#Aren't you a mecha

[grokebaby]

[RELATED TO THIS]

Ev:.. uhm..m... N-nice picture, A. Cola.. It seems even people like you start out as.. Small, and ordinary.

Mew: Oh-ah, thank nya Villy! But this isn't actually a photo of me, it's of my kids! When they were little tiny fuzzbals of course :3

Ev: your..... What?

Ev: You have Kids? How??! Did you make them??

Mew: Do you.. Want me to have that talk with you?

Ev: No.................... maybe?(??)

[phantomrose96]

is a Riteru read of ABoT the intended one?

It can be if you want it to be buddy. Go enjoy the world!

More genuine answer: I'm an aro-ace writer with a long long streak of gen-fic. Shipping doesn't interest me. I don't hate it; it just doesn't click for me at all. I joke that the only way romance ends up in the story is if it's a plot-necessity (Tetsuo and Jun are there because 'married man suspected of having an affair' is what pulls Reigen into the entire Mogami-possession plot. The Kageyama parents are married because they're, well, the parents. Teru and Mei's relationship is a joke until it's plot-relevant.)

So to me, I'm not writing Ritsu and Teru's relationship as a ship. But also? This is all pretend. It's all transformative. This is for fun. I absolutely know that if I were a ship-writer, Riteru would be the obvious choice. I know they're one angry-kiss away from being someone's enemies to lovers fic. So if you look at Ritsu and Teru in ABoT and say "they're holding hands, to me", go right ahead, go hog-wild, come play Barbies with me.

[cold-neon-ocean]

My dogs my beloved dogs!! The first line of beastial spirit vine soldiers from my LoK AU. Created by Baatar when during experimentation, he discovered the spirit energy after being condensed causes the vines to react strangely to machinery and processed material. Turning the inorganic to organic.

These soldiers are comprised of spirit vines that have mutated in reaction to the condensed activated spirit energy and adhered themselves to the suits. Similar to "mimics" in a way, they can conceal their mouths fully so they're indistinguishable from human soldiers, though very astute earthbenders may notice they neither breathe nor have a heartbeat.

[maranull]

the mini gang

[a-river-of-stars]

SPEAKING OF FALSE ADVERTISING IN COVER ART

LOOK AT THIS

Looks like it could be a decent giant robot film?

WRONG.  THERE ARE NO GIANT ROBOTS IN THIS FILM.  THEY DON’T EXIST.  MAIN CHARACTER WOMAN NEVER HAS A GUN.  THERE IS NO GIANT BATTLE.  THE SUMMARY ON THE BACK OF THE BOX SAYS:

“A young woman named Scout discovers an ancient spacecraft on Earth left behind by an advanced human civilization, now lost in the distant past.  As Scout investigates the ship, she is suddenly transported to the Moon to confront a dangerous mystery, guarded by a race of robotic creatures that now threaten the Earth.”

SHE DOESN’T DISCOVER IT FIRST OF ALL, THE GUY WHO DISCOVERED IT WAS THEIR FRIEND WHO WAS THEN ASSASSINATED AND THEY JUST.  NEVER SPEAK OF HIM AGAIN LIKE HE NEVER EXISTED.  WE DON’T GET TO THE MOON UNTIL THREE QUARTERS OF THE WAY INTO THE FILM AND THE ROBOTS THEY GIVE US (WHICH ARE NOT THE ROBOTS ON THE COVER ART BTW) DO NOT AT ANY TIME THREATEN THE EARTH THEY ARE GARBAGE AND THIS FILM IS GARBAGE IT IS THE WORST FILM I HAVE EVER SEEN AND I CAN’T BELIEVE I PAID TWO WHOLE USD AT A SECONDHAND SHOP TO WATCH THIS

TO BE FAIR I KNEW AS SOON AS I SAW THE MENU THAT IT WOULDN’T BE GOOD AS IT CONTAINED ONLY PLAY MOVIE AND TRAILER WITHOUT EVEN OPTIONS FOR AUDIO OR SUBTITLES OR SCENE SELECTION

