coffeepaintwater

[coffeepaintwater]

pirate zuko, bc i'm re-reading "Honor & Vengeance On The High Seas".

notttt:

two fully rendered pieces posted in a row, had to throw in a fuck ass sketch. i love sailor!zuko, whether it's pirate or regular sea farer. i'm always so sad thinking of his crew because on one hand, i would hate the little fucker too, because he was insufferable, but on the other, zuko wasn't a bad leader. i was making an edit the other day and so i was rewatching the last episode and the speech he gives before being crowned? the "media" training had been DONE. the only thing stopping him from being an actually tolerable captain was the task he was appointed, because he put it above the safety and comfort of everyone, including himself. and others, obviously, didn't (and good for them lol).

anyways, i have NO idea what is he wearing as a belt, i just really needed something to bring the design together. i think that pirate zuko would ditch the fire nation armor for convenience to get easier access to wares in ports (and because THAT SHIT IS HEAVY, one man overboard and he sinks like a rock), but only if he found a replacement cheap and fast. because while i like the idea of him completely rejecting the "evil bad fire nation" by throwing all his related stuff away, zuko was actually deeply connected to his nation and condemned the ideals by which it was lead, not his people. so i don't think he would try to erase his connections to it. also, no speed running the character development, or cutting his hair until something drastic happens (like them becoming fugitives in canon). and since most character development of zuko was in reaction to the things happening around him (until his confrontation with ozai), i think it would be very gradual and slow-going, were it to happen at sea, on his ship.

i know a lot of the fandom head-canons the crew as out-casts of the fire nation, but i don't think we ever get a confirmation of that in canon. so, we can assume they all more or less share the ideals the fire nation spreads, obviously on a tamer level, since like most foot-soldiers in wars they probably aren't fanatics. zuko wouldn't really get any wake-up calls from them (or iroh? that's a tough one) in regards to the war. to ozai and his treatment of him?? maybe, but that would require the crew to talk to a prince about his fire lord-father. pirate zuko would probably also never actually call himself a pirate either lmao

[coffeepaintwater]

mirkwood and legolas fucking around, ft a dwarf and man who may or may not be gimli and aragorn

notes/headcanon territory:

this came to me in a vision and told me to 'get up and draw legolas you fool' even though i've had about a milion wips of his and other lotr/hobbit character designs. but alas, now i know how he looks at last!

sooo, i'll write more when i finish the designs, but i have a few things that are set in stone for my legolas. the braided hair is a must, because why wouldn't i use the semi-canonical long hair of all elves?? i was actually debating whether an immortal being would assign meaning to hair, but then i was like? why wouldn't they? wouldn't growing your hair for five centuries continuously be a flex? the braids on the other hand could be purely aesthetical. also, in mirkwood, there's a tradition of braiding beads into your hair/wearing them on your person. one bead (serving as a symbol of your family/house/lineage) you get from your parents when you reach maturity, along with exchanging beads with your closest kin. each bead is made by the person giving it, so you can never force a person to give you a bead. one bead you make yourself, whenever you feel like you know yourself enough to express it through it. no two beads are exactly the same and so they can be also used to identify the dead (if other parts of them didn't make it in a good enough shape ig???).

also, tattoos!!! i feel like elves wouldn't like tattoos that much since even the best of them can fade or bleed/blur, but depending on the elf they may choose to tattoo their face with a dot and line for each millenium they live. it's a fairly new tradition, but i feel like legolas would hop on the hype train of it just because. (yes, i believe him to be around 2000 years old, bc he has no canonical age besides being 500+)

as for the clothes; i was trying to go for casual and also include the infamous goofy leggins. since lotr/hobbit fashion seems to be vaguely hinting at medieval england/western europe, i gave him a high hosen over regular trousers. arm guards and a scarf which can be easily pulled up as a hood. the shoes are thin-soled and tightly secured to allow the elves to feel the terrain and scale trees easily. also, legolas is a dual wielder (besides being an archer) but i really didn't want to give him any weapon on his back, so he's temporarily a dagger/short sword user lol

alsooo i feel like often elves are shown as too human-like, and while i live for beautiful faces, i like my fantasy-ish designs to have something uncanny about human-like races. for example, i imagine elves as being similar to owls in face shape with the slope of their nose stretching up and over the eye socket, to their very ears, giving them deeply set eyes and flat faces/noses with narrow nostrils. AND LONG EARS. that's a hill i'll die on.

