#I love rendering in the hades style

[midnigtartist]

Longest yahboi ever

[moonlial]

[demi-pixellated]

✨⚔ Struck by a Curse of Longing 💞✨ --

I've been vibrating out of my skin to finally have this up so, Here it is: my full piece for @ares-zine !! So glad I got participate in this gorgeous book~

Missed your chance to pick up a copy the first time around? Still eyeing some of our lovely merch? No worries, Spoils of War is having a Leftover Sale!

⚔ Purchase Here ⚔ Sale ends July 10th or while stock lasts

[genericpuff]

Absolutely love the rendition to the panel of Hades holding Persephone. Lovely to see it rendered as a more mutual act with Perse holding onto Hades instead of just letting Hades hold her, and ofc seeing Persephone actually look like an adult woman. (Not to even mention the colors and rendering because whoaa those were lovely)

And I have a question about this new rendition if I’m allowed to make it! The original had very dramatic and sharp composition with the angles and being off centered which conveyed much of the emotions and style that made early LO very striking. In adapting it, was it a conscious choice to change the composition or what were the deciding factors that made you and banshriek decide centering Perse and Hades worked better in this situation? :0

Ahhh thank you ;w; It took a few rounds of sketching to get the pose just right, the flats thankfully weren't as difficult as I was worried they'd be, but the challenge was definitely in trying to get the pose right while maintaining the height difference that's there.

As for your question, a lot of the posing and sketch composition is something I do, and then Banshriek typically goes wild with the backgrounds while making adjustments to those compositions if necessary, often times I leave the backgrounds up to their discretion as they're 10x more skilled at that sort of thing than I am and they often bring new perspectives to the table. This means that it often ends up being a game of give and take between what we contribute, sometimes I'll have sketches that they feel need to be adjusted, other times I'll have to add little tweaks to their backgrounds if it's missing something. We're both working off a base rough sketch, but we both get to contribute to the final scene in our own ways; splitting it between background and character flats has been a happy middle that's worked well for us :)

Depending on the scene, sketches can range from minimal to more detailed. Here's the original base sketch for that scene:

So originally there was a larger tree working over the side but I didn't really know how detailed we wanted to be in the actual full background, much of it depended on how complex Banshriek wanted to get. You can also tell that Persephone's face was originally buried into Hades' chest in the original panel, which I originally flatted in, but then wound up changing because I wanted her eyes to be visible to reflect both of their expressions of relief at the same time.

That said, with the pose changing from what it was in the original (from Persephone almost laying on Hades vs. him holding her and lifting her up) the composition had to change with it so I decided to just make them a bit more centered, that way the focus would be fully on them and the balance of the scene wouldn't feel "off" due to the pose change. I tend to follow the Rule of 3 here !

So yeah! That's pretty much why centering it felt a little better in this case. Though part me of does wish I was able to keep the original pose, when breaking that scene down into its bones I found it had to take a lot of liberties with its anatomy and proportions, as many LO scenes do. You can't really tell just on a surface level but Persephone's head is huge and the rest of her body is tiny (her hips literally come up to Hades' sternum and her feet meet at his knees). With the character design changes made in Rekindled to make Persephone a little less tiny and more consistent in her body type (while still maintaining the size difference between them) and to reflect their character arcs at this point (as I'm not rushing them into intimacy quite like the original comic did) certain things have to change to balance it out and accommodate. If you're a math person, think of it like solving algebra equations - what you do to one side of the equation needs to be reflected and adjusted on the other side.

And of course Banshriek did a lot more to really exemplify the mood shift in the almost labrynth-like forest Persephone grew within Tower 4. There are still trees and plant life everywhere, but instead of feeling like an endless maze with its tones of deep red that we saw Hades navigate, it now feels like a soft and gentle meeting point for the two. Like the original scene, the color change is used to change the mood of the scene and reflect the calmness of Hades and Persephone as they've found one another.

At the end of the day we did what we ultimately thought would work best for the way Rekindled is drawn, giving both Banshriek and I the freedom to fully utilize our respective skillsets. That way we were able to pay tribute to that original scene while also creating something new out of it <3

That said, I'm sure @banshriek can also chime in with their own design notes on this episode, if they have a minute to spare! I'm sure they'll have lots to say about the fun they had working with those new brushesヽ(・∀・)ﾉ

[scwibbs]

yo i LOVE ur art, whats ur inspo and motivations?

OUGHH THANK YOU THANK YOU!! i LOVE YOUR ART AS WELL SO I FEEL VERY HONORED U SAY THIS <333 SORRY FOR THE SUPER LONG ANSWER BTW i jus had alot to think about for this ask this is hard for me to answer inspo wise bc i have so many artists/media that inspire me i can go on for a WHILE, BUT i think i would have to narrow it down to spiderverse (obviously), spiderman/batman comics , borderlands, hades, and etc. story telling done through comics/video games catches my attention alot more than other media and the art styles from it scratch a particular spot in my brain with the composition that comes from comics and the heavy use of paint/textures from video games ooo it makes me go crazy. I know i mostly do sketches but whenever i render i try to pull inspiration from those sources :3

as for motivation, i spent a long time drawing for others rather than myself which led to a massive burnout but for a while now ive been drawing stuff that makes me happy like my fav characters with muscle/fat bodies so to see that others share in that joy motivates me a ton! knowing that my art could impact others in a positive way is all i longed for when i was a beginner artist so that is one of my main motivations <3

