marrowkind

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Feverishly bangs out a ref for my Fallen London oc in preparation for Artfight. It turns out the secret to doing a turnaround is to have a character design that warrants it.

I had a lot of fun designing the Weeping Scars even if they're a fair bit deviating from canon. The longer winding scars is because the rind peeling imagery in Seeking Mr Eaten's Name stuck with me.

Mr Eaten spurred their interest in the Correspondence, which turned out to be their calling due to their language and conceptualization aptitude. They will turn back, to kill a certain someone. The Discordance is in their future, which I am excited about. A reckoning will not be postponed indefinitely.

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Artfight 2024. It was a pleasure to paint these characters! From left to right:

Kaji - @hedgemaze Belle Hyde - @splicerparade Greed, the Melted King - @parsleyartist

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Artfights 2023. Had a lot of fun with these! From left to right:

Midas Schiller - @waterloggedsoliloquy Mensis - @otiksimr Lord Dehenach - @starry-tiger Renee - @tikiirishy

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Artfights 2022. Really fun characters! From left to right:

CIRCLEEYE 453286 - @pinkbat5 Claude Desrosier - @iraprince Out There - @bweirdart Carolina de Souza - hellagur.bsky.social‬ Sekuela - @waterloggedsoliloquy

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Made a little Harry Du Bois mix, and since I made album art it goes on this blog. Wanted to keep it fun and high energy so, alas, this is not Sad FM compliant.

If you don't have time to listen to the whole thing, I recommend the final song, Beloved Freak by Garbage, which is where this mix gets its title.

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what if I told you Mikage is about going against your nature to fit into a toxic ideal which you ultimately fail to perform due to your aforementioned nature, for a system that never was going to award you any personhood to begin with.

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Some basic comic paneling advice.

Obviously, this doesn't get into Space Is Time, beats and pacing, or more general composition principles, but it's meant as a starting point to just get panels on a page.

Sometimes layouts are just setting down panels, which you then feel out re: readability and beats. Sometimes what you put down doesn't work, but that's okay! Just keep playing and puzzling.

You can find the half, quarter, and third marks by making lines from the corners of the whole page, then lines from the corners of the vertical half of the page.

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Wanted to take a crack at some Disco Elysium-style portraits and thought I'd pay homage to one of my favorite games, OFF.

Thought process for each under the cut:

Batter - Stark, graphic style to reflect his dogmatic views. More some vague ideal than a human being. His bat serves as a barrier between us, cuts off his head, and is a burden upon his shoulders. He is in profile because he is defined by movement; behind him is only a white void. Pale cyan because it complements red and white, and isn't used for any zone in the game. Faces to the left, aligned with the Puppeteer

Judge - Friendly, trusting body language (back to you). Faint halo since he can be thought of as Zone 0's guardian. He has his zone's colors. Batter casts a shadow over him with a faint cyan light, foreshadowing the end of the game (the bat crossing the Judge's neck). Faces left, aligned with the Puppeteer (also foreshadowing).

Zacharie - Purposefully video-game-y with strange perspective and coloring closest to the game. Pixel edges, the top edge of the dialogue box. He is distant and placing a small barrier between him and the viewer with his arms. Looking up, at his mall location. Centered, neither aligned nor against the Batter or Puppeteer.

Sugar - As a secret boss, it felt apt to keep her in shadow, only catching some of the doorway's light. Rough and spattery to hint at her sugar use, similar to how the drunks are drawn in Disco Elysium. A more sickly yellow to help remove her from Judge and move her a little closer to Enoch (again, sugar). A foe, facing right.

Dedan - Profile, because like Batter he is defined by action. Not afraid to get his hands dirty, facing the meat waterfall (which is red like the boss background). Rougher textures. Painted in the colors of his zone. The clock numbers are a reference to his attacks and a halo for his guardian status. A foe, facing right (you get the idea).

