#What is 3D Architectural Animation

[letsjonebenblog]

3D Architectural Animation for Architects: An Effective Tool for Presenting Commercial Projects

3D Architectural Animation serves as an effective tool for architects to showcase commercial projects related to the products being offered. Utilizing 3D Architectural Animation videos allows for a more convenient presentation of the prospective architectural structures to clients.

3D Architectural Animation for Architects to Presenting Commercial Projects. Are you in need of a highly detailed and captivating CGI Architectural walkthrough for your commercial property designs? Reach out to our 3D Architectural Animation company to receive a presentation that will undoubtedly persuade your clients to finalize a deal with you! by sending an email to info@jsengineering.org or by filling out the relevant form available on our website.

[heartavenue]

݁.ི Things To Script!

So you're scripting, but you're at a loss and don't know what to add anymore? Well, Love sees you, and I got you! Here are some things that I am scripting personally; some of these are a little...on the nose... but I think they're worth it nonetheless. Feel free to use them!

Disclaimer: Any similarities that you see are completely accidental. I can assure you that I came up with these off the top of my head while reflecting on my life and watching Netflix.

1. Water never gets into your ears 2. You don’t feel faint while taking hot showers (or just feel faint in general) 3. Not wearing a bra is not a big deal 4. You have a bidet 5. Parents respect your privacy (knock before entering your room, etc) 6. The word is full of color just like it was when you were a child 7. You still have that childlike sense of wonder, and it can never die 8. Flowers can regrow roots, so when they are cut they can live and not die! 9. Architecture has personality and is not drab and boring 10. Perfume lasts all day 11. Lip gloss NEVER smudges (or makeup in general) 12. Your bath/shower water never gets cold 13. You always feel heard, and people respect your opinions and consider your opinions 14. Your clothes fit you just how you picture it in your head 15. You have the money to afford the life that you DESERVE 16. Natural bodies of water don’t contain flesh/brain-eating bacteria 17. Animals aren’t endangered and can’t go extinct 18. Wildlife/nature is preserved, admired, and respected. There are national parks put in place to prevent the destruction of our home! 19. Astral events happen more often and are celebrated more! (Think eclipses, northern lights, shooting stars.) AND they are visible to all areas of the world. 20. More walkable cities near you or just in general! 21. Capitalism does NOT exist. 22. Animals can understand you when you speak to them! 23. Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, etc. exist 24. The allure of Christmas magic is well and alive 25. The cost of living is low, and the minimum wage is $20 26. Your hair never gets tangled, greasy, or frizzy. 27. You’re allowed to express yourself in any way, whether that’s through clothes or body modifications, and no one judges you for it! 28. More festivals, carnivals in your town or neighboring towns. 29. Holidays feel the same way they did when you were a kid 30. The moon is a little closer, light pollution doesn't exist so the stars can shine brighter, and the grass is a little greener. 31. You remember when you were a kid and you thought the moon followed you? Well, now it does! 32. Disney doesn't use that horrid 3D art style, and they have the ability to produce GOOD movies again. 33. Eargasms are real. Don't ask any questions. 34. Hugs from the people that you cherish are warmer, and they last longer 35. Better day-to-day interactions with strangers that will just keep you smiling for the rest of the day 36. Food (cough cough food in AMERICA) isn't full of the toxic stuff that are banned in every other country 37. Dandruff does NOT exist 38. You never forget to put on your jewelry, you can always find your jewelry, and it's very durable 39. You're very good at karaoke 40. You never forget to put on deodorant, lotion, perfume, chapstick, etc 41. Your favorite flowers, trees, plants in general grow near you! 42. When you wash your clothes, the stains come OUT (this is so personal for me) 43. Water glimmers and shines just like it does films! 44. No hyperpigmentation. 45. Other planets are visible to the naked eye 46. Pineapple doesn't feel like acid in your mouth 47. Banana doesn't take over the whole smoothie 48. More representation in the media of marginalized groups 49. When you wash your face, water doesn't trickle down your arm 50. When you open yogurt it doesn't look like that (yk all liquid and yucky) 51. You can listen to music as loud as you want and your hearing will never be affected 52. The fruit you get is always ripe 53. No cloudy nighttime skies to get in the way of your stargazing! 54. You can never burn your tongue 55. You cook chicken thoroughly each time (I have a fear of eating raw chicken please) 56. A secret hideout for you and your special person 57. Bedbugs, lice, ticks, wasps, hornets, and yellowjackets do not exist (I love bees, let the bees STAY!) 58. Outfits that you imagine in your head comes out EXACTLY as you planned 59. Artists release live versions of their albums (chappell roan a live version of naked in manhattan is NEEDED on streaming

These are just a few things that I could think of. As I think of more, I will be sure to add them to the list. Okay happy scripting my loves! ၄၃

[olenvasynyt]

I know my fellow artists and creators have been frustrated with the rise of AI on Pinterest and Google.  Many of us find it difficult to serch for good references, tips, and general inspiration for art.  So I want to share my collection of good, free websites for artists, designers, film makers, and creators so we can create without ugly AI images staring in our faces 🙌

Sketchfab

An incredible source for references.  Has a huge collection of 3D animals, architecture, interior rooms, vehicles, food, objects, furniture, nature, memes, characters, etc etc etc. You can literally find several insanely detailed 3D models of the Notre Dame (this one is insane) Models can rotated at any angle as well as zoomed in and out.  You can also change the view of the model to be matcap with flat, colorless planes, wireframe, or base color as opposed to fully rendered.  

Cons: there are many uploads that are random and incredibly specific, which overwhelms the search.  Can be excellent for game designers who want to download models but for artists looking for drawing references, you might have to dig a bit for what you want.  Can be so fun for playing around and using crazy fun references for practicing.

Designspiration

As a photographer and graphic designer and someone who can doomscroll on pinterest forever, this is my favorite for finding inspiration for everything: typography, logos, product mockups, illustration, photography, web design, etc.  Has an amazing feature where you can search for art with specific hex codes!  Probably the coolest feature I’ve seen in search engines, and by far superior to google's color search. This site is mostly for design inspiration, but I feel like if you are super into moodboards, then this is the site for you too especially with the beautiful selection of photography.

Cons: I have no cons, I love this website so much and I used to be addicted to pinterest (still am actually😬) but this is easily my new favorite

Public Works by Cosmos 

Thousands of artworks enter the public domain every year, and this website is a search engine for other 100,000 of those copyright free works.  All of these works are free to edit, use, and sell with few restrictions.

Cons: I personally find the layout for the search feed a bit frustrating to look around in sometimes, because it’s not the typical "scroll up and down" website. But is very dynamic and overall fun to explore.

Same.energy 

This is a good visual search engine that’s a good replacement for Google images and Pinterest.  The minimal words makes it simple and easy, and clicking on an image you like to filter the feed to find similar images.

Cons: this is in beta so it still have some kinks to work out. It seems to struggle with specific searches and some of the images brought up in the search can be repetitive or not relevant.  

Reference Angle

A website for finding face references in any specific angle and any expression for any gender and age.

Cons: I would love this website more if it gave you the ability to customize the light source, but sadly is not an option.  I also feel like there is not a lot of racial diversity in the photos, and some of the images do not match the specific angle. But it is overall a great source for face references

Virtual Lighting Studio by zvork

A good source for light studies.  You can change the source, direction, color, and brightness as well stacking several light sources on top of each other.  

Cons: there isn’t a way to angle the face or change the expression, so it is permanently in portrait mode.  There are four different models and I’m not the biggest fan of some of them…I like the black guy the best because he looks at me kindly instead staring into my soul like the two white guys. The ads are also a bit obnoxious and for the love of god DO NOT USE IN MOBILE!!!  The ads are impossible to get rid of.

Film Grab

An archive of stills from a huge list of movies.  Good for film makers, photographers, art studies, moodboards, inspiration, etc. Has a huge selection of movies and you can search by movie, director, costume designer, aspect ratio, year, genre, and country. You can also hit random post and it'll give you a random movie, which I think is really fun.

Cons: I do not recommend mobile. The mobile does not have the option to search for a specific movie, so you're forced to scroll through the giant A-Z list of directors or films to find the specific film you were looking for.  Another con that I just discovered: a big-ass ad on the top of the website that occasionally advertises AI websites 🤢 (not shown on the screenshots I shared because ew)

Unsplash

Another image search website that has the feeling of Pinterest

Cons: some images are locked for premium only, and the feed is a bit frustrating to scroll through on mobile since they show the images one at a time instead of as a nice collage like pinterest.  Some images can also be irrelevant to the search.