ANOTHER FAIR POINT IS THAT IT MADE ITS HORRIBLE CG OBVIOUS IN THE FIRST TWENTY SECONDS

THE FIRST SCENE DRAGGED SO GD HARD FOR TEN OF THE FILM’S 84 TOTAL MINUTES THAT I KNEW IT COULDN’T POSSIBLY HAVE GONE THROUGH EDITING OF ANY KIND

ok so I should probably have just backed out as soon as I knew it would be bad but I WANTED SOME GIANT ROBOTS BRO AND THEY DIDN’T EVEN GIVE ME THAT

had charles shaughnessy in it tho

no he does not manage to salvage this disaster

in summary it really was a trap

[strixludica]

The unappreciated art of making mecha look inhuman

Something I noticed lately, by browsing lots of lancer homebrew and fanart and comparing it to the official art, is that a lot of third party artists, across levels of artistic competence, made mechs that looked plain to me for a reason I couldn't pin down. Again, this was only weakly correlated with other metrics for artistic quality, like posing, shading, and linework. After comparing them closely with other art that didn't give me that vibe and art from 1st party material, I realized what gave me that feeling: their mechs looked too human; they looked like they could be convincingly portrayed by a person in a costume.

If you look closely at official Lancer art and the best fanart, you will notice there are always details making sure the subject is unequivocably a giant robot and not a person in sci-fi armor.

One strange but effective way this is achieved is the legs: each manufacturer has one or more distinct style of legs, with the only overlap being between SSC and RKF (which makes sense because SSC has close ties tot he Baronies). Let's go through them and see what about them makes sure you know this is a mech:

Smith-Shimano Corpro + Royal Karrakin Foundries: SSC has three kinds of lower limbs: the Horse Leg, which they share with RKF; the Foot Without Heel, and the Anatomically Correct Human Leg With Toes.

The Horse Leg is not only obviously inhuman, but also obviously unnatural, bacause no biped would be able to move properly standing on horse hooves: it would be like contantly doing a ballerina tip-walk using clown shoes; that is something only a mechanical device assisted by top-of-the-line automatic balancing could achieve.

The Heel-less foot, due to being used almost only for their spider-mechs Death's Head and Swallowtail, has little dehumanization work to do, but it does cover that function when used on the Dusk Wink, which *is* in fact a person in power armour, but still the artist took care of reminding us of how mechanical it is, by giving it feet which have little in common with boots or any other footwear. The Toed Leg seems, at first, to be the opposite of dehumanizing: it looks the most like an actual human bodypart, it feeds into SSCs fetishization of the Human Form (phrasing entirely intended). However, that is also the reason why it very clearly shows the Monarch and Mourning Cloak are robots: because no suit of armor would ever look like a naked leg; this level of anatomical fidelity only makes sense for something mechanical, whose skin *is* armor and as such doesn't need to cover itself.

Horus: Horus is mostly the easy one, with how most of the art gives their mechs beastly paws and hooves, gecko-like foot pads, or long, amphibian fingers whose vague semblance to human hands only contrasts with the blatantly monstous shapes of the Pegasus and Gorgon. However, they have four mechs portaryed with human-like legs.

The Hydra has little need to mask its mechanical nature, but the Lich commits the grave sin of being clothed, one of the biggest risk factor in making mechs look like dudes in armor. To counteract this problem, it's feet have two very evident inhuman characteristics: they have only two long, slender toes, and they touch the ground only with their futhest tarsus, in a way that makes it obvious they aren't bearing any actual weight, as if both Lich and Hydra were alway hovering a couple feet above the ground and used their feet only to skip along it, like a venetian boatman might do with their pole.

The other two exceptions are the Calendula, which being an RKF design has their trademark horse legs, and the Kobold, which already looks inarguably like a robot thanks to the barrel shae of its main body, the Horus-patented Pikey Blobs Aesthetic(tm), but still has feet with actual toes, which achieve the same effect as those from SSC.

GMS: For the longest time, GMS did not have art at all, but let's look at the [G] Type Everest from Op. Solstice Rain:

While the Boot with Auxiliary Side-Toes shape of the foot could potentially belong to a suit of armor, if we look up at the knee it's a different story: look at the slabs on either side of the joint which restrict it to one degree of freedom, as opposed to the frontal protection typical of armor for humans; look at the opposite bends of hip and shin, which almost makes the leg look digitgrade. Inequivocably robotic despite the clearly humanistic design. However, the lower parts of mechs are not the only way their design is dehumanized: we come now to Inter Planetary Shipping - Northstar and Harrison Armory, and in a curious inversion they take the opposite approach.