[theboarsbride]

Hi again! Just wanna recommend you some really good stories with fairy lore and Celtic/Brythonic mythology after my long ass rant about ACOTAR. To take a break from the negativity. So I already recommended Sargentum and Mias and Elle on Tapastic and I really do highly recommend you read them. Sargentum is about a boy who makes a deal with a witch for powers of destruction while Mias and Elle is a Hades and Persephone inspired story set in a pagan Tudor England where a wizard goes through a portal to the modern day and kidnaps a woman into his fantasy world for his nefarious deeds. However, because it is a Hades and Persephone inspired story, it has its issues when it comes with the romance between the two leads but it is a very healthy one (very low bar to pass considering the Stockholm Syndrome debate and countless other toxic, shitty retellings, I know, but I promise, they are good for each other) where the female lead absolutely takes no shit while the story actually punishes the male lead for his terrible and awful behavior (the author does encourage that we hate him in the early chapters it's very funny the comments are filled with stuff like "KICK HIS ASS"). Tread lightly though, it gets very heavy and violent pretty fast. Another recommendation is a middle grade fantasy series called 13 Treasures by Michelle Harrison which is about a girl who can see fairies and it basically introduced preteen me to real life fairy lore in Britain and Ireland. It's also fairly dark for a middle grade book series too but then again, the fae folk are actually dangerous trickster entities in this one because they literally kidnap babies and replace them with changelings. There are a couple of instances where the characters used their wit to outsmart the fae folk and the solutions are very clever so stick around for those. For movies, I recommend the Cartoon Saloon movies: Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea, and Wolfwalkers, all of which are inspired by real life Irish folklore.

!!!! YES!!! THANK YOU FOR THESE RECS!!!!!! 💛💛💛

I will provide links to both of these stories in this post! Thank you, again, for providing these titles, they all sound so good!! puts them in my TBR because both sound so good!!

Also Cartoon Saloon films are SO GOOD!!!!!!!! I definitely recommend those over indulging SJM's vaguely- and poorly-rendered retelling of Celtic myth!

Sargentum by popsiclestick on Tapas (I'm already in LOVE with the art style!!)

13 Treasures Trilogy by Michelle Harrison

Mias and Elle by stressedjenny

As always, feel free to drop story, book, movie, etc. recommendations into my ask box!! I really love sharing about these underappreciated stories, and indie and self published authors!!!!🥺

[kandrakelsier]

Video games asks 24/25: An art style you love and an art style that's grown on you?

24: A game with a cool art style?

Eh, is it a cop-out to say Hades? Celeste is also very good, but I think the one I like best is the Valkyria Chronicles series; they have a unique rendering engine that makes the game look like a painted anime:

25: A game’s art style that had to grow on you?

I really REALLY dislike the trend towards retro-pixel style art but with higher resolution graphics, which seem to be trying to recapture the GBA style graphics of the early 2000s. Finding a way to accurately convey an idea with the limited size and resolution of older hardware is part of what makes it look good. That being said, Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark and Coffee Talk are two games that I think do it particularly well.

Symphony of War: Nephilim's Mark and Wargroove are examples of games that are on the edge of being too much:

and then there are games like Octopath Traveller and Noita, which I think try to be too complex while maintaining the pixel art style, which makes them kinda.... blurry and indistinct.

[artichow]

Arti does shoyo sho have thoughts on team whz?

Oooh interesting!

I don't think they'd have a lot of interactions during masters, but they watched some of the Gan Gan Galaxy vs Wang Hu Zong matches at the beginning of the tournament back at the WBBA. To be fair they weren't very invested in it, didn't really catch all their names. Their mind was mostly elsewhere but seeing their fighting style was very intriguing and inspiring! She trained in combat and I feel like blading with the same energy and attack styles would be something she could pick up and try out after seeing this on TV actually!! Omg I just wrote that it's a good idea actually wowie :D Also gives me reasons for Shoyo to not be rendered weaker than the world championship contestants later on, she's evolving and getting development too baby!!

Their first proper meeting would probably be at the end of the championship after Gan Gan Galaxy's victory. Then right after that they go on to raid Hades City :D. Shoyo vibes pretty well with all of them, she probably likes Mei-Mei the best, she's so easy to talk to and very impressive in her determination and willingness to train all the time. I like the idea of them clicking very well actually :D Dashan seems a lot more approachable than what he seemed to be back from he battled Gingka. Cool dude. Chi-yun is very nice and sweet though sooo stressed omg. But this is Shoyo we're talking about, actually seeing this little ball of stress and eagerness for validation makes her realize that she's started to change. And they try their best to be reassuring and easy-going with Chi-yun while still taking him seriously. (This is me making Shoyo a mentor/good influence on every kid she meets ig?? it's not that she's good at it or never fucks up but by then they spent a lot of time with Kenta so she's less likely to not take someone younger than her seriously. Collecting good friendships with the kids like pokemons). As for Zhouxing idk man, he'd be kind of a mystery to Sho but she really like his fighting style and notices the efforts he puts into his friendships and training. I imagine she could just. Not carry a conversation with him whatsoever like... what the hell is he talking about even.

