#IDK >____< ive been thinking about it but its way too much for me to write down wnd try to explain now >__>

[ruporas]

invisible scars (referenced previous talk here)

[ID: A colourless, digital Trigun comic of Vash and Wolfwood talking about Wolfwood's scars. They're both laying in bed and topless. Vash lays on top of Wolfwood, playing with the rosary around his neck. Then, Vash kisses a spot on Wolfwood's chest. Wolfwood asks, "What are you doing?" Vash smiles sadly, "You got shot here. In the last town we visited. You didn't even bother moving."

Vash props himself up over Wolfwood, who frowns slightly. Wolfwood is quiet for a moment before he says, "You remember that, huh?" Vash grabs Wolfwood's left wrist and brings it to his face. "And here." He kisses another spot there. "When you helped free the hostages from that robber..." Wolfwood dismissively says, looking away, "Was a lucky shot." Vash huffs, “Don’t brag. Jeez.”

Half of Wolfwood's expression is shown, eyes returning to Vash who is now sitting up, continuing to say, "And..." Vash goes on and kiss Wolfwood's right palm. "You got cut here, even though that girl was aiming at me." A moment from the past flashes, of Wolfwood grabbing a knife aimed at Vash, his hand bleeding.

At present, Vash moves down and puts another kiss on Wolfwood's right shoulder. "And here, from watching my back." Another memory flashes of Wolfwood and Vash back to back. Vash looks back as Wolfwood grins while holding Punisher, bleeding from multiple gunshots in his shoulder.

"And," Vash combs up Wolfwood's hair to reveal his forehead, "Here." A final memory shows Wolfwood with a regeneration vial in his mouth while getting shot on his temple. The next panel is framed in blood with Vash at the center, eyes wide and stunned in horror. The next panel is a closed up shot of Wolfwood's eye, locked on Vash's face.

Back to present, Vash’s head is bowed down as Wolfwood raises a hand to his nape and says, “Spikey.”

Wolfwood looks serious and frowns as he says, "We talked about this. Those were my decisions. They're not there anymore. Forget about them." Vash looks very sad before he smiles ruefully and says, "I still see them. All the time." He leans down so they touch foreheads. Wolfwood’s sorrowful expression can be seen as Vash says, "You protect so much. I could never forget what you've done to me. And many others..."

In the last image, they're drawn more cartoonishly. Wolfwood sweats and asks, "You don't actually remember every wound, right?" Vash points at a spot on his chest. "Kuroneko left a scratch here 7 times." Wolfwood, startled, says, "Why the hell are you keeping count—" End ID]

Credits for ID here and here

[forecast0ctopus]

Any advice on drawing McCoy? I’m not used to drawing ancient wrinkley bastards (affectionate) and it’s surprisingly tough v-v

FOR SURE lmao i made. a diagram. just a warning that i am going to be irritating and long winded because u just hit a topic i really like sorry lmao

so first off i did some traces just to show whats there vs redraws to show my interpretation

ive said this on other asks but again jsyk, tracing isnt bad!! its a tool. theres some stuff with intellectual property and whatnot but using tracing to study shapes and forms is a really valuable practice.

also just taking some time to learn facial structures and anatomy is super useful, reading what bones and muscles are where and how they interact with one another. taking this info and staring in the mirror and moving your face around and thinking about it. just really furthers understanding of how the face works. trying to sound normal about this but i love anatomy and motion and physics and whatever

