#a lot of tracing over official art here

[vanillamochahue]

Lord help me

[bug-slappy]

sharing my opinion here about serizawas design inconsistencies over time (spoilers for mp100 ending) i feel like in each new rendition of serizawa weve seen in official art ever since the start of S3 something feels off in a different way with every new merch release

lets start here ⬇ serizawa looks like,, himself. accurate to how hes drawn since his first anime appearance

⬇⬇⬇ and then slowly,,, things start to look off. his jawline is slowly getting slimmer, his eyes look wider (same with mobs too)

AND DONT EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THESE. especially the one on the right my god. who is that

every new promo art that comes out just feels very careless. I think you could say so for all the characters (mobs giant eyes, reigens waist getting skinnier/pointier features. the PROMO art of dimple that was literally FULLY TRACED OFF OF A TEMU PIRATE HALLOWEEN COSTUME. they all look bad here)

it just feels a little depressing how little they seem to care anymore, like theyre just trying to pump out merch without bothering to use a character reference.

i notice the changes the most with serizawa. every promo art looks like theyre playing a game of telephone. each version of him is based on the last, instead of his initial design (shown below)

at the end of S2, when reigen cuts serizawas hair, he still looks like himself. they did a great job of showing "how serizawa would look underneath his moustache and big hair". In S3 it feels like they've lost that mentality completely. like he's no longer based off of his original design, but an entirely new reference of his salary man look. some comparisons between S3 vs S2 and OVA down below

I find that the line weight in S3 is much heavier and unfocused. but what bothers me most of all is that... Serizawa looks different in nearly every scene... as if they're undecided on what he should look like. the shape of his nose and jaw, his hair all change depending on the episode entirely.

The art style change for S3 was meant to be "more accurate to the manga", but I find that it had the opposite effect. especially how serizawas and ritsus eye shapes changed. ritsus large pupils and serizawas more almond shaped eyes were more reflective of their manga designs there are plenty of inconsistences in S1 and 2, but they're clearly done with purpose to reflect on ONEs art style (my beloved). I feel like the thinner lines allow more room for detail and extreme facial expressions that truly hold a candle to ONEs insane talent for capturing emotions.

these ^^^ compared to..

erm.. this.. ⬇

just felt very underwhelming... and serizawa certainly does mellow out once he starts working at S&S, but that doesn't mean that there's less opportunity for detailed expressions !!

the yokai fight scene was beautifully made i have no qualms.. but the amount of serizawa lore and dialogue in the manga that got cut from the anime just made him look like a cardboard cut out standing behind everyone. lots of funny and interesting moments cut to make room for the moefication of serizawa katsuya..

I feel like there's a lot of important moments that were cut, (reigen "i hope i can become a partner like that" arataka, serizawa "ive had a similar experience myself" katsuya )

or sad, intense scenes that were made lighthearted (the body improvement club trying to help mob, mob and ??? dialogue being cut, reigen removing his shoes in the final arc made to be meant for better grip rather than... his passively suicidal tendencies )

i think the people at bones are very talented dont get me wrong, i just felt like S3 could have been adapted better. this keeps me up at night its like 1am :) anywhosies thank you for listening to my ted talk i love you

[sweetbans29]

Teach Me: The Art of You (THE END) - PB

Pairing: Paige Bueckers x Reader

Previous Part

Summary: You and Paige have been best friends for the last 6 years. You trust her completely. And it is because of that trust that you ask her a rather forward question. AKA - You ask Paige to teach you.

Warnings: mature, like mature - mature

Word Count: 3.2k

Sweetbans Masterlist & Teach Me Masterlist

AN: Here we go...for the last time 🫠

Paige's lips met yours for what feels like the first time in forever. The kiss starts off gentle - her hands cupping your face as your hands rest on her chest. You can taste the saltiness of both of your tears mixed in with her lips.

You pull away, resting your forehead on hers.

"Can we go to bed?" You ask.

"Of course," Paige says and helps you up from the couch. The two of you make your way to her room. You crawl in her bed and open your arms to her. She looks down at you with the biggest smile and finds her place in your arms.

"Never wanna sleep without you again," Paige whispers into you.

"You never have to, B," you say and kiss the top of your head.

Over the next few weeks, life goes back to normal - well mostly normal except for the fact that you and Paige have actually started dating. No more having to restrict touches or steel glances. Paige was free to show the world she has been and will always be completely in love with you.

The regular season is coming to a close as the team prepares for March Madness. You alongside the other coaches are spending a lot more time reviewing film and watching other teams. Paige isn't a fan of how much time you are spending in the office but can't be mad that you, without fail, come home to her.

The team decides to go out for one last hurrah before they lock in and decide to do it at their favorite bar. Everyone is over at your apartment getting ready for your fun night out. You are in your room finishing getting ready as Paige is lying on your bed and scrolling through her phone. When she sees you are almost done she gets up.

"Mmmm ready?" She asks as she comes behind you snaking her arms around your waist. Her head finds its place on your shoulder as she looks at you through the mirror.

"Yep!" You say. "It's been so long since I've been out, long overdue."

Paige would be lying if she said she hadn't been thinking about you. Ever since the two of you officially got together the lessons had stopped. She didn't mind the fact that they stopped but each day kept getting progressively harder for her to keep her hands off of you.

"S'not the only thing overdue," Paige says as she moves your hair to one side of your neck and begins to leave a trail of kisses down the other.

You sigh, leaning back into her and letting her grace your skin with her lips. She holds you firm against her front as she makes a meal out of your neck. One of your hands rests on top of hers while the other comes up and holds her head in place on your neck.

"No marks," you moan as she sucks on your sweet spot.

"Gonna show them your mine," she breathes out sucking a little harder, her teeth grazing your skin.

You try to move away from her but she isn't having any of that.

"B, no marks," you say again. "I'll show them whose I am another way, trust."

She kisses down to your shoulder. "And how do you plan on doing that?" Paige asks.

"Well, you will just have to wait and find out," you say, your eyes struggling to stay open. "But won't have to if I'm all marked up."

Paige immediately removes her lips from your skin and you want to whine but know you are the one who stopped your girl in the first place. You look at her through your mirror and take in how beautiful she is. Your eyes trace every feature of her face.

Paige feels your gave and her cheeks begin to brighten.

"Why are you staring at me like that, ma?" She asks and hides behind you. You found it to be incredibly cute when she would get nervous around you even after knowing you for years.

"Can't you just let me admire my girlfriend," you say and turn around to face her. She no longer has a place to hide. Your eyes burn into her skin. "Stunning."

"Yo, you two ready or what?" You hear one of the girls yell and you respond.

"Ready, B?" You ask.

"Could just stay here," she says. You laugh.

"Ya right, come on B," you say grabbing her hand and leading her out of your room.

The team heads to the bar. Once you are through the door Paige grabs drinks for the two of you. When she comes back you down half of it in the first sip.

"Woo, slow down there. It's not going anywhere," Paige says, grabbing the glass from your hand.

"Hey!" You say, your hand reaching for the glass she just stole from you.

"Let the girl have some fun," Azzi says. "She has been working her ass off for us."

Paige looks betrayed that Azzi chose your side over hers. Azzi grabs the drink from Paige's hand and gives it back to you.

"Woooow, I see who the favorite it," Paige says.

"I have always been Azzi's favorite," you say and lean over to the curly-haired girl and away from Paige.

"As long as I am your favorite, we won't have any issues," Paige says grabbing your hand and intertwining her fingers with yours.

"Well..." both you and Azzi say at the same time. The look on Paige's face practically has you and Azzi laughing on the floor.

You pull Paige into a hug, moving your head to whisper perfectly in her ear.

"Don't worry, B - you know you're my favorite. Always have been, always will be," you say as you bring your tongue to the shell of her ear. A move you have learned riles her up faster than most.

Paige jerks away knowing it is way too soon to be leading you out of the bar. She wants to enjoy hanging out with the team before taking you home. She gives you a warning look and you just smile up at her and take another sip of your drink, a smaller sip than the first one.

You both spend time with the team, enjoying each other's company. You are three drinks in when you start dancing with some of the girls. All of which are letting loose and having a good time. Moving your body to the music, you raise your arms and sway your hips. It doesn't take you long to find your girl leaning against the bar watching you dance. You smile at her and make your way over.

"Dance with me B," you say grabbing her hand. She puts her finished drink on the bar and follows you to the middle of the dance floor.

You face her and wrap your arms around her neck, connecting your bodies and moving to the rhythm of the music. Her hands rest on your hips as she looks down at where your bodies connect.

You turn around, making sure her hands stay planted on your hips. Your arms go up in the air again as you begin to grind on her. You hear her let out the lightest gasp as you bend over. When you come up again, you move her hands to rest on your boobs. She gives them a squeeze before running her hands down your stomach, bringing your shirt slightly higher than it already is. Your hips never stoping.

One of your hands comes to cup the back of her head, guiding it to yours as you turn your face to the side meeting your lips together. The kiss is sloppy and rushed, filled with lingering hints of alcohol from your drinks. You turn to face her cup her cheek.

Your tongues fight for dominance, Paige desperate to win.

