#TB Skyen

[ohnoitstbskyen]

Beauty in Splash Art 3

League of Legends splash art is, on the face of it, perhaps an odd place to go looking for beauty. These are JPGs whose first and primary function is to hawk video game cosmetics for a free-to-play game, it's not exactly the sort of thing you expect artists to particularly flex their creativity for.

And true enough, a lot of splash art is fairly rote. Here's a character, wow look at their cool pose, don't you want to spend dollars to own this, and so on.

But sometimes, one of the artists working at Riot, or at their outsourcing studios, seems to get a bee in their bonnet, or maybe they just get excited about an opportunity to practise craft, and you get splash art that tries to do something more than simply sell the product, or artwork which displays a real flex of technical skill, often in ways which are functionally invisible at any of the common resolutions that the art will ever be displayed at.

There is genuine reward to be found in those pieces, in zooming in close and marveling at the level of effort spent. So let's spend about an hour doing that!

Splash arts covered:

Odyssey Sona - by Kelly Aleshire

Victorious Sejuani - by Francis Tneh

Aurora - by Jennifer Wuestling

Redeemed Star Guardian Xayah and Rakan - by Ina Wong

Empyrean Vex - by Horace "Hozure" Hsu

Winterblessed Diana - by Bo "chenbowow" Chen

Porcelain Irelia - by Alsie Lau

Toy Terror Cho'gath - by Fortune "Fortuneee" K

[troythecatfish]

[cardentist]

I just spent six and a half hours listening to a youtuber I really like ranking and dissecting every hasbin hotel song Not by how they sound (though he Does go into what he thinks of the music and why, it's quite delightful. he sings along to quite a few of them and I'm very much so still getting used to the fact that he's apparently really good at it), but how successfully they push the story Forwards.

and I have to say that I now have opinions on hasbin hotel despite never having seen it jklfasdkjlfsda

I'd really suggest the video to anyone who's a fan of the series, he even took the hit to monetization to play all of the songs in full so he could analyze them properly.

I think I really do understand Why this series took off the way that it did. yes it is a series with some pretty deep flaws, but I'd argue that the vast majority of them come down to the time limitation.

I think it's safe to say that they had a ton of ideas that they desperately Wanted to cram into this first season, but they didn't have the episode count to fully explore them (or really do more than Introduce them in some instances).

and I Do think it's likely that they made the choices that they did because a second season wasn't a guarantee. if they decided to be more conservative with their first season, let it take its time with less on its plate, they might have never gotten the chance to share some of these ideas At All.

and I do genuinely think that this is Part Of its success, at least in terms of fandom.

there are lots of fandoms for lots of media, but I feel like some of the most prolific have been for flawed series that have Potential. that have Ideas and themes and characters that resonate with people, that people can see More in, but don't stick the landing in the way that they could have for Whatever reason.

and I say this as someone who has Been in those sorts of fandoms near exclusively. it's Fun. it's Fun because it turns this story into a sandbox that you get to play with. to fill in the details yourself and see how Other People would as well.

and the key here is that there are parts about it that Must be likeable, you can even like All of it, while still feeling like there's room for that reinterpretation and Play. and I feel like a lot of people grow even closer to a character and to a world through doing so.

have you ever seen the fan content that homestuck inspired? It's That. it's that exactly.

[yourdailyqueer]

TB Skyen

Gender: Male

Sexuality: Aromantic

DOB: N/A 

Ethnicity: White - Danish

Occupation: YouTuber, artist, cartoonist, illustrator, animator

[humanransome-note]

Me to Myself:League cinematics are not indicative of game play or story telling, you don't actually want to play it

Me to Myself:League cinematics are not indicative of game play or story telling, you don't actually want to play it

Me to Myself:League cinematics are not indicative of game play or story telling, you don't actually want to play it

Me to Myself:League cinematics are not indicative of game play or story telling, you don't actually want to play it

[deer-with-a-stick]

I love how like a third of the comments on TBSkyen’s Gale video is just “the wizard touches grass” lmao

[lilican2]

I KNOW Tb Skyen is already planning on making a 3-hour-long video on the teaser. Can't wait for it!