This is getting long but but!!! since I want Sho (and Hyoma) to be included during Fury I'd love for them to come along or meet everyone at the Beijing temple maybe and Shoyo would be happy to see everyone again I think :D She'd take this opportunity to train with the students and maybe show off some new moves too while training with Mei-Mei :)

[catty-kitkat]

A portrait of Zagreus form Hades. I wanted to experiment with my shading/rendering style inspired by the character portraits in the game. I love this game and Zagreus is one of my favorite characters. 

[oldvincentius-art]

I did a style study of the art style from Hades! Used my FFXIV lady of course, I think it turned out great! There is a lot of nuance to the style, particularly the rendering. I’d love to do some more in this style eventually.

[canmom]

talksprite art for VNs and VN-influenced games seems like quite an art. a lot of games seem to have perfectly competent rendering but very stiff, identical poses that strip away a lot of appeal.

the best ones I’ve seen recently are probably Jen Z’s portraits in Hades and Gigalithic’s portraits in Paradise Killer (possibly other artists? surprisingly hard to find out who drew these), which make full use of pose and stylised rendering to create something really beautiful and expressive in each case.

the PS3 sprites in Umineko are like... solid, in that they do a decent job of expressing each character’s vibe (the sneering and arrogant Ushiromiya adults certainly look the part); they’re in this very clean style of cel shading with some softened edges that honestly feels kind of sterile.

back when I wrote on Umineko years ago, I complained of sameface in the limited artistic vocabulary I had then - I don’t think that’s entirely true. certainly characters like Rudolf, Krauss, Kinzo, Hideyoshi, Gohda... take on a much more realism oriented design style, with the facial structure much clearer in the contour and shading...

back then I thought of this as a gender thing, but it’s partly more of a youth thing: the younger you are the more stylised. compare for example Kumasawa (right) and Kanon (middle) in this picture:

Kanon has that hyper-stylised pointed chin, and also heavily stylised zigzag hair highlights, whereas Kumasawa has a pretty realistic face profile following the shape of the jaw, and her cheekbones and the edges of her eyelids are drawn in to emphasise her age. (there is an illustration maxim that additional lines on a face tend to age a character, which I don’t think is universally true, but it is being used to that end here.)

anyway, regardless, you could certainly argue this doesn’t have the charm of the original super-deformed cel-shaded drawings of writer Ryukishi07...

it’s wild thinking how my impression of the character would change compared to the PS3 sprites. here’s the same scene:

interestingly, this does not seem to be the only attempt to clean up the Umineko talksprites. the Steam version features a different set, with this example offered of Kanon and Jessica on the product page:

their version of Battler is distinctly shōjo love interest:

Honestly not sure what I think of this version. I kind of like this take on Battler, but that Jessica is just a mess lol - the ziploc boobs thing on a blazer? just looks weird lol. and the ‘balance’ of the face seems all off. I’d be interested seeing their takes on some of the older characters like Krauss, Rudolf and Hideyoshi, because this is where the PS3 version seems strongest. (also very curious how Ryukishi07 drew those characters. probably there’s a wiki somewhere.)

anyway, from a technical using-this-in-a-game perspective, in the PS3/Umineko-Project version at least, each character generally has a small handful of poses - usually variants of the same structure, just redrawing a part, which no doubt saved work but weakens the impact of the individual portraits. on top of this they have animated lip flaps - each character has a set of mouths which can be scaled and placed over the relevant part of the face.

this is generally how simple ‘lip flap’ dialogue scenes are performed in anime: the key animator will draw the pose and often just one or two variant mouths, which will then be timed to dialogue once it’s recorded. generally you’ll try and keyframe in a few gestures or a cut to a different shot to break things up and avoid a static pose getting stale, but of course TV anime is the realm of low drawing count so sometimes this isn’t possible. because of this limited character animation, a great deal of weight is placed instead on the voice actor to convey the emotion of the scene. this is even more true in a visual novel.

this technique works best on characters with relatively flat faces. on a character like Hideyoshi, with pronounced nasolabial folds, it becomes much more noticeable that the rest of the face isn’t moving naturally, especially when the corners of the mouth move and the nasolabial fold doesn’t. still on the whole I think the effect works to anchor the voice acting in the scene without going to the impossible lengths of full character animation. however, it doesn’t have the immediate impact of the highly iconic symbolism-drenched poses of something like Hades - perhaps appropriate because these are just a bunch of rich assholes and not the Greek gods lol

one possibility i’d be curious about would be talksprites with short animated loops, akin to the character animation in projects like ENA. this is I guess a step towards the layered canned animations of game cutscenes with procedural animation systems, typical of Bioware games, but with a bit of 2D flair. anyway, back to reading, I still have so many thousands of screens to get through before I can consider resuming the liveblog...

[alyona11]

I posted 3 428 times in 2021

969 posts created (28%)

2459 posts reblogged (72%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 2.5 posts.