Before she can, you break the kiss and begin down her neck like she had done in your room. You pay attention to all right places causing the blonde to throw her head back. Your free hand toying with the string at her waistband.

"Take me home," you whisper in her ear.

Before you know it you are being pulled out of the bar. Paige storms past the team, your hand firmly in hers as she makes a beeline to the door.

"Where are you two going?" Evina yells.

"Evina, just enjoy your drink. We all know where they are going," Azzi says sipping her drink.

Paige has you back at your apartment in no time. The second the door shuts she has you pushed up against it. Before her lips connect with yours, you put a hand on her chest.

"What?" She asks until she sees your next move.

You push her back, taking your shoes off in the process, and have her walking backwards all the way to the couch. You push her to sit down as you ever so slowly move on top of her, straddling her.

She watches you in awe as your hands come to her torso, moving your hands up under her shirt. You lean down and plant a kiss on her shoulder.

"Imma need a little more than that, ma," she says, her breath already rigid. Paige has never been a fan of slow - all the hookups she has had have been quick and straight to the point. But as she was teaching you, she slowed down to match your speed. Now though, now she feels like she has made a mistake as she is eager to get to the finish.

"What's the rush babe?" You ask. "Plan on taking my time, still new to this ya know."

You bring your lips to kiss all along her collarbone. She leans her head back against the couch and lets you work. Your hands move to cup her breasts under her shirt and she removes it for you.

Your lips find their way to one of her nipples, swirling your tongue around it and sucking it lightly. Removing your lips from her skin, you cup both of them and kneed them.

"I love these," you say as you continue to massage your girls chest.

"All yours, ma," Paige's voice husky as she struggles to get the words out. You smile.

You kiss down her stomach, peppering kisses over the waistband of her pants. You hook your fingers in her waistband and look up at her for approval.

"Fuck ya, ma," she says as she lifts her hips up and you pull her pants down.

She is now watching your every move as your hands rub up and down her thighs and your lips sprinkle little kisses along the inner more sensitive parts of her legs. She spreads them for you as you park yourself on your knees in front of her.

Your trail of kisses makes its way to the bottom of the last piece of fabric separating you from where she wants you most. You begin to kiss over them, inching closer to her center. When you finally get to the place Paige has been patiently waiting for your lips to meet, she jolts forward.

You look up at her and kiss it again.

"So sensitive baby," you tease her as your hands bring her boxers down. She watches your every move anticipating the next. Never in a million years would she expect you to be the first to please her, she always imagined her pleasing you first. Yet here you are, on your knees just for her.

"May I?" You ask, your eyes trained on her center. Paige doesn't trust her voice and nods vigorously.

"Need to hear you babe," you tease her again. "Can't forget the rules now."

"Fuck the rules," she says and you take that as a green light.

You spread her legs even further apart as your tongue licks a strip of her. The moan she lets out is ungodly. One of her hands is placed on the back of your head while the other shoots its way to cover her mouth. You kiss her bundle of nerves and begin to work.

"Fuck ma, so good. So so good," she mutters as you work on her. One of your hands comes up to massage her left breast. You pick up the speed as moans fall freely from her mouth.

"Just like that, YES, oh fuck," her words coming out in breathy strings. "Close," Paige yells, not able to think of any other words.

You slow your movements to a stop and Paige whines. You look up at her with raised eyebrows as she looks down at you with furrowed ones. She watches you as you bring two of your fingers into your mouth sucking on them. She bites her lip as she watches you - anticipating your next move.

You brush over her sensitive bundle of nerves and her hips jerk forward, begging to be touched again.

You smile as you slowly line your fingers at her entrance. You kiss her thigh as your fingers enter her. Paige moans your name and you watch her in awe. All you want to do is make her feel good.

Your fingers work in her as your begin to suck on her center again. Paige is fisting the couch as she lets out moans left and right.

"Don't stop. Please don't stop," she moans as her back arches off the couch pushing her core closer to you. You work her through her high as she repeatedly says your name.

When she slumps against the couch, you remove your fingers and begin to kiss back up her stomach.

"That was so hot," you say as you kiss her lips.

"You are so hot," she says breathlessly. Her hand coming to cup your face and kissing you again. She tugs at your shirt and you break the kiss, allowing her to remove your shirt.

Paige stands and tells you to jump, which you gladly do, and wrap your legs around her waist. She immediately establishes dominance in the kiss as she walks you to her room. She lays you on the bed and in one swoop has your shorts off. You stare at her with your mouth agape and she just smirks down at you.

Paige crawls over you, causing you to squirm, and comes to kiss you. Your hands come to cup her breasts as she hovers over you. She breaks the kiss and laughs.

"What?" You ask.

She looks down at your hands on her chest and you feel yourself blush, immediately removing them.

"Don't stop," she says shifting her weight to bring your hands back to them. "Touch them, kiss them, suck them as much as you want - I meant it when I said they're all yours."

You smile and bite your lip.

"Never thought you would be a boob girl," she says chuckling, lowering herself to kiss you again. She kisses down your neck leaving all the marks in the world.

"Just yours, you say. "S'cute and little."

"Hey!" Paige jokes but you just pull her back to you. Your hand s come to claw at her back as you stifle moans whenever she finds a particularly sensitive spot.

She kisses down your stomach and grabs the waistband of your intimates, pulling them down with her teeth. You watch her as intently as she watched you just ten minutes ago.

Her lips meet your inner thighs as she hooks her arms around your legs to spread them and grab your ass.

"I've been dreaming about this forever," she says as kisses closer to your center. "How you would look spread out on my bed." You moan at her words and buck your hips craving any sort of friction.

"How you taste," she says as her tongue finds your center. She then goes to work making you feel good. You are a moaning mess as she is now the one feasting on you.

She slows down, removing her lips from your skin uses her thumb to keep a rhythm.

"Open up for me, ma," she says bringing two of her fingers up to your lips. You obey and welcome them in, swirling your tongue around them.

"Good girl," she says as she removes them, sinking down to where she just previously was. Her fingers begin to work in you as her lips attach to you once again.

"Paige," you moan. "Yes, Paige. PAIGE."

You are releasing in no time. Body twitching as you ride out your high. She removes her fingers from you but Paige doesn't stop. Her tongue keeps working on your overstimulated center. Your hands come to her head as your thighs close around her head.

"Paige!" You scream but she keeps going. She doesn't care if you suffocate her - hearing your moans and tasting you has her on a whole new high she never wants to come down from.

"Paige! Ahhh!" You are now trying to pull her head from you. She is relentless. Before you know it you are on cloud 9 once again.

After your ride your second high you fall back against the bed. Paige finally removes herself and lays next to you.

"Holy shit," you say breathless.

Paige laughs and pulls you into her side.

"Babe, we are just getting started," she says and begins to kiss your shoulder.

Your relationship with Paige grows. The two of you continue your time at UConn and are now known as a couple but will always be best friends first.

The two of you walk side by side into Paige's multiple injuries - you being there every step of her recovery and keeping her sane when she feels like she is going crazy. Encouraging her to work on her mental game and not rush the healing process, knowing she wants to get back on the court as soon as possible. You keep her grounded.

Side by side when she decides to stay at UConn for a fifth year - which Geno gladly accepts and knows you would be staying on the coaching staff. He hires you full-time after you graduate but knows you will be going wherever Paige gets drafted.

Side by side when she carries the team back to the final four and then to the championship. Although if anyone were to ask you, and they did, you would say you played a major part in getting them back to the championship. Ultimately winning it all.

Side by side when Paige goes to the draft and gets drafted to the WNBA - moving to a new city and beginning life outside of Storrs.

Side by side when she asks you to marry her, with your dad's permission of course. Letting you plan the wedding of your dreams which really only included her. She watches as you plan the perfect day for both of you and always makes sure that she is okay with your decisions.

Side by side in life. When you tell people about your story, Paige tells them that the two of you have been together since before high school. She likes to say she knew you were the one for her when you walked into the gym during summer training before freshman year. This always gets you to roll your eyes, knowing she actually didn't like you until the end of freshman year but you let her tell the story her way. And you do, you always let her tell your story her way because it never ceases to amaze you how her eyes light up even brighter each time.

You look at Paige and you know. Know that there is no one else on this earth who is a better fit for you. No one who could ever love you better or be better for you than she. You know when you are side by side with her, you have nothing to fear, nothing to worry about because it's Paige. And to you, Paige is your home.

AN: WE DID IT BAN-FAM! WE DID IT! Let me know how you feel about this whole journey, I would genuinely love to know. And as always, thank you for the love and support 💙

[fallenclan]

Welcome to Fallenclan!

Start HERE!

Links:

Allegiances: Moon 0, Moon 50, Moon 100, Moon 150, Moon 200, Moon 250

Written allegiances are HERE

Territory maps are HERE and HERE

Family tree is HERE

Discord server is HERE

My toyhouse (WIP) is HERE

Tags:

#fallenart for fallenclan-specific drawings #art for all of my drawings, fallenclan included #fallen fan art for fallenclan art done by others #fallenfic for poems and fics by myself and others #fallenlore for fallenclan lore that isn't necessarily put into updates #fallenmemes for memes by myself and others #fallensprites for sprites of the cats #fallenasks for all the asks I answer

FAQ

What game is this blog based on? Clangen! It's a free, fan-run game loosely based on the Warrior Cats universe. For more information about it, head over to their tumblr, Official-Clangen

Can I trace your art for practice purposes? Sure! And as long as you tag me and give me credit, I don't mind if you post it, either :)

Do you have a preferred method for people to send in their fics? Yes I do! Submissions are open on my blog for this very purpose. Send in your fic with the title of it as the header, and the rest of it under a readmore, to make it easier for people to scroll through my blog. Either that, or post it on ao3, and send me the link!

