#I did not mean to go on a tangent about character heights and posing

[medics-secret-shipfic-folder]

Small question if you’re willing to answer!

What heights are the 4 main guys?

(Also sorry if this is on your page I couldn’t find it anywhere)

This is the right place!

Heavy and Medic are their canon heights: 6'5 and 6'1 respectively.

In the comics its hard to tell how tall Cheavy is in comparison to Heavy, but he appears to be slightly shorter than him. Maybe around 6'3.

I know he's shown to be significantly taller than Medic but heights do unfortunately change between the comics. On top of that, there's a good chance he was only drawn to be taller than Medic to make him look more imposing, rather than that being his actual height.

This is somewhat similar to how Saxton Hale's SFM model is insanely tall, but in the comics he's around 6'7. He's really not that much taller than Heavy. In fact, Saxton Hale is DWARFED by both Vivette and Bloodmaw, who are both upcoming characters in TBTF.

Saxton Hale just looks a lot taller than he is because he's posed that way and because...well, it's Saxton fucking Hale. He's the Big Man of tf2. He's supposed to look imposing, even if he's not that much taller than the other Big Man of tf2.

As for Cmedic...he appears to be the shortest. Maybe around 6'0 or 5'11. Again, its difficult to tell since we only have the one frame from the comics to go by.

[lnmei]

✏️ For the sake of documentation, here is my process for this drawing. I hope it’s helpful and interesting to someone, thanks for looking!

Be warned this write up is quite detailed, it’s a pretty long post!

References and Research

The pitch I got approved for this spread was a scene of the teachers from both Naruto and My Hero Academia in the teacher’s office. That was 9 characters total :-( I also wanted to include some students to really give a sense that this was a school scene.

These are some of my references of Japanese school teachers’ offices:

Planning the Layout

With interior views, I start with a layout that includes what big objects and furniture fills a room, where the doors and windows are, and making sure that whoever uses the space can reasonably move around in it. First I decided what my viewer/camera position and angle would be. I decided on the bottom right of the room with a view of mostly the opposite wall.

Major considerations in my layout:

I arranged the teacher’s desks based on which characters I wanted closest to the viewer.

I wanted students to be visible so I made sure that the door was visible from that angle.

I wanted the room to be well lit but didn’t want characters to be back lit, so I put windows on the left wall where they would be barely visible but still a recognizable light source.

Planning the Composition

Since my composition was a 2-page spread, my primary concern was that nothing important was on the centerfold. In the thumbnail above, I placed a vertical line for the centerfold and a horizontal line for the horizon line, roughly at eye level for a tall person standing up.

I wanted to show all the characters and also the top of the desks so I could draw what each teacher has in their workspace.

Perspective and Layout of Furniture

BTW I grabbed these screenshots from the procreate time-lapse so it doesn’t show the grid I built for the sketch like in this screenshot:

All of my perspective drawing was done with a horizon line and a 1-point + 2-point perspective grid. (I answered a question about how I did this)

After my thumbnail, I drew all the furniture as rough blocks and made sure that the visible edges of objects didn’t create tangents with one another.

Whenever I draw in perspective I pay close attention to the scale of objects. I decided how high my horizon line is, which is the viewer’s eye-level, and made sure the height and size of objects, windows, doors, etc. is realistically proportioned i.e. a desk is about waist-high or lower compared to a standing person, and from front to back a person sitting down should be able to stretch their legs and reach the back.

Character Placement

I sketched where characters should go and what poses/gestures they each have.

Since the characters should get smaller towards the back of the room, I drew a vertical line representing each character’s height relative to the horizon line. Even if the character is sitting, this helped me determine what their proportions should be.

In red (sorry it’s so light) I adjusted the width of the desks so that Aizawa wouldn’t be partially off-page to the right.

I didn’t draw any detail except for some eyes. I find that a lot of story comes from where/at what a character is looking. I made sure that each character’s line of sight led directly to another character, and that interactions between sets of characters were clear by the eye-contact.

A note: I intended to ultimately warp the 3-point perspective composition into a fake 5-point perspective image, meaning that horizontals and verticals would become rounded like in a fish-eye lens. Since I knew I was going to distort the image, I made sure to keep important details out of the top and bottom of the composition so they wouldn’t get cut off when I warped.

Background Sketch and Adding Clutter

Before I started drawing all of the details, I made a list of what each character should have in their workspace.

For example, Kakashi’s workspace should include his Icha Icha books, graded tests from his team 7 students, mug, more books, water bottle, photo of Team Minato, calendar, laptop, pencil case.

I sketched each workspace so the objects that show who a character is/what they care about are most visible.

SIDE NOTE: A friend asked how I handle designing cluttered spaces so I’ll talk a bit about arranging the desk. Here’s the sketch I ended up with.

What I keep in mind while arranging objects:

To create a believable cluttered space, overlap objects in front of other objects and by stacking objects

An object with an uninterrupted silhouette/no overlaps in front or behind will stand out, which you can use for composition or focus.

To talk more about the second point here’s a simplified example:

Here are 5 objects where they don’t overlap with each other or with the table. The picture is flattened because there is no visual representation of how the objects relate to one another spatially, and all of them are equally significant, including the table corner.

The same five objects here are grouped.

The red group of objects overlaps the corner or the table, putting them visually on top of the table.

Among the red objects you get a sense of volume and clutter too from overlaps: the mug is on top of the papers and in front of the books; papers on top of papers; one stack of books is in front of another stack of books

The red objects overlap the blue laptop, placing them in front spatially.

However, the blue silhouette is simpler than the red cluster, and that simplicity makes it more focused.

The resulting object hierarchy is blue > red > table.

TL;DR Creating interesting clutter depends on 1) overlapping objects and 2) grouping objects to create simplicity vs. complexity of silhouettes.

Here’s the final color version of the table.