anyways im going to go through all the numbered points so there's no confusion. 1. forehead lines - self explanatory. more prominent when brows are raised 2. crows feet - at the outer corners of the eyes, more prominent when smiling or squinting 3. nasolabial folds - the folds that go from the corners of the nose to the corners of the mouth. more prominent when the mouth is wide, like smiling 4. brow furrow - self explanatory, most prominent when brows are furrowed. mccoy tends to have two right next to his eyebrows, kirk has one in the middle. everyones face works different lmao 5. chin crease - caused by how the chin and lower lip interact. 6. nasojugal groove - start from the inner corners of the eye and can extent over the cheeks. everyone has these and idk why people dont like them i think theyre really cool!!!! but Society. i guess. :/ 7. eye bags - caused by the skin sagging beneath the eyes. mccoy isnt even that old in tos i think hes meant to be mid 40s by the end of the 5 year mission, hes just got really prominent eye bags lmao 8. idk what the name is for these, but when the mouth is wide and pushes the skin to the sides, these folds sometimes form outside of the nasolabial folds 9. philtrum - the groove above the upper lip. i dont usually draw this but mccoy's struck me as prominent enough that i usually draw it on him 10. masseter - the muscle that moves the jaw up and down. its a pretty rugged muscle and while i wouldnt say mccoy's is especially prominent, it kind of extends that nasojugal groove from certain angles/positions 11. orbicularis oris - mouth muscle, usually easier to see when lips are pursed or frowns are pulled. mccoy's is pretty prominent from 3/4ths or side, his mouth tends to protrude in profile 12. this isnt a muscle but more of a line defining the planes of the face, but since i drew it i felt i should explain lmao

a few points:

im an animator i tend to exaggerate and emphasize certain things so i usually make him more square.

i like to combine eyebags and crows feet for brevity/flow, same with nasojugal grooves, eyebags, and masseter lines. my approach is always subject to change based on pose, expression, reference image, etc.

i take out details that i deem redundant or cluttering and keep what details i need to make things feel Right

all this info is applicable to any character of any age, its just in how you apply it and facial proportions that willl change how old a character is perceived to be

there's a lot more with drawing a Character rather than an Actor, just because the features are there doesnt necessarily mean things will feel correct? its very much in the mannerisms and poses and expressions

i only went over my approach to his likeness but not really body type or posing or anything idk if u want that i could always try to answer that later haha

_______________

anyways all that info kind of exists nebulously in my brain while i draw its not like im sitting there thinking Must Draw. Nasolabial Fold...... i jsut do what feels right with the visual info i have. also i love specificity in faces.... i dont like to be a hater but when every character is drawn the same it pisses me off a little lmao. so

also dont take my word as The Only Way to do anything i just draw how i like to draw and no one should feel like these are things that Must be done to be a good artist or anything do whatever the hell u wanna do

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[vaniliens]

I keep forgetting about how people actually use pronouns for me instead of just referring to me by name. Like sometimes id get she/her'd or they/them'd and it always feels so trippy because i have never been called that in my head!!!! Its always just been 'Dude' 'You' 'Man' 'Me' 'Girl' and 'He' but idk. I feel like id get tripped out if i start going by he/him too.

[brightokyolights]

...

[crystalis]

i feel sad about not belonging anywhere and being small/invisible and like.. idk who i am

i feel really regretful of my life but idk what to do or how to change anything

or i mean i know what i need to do but i feel like i cant or im too scared .. and lately ive been frustrated with myself bc ive been experiencing that "trapped inside my head" feeling really intensely where idk how to speak to articulate thoughts and it feels painful

[bangcakes]

.

[skunkes]

General oc talkkkk

I feel like i have to Do something with al once i take him off the shelf again (when my brain lets go of talon for another few months), ive been motivated to draw talon because he sits in my brain and i imagine interactions but it's much harder with al since al has been around for 10 years or more...and Al has like. Less conflict? In the sense of him just being a nice kind guy with regular human issues in a normal human world (or cow with regular individual issues in a normal furry world lol) ykwim?

Like. Talon is exaggerated he's a caricature of feelings to play with he's got lots of internal contradictions... and outside of that the whole Setting is easy to play with too, like, he's a vampire and those elements are more fun to think about and incorporate and build up in a way that requires a bit more brainpower of the fun variety (can make shit up) than Just a Regular Guy (has to be nore realistic, less fun to research), but less brainpower than, say, my abandoned Space Ocs where it was way harder for me to just make shit up, and way more to make shit up about (not as fun for me)

Idk! Its easy to imagine Talon in interactions, including ones with Al, or just self exploring dialogue....

Other than cute interactions between al and smunker its a lot harder to find stuff with him...he's a guy living in our regular world... his life has been fairly normal and he's good and nice. And i wouldnt change any of those things just to change em but there's less conflict other than the usual internal stuff all humans experience. I think if he wasnt my imaginary bf I would have shelved him more permanently like the oc group he came with...