Sending lots of love to my fellow artists and creative peeps out there. AI sucks and it feels like it's overwhelming the creative space. But I promise there is a way to avoid it! Keep creating 💕

[buf309]

Pose Reference Resources

I promised Dia (aka aerequets) that I will make a collection of pose references in the reply of one of her art posts, and then I completely forgot about it. Until now. I'm sorry for my bad memory.

So, yeah, better late than never I guess?

The pose collection I use the most is no longer free. They used to let you download a whole album (more than 8GB worth of data) to use offline, but now you have to pay $40/package or $200 for full sets. I still have the zip file for a very old version of theirs, but I can't legally share it. So, let's skip to the other options.

1/ First, you heard of those 3D dolls program that let you model your own reference pose? This one is an online one and for free, the whole ordeal. Of course since it's online and free, you can't save your model for next time, and it costs quite a lot of time to set the model up. So, you should take as much screenshots in as many tricky angles as you need once you done with the setting. Best using for complicated scenes where those below don't have what you need already available.

2/ This one is free and in 3D, you can rotate the model to any angle that you need. The only set back is the numbers of poses are quite limited. This one is best for using as a basic blocks then build up what you want to draw, or just as a practice to improve your understanding of human anatomy.

3/ This one is free for personal uses and the pose collection is massive. The setbacks are the language barrier (it's in Japanese, English is sometimes tag-a-long) and you have to search through their pages for what you need. The pics for each pose is static but they are in different angle in almost 360 degrees. There are many 2-person and 3-person poses too. Great for illustration inspiration.

4/ This one will only show reference photos of human head, at whatever angle you rotate the model. The web interface is easy to use. There are options like searching based on gender, ages, emotions, glasses, facial hair or not, etc. Good for practicing face drawing.

5/ This one will show reference photos for human body parts, at whatever angle you rotate the model, read the instructions for how to do it. The web interface is quite hard to use at first, just tinkering around for a bit, and you will be fine. There are options like searching based on gender and which particular parts that you need refs for. Good for that moment when you go "huh? how is this <body part> will look in this <situation>????"

6/ This one will only show reference photos of animal heads, and only the head, at whatever angle you rotate the model. The accurate skull refencence list is their best point. There are enough common species in the drop down list. Tbh, I don't use this much because I often need refs for the whole animal most of the time. But it's best for furry artists, I guess?

7/ Real model photos. They sell pose reference in themed packs, but there are enough free packs to use as drawing practice too.

8/ This is the best for general background reference. Lots of options. Not really good for very specific location results, but good for random background in drawings.

9/ Lastly, for specific objects or background references at strange angles, I often search for 3D models on this site then take screenshots of whatever I need.

That's all, folks. Hope this list can help ease some of the struggles that we will encounter on our quest of learning the art of drawing things 😂

[sonicjustbecause]

Something about myself

The reason I'm trying to learn 3D (furthern than architecture, my job actually involve massive 3D use) is my lack of artistic talent.

Like, I always loved to draw, I started at the age of 3 and always drew. In first place to take notes. Like the cavemen, since at three I could not read (In Italy children usually learn to read at elementary school or a little bit before).

Shortly drawing turned from a mere tool to take notes to a way to tell stuffs, imaginary stories or real life events. I loved comics and animation because of this. Beutiful art that tell stories. Is what all I wanted to do, once I would have grown up.

Age of 5. We millennials, on average, had better drawing skills than Gen Z babies. Even the less talented. Perhaps it was the lack of I-Pad. Usually at the age of 8/9, the Gen-Z recover and reach the average level of 8/9 years old millennials.

I kept drawing daily. Like doing 7 full comics books of over 300 pages each a the age of 6 to 7. And an illustrated diary telling the real life vacation I had in a touristic village I dreamed about for long.

Massive beaches and a lot to do in summer.

Now is a well known reality adults often tell fat lies to children to make them happy. Adult kept telling me I was good at drawing. On the other hand my peers were quite cold about them (my cousin once told me to watch out for inconsistencies. I recognized her criticism, but I though since I was a child - 8 years old -, it was too soon to worry, as no child can draw consistently, not even the best ones. My cousin was a child too, and of course her drawing showed inconsistencies too).

Only when i was 11 an adult told me my drawing were behind my age. At that point I started to experiment more (like doing portraits, changing my drawing style etc). At 12 I started to lean more toward a Japanese style.

By the age of 12/13 years old, I believe I was average at drawing. I though I was not exceptional but it was still doable (I'll not show what my drawing were like, I'll tell you they looked about like CWC's drawing, just way way less angular. And I didn't draw anything cringe, no giant straw and 'eeew things' although I used to draw Sonic too).

My favourite subjects were magical girls. Sailor Moon etc, but I greatly favoured original characters.

My dearest and oldest OCs. Yes, identical twins. I was never able to do them justice.

Art School is were I found the truth.

In my first serious drawing, I took a 3/10 grade, that is a E (In Italy we grade with numbers) And so on, usually 5 at drawing figures and my grades were the lowest of the class (hilarious, the one who loves to draw above anything else sucked at it), 5 in architecture and 5 in decoration.

The issue with architecture was not taking measurements, I could do that. I was also one of the few that somehow understood how perspective worked. I just could not draw not even with a ruler and a compass.

The only artistic subject I could do was modeling and it didn't feel as hard as drawing. Grades were still mediocre, 6 to 7, about a C or a little more.

I had different art teachers and the grades were about consistent.

Since I drew mainly to tell stories, the art subjects I was more focused on was real life drawing, the one I was worse at. And because of my effort despite my lack of talent I was literally a laughing joke for my teachers. One almost fell from the chair laughing about my drawings. This one told me to keep my creativity at bay because with my low drawing skills, I was unable to express it properly, and only do what I was able to do. The other day by day denied me to do more and more things.

First I was denied to experiment. I felt my drawing were becoming stagnant, so I decided to try to draw on dark paper with white pencils to refresh the way I look at things. Is a thing many suggest to do. But my teacher told me that my skills were too low to even think about that.

Later I was denied to colour my drawing and to do the 'chiaroscuro'.

And last I was excluded from a commissioned work were all class was partecipating. I had to sit and twiddle my thumbs while watching all my classmates doing the job

"You draw like a 10 years old child". I was 16 when I was told this by my teacher. This made me ashamed from even liking to draw. "Please, teach me, how can I fix my miustakes if you never tell me what i do wrong?" "What's the point to teach you? You lack of talent, even if I tell you, you will never learn to draw".

Out of school I had to take the matter in my hands.

Internet was new, and at that time, criticism online were common place and largely accepted unlike today.

There was the early stage of an idea that everybody can learn to draw, so I tried it. My drawing didn't show I was a former art student (everybody though I was self taugh by looking at my drawings).

I was also introduced to the concept of 'references images' to enhance my drawings. I followed religiously all what those artists (comic artist, my main focus) told me. I focused on criticism and ignored praises. To make sure i could receive proper criticism by more and more people, I criticised works of other people too. It worked. Criticism came with suggestions and good debates. Still something was still off.

I could reproduce a picture but I could not draw on my own and things were getting worse. But I was told it was normal and i had nothing to worry about...

Well, are you kidding me?

What they call photo references, to me always looked like this. Copy a pose and draw your character over. The drawing might look good, but to me the life is all stripped away and the pose look static rather than the character actually moving in the page.

The sketch full of mistakes in the second picture has a lot of personality. The fixed one lost almost all the energies.

To make thing worse, the character take the face of the model you use (who also ends to look a bit like you, because instnctively we are all drawn by models who look a bit like us).

Artists who draw without references exist. But when I admired them, those who helped me told me: 'Stop being amazed by them, if they used references, they would draw even better!'

I was and I am slave of references. Without pictures i can't draw. Only in latest mont i managed to pull something from my brain, after 20 years of zero drawings from imagination.

When Goku, my first cat succumbed to her age (she was close to be 20 years old), I drew this for my brother. It is for a tattoo.

I had to use at least 5 pictures of her to draw her accurately while coming up to an original pose.

With this Shadow I needed a couple of references. I wanted a new pose, at the same time I wanted it to look like it was done by Uekawa. My '10 years old girl' hand - as my teacher said - still shows. It shouldn't have.

My experience told me that talent is a thing and it matters. 20 years + of practice and my drawing skills remained roughly the same. I didn't do this alone, my drawings were always 'supervised' so I have to assume my teacher who laughed at me at art school and that refused to reach me were right.