thx for coming to my ted talk

[coffeepaintwater]

ba sing se and the fire lord who served (tea)

not.:

praying tumblr doesn't shoot the quality. this single-handedly cured any art block of mine and reminded me why references are GOOD.

was reading a fic and thought 'hey, i haven't drawn zuko during book 2 like ever'. that might be because i hate drawing buzz cuts but whatever. lowkey love this art just because i challenged myself with drawing both a full background AND actually rendering and shading. i might actually switch to more realistic art again because i lowkey miss it. i've got to do some semi-realism in conclusion.

for anyone curious, the caligraphy i added on the wall means (starting from the left):

"In times of wealth, one should exercise restraint and not squander; in times of poverty, one should not alter one's resolve; under the influence of power, one should not change one's attitude." - Mencius

"Go with the flow, be carefree, neither joyful nor sad."

i feel like the first one really reflects zuko's character in book 2. although he does alter his resolve and buckles under the promise of being back in his father's good graces, he goes on to learn from that mistake. and the second one, really 'air-aligned', reminded me of the fic i'm reading. because although there isn't much carefreeness there, it feels that way some moments and that's what i feel actually conveys this philosophy. obviously life won't always be easy, but we must accept it. iroh is a master of drawing inspiration from that line of thinking in my opinion.

and yes. that is. jet. in the window. screaming to let him in. he's been permanently banned. their dynamic in ba sing se is genuinely the most ridiculous thing i've seen and i love it.

[coffeepaintwater]

thinking about the yunmeng jiang sect and the jiang clan. you get two colors because i'm sick of them.

also a close up because the quality gets notoriously knocked down a notch every time i post:

noootes:

this started as a "oh wwx was pretty liked as a head disciple wonder how all those little disciples he taught are doing" then i remembered oh right, they aren't doing at all bc most of them are in fact dead.

so that was cute.

but yeah wwx helping out a younger disciple after a night hunt and also an oc of mine?? ig????

i really wanted inner sect relations content and there aren't a whole lot of characters from yunmeng jiang despite what one might think, so jiang shili was quickly born. kind of love the fucker not gonna lie. his ancestry is up there, but i imagine him living a comfortable life without much expectations as his mother was from a less prominent clan and his father was an inner jiang disciple far from the main clan. he would be heir-apparent only after a whole lot of people died (jiang fengmian, yu ziyuan (yes, i do believe she could have led the sect despite the setting being against that notion), jiang cheng and maybe jiang yanli? the main clan's bloodline would have ended with her though, so i don't think so.), since jiang fengmian didn't have any siblings. and yes, i do imagine he dies in the wen attack on lotus pier.

also, i wonder how the rest of the sect took jiang fengmian bringing wei wuxian to lotus pier. besides the obvious rumors and displeasure at the rift it caused between the two of the clan's leaders, i think at least one thought it was so fucking funny. "nephew, why on earth would you think this child can become a disciple? nephew?? nephew why does the child have a golden core????? whose son is he????????" new hc that several cultivators were convinced that not only is wei wuxian jiang fengmian's bastard, the man had been raising him somewhere underneath lotus pier (yes. underwater.), helping him start his cultivation until he thought the risk of yu ziyuan drowning him on sight was lesser.

at least one auntie was crying laughing at the mess her useless family was making.

and how does. the sect actually work. yes, there's the leader/sect leader, followed by his clan/the main family. the elders (which we don't actually see in lotus pier i think??)........ then... the disciples...? ig? but then, there must be order to that as well. there must be a name for the senior cultivators out of training/combat-ready that are not part of the clan/main family. because if there is no distinction then it wouldn't make sense at all for wei wuxian to be head disciple to older and more capable seniors. and being a head disciple is by definition about leading fellow disciples of your level/generation. that's also assuming that any specialized functions like doctors/talisman masters/liberians would take on personal disciples instead of passing their craft onto their offsprings or picking random non-cultivators off the street for it.

btw, yes i am a wei changze/cangse sanren/jiang fengmian weird little love triangle truther. except cangse sanren didn't give a fuck about him and wei changze was in the end too bothered by the way people constantly referred to his status in the sect to stay with him. boo hoo jiang fengmian, no bitches???