Although some legs of IPS-N mechs use the above principle (the Blackbeard's angular feet whose toes almost look like retractable claws, Drake's heel-less boots, and Lancaster and Kidd's SPOT-like hooves), a lot of their mecha have quite human-looking armoured boots. HA goes a step further, likely due to a deliberate stylistic choice stemming from the anthrochauvinist ideals: Their mechs look very much like armoured warriors, often even with little skirts like the Iskander or Sherman or reinforced *baltei* like Genghis and Tokugawa. With one important exception: their head.

IPS-N has a very distinctive One-Eyed Cylinder with Another Eye on the Top shape for their mecha, it's probably a deliberate par of their brand; it sees some variation like Drake's looking more liek a helmeted facemask and Stortebecker's tricorn, but even Lancaster and Kidd have a sort of vestigial head on the front with a single eye coming out of a slit.

HA's mecha have greater variation, but nevertheless for all that their body is as human-shaped as possible, their heads are always distinctly not: Barbarossa has a flat prism with a this transparent section on top, looking more like the control tower of an aircraft carrier than a head; Genghis, Tokugawa, and Gilgamesh both have canopies recessed into their bodies; Napoleon also has a barely-extruding canopy with a strange shape and covered in Blinkshield emitters that make it look like a bug-eyed little freak; Sherman is quite literally built around having a cannon for a face; and Sunzi has its drum-looking Blinkspace device. The only HA mech that has a "head" region separate from the rest of the body is Saladin, and even then it's a flat cylinder with a rectangular window in the middle: a design which would never work as a helmet but makes sense as a rotatitng cockpit with a canopy.

The observant among you will have notice that I left out four mechs: Nelson, Vlad, Enkidu, and Iskander. That is admittedly because they are those whose design asserts its inhumanity the least.

Of the first two, despite Nelson committing the sin of clothing, it also compensates hard by leaving a gap in its tabard to show the hatch for the pilot, while Vlad unfortunately does not, and with the weirldy human-looking eye, if there wasn't a pilot for scale one might legitimately not know it's a robot without context.

Iskander is the one mech in the entire Compendium which can be cosplayed without altering its proportion: cyclopism aside, this could be a person in future armor.

Enkidu also has a look which could work just as well for a human-scale cyborg, but given that it's a deliberate statement of intent it gets a pass. At the very least it's elongated head and pad-less feet make it obvious that this is not a person in armor.

Conclusion:

Although I cannot prove it without some double-blind polls, I think one of the secrets to a good mech design is making it look not only obviously like a robot, but also giving it pose, proportions, and details such that it would look big not just on a white background with no context, but that if you tried to shrink it and put it in a scene as though it was more or less the size of a person, people would realize that it's supposed to be larger.

[titan-god-helios]

hello all !!!

i'm happy to announce that i'll be doing commissions for palestine in the same way that lots of other creators have !! you donate the minimum amount detailed below to a palestinian fundraiser (either individual or an organisation like unrwa) for the type of art you want, provide proof of donation to me, and i'll draw for you !!

please note that the art will be limited to bust shots of characters, as i am pricing it lower than i would a regular commission to ensure as many people as possible are able to donate for some art.

if you aren't able to donate the minimum amounts i've listed under my art after the "keep reading", you're free to donate however much you want, still providing proof of donation to me, and i can doodle something for you (same detail as the little guy in the image above).

if you can't donate, please reblog this post !!! it would help lots :3

WHAT I WILL DRAW: - furries - artistic nudity (nothing sexual however. i am a minor. keep that in mind please) - slight gore - fanart - pretty much anything apart from what i won't draw tbh

WHAT I WON'T DRAW: - mecha - backgrounds beyond geometric shapes and colours - sexual nsfw or very gory art - guns (unless provided with a reference of what you want) - actual animals

please note that i reserve all rights to post and share any art i make, although commissioners of that art will not be named if i post the piece.