How do I send in art/fanfic if I want to remain on anon? Submit it or send it in an ask as you normally would, and make a note for me to leave you on anon. I'll post it with credits to whatever name you want to use!

Do you allow your art to be used for other things? Profile pictures, RP, etc? As long as credit is given and it's not for profit, sure!

Did you know your bio is spelled wrong? Yes. It's a reference to a post I made when this blog was a lot younger! I was extremely tired at the time, and I didn't remember making it when I woke up, but it was funny enough that I made it my bio. Also it's true.

How do you keep the motivation for this blog? I have autism

[ropes3amthoughts]

I love Kabru so much. He’s awesome. I want him. I want him to perform surgery on me; cut me open, poke around at my insides, and stitch me back up. I want to play with his hair, lightly twist the curls around my fingers. I want to hold him. I want to go out to dinner with him, my treat.

Sometimes he makes me feel so excited that I get nauseous. Sometimes when I look at him for too long my heart starts beating worryingly fast, like an alien from the movie alien is going to bust open my chest from the inside, and I need to get up and walk around my room to calm down. He makes me feel like I’m being electrocuted but in a good way. I would walk around in a maze and search for seeds for hours on end if he told me to. I doodle him almost every time I pick up a pen or pencil. When I see posts about him I often start stimming and giggling. I would kiss him in the parking lot of a gas station when it smells bad and the sun is in my face. I would follow him around like a little puppy. I could be his little puppy. I could roll over on my back and go “woof woof.”

I think about him constantly. I love him dearly. I love him. I want him to pet my head and smile at me. I want to cook him a really tasty meal. I want to impress him. I want to lay my head in his lap. I want to buy him pointless trinkets just because they made me think of him and it would be nice to give him something. I want to make art of him out of stained glass. I want to embrace him and rub circles on his back. I want to sniff him and try to guess what shampoo he uses. I want to hold his hand. I want to lick him. I want to hold his head in my hands like a watermelon. I want to sit on the beach with him. I want to lean my face on my hand and have the most interested look on my face when I listen to what he has to say. I want to grow a plant with him, maybe a succulent.

One time I was reading a fanfic and in the fanfic it said something like “Kabru traced nonsense shapes on Laios’ skin” and I imagined Kabru doing that to me and I got so warm and my throat got all tight and I started coughing and my heart started fluttering like I was on a roller coaster two hundred feet above ground and I was just about to go down a drop and I had to put my phone down and take like a ten minute break. I once saw this fanart of Kabru with his shirt collar like pulled down so his shoulder was exposed and I was totally frozen and I kept staring at it like I was in a trance and I ranted about how crazy it made me to my friends and one of them told me I’m the reason schools have dress codes. I still think about that art often. When I saw that one official art of Kabru with long hair I felt like I was dying and my heart wouldn’t stop hammering in my chest and every time I closed my eyes I kept seeing him and when I tried to stand up my legs were shaking and my throat got all tight like I was choking.

He’s so gorgeous. He’s absolutely stunning. He’s breathtakingly handsome. He’s so interesting. What a guy. I love his passion for humanity. I love how smart he is. I love how ambitious and determined he is. I love how he always does what he thinks is right. I love the stupid little faces he makes in the small panels. There’s so much I could say about him and how he makes me feel. I could rant about him for forever but I’m just gonna stop now.

Usually when I make stuff like this I have some images that like help my rant, like I start rambling and then I add images to ramble about, but no images were needed for this one. This was fueled by love alone, no images needed. I see every image of Kabru in my heart. I will attach an image anyways because he has such a gorgeous face. He’s insanely attractive. Here is a cute image of him smiling. I love his smile.

Also I was originally going to send this to Dungeon Meshi Confessions so I wouldn’t need an image for that lol. My original plan was to send this rant (not including this paragraph and the paragraph prior to it) to the confession blog, not make it anon, then reblog it all like “Wow I totally agree with this” when it was obviously just me because I thought that would be funny, but that would take like a week for my ask to be processed and there were only like 6 new Kabru posts when I checked like every tag today so I felt compelled to share my love for Kabru immediately. Plus I feel like if people knew I was trying to do that to be funny it wouldn’t be as funny? It’s nice and easy for me to share my thoughts and feelings in my own post anyways.

After I post this I am immediately going to turn to Kabru related stuff again. Either I’ll work on my Kabru essay, work on one of my one million Kabru fanfics, draw Kabru, or read a Kabru centric fanfic. I love him so much dude. He makes me crazy. I’ve been reading this fic lately and it’s been making me so crazy. Kabru has had a home cooked meal like four times so far and I’m immensely satisfied with that. I love Kabru eating meals. I feel like there’s so many opportunities to depict meals and eating and use like food metaphors and stuff in Dungeon Meshi fan content but so few people utilize that but this fic is feeding Kabru good and it makes me happy. I love Kabru flourishing. Kabru <3

[yumeka-sxf]

Regarding scans and watermarks

Yesterday, a SxF clear file scan made by my friend @xxscarletxrosexx (who had allowed me to share the scan on my blog here) was reposted on Twitter with her watermark clearly removed. She wrote an insightful post about how, despite what many people think, it does take a good amount of work to obtain and scan rare collectibles like this. As someone who makes a lot of scans with watermarks, I want to offer my thoughts on the topic.

For those who have followed me since my blog started, you may have noticed that my watermarks have "evolved" over time. This was in response to, of course, my scans getting reposted without credit (my old watermarks were easy to crop/edit out). I know some people take issue with putting watermarks on official art because we technically didn't "create" it. But that doesn't mean time and effort wasn't put into making the scan. To me, it's similar to people who take photos of exclusive events or people who make gifs...while they didn't create the subjects of these things, they still created the presentation of it. For people who take and share exclusive photos, they spent time, effort, and money not just on going to that location and taking the photos, but posting them in a presentable way online for others to enjoy. For people who make gifs, it again takes a lot of time and effort to create, edit, and present the gifs in an attractive way on social media. In both these cases, while these people didn't draw, animate, design, etc, the subject of their photos or gifs, there was still self-imposed work and creative effort behind it, which I think deserves some recognition. It's the same with making scans...I didn't personally draw the images I scan (and I make this clear by including "scanned by..." in my watermarks) but I still made the presentation of it - the scan - which does take time and effort; I bought a Canon TS6300 scanner a while back particularly for this purpose, I often have to finagle with the books I scan to make sure they're properly flattened so the scans aren't blurry or crooked (have to redo them sometimes when this happens), and if little pieces of lint or other blemishes get in the scanner, I either have to scan them again or use photo editing software to fix them. And while I paid for all the books, posters, etc, I scan with my own money, sometimes just obtaining certain rare collectibles not only takes money, but a lot of dedication to obtain! The Twiyor chara fine graph I recently posted about is a perfect example of how much work can go into acquiring a rare item...and I have no obligation to scan the merch I get. I could just enjoy them on my own and only share quick, low-quality photos from my phone. But I like making scans because I know other people enjoy them 🙂 I also know that many people don't have the means or funds to get this kind of merch, so it's nice to let them have enjoyment from it second-hand through my scans! Sometimes I buy merch only or mostly for the purpose of making scans because I know that artwork isn't currently available in an official artbook or anywhere else.

Since I make so many scans, I just accept the fact that they will get reposted without any mention of me or my blog...which I don't mind that much since that's what the watermarks are for - they're to show people who see the scan where it came from, and if they choose to go to that site, they'll be able to find even more scans to enjoy! But if someone actually removes a watermark, it's like they so adamantly believe that the person who made the scan doesn't deserve any recognition for their time, effort, money, etc, put into it that they're going to spend their own time to remove any trace of that person from the scan...I mean, I can't say it's the most heinous act in the world, but it's disrespectful and just plain not nice. I try not to let it bother me, but it is hurtful to see someone else get recognition for something you put work into. But I just keep things in perspective and tell myself that at least I'm not an artist whose creations are getting posted all over the place without credit (I always cringe at all the uncredited fan art I see on Facebook groups and YouTube music compilations. It's so out of control 😔)

Anyway, I hope I've properly illustrated here that it does take a good amount of time and effort to make scans. I don't think I deserve as much recognition for it as an artist who actually draws the images they post, but I still think this kind of content sharing deserves some credit, even if it's just leaving a watermark intact.