[coffeepaintwater]

old mdzs designs because they've been haunting me

notesss:

okay so character by character, starting right; nie huaisang is someone i've always imagined in contrast to his brother, so a small/frailer person compared to that hunk. so i'm always forgetting that hey, they actually ARE half-brothers!! there should be at least a tiny bit of resemblence!!! i'm not super happy with how much detail i've incomporated into his outfit because he's, at his soul, a young master with a penchant for the five arts, of course he's stylish!!! but also, i wanted to stay within bounds for my usual designs, where i aim to have a basic silhuette of a character down, like for animation. also, he is said to have an elegant face in the novel and i guess i just associate that with a heart shaped face and big eyes, but with added spice bcs i like for him to have that bit of slyness in his gaze.

jiang yanli, light of my life. i wasn't sure what i was aiming for with her because to be honest, besides jiang fengmian, she may be one of the character i understand the least. and not in the sense that she doesn't make sense to me, just that while reading i feel like i've gotten only a brief look at her goals and personality. so her character design reflects that i fear. i wanted to give her that cute, but plain face that yu ziyuan complained about (she describes her to be average/plain but it's also yu ziyuan soo...). and, going by novel canon, she also doesn't seem to have a sword or any weapon, so i've forgone any kind of disciple robes in favor of something a first daughter of a clan would wear. her hair was super fun to draw and a while ago someone advised me about adding golden beads/pearls as a hair ornament and yeah!!! the pattern on the lower part of her robes are also purple peonies :)

lan wangji the repressed fucker got such a basic design at first i had to tweak it by addign patterns to his robes. i love the idea of the lan robes looking like mourning clothes (as described by wei wuxian) bcs it's a) funny, b) devastating in the light of how much mourning lan wangji does in his life. his eyes actually make me wonder how much does cultivation change the features we normally associate with chinese/central asian regions? i caved and gave him golden eyes (described as "light") and then realized that wei wuxian also has grey/light eyes. it's fun to speculate whether it's cultivation shit or just a rogue ancestral gene that got passed down (maybe from his mother on lan wangji's side?? since the gusu lan is a clan settled in one place and one that generally doesn't venture far and then brings back people lol). his expression came out a lot sadder than bitter but oh well. and of course, the jade pendant and a jade crown to match, as a nod to The Untamed. in general, lan wangji was meant to be a mellow, delicate face with a body that, while well-built, gave the illusion of gentleness as well.

jiang cheng was the one i hesitated a bit on. but ultimately, he's got disciple robes and a nice crown since the time line on those designs is around "when no shit was going down". the rigid lines and shapes of his face was smth i can't let go of when is comes to him; it's just such a good fit for his personality. also, wanted him to contrast wei wuxian in his stature; he is centered and sturdy. the most subtle thing ever but the fabric for his pants in also more vibrantly dyed.

wei wuxian, cancelled king, was meant to be long, jagged lines contrasted by the playfulness of his wavy hair. like jiang cheng and jiang yanli i gave him more of a tan, not only for a vague resemblence, but also because yunmeng's climate from my understanding is that it's a subtropical monsoon (as is yunmeng, hubei in china irl) so hot summers with lots of sun to tan from are a thing. also, i just think it looks neat. suibian and his clarity bell are well secured and i still can't comprehend how does hair work in xianxia BC MY HAIR CAN'T DO THAT LONG ASS PONYTAIL WITH JUST A RIBBON. sadly, wwx gets no crown lol

also, someone please introduce the concept of a braid to all those bitches letting their long ass hair hang loose where anyone can grab it

[coffeepaintwater]

pov; your classmate's seeing ghosts at 3am and you just want to piss. alexa play i know by fiona apple

notes/i need to start calling them rants but im a coward:

i hate full illustrations (i can't do background for shit). but, surprisingly this one was a quick thing. i really felt starved for ofa content in the mha fandom (hello btw first time posting anything for yall), but also felt so sad about the fact that these people had to basically die a second time when izuku let go of ofa.

technically, they were only brought together by duty and this need to save people, but i think it would shatter me to interact with such determined souls and then just- not. they've got me feeling some type of way AND THERE'S SO LITTLE CONTENT.