I added 2 527 tags in 2021

#me being me - 725 posts

#hadestown - 512 posts

#hadestown fanart - 237 posts

#hades - 213 posts

#my art - 195 posts

#hades x persephone - 151 posts

#gallifrey - 132 posts

#persephone - 130 posts

#hadestown shitpost - 119 posts

#hadestown broadway - 113 posts

Longest Tag: 100 characters

#олсо инглиш спикеры очень часто игнорят гугл транслейт под постами на чужом языке и требую перевести

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

Look, I'm really happy how this background with Hadestown in all of its glory turned out! Also I'm figuring out how to use 2D camera, so I made this quick shot and added Hades and Persephone moving in the background.

329 notes • Posted 2021-07-06 13:37:30 GMT

#4

*terrible storm outside starting*

Hermes in the bar: *throwing his chair out of the window* CAN’T YOU TWO GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER?! 

343 notes • Posted 2021-02-10 20:17:51 GMT

#3

I have a soft spot for NYTW Orpheus and Eurydice actually. Wanted to draw smg with them for a while. Got you two versions: rendered and sketchy cos I kinda love both. Used a photo from the production as a reference, also recorded a timelapse for the coloring part (because I forgot to turn on the recording for the sketch huh). Both ref and a timelapse are under the cut.

Look at them!!!

And the timelapse:

350 notes • Posted 2021-02-24 21:18:47 GMT

#2

From baby to bastard: evolution. So here we have: 1) Baby. Eaten by his dad. 2) Young man. Less eaten by his dad. 3) Warrior during Titanomachy. 4) Wedding man! 5) Guy who got himself a train 6) The bastard we know and love

Lmk who’s your favourite!

Also please appreciate Hades’ belly in the 5h one, thank you 

364 notes • Posted 2021-03-14 20:39:14 GMT

#1

I loved Luca so much I wanted to draw a fanart. The movie so touching and cute and it has these summer vibes, check it out!

Made this a little challenge for myself, so I tried to keep the style true to the original movie.

P.S. I don't have a constant way of coloring stuff, so today I went with no texture and sharp shadows. Tomorrow? Who knows.

642 notes • Posted 2021-06-23 16:12:28 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[intelligent-trash]

Jo, Kate, and their parallels with the Orpheus/Eurydice myth

Okay, so I know this may seem totally out there, but bear with me on this - I promise, I have a point, and I am really interested to hear your thoughts on these parallels.

So I just wrote this all out once only for tumblr to delete it as I was about to post, so like, yay for that. Also I’m on 4 hours sleep and very brain frazzled from recently submitting my dissertation, so apologies if there’s any nonsensical aspects. I will preface this with a note that I am by no means a Greek mythology expert, I just really love Hadestown and subsequently the Orpheus/Eurydice myth, and noticed there were some significant parallels between it and the Kate/Jo story which I wanted to draw.

For those not particularly familiar with the Orpheus/Eurydice myth, I’d give it a quick google, but I’ll be drawing comparisons between that story and Kate/Jo’s here.

Orpheus is a talented musician, whose musical gift was said to entrance even nature itself. In a slightly less mythical but no less impressive fashion, we have Kate, whose known proficiencies and dedication to the anticorruption cause, even after she leaves AC-12, make her stand out as an exceptional detective. Orpheus meets Eurydice and is instantly drawn to her beauty – she is drawn to his voice, and they soon fall in love. It is not Kate’s voice that draws in Jo, but the promise of freedom she offers with her anticorruption background that initially draws her in – we know from 6x06 that that is why Jo initially hired her. With Jo, I think Kate finds a kindred spirit (plus, who are we kidding, Kelly is bloody beautiful) to whom she connects with and is drawn to. Much like Orpheus and Eurydice, who seem almost magnetised in how they are drawn to one another, I think there are definitely some parallels in how Kate and Jo are drawn to one another and the chemistry they share, despite coming from very opposing backgrounds (Jo as the coerced daughter of an OCG boss, forced to do their bidding in secret VS one of the most dedicated (ex-)anticorruption officers)

Orpheus and Eurydice decide to marry, and have a brief moment of wedded bliss before everything goes downhill. Whilst I’d love a flemson wedding, I can’t see that in the near future, nor is it relevant for the parallels being drawn – I would instead draw attention to their Frederico’s date, the intimacy shared there, and the proposed weekend date, where they existed in a bit of a honeymoon state of excitement surrounding this somewhat illicit close connection.

Of course, this can’t last. Aristaeus’ love for Eurydice, and jealousy of Orpheus, drives him to chase the pair down, intending to kill Orpheus and take Eurydice for his own. Aristaeus is more of a metaphor for the OCG controlling Jo, rather than any one individual – by Jo getting close to Kate, it threatens the OCG’s concealment, and thus Kate must be eliminated so they can regain control over Jo. As Eurydice and Orpheus run to escape the OCG, a clear parallel could be drawn with the man-hunt of 6x06.

Eurydice stumbles and falls, and as Orpheus turns he sees she has been bitten by a deadly viper, and has died. Whilst Jo does not literally die at this point in the story, her imprisonment could represent a metaphorical death – she is no longer able to act freely alongside Kate, her relationship with Kate is irrevocably changed after the whole murder attempt fiasco, and Kate will struggle to get through to Jo even more than before now she is in jail – and, as the viewers are well aware, in the jail with the two dodgy prison officers who pose a clear threat to her.