[wewerebornsextuplets]

idk how but you draw in the Oso-san style so good i need to know your secret please

HAHA thank you very much!! im glad you think so :D unfortunately im not very good at explaining how i work, but ill try my best to show what i mean!!

once again this is long as hell. you know the drill at this point

to be honest, half the battle i fight with drawing in the osmt style is just. Looking at it. the ososan art style actually fluctuates pretty wildly depending on what you're looking for, whether that be the mobile games (for instance, tabimatsu and hesowars look nothing alike in terms of style despite both being the same source material), official art and merch, or even the seasons of the show itself!

using ichi as my example here since i draw him the most, but its pretty easy to play spot the difference with the varying styles. even within a specific season you can do this across episodes, especially with season 1!

when i draw, i tend to be a bit sacrilege and use references across different media; usually ill use the show [especially season 2, if only because its a bit more "uniform"] as reference for the actual features and colors/poses/etc, but i like to use hesowars to reference proportions, since they seem to be most consistent there.

SOMETHING IMPORTANT TO NOTE: theres a WEALTH of fanartists that have styles that are INCREDIBLY similar to the show, so be careful to check your sources! these artists deserve credit for their hard work, which they often don't get since their work is reposted under the guise of being official art.

once you've pinned down the exact style you'd like to emulate, and the character you're looking to draw, its really just a matter of finding references, which is pretty easy! you can scrub through different episodes for good angles/shots, or if you're going for one of the game styles the AU wiki has most of the games catalogued to my knowledge. if you're looking to draw an oc, use characters you think they would look similar to in the show. if you really wanna waste your time, though, you can always scrub through crowd scenes in the show to see if any background characters might look like what you're going for; the season 3 episode Mt. Takao comes to mind, there were a lot of cute mob characters there.

using keiko as my example here, you can see that i pulled her features from multiple different characters to get her to look right in the style. with ocs, its important to reference a number of different characters, since the likelihood of a background character being a 1:1 for your little guy is unfortunately pretty low. there WILL, however, be a lot of characters that look KIND of like them. the key is to figure out what parts go where!

to this point, most prominent ososan women have very similar stock anime girl faces with very minor differences, so if youre looking to make a cute girl oc, most of the womens' faces can be used somewhat interchangeably. if you want your cute girl oc to have a more unique face, though, the movie gave us some women with more unique faces in the form of the NEETs' old classmates! theres also no harm in referencing male characters faces in this regard. #butchswag #kiruminikuya

BUT. going back to the assumption that you're drawing a canon character, today I'll be drawing oso for my example

when you're first getting a feel for the style, tracing some of your references can actually be a really great way to acclimate yourself to the characters proportions and features. think of like when you were a kid, and would trace over pictures of pokemon or cartoon characters so you could draw them better. its basically the same principle! this was especially helpful for me when it came to eyes; they vary the most wildly of any other trait that characters have in ososan, so going over the different shapes to get a feel for each of them was very important.

when you trace, though, I recommend doing so a bit more loosely, sort of like if you're doing a photo study for anatomy; block out the basic shapes and do small markers for different features (i.e small lines to denote where the eyes start and and, distance from nose to mouth, things like that), and from there draw the rest on your own.

after long enough you'll get a feel for the basic placement of where everything should go! the eyes and nose are undoubtedly the hardest when it comes to the sextuplets, since they shift around a LOT between games/seasons/etc. so don't feel bad if you have a hard time with that, since there isnt really a "right" answer with how frequently it changes. i still fuck it up all the time myself!

as for some basic tips, heres some stuff i try to keep in mind when drawing them that just helps the finished product look a bit nicer!

when drawing the hair + fringe line, its important to swoop it downwards a little bit; the flat across look Can work, but if you're not careful you risk showing the tops of their eyes, which is um. ew! ick! nast!

when a matsu is facing forward, their hair will usually tend towards one direction to keep the silhouette. in most screenshots i saw, the bowl cut points left! that said, dont be afraid to point rightwards if its better for your specific drawing!

and lastly: USE THE LIQUIFY TOOL. LIBERALLY. i am not joking when i say this has saved my ass so many times, its hard to get the placement right on the facial features and even harder to get everything to LOOK good, so if its available to you i HIGHLY suggest just squishing everything around with a liquify tool until it looks right. you can always go back and correct the blurry lines. its really a life saver

BUT YEAH! i dont know if this was very helpful but i hope you're at least able to gain something from it :-))

[chlobody]

What are some things to consider when it comes to taking nude photos in the wild like that? What are some safety tips and general dos and don'ts of the whole thing? It's something i wonder a lot since you do such complicated poses in abandoned places, and because i'm also interested in doing this kind of thing.

!! for those wanting to learn more about my world and taking photos in ‘riskier’ locations !! :

I have previous posts discussing how I go about my nude art shoots, but here’s an official “how-to” guide.

Some things to consider :

- remember that you are not guaranteed privacy in a public place (a hiking trail, an abandoned building, a beach, etc.) unless otherwise arranged. Taking nude shots in an epic location sometimes involves waiting people out or just aborting the mission.

- While urbex exploring in particular, to shoot in abandoned buildings, obviously always look for any signs of people around. You have no idea who you might encounter in those places, so be on your highest alert and evacuate as soon as you feel like you may be intruding on somebody or encountering a bad situation. Realize that if you do venture into ‘no trespassing’ areas, this is fully at your own risk.

- Weekends are notoriously more busy everywhere. It’s easiest for a working individual to go out and shoot on weekends, but remember that this will increase your chances of higher traffic.

- Sunrise/early mornings and weekdays are key for nude shots in more popular trails/areas!

SAFETY TIPS :

- ALWAYS shoot with a photographer you feel 100% comfortable and safe with. If they are someone close to you, great! If you’re reaching out to potential new photographers to shoot with - it is vital get recommendations/vouches and ask if you can bring a friend/significant other with you to the shoot. You can also suggest discussing details over the phone, for a better read of the “vibe”. If you feel off about something, CANCEL! And never, ever feel bad for cancelling while also knowing how to respect people’s time.

- Bring extra clothes, an easy-to-slip-on dress/coverup and other basic model essentials. Having something to cover up with quickly is key. Even if it’s a big towel or something.

- Have someone as a lookout, while also being aware as you pose. If you see or hear someone, immediately cover up. No hesitations. It’s not worth someone coming across you who does not want to see!

There are so many more fine details to making a great nude shoot happen out in nature, urbex, etc, but these are the highlights. Each area has its own specifics of where to park your car, how to avoid people, and more. That’s truly something you figure out and get better and better at as time goes on! Number 1 priority is respecting the humans you share this beautiful Earth with, while also respecting Mother Nature around you. Leave no trace!! ☮️

[s4r1n-g4s]

Fallen Angel Emily design for an AU I'm making! It'll also be on another blog, though. Given that I can't wait to see more of Sera's machiavellian side in the actual show, it'll have a very strong presence in the AU. Emily overhears something nasty and exposes Sera's lies, and falls to Hell for her betrayal. Not before Sera and Lute have her... physically punished before then. It was a quiet falling, no court involved. Some questions would arise if yet ANOTHER joy bringer fell, after all.

So here's my take on what Emily would look like. She's been through a lot, and she's staying optimistic, despite all the pain. She's also starting to mature now, so her hair looks more like feathers now. She's even questioning if Alastor can be redeemed. She will be s4r1nified soon, I was just lazy and wanted to see what she looked like in the hazbin hotel art style! (I traced it over the official Emily art. Keep that in mind.)

[roodles03]

Genderbent Alastor: Alastrina (Render Edit)

I originally was just gonna trace over the official Alastor render and figure out his shape breakdown to learn to draw him... but then I decided to try and edit the render and make a genderbent version of him. So behold. Female Alastor. I think Alastrina is a good name for her.

I actually referenced the female design from a drawing Viv was requested to make in a old livestream.

Since Alastor is so stuck in his time, if he was female, Alastrina would adhere to the female fasion of the time. A lot of people who make genderbent Alastors tend to oversexualize her or make her design too similar to the male version considering their time of livinf. Considering Al's personality, neither of those design ideas fit him. It's why I really enjoy Viv's concept of female Alastor appearing to adhere to the women's fashion of the time.

I really tried to encorperate the vibe of the 1930s into the full design I made since Viv's cuts off at the knees. I also added some extra stuff to make it more 1930s style.

Here is a side by side.

Also, yes, I did actually do the shape breakdown. I did it for both Alastor and Alastrina

Shape breakdowns are something I learned about in animation school and I've learned they're very helpful for learning to draw new characters you've haven't drawn before. Also, these shape breakdowns of Alastor in particular are very good at showing the difference between masculine and feminine designs.

Disclaimer: This is a render EDIT. NOT a redraw. I used Alastor's render as a base and worked off of that. Obviously it is traced over in some areas. (Mainly the face, head, and limbs) Because that's the point of an edit. Think of it as a screenshot edit or one of those old timey diveant art bases. Its the same thing. Outside of the changes I made, I DO NOT claim this as my own drawing. It is simply an edit.

Bonus: Free to use (with credit) Transparent PNG of Alastrina

[blood-injections]

Ooookay killjoy suitehearts masterpost here we go, been putting this together for a while now since everyone started posting their suitehearts stuff..

So I kinda have two versions of stories for them, i mean thats the great thing about writing and headcanons is that they can varie from story to story but anyway! this is like their main story and what I'll write if I ever get to writing a story focused on them, and varients of it will be similar with some like little changes if theyre more like background characters in something. But the two versions rn are just this main one and a slightly differing one for some other stuff in my drafts bc this main one is focused in the city bc the suitehearts are just such an underground rebel crew to me versus loud and proud killjoys in the desert, while the variation story is one where they are in the desert, or at least theyre like split between the city and desert, you'll see.