To add things, I have a cousin who could draw like this at 9:

A good bunch of my family on both side has artistic talent like this. But the gene skipped me.

Attempting to 3D

Pixar animators do a lot of 'don't' s in topology, they know how to make it work. You don't have (and shouldn't) follow their example.

When I first saw a 3D model, I got scared. The topology was so complex (it was a mid poly model) I though it was not worth the effort from my side.

I attempted humanoids models as references for my drawings, architectonic and organic models on Sketch up, nothing too serious.

I started to use blender to create new morphs for Daz Studio models, so i could build my original characters and this would have helped me to draw them without the need to seek references.

But while some are happy with their regular daz models, I wanted more. I needed models that suit my needs, that I can fully control on my own. The vanilla stuffs in one way is like AI. You can do good things, but they never match your needs and your vision. There is still that bump. Those eyes are too small. The expressions lack of flexibility. Is not truly a 3D issue as i saw really good things done in 3D (see Disney moves, they might have gone 'woke' but the art keeps be excellent)

Notice the clarity of silhouettes and how the lines flow nicely... the basis of 2D art on 3D still work...

This is great 3D art. I always loved this hilarious and friendly anti hero. I saw the 'behind the scene' that was done in order to keep the very same life Lupin had in his 2D version.

The vanilla models from Daz studio as well as Sketch up have been a great starting point but soon I understood that the perfect model is the one done my myself. Also I found out some people who lack of drawing talent like myself still can do great 3D art.

The topology is scary, but you just need to adapt your eyes to the edgeflow/learn about how topology work. Then is not too far from drawings.

On one way AI art was also a good thing. I was afraid to attempt to use 3D art to enhance my drawings (I still love regular drawings) openly. I feared people would not accept it. Because of AI, now people are more accepting toward 3D art since they realized is still done with our effort and knowledges from studies.

[thedustyleaves]

did u do anything specific to intentionally improve ur art? like specific exercises or specific things you drew or studied to get better. i want to learn like, animals & architecture and i just cant find a Way to learn it intentionally

I don't! When it comes to studying art, I'm unfortunately the worst person to ask because I basically wing it every time I sit down to draw

I've mentioned this before, but art is just something I don’t want to study. I want it to stay a hobby, and if I have to study to get better at it, it completely ruins it for me personally. I'm already studying for my job, I don't want to study for hobby. It turns from something I enjoy into a chore. The only thing I’ve ever studied is 3D animation, and I hated every second of it :T

Every time I sit down to draw a new illustration, if I find myself struggling with something, I google some images that evoke what I want to draw, and - this next part isn’t advice; it’s just how my brain works, and I can’t describe it without sounding massively arrogant :’) - I just look at it, and I understand how it works.

Like for this drawing, I looked at pictures of dancers to get the shoulder right. I didn’t study the anatomy in a methodical way, or draw a 1000 shoulders for 50 days or whatever - but I am able to vividly imagine how that arm connects and moves, like I can see it in motion before my eyes and understand its physicality.

For me, if I sat down to draw 1.000 hands, for example, that’s all they would be - just 1.000 hands. They wouldn’t have any connection to a body, an emotion, or a story, and then when you have to draw a character and attach those hands, they can end up looking disconnected - sometimes even worse than the hands you practiced- and stiff as hell because you’re constantly worrying about the technicalities.

Unless it’s connected to something, evokes something, and has a purpose, I don’t see the point in drawing it. It's why I sometimes don't draw for months - if I don't feel like it, i won't do it. Perhaps that could be helpful? Instead of drawing to get it technically right, try drawing to get it emotionally right - it takes the pressure off. Then you learn by doing and feeling it through your body, rather than measuring the length of individual finger joints. Ironically, focusing too much on the technical aspects can make something look disjointed.

[asgore-mp3]

Pokemon au's popping up just as I regained a Pokemon hyperfixation, fantastic!

Anyways

1st gym - Ghost - Badboyhalo

He's a strong trainer, his gym just happens to be the first many go to. Some say he can even speak to the spirits beyond simply pokemon.

2nd gym - Water - Foolish

The gossip among the region. He's incredibly popular for many things, varying from architecture skills or babysitting, yet he's always had a soft spot for a certain elite four member.

3rd gym - Normal - Cellbit

While normal may not have been the route many would go for, The lead detective of the police department seems it's a fine type if used correctly, due to the simple fact of only having one weakness.

4th gym - Electric - Tazercraft

Pac and Mike, Better known as Tazercraft, lead production for many of the big-city if the region's power (Sorta like Anime Clemont in X and Y) They give the doubles challenge to trainers.

5th gym - Fighting - Fit

Coming from many years in the shadows, documenting events from past wars throughout history, Fit now acts as gym leader, both for trainers and like.. actual use. Some have seen his and Tazercraft's, particularly Pac's, closeness in recent months and wonder what may be happening.

6th gym - Psychic - Antoine

A mysterious guy who walks the towns, yet friendly in conversation. He used to DJ at large parties, apparently.

7th gym - Ice - Nihachu

The sweetest baker around, she works to make both warm delicacies and chill treats for people and pokemon alike.

8th gym - Dragon - Ironmouse

Her dragons are her little babies... even if they're thrice her size <33 She's known for her energetic personality, bring a social media personality is hard but she keeps her appearance up while being as true as she can!!

(debating how to write her CVID if I make this a bigger thing)

-------

Elite Four

Rock - Vegetta

Recently he's been away for buisness trips... Running things like that are hard! More often then not now, They have to bring a replacement for him :/

Steel - Tubbo

A great inventor with grand factories, he may be the youngest of any high-ranking trainers but he climbed to the top quickly through his skill. He serves as Vegetta's replacement, yet he recognized as an official member.

Flying - Phil

A simple family man, He always seemed to become friends with strong trainers, and for good reason! In large tournaments, he almost always won. Except in one, Where a kid with green hair and a few ghost types won. That's how he really got known in the first place...

Poison - Bagi

A private detective, working to solve what her brother couldn't, She only recently joined the Elite Four after their previous member, Maximus, passed away due to unknown reasons.

Dark - Roier

Just a guy, a very silly guy. Idrk how to describe him just a very funky guy. He's shown to be one of few people who could even DEFEAT the champion, even thpugh everyone thought he wasn't as strong as he was. Sometimes thats the best strategy?

Champion - Étoiles

Known as 'The Kalosian Beast' (that sounds so bad...) He's climbed up since the day he arrived to the region, defeating people one by one and now sitting on top. Despite the fame this may bring, he's actually a pretty casual guy! Talking to people and watching gym battles are some things outside of battling he enjoys.

Idk. The urges hit me as I pulled out my 3ds

[arkus-rhapsode]

No, the Switch 2 is not another Wii U

I know video game content is my least viewed content on this blog, but I’ve been seeing this talking point spouted over the last few days and I decided to use what little voice I had in the world to say something. So, the last few days have been rough for the Switch 2. Kinda funny how for almost an entire year the question was “When Switch 2?” To now actually being here and pissing off basically everyone with a pulse. However, a certain saying I’ve been hearing a lot is that they believe or hope that the Switch 2 will be another Wii U for the company.

This line of thinking is just plain wrong. Simply because why the Wii U failed and why the Switch 2 has the potential to fail are two completely different things.

Let’s start with the Wii U, for those who don’t remember, the Wii U was going to be the follow up to the ultra successful Wii console. And its issues were already obvious out of the gate, and I’m not just talking about the game pad, but I kinda am. Because at the time of its announcement, many weren’t even clear if the Wii U was a new console or an add on to the Wii. The announcement for the Wii U was so miscommunicated at the time that the President Satoru Iwata lamented not even showing off the full console itself.

The second, most obvious issue facing the Wii U was the innovation that Nintendo banked on. The Wii was highly successful due to the fact that its motion control innovation managed to capture the attention of gamers and non gamers alike. It was as simple as “pretend like you’re bowling with the remote and the action happens on screen.” Rather than simply continue with that model and add more power to it, a Wii 2 if you will, Nintendo opted to focus on focus on asymmetrical gaming, using the dual screens to create a unique experience. While this sounds interesting on paper, it’s clear that in practice asymmetrical gaming is inconvenient to how one actually plays video games. You don’t actively play video games with the control at the level of your direct vision. While there are certainly people who had fun with this, it was never going to recapture the audience the Wii had. Nintendo’s desire for innovation was under cut by its ability for practicality.