At this point, Orpheus, driven by grief, appeals to his father, the God Apollo, to permit him to go to the underworld and seek his wife from Hades, in a somewhat hair-brained but brilliant scheme. We are yet to see this play out in 6x07, but the trailer appears to suggest some kind of attempt to get Jo out of prison, for which AC-12 become involved – specifically, Kate. I anticipate that, despite the murder attempt, Kate will be deeply affected by Jo’s imprisonment, and likely will be part of the driving force to prove she isn’t bent – like she has been, all series, in spite of all the proof staring her in the face. I imagine Kate will be prepared to put herself in a dangerous position within this, fully aware of the Lakewell incident, to help save Jo – and I wouldn’t be surprised if she is the one to suggest or somehow initiate this operation. The crazy part of it comes from the fact they are well aware of what happened to Lakewell, and are likely having to develop some sort of crazy plan to try and get around that – quite possibly, intentionally drawing out the OCG in the process.

Orpheus approaches Hades, asking for entry into the underworld, for which he receives no challenges. When he approaches Hades and Persephone, he sings to them of his desire for Eurydice to be returned to them, and convinces Hades to return Eurydice. However, there is a condition – he must walk back towards the world of the living, and she must follow him, and he cannot look back, or else she will be trapped in the underworld forever and he will be unable to reach her. Essentially, Orpheus must trust that Eurydice will be following behind him, will have chosen to return with him to the land of the living. Eurydice is demonstrating her faith in him by allowing him to lead her out of the underworld. This aspect of the story is highly speculative, as 6x07 is currently yet to air – but Kate has to place some trust in Jo, that she will follow through with their plan, that she won’t betray her again. Jo had demonstrated some basis for being trusted, with placing her prints on Kate’s gun and taking the fall for her in. 6x06, but now it is imperative that Kate trusts Jo to follow through – likely on providing information – so Kate can free her from her past OCG ties, hopefully in some kind of witness protection as opposed to jail.

But the story of Orpheus and Eurydice is a tragic love story. Orpheus, having reached the light himself, turns to look upon his wife. In doing so, he seals her fate – she is trapped in the underworld forever. How this translates to the story of Kate/Jo is unclear, but my speculation is that there is some incident where Kate’s trust in Jo briefly falters, which ultimately proves fatal to Jo – and it will turn out, Jo WAS trustworthy all along, but Kate’s hesitancy to believe in Jo (understandably so) was the tragic flaw in their relationship, particularly as up to that point they had implicitly trusted one another. Orpheus has a brief moment where he sees Eurydice before she is returned to the underworld – for Kate and Jo, I imagine this will be a moment of “I was never pretending” style confessions before Jo’s tragic end.

Orpheus is heart-broken by the incident, losing the joy that had previously characterised his music. Kate’s music, in this case, is her faith within the anticorruption cause. Whilst I don’t think she will lose it entirely, I think she will become a lot more cynical and unconvinced regarding its success, particularly as they were so close to saving Jo before they lost her, to what in Kate’s eyes was her own struggles with trusting Jo would follow her into the light (ie. freedom from the OCG). But Jo was following her the whole time.

The comparison between Jo/Kate and Orpheus/Eurydice highlight how Jo/Kate’s story, at its heart, is a tragic love story – obviously, dependent on the outcome of 6x07, which could render this completely obsolete. But I just thought the parallels were really interesting, and I would love to hear others thoughts on this. (I will say, my initial post of this was much more in depth, but tumblr decided to delete it, so I rewrote it from memory as best I could). Obviously, it is entirely possible this is all coincidental, and that I am just simply drawing from my love for Hadestown and projecting it upon one of my other favourite shows. However, if Jed DID intend to have some loose parallels, that is really interesting and very telling to how Jo/Kate’s relationship was intended to be perceived. Plus, it’s pretty fucking poetic too.

Anyway, I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on this, so please let me know! I apologise if this reads as rushed or messy or anything, it was just an idea bouncing in my head this morning, and I really wanted to see what people thought!

[lethendralis-paints]

Hey Lethy,

Hopefully this is the last question for awhile. As I learn the basics of drawing people I’m starting to think about art style. I guess I’m having a hard time finding something I want to model(?) mine after. I see multiple art styles I really love. Some more cartoony and others more realistic like yours. But I’ve also been crazy over the art style in Hades. There are too many I really like. But I’m also worried I might not be able to change it if I don’t like it. That probably sounds crazy though.

I guess I’m asking how do you pick.

Thanks again for so much help!

Heya, anonymous friend!

Oooooh, that’s an awesome question and one I’ve been mulling over myself a lot!

Long-winded answer and ramblings are under the cut.

1) Artistic style musings.

After careful consideration, I came to the conclusion I was being held back in my progress for years due to unconsciously imitating anime style of drawing, just by virtue of me watching a lot of it in my formative years and drawing fan art. I never had formal artistic education, so it was up to me to get a grip, kick my own ass and sit down and study the fundamentals properly.

Which is exactly what I’ve been doing in the last couple of years (you can observe the progression if you skim my blog here btw).