Valerie - Valerie is dead, hence the big X, the rictus-like facial expression, skull-like head, and large eyes clouded with Japhet's color. His composition is the inversion of Judge's. His body is vague; this is not about him. The wings, of course. I found the use of red in Disco Elysium's corpse portraits very striking, so I wanted to do that here. Japhet, acting inside Valerie's body, is wrathful, and this is expressed in the tense body language. You first encounter him in the library, so he gets blue.

Japhet - Honestly, most of this comp was just "how do I get Japhet in frame?" I wanted him to feel massive. He gains the color of his zone from the reflected light from the ground. The music notation is a reference to his attacks. One of these forms his halo.

Enoch - Like Japhet, I wanted Enoch to feel big but also wanted his face in view; these are portraits after all. His attacks are drama terms, so he gets a spotlight. This, combined with the smoke, creates his guardian halo. With the intense orange, I wanted to evoke both his zone colors and its incinerators. The smoke and sooty texture also allude to this. Besides ash, the particles can resemble sugar. I liked the idea of him being so large that much of him is in shadow. Enoch is very menacing (but also charismatic), and I hope I captured that.

Queen - The most complicated. Mortis Ghost drew her with a skull face once, which stuck with me. The moth is from her chapter's title card, it matches how we don't really see her face or eyes. Her hair is meant to evoke the battle screen background; this was clearer when the original comp was more zoomed out (I had matched the silhouette). Her color is black because of her chapter's color scheme, chess (her attacks, she is also acting second), and the opposite of Batter's primary color. There are hints of the zone colors in her hair as she grants all zones her power. Her halo is the sun Hugo drew her as; she is, after all, his god. The cold front light from Batter returns.

Hugo - The most human of them all. The pattern from his room makes his halo and evokes a crosshair. He is centered; he is not a combatant. He is afraid, small, the meat is a small barrier between him and the Batter. The lighting gives him a bit of a skull-like look, his flesh tones are sickly.

Puppeteer - The Puppeteer is a character, narratively. The game needs your participation and acknowledges this. I thought an older computer would feel right, besides allowing for a better monitor reflection. This one's what it says on the tin.

Bad Batter - He now faces right! Oh no! It's just Batter but worse. Violent spatter. If you look back at Batter you might see there is already the suggestion of teeth along his jaw.

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ego death - that which was consumed - the void in the shape of you

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Sanctity in rot, passion in virulence. Your flesh a vessel, purified through impurity.

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Every vacant moon, an offering. Blood on your lips like a heady prayer.

A comic about desire, hunger, and the cursed disembodied blood of a much worse god. Featuring my vampire bishop Chrysanthos Esposito with a cameo of his inquisitor Jacopo Agnelli-Gallo.

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Another Crimson Curse oc, a spidery lady. Eufemia married into the Montanari estate, renowned for its vineyards. She was given the curse on the promise it would remedy her health problems. It did, but not without creating new ones. Strange motifs she has never seen before keep appearing within her lacework. Symbols of portent she can only attribute to The Blood.

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Had to get a new computer for college and have realized my laptop screen washes everything out so all my art’s colors and values are WAY off from what I intended. Adjusting the levels is fortunately easy with clip but I can’t do anything about what’s already been posted. Going forward I’ll try to account for the difference though.

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save your remorse for the credit roll

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2022 art round up! This year was my first time completing an art challenge month as well as participating in artfight. Which... I still need to post my attacks here oops.

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heyy just wanted to let you know that i think about your mikage comic like everyday it's insaneee how it strikes the central chord of the mystery around mikage's "present day" being at ohtori. in my mind i've printed it out and put it in a frame <3

omgggg thank you!! what an honor! I am very happy to hear this, you're too kind. ;v; Gonna take the opportunity to plug my new side blog @shipofthesis cuz I plan to share more thoughts there. I've a lot of Revolutionary Girl Utena thoughts but picking through Mikage's mystery is becoming my cozy little niche. There's so much to puzzle over.

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Darkest Dungeon oc pieces. My Colors of Madness inspired Darkest Dungeon oc and a Knight of the Weeping Heart. I really gotta do a new reference for that armor.