This reflected in the games, which outside of Nintendo’s first party offerings, very few large game devs took advantage of the Wii U architecture. If they even made games for the Wii U at all. With major publishers like EA flat out discontinuing any development of Nintendo hardware. Even going as far to call it “Crap.” Other companies like Ubisoft basically changed direction on any exclusivity support for the Wii U. Rayman Legends was promised as an exclusive for the system at first, but changed due to fact the Wii U ecosystem was so minuscule. Ubisoft’s ZombiU a launch title for the Wii U made to show off what the system could do would be ported to other platforms under the name Zombi and would cancel a sequel due to poor sales.

Even Nintendo’s own first party offerings, suffered. This was during the New Super Mario Bros era, where 2D Mario games were now criticized for becoming overly homogenized. There was no traditional Fire Emblem, no traditional Kirby, no Metroid period, and… whatever was Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival. The console wouldn’t get a 3D Zelda until its own dying breath.

When you put this all together it’s no wonder the Wii U was so unprofitable for the company.

So with all that said. Is any of this applicable to the Switch 2? Well because the console isn’t even out, it’s impossible to predict how it will preform in its lifetime. But, I believe we can make some judgement calls based on the facts available to us.

Let’s start with its announcement. While yes, it is true that the Switch 2 did fail to include any price in its huge announcement and it has caused the the narrative of the Switch 2 to spiral out of their control, the Switch 2 was nothing if not transparent on what the system actually was and what it came with. This is going to be a bigger, thicker, stronger version of a switch. That is what it is. What it has failed to communicate is the pricing of its games. But when it comes to innovation-it’s just more of the same stuff people already like.

And let’s talk about the games. Unlike the Wii U, we can already see Nintendo capitalizing on already highly anticipated franchises like Mario Kart and Donkey Kong. As well as having advanced versions of the next Pokémon Legends title and Metroid Prime 4. Now it’s possible that the release of new Switch 2 games will be as low as the Wii U, but as of now, we have no real evidence to believe that is the case. There is also the fact that right out of the gate, Nintendo has highlighted its exclusive deals with third party developers. The biggest being the much beloved developer FromSoft creating an exclusive Souls game for the console with a release window of 2026.

Speaking of third party developers, many of them, do not have a reason to believe that this machine will be poor in terms of gaming experience. With even articles right now talking about how developing for the switch 2 is similar to developing for a mid tier PC. In fact, the implementation of mouse controls has actually expanded to types of gameplay gamers have used on other platforms.

While there are some similarities like this being a sequel system to a highly successful console and doesn’t include a pack in game. When you look at the broad reasons for the failure of the Wii U: that being poor communication of the product, innovation vs practicality, third party support, and first party offering, it’s pretty easy to see that the these consoles aren’t applicable.

Now of course there are issues facing the Switch 2’s launch that the Wii U never could’ve predicted. Such as the new game keycard system optional to some publishers, to the purchase of game upgrade packs for switch 1 games. And of course games not being priced competitively. So why are so many saying “this is the next Wii U?” Well it’s because during the Wii U era, Nintendo as a company was at its most vulnerable and most desperate after coming off a pretty successful run with its previous console. This resulted in them needing to offer better deals to consumers AND push them to truly innovate in the game of gaming hardware and software.

With the above issues mentioned, there a very real and palpable desire for Nintendo to return that state once again. Where, once again it can’t just have “60 dollar games or get lost,” it might actually need to make concessions to the players. It remains to see if that will happen or not. However, if it does happen I want it to be clear, it’s not because the Switch 2 is “the Wii U all over again.”

The Wii U wasn’t bad because it was anti-consumerist. It was bad because it was a bad console.

[existentialcrisis-24-7]

Hi! What are your opinions on the leaks of the new season of Winx? Did you like the animation or the costumes?

My feelings on the new leaks are mixed.

On one hand, I'm a bit iffy on some of the designs (*cough* Stella *cough*), but on the other hand, I see where they were going with it and I think most of them will grow on me. The transformations I'm not hugely fond of, especially since Rainbow is leaning towards full reboot, so these being the starter transformations just doesn't sit right with me. They feel a bit busy while also being a bit lacking in personality (except Musa, who always get the best transformations and now is no exception). And the wings, while unique compared to the past few we've got, they all feel like the same shape. They are far more personalised, though, which I do like.

I am hard side-eyeing the fact that Musa seems to be lacking monolids in the final design. They could include that in the concept art, but not the actual show??

As for the animation, I think they're doing a pretty good job for the medium! I prefer 2D over 3D, especially for winx, but I understand why they made the decision, and I think they're making the best of it. I have a small feeling that the transformations will be a little lacklustre, but that tends to be a given in 3D if it's not a million dollar Disney movie. Honestly, as long as the story is good, the animation doesn't have to be amazing. Flora's transformation looks well-done for what we've seen.

Things I'm very excited about, though, are 1. the voice-acting, and 2. the new Alfea design.

The voices they used in the teaser are, imo, amazing choices! They sound, to me, like a good mix between the cinelume dub and the 4kids dub, which not only adds to the familiarity but also, the og voices were well cast and reflected the personalities in a way these new voices seem to do. Special mention to Flora's VA sounding Hispanic to reflect her being coded as Latina. Also, Tecna's made me laugh because she sounds like every emo character ever, and the contrast between her original personality and the emo voice is hilarious. Not bad, but certainly strange.

As for the new Alfea, I love it. It looks fantastic! It certainly sets a precedent for the environments we'll see throughout the show, and I really hope they live up to it. The classrooms look fabulous and the individual rooms we've seen (Wizgiz, Palladium, Faragonda, the dorm common area, the library) are all detailed in the best way. They have so much personality and the architecture is stunning. Even if the show ends up bad, if the scenery is even half as good as the concept art, I'll be happy.

Overall, I have my gripes, but I knew from the first announcement that I would. Rainbow can't please everyone, and even if they're doing a lot to please the older fans, it has to still be able to draw in a new audience. This reboot is a huge gamble for them, so I'll remain cautiously optimistic and try to not bash on it before it comes out.

[diaryofamadsunwukongfan]

Omg is that What I think it is

African architecture in my Texas anime

Yaaay, me turning all black coded characters into Vacuo migrants in my au is valid!

Although I do question what the purpose of water spilling out of that building is. Is it a public sink/water fountain? If so, I thought Vacuo had a water shortage?

Whoops im trying to be nice Um can I just say that the coloring on Yang's outfit here is waay better than her 3D model:

The coffee brown + dark yellow vs super dark brown + green brown. I don't think I will be able to look at her 3D model the same, and I already hated it.

Very ironic that rw/by simps were clowning on us for correctly saying that Yang was not acting the best during v9 and Yang herself apologizes for it here. I understand some people's criticisms of this being too late, but honestly if they never addressed it it would have been a black mark on Yang's character so better late than never.

[imagitory]

Review: Wish (2023) [SPOILERS]

Evening, everyone! Tonight my mother and I went to go see Disney's most recent film, Wish, which fortunately came to theaters in my area right before its formal American release date. I'd been very curious to see how this tribute to Disney's last 100 years of filmmaking would turn out, and now that I've seen it...well, I have to be honest, I was a little disappointed. I want to be very clear both that I was going into this with a rather sunny outlook and that there are things I really liked in this film...but overall, it felt like a lot of the good ideas it had were only half-baked, and I found myself -- forgive me -- "wishing for something more" than what we got.

For a more comprehensive deep-dive...a cut!

The Good!

+The single best element in this film for me was Chris Pine's performance as our villain, Magnifico. There are definitely some things I can critique about Magnifico's overall storyline and "character arc" further down, but Chris was clearly having a grand old time being an egotistical, sassy jerkwad, and it totally showed. Even in his villain song This is The Thanks I Get?, which just screamed "passive-aggressive abusive parent," you can hear how much fun Chris was having in the studio, recording it. I just about always enjoyed when Magnifico was on screen, and I actually did really like the idea that a lot of his villainy is rooted in him being obsessed with control over everyone and everything. In a weird way, Magnifico's turn to the Dark Side parallels Anakin Skywalker's in the sense that he lost so much in the past that he's determined to never lose anything important to him again -- especially the power he's accrued to make himself feel strong, after having felt so powerless. I find that very interesting, and I kind of wish that aspect was really highlighted more in the story, but we'll talk about that later.