A seasoned professional artist told me, without mincing words, that you should first get a firm understanding of fundamentals - perspective, figure drawing drawing from reference, understanding how light works, values and so on, before attempting stylisation, or else, in their own words, you’ll end up on shit street in terms of style. And I tend to agree with this thought, as no amount of flashy stylisation will be able to hide one’s lack of understanding of basic principles of drawing.

One mistake that me and countless other beginner artists made, was focusing too much on polishing a fundamentally flawed drawing in hopes of making it better. And the harsh truth is, no amount of detailing and hours of blending or shading will make up for botched proportions, lack of perspective or unsorted values. :/

So, personally, I don’t worry much about style yet and just focus on learning the basics. As soon as I started to do that, genuine improvement began and my own recognisable style began to from on its own, which I’m proud of. Have you noticed the same happening in your own studies, I wonder?

2) Hades game - I really like that game’s style as well. But if you look closely, this heavy stylised approach is grounded on solid knowledge of anatomy, composition, colour theory and so on. If you try to copy without knowing why the artists working on that game made these particular stylistic choices, you’ll end up with a blander version of their drawings. Keep in mind, that different stylistic choices apply to different themes. What works for comic book hero art is completely useless in, say, portraiture. So sticking to it will inevitably limit your visual vocabulary. So, again, working on studying drawing fundamentals is key to developing a versatile toolset as an artist (sorry for being boring and hammering this point down).

3) Picking a style - for now, if you noticed, I have 2 or 3 stylistic approaches I switch between while working. Heavily stylised, sketchy/cartoony one for when I doodle for fun, like here:

A detailed and clean storybook illustration style, which is my personal comfort zone, as I find it very pleasurable and relaxing to do character design and render all of the small details:

And a painterly style that’s not dependent on line art, but more on capturing forms, proportions and values right and one that challenges me the most:

Hope that was helpful! Do remember that you can always jump into my DM’s or on Discord to talk art more, as it makes me very happy to share what I’m learning!

[theliterateape]

I Like to Watch | Zack Snyder’s Justice League

by Don Hall

Mythology is fun.

As a kid I loved reading Edith Hamilton’s book on the Greek gods and the myths. Hercules, Perseus, Apollo, and Hera—this fell completely in line with my love for superhero comics. The strangely petty human traits of envy, greed, and lust combined with the power to level cities make for some great storytelling.

Zeus was basically Harvey Weinstein in the retroactive revision we’re mired in today. If Harvey could’ve changed into a golden animal and boned unsuspecting ladies looking for careers in Hollywood I’m pretty certain he would. The gods and demi-gods of the Greeks dealt with daddy issues, mommy issues, bad relationships, and fighting. Lots of fighting. Sometimes for the good of humanity but more often for the glory of winning.

Zach Snyder is in the business of tackling myths and reframing them with a style all his own. His career has become its own myth.

From Dawn of the Dead (not so much a reboot of Romero's zombie mythology but a philosophical reimagining of the genre that arguably jumpstarted The Hollywood fascination with it), 300 (a borderline homoerotic take on the myth of the Greek underdog), and Watchmen (a ridiculously ambitious attempt to put one of the most iconic takedowns on the potential fascism of the superhero legend machine ever written) to his nearly single-handed hack at answering the Marvel juggernaut with Man of Steel and Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, Snyder is in the artistic business of subverting and re-envisioning the mythologies we embrace without even seeing them as such.

Snyder's style is operatic. It is on a grand scale even in the most mundane moments. The guy loves slow motion like Scorcese loves mobsters and Italian food. When you're tackling big themes with larger than life stories, the epic nature of his vision makes sense and has alienated a good number of audience members. With such excess, there are bound to be missteps but I'd argue that his massive take on these characters he molds from common understanding and popular nomenclature elevates them to god-like stature.

Fans of Moore's Watchmen have much to complain about Snyder's adaptation. The titular graphic novel is almost impossible to put in any other form than the one Moore intended and yet, Snyder jumped in feet-first and created a living, breathing representation of most, if not all, of the source material's intent. Whether you dig on it or not, it's hard to avoid acknowledging that the first five minutes of Watchmen is a mini-masterpiece of style, storytelling, and epic tragedy wrapped up in a music video.

Despite a host of critical backlash for his one fully original take, Sucker Punch is an amazing thing to see. More a commentary on video game enthusiasm with its lust for hot animated chicks and over-the-top violence that a celebration of cleavage and guns, the film is crazily entertaining. For those who hated the ending, he told you in the title what his plan was all along.

The first movie I saw in the theaters that tried to take a superhero mythology and treat it seriously (for the most part) was Richard Donner's Superman: The Movie. Never as big a fan of the DC characters as I have been of Marvel, it was still extraordinary to see a character I had only really known in pages to be so fully realized. Then came Burton's Batman movies. The superhero film was still an anomaly but steam was gaining. Things changed with Bryan Singer's X-Men in 2000, then Raimi's Spiderman, and those of us who grew up with our pulpy versions of Athena, Hermes, and Hades were rewarded with Nolan's Batman Begins. A far cry from the tongue-in-cheek camp of the 1966 TV Batman, Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne was a serious character and his tale over three films is a tragic commentary filled with the kind of death and betrayal and triumph befitting the grand narrative he deserved.