In the end, the objects aren’t the focus of the composition so they are grouped together as a light area. Adding occasional spots of shadow helps break up the light shape and enforce overlaps. The characters are the focal point, and I emphasize them with darker values to contrast with the lighter desk, like you can see in the gray-scale below.

The characters’ gestures also point to important objects on the desk and overlap objects to create additional complexity and clutter. For example, although the laptop becomes less prominent because of the value grouping, Kakashi’s propped up feet point to it and create a shadow on the table pointing to it.

Lighting/Value Composition Rough

Before thinking about colors, I decided how I wanted the values to read. Then I brainstormed what colors to include in the lights, neutrals, and darks to help keep the value composition legible.

A note: Value roughs are great for fixing compositions before committing to something that becomes a problem later. For example, I noticed that the light on the drawers at front center of the composition was leading the eye off the page. To resolve this, I added an open drawer full of books. This blocked the vertical light shape and also filled the empty foreground space.

This is how the value rough compares to the final...the rough reads better, oh well....

Separate Objects into Layers

I made a flat fill layer of each object and made them different colors so I could  tell them apart when I added base colors later. Since I intended to make the background line-less, I used the lasso selection tool to trace the object outline and fill bucket so the edges were sharp.

A note: My final file has 350 layers and 40 groups. For complex compositions like this, I label and group everything!

Each object got a labeled layer and was put into a group i.e. all of Kakashi’s desk items and himself were put in the ‘kakashi’ folder. I organized groups like this:

The nested groups helped so that when I collapse all my groups my layer window was very short and easy to navigate :)

Character Line-art

This is pretty straight-forward but it took a really long time because I wanted the characters to look good and for the lines to be final. I don’t have screenshots but my character process is usually 1) gesture sketch 2) more detailed sketch for construction + anatomy + clothes 3) line.

I referenced the hell out of this and took a picture of myself making basically every hand pose of every character.

Base Colors (Ugly)

At this point I hadn’t decided on a color scheme so I just picked some ugly local colors for everything.

Color Rough

I used adjustment layers like color balance, curves, overlays, etc. to bring the above base colors to a more unified color scheme, then added light and shadow layers.

For shadow colors, I created a flat multiply layer, and over it a single-color light adjustment layer. Then, I color adjusted and played around with adjustment layers to get different moods, and saved these 4 possible lighting schemes to compare.

I put this set of lighting schemes through a photo filter app (I used one called Foodie) and ended up with the below color scheme as my final color rough.

Actual Base Colors

I color-picked and color adjusted from my color rough to fill in what the actual base colors of my picture should be.

Block in Lighting

Because of my decision to fill each object separately, I had to light each object individually. Uh, there’s definitely a way to avoid this but i work harder, not smarter. unfortunately :-(

I color picked light colors from my color roughs.

Lighting and Object Details

From this point onward, the composition didn’t change very dramatically while I filled in all the details and adjusted colors here and there. I added lighting to all the characters.

I also noticed that if I want the composition to read as a 3d space I should use different color schemes in the foreground and background to differentiate them. I kept warmer, redder colors in the foreground and introduced cooler, bluer colors towards the background. Atmospheric perspective or whatever :-)

Continue Object Details and Color/Value Adjustments

I slowly added details... I periodically compared my progress to the color rough and found that the drawing had lost some of it’s reddish look so I added a selective color layer to saturate reds.

Details, Atmosphere, Final Adjustment Layers

I added more details, textures, and adjustment layers to finish. One of my favorite things to add is dust particles to show air movement and light, like how you can see dust swirling around in sunbeams.

Warp and Noise Filter

I saved the file as a flat image and used warp to create a fish-eye lens effect/cheat 5-point perspective. I added a slight bit of noise to add atmosphere to the picture. Then it’s done!

Thanks for reading, and feel free to ask questions, I’m always happy to talk about drawing!

[galaxygermdraws]

ello germ! love ur art and I has question for you- how do you make your poses look so.. alive and vivid

Okay so this actually is a fun topic because I just found a really good method of practicing anatomy and I’ll get more on that later. 

But for now, I base my models on this base 

The main points of articulation being the shoulders, arms, wrists, fingers, pelvis, knees, ankles, and neck. I draw my characters like they’re jointed dolls, since I grew up using dolls as pose references a lot, especially more articulated ones

here’s a sketch from one of my current projects, and it’s one of my favorite poses save for that right leg. The body is all about curves, the only part that doesn’t curve is the pointing arm and that’s because its kind of the second focal point of the body and I wanted it to stand out

Posing is also wildly dependent on the anatomy of your character. For example

This is a sketch for a S6 drawing I did of the G Team, and you can tell G has a lot smaller body than Iskall. The reason is because I wanted G’s body to be extremely fluid in nature because bird boy. So I made him a tiny little bean who’s body has hardly no separation and can be drawn as one fluid form. The torso being smaller is also just an exaggeration of proportions, as the torso is not that small irl. If you’re going to do more complex poses it’d best to start with a base body that’s not too small or too big(both in height and weight), and then you can go from there. 

As for how to make the characters alive and vivid, it just comes with learning to exaggerate. Obviously I draw in a very cartoony style, which allows for much more diverse poses(see any rubber hose cartoon and you get what I mean). You can stretch and squish and twist bodies in the ways you can’t irl, and it makes it feel more alive and full of motion. It’s why I prefer drawing cartoons than realism n stuff(but for those who do that, you’re amazing I have sm respect for you realism is HARD).

Now, if you want to practice your anatomy and gesture drawing, may I link to you this website. If you aren’t aware, this website gives you randomized images from a gallery(you can choose if you want clothed models, nude models, the gender of the models, etc...) and you can set a time limit for yourself to see how fast you can draw them. I don’t typically draw from life But I tried this and below are some of my results.

If you did this kind of thing for like 20 to 30 minutes every other day, I do think it could help bring more life to your art. I got the advice from this livestream (bless u Drawfee) and I do think there’s something here that could help. 