Some like basics before I get into their individual stuff, yeah they have, well mostly have their crazy looks, they're a crew of theater kids lol, not really they just have a sense of whimsy. I'll post art of each of my designs for them eventually their outfits arent as crazy because they have to like be able to fight and run and shit in them, but they stick with the colors and facepaint, because facepaint throws off facial recognition scanners so that the cameras cant track them, so they might as well have fun with it, and they turn it into part of their killjoyesque personas, the facepaint becomes them, marks them as crew and their personas kind of become characters in urban legends that everyone in the citys heard of.

ANYWAY

Dr. Benzedrine

Dr. Benzedrine? More like Mr. Medical Malpractice. Kidding. Mostly. He grew up in a wealthy family with parents that were good citizens and he always wanted to be a scientist or a doctor, to help people, and he was smart and they had money, so he was able to get into school and be just that. To learn all about science and medications and surgery and over the years he moved up the ranks, until he was one of the best surgeons in the city, and one thing about doctors, especially surgeons is that they have to be clear minded, not drugged up and foggy headed. And one thing about being good, about being a respected professional? Its like being an exterminator, you're never off the hook but the people in charge? They dont care as much about the state of your head, as long as you're loyal. So Benzedrine has benefits, and one of them is getting clean, of the decidedly mind altering stuff at least. But with clarity of mind for the first time in his life comes horrifying realization, because as a respected surgeon, he sees shit, because hes working in places that screams echo down the halls of and he can just tell that somethings wrong. He snoops and learns of re-education and of what happens to captured killjoys, interrogations and experiments and those are people and hes sickened. The more he digs the more he learns and the more he develops an intense hatred for better living and maybe he starts.. doing experiments of his own. Beause he works on a lot of respected folks, a lot of higher ups. He never botches a surgery but he starts messing with things, fucks with something while hes at the operating table, something that can't be traced back to him but that'll take the patient out in say, a couple months.

He's never disgusted by what hes doing, only finds pride in it, and maybe his hatred has twisted him but he likes himself better that way. The officials catch him snooping, though, eventually, but luckily they don't expect a thing, especially not when hes grown a master at lying. Because he's a respected doctor that has in their minds proven himself loyal, and when he bullshits his way through them finding him snooping about the lower levels of the hospital, they're nothing but happy at the fact he's grown curious about re-education, in fact they show him around, tell him all about it, their words are all propaganda and lies about how they're helping the people there, of course, but he smiles and nods along and makes comments like he agrees wholeheartedly. They say if hes interested in helping these people too, they can get him a position. He asks of he can still be the top surgeon if he takes up this position too and they say of course! As long as he doesn't overwork himself theyd be glad to have him assert himself in different fields of research.

So, he starts working with the prisoners. Because thats what they are. He sees them come in beaten up and hissing and spitting and he gets to see them grow complacent as they forget their whole lives in favor of some made up sob story and how theyll be so much happier once they're introduced back into society after their treatments. They'll only go on to be sanitation workers or office nuts at best, maybe scarecrows if they seem smart, but half of them will probably be plagued with nightmares once thyre released, broken memories trying to break through the chemical haze. They'll relapse, snap, do something drastic and they'll either be dracced or sent right back here to repeat the process all over again. Re-education isn't a complete fix, a guarantee of normalcy. It'll never be, not as long as they're just traumatizing people and praying they stay comatose long enough to get work done.

Hes there when a new batch of them come in, delinquents from the rebel underground, he learns, which flips his world upside down, theres a rebel underground? And they're apparently dangerous enough to be treated like captured killjoys. He sees these new patients come in in bonds, theres five of them captued, some silent and glaring and the others screaming until theres a needle shoved in their neck.

His new position is that of a twisted sort o psychiatrist, they gave him a whole slideshow to get ready for it. It told him to get in their heads, learn the secrets that interrogations couldnt get out and replace them with better living propaganda, until theyre nothing but smiling citizens ready to be let back into society. It's fucking brainwashing, nothing but, he fucking hates it. But they trusted him to do it and now hes here, but since he's here maybe he can help. Not brainwash these people, but help them, and if theyre really part of a rebellion, maybe if he helps them get out they'll take him with them and he can help people that probably actually need it, not just rich assholes from the center city.

Thats his plan, and it works, it takes a while to get the patients to trust him but once they do, they all get out. Sandman, Crab, and Donnie were all part of that group and its how the four meet and bond and start becoming a crew. Dr Benzedrine picks his name and quickly becomes a very valued member of the resistance because theres medics, but no professionals, let alone surgeons.

Mr. Sandman

Street kid, his parents were ritalin rats that stirred up too much trouble and got dracced when he was pretty young. He was hiding under a bed when it happened and Better Living didn't find him, but they didn't bother looking because he was a poor autistic little kid that they saw no use in. So they left him to his empty shitty little apartment in the slums. They never kicked him out, so hes luckier than most that he still had a place to sleep, but once he ran out of food he had to head to the streets, figure out how to either get food or money to survive. He learned and he grew up dealing illegal merchandise, not as low as you could stoop, but pretty low, low enough that if you're busted you could get dracced. But it kept him just afloat enough to not starve.

Illegal merchandise is stuff like outlawed music and media, cds he burned himself off the originals, cassettes, vhs. Just whatever he could get his hands on. And when he could get a signal, he'd play the stuff over the old radio equipment in his basement, making sure to scramble where the signature was coming from, because he'd definitely be dracced if they found out he was putting that stuff on air. Not like it got out of the city, bli has shit that doesn't let any signals in or out, but once in a very rare while, he'll get some faint killjoy frequencies and record whatever he can onto cassettes.

But even though he was dealing in secret and even though he didn't want to be a cog in the machine, even though he wanted to be one of those juvie halls, the rebels on the streets that you can hear hollaring at night, throwing bricks at scarecrows and running off before facial recognition gets them, he strived to get into the Better Living Academy, because it hasn't crosed his mind that he might not be stuck in battery city yet, like most people that rebel, he doesn't want to be on his streets his whole life, so he tries getting in to learn anything, even to get some shitty cubicle job, as long as it means maybe he could actually afford more than the shit slum slop he pawns for. But at he end of the day, he isn't on his pills and he knows they won't like that if they find out, and they keep turning him away anyway for his temperment, for his oddities, because he's still autistic and the bright lights and white expanse of bli spaces make his head scream and he just doesn't get half the questions they ask him and if he has his own questions, they dont explain things furthur for him.

So he gives up on that plan, whatever, at least he's still got his shit to deal out, at least he isnt drugged up like everyone else he saw in the screening rooms for the academy, all empty in the head. He can think, at least. And he has his music, he likes music.

Then he meets Horseshoe Crab, a really weird fellow who takes most of his stock for a hefty handful of carbons that'll get him along for a couple weeks, and the guys so nice he's suspicious, until their deal is interrupted by an ambush, a patrol scarecrows that must've gotten a tip about them, and Horseshoe pulls out a fucking gun, shoots the two closest ones and takes sandmans arm and has him run. At that sandmans convinced the guys not nice at all, hes just fucking crazy, but he runs away after him anyway because the guy just shot two fucking crows, he knows he'll probably live to see morning of he sticks with him. Turns out Horseshoes a juvie hall, like an actual one, not the brash gangs of kids that run around and say they are, actual juvie halls are untraceable, a solid underground, a real rebellion, well hidden from Better Livings watchful eye, its something you have to be smart enough to find and brave enough to join. And sandmans thrust right into the center of it, just a street dealer that followed a crazy guy with a gun that pulled him into a safehouse in the slums that was down a maze of dark alleys, and theres so much illegal shit inside he kind of wants to call it in just for the hefty reward he could get, but he also kind of wants to drop to his knees and worship it all. Theres books, weapons, color. And a few rough looking people that at their sudden entrance, scan them and one goes. "Dammit, Crab."

Long story short, they're members of the fucking rebellion and theres a short but terrifying debate of whether or not to shoot him, but Horseshoe defends him and it turns out the rebellion likes people that risk their lives to deal rock and roll, because he basically gets an invitation. And well, that was his real dream, the one hes had since he was a little kid, wanting to be those unapologetic rebels in the street messing with bli for shits and giggles. This is obviously more than that, but still. So he accepts, and hes thrust into the center of it all. He has to prove he can be trusted by going on so many missions or passing along packages and illegal goods, but once he's proved hes no rat hes showed the base, how to get into the rebellion underground. Its a scattered maze of random apartments that are safehouses, and then the actual underground shit, the tunnels and whole rooms and shit, the stuff from what Battery City used to be that bli just built over and forgot about.