+Asha was a likable enough heroine, even if I found her to be a lot like a two-way fusion of Mulan and Anna placed in a vaguely Snow-White-ish role in her clearly Seven-Dwarf-inspired friend group. Ariana DeBose portrayed her rather well, both acting and singing-wise. I also liked the "social justice" bent to Asha's character where she wants better things not just for herself and her family, but also Rosas overall -- in the French translation of her main song "This Wish," they even push this further by having Asha wish "to see the world happy again someday." We haven't seen a heroine really express this kind of desire for a positive change in the world since Esmeralda in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and that's cool! Plus representation in mainstream media for previously underrepresented groups is always nice. ^.^

+As much as I don't think they all got enough focus as individuals, I liked Asha's friend group! Especially the fact that it is a friend group made up of people that are around the same age as our protagonist, which -- let's be honest -- isn't that common for Disney heroines. Often with "sidekick groups," you're more likely to have situations like Cinderella with the mice (who are more like cutesy sidekicks than equals) or Snow White with the Dwarfs (who are all quite a bit older than our heroine)...so a friend group made up of peers with their own personalities and motivations was kind of fun.

+The setting of Rosas itself could be pretty. I liked a lot of the Mediterranean-inspired architecture, especially inside Magnifico's tower.

+The combination of 3D and 2D-esque animation was also interesting! It really served to give the film its own distinctive visual style that sets it apart from other Disney projects, which I always appreciate.

+Star was...cute. Obviously just designed to sell plushies and definitely reminded me way too much of Kirby, but cute enough. I do think it's kind of cool that they're never gendered at all in the entire movie, because it'd be silly to think of a sweet little androgynous ball of stardust as being specifically male or female.

+I liked the idea of Simon "betraying" Asha, only to be turned into a pawn by Magnifico in the process, but not being treated unsympathetically by the story for it. Didn't love the full execution of the idea, but hey, that's what the negative section is for.

+The idea of everyone finding the power inside of themselves to stand up against Magnifico (because they're "all stars," and presumably all have the magic needed to make their wishes come true) was a little predictable, but still sweet. I have problems with how the film wrote it (which we'll get to), but the idea itself was wholesome and fitting.

+I like several of the songs, just on their own -- I added This Wish and Knowing What I Know Now on my ITunes as soon as I first heard them prior to the film's release, and now I've added At All Costs too: it's a really pretty duet! (Gorgeous work, Chris and Ariana!) I'll leave my praise here, though, because sadly the soundtrack is going to get a lot of discussion in the less positive section.

The Not-So-Good...

+This film being "Disney's 100th anniversary film" really got in the way of this movie telling a compelling and unique story sometimes. The whole movie really twisted itself into a pretzel trying to check off all the usual Disney tropes, and there were points that certain choices made the story seem incredibly stilted. For instance, one common Disney trope is a dead parent, so of course Asha has lost her father -- but we learn so little about him and he ends up playing such a small role in Asha's arc and story that it seems like an unnecessary detail. Asha's grandfather honestly plays more of a role in Asha's motivation throughout most of the film, so it would've made just as much sense to have Asha's grandfather be the one who believed in stars having power, rather than her father. Another example is the concept of the cute animal sidekick who's just there to make jokes -- as much as Valentino the goat didn't annoy me personally, he added just about nothing of value to the story whatsoever aside from comic relief, in contrast to other funny sidekicks like Sebastian from The Little Mermaid or Olaf from Frozen, who also serve a plot purpose and have a developed relationship with the protagonists. Then there's Asha being cut from the same "naive, awkward, wide-eyed idealist" cloth as many of our Disney Revival heroines like Anna, Rapunzel, and up to a certain point even Mirabel are; Star being in a similar vein to cutesy, innocent sidekicks like Pua, Crikee, and Baymax while Valentino is more akin to sassier, comic ones like Mushu and Sisu; her friends literally being based on the Seven Dwarfs from Snow White; our heroine getting a pretty standard "I Want" song and the villain getting his own solo number that doesn't really take any risks...oh yes, and we mustn't forget the trope of the Storybook opening, which (I'm sorry) I know was supposed to be a reference to Snow White, Cinderella, and Enchanted, but just gave me Shrek vibes the entire time. I was waiting for Shrek to rip out the page and use it for toilet paper any minute. It just felt a lot of the time like the movie was very paint-by-numbers, rather than throwing in much that was surprising or different.

+This isn't even touching all of the pointless meta references to other Disney movies. Asha wearing the Fairy Godmother's cloak and getting a wand like hers at the end -- the mushrooms crowing "we love crazy!" the way Hans did in Love is an Open Door -- Asha riding the reindeer the way Kristoff did in Frozen 2 -- Magnifico using green smoke hands a la Ursula -- the ending with those obvious Wendy and Peter Pan look-alikes, come on, really??? That was just painful.

+As much as Magnifico was an awesome idea for a character and Chris Pine's performance was beyond entertaining, the movie did not always write him as well as they could've. From the very start, we see this guy is an egotistical control freak -- obsessed with his own image, incredibly hard-to-please, arrogant, vain, desperate for attention and unwavering praise and adoration from all of his subjects, and determined to keep an iron grip on everyone else's wishes because of the power it gives him. He's ALREADY a terrible person, from the start -- and yet the film tries to introduce this dark magic book that gets no explanation or backstory whatsoever and has no real characterization or presence, so it leaves no real impact on the audience corrupting him and making him a bad person, when it didn't need to! Magnifico was already the villain this film needed! Just let him fall head-first into madness without the book prompting anything! Even if Magnifico "lost everything" in the past, that doesn't make him a good person, if he takes everyone's wishes away from them and hoards them all to himself, only to grant a few now and again when it would make him look good.

+This above point actually leads nicely into one change I really, really wish the film had been ballsy enough to make -- have Asha already be Magnifico's apprentice, not trying to become it at the start of the story. Give our villain and hero a real relationship, with history that started before the events of this film! Asha lost her father at the age of 12...how interesting would it have been -- whether to make Magnifico more of an anti-villain or show how manipulative he really is -- if he'd tried to fill that fatherly role for our main character and twist her to serve his ends? What if At All Costs was rewritten to be about Magnifico not just being determined to hold onto all of the kingdom's wishes, but also this apprentice he sees as an extension of him and his legacy, while Asha is determined to protect this Star she's accidentally summoned and the suppressed wish of hers it represents? This change would've made Asha's break with Magnifico so much more powerful for both of them -- it would've both justified Magnifico's descent into madness and given Asha more reason to feel like it was her responsibility to stop Magnifico. You even could've then played more with Asha's relationship with Queen Amaya too, in this kind of a scenario.

+Oh yeah, and on that note, Queen Amaya. OOH, this really annoyed me -- okay. So this woman is supposed to be a good guy, in this story. But as I touched on earlier, Magnifico was already a pretty awful person, hoarding people's wishes away in order to make himself powerful. Was Amaya truly so blind to that? Did she truly never question anything, ever? But no, really, she only turns on Magnifico after he starts using the dark magic book and actively threatens her. Only that makes her turn from him, and it's pretty damn immediate. Now okay, I hear you saying, it's like Amaya sings in Knowing What I Know Now, right? "The good in him, I've watched it melt // I was blinded by the love I felt"? Excuse me, lady -- but Magnifico wasn't a good person, before. He was just playing a part so as to stay powerful and adored by the masses. And if the story wants to claim otherwise, and act like that dark magic book was responsible for Magnifico going bad, then why would our Queen decide to keep him locked up in his staff's crystal forever? If the book was responsible, then Magnifico would be the Frodo or Golum to the book's One Ring -- he'd be a victim, in such a scenario: one in need of help and pity, not punishment. So either Amaya is a selfish person who only cared about her husband's mistreatment of others when it affected her, or she's a needlessly cruel person who decides to punish her husband for a vice that anyone could fall prey to. Either way, I don't want this woman ruling anyone! Make this woman a straight-up villain, same as her husband, and have the whole monarchy come crashing down after she and Magnifico both go down in flames! VIVE LA RESISTANCE! (Playing into my idea with Asha being Magnifico's apprentice all along, maybe there could even be a twist on the Evil Stepmother trope with Amaya, where she's jealous of how much Magnifico has tried to groom Asha as his apprentice, rather than spending time and/or starting a family with her or something.)