also, i've recently seen someone say that, while all might shouldn't have placed the responsibility of ofa on a kid, no one else should have to bear this burden either. and so, izuku was actually the best option. i think it has to do with the amount of determination he has. because, despite all might NOT KNOWING (!!!) izuku would eventually have to fight all for one, he picked the type of person who would have accepted ofa even if he knew it came with a bigger burden. and while i understand the "izuku is too young to suffer those things", i think this fandom in general focuses on the young age of the characters (which is important to discuss as well) to the point they ignore all the other nuance that comes with the themes of mha. (yes, i am mostly talking about fanfiction. especially those 'dadzawa' ones. stop projecting and go get therapy people, those fics are so ooc.)

izuku's story would be just as tragic if he was a twenty-year-old. all might would have unknowingly ruined/disturbed the life of anyone he gave ofa to. it's just that izuku, despite being a teenager, had what it took to defeat the danger, while anyone else might not have.

but, back to the actual art i post, because despite what it looks like, i'm not an essay account; i've added a watermark!!! it's so tiny you can barely see it but i've had a vision. also i love yoichi he's so drawable. the plan was to actually fit all of the vestiges as reflections but i realized quickly how unrealistic that was for the canvas size i selected and was too lazy to change it. so you get bruce (lee), kudo (fucking gingers) and bbg yoichi. i've learnt a tip for drawing really sharp lighting too so i'm remotely happy with this one.

[coffeepaintwater]

shen yuan, luo binghe and shen jiu the most explosive trio to ever trio i fear (there are two duos in these trio and hint hint both of them feature sy lol)

also this is basically fanart for Shen Yuan of No Relation on ao3 by Gemi bc i'm binge reading/listening to it and it's so good!!! the characterisation is so on point it dragged me back into the svsss fandom by my hair. the character study tag 100% deserves its' place there.

notes, bc how could there not be??:

i saw a post that said that any svsss fanwork's inaccuracy to history can be attributed to airplane's lazy pidw world-building and. yeah. basically.

i was thinking what would the disciple robes look like to both seem regal to the commoners (as described in 99% xianxia novels) and good to train in and i realized that there shouldn't probably be more than two layers anyways because it isn't even really accurate. also, i like the interpretation that each disciple has a subtly different uniform, but i just can't picture how that would work???? 100% the rich kids and older disciples who can actually earn some money would add accesories to their robes, but for shen yuan and luo binghe, i just couldn't imagine where they'd get anything like that, besides the hair pins ning yingying made/gave them (sry if i mix some shit up, i've read 20 chapters in 2 days okey have mercy). plus, with a world that focuses on social standing as much as pidw/svsss does, i think that the sects would naturally aim to recreate that hierarchy in their own society.

with the example of cang qiong mountain, yue qingyuan would have the highest rank, and (as syonr showed!!!) probably boast the biggest estate on the peak, inheriting all the wealth the previous sect leaders had accumulated. and while from what i understand, being a sect-affilated cultivator means your payment is basically getting fed, clothed and having a roof over your head in the sect instead of idk, coin, yue qingyuan would still have monetary means because of, surprise surprise, inheriting it. so, clothes just on the better side from the other peak lords perhaps

next in the food chain would be the other peak lords, except that we see that even the peaks have different 'rankings'. so, while on the outside each peak lord carries the same authority, shen jiu would have been able to be as he was in canon (MASSIVE side eye btw) and no one would have been really in a place to kick him in the gut and say he was a fucking asshole, for example, besides yue qingyuan. that is, from a purely theoretical stand-point, bc all hierarchical order is sometimes broken but that's besides the pointttt. the point is, they would have freedom to dress however they wish and while i believe the disciple robes remain unchanged since the founding of the sect (bc svsss universe is implied to be a largely unadvancing society, regarding anything besides cultivation), the peak lords most likely don't have one set uniform, besides each peak being color-coded apparently??