He and Horseshoe become quick friends and he learns that crabs not just a juvie hall but a zonerunner, that he risks his life sneaking in and out of the city to deliver news and supplies to the killjoys out in the desert and vise versa. Sandman turns out to be quite useful, because hes good with computers and especially, radio equipment, since he grew up with that stuff in his basement and copying all that music and playing some over the frequencies when he could, and he fixes up their old shit and becomes the radio operator of the underground rebellion, the voice of the voiceless. He's basically the cherri cola of battery city, as in hes given the task of feeding news to the juvie halls on the streets and so he's always on the air and monolauging what is just weird poetry or random stories to any untrained ears, but while cherri colas thing is actualy just poetry, sandmans is actually speaking entirely in code that only juvie halls will be able to pick apart, because PAX AM isn't some far off station in the zones like WKIL, no, it broadcasts from inside the walls of battery city and better living could always be listening in. Did I make this his thing entirely to play into the lyric all the walls lean in to listen? Maybe.

Hes actually known as Mr Sandman now, took the codename when he became their radio operator, but the suitehearts aren't a thing yet, no, thats still a long way off. Benzedrine isn't even part of the rebellion yet. He also gets his distinct style, encuraged by the juvie halls who just like killjoys push for everyone to be an individual and fuck the citys mandates, so goth gnc bitch it is. The longer hes in the underground the more disconnected from gender he gets.

There's a raid to the underground, someone must have tipped bli off. A solid blow is dealt to the rebellion in the form of a good number of juvie halls being captured, sandman one of them. Now being some low level dealer can get you dracced, but being a real juvie hall gets you something much worse, re-education, because you have to be smart to be a rebel and have survived this long, and bli can use those smarts, as long as they tear you down to a blank slate first. Thats what re-education is, picking you apart piece by piece, drugging you up and pouring propaganda and altered history down your throat until youre a 'functioning member of society'

He's assumed dead or beyond saving from the mindfuck of re-education by the remaining rebellion, who after this bust has to move base to a different part of the city. But about six months after he was taken and the radio went silent, his voice mysteriously reappears, speaking in code about the old base, where the escaped suitehearts went back to and found abandoned as they expected it to be, but had hopes of scrounging old supplies or this, broadcasting their return.

The juvie halls find them and bring them and the radio equipment to the new base, and Mr Sandman is officially the voice of the voiceless again, now with a crew.

Eventually they get fancy tech or an antennae or something thats just strong enough to get a signal out to the zones, and theres always been a slow feed of news between the killjoys and the juvie halls via zonerunners, and the cnnectiom can still be stratchy, but now on the good days Sandman can talk directly to doctor death defying to get news out to the zones and vice versa.

Horseshoe Crab

The only sand pup of the suitehearts, grew in the zones with his dad, who was in the helium wars, but he was dusted when Crab was about eight and he went right to gravel gerties, where he stayed until he joined a group of the older kids when they left gertie to go on their own, and let him tag along even if he was the youngest of them by far. They were all crash queens and glitter brains and he put up with them for a while, but eventually drifted off on his own, and was sixteen when he forst got hired by Tommy to meet with some runners in zone one when they cane outta the walls and to help them get their supplies back to his shop. These jobs always paid well, with either his share of supplies or a handful of carbons, so he kept doing them and eventually tagged along with the runners to go in-city to the rebels there. He liked it there, oddly enough, liked meeting so many different types of rebels, because killjoys are.. killjoys. Theyre all gearheads and glitterbrains but juvie halls tend to be more serious while still having fun. They understand the risk of what they do. Killjoys are just kids with guns, they have growing up to do or things to lose before theyre level headed enoughfor Crab to feel lile he gets them.

So it becomes his thing, zonerunning, getting supplies out to Tommy's and news into the city and vise versa, he makes friends in the underground and eventually meets sandman, then gets caught with him and meets the others too. He isnt around all the time, still does runs, and takes Benzedrine in and out with him if theres someone in the zones that desperately needs a real doctor.

Donnie the Catcher

Hell of an engineer, even figures out robotics, he grew up working in a garage in the neon district, and as he got older, started helping out androids that needed repairs in secret. Its looked down upon to help androids, simce theyre not human and not seen as human, and thats what their service hubs are for, to request repairs, but he knows theres no real help there, not if they're an older model or anything other than some high ups customized pornodroid. Most droids just end up recycled in the incinerators or rusting in the streets, so he does what he can to help when they start falling apart.

He doesn't agree with bli, with how he treats these people, and when a service droid named Jenny that he's helped a handful of times invites him to the underground, because droids can be juvie halls too, theyve gotta be fukin brave to be, because where human juvie halls will be reducated or dracced, rebelling droids will just be shot for going against their programming. Donnie tells Jenny he has to stay and support his family at the garage, but if he can help out he'd be glad to as long as he can get back to the garage at the end of the day. Thats how he becomes a juvie hall. One day down the line he heads to the base and he was there for maybe a half hour when the raid happened and he was captured with the others. He was newer than sandman and crab and had never really crossed paths with them since he didnt spend a whole lot of time in the underground, so hes meeting them for the first time when theyre brought in for re-education. He was one of the ones that stayed quiet and glared, mostly worried about Jenny, that they were there and maybe caught in the raid, becaue she may be all metal but they totally kissed a couple times.

When they all escape he becomes a full time resident in the underground, knowing he can never go back to the garage a fugitive. But not seeing his family is better than the alternative of having been reducated and torn apart at the seams. Besides, once he's got the suitehearts, they're all inseparable.

That's it, once they're a crew, all their experiences and skills combined, they're a unique group for sure. Sandman and Crab already have their own looks and weird relstionships with gender, but Donnie and Benz have never put much thought into the individuality stuff, Benz a slave to Better Living his whole life and Donnie focused on working and surviving. Eventually they find their weird styles, colors theyre fond of as a fuck you to bli, and then the facepaint, it marks them as a crew and as people ready to fight for their cause. Anyway what if I said Donnie transfem she/he(and yes. rocking the beard) :3

------

As for the second version, its mostly the same, its just like.. the zones version for stories where they know they fab four. They're all younger and they're basically split between the city and the zones. Their backstories are pretty much the same except Benzedrine got out before he was even really a surgeon, hes still a damn good doctor though, and Sandman left to be a killjoy instead of sticking around the underground. Crabs still a zonerunner that gets Benz in and out to help people and when hes in the desert he bunks with sandman in his concession stand turned weird little trailer in the outskirts of zone two. And Donnies zoneborn too instead of Mrs androidfucker in the city, shes Sandman's good friend and mechanic when he gets into racing at the crash track. They're all good friends and still very much a crew, theyre based out of he zones, Benz too, theyre just still a bit spread out at times when someone in the underground needs help.

Ugh man is there anything missing idk well if there is I guess I can add it later. Okay the end 👍

[quohotos]

I present to you, my Magnum Opus. The Underland Chronicles rendered in the style of an early 2000s flash based point and click adventure game (the MNOG)

I have spent so long on this. Inkscape doesn't log total project time the way Krita does, but it's the most time I've spent on any single piece of vector art. Even then there's still a million things I want to go in and change but... aaaaaa you have to cut it off somewhere. I have been copy pasting rats for hours, and don't even get me started on the shadows. The shadows look good, they are not physically accurate. I tried.

Here are some bonus features!

No text overlay. Clean if you want to print it or make it a desktop background.

Close up on Solovet and Ajax I've never actually drawn Solovet, or any underlanders really. I definitely am phoning it in by framing her from behind. When it came to designing what kind of armor they'd wear I took inspiration from both Greek and Roman designs. Ajax was originally much more saturated red until @paksenarrion-dorthansdotter corrected me. The books describe him as dried blood colored. (please don't look too close at the rats they don't hold up to scrutiny)

Close up on Ripred. He looks just a little bit small and fat in this one, but that's just because he's slouching. When he stands up it all stays in his hips and ass. I always draw Ripred like he appeared on my cover of Code of Claw. The scar on his face isn't really visible from this angle because it cuts left to right and he's looking left.

Lastly, here's Gregor and Ares. There is an official design for his armor as seen on the cover of my copy of Code of Claw. I redesigned it because I thought that version looked kinda pants, tbh. Little goofy and hard to take seriously.

The great thing about vector art is you can zoom in and obsess over tiny little details that end up only being like 4 pixels wide in the final export. Case in point, these rando flyers. Such minute detail that gets flattened out to a single pixel in some cases.

Sidenote: I always imagined the flyers as more microbat inspired, which is why I draw them with tails... but these ones end up looking very flying fox-like and have also some megabat proportions. This isn't really an intentional artistic choice, it's just a compromise I had to strike to make them look decent. I need to practice drawing microbats more.

Oh well. The author isn't that descriptive about their proportions so I guess it's up to interpretation.

Lastly, here's the original sketch that I traced over. A lot of features ultimately got cut, as well as the dimensions to the side being changed. Solovet originally was going to have a braid but then I remembered that line from the first book where Luxa explains that you have to cut your hair to go to war. Ripred also looked a lot more teddy bear like in the sketch, so I ended up not even tracing him. Bane was a redraw, and I actually did trace part of Ajax and then just frehanded the rest.

If anyone is reading this far and hasn't read the underland Chronicles, now is a great time to go to your local library and pick it up. These books slap and this tiny community would love to suffer our brainrot welcome you into our fold.

Fly You High

[thesoulspulse]

How you draw hands? Just curious, they are very well done

Thank you! I really appreciate the compliment!