again, note that the donations must be made and proved before i start work on the art. for pieces where i keep some of the proceeds (explained below the keep reading), half of the overall payment must be given upfront before i start work.

for pieces with lineart and colours i will send progress pictures of the sketches to you for approval, or to make any changes necessary, before i move forward with the piece.

i will not accept any commissions with a deadline of less than a month (for bigger pieces with either lineart, colours and shading or more than one character, i will need at least a period of 2 months due to schoolwork and other commitments of mine taking up time), i will accept a maximum of 5 commissions per month, and i reserve the right to refuse commissions if i am not comfortable with completing them.

rough sketch - £10

lineart - £15

lineart and flat colours - £25

---

if you want a piece with more detail or that is full body, i will be keeping part of the proceeds, but will still donate half of the overall payment to a palestinian fundraiser, which i will provide proof of for you. my prices for these are:

rough sketch (same quality as the sketches above, albeit full body and/or with two characters) - £20

lineart (again with full body and/or two characters) - £30

lineart and flat colours (full body and/or two characters) - £50

lineart, coloured WITH shading (full body, one character (examples below) - £70

please note that for every character added after what is specified above, £15 will be added to the base price.

i'll have my commission slot status in my bio !!

have a lovely day, free palestine !!!!!

[charaznablespeteevee]

One of my favorite things about UC Gundam is that it is genuinely extremely weird.

Like, mecha as a genre is already a hard sell to people who aren't already into it or things like it. Gundam as a franchise is even more of a hard sell because it has a 45 year reputation of being a series for model building grognards. And as the final nail in the coffin, the original show being from 1979 has killed any desire to watch it in many, many people that I have recommended it to.

But if you actually get past all the hurdles and watch it, you have a show about a guy in a stupid helmet who is heavily implied to be fucking his twink boyfriend (who he kills), who then promptly develops a homoerotic rivalry with another guy before changing his name to Four Vaginas in the sequel. And he's not even the main character.

True believers will tell you it's peak fiction. And that's me. I'm a true believer.

[eastgaysian]

donation commissions!

[EDIT aug 14: not accepting new donation comms at the moment until i've worked through my backlog; check back in a week or two!]

for only $15 USD, you 🫵 can get a colored sketch commission like these! (more examples)

here's how it works:

choose one of the verified palestinian fundraisers linked here

donate at least $15 usd (€14, CAD $20, kr160, £12)

dm me a screenshot of the receipt and details of your commission

receive art in exchange for supporting a good cause!

notes:

$15 usd is the minimum for a flat color halfbody of a single character; each additional character is another $15

dm me to discuss if you're looking for something different/more detailed

expect a turnaround of a week or two, depending on how busy i am - i will try my best to keep you updated!

additional terms and conditions below the cut - please share this post and these fundraisers even if you can't donate/afford a commission ❤️

commissions are for personal, non-commercial use (and credit when you use is appreciated!) let me know if you aren't comfortable with me posting it and tagging you/you don't want me using it as an example.

i will draw:

original or fandom characters

real people (with their permission)

animals, furries, mecha

blood/gore (dm to discuss)

suggestive content (dm to discuss)

i'll try to work with you to find an alternative if your initial idea isn't one i feel i can draw comfortably - please use your own common sense and discretion, especially if we're not already familiar.

[mailb0xbunii]

BUN FINALLY OPENED COMMISSIONS WHO CHEERED !!!!!!! 4 slots open at at time ^_^ !!!

rules below cut ! please read them if interested :3

IMPORTANT NOTE: as you can see my art style can vary a Lot. so if there is a specific look/style you'd want, please let me know (preferably with an example from past pieces of mine).

RULES:

payment via paypal only

1/2 of payment is needed after the beginning sketch is finalized

i will turn down comms i feel uncomfortable with even if they aren't under my won't draw list

i will send process pics for each main step of the piece, but feel free to ask for updates whenever !

please provide as many references/poses/etc. as you feel is needed. it really helps my process :-D

WILL DRAW:

fanart

ocs

mlp

WON'T DRAW:

furry

mecha

gore

nsfw

[nemisisnemi]

Nemi’s 100 followers Art Raffle! 