+As I touched on earlier, there wasn't even close to enough time to develop all of these characters properly. Since our heroine and friends are most similar to Snow White and her friends the Seven Dwarfs, let's compare cast size. Snow White is 83 minutes long and has a cast of ten (Snow, the Prince, the Queen, and the Dwarfs) -- Wish is 95 minutes long and has a cast of fourteen (Asha, Magnifico, Star, Valentino, Amaya, Asha's mum and grandpa, and our seven Friends). This results in us getting the vague idea that "Grumpy" role Gabo is sweet on our "Bashful" role Bazeema, but no time to develop their relationship or give it any kind of conclusion; the others saying "Sneezy" role Safi apparently loves the castle chickens with no sympathetic explanation why, to the point that he gets super excited about a chicken growing to a giant size for no real reason; "Doc" role Dahlia having a crush on Magnifico that is then dropped immediately after Asha turns against him; oldest kid and "Sleepy" role Simon feeling incomplete without the dream he gave Magnifico and "betraying" Asha as a result in an attempt to get it back, only to get stabbed in the back by Magnifico, and then have no time for a proper redemption after he's unhypnotized; Asha's grandfather turning on a dime about whether or not he wants to know what his wish was if Magnifico thought it was dangerous; Magnifico getting some justification in his backstory for his bad behavior, but Amaya's backstory being a complete black hole before she married Magnifico when you'd think it'd explain all the more why she stuck with him so long; and Asha's mum having her wish crushed to dust by Magnifico and then given back without us EVER LEARNING WHAT IT EVEN WAS IN THE FIRST PLACE, even after we see just about everyone else's wishes as soon as somebody picks it up and Asha's mum's wish gets picked up multiple times!! Come on, if you're going to set up NOT showing it, you may as well have a pay-off for it!! At least give us some moment where Asha's mum hugs her in relief and acknowledges that her daughter was her wish! That would've been a nice "aww" moment for everyone!

+Okay, I said I was going to talk about my problem with the songs, so here goes. As I said before, I listened to the soundtrack before watching the movie, and even when I did, I could immediately sense a problem: these songs did not tell me much of anything about the movie, just on their own. Welcome to Rosas, which is pretty much just an exposition dump about the kingdom and how Magnifico founded it, didn't really paint a picture of our setting or characters much at all, the way opening songs like Belle or The Family Madrigal do. This Wish, although pretty, was something I could hear just as easily on the radio -- it didn't feel as tied or necessary to understanding our heroine the way something like Part of That World does. I'm a Star, quite frankly, felt like a lot of inspirational word salad, rather than anything particularly memorable or revelatory -- why else wouldn't it even be worthy of a musical salute in the reprise, where Asha remembers that she and everyone else are stars during the climax? Even after reading summaries of the plot and spoilers from the storybook for this film, I could not figure out for the life of me how At All Costs would fit organically into such a story, being sung by our villain and hero. It wasn't until I saw the film that I saw how the filmmakers decided to fit it in and honestly...the song didn't help tell that particular scene at all. It's a really pretty song and I like it a lot -- but it lacked any of the irony or contrast that kind of a scene that introduces the difference in focus between our hero and villain required. If the scene itself is needed to understand what's supposed to be going on while the song is playing, then the song is not effectively telling the story and is therefore unnecessary. There wasn't even a particularly Spanish or Mediterranean flair to the soundtrack to help set the stage, aside from the occasional flourish of castanets -- instead it sounded very contemporary, which I guess is appropriate, since it was largely written by pop composers rather than any musical theater talent.

+There were also points where the songs felt the urge to shove in a bunch of extra words just because, rather than have the words flow well and really mean something. I'm a Star is most guilty of this, of course, but even in This is the Thanks I Get?, we hear Magnifico gripe that "I let you live here for free and I don't even charge you rent" -- mate, THAT MEANS THE SAME THING! If you live somewhere for free, then you are NOT paying rent!

+Knowing What I Know Now is a bop and I like it (aside from Amaya's stupidity), but I'm sorry, all I can think when I hear it is "This is clearly trying to be Ready as I'll Ever Be from Tangled the Animated Series, but that song blows this out of the water." However fun the song can be, it would've been so much stronger if it actually addressed the contrast between the characters and revved us up for a big final battle, instead of it just being our eight underdeveloped characters psyching each other up.

+The idea of everyone being stars was a lovely idea, but the execution of Asha remembering this fact and using it to defeat Magnifico was terribly handled. First off, there was no revelatory phrase or action that prompted Asha to remember this fact, so her suddenly saying that "they're all stars" came out of nowhere. Second, even putting aside that there'd be no way any of her friends could hear Asha from all the way up on the tower if they're stuck in the courtyard below, there's no reason I can see for Asha's friends or family to know what the hell she was even TALKING about. They weren't there when the I'm a Star number happened! And the way that number made it seem, just based on the visuals, it looked like the "star" power came from a person's dream, since it's the same glow that returns to Asha's grandfather when he gets his dream back, but most of the town's dreams have been already yanked out by Magnifico at this point! I think the idea is that since everyone is a star, even with that big piece of them and the power accompanying it taken out, they still have enough stardust inside of them to be powerful enough to chase their heart's desires...but yeah, I'm sorry, for all the word salad I'm a Star threw around, this world-building aspect was really not made clear, and because of that and the lack of a proper callback to this plot turn, the climax didn't hit as strong as it should've.

Overall, this film felt a lot like a batch of unbaked chocolate chip cookies that someone decided to throw a bunch of brightly colored sprinkles on top of, just because they could. A lot of ideas just don't feel like they were fully developed, and there was a lot tossed in that didn't contribute to the overall taste or bring the disparate elements together in a cohesive whole, instead feeling more like a distraction than anything of actual substance. That doesn't mean I couldn't eat it -- I like eating cookie dough as much as the next person -- but that doesn't mean it felt like a complete, finished product worthy of great praise. Instead I'm left looking at the wasted potential and wishing the movie had carved out its own path more, one distinctive to itself, rather than just be a mashup of previous Disney concepts and tropes. I won't act like there's nothing to like here, nor that it's completely lacking in heart: I actually would love to see fandom for this movie re-imagine it in ways that could've improved the story and characters, because there were SO many good ideas here...but for me personally, this movie left me colder than it should've and -- like Asha after meeting Magnifico -- a bit disappointed.

So I make this wish...to have Disney make a film better than this.

Overall Grade: C-

[philicheesecake]

May I ask you as an artist of an artist? What is the most difficult thing for you to do at work? What is the most difficult thing for you to work with when you draw? And, in secret, how much time does it take you on average per page of a comic book?

I think the most difficult things for me to draw would be certain animal-type things, like dogs and werewolves, since it’s hard to find the right references for the exact thing I want to draw for every pose, angle, and expression.

Buildings are also really tricky to draw, and I normally feel the need to 3D model the architecture first to create a reference of what I want to draw if I want to draw it accurately and consistently.

It’s hard to say how long it takes to finish a page, since some pages take a lot longer than others, and most pages I do in stages instead of completing them start to finish in one day. Some days I can complete up to four or so pages after I’ve prepped the layout and line art, and some pages take me multiple days just to complete one part of it. My estimate is that on average it can take anywhere from 4-10 hours to finish one page.

[quantumquestaltima]

Creative marketing with the help of 3D Template Design

What Is 3D Template Design?

A 3D template is a pre-designed 3D model or layout that can be customized for branding, product presentation, or promotional content. These templates can be used in videos, interactive web elements, social media, AR.

GET FREE DESIGNING TOOLS (FOR STUDENT ONLY) 👈.

This is the process of creating the 3D geometry of your object, character, or environment. Polygonal Modeling: Creating objects using polygons (vertices, edges, and faces). This is the most common method for hard surface objects and characters. Spline Modeling: Creating shapes based on curves and then defining their thickness or depth. NURBS (Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines): For smoother surfaces, often used in automotive and industrial design. Sculpting: Involves pushing and pulling digital clay, commonly used in organic models like characters, creatures, or detailed objects.

IMPORTANT TOOLS AND SOFTWARE FOR DESIGN

Blender: Free, open-source software known for its versatility in modeling, animation, and rendering.

Autodesk Maya: Used widely in animation and visual effects. It excels at polygonal modeling, rigging, and animation.

3ds Max: Similar to Maya but often preferred for architectural visualization and game asset creation.

ZBrush: Specialized in digital sculpting, ideal for creating highly detailed organic models like characters.

Cinema 4D: Great for motion graphics and 3D modeling with a user-friendly interface.

SketchUp: Simple tool used mainly for architectural modeling.

[ghost-opal]

for future self-reference here is what i really need to learn to do or improve at in art

composition (maybe do a bunch of abstract shape/color field stuff as practice? im not sure how to improve at this)

making full size drawings (2000px dimensions or more) with clean lineart (maybe i should just be stricter with what I draw)

intricate clothing (folds and sagginess are HARD)

multi character art where they touch each other or props (I need to improve at conveying tactility)

detailed rendering (getting very rusty having not painted much in a while)

plants (i have to start referencing real plants instead of bullshitting leaves flowers and grass lol)

food (🤤)

model/ref sheets (especially if I ever want to do 3D work)

animation longer than 1 second. And cleaned up animation for that matter

Actually just clean lines in general. Still very bad at them.