Now to answer your question I've actually always been pretty good at drawing hands tbh even as a kid, but it took me a while to get used to the more simplified art style of Danny Phantom since I'm used to drawing in more of an anime-like art style that's heavily inspired by Clamp Manga such as Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles. I used to doodle or trace hand poses I liked all the time when I was younger to practice too. I'd show you an example but I have like, thousands of scans of my old art/doodles so it'd take forever to find one of them so instead here's some examples of the art from this manga series:

Anyways, basically how I did it is I took screenshots of various body poses from the show to use as a reference and then after a while I learned to recognize the subtle differences between the hands drawn for female characters and male characters. At first I kept my version of the art style pretty sharp and blocky just like in the show but eventually I started softening the edges and adapted my drawings until it became a lot more comfortable to do. And here you can see the literal progression of my take on the Danny Phantom style over time going from left to right:

Of course, I did look up a lot of official character design references too like this one:

Hope that answers your question anon!

[veinsfullofstars]

hey just wondering, how do you draw daroach? i wanna figure him out for myself but dont feel like i get down how he looks well enough. thanks for the help if you have any, if not then thanks for just answering

Thank you for the question! And, yeah, I totally get it - that rat can be a nightmare to draw sometimes, haha. I definitely struggled with him a lot at first (you can kinda tell if you compare my earlier works to my recent ones). I think it’s because so much of him is obscured by his outfit in official art? The way the brim of his hat dips over his face or how his cape likes to defy physics - all in service of a cooler silhouette, sure, but taking away a lot of readability and foundation to work from in the process. I’ll try to offer some tips that work for me (though I’m hardly an expert on this, and teaching's not exactly my strong suit, so please bear with me if things get muddled, haha).

The main piece of advice I can give is gather and study as much reference as you can. Official art, concept art, promotional stuff, sprite sheets - whatever you can find, just grab ‘em and put ‘em somewhere you can easily pull up when you’re drawing. I get most of mine from Wikirby, Spriter’s Resource, and official sites like the Kirby JP Twitter, as well as screenshots taken directly from the games (a great way to get in-motion poses and back views, I’ve found). Here’s what my ref sheet for Daroach looks like (I also have a separate one for color swatches):

Kind of a mess, yeah, but very worth it, I assure you. The more visuals you have to work off of, the easier it will be to detect consistencies in design. Which brings me to my next point: shapes!

Most Kirby characters are, at their core, just a buncha simple shapes. It can be hard to tell sometimes when they wear clothes (like with our rat buddy here), but they still have similar foundations of circles and other rounded features. A way I've found that helps with this is to try redlining (that is, take a piece of reference and trace over it for the purpose of study, learning where lines connect, how silhouettes look, how different parts overlap, what shapes are used, etc.). Here’s an example:

This is a great way to find those design consistencies I mentioned before. I did these a bit messy for a better sense of movement (and ‘cause I’m practiced enough to sketch a little quicker), but you can always start slower and cleaner if it helps you see the shapes and layers more clearly. You can even do them multiple times to familiarize yourself with the design and eventually try copying them without tracing, like doing gesture drawings or life studies.

In Daroach, I’ve found that his head isn’t a perfect circle shape, but more like a rounded diamond, with his ears connecting at or just above the “points” on the sides. His body is a bit smaller than his head, and his snout smaller still, each having sort of a teardrop-like shape. His eyes are bigger than I expected them to be, half circles tilted down slightly, often cut off by his snout and hat to create a shaper angle (meant to make him look more intimidating perhaps?). His ears are taller than his hat, though they can tilt back to look shorter. There are also a lot of arcs and triangles present in his design, especially in his cape when it sits across his form or flares out, and the brim of his hat pointing down from just past his ears to right over his snout. Also, unlike many Kirby characters, he does in fact have a neck - it's just hidden behind his collar and bell most of the time (don't ask me why I spent so long verifying this, no I don't have ulterior motives, don't look at me).

Of course, these observations aren’t set in stone. Kirby characters rarely stay perfectly on-model (see Dedede for proof of that), and Daroach is clearly no exception. I mean, just look at these official pieces (all collected from Wikirby):

Even the folks at HAL Labs are not immune to style inconsistency. And that’s not a bad thing! We love a little personal flair in this house. There’s nothing wrong with altering the design a bit to fit your own style - in fact, it’ll probably happen naturally the more you practice, especially once you’re comfortable enough to work without a guide. Here’s some studies I did recently, no tracing, just observation (with different colors used to help me figure out layering):

I’ve seen other folks take their own designs even further than this, adding more fur or sharper shapes or even realistic rat features to our favorite thief. Nothing like stretching those creative muscles once you’ve got the basics down! On that note, don’t be afraid to be inspired by unofficial sources as well. If an artist you like draws Daroach (or any character) in a way you find appealing, ask yourself what it is you like about it, study it as you study official works, and find ways to incorporate elements of that into your own art - “steal like an artist” as the saying goes.

Another thing I recommend for Daroach specifically is studying how real top hats and capes look, especially from various angles and poses in motion. I find it helps to see exactly how fabric sits on a figure or what sides show at different positions. It might seem weird to use human reference for a cartoon rat, and it might take some finagling to get proportions right, but it’s surprisingly effective. I do this with fighting and athletic poses all the time to help figure out weight distribution and line of action. Don’t be afraid to expand your art repertoire into other fields - you never know when it might come in handy!

And, of course, the key thing to hammer home here is practice, practice, practice! Do studies, do gestures, draw with and without references, build muscle memory, do sketches you show to no one, draw memes, draw angst, take your time, fill pages with messy doodles or just drop one in a corner and call it a day. The more you draw this smarmy rat, the better you’ll get. That’s the long and short of it with any skill, creative or otherwise. You gotta try in order to get good, you gotta make mistakes in order to improve, you gotta be kind to yourself in order to do what you love.

Anyway, I think that’s all I got for now. Forgive me if this got a bit rambly or incoherent - I have trouble putting my thought process in words sometimes, haha. I sincerely hope this helps, and I wish you the best of luck with your own future rat-creating endeavors!

Sketch started and finished 06/14/24.

[chronotsr]

No. 4 - D1, Descent into the Depths of the Earth (August 1978)

Author(s): Gary Gygax Artist(s): David C. Sutherland III (Cover), David A. Trampier Level range: Average of 10, preferrably party size 7+ players Theme: Underground exploration Major re-releases: D1-2 Descent into the Depths of the Earth, GDQ1-7 Queen of the Spiders

Wait, really? This adventure has never gotten an official adaptation after 1e? That feels really weird. Granted Queen of Spiders in particular would absolutely work with 2e, but, wow. Is there a reason for that?

Ahh, 1e cover art. Looks like hot fucking garbage in the best way. Well, at least it's not a trace? You may be aware that early DND had a bit of an art theft problem (mostly stealing off of comic covers), but I don't actually have a list of all the known cases -- finding art credits at all is enough hassle as is without tracking down which paintings are also stolen. The usual suspect is "Greg Bell" and if you want to look this up the word you need to google is "Swipes", not traces. Just, be aware that's a thing going forward.

We start off on a weak footing: a light retcon. The ending of G3 didn't really imply that the drow had an escape route to the underdark in the Hall, at least not going off the map, but the text of D1 does. It didn't really even have a reason to pursue any drow into the, well it's not called the Underdark yet. In fact, it's going to be a hot minute til then, it'll receive that name in '86 from a not particularly liked supplement that got pumped out during the TSR Money Issues era. So for now, it's just The Depths. G1-3 were highly enclosed dungeons, D1 is a wilderness hexcrawl situation. Which is kinda strange, since like the G series, the D series was a tournament module. The answer to this conundrum, is that it isn't a conundrum, because only D2-D3 were used at GenCon XI, as well as an alternate Q1 that never was. Shame! The Lolth egg raid sounds cool.

A big hexcrawl, in fact! It's almost weird to me that D1 is the middle of a sequence at such a high level, rather than the beginning of a sequence at a low level, simply because there's so much stuff? Hexcrawls aren't my jam (admittedly I've only played in one ever, but I have Forever GM syndrome very hard so maybe one day that'll be fixed…) so it's hard to not see something this huge and go "wow this must be totally overwhelming to run". But we will press on dauntlessly!

We get some guidance on how to run this, including to really sell the "spooky cave" vibes. Gary is one again strangely invested in the importance of caving itself, but here it feels a bit more appropriate than it did in G2. Happily, shockingly, excellently: there IS a way to secure the Drow's favor from the word jump! Wiping out the Mind Flayer camp will have a, not 100% but extremely high chance of the drow FINALLY leaving you alone. Yay! And included in the module are some bonus cave battlemaps in case you need to random encounter in a cave. Also yay! Actually, in general in this introductory section Gary is generally sending out good game design vibes, going to great trouble to mention "if they're being careful, don't fuck them over" and "just straight up tell them you can't teleport very far down here" and "make sure you tidy up this framework into a real adventure". All very good signs!

The artwork is, broadly, much cooler than it has been up to this point. Which is good, because we're getting a whole lot of random tables here. They do a nice thing in this section, where they give 'purposes' to a lot of the random encounters, not full-on spark tables but at least knowing that the ghouls serve the drow is a very handy "why are they here?" to know.