This was mostly a tangent because anatomy is super hard to explain without making a video of it, but just let loose when you’re sketching and it may be better. Some people suggest you make a line of action, and if you do that? Cool. I tried to do that a while ago but it never really worked out for me. I do the tank top tube limbs thing and it works for me so, whatever works for you.

Now go forth and make living art 

[storm-in-a-tea-cup0]

I was tagged by the adorable @coulson-is-an-avenger Anna, I live you and I'm so sorry I'm such an inconsistent being that ignores 95% of her social media but I'm here now? Anyway, that's not important.

Ps.: Be prepared for tangents and unnecessary info because oh welp.

━━

Name: Please call me Milie one L only, thank you

Gender:....honeybee?

Star sign: Gemini, as two-faced as we come but according to my friend well versed in zodiac "a weird one" because "air signs aren't usually 🥰😍😍 but *points at the previous conversation on that chat about crushes* You are" Make with that what you will.

Height: 4'11"

Sexuality: Given the circumstances, I'll say fluid as to not harm myself. Not my past self, not my present self or my future self. Our attractions were, are and will remain valid even though they go through changes.

Favourite Book: /Oof/ brutal question. Hm, I think I'll say Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih and the series Rowan of Rin.

Current time: 01:23 am GMT-3

Average amount of sleep: before quarantine I was getting solid 4-6 hours every night? Not quality sleep but sleep. Now maybe more. Still zero quality though. It's a noisy house.

Dogs or Cats: Dogs That's unfair, I have both. The answer is still dogs

# Blankets you sleep with: One.

Dream Job:.....Linguistics Professor....

Favourite Animal: *inhale* Sloths. I have to choose one and that's my answer. Sloths. Did you hear it? I don't think you did, allow me to repeat myself. Sloths.

Blog established: Time is a concept that involves numbers and as such is one that is outside of my realm of understanding. When I decided to follow the boat and be a sneaky girl about my OCs and RPs plots which means 2019?

# of followers: 40 brave souls that for some reasons stumbled upon the mess that is this thing.

Reason for URL: Okay, storytime. Once upon a time, on my 18th birthday, as I ate cake with my close peers on a rug that smelled like wet dogs, I posed them the following situation: "Senior Year. I can feel its breath on my arse. And that beast comes yelling "YOU GOTTA PICK YOUR QUOTE AND YOUR HASHTAGS FOR THE YEARBOOK BEFORE THE YEAR EVEN BEGINS". So I beg you guys. Help me." My very wise friend the wise wizard of wisdom Calebe looked at me and said "Storm in a teacup. That's how I'd describe you in hashtags. Because you are, well, small, and you bark like thunder. Plus you got silver hair because of the character. So yeah. Storm in a Teacup." and that, dear people who read all the way to this very point, is how I, and later the blog URL, came to be.

Something I'm grateful for: The notion that no matter where we are we are all under the same sky.

Tags: @everyone hear me out. I'm LAZY

[d-c-it]

I rather forget - 1

Based on this post.

Summary: Thomas had a wonderful dream he unfortunately forgot about. The sides lead him to the subconscious to search for it with Remy’s help. He finds long forgotten memories of his sides, things they rather forget and threw there. Why are the yellow memories the most predominant? What is it that Deceit wanted so bad to forget?

Ships: platonic DLAMP, romantic Roceit (maybe, still deciding…), Remy is a flirt but he is completely platonic.

Warnings: sympathetic Deceit and Remus (although they’re just mentioned in this one.) cursed words because I’m a heathen. If i need to tag something else lmk.

Not beta-ed we die like man.

.

With Thomas pacing in his living room it was only a matter of time before the sides appeared. The brunette instantly running to talk to them, especifically, to Roman.

“Roman! What did I dream about yesterday!?” he exclaimed, excited.

“Actually, you must have certainly dreamed it today, since you went to sleep after midnight, meaning…” started Logan, being ignored by everyone once he started rambling. Thomas directed his attention to Roman yet again.

“Uh… pardon moi?” said the creative side.

“Is-is that french? … How do you know french? First spanish now french it just doesn’t make sense to me…” murmured Logan.

“Well! I’m glad you asked! Of course he knows them!” exclaimed Patton, his smile make them all prepared for what was coming. “After all they’re ROMANce languages!”

“… Oh god, no.” facepalmed Logan. While Virgil, who had been very quiet let out a snort.

“I mean partly yeah…” said Roman, hand on his chin.

“Wait, really?” spoke at unison the moral and logic sides.

“My dream!” insisted Thomas.

“Oh, right. Sorry for that figurative tangent…” apologized Logan, focusing on Thomas once more.

“Look, I had this amazing dream you wouldn’t believe!” he exclaimed, arms up in the air.

“Oh! oh! What was it about!?!” said Patton, jumping excitedly.

“That’s the problem! I have no idea!” huffed Thomas, now holding his head. “All I remember is me thinking I could make that into a video…”

“Oh… ”

“I hate that” said Roman echoing Virgil who looked at him in surprise, sharing a little smile.

“My best ideas go to waste that way!” continued Roman, looking back at Thomas.

“Do them? Is there no way to get them back?” Thomas sighed when Roman shook his head.

“Well…” said Logan, fixing his tie. “There might be one way…” earning hopeful looks from Roman and Thomas, he coughed. Virgil and Patton looked at him with confusion. Until he raised an eyebrow.

“OH! oh! oh! yesss” exclaimed Patton, realizing what the logical side meant. Virgil was the next one to understand.

“Do we really?” said the purple side, making a face.

“What? What’s happening?” asked Thomas, looking at all of them.

“They want to go to the subconscious now…” grumbled Virgil. “But…”

“But..? is it dangerous..?”

“Not at all!” Roman said making a pose with his arms.

“Well no, but Remy is… an interesting character.” murmured the anxious side.