I loved Singer's Superman Returns in 2006 because it was such a love letter to the 1978 film (down to the opening credits) but by then, the MCU was taking over the world.

Snyder's first of what turns out to be an epic storyline involving perhaps seven or eight movies was Man of Steel. It was fun and, while I had my issues with the broodiness of Kal El, the odd take on Jonathan Kent, and a redheaded Lois Lane, I had no issue with Superman snapping Zod's neck. Darker and more tragic than any other version of the Kryptonian, it was still super entertaining.

Then came Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. By 2016, Marvel had codified their formula of serious characters wrestling with serious issues of power and responsibility peppered with lots of good humor and bright colors. Snyder's desaturated pallete and angst-filled demi-gods was not the obvious road to financial competition.

I'll confess, I hated it. BvS felt half-rendered. Lex Luthor was kind of superficial and played as a kind of Joker. The whole Bruce Wayne wants to kill Superman thing felt undeveloped and the "Martha" moment was just stupid.

When Joss Whedon's version of Snyder's Justice League came out in 2017, I was primed for it to be a turd and I wasn't surprised. So much of it didn't work on any level. I dismissed it as DC trying and failing miserably and was comforted by the coming of Thanos.

Following Thanos and the time heist was COVID. Suddenly, we were internationally sidelined and the movie theater industry caved in. Streaming services started popping up like knock-off smartphones and Hollywood was reeling, doing anything and everything to find a way back. Since Whedon's disastrous helming of Snyder's third act, fans online had been demanding to #ReleasetheSnyderCut but no one was ever really taking them seriously until all movie production was shut down for a year.

The stage was set to remedy a mistake (or at least make some bucks on a do-over of a huge box office failure). Snyder had left the production in part because of the suicide of his daughter and in part due to the constant artistic fights over executives looking for the quippy fun of the MCU but he still had all the original footage. Add to that the broiling accusations that Joss Whedon was "abusive" during the reshoots, the path seemed destined. For an additional $70 million and complete control, Snyder delivered a four hour mega-movie streamed on HBOMax.

Of course, I was going to watch the thing as soon as I could.

The Whedon version opens with an homage to the now dead Superman (including the much maligned digitally erased mustache on Henry Cavill). The SynderCut opens with the death of Superman and the agony of his death scream as it travels across the planet. It's a simple change but exemplifies the very different visions of how this thing is gonna play out.

Snyder doesn't want us to be OK with the power of these beings unleashed. He wants us to feel the damage and pain of death. He wants the results of violence to be as real as he can. When Marvel's Steve Rogers kicks a thug across the room and the thug hits a wall, he crumples and it is effectively over. When Batman does the same thing, we see the broken bones (often in slow motion) and the blood smear on the wall as the thug slides to the ground.

The longer SnyderCut is bloated in some places (like the extended Celtic choir singing Aquaman off to sea or the extended narrations by Wonder Woman which sound slightly like someone trying to explain the plot to Siri). On the other hand, the scene with Barry Allen saving Iris West is both endearing and extraordinary, giving insight to the power of the Flash as well as some essential character-building in contrast to Whedon's comic foil version.

One thing I noticed in this variant is that Zach wants the audience to experience the sequence of every moment as the characters do. An example comes when Diana Prince goes to the crypt to see the very plot she belabors over later. The sequence is simple. She gets a torch and goes down. Most directors which jump cut to the torch. Snyder gives us five beats as she grabs the timber, wraps cloth around the end, soaks it with kerosene, pulls out a box of matches, and lights the torch. Then she goes down the dark passageway.

The gigantic, lush diversity of Snyder’s vision of the DC superhero universe—from the long shots of the sea life in the world of Atlantis to the ancient structures and equipment of Themyscira— is almost painterly. Snyder isn't taking our time; he's taking his time. We are rewarded our patience with a far better backstory for the villain, a beautifully rendered historic battle thwarting Darkseid's initial invasion (including a fucking Green Lantern), and answers to a score of questions set up in both previous films.

Whedon's Bruce Wayne was more Ben Affleck; Snyder's is full-on Frank Miller Batman, the smartest, most brutal fucker in the room. Cyborg, instead of Whedon's sidelined non-character, is now a Frankenstein's monster, grappling with the trade-off between acceptance and enormous power. Wonder Woman is now more in line with the Patty Jenkins version and instead of being told about the loss of Superman, we are forced to live with the anguish of both his mother and Lois Lane in quiet moments of incredible grief.

To be fair to Whedon (something few are willing to do as he is now being castigated not for racism or sexism but for being mean to people) having him come in to throw in some levity and Marvel-esque color to Snyder's Wagnerian pomposity is like hiring Huey Lewis to lighten up Pink Floyd's The Wall or getting Douglas Adams to rewrite Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

I loved Snyder's self-indulgent, mythologic DC universe.

So much so that I then re-watched Man of Steel and then watched the director's version of BvS (which Snyder added approximately 32 minutes). The second film is far better at three hours and Eisenberg's Lex Luthor now makes sense. Then I watched Zach Snyder's Justice League a second time.