The adventure lightly, reasonably, railroads you into your first encounter -- a checkpoint. It's a pretty rote fight, there are two factions but they can't really be posed against one another in any obvious way. The sub boss has a faerie fire grenade, and the big boss has a cloak that lets you turn into a lurker to fly away in a pinch. It's lightly teased that they worship Lolth here. But otherwise it's mostly just "welcome to the underdark motherfucker!"

There's a brief illithid encounter, which is likewise rote. Chop em' up and move on.

Finally, you have your dungeon-dungeon, which is a trog warren. It's mostly just Some Drow and Some Trogs, and it almost feels obligatory? It's got that "bunch of random caves" vibe that I do not like in dungeons. B1 and 2 will both end up doing this. But among the funny things is:

The first appearance of a death lance (drains d4 levels) on some bad motherufcker drow fighter lady

The medal you can negotiate from the drow can also just be looted

A lich is just, kind of taking a nap. the cheeky little fucker has put a magic mouth on basically everything everywhere, so you're flooded with magic aura if you think you're going to see shit coming. He's got some really neat shit, like a portable hole, but unfortunately his non-magic valuables are extremely cursed. Figures.

Sometimes I forget that ghouls and ghasts are sentient and intelligent, since I have had it so trained in my mind that ghouls are essentially smart zombies rather than people in any meaningful sense, but not so in ADND land! These ghouls are trying to ditch the drow they serve, which, understandable.

Thing I only learned now: ADND had many, many sphinxes. Andro (big tough and good), crio (smaller, dumber), gyno (smaller, a little meaner, classical sphinx behaviors including riddles), and hieraco (evil, vicious, and animalbrained). Ours here is the hieracosphinx, which is a pet of some drow lady.

Hopefully we can agree that old timey bugbears were silly little guys. I don't buy that they're evil, they're too silly! And yawn the usual lady monster / child monster dilemma is here, how droll. Your party picked a side 30 sessions ago and now it's just procedural.

Apparently the dark elves and trogdolytes practice mutual aid with one another, though Gary specifies it's coercive so not like that put your flag down. I do think it'd be pretty funny to reveal that the trogs are Actually Really Good and have a lot to teach others about societal organization. There's not really much to say about it as-written, it's just more of that mothers/child dilemma tripe.

At the end, an actually cute little trick that I cannot fathom the party ever working out without the Drow Merchant just straight telling them: There is a room with a magical pool in it. The pool is surrounded by a ton of small gem, which if removed, magically reduce any nearby gems in size and value. But, if you toss gems into the pool, they increase in size and value. Neat! Infinite money machine!

The adventure ends with the unveiling of a new monster-people: the Jermlaine, which are basically just mean little guys who sneak around and cause trouble. Not really a threat, just extremely annoying. Your guys will wanna chop them up for being assholes, but really they're just like the most petty guy at your job. It's a weird addition, but not unwelcome. On the whole, D1 is some lovely and mildly ambitious connective tissue bridging the D series together, and I'm actually kind of fond of it now. Maybe my players will visit The Depths soon…

The adventure ends on an illustration of ya bois taking care of some trolls and shit. Thanks Dave!

[20dollarlolita]

An absurdly and unnecessarily over-the-top and thorough breakdown of using my embroidery machine for a cosplay piece.

Part 1) The piece:

Many iterations of Princess Zelda from the Legend of Zelda series has this tapestry front piece. I've looked for a technical name for this piece as well as extant examples of it from our history, and my research is indicating that it's just a fantasy piece and doesn't have a name.

So we're calling it an apron. IDK. "Heraldic apron," sounds fancy enough.

One of the things that's been a bitch through all cosplay of all time is custom textiles. Since the early days of cosplay, we've been looking for ways to handle this at home. Back when I got into cosplay and took it really seriously, Worbla hadn't been invented, there was no Friendly Plastic, Wonderflex had to be purchased in 15-yard lots, the Glowforge and home 3D printing was just a fantasy, and Cricut machines ran off cartridges and couldn't design from your computer. Also, when I was cosplaying seriously, I was a college student with no job and a $100/month allowance for food (which I spent on cosplay, mostly). We didn't do fancy shit. You know what we did?

We had fuckin' hand-traced and hand-cut stencils. Mother fuckin' freezer. Paper. Stencils. Now, this version of Zelda that 2009 Me is cosplaying up there does have a much simpler heraldic apron than Ocarina of Time Zelda does. However, since I've gotten access to embroidery machines, I've had this great need to remake this sort of concept with adult me's current budget and skill set.

Now, there's a few issues from the start about making this. The notable one is that the in-game textures for the apron do not completely line up with the official artwork. When you start looking at the 3DS remakes, they re-textured the apron, giving us yet a third canonical way that this thing might be laid out.

Obviously, the easiest thing to do is to get several references, and then to slap them next to each other and compare. I've got GIMP pulled up here, and have several versions here. I adjusted color levels until the pattern in the garment was as clear as I could make it. There's horizontal guide lines going across to divide the apron into sections. We'll call those sections thusly, top to bottom: Triforce, Eyeball, Bird, 8 Rectangles, and V.

***

This is going to be long and boring. I have my reasons for writing a long and boring post, but sadly, I'm not able to share them without becoming un-boring, thus defeating the purpose of this work.

***

I forgot to label them, so that reference image is, from left to right: N64 screenshot, 3DS screenshot, N64 character model, small inset at the bottom is 3DS, official artwork that was released alongside the N64 game, a heraldic tabard, some official rendering of the Hylian crest, and another 3DS screenshot.

Some are pretty self-explanatory, and some are more open to interpretation. Notably, let's take a look at the Bird section. The official artwork and the 3DS remake both distinctly have the Hylian Family Crest there. The N64 version has a very distinctly different bird thing.

So, I had to decide, which one do I put on my apron? I had to consider several things, but one of them was the process of how game textures from the N64 era were made. Textures for this game were very small image files, smaller than your 2009 cosplay.com forum avatar. The reference art would be made and then other people would be in charge of turning that art into a usable texture file, so there was artistic license involved in adapting that. This game was released before the Hylian crest had been used in multiple places across several games. Therefore, we can justify making the assumption that the texture artists didn't have an understanding of how important it was to keep this part the exact shape it was, and turned "stylized bird" into "stylized bird" in a way that would read clearly on screen at 45x100 pixels. We can assume this to be the case, because, when Grezzo did the 3DS remake, their texture artist used the Hylian crest instead of the OoT bird thing.

***

Sorry for all the embroidery stuff in the past few days. I've attracted the attention of a couple people online and embroidery seems to bore them, so we're doing that for a little bit until I stop being interesting.

,***

Cosplay has a spectrum of screen-accuracy to full-nonsense. In some things, you can do screen accuracy very well. Screen-Accurate Princess Leia from EpIV is pretty easy to make look good. Sometimes, you can do full nonsense pretty well, too. Princess Leia, but in if Star Wars was steampunk, also pretty easy to make look good.

Some things aren't as easy to make look good when you're doing screen-accurate. Sephiroth's hair in most of the Final Fantasy games stands up off his head by like 30% the height of his face. If you math that out, you have a wig with 5" antennas swooping up in the front. When you put that on a head, it looks silly. Do you want your Sephiroth to look silly? No? Then you need to do something about that hair.

My cosplay rule that I try to stick with is this: If you need to make a decision between what is "accurate" and what looks good, you pick what looks good. As long as the character reads as the character when you're done, it's better to look good than to be accurate.

And this is why, instead of just tracing any of these aprons in my embroidery software, I broke out a pen and drew the whole thing out.

Actually, I drew half of it out. The left half to be specific. I know that I'm going to mess with this later on my computer, and I know that I want the thing to be symmetrical, so let's save everyone (mostly me) some trouble and just do half of it.

Why was it important to me to draw it full size? Remember, that texture we're referencing is less than 100 pixel wide. The final piece is going to be full size, so there's a lot of things that just don't scale up easily. We're basically going from a texture the size of my thumb nail to something that has to be more high-def than 8K. This basically meant that I needed to redraw it from scratch to get that resolution. Lots of little details are going to have to be added, and I'm much better at adding them with a pen than I am just guessing while I'm digitizing the file to embroider.

So, I took it, pulled it into GIMP, and made some adjusting. I mirrored it so that I have both a left and a right side to work with. I changed the contrast so that I could see the lines better. I didn't like the Hylian crest that I drew so I just plopped the official SVG onto it and dragged it around until it fit.

And then, and this is kind of important, I cropped the image so that it's the exact proportions that I want the final thing to be. My whole design is in this file, and there's no outside image. This is important, because I'm going to use this as a template to trace in MySewnet, and the easiest way to get the background to behave properly is to pre-set it to the exact size you need in another program. Good thing this software isn't stupid absurdly expensive, or else the fact that you needed to do that would be really annoying.

The digitizing process:

Okay, so the first thing that I do is to make a custom hoop the size of the finished project. There's no way that I can actually stitch this out this big, because a 25" long hoop doesn't exist anywhere, but it's way easier to design all of it and then split it up than it is to design in pieces and then fit them together. I open the hoop in the digitizing software and load