there was a post i was inspired by (https://www.tumblr.com/svsssfanonarchive/736782613008809984?source=share) that confirmed that the peaks (or at least three of them, but we don't get much of the others anyways) do in fact have the disciples wear robes of one color. qing jing favors greens and teals (see the post for more details pls pls pls it's so good) BUT i love adding white to my art bc i feel like a fabric this vibrant and light would fit the scholars there. also, white seems like the furthest one could get from the gutter to me, bc while it is the color of mourning, it's also the color of purity and shen jiu would take the chance to put one more barrier between shen qingqiu the peak lord and shen jiu the slave. don't ask why i put shen yuan in better robes; there's no reason other to make him more like a mini shen qingqiu lol

the head disciples could probably get modified uniforms or a layer more, to make them really stand out. and i'm not touching on the hall masters and senior disciples bc NOPE. not my problem for now

last thing, fu yue my love, my beauty, my life force, WHICH CHARACTER ARE WE TALKING ABOUT FOR FU?????? i decided on these ones bc there were the closest i could get to the meaning Gemi intended but :(( i have a gut feeling the first character is wronggg

[coffeepaintwater]

the foxhole court quick color work ft. nat(h)aniel wesninski in trad polish folk clothes bc i cant let go of even a slight chance of polish rep

notes:

i was lowkey debating making renee curly haired cause i have too many curly-haired people around me and i draw too little curly-haired characters but i'll just have to make up for it by drawing dan and matt next time or binghe since i've been getting sucked in by the svsss fandom lately (go read it.). idk why but asian renee just clicks for me for completly no lore-adjacent reason.

also quick comment on nataniel weśninski; i'm always sooo irritated when i see polish (even distantly) characters and their names are never actually polish. as a polish person the surname wesninski has no business existing as the syllables wouldn't go together well at all for a native person; it's more fitted for russian/ukrainian (which seems to be a trend eg. stilinski (though if the n was replaced by ń it could pass)). by adding the ś to replace the first s i made it smoother to say since we don't really get the s-n combo in polish; it's a struggle to pronounce it clearly and fast, and that's why it's frustrating to me personally lol.

and obv i take the h out of nathaniel because nataniel is actually a polish name, as well as natan!! it's actually understandable for the names to get slightly modified to fit the american setting of the story since a lot of the polish immigrant community in america has to alter their names to make them fit in easier. but still, i mourn that we didn't get nataniel kowalski rip (jkjk its all just silly nitpicking on my part).

the clothes are łowicz trad attire, usually associated with the polish folk dance community. didn't really feel like adding it buuut there's also supposed to be a hat and the shirt would usually have more embroidery around the cuffs, flowers, leaves and whatnot. also i only noticed half-way through neil's hair actually matches the trousers and i could use the same color for more cohesive visuals.

(and mandatory the polish are alcoholics joke bc i don't make the rules and neil should have been at the monopolowy with kevin :(()

[coffeepaintwater]

xianle trio, except i got lazy halfway through. the favoritism is showing but believe me i love mu qing equally!!!

feng xin's also there ig..... (jk jk love the fucker too)

technical notes for me (and you apparently??); i was going for robes that would be somewhat similar to xie lian's attire from the festival since i was definitely going for a festive vibe. though with how xianle is described as a kingdom it could pass as daily wear. in xie lian's case, or with cultivators from rich backgrounds, i'm super confused attire wise. i gave up on being accurate to any one dynasty, but i still want to give them robes that they would wear based on their station (see xie lian above). at the same time there's no human way to cultivate in eight layers of fabric. with characters like jiang cheng (mdzs for those unfamiliar) i can see him having different robes for official business or having the disciple robes made from richer, more colorful fabrics. that would make sense and what the donghua adaptation went with partially. though they also put wei wuxian in non-junmeng jiang colors about 10 years too soon but wtv......

xie lian's hair also gives me pause often. i want to play with it and experiment with different shapes normally unachievable on shorter hair, but at the same time i'm screaming at the a) impracticality and b) the lenght??? the crown is a must, but with someone like xie lian i feel as though a top-knot would be more appropriate. i specifically had aspirations to focus on the contrast between mu qing's, feng xin's and xie lian's positions during their days in the palace. their hair-do could reflect the way they function; mu qing's hard-working and has to keep himself in check so it makes sense for his hair to be neatly contained in a bun. feng xin is a high-ranking guard; there's a certain prestige to that and so a guan of bronze (or silver if we're feeling generous) would suffice. and then we have the crown prince whose hair probably should be loose???? but it's also not loose, just insanely dense?? smh, the logic is not logicing but whatever

obv had to add an obnoxious amount of gold. it's so insane to me how rich xianle was, so yellow. gold. shiny. they should've glitter bombed the palace at this point