After nineteen hours of Snyder's re-imagining of these DC heroes and villains, I saw details that, upon first viewing, are ignored or dismissed, but after seeing them in order and complete, are suddenly consistent and relevant. Like Nolan or Fincher, Snyder defies anyone to eliminate even one piece of his narrative no matter how long. With all the pieces, this is an epic story and the pieces left at the extended epilogue play into a grander narrative we will never see.

Or maybe we will. Who knows these days?

[teaandgames]

Revisited - Rock of Ages (2011)

I wonder if Monty Python would have taken off as much as it did without the help of Terry Gilliam. Sure, their signature brand of silly yet smart humour would still be there but the peculiar, papercraft-esque aesthetic of the animations has spread out a lot further. It’s pretty recognisable everywhere you see it. Rock of Ages is no exception, using the art style to lampoon key figures from history and mythology. Like having Napoleon ride a bucking horse, that ends up breaking apart.

So it may lean more into the silly than smart camp, but there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that. The entire concept of the game is silly and it’s nice, now and then, to play something that doesn’t bother with any of that stuffy seriousness. The core gameplay is pretty fun too. A touch on the simple side, and with core problems running through it, but fun enough to kill a couple of hours on a sunday afternoon. And hey, rolling a giant boulder with a tiny smiling face on it is enough to put a smile on my tiny, fleshy one.

Rock of Ages’ plot - yes, there is one - revolves around the greek mythological figure, Sisyphus. Apparently, he was an unpleasant man and was therefore condemned to roll a ball up a hill for eternity. Every time it got to the top, it would roll right back down to the bottom. Thus, an eternity of painful tedium. Sisyphus gets a bit tired of this though, and decides to bowl that ball right over Hades. He sends his ball right through the gate and jumps into the portal back to earth to… do something or other. It’s not really clear.

This ball rolling is handled by the player. Your ball starts on the top of a large hill and you bowl it down, banking around corners and smashing through obstacles in order to get a hit on the gate. It usually takes three or four boulders to break through and the enemy will make it increasingly difficult as you go through. They’ll start off building up towers and end with a horde of trebuchets and explosive barrels. Your ball can only take so much punishment before a new one is required, so you have to roll carefully.

It blends this… I’m sure how you would describe it. It’s almost like a racing game but with a boulder instead of a car. Either way, it blends that with a tower defence mechanic. Enemies have their own boulder that they fling at you. So when you’re against, say, Cardinal Richelieu you have to contend with his balls too. You have your own towers, trebuchets and barrels to place on your course, with the aim of slowing the enemy down - or destroying their boulder entirely if possible. The usual winning move is to put enough down to keep them occupied, so you can keep pounding their gate.

Unfortunately, a thorn in the side of this mechanic is the enemy AI. The courses get progressively harder and staying on them is a tricky game. You need to take it slow and steady and accelerate when you know you can stay on the green. Unfortunately, no one gave the AI a ‘slow and steady’ setting. They repeatedly fly off the course, get stuck on walls or ineffectually bump against your defences. It’s less fun fighting against an enemy that can’t even navigate a basic course. Clutch wins were few and far between, and the difficulty seemed to drop as time went on. A strange curve, to be sure.

Still, it’s buoyed up a little by that sense of humour. All of the levels had an intro cutscene, introducing the historical or mythological figure. As with any collection of jokes, there are hits and misses. Thankfully, the jokes are usually silly and light-hearted enough that they don’t grate on the nerves. Plus, in the case of enemies like Plague, they’re actually pretty funny. The humour continues through the gameplay, with little portraits of the enemy getting increasingly worried as their gate cracks. It goes right through to the end, when you break through the gate and the figure of the hour lets out a high pitched scream. Then you squish them, with the exact sound effect you’re imagining. I love it.

The boss fights, however, I love a lot less. See, the good thing about the boulder is that it genuinely feels like it has weight to it. Taking sharp corners feels tough because the ball wants to keep rolling. This is fine in a mostly downhill course, where falling off is a strong inconvenience, but the boss fights take it further. The final boss introduces platforming of all the things. Platforming?! We’re a big old boulder with a face, no part of that should be jumping around. As a result, the boss fights (which include Michelangelo's David with a cannon in its neck) are a lesson in frustration.

They’re weird interludes too; they don’t really gel with the core part of the game. Which is a light tower defence with some tasty destruction. It’s a very strange game from content to gameplay but somehow the end result works rather well. The boulder feels good to control (for the most part) and the courses increase in difficulty appropriately. By the end, I was beginning to work out strategies to deal with courses as well as defensive moves that I preferred. Which was lots of trebuchets.

There are frustrations that come with any physics heavy game, of course. You can be trapped in a constant loop of pain when your momentum fails at the wrong moment, for example. But Rock of Ages keeps it light, fun and silly. Sure, the AI is a huge failing point that renders complex tower defence moves rather pointless. The boss fights are frustrating too. But the actual rock and roll of the game, which after all makes up ninety percent of it, is good fun. And that’s gotta be a net positive. Pros -Balls have proper physics -The core concept is pretty damn fun -Good range of defenses that complement the courses well -Pretty funny Cons -Boss fights are awful -Enemy AI is dumb -Usual phsyics game foibles Rock of Ages Developer: ACE Team Publisher: Atlus USA Release date: 21st August 2011 Play it on: PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 Played on: PC