“Now, now, Virgil, we don’t judge someone for their personality.” scolded softly Patton.

“Remy? Is he another side!?” questioned Thomas, excitement clear on his face.

“Not quite, the best way to call him would be…uh, a function.” said Logan. “He is sleep.” he explained. There was a beat of silence.

“That b**ch.” Thomas said, and Virgil started making sounds of agreement.

“Kiddo!” scolded again Patton.

-

“We’re not sure how long the dream will stay in the subconscious, tho.” mumbled Virgil. “or if that dude keeps track of them…”

“Nonsense, I’m sure Sleep has an organizing system that will allow us to…”

“Yeah, no.” interrupted, Roman. “I know the guy, he hangs out in the imagination a lot. And believe me when I say…he doesn’t seem like the type.” shrugged Roman.

“Well, what was the word-oh right, sh*t.”

“Language!” shushed Patton. Crossing his arms.

“None of that explains why I need this…” added Thomas, holding up a cup of Starbucks coffee.

“You don’t think he’s just going to help us for the goodness of his heart, right?” answered, Virgil, making a face.

“Of course he would! We all just want to help Thomas!” exclaimed Patton.

“Tell that to my insomnia…” whispered Thomas.

“uh? I didn’t catch that…?”

“He didn’t throw you anything?” questioned Logic.

“No, it’s-” Thomas sighed, massaging his temple. “just forget it.” he said, which earned him frowns from both sides.

Roman and Virgil were trying really hard to hold back their laughters.

-

When they finally made it to the subconscious Thomas was tired, after many unsuccessful attempts of making thomas fall asleep and almost deciding to just knock him out, they finally made it. Looking around, he find himself shivering. It was empty, everything around them was black, and the air seemed heavy.

“Guuuurrrrl, I could smell that from miles away.” was the only thing Thomas heard before the cup of coffee was taken from from (almost along with his hand). “This is the good sh*t!”

“Language.” automatically scolded Patton.

“OMG, Patty, my gurl. It’s so f**king nice to see you!” said Remy, Thomas guessed, while the guy put his arm across Patton’s shoulders. “I cannot f**king believe how many time has passed since y'all visited, you ungrateful b**ches.” he continued with a smirk, making Patton’s eye twitch.

“Why is my personality so weird?” asked himself Thomas.

“Well, he’s not…” started Logan.

“I’m not part of your personality, gurl. I’m my own kind of weird. Anyway! Thanks for the coffee, it was a nice detail, now If you excuse me…”

“Wow! Wait a f**king minute!” exclaimed Virgil.

“Language…” murmured Patton again, crossing his arms, defeated.

“Geez, of course you wouldn’t come here just to say hi! Y'all are the same, At least Dee-Dee pretends he wants to make conversation…” said Remy, as he started walking towards somewhere. Thomas didn’t know where, since everything was surrounded by darkness.

“Dee-Dee?” asked Logan, pushing his glasses up his nose, where they moved when Remy grabbed his arm. Thomas found his being grabbed to.

“Deceit comes here?” asked Virgil with a suspicious tone. “Why?” Remy just smiles, looking back at anxiety.

“Well of course, same as you.” he answered, putting his head in Thomas’s shoulder. “It wouldn’t be fair if I only let you guys do it.”

Logan nodded, as if agreeing. Patton gave a shivering Roman a side hug while Virgil crossed his arms, huffing. Thomas look at all of them, confusion clear in his eyes.

“I mean, even trash boy leaves things sometimes! But it’s rare.”

“Remus?” questioned Virgil.

“No, It’s Remy.” said sleep, making Thomas laugh at the reference. This made the guy look at him and Thomas finally was able to look back at him.

He had Ray-Ban glasses, he wondered if he could actually see with them on this dark place. His attire screamed bad boy but Thomas had alredy heard him talk, Remy was none of that. Leather jacket and all. The guy smirked at him and winked, at least that’s what Thomas thought, since he couldn’t see his eyes.

Before he realized, they were already walking on a long hallway. He startled a little, making sleep laugh.

“Don’t worry, babe. I got you.” He murmured.

Thomas nodded, looking around, the hallway was as dark as the entrance, or well, the place they arrived into. He wondered if Remy had just made it look into something he would find more normal to make him less nervous.

As they walked, framed pictures started to show up in the black walls, giving them a little bit of life. The more they walked the more frames there were. Thomas noticed the pictures moved, as if it was some kind of memory recorded and put there. The frames too, were of different colors.

“I don’t have to remind you guys not to touch those, right?” spoke the function, pulling Thomas closer to him when the brunette got too close for comfort to a green frame. “I would specifically avoid grabbing those, hun. If even Rem-Rem wanted that out of his head…” he shivered. “Oof, cannot imagine what would unsettled that dude. Knowing him.”

“What are them?” asked Thomas.

“Memories! There’s a bunch of yours too, but I keep those in a different place.” answered Remy, sipping his coffee. He had Logan crouching next to him, walking funny because of the height difference and because he never let go of his arm.

“Also why are you pulling Logan too…? I mean I understand me but…”

“Ha! This hot babe is more curious than you think. I don’t trust him not to try and poke one in the name of ‘science’…” while he said that he made sure he pulled Logan even closer. “He is also very handsome and I rather have him close if you know what I mean.” he whispered only for him.

“I-”

“You are rather cute yourself!”

“I think that’s quite enough!” huffed Roman, making Thomas jump in fright, he had been quiet since they arrived there.

Remy stopped and turned, linking Thomas and Logan’s arms together. The former looked at the logical side for answers, but Logan just shrugged, holding him closer.

“Ro-Ro don’t be jealous!” said Remy, hugging the creative side. “you know you’re my favorite!” despite himself, Roman couldn’t stopped the tiny smile in his face.

“Well of course!” he said, making a grand gesture with his arms.

“After Dee-Dee!”

“Wait, what!?” said Roman, Virgil and Thomas at the same time. Patton only giggled and Logan shook his head.

