning that he's been used the entire game to fulfill others ambitious. Until finally by the end he decides that instead of just doing what he was set out to do by others or detaching himself from the world and feasting like Vorador, he decides to use his power to fulfill his own vision and take over the world and I think that's such an amazing and interesting conclusion to his character especially for the time.

Kain has definitely become one of my my favorite video game protagonists. He's endlessly charming like any good vampire should be, and his evolution from pawn who just revels in his new power and bloodlust. To a ruler with ambition.

[anthuan0]

Human

Vampire

Old vampire, dark god?