I’m holding this event as a way to thank you all for getting me to 100 followers :D 

I’d like to give a special thanks to: ( @loser-jpg @spookyavenuestreet, @lemonchuu @artistnettles, @nyx-of-night, @celestcelest, @vauxxnm (and so many more i cannot @ in one go due to the tag limit but you know who you are!! I'll be tagging more ppl in the reblogs!) for supporting me on my journey all the way to 100 followers! Thank you for always interacting with my posts <3 

EVENT RULES: 

No harassment is allowed. You will be taken out of the raffle and blocked. 

If you have multiple accounts, be sure to link your other account(s) in your bio or intro post. 

Do not ask me when I will be starting the pieces. I have a busy schedule and do not know when I will have the time. 

No NSFW & suggestive requests allowed!!  No furry & mecha requests, I do not have the skillset to draw these. 

The winners must send me(preferably multiple) references and or descriptions of what they want drawn. Any overly complicated details and or clothes will be simplified. 

The winners will be allowed 2 changes when I check in with them with their pieces. 

GUIDELINES + INFO: 

This event will be held for a week from (July 23 12:00 am - July 30th 11:59pm est time) and I’ll randomly select the winners at the end of the week via the wheel of names (https://wheelofnames.com/)

To enter, all you need to do is to reblog this post with the tag “nemi 100 followers event”! Each username will apply as an entry. While multiple reblogs are appreciated, you’ll only receive one entry to give everyone a fair chance! Any follows during this event are greatly appreciated

There will be 5 winners selected in total

The 1st & 2nd place winners get to choose one of the options I've given and the rest of the winners will get their respective prizes. Once the 1st & 2nd place winners have selected their choice, it cannot be changed. 

I will be tagging & DMing the winners so make sure you have your dms opened! If there is no communication from the selected winners within 24 hours, I will select someone else for that slot. 

Prizes:

1st place: (choose only one of these options!)

Full body colored/rendered piece w/ a simple background 

2 characters simple interaction bust shots in one drawing sketch/clean lineart (can be characters or ocs but no color!) 

one character colored bust shot w/ simple background 

examples below!:

first piece(from left -> right) is full body example, 2nd one is of the bust shot, 3rd one is the type of rendering I'll be doing, 4th one is an example of the sketch I will be doing

2nd place: (choose one only)

a full body sketch/lineart piece w/ no color & background 

one character bust shot w/ no color & background

examples below!:

ignore the doodles around the first piece, but that will be somewhat what a full body no color will look like, 2nd piece is closer to what the style might be in & is also what the bust shot looks like.

3-5th place: one character bust shot w/ no color & background 

If you're curious on what my current art style looks like, go through my recent posts or master list! The examples I gave aren't 100% accurate to how my art looks like right now.

link to masterlist: here

I would like to give another special thanks to @/celestcelest @glidiaxoxo @raguiras @twistedwonderlandshenanigans for helping me with this event. Go show these people some love!! This event would not be possible without their help!! 

Good luck to everyone and thanks for participating!! 

[ace-disgrace-on-the-case]

There’s something I love about Battletech that I’ve only now figured out how to word, and it’s the way ‘Mechs are treated in the setting (capitalized that way because in universe it’s short for BattleMechs).

If you’re not familiar with this line of thinking, let me introduce it a moment. In short, one of the things that mecha as a genre does is use mechs because they’re human-looking. It lets you take mechanized warfare, something famously cruel and dehumanizing, and humanize it, making it once again about lone heroic actors that tower over the battlefield. That can do a lot of things in a piece: it can let you really understand the emotional impact, war-is-hell style; it can be vaguely propaganda-y/wish fulfillment, in the sense that it defies the idea that one person alone can’t make a difference; it can even be used to make combat a person-to-person backdrop for what’s really going on (you could do a rom-com with mechs pretty neatly I think…wonder if that exists?)

Battletech seems to have this line of thinking built into the setting. From a Doylist perspective, I can’t guarantee it was on purpose, but shut up we’re going off the Watsonian rails.

The setting goes straight into it with the view people have of MechWarriors, the class of soldier that pilots Battlemechs across the battlefields of the Inner Sphere. The setting (especially in older eras) treats these warriors as knights-errant, crusading about in massive suits of armor for whatever cause they believe right--even if that cause is a bit of coin. Chivalric orders at one point really did and occasionally still do within the Battletech universe, and (again, earlier on in the setting) mechs are often passed down through family lines, making these machines into a symbol. What that symbol exactly represents depends from MechWarrior to MechWarrior, but no matter what it means something to them. They have some form of relationship with what it means to be a MechWarrior. To be one of these glorious knights.

But then, as all things must, it all comes crashing down when faced with the horrors of real life and the real-life battlefield. 'Mechs aren't invincible, far from it; they certainly aren't disposable, but in addition to other 'Mechs (the "romantic" opponent all MechWarriors wish to fight) they are under threat from VTOL craft, planes, tanks, artillery, and even properly trained infantry. The glorious knight, striding across the battlefield...can very easily lose their lives to their own notions of splendor. Combat, both in lore and on the tabletop, is brutal, and 'Mechs even if they survive often come away with massive holes, missing limbs, and pilots bloodied and bruised even from the safety of the cockpit. To say nothing of those that don't make it home, their ammunition reserves sending them up in a fireball of death, their reactors purged in superheated steam that could leak into the cockpit and boil them alive, their cockpit itself blasted from off the 'Mech's shoulders and leaving them nothing but a fine red paste. BattleMechs are glorious, yes, but at the end of the day it's still war.

It's still war. And war is hell.

So despite having the appearance of being an empowering machine in-universe, we can actually look at the BattleMech as symbolic of the kind of thing that really happens to people thrown into the grinder of war--they die. And it's not pretty. No idealism can protect you from the barrel of a gun. And you are most certainly cheaper to replace than all your equipment.

The designs of the 'Mechs lean into this depersonalizing angle, too. Many of them are, in the barest sense, humanoid:

But even then, it's the vision of a human filtered through a much more realistic military-industrial complex than something like, say, Gundam. And on the other end of this spectrum:

...are 'Mechs that look nothing like the people they're supposed to represent.

Looking at this through the lens of 'Mechs as something used to tell a story about humans, we reach a conclusion:

You think this story is about you. It's not. War is hell. Meat is cheap.

And that's actually really cool of Battletech to be so thematically tied into itself like that.

[lets-try-some-writing]

Hi! Longtime lurker here, I adore your writing and all the oneshots you publish. Do you have any cute headcanons about Optimus and Elita’s relationship (for instance, how they met, deciding to become Conjuxed, and other miscellaneous stuff)?

That I do! I love them very much your honor, so let me specify based on continuity. For now, lets stick to G1. I've had longer to think about them.

G1

Orion and Ariel met in a barfight. Orion decked someone for making nasty comments about Ariel and she in turn decked Orion thinking he was the one being gross.

They made up afterwards with a drink and proceeded to dance the night away, promptly exchanging communication lines.

Once Orion figured out where Ariel worked and after they had been talking for a while, he marched across Iacon in order to sign on at her depot.

Dion thought he was nuts but came along because he enjoyed the drama.

Orion made it a point to be a gentlemech even while working at the docks. He would carry anything heavier than a cat for Ariel's and would go out of his way to get her energon for her so she didn't have to stand in line for rations.

They began courting after Orion got into yet another fist fight in Ariel's defense. He got his face busted in, and while Ariel helped him get patched up, Orion blurted out that he couldn't just let other mechs touch her.

Ariel took that personally and proceeded to become just as devoted as Orion. This earned the duo many gags and amusing reactions from their fellows who referred to them as the "lovebirds".

Ariel and Orion never actually managed to be Conjunxed as dock workers. That came later when they met under the light of Luna 1 before the Exodus late into the war. Optimus brought Elita-One the last crystal rose he could find and asked her to be his Conjunx right there.

She agreed and they spent a mere three cycles together before having to go their separate ways. But Elita wore a simple pendant with contained a petal of that single rose. Optimus for his part carried the piece of Elita's antennae that had been torn off in combat.

During the war, when they were able, Optimus and Elita would call each other by their old names and dance under the stars, singing wild songs from the docks while playing music that didn't match the mood in the slightest.

When the war ended, Elita wept for Optimus during his many moments of death. But after each miraculous return, they would always reaffirm their oaths to each other. Usually with a few soft touches.

Post war, Elita and Optimus are the most sappy couple to have ever become a thing. They are constantly calling each other nicknames like "honey", "Sweetspark", "pooch" (that one is elita's and only for when she's feeling mischievous), "My forever", and Optimus's favorite, "My rose." (For obvious reasons).

They openly wear very obvious marks of their conjunxing now that they aren't being attacked left, right, and center. Elita keeps her pendant but also loves to have a little engraving of Optimus's pet name for her on her neck guard. Slightly scandalous, but she enjoys it, especially because Optimus has "pooch" written on his inner thigh where only she and the very observant can see.

They are also very good at being quiet about their activities as a couple. But when they feel like shooing mecha away, they love to get sappy and gross everyone out of the room.

They are also notoriously dramatic when the situation isn't serious. Put them in a war room and neither will so much as smile. But give them a minor issue, and they can and will make fun of those who are enduring some slight embarrassment.

Whenever Optimus takes on a new apprentice (adopts a child-), Elita has been known to mother them relentlessly in her own way. Some get beat around in training, others get homemade goodies. Others still may end up getting actually adopted.

Rodimus still has no idea that technically he's Optimus and Elita's on paper. Only Kup and Ultra Magnus know. Both think its hilarious and have no intention of telling poor Rodimus anytime soon.

[kiiingsnake]

Thank you for answering that mecha ask, it was very helpful!! Though if I may, could I ask if you have any advice/tips for people who are new(ish) to drawing mecha? or just struggling in general I guess

first off, sorry for taking so long to answer this- it made me really have to think about how the hell i structure my mecha drawings in the first place. so here's my best advice, structured in a very on-brand confusing and shitty manner:

really, when you're just starting out its all about taking a base shape and warping it. the biggest thing is exaggeration- what you exaggerate and where you do so really does depend on your own tastes/goals for the robot. high exaggeration reads as super mechanical/otherworldly/technical, while keeping it close to the base shapes you want to replicate will make it seem more organic.

a good thing to remember the whole time is that you're putting a shell around a frame! it's like trying to draw an animal but with only hard bits (well, most of the time). so your base shape layouts aren't exactly indicative of what will be your mecha's internal and external structure. you can exaggerate inwards to make it seem like, say, an armored skeleton, or only exaggerate outwards to seem like a carapace on a bug. it's really just a whole lot of pushing and pulling within your original silhouette and weights!

[leebrontide]

New Intro post!

Hi everyone, I'm Lee (any pronouns) and I write, draw, and animate a bit. I am a therapist by day, but I'm not your therapist, so please do not try to interact with me in that capacity.

My blog is a writeblr first and foremost but I'm gonna be honest I post about a whole lot of different things. My favorites include psych stuff, gardening, science, politics (mostly US), very intermittent fandom things, the odd shitpost, and pictures of my very photogenic cats.

I have a free monthly newsletter that I'm very proud of, where I write about those things and then actually edit them, add research links, etc. Especially when those subjects interact with research for my books.

I have two books out: Secondhand Origin Stories and Names in their Blood. Those are the first 2 books in a 5 book series called Second Sentinels. On the surface they're superhero novels. At their heart they're family dramas. In the middle they're low neon cyberpunk, near future scifi, political commentary, midwest gothic, and sometimes a murder mystery. They are very queer but most of the angst is not about that. They're also very much about disability but please don't picture some Very Special Episode shit when I say that. This is much angrier and messier than that.

You can find a variety of ways to read or listen to those here, and the first book in the series is free in ebook form.

I'm working on book 3 in the series, tentatively called Scrapped Gods, right now. It has a genetic engineering cult in rural Iowa in the middle of a blizzard! It's gonna be fun.

I'm also working on a fun mecha/body horror/terraforming story with my wife. It’s inspired by anime we watched in our youth and frustration with late stage, unfettered capitalism. This is very much in early development, but here are my poor unfortunate pilots.

My animation is entirely focused on making a full movie-trailer style thing for Secondhand Origin Stories. I learned to animate specifically to be able to make this, but my animating won't end there.