“He visits the most, of course I love him!” said as he return to his previous position between Thomas an Logan. “You should come to our pijama parties, raven.”

“I’m good, thanks.” was Virgil’s sarcastic response.

“Oh! Oh! Can I come? Sounds so fun!” jumped Patton.

“Of course!”

“Yaaaaaay.” celebrated the moral side.

“Patton!?”

“Oh, come on kiddo, he can’t be that bad if Remy likes him right?” plead the dad side.

“You can’t trust this guy’s judgment…” insisted Virgil.

“Ohoho no, he’s a total bitch.” interrupted sleep. “That’s exactly why I love him.”

They kept bickering and Thomas was getting even more tired. He looked around once more, watching the moving pictures in the frames, almost like Harry Potter’s! He thought, excitedly. He watched closely but making sure he didn’t touched any by accident. He didn’t know what would happen but he wasn’t going to chance it.

As he payed more attention he noticed the frames were not in any specific order, they were also diferent colors and shapes, it certainly made the walls look less gloomy. He also noticed one more thing.

“Are the yellow ones from Deceit?” he asked, stopping the voices, he hadn’t noticed how loud they were now that even Logan had joined them.

“Uh… What makes you say that?” asked Remy instead of answering.

“Well, you said Remus’s were the green ones. I’m pretty sure I saw Roman in one of the red ones, and the purples can’t be anyones but Virgil's…” Thomas looked back at the other’s, Logan was smiling at him while fixing his glasses.

“Great deductions, Thomas, I’m very proud.” Logic said, making Thomas blush and smile a little.

“That makes the dark blues Logan’s and the light blues Patton’s.” he finished, hand on his neck. Remy smirked.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“But…” said this time Patton, frowning worriedly. “There are so many…”

Nobody had really noticed how the yellow frames took most of the walls, even more so, as they walked ahead. You could almost miss it at the amount of purples and light blues that also filled the other wise blank spaces. But Patton was right. Yellow was predominant.

“Well, I did say he visited me the most, didn’t I?” shrugged Remy, holding Thomas’s hand. “But is whatever, let’s find that dream you’ve been looking for, Tom-Tom, It shouldn’t be too hard since it’s so recent.”

“Oh… Uh, alright…”

.

Tags:

@the-strawman

[wrestlingwiththoughts]

Evolve 98, January 13, 2018, Queens, NY

The last Evolve show I attended live, Evolve 93, was highlighted by a flashy Keith Lee vs. Matt Riddle match for the WWN Championship. Going into 2018, I felt fairly positive about the company. Even with Gabe Sapolsky now officially splitting his attention between his WWN responsibilities and being a consultant with WWE, I was still confident that he would carry the momentum from how Evolve ended 2017 into this year and and the roster, while not at the same height of talent that it was at during the 2016 WrestleMania weekend, was strong and had distinct, interesting personalities throughout its roster. Given that I can see high quality wrestling almost anywhere, Evolve’s use of its personalities to create storylines becomes more important than ever in a crowded market.

1. Jason Kincaid vs. Brody King vs. Snoop Strikes vs. Jarek 1:20 w/Candy Cartwright 

This was the first time I’ve ever seen Brody King or Snoop Strikes. Kincaid is continuing his struggles with his violent tendencies, while Jarek 1:20 is a street magician by day, wrestler by night. There hasn’t been an explanation for Candy Cartwright’s appearances, but she spent the match asking the crowd if they too thought that Jarek was great. It’s a bit out of place for a street magician like Jarek, and it feels a bit like she’s providing fan service eye candy to the crowd. King rocked Strikes right away and spent the match going after Strikes, who tied with Kincaid for being the smallest man in the match. The match was fast paced, and it was fast enough that you couldn’t see the seams in how the pairings were made with King and Jarek facing each other for a while as Strikes and Kincaid disappeared ringside to wait for a big tope from King. Later, they tried a tower of doom that was spoiled by Strikes slipping off the top turnbuckle, but the crowd mostly forgave it. Strikes showed a little personality by saying that his standing shiranui was the best thing, since it was a Sliced Bread No. 2, but King kicked out at one because he’s the monster in the match. King hits a sitout powerbomb on Strikes, which feels a little odd since the WWN champion’s finisher is a sitout powerbomb. Kincaid hits King with a stunner, and Jarek hits him and lays him down gently on the mat for a two count. Strikes hits Jarek with a Yoshi Tonic, and Kincaid hits a double stomp from the top turnbuckle to knock Strikes out for the three count. This was fast-paced and a lot of fun, the kind of high energy, all action opener you want for a show.

2. Ringkampf (Timothy Thatcher & WALTER) vs. Catch Point (Dominic Garrini & Tracy Williams) w/Stokely Hathaway & Chris Dickinson

The main show began with Chris Dickinson demanding that his fight with The End start right now. Stokely Hathaway cuts Dickinson off, tells him that the focus is on Jaka’s match with Sabre so Sabre will be weakened for his match with Dickinson at Evolve 99. Jaka leaves the ring with Faye Jackson. Hathaway then asks WALTER and Thatcher to come out so he can sign them to his management company. WALTER rejects Hathaway’s offer and demands an Evolve tag title shot against Dickinson and Jaka. From the start, this felt like a messy jumble of stories rather than tying them into a knot. Dickinson’s anger is deferred so Hathaway can start a tangent about Jaka and Sabre. Then, the focus gets turned to WALTER, Thatcher, Garrini, and Williams, and it makes Dickinson look like a hot-headed idiot. Then again, I’ve never understood Dickinson’s appeal.

Tracy Williams continues to waste away; I’m concerned that he will be completely two-dimensional by the time I see him again at Evolve 100. Williams’s character is reduced to fiery determination; I have no idea what he believes in or wants anymore. Garrini’s slimmed down since Evolve 93, and he started out well grappling with Thatcher. However, he looked lost at points in the middle and near the end of this match, and his strikes looked laughably weak, which undermines his shooter gimmick. It doesn’t help that the match paired him with WALTER, who towered over Garrini and hit with ferocity that Garrini couldn’t muster. 