Machines and vehicles that arent just me BSing

Faces from life

Detailed architecture in perspective

multiple characters in perspective while retaining consistent relative proportions

graphic design

This is a lot. I'm not sure how to schedule all this..

[minie-mastermind]

Religion on Earth 3

The first reference any sort of religion of course was merely through the existence of Amazons on Earth 3. Natalie implying a Greek pempheon, although they do not appear and therefore will be overlooked for the time being. Superwoman originally being a rogue Amazon and Paradise Island not being mentioned we cannot gather anything else from this.

The first Religious imagery occurred during the JLA : Earth 2 #1 (2000) in which we see an flaming cross upon a plane.

During 2008 we got two large examples of religious organisations in Earth 3 along with an introduction to a deity. Firstly in Trinity #11 we see a group of Luciferists fighting with a group of Satanists.

Then in Final Crisis Superman Beyond 3D #2 we see some examples of expletives used by Ultraman referencing his deity. After he's obtained the book of the infinite he speaks about his religious upbringing. Mainly of Mammon, the Demon of Greed and how the religion is built around possession and worldly pleasures instead of any sort of spiritual enlightenment.

Doring 2010 we had more implications of other religions during the animated premiere of the Crimes Syndicate end references to be Amazonss in the comics.

In Justice League Crisis On Two Earths Appearances are made to counterparts of Vixen in playing existence of African gods, Hawkgirl employing existence of Christian gods due to her name Angelque And Wonder Woman implying existence of a Greek Pantheon due to her name Olympia. Of course in this version Superwoman was Mary Marvel's counterpart, any reference to Shazam of course being a reference to the Greek Pamphion from which he gained his powers.

The in Justice League of America #50 we have the first reference to Paradise Island going by another name on Earth 3. That being Damnation Island, which we learn that Superwoman has killed all of her Amazon's on the island and assumably in all her Universe.

During the Forever Evil event of 2014 we are introduced to another counter part of Shazam known as Mazahs who is the Lex Luthor of Earth 3 at this time. This yet again implies a Greek pampion which is important because we know nothing of Superwoman's origin from this time period due to her deleting all information on herself.

Finally during the Crime Syndicate #3 in 2021 we get a new origin for Superwoman aka Donna Troy in this edition. Where she comes from Demon Island where she was trained and sent out of to conquer the world. An unnamed counter part of vixen is also shown in the same issue.

As a note of what we haven't seen that we could imply or what we have seen but cannot impy anything from. We have seen Thanagarians multiple times on Earth 3, but not in context with Egyptian gods. Batman naturally being a character very steeped and Christianity do to Gotham's gothic architecture, his proclivity to perching on gargoyles and his own morals. Owlman has never been directly connected to any form of religion despite connecting to the previous two points if not the third. We have not seen this but I do believe that if the Matrix Angel Supergirl arc were to occur on Earth 3 she would probably go by Satan Girl instead of Ultra Girl.

[canmom]

Last season's anime: Frieren episode 7-10

Shit I guess I'm full on liveblogging this one now.

This time we have episode 7 dir. Naoto Uchida (known for work on Mob Psycho 100), episode 8 dir. Tomoya Kitagawa (who also directed ep. 2), episode 9 dir. Kōki Fujimoto (key animator on a whole buncha stuff, this is his debut as an episode director), and episode 10 dir. Nobihide Kariya (who debuted not so long before as an episode director on Bocchi).

So at the end of the last post about Frieren, I commented that I found the demons underwhelming as antagonists, and hoped they would have their motivations fleshed out some more beyond 'ontologically evil baddies'. Well.

lmao.

So Frieren and the gang are travelling. We get a lot more on the Great Mage Flamme, who is Frieren's mentor figure. At this rate... she's probably gonna turn out to still be alive or some shit.

They roll up in another ridiculously picturesque town. The backgrounds in this show are apparently based heavily on the concept art paintings of Seiko Yoshioka, who gets credited under various roles including 'layout designer' and even 'worldview illustrator'. She did a crazy amount of work to design all the different settings, giving them distinctive cultural motifs and architectures and colour palettes and so on.

Since this town covers a whole four-episode arc, we get a number of different views of it. There's definitely a reasonable amount of historical care put into the design of those city walls - even sketchy and in the distance you can spot the hoardings and appropriately narrow crenellations, as well as the machicolations on the tops of the towers. (Though unfortunatelly some of those details seem to get forgotten in the later episodes.)

The streets in the town seem kinda wide and clean but it fits the austere vibe. The main thing I'm wondering is what exactly they eat in this town - it's triple-walled in hostile territory without much in the way of farmland in sight, or indeed roads that aren't tiny.

I'm pretty sure they built a model of at least parts of this town in 3D, because as well as certain 3D tracking shots (unfortunately hampered by the lack of any parallax mapping on the floor)...

...we also get shots like this one, which feature a crazy 3-point perspective:

I wouldn't say it's impossible to draw this, but it would be a hell of a lot easier to block it out roughly in 3D and then paint in the details.

Mind you, that's not even the wildest perspective we get in this episode. Check this out:

Absolutely bananas. I love it.

But tbh the praise I have for this arc is pretty limited to this kind of technical stuff. Let's get into the story. (Though you can be sure I'll have more to say about the animation!)

At this point the story shifts gears from this fairly low-key exploration of grief and the passing of time, into more standard action anime territory.

Shortly after arriving in this town, our heroes discover that it has been infiltrated by demons in the guise of peace emissaries. Frieren attempts to attack immediately, but she allows herself to be subdued rather than harm the guards, so off she goes to jail.

Luckily, wizard jail still has pretty generous visiting hours, so she's able to explain the deal with demons to the gang. Frieren declares that demons always lie to gain an advantage over humans, illustrated through a flashback in which a young girl demon begged for mercy, only to betray the townspeople a bit later. Having been proven right, Frieren summarily executes the girl.

I think it's worth comparing this storyline to a couple of other similar storylines in other works of fiction.

First of all, in NieR Replicant/Gestalt, there is the story 'The Little Mermaid', which was adapted into a segment in the game in the remake. A postman takes pity on a girl on a shipwreck, not realising that she is a terribly powerful monster who is struggling to maintain her human appearance. The girl starts killing people to try to maintain her connection with the postman. Eventually, the player shows up and discovers what's been going on. Their intervention provokes the girl to revert to monster state and there's a big boss fight. However, at stake in the fight is the girl's identity. Depending on how you play the boss fight, there are two possible endings, and both of them make overt parallels between the monster girl and your party member Kainé, and one portrays the grief of the postman who cannot let go of his affection for the monster.

Secondly, the second episode of last year's Tengoku Daimakyou features a woman who is trying to protect a monster which she believed to have taken on the consciousness of her son after it ate him. The monster has been curiously non-hostile to the woman - she persuades our protagonists to back off, and they agree. Then it abruptly kills her! Oh shit. Fight scene, they kill the monster, etc.

But as they depart, the protagonists are left discussing whether the monster could really have had the son affecting its actions, whether it was just drawn to prey etc. The monster's motivations are left distinctly unclear, and the protagonists conclude there's no way to know the truth. Throughout the rest of the season, the exact nature of the monsters remains an open question.

In both cases, we either know or it is strongly implied that the monsters are fundamentally human, or derived from humans somehow. A certain amount of effort is spared to try and at least raise the question of the monster's subjectivity, and even if a monster has to die, they play it for tragedy.

So, let's return to Frieren. We're introduced to the demon girl. She ate a kid, but she staves off execution by pleading for her mother.

The villagers decide to give her a chance to atone. Before long, she kills the village chief who took pity on her. Frieren's party show up and she does small Shaft head tilt...

She's no longer pretending and talks in a much more level voice. She explains that she wanted to give a replacement daughter to the family of the girl she ate, by removing the village chief, for the sake of living in peace. This goes down about how you'd expect. Frieren goes ahead and kills her. As she's dying, Frieren asks why she called for her mother when demons don't raise kids. The answer she gets:

She is surprisingly forthcoming on this front, and honestly, self-preservation is something like an understandable motivation. The impression you get from this flashback sequence is a being that is amoral, and encountering humans as something alien and, honestly, kinda threatening. Why she killed the girl in the first place is an open question - they explicitly say that the demons don't have to eat humans. Even if she kinda felt like it, you'd think she'd be able to figure out it would be an unwise move.

