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its getting closer....

im gonna end up redrawing this, but doesn't mean i can't recolor it like 1000 times first. 5th and final one gets closest to what i want

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well, ive got something jankier for sure, but i don't know if it feels Old Neopets janky. i think its still too complicated, and now its not angular enough. and now, looking at the old neo art again, i think this is actually not well constructed enough??? i went too shitty!!!!! life could be nightmare!!!!!!!!

like these have really nice flow and strong shapes. the heads are HUGE. i am just not getting the proportions right.

the other one i did is a much stronger drawing at least. i could try scaling the head up. maybe it could work. who knows.....

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im gonna end up redrawing this, but doesn't mean i can't recolor it like 1000 times first. 5th and final one gets closest to what i want

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FIXED. my partner figured out that it was some windows 11 feature that got added that purports to make colors 'more accurate'. sooooooo cool thanks for nothing windows

woah wait- the blue shading on the body in that piece i just posted looks WAY different (and worse) on my phone than it did on my laptop monitor. ohhh dearr

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what the hell

woah wait- the blue shading on the body in that piece i just posted looks WAY different (and worse) on my phone than it did on my laptop monitor. ohhh dearr

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woah wait- the blue shading on the body in that piece i just posted looks WAY different (and worse) on my phone than it did on my laptop monitor. ohhh dearr

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well, i finished this, and it looks nice!!

...so i'm doing to have to rework it; its just not janky enough for me when scaled down. it doesn't feel authentic!!!

to be fair, the acara is a weird point of comparison because i was referencing more complicated designs like the draik and elephante, and they also have more shading than the acara.

...but even compared to the draik, it feels off.

so I'm gonna do a second pass- I'm going to try messing with the colors, since i think the darkness of the shell is one of the things throwing it off, and a lot of pets species had a pastel phase in the early days of the site. might also try cutting back on how many shading layers there are- i was trying to keep things simple, but the end result is just too polished looking, haha.

there's also the chance that the lines and pose are just too modern looking. so if i can't get the effect i want by tweaking the colors and shading, i'll probably redo it entirely.

anyway here's the other 4 colors as a thanks for reading this far. :)

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Donate!!!!!! Boost!!!!!

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commissions time again: moving and unemployment so-I-have-all-the-free-time-on-earth time LOL. dm if interested and check out #my-art for all my art

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JEANS!!!

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you ever get assigned something as a project in school and for the rest of your life you have a strange attachment to the subject. in like seventh grade i had an assignment to make a poster about the elemental propoerties of osmium and to this day everytime someone mentions it im like 'YEAAAAAAH OSMIUM MENTIONED!!!!!!!!'

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men b like wow I’ve never met a girl who liked music before..

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i can't tell yet if Look Outside is going to blow up in an irritating way like Mouthwashing did, but if you're planning to play/watch it, but you get overexposure aggression like I do, I would probably give it a shot now rather than wait. it has a lot of elements that could potentially turn it into a really obnoxious fandom which is going to spoil/taint the text for you, and I don't have a good sense yet of which way the wind is blowing.

i don't know why I like it so much. normally you would have to make me watch a jrpg/rpgmaker with a gun to my head. I'm still sorting through my thoughts on it. the art style reminds me so much of Larry Gonick's work, just genuinely classic cartooning in the academic sense

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cosmo wanda i wish everyone who dies would go to hell no matter what

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maybe its partially the facial proportions? like. theres not enough negative space, the features/detail are too crowded with the hair + eyes + mouth + noseplate + teeth, so it doesnt have that Impact im looking for? maybe pulling the point of the mohawk up a bit and lowering/smalling the eyes could help…

i know im overthinking this and that its not a bad drawing or design at all, its just the maddening feeling when you know something in a piece could be BETTER at what youre aiming for; that its missing something that you cant quite put your finger on

started fighting with the flash pen tool to try and make a ‘even 1pt lineart with simple cel shading’ era version of the Centibyte, but even though i like my sketch and how its turning out on a pure visual level, im not satisfied with my emulation of the style- i'm starting to think i settled on a design/pose too early.

i feel like it needs to be jankier… more imperfections (that are perceivable at 150x150), wonkier or perhaps simpler anatomy decisions, stranger proportions. maybe i could shrink the eyes a little, they feel a bit big/too different from the final design in personality. i'll sleep on it

i've been looking at old presskit assets as research for this; its fun to see pet art assets at resolutions they were never meant to be seen at. i'd embed some but tumblr's bugging out and making me put each image on its own line, so instead i'll invite you to take a look at the link if you're interested

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started fighting with the flash pen tool to try and make a ‘even 1pt lineart with simple cel shading’ era version of the Centibyte, but even though i like my sketch and how its turning out on a pure visual level, im not satisfied with my emulation of the style- i'm starting to think i settled on a design/pose too early.

i feel like it needs to be jankier… more imperfections (that are perceivable at 150x150), wonkier or perhaps simpler anatomy decisions, stranger proportions. maybe i could shrink the eyes a little, they feel a bit big/too different from the final design in personality. i'll sleep on it

i've been looking at old presskit assets as research for this; its fun to see pet art assets at resolutions they were never meant to be seen at. i'd embed some but tumblr's bugging out and making me put each image on its own line, so instead i'll invite you to take a look at the link if you're interested