I doubt that Thatcher can ever win back the NYC crowd; when he was getting beaten down by Williams and Garrini, the crowd chanted for WALTER with “We want WALTER” chants, not “Let’s go Thatcher.” That long title run and series of disappointing matches has ruined Thatcher for the NYC crowd. 

However, I’m still a fan of Thatcher, and this match on paper and in theory featured a combination of hard hitting and grappling that I would have enjoyed greatly. In reality, the match was enjoyable, but it felt like a mess, primarily because the referee undermined the match’s story. Garrini and Williams were able to constantly interfere in the match, while WALTER couldn’t reach inside the ring without admonishment from the referee. I get that the match was supposed to hit a peak when WALTER tags in, so there had to be obstacles to ensure that there would be emotional buy in for that moment. However, it felt obvious and artificial, and all it did was to distract from the story of WALTER by eliciting questions about why the referee wasn’t doing his job and making sure that Garrini and Williams could double team Thatcher legally. It also made me wonder if they designed the match this way because Garrini is too inexperienced to work a tag team match that would follow the rules of a tag team match. 

The match’s seams really showed when Williams had Thatcher trapped in a crossface. This meant that Garrini had to hold WALTER back from entering the ring. Throughout the match, we had seen the power advantage that WALTER had over both Garrini and Williams; he ran through their double clothesline attempt earlier to hit Garrini and Williams with lariats, big boots, and suplexes. So, even with WALTER working with less sure footing on the apron, even taking the match’s toll into account, and even with Garrini’s leverage advantage, there’s no way that Garrini should have been able to keep WALTER out of the ring for as long as he did. Watching WALTER watch Williams and Thatcher was watching WALTER wait until the match required him to come into the ring, and it disrupted my suspension of disbelief. And that all started with how the referee let Garrini and Williams run roughshod over the match’s rules without comment or explanation.

In the end, Garrini trapped WALTER in a cross armbar while Williams had Thatcher in the crossface. WALTER, showing again his power advantage and reminding me how ridiculous the idea that Garrini could keep WALTER out of the ring is, picked up Garrini and powerbombed him onto Williams to break the hold. WALTER then officially tags in, boots Williams in the face, hits him with a suplex, and finishes him with a Tiger Driver to win the match. 

Thatcher took the brunt of Catch Point’s offense, and the match was fine in the moment. It suffered from these little breaks in the suspension of disbelief, and so it underwhelmed because I couldn’t buy into it completely.

3. Chris Dickinson vs. Parrow

Dickinson entered the ring to check on his Catch Point teammates, so The End (Odinson, Parrow & Drennen) appeared to beat Dickinson up. After their grueling match, Williams and Garrini didn’t appear much worse for wear, and Jaka returned to help Williams and Garrini drive off Odinson and Drennen. Even though Catch Point outnumbered The End, Drennen wielded a chair, and all three were fresher than Williams and Garrini. This deflated any sense of danger that The End could have posed, and it decreased any interest in seeing The End ever again. Taking my interest out only frees my attention to other questions, such as why The End get to have their music play through their appearances or why they’re the only ones to have their graphics played on the venue’s screens during their appearances. Are they in league with Evolve’s owners? If so, why did they seem so incompetent here? Wrestling in general cannot withstand overthinking, which is why emotional engagement is so necessary to making wrestling work. However, it should be able to at least up to first level scrutiny, and The End can’t even do that. 

Of course, it doesn’t help when a debuting group’s sense of danger is deflated, which Catch Point has effectively done to The End through their brawl and this match. It was announced as a no disqualification match between Parrow and Dickinson, and all I could think of was how heartless Dickinson was to beat on Parrow with plastic chairs after Parrow came out as a gay man and stated how he hopes he can be an inspiration to other gay athletes. Again, my general dislike for Dickinson colored my impression of the match, which consisted primarily of brawling in and out of the ring and on La Boom’s stage. Dickinson was mean: placing a chair across Parrow’s throat and standing on it to choke Parrow while calling him trash, sweeping dust on him ringside, and hitting a broom on the floor next to Parrow’s head so hard that the broomhead landed in the arms of a ringside fan wearing El Generio’s mask, which inspired a brief “Ole!” chant from the crowd. Parrow returned fire by throwing Dickinson butt first on to the stage from ringside and hitting Dickinson with chairshots, but Dickinson suplexed him on the stage in front of a young boy who seemed to love the carnage. Dickinson then chugged a fan’s beer to complete his Sandman impression for the evening that started with his decision to wear Zubaz pants. Parrow and Dickinson went back inside the ring, and Parrow powerbombed Dickinson through two chairs. Parrow then called for chairs from the audience on the stage, which is a foolish thing to ask from wrestling fans. He got off lightly with only five or six chairs lightly tossed in his direction, which he then piled in the middle of the ring. He placed Dickinson on top of the pile and headed to the top turnbuckle, but Dickinson powerbombed him on top of the pile instead to win the match. 

After the match, Odinson and Drennen ran back out to rescue Parrow and to allow Odinson to hit Dickinson with a scary looking half nelson driver on the pile of chairs. They run away with Parrow, and Jaka passes them on by the entrance for an awkward second. To me, it seemed like The End was killed by this match and the preceding events. The End are bigger and fresher; they should not have been driven off by Catch Point. While Dickinson couldn’t afford to lose to Parrow because he had a match against Keith Lee at Evolve 99, he shouldn’t have been in an official match against Parrow in the first place if he couldn’t lose a match that would have validated the danger that The End presented. Again, the gaps in the storytelling and the flawed decisions made to get from point A to point B really show when emotional engagement isn’t there. And I find it hard to care about Chris Dickinson. The worst part is that now I find it hard to care about The End.