There's something about how i very rarely make ocs, he's technically my oldest oc and talon is my newest oc, talon is what i Feel making ocs should feel like. And he's only over a year old. And he's still not even what I would call a well written character in any capacity. And yet i dont think i could very easily replicate this again ykwim. Im so bad at writing, and ..... creating....! Idk how people do any of it....i just wanna extend my ocs lives and my interest in them forever...

[hecksupremechips]

Actually cry so goddamn hard when I think about Shinjiro Aragaki healing and being loved and having to learn to be okay with himself and being taken care of

[exoscreamsoda]

if only i was a fly on the supermegaplex wall

now that a day has passed and they still havent said ANYTHING (except matt’s tone deaf concert tweet), i’m imagining the most insane and chaotic fallout. i hope they rip each other to shreds. theyre literally making the situation worse the longer they wait to say anything but maybe they deserve it. they should go ahead and halt their plans to move into a new and improved supermegaplex because 95% of the patreon is ready to cancel, even patrons who only commented jokes under every post are writing their essays. i feel more disgusted as time goes on and no amount of corporate style tweets will fix this.

[the-trans-dragon]

Wow there sure are a lot of posts about [specific trigger I have] lately. I've unfollowed some people over it. Some have posted opinions I disagree with very strongly; some have posted opinions I do agree with. Either way it bothers me too much to see it. I don't want [specific trigger] mixed in with my Cat Photos And Memes App.

So if I've randomly unfollowed you recently, that is probably why.

[note-boom]

Okay but after watching and hearing about Untold Origins, I am....actually slightly hopeful for a happy-ish ending for BSD?

I know we're years away from the manga actually ending, should all go well behind the scenes, but even so, the way the ADA - the organisation that Atsushi (our protag) is involved with - was created gives me hope.

Because you have these two loners, one alone by his own will and his fear of himself and others. And the other alone all of a sudden after a secluded but happy life with loving parent, growing slowly to fear the world. Yet in each other they find a family and find a new present, find meaning and colour in each other.

Fukuzawa learns to overcome his past, and Ranpo grows to look forward to his future. And together they create a place where their present will be safe, where they can help not only themselves but a very cruel world.

In addition, at the start, they are both (in essence) extraordinary but completely ordinary people. As in, Ranpo doesn't actually have a special ability despite his unusually high perception and deduction skills, and Fukuzawa doesn't yet know of his own ability and only has his near inhuman swordsman skills. And in that ordinariness disguised under extraordinariness, they affirm each other's humanity.

It's just so seriously special to me, as much as it's funny, that the founders of the supernatural-based agency weren't special in the sense of having supernatural powers. I can't quiiiite articulate it into words but there's SOMETHING in there about how the ADA was founded on a baseline of finding the extraordinary beauty of just being your own weird kind of human being, no powers needed. That, actually, being extraordinary was still being human.

And where I'm going with all of this is to say that...well, look at all the members of the ADA. And look at the way the agency was founded, by whom, and what it represents. The ADA was started on a basis of actually helping someone who felt alienated from the world find their place in it while also protecting them from it, and we SEE in Ranpo and Yosano and Kunikida - even in Katai, honestly, though he left - how it did exactly that. Helped someone perhaps not find meaning in their future, but definitely find love and hope in the now.

So why can't I believe that given what the ADA stands for - a family, a bright present, a place where one can rediscover their humanity and find a place in a seemingly meaningless world - the manga won't end with something like the way Untold Origins ended? People coming together and fighting their way through the everyday, just content in the fact that at least for now, they're alive and together?

[borderlinegerard]

i hope i die, you broke my heart

[valentinesparda]

I want to talk more about self insert and self ship stuff but my god I feel like I need to be sat down and applied torture methods to be able to talk without being like *avoids topic with deflection avoids being nice by being mean avoids saying positive things by deflection etc etc*

[krynutsreal]

the urge... to write a fic.... about the sky au...

the amount of insanity as well as appreciation I'd go through would be crazy but also I haven't posted the main plot for those goobers yet so this serves as motivation to do so

[estbela]

Bulgaria gives me 'gifted kid burnout' vibes tbh. Kinda makes sense, I suppose. I mean he used to be an empire and all, and in the early 20th century he literally was called 'Prussia of the Balkans' (i think bcs of his army).