[mysticdragon3md3]

Time to bring back this vid showing different female athlete body types:

[greatwyrmgold]

TB Skyen has been making a series of shorts about the best panel in each One Piece chapter. His short for chapter 58 runs long, because it's a chapter with a very important moment that needs a bit of setup and deserves at least a bit of analysis. Unfortunately, that means it's too long to be a Short™, which I guess means YouTube isn't showing it to people who watch the other One Piece Shorts™, because the chapter 58 short has less than half the views of the other shorts.

And that's sad! This more detailed look at the chapter does a lot that he couldn't cram into 60 seconds. There's little stuff, like "Nothing but worthless gold spills out" and pointing out how this ties into Sanji's later actions. That stuff is nice, but it's not the only thing that would be lost if Skyen had to cram this into one minute.

He talks about the relationship between Sanji and Zeff, about what motivates them. He talks about the connection they form here, the connections that lead them to sacrifice so much for each other.

That's One Piece.

I don't know how many of y'all care about One Piece. If you watch this video, maybe that'll change.

[ohnoitstbskyen]

one small thing I appreciate about Aurora is that because she has freckles, in her splash art she gets to be one of the very few League of Legends women who looks like her face might have some kind of actual, y'know, normal skin texture (and in her base form, even a bit of peach fuzz, because bunny)

it's not a huge thing - like, her design isn't taking any kind of brave stand against beauty standards or anything - it's just a small thing that I like

[troythecatfish]

Source: 3BSkyen on YouTube

[nerdasaurus1200]

I just realized, the relationship I have with Moonssandra's armor is the same relationship TB Skyen has with Kai'sa's void armor

[aq2003]

none of you get to talk about the art design in hades ever again i'm taking away privileges away from you. my god do not disrespect jen zee like this

[moongothic]

*gets struck with a thought and wakes up in cold sweat*

MOST COMMON INJURIES AMONG CROCODILES ARE LOST LIMBS AND JAWS

SIR CROCODILE IS MISSING A HAND AND HAS SCARRED FACE

ODA YOU GAVE THIS MAN SO MANY LAYERS OF DESIGN AND MEANING

*looses conciousness again*

I mean ngl I do think that's probably just coincidence

Like Oda is fucking insane so you can never know for sure what he did intentionally and what was by accident, but there has to be some kind of a limit to how many design choises are intentional references. Like, sometimes you do character design decision for no other reason than it looks fucking cool. Sometimes it's meant to be symbolic for one thing. And sometimes it can accidentally symbolic be for whole other thing (like the gay earring. It could be intentional or an accident)

Like Crocodile's hook is a very Iconic Pirate Thing (that calls back to Captain Hook) that Oda wanted to give to an important character in the story, a thing which Croc couldn't really have if he still had his hand (kinda like how Zeff couldn't have his peg leg if he had two feet still). The sheer size of the thing making the hook look imposing and dangerous, fitting for him as he would be the first OP villian to defeat Luffy (twice to boot (an undefeated record?)) and truly show off what the Grand Line has in store for the Strawhats, while the gaudy gold (on top of his other bling and how he dresses in general) reminds us of Crocodile's wealth/status. Meanwhile the scar, oh the scar, it has a few things going on. For one, the way it's positioned on Croc's face makes it resemble a crocodile's eyes peeking through the surface of water, fitting the animal motif amazingly. But also, it is a massive scar, going right across his face, a wound few people would survive; it shows off how battle hardened Crocodile is and how he is a mighty foe. But also, just like the missing hand, replaced by a hook does; it shows that Crocodile is still human, he still bleeds like the rest of us, and thus can be taken down.

Like that's just the Surface Level Character Design Shit I could think of at the top of my head at 4 am, this rabbithole does go deeper with what the scar and the missing limb reference and symbolize.

Not to be dismissing of you, I think that is a very cool coincidence, but I do think it's just a coincidence, it's going to happen inevitably when you do character design.

[eyestrain-addict]

Overall I still prefer G1 character personalities & fashion, because a lot of them were based/inspired by various fashion styles (and most of g3 stick to a single fashion style) but I do think there are improvements, like more body variations and some designs for g3 are just wholly better than their g1 designs (venus mcflytrap is the most obvious example) but I feel like the main cast was homogenized. If they want to do something different with the characters, I'm all for that, just don't half ass it. MH was always about being different and unique and extreme! The artists know this and since the more 'side' dolls have more breathing room they do go crazy with it. If you really want to change what was there fine, but don't change the core meaning behind them.

Tl;dr I talk about dolls for too long. If you revamp characters you should take the base tools and use them to cast a new light on said character.