But as far as the show is concerned, the point of this flashback is to establish one thing: demons are lying liars who lie. Frieren is the only one who knows the truth, which is that you must shoot them on sight.

You might think the show would leave some doubt about whether Frieren is justified in having such a severe attitude towards the demons - is she just prejudiced? But nah we go pretty much straight into the demons saying 'Frieren is right about everything, now let'ss discuss our evil plan'.

Props to this guy (he has some longish German name I can't remember) for making this random bench feel like a throne though. Like on some level he's just soft-voiced evil anime aristocrat guy but he does pull it off.

Anyway, one thing definitely doesn't seem to add up. Frieren says that demons are solitary creatures who speak in a human voice only to deceive, but the demons seem to be pretty happy to natter away to each other when no humans are around and express all sorts of thoughts and even express (fairly reserved) emotions. The boy is arrogant, the girl is protective of her boss, etc. The guy is a smooth liar and manages to wriggle out of being killed by the earl by playing the 'we're the same, let's put an end to this' card. But we're constantly reminded it's fake, he's a lying liar who's ontologically evil.

I think the super-deceptive adversary with no qualms about telling any lie is something that can be done well to create an incredibly paranoid scenario. I can't believe I'm mentioning ratfic again in the space of two posts, but this is something Worth The Candle performed very effectively. Though honestly the fantasy of the perfect manipulator who plays everyone like a fiddle is a recurring device in fantasy.

Here... the acting is strong on our main sussy demon dude. But as a worthy adversary, he's not super convincing. He lets his underling run off and get killed, and his response when the jig is up is to reveal that he's super OP and kill everyone nearby, except the governor, who he tortures. So the manipulation angle seems questionably motivated, like he wants the earl to lower the barrier so the demon army can come in... but you're kind of left wondering why he didn't already just go and kill everyone in the city since nobody who isn't Fern or Frieren can touch him. I guess he's trying to get that low chaos route.

I won't continue the beat-by-beat summary. There is a cool fight scene in Frieren's jail cell though, which has some well-integrated 3D. Frieren totally no-sells the boy's attack and cuts his arms off. Lotta dismemberment in these episodes! The main demon guy has some tasty blood-based powers, lots of monofilament whip slicing imagery (also a thing in Tengoku Daimakyou oddly enough). In general the action scenes in this show continue to be super tight. There is a pretty cute bit where Stark is trying to free the earl and can't cut through the rope holding him to a chair, the earl is going 'leave me', and I was sitting there going like 'why not destroy the chair', and then Stark does. So props for that.

Towards the end of ep 8, we learn that Frieren is actually a suuuuper scary battle mage. She was the one who researched the demon killing spell. OOooooohhh.

Seems our demon guy hasn't changed his style in 80 years lol.

And she did not think it too many.

So we already knew that Frieren was part of the party that killed the demon king, the last living person who knew Flamme, etc. etc., so it's not exactly surprising to see once again that she's kind of a big deal. What we seem to be setting up here - or at least maybe I'm just hoping for something more than 'only our hero is wise enough to know coexistence is impossible and a war of annihilation is the only option' - is to suggest a parallel between Frieren and the demons. They're incredibly long-lived, they love to obsessively study magic, they both have a very cold affect, they're calm under fire. If it turned out that Frieren is a demon that would be a fun angle, but I don't think it really tracks. Rather, the framing is suggesting that, when confronted with demons, Frieren is not so different...

We get a title drop in any case - turns out the anime title is an in-story title for its main character. In Japanese: 葬送のフリーレン Sousou no Frieren. 葬送 is translated by jisho.org as

attending a funeral procession; seeing off the deceased; burial of someone's remains; observing a burial​

The fansub I'm watching translate it (when used for the character) as 'Frieren the Elegy', which has about the right vibe! In the context for the show title, they translate the same phrase as Frieren: An Ageless Elegy which involves a little more interpolation, but I think it works. The official English title is Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, which is very direct but not a bad subtitle at all. Then again, maybe the bar is in the floor since 'Delicious in Dungeon'.

Anyway, after all that setup, we finally get the big fight episode. Because you see, in contrast to the earlier story which skipped over decades in a montage, this arc spans a whole four episodes. It's not badly done, but it's definitely feeling much more like a standard fight-driven show at this point.

We also meet Aura, one of the demon generals. She looks like a youngish girl and has a habit of doing the sanpaku eye smirk.

Her schtick is that she has magic scales that let her dominate people. Then she cuts their heads off and walks their corpses around. This is represented by a big army of suits of armour, mostly rendered in CG. They've done some kind of filter to make the linework less even, but the difference in shading style is quite noticeable.

From there it's a lot of 'my gambit vs your gambit' and 'who has more mana'. The fights are, without doubt very nicely animated, although the CG castle set used for the big camera moves feels a bit... lacking in detail compared to the gorgeous painted backgrounds. Anyway, Stark wins his fight by the power of GUTS and DETERMINATION, and Fern wins her fight by being a fast analytical type who can stay cool under fire and also knows Frieren's special demonbuster spell. Though a lot of Fern's fight is just kind of both participants standing still with impassive expressions shooting either blood or big laser beams at each other or zipping all around the castle.

Of course, the major turning points in the fight hinge on flashbacks to moments with mentor figures. This is an anime, and more specifically, it's Frieren.

One thing that is interesting is that the 'point of view' indicated by internal monologue often moves from Fern to the demon guy. We get to see him try to think through how to beat her, unsuccessfully. By contrast Stark's fight takes Stark's POV. I don't think we're expected to sympathise with the demon exactly, it's a way of underlining just how badass Fern has now become thanks to Frieren's levelling up regime.

I admit Frieren has lost me a bit by this point. It's not that it's bad at being a fight anime, it hits us with a whole series of stylishly composed and strongly animated cuts. Not novel necessarily, but absolutely well-executed. But it's not a very interesting direction to take the story! I don't care about this town, we'll be leaving it in an episode or two anyway, and the only named character in it is the earl. I wanna know more about the demons but what we get is kinda just a succession of Guys With Powers. He can make his blood fly around and stab people. She can copy anyone's moveset. He has a monofilament wire. She has a magic scale that mind controls you if she has more mana.

So how does Frieren beat the magic scales? ez. It's kind of spelled out as soon as they introduce the scales, but they spend a whole episode explaining how she's been using a relentless mana retention regimen for the last thousand years to hide her power level so that demons underestimate her. It kinda belabours the point lol. Like it kinda has to because if it doesn't try to make a big deal out of the mana hiding thing, you're just left with 'Frieren wins because her number is bigger'. But... Frieren wins because her number is bigger.

I don't hate fight-driven anime. They can be a ton of fun. But honestly, after the emotional impact of the first few episodes, taking it this way seems like it's wasting the early show's strengths. But, I hear episode 11 sees the return of Keiichirō Saitō as enshutsu, and it's said to be one of the best episodes in the show, so I'm not gonna drop it! It's certainly more than pretty enough to be worth watching through to the end.

There is a good amount of nice stuff in this last episode. The pseudo-Roman town is a cool depiction of a different material culture a thousand years prior to the main story. The 'field of flowers' magic is called back as a specific invention of Flamme - Frieren's whole deal is to kind of go around doing things to commemorate dead people and it turns out the flowers thing lets her do it twice over! We get to set up some parallels - Frieren could intuit that Flamme was a super OP mage, and Himmel could do the same for her.

We also get some worldbuilding stuff about the demons: they have to constantly display their power level to determine their place in the demon pecking order bc they're soooo individualistic. This seems a little dubious to me - like are the demons really so dumb? Is 'hide your power level' such an incomprehensible concept? It seems like it would lead to some kind of Diplomacy-like situation where other demons would team up to take you down.

Honestly, I think what bothers me about all this is like... I don't like the concept of an ontologically evil monster at the best of times, but the demons are obviously not mindlessly malevolent with no inner lives. They talk and scheme and feel things (such as 'proud of their magic'). They have an honour system. But the narrative doesn't quite seem to be able to acknowledge that this is what it's doing. Besides levelling up their magic, we have no idea what the demons want, still, except that it seems to involve killing humans sometimes.

Anyway! kvin has an article about this section, so if you'd like to read about who did which bit and how they worked together resourcefully and where the storyboard creates imagery of separation and so on, there ya go! It sounds from this article like the manga gets a better handle on what it's trying to do with the demons later on, so I'll hold out hope.