#I'm practicing using color

[unclassedguy]

Sukuna and Yuji use public transportation

[zorthania]

as above, so below

[canisalbus]

For your gay little dogs

.

[reksink]

A Lounge of Lizards

[radpool]

if I was empty space, and you were a formless shape, we'd fit...

- noah kahan, strawberry wine

in which wade comforts logan after a bad night, and logan just needs to hold and be held.

[spiritsonic]

cool guy alert

[hychlorions]

[dipndops]

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Hi @potahun, I'm your gifter for the Heishin Valentine Exchange and I picked your Ghibli movie prompt and went with Howl's Moving Castle c:

@heishinvalentineexchange2025 Thank you for hosting the event! It has been super fun!!

Close ups and explanations below~

It took me a bit of time to figure out which character I wanted to be who, but I settled with Shinichi as Howl and Heiji as Sophie! I think the idea of Shinichi being an other worldly character like Howl isn't too far off from how he is depicted in canon. From an outsider's perspective, Shinichi seemingly has all the answers to the many cases he comes across. Especially with the way Heiji reveres Shinichi, it's not hard to see him as someone larger than life. (Also Shinichi transforming into a bird creature whenever he intervenes in the war kind of fits with how he transforms into Conan in canon as he investigates the Black Organization)

As for Heiji as Sophie, I feel that putting Heiji in a position where he becomes old can parallel his struggle with his family's (particularly his father) distrust in him being a teen detective. But in this case, Heiji initially fears that growing old hinders his ability to remain a detective. Throughout the course of the film, his fears would be assuaged as Heiji helps end the ongoing war in spite of his age.

Now for the art itself, originally I wanted to pick one scene to focus on so that I could combine this prompt with your Heishin whump prompt. But then I figured it would be neat to take inspiration from the movie's song Merry Go Round of Life. The large ring was intended to mimic the roof and rim of a merry-go-round. Like imagine the roof and then you squish it down (if that makes lol)! The rims on merry-go-rounds often feature a circular frame with images of landscapes within. For that, I recreated backgrounds from the movie.

Given the name of the song, I felt that I should recreate different scenes from the movie to show the progression of Heiji and Shinichi's lives (I would've drawn Heiji much older but I was just struggling on how to execute that properly TT-TT). From right to left the scenes are; Shinichi intervenes in the war; Heiji views the meadow Shinichi shared with him; baby Shinichi cronches on a star; Heiji watches the parade celebrating the war effort; and Shinichi stares fondly at Heiji within the castle.

Anyways, have some bonus doodles I made while working on this piece to keep me sane c:

(^ this is my celebratory doodle that I drew right after I submitted the artwork. I'm going to hibernate now thanks LMAO)

[mazken]

brush test slash rendering practice with ayem

[mintjeru]

i finished the kvthm comic i had sitting in my wips forever lol text is lyrics from "if soulmates exist" by nishino kana

open for better quality | no reposts

[neocaridina]

more colored tongs for your tonging convenience 😌 with and without the dialogue bubbles because I thought it'd be a fun challenge to try to match the lineart style... so scary but so fun. which tongs should I color next

also this fucking one I mostly id d as a joke so it's not as nice

peeping you in full color. peering into your soul, even.

[onethousxndvoices]

took a break from my main projects to do some visdev practice. have a line up for a layton fic that'll probably never see the light of day

[dawnthefluffyduck]

feeling of being watched

[zincfingermotif]

you might see a tear from my eye

[canisalbus]

Hi hello, I was struggling with my Spooktober challenge, but wanted to draw something today, so I ended up with this:

He is Very Shape, so I had to lmao (I don't draw animals much, so it was a bit tricky, but hope it came out okay!)

Also, terkkuja toiselta suomalaiselta, meikäläisiin törmää niin harvoin :D

.

[quibbs126]

So after that last practice thing, I figured I should probably try out the previous forms of Orion and D-16, or at least their heads since those I find significantly easier than the whole body (which I guess isn’t really a shocker there)

And also because as I keep bringing up, Lux, because I remembered that technically she should resemble these forms more than the final form Optimus and Megatron. Considering she's technically from before those two forms, and also those were upgrades. If she came after she might resemble their final forms more, but logistically she shouldn't

Honestly, I think I found the left side ones more difficult when sketching than the right side, not sure why. Though I do admit, I think cogless D's bottom side things look a bit off. I'm not sure how to draw them from a lower angle, or at least I wasn't until I already finished

Orion's side circles are still a bit difficult to draw, and I have no clue why, particularly since I draw them often on my AU designs. I think I just struggle with making them look good.

Also a note on the colors, it's more noticeable on Orion (probably because his helmet doesn't change colors), but the cogless forms are supposed to be a bit duller in colors. I think that's how it is in the movie, which makes sense, since the miners probably weren't getting proper paint maintenance due to their status and occupation

With the expressions, I was trying to have it so that with the cogless forms, Orion's probably got a scheme cooking, but D-16 loves him for his unadulterated self anyways. Meanwhile in the cogged forms, D-16's having his crash out, becoming a bit too aggressive, and while Orion's trying to go along with it, since he at least seems happy to be able to transform now and is just on an adrenaline rush, he's also concerned about his current behavior, hoping that it'll just go away with time and he'll be back to normal. Not sure I fully conveyed that

But anyways, on to talking about the cogged forms in particular, I had some trouble looking for good refs of these designs, particularly the colors. Like I'm still not 100% sure those are the right colors for D's helm. Yes, I have concept art, but the concept art isn't always the same as the final, as I've come to realize. And while these forms were in the movie much longer than their final forms, I can find screenshot references for those much easier

And this extends to fanart I think as well. You have the cogless forms when you want wholesome dpax before the tragedy, you have the upgraded forms for the angsty megop and stories that come after. And in AUs where nothing bad happens, I feel like you tend to get one or the other of those two or a mix of them as the default looks, depending on what you want. Even though I feel like in AUs where nothing bad happens and the Primes don't die, the characters should logistically be in their middle, cogged forms, especially since the cogless situation was a manufactured lie by Sentinel. I feel like you only get the middle in AUs where D doesn't become Megatron, and even then, they might still give him the Megatronus cog, he just didn't rob it from the corpse of the bot he executed. Or if Orion has the Matrix ripped out by Megatron and he isn't reverted back to cogless

I think it's because those cogged forms are basically seen as the middle stage evos for them, and by that point you're waiting for them to get their proper Optimus and Megatron forms. Like their original cogless forms are what we start with, what the marketing leading up to the movie showed us first, and when everything was happy between them. And then their final forms are what they end the movie with, and are the iconic Optimus and Megatron designs, the characters we know, and what they'll stay with moving forwards in the story. The cogged stages are just the day or so in between those changes, where things are falling apart and falling into place for what we know to come later

It's also sort of again, where the relationship is falling apart, due to D-16's crash-out. Technically it happens at the tail end of D-16's cogless state, but he gets his cog immediately after and that's when he starts reacting to the horrible information and Orion starts losing him, so it's more associated with this form of them

But it's also kind of interesting to me because in universe, I think these cogged forms are technically supposed to be their final forms. These are the full forms of Orion Pax and D-16, and their future forms are upgrades instead of a natural growth. It's just that we see them as middle stages because we know they become Optimus Prime and Megatron, and these aren't fully those designs yet. If they were to never become those two, or in a world where they never had their cogs removed, those middle stages are what they'd look like by default. It's just that we know they have another stage to go

I don't know, just thoughts that stemmed from drawing these