I like following writeblrs, especially writeblr's that aren't ONLY about people's writing. I like getting to know PEOPLE. It doesn't feel like community to me otherwise. I particularly love:

scifi

late YA

heavily character driven work

family drama

queer stuff

multi-POV stories

chonky series

Thanks for reading this far!

Here are those photogenic cats I was telling you about.

[hinamie]

CLOSED AS OF JUNE 2024!!! WILL ANNOUNCE IF/WHEN THEY ARE BACK OPEN, THANK YOU FOR YOUR INTEREST <3

I am happy to announce that after an extended hiatus, commissions are open until I burn out for the foreseeable future !! I know it's long but please read the information below carefully if you're interested in paying me to draw ur guys <3

[PRICING] ❖ bust (chest-up): $45  ❖ half (waist-up): $60 ❖ ¾ (knee-up): $75 ❖ fullbody: $95

each additional character is +80% of base price [maximum 3 characters per commission!]

I may charge up to +25% of base price for more complex props/designs

all finished pieces will be at 350dpi, but I will choose the final canvas size unless otherwise requested.

your choice of render style: lined & coloured, painted, or somewhere in between! I am comfortable with all three options and pricing is unaffected; this is purely an aesthetic choice. If you aren't sure/have no preference, I will take liberty based on what I think would suit the piece best. This cannot be changed once I have reached the colouring stage, so choose wisely!

RENDER STYLE OPTION DETAILS I. lined & coloured: think traditional anime illustration-style pieces. Lineart can be smooth or scratchy at your request but is clearly visible within the piece regardless. ❖ examples: x x x x II. painting: blocky, textured shapes with visible brush stokes. Lineart is integrated into the piece to provide structure, but is not the main focus. ❖ examples: x x x x III. hybrid: what it says on the tin ! varies from piece to piece but features elements of both my lined and painted styles. No hard-set conventions, however lineart is typically used for detailed areas such as hair, whereas clothes and skin tend to look more painterly. ❖ examples: x x x x

[WILL‌ ‌DRAW]‌  ❖ OCs‌ ‌ ‌ ❖ fanart‌ *while not mandatory, in order to ensure best results I recommend your commission feature characters from a fandom that I have previously drawn content for or have otherwise expressed interest in. ❖ light‌-moderate ‌blood/gore‌ ❖ backgrounds *all finished pieces will include a simple background (ie. a solid colour or minimally-patterned backdrop for some visual flavour). Detailed backgrounds will be priced on a case-by-case basis depending on what you are looking for but will have a MINIMUM cost of $40

‌[WON’T‌ ‌DRAW]‌ ‌ ❖ NSFW‌ ‌(suggestive‌ ‌stuff‌ ‌is‌ ‌ok‌ ‌but‌ ‌nothing‌ ‌explicit.‌ ‌Ask‌ ‌me‌ ‌in‌ ‌your‌ ‌email‌ ‌if‌ ‌you’re‌ ‌not‌ ‌sure‌ ‌and‌ ‌we‌ ‌can‌ ‌work‌ ‌something‌ ‌out!)‌ ‌ ‌ ❖ [char] x self-insert ❖ furry*/mecha/bara‌ ‌*regular animals or simplistic‌ ‌animal‌ ‌appendages‌ ‌(ears/tails)‌ ‌are‌ ‌ok I am a catboy advocate‌  ‌❖ heavy‌ ‌blood/gore/violence‌ ‌  ❖ ships that weird me out ❖ real‌ ‌people‌ ‌*please‌ ‌also‌ ‌avoid‌ ‌using‌ ‌photos‌ ‌of‌ ‌real‌ ‌people‌ ‌as‌ ‌reference‌ ‌(ie.‌ ‌for‌ ‌an‌ ‌OC’s‌ ‌appearance)‌ if possible! ❖ complex‌ metal/mechanical props (cars, vehicles, armor/weaponry, etc.)

✧ link to ordering form and general terms of use ✧

Please DO NOT submit any commission requests through tumblr; I will not accept any commission requests sent here. Instead please follow the link and use the form and template provided! Do however feel free to message me if you have any general questions/need clarification! I'm grateful for the time you took to read through all this, as well as your ongoing support <3

(((reblogs are appreciated also))))