Also, when Dickinson declared that he was beating Zack Sabre Jr. for the Evolve Championship at Evolve 99, nobody responded. Make of that what you will. 

4. Matt Riddle vs. AR Fox w/Adrian Alanis, Liam Grey, Ayla Fox, and others

AR Fox was once the punchline to jokes about independent wrestling. All flips and flash and no substance, Fox’s matches were like cotton candy. Even worse, there was never a sense of who AR Fox was as a character, so there was not a reason to care once the flashy flips wore out their welcome. Now, accompanied by his posse, Fox seems to have a character history that I, as a fan, can fill in on my own. As the first Evolve champion, he has history with the company that few others on the independent circuit can claim. He has his own wrestling training school, and he is accompanied by his wife and students to these matches. However, the way that he is easily swayed by them and the way that he looks to them for approval implies a deep insecurity in his character, which makes him feel like there is depth to his character. When he struggles in his matches, I’m now interested to see how he will respond. When he succeeds, I’m interested in seeing how obnoxious he and his posse can be.

Riddle, on the other hand, seems to be losing his sense of character. Since losing the WWN Championship to Keith Lee, Riddle seems lost. On the surface, he is still the easy-going, “Bro!” chanting wrestler. But there should be something more there. He should be more affected by his loss than he seems to be. He should be exploring different offensive combinations or changing to show growth after the loss. Instead, he seems like he’s going through the motions, which makes him feel stagnant and uninteresting. 

So, while the majority of the crowd at La Boom cheered for Riddle, I was quietly cheering for Fox because he was now the more interesting character, even if Riddle might wrestle in a style that I prefer. Fox’s posse allows me to fill in an explanation for why he chooses to do some flipping thing when a simpler move would work just as well, if not better: he’s doing it to impress his wife and students. 

Riddle mocked Fox and friends by trying to dance with them; Fox mocked Riddle by lying on his back and pretending to pull guard. Fans on the stage threw streamers during Riddle’s entrance and started a “Happy birthday” chant because Riddle’s birthday is January 14. Riddle showed from the start that he has the grappling advantage, as one would expect. Fox and Riddle then threw their best shots at each other at a quick pace, and the posse made themselves felt when the men held Riddle while Ayla Fox distracted the referee so AR Fox could try to hit Riddle with a springboard imploding moonsault senton to the floor. Riddle ducked out of the way, and Fox’s friends caught him. Though frustrated with Fox’s posse, Riddle took the match back inside, and the two men were even until Riddle hit a jumping tombstone piledriver, a powerbomb, and a knee strike on Fox. Fox still had the wherewithal to reach the ropes to stop the count. Riddle follows up with two sentons and tries to hit one from the top rope, but Fox stops him and hits him with a flipping piledriver from the top. Fox then hit the Lo Mein Pain and a 450 splash to finish Riddle in the match. 

This was where the show picked up the energy and seemed to be a more coherent combination of action and storytelling. The even nature made sense since Fox is an experienced wrestler and a former champion while Riddle is a talented former champion himself. This was also in Riddle’s wheelhouse in terms of match length, and Fox’s personality came through the match. The posse does make it hard to see the match from ringside, but they fed into Fox’s personality enough that I could deal with it, unlike other fans who were telling them to move aside or go away because they were blocking the fans’ view of the match. I especially enjoyed Ayla Fox berating the crowd for chanting “Bro!” by telling them that they were sheep; it seemed like a valid assessment of the crowd.

After the match, Fox challenged the WWN Champion, whomever he may be, for a title match at Evolve 100. He also sarcastically wished Riddle a happy birthday.

5. No disqualification match for the FIP World Heavyweight Championship: Austin Theory (c) w/Priscilla Kelly vs. Fred Yehi

Theory had a new haircut that took attention away from his hairline. However, Theory has a new shirt with an awful Twitter hashtag: “Theoryscoming.” It’s a slight improvement over emblazoning his tights with “Unproven,” but only just slightly because it’s no longer wordplay. Instead, it just makes him look like a creep. Kelly wore red contacts to pair with her red eye shadow and plaid red skirt. Yehi was heated from the start, and he stormed past Kelly to taunt Theory by mimicking how Kelly would run a finger over Theory’s opponent’s chest. 

Because it was a no disqualification match, it made sense that Kelly openly interfered in the match from the start. Why be coy about it when there are no rules to prevent it? Paired with Kelly, Theory’s personality has really come through to the surface. He’s a cocksure jerk, but he’s competent enough to be taken seriously. After all, he’s the FIP World Champion after beating Yehi to win the title. He mocks his opponents, but he backs up his arrogance with his actions, which makes him a dangerous heel. 

Yehi, on the other hand, doesn’t have much of a personality beyond “intense” and “looking slightly bewildered during matches.” Perhaps that’s why I’ve found praise for Yehi over the years confusing. It’s hard to invest in his matches. He’s competent, but I never feel like there is a narrative to his moves. 

This match tied into the feud that Theory and Kincaid have had about what Kincaid thinks is Kelly’s corrupting influence on Theory. I think we’re meant to be on Kincaid’s side, but I’m on Theory’s. He’s found a partner who supports him, and he’s been successful with this partnership. She might interfere in his matches on his behalf, and sometimes her interference backfires. But she doesn’t violate the rules any worse than Catch Point, for example, does in their matches. Am I supposed to be upset that she’s interfering because she’s a woman or because Evolve is supposed to be above things like outside interference? To me, it seems like Kincaid is sticking himself into Theory’s business; as someone next to me said during the show, Kincaid should stay in his own lane and worry about getting himself out of the shows’ preliminary matches instead of worrying about Theory. It all just makes Kincaid look jealous of Theory’s success, which makes him the heel.

Yehi tried to neutralize Kelly by stomping on her hand and grinding it into the mat, but she made her presence felt when Theory fought off a Yehi attempt at a powerbomb from the top rope. Yehi hit bicycle kicks on Theory, but Kelly hit Yehi in the corner with a chair assisted dropkick, which allowed Theory to hit Yehi with the Ataxia to win the match. As usual with Yehi’s matches, it felt fine, but there wasn’t much remarkable about it other than Kelly’s dropkick. After the match, Kelly remarked to the cameraman that she was responsible for Theory’s championship, and the little look that Theory gave her in response creates more intriguing story potentials than all of Kincaid’s tantrums.

6. Keith Lee vs. Jaka w/Chris Dickinson

This was announced as a grudge match, but I couldn’t remember what the created the grudge between Jaka and Keith Lee. Did it stem from the tag match at Evolve 92 when Lee and Riddle challenged Jaka and Dickinson for the Evolve tag team championship? The feud that arose from there was between Lee and Riddle. Does Jaka have a grudge against Lee beause his partner, Dickinson, was facing Lee for the WWN Championship at Evolve 99? Then, it’s a one-sided grudge, as Lee showed when he was all smiles to open the match, literally looking over Jaka as they stood toe to toe. It’s too bad that they didn’t use the video screens at La Boom to air a promo or video package that could have explained why this was a grudge match. (However, judging by what they aired on the stream before, during, and after Style Battle 1.08 and Evolve 99, it doesn’t seem like they had a video package that could have explained the enmity between Catch Point and Keith Lee.) 

So, Keith Lee started off with an obvious strength advantage, which forced Jaka to work from underneath, an unusual position for him. Lee hit a huge hurricanrana to blow the crowd up. Nonetheless, Jaka recovered and was able to go toe to toe with Lee with relentless, tight offense that looked good from my seat. Lee pressed with power offense like a high angled spinebuster, a German suplex, and a pounce that launched Jaka across the ring. At that point, Fox’s posse came to the stage and distracted Lee, and Lee tried to intimidate the group with a move from the top rope. AR Fox joined his posse, and Lee stupidly climbed down to confront Fox. Jaka dodged a Spirit Bomb attempt and knocked Lee out with a flurry of moves, culminating with the spin kick.

Questionable motivation aside, I thought this match was another great showing from Jaka, who is becoming Catch Point’s gatekeeper much like how Tomohiro Ishii is Chaos’s gatekeeper in New Japan Pro Wrestling. However, I wish Lee were a smart enough babyface that he’s not distracted by a person’s appearance. I get that he had to be distracted so Jaka could beat him, but it’s a dumb trope in wrestling, and wrestlers and promoters should be more creative than this.

Dickinson climbed into the ring, posed above Lee, and told Fox that he could have a title match at Evolve 100 after he beats Lee at Evolve 99. Well, that’s certainly optimistic confidence from Dickinson.

7. Evolve Championship match: Zack Sabre Jr. (c) vs. Darby Allin

Allin painted wrote “Champ” on half of his body; I suppose Allin is a visual believer. Sabre came out to the Idles’s “Mother,” a politically charged punk song that befits Zack Labour Jr. After his long feud with Timothy Thatcher about whether he was a wrestler or stuntman, Allin has been proving to everyone that he is a legitimate wrestler, matching wrestlers hold for hold and using the Last Supper pinning combination to score victories leading up to this title match. Sabre, before his match at Evolve 96 against DJ Z, declared that he was Evolve’s gatekeeper because he was the champion and standard bearer. No one could be considered a legitimate wrestler until they have been tested by Sabre. 

The crowd has dueling chants for the two to start, and Allin is able to surprise Sabre by meeting him hold for hold enough that Sabre has to collect himself outside the ring. Perhaps he was also daring Allin to chase after him with a high risk move from the top rope. Instead, Allin waited for Sabre inside, showing a patience and maturity that is a long way from his first match against Ethan Page. Having refocused, Sabre began to pick Allin apart, attacking his knees, his wrists, his elbows, and his shoulders. Whatever Allin couldn’t protect, Sabre attacked. If Allin guarded a body part that Sabre wanted to attack, Sabre would attack another part until Allin relented. If Allin didn’t want to give up his arm, for example, Sabre slammed Allin’s knee against the mat until Allin lost focus and couldn’t keep his arm out of Sabre’s grasp. Allin kicked out of the European Clutch and tried to trade strikes with Sabre; Sabre was the first wrestler to kick out of the Last Supper in Evolve. Pushed to the edge, Allin tried to go to the well with the coffin drop, but Sabre caught him out of the air and first Sabre tried to choke him out, then transitioned into a double arm bar. Sabre was vicious, tearing apart Allin so thoroughly that Allin ultimately couldn’t even defend himself. The referee had to stop the match and award the victory to Sabre. 

Allin would have been an uncomfortable fit as champion, so this is probably his pinnacle. However, Allin’s growth along the path from WWN tryouts to Evolve main event has been remarkable, and this was his most complete match yet. Sabre was relentless once he understood how to break Allin down and once Allin’s perseverance annoyed Sabre enough for Sabre to kick up his intensity. Sabre is quietly one of the best wrestlers in the world, and for one night, Allin showed that he could stand up to Sabre. 

After the match, Austin Theory reminded the crowd that he has challenged Sabre for a shot at the Evolve championship by ambushing Sabre with a Theory KO. Kincaid then ran in, sidestepped an advancing Priscilla Kelly, and attacked Theory, stomping and punching him until his emotional turbulence gave him pause and Theory a chance to be escorted to the locker room by referees and Kelly. Unfortunately, most of the crowd was leaving at this point, so this attack received no reaction from the crowd. 

I enjoyed the show, and I still think that Evolve’s roster is a good combination of wrestling talent and personalities. Some of the players who have been around for a while, like Riddle, Yehi, and Williams, need to double down on who their characters are. Others, like Allin, Lee, and Sabre are combining their charisma, wrestling skills, and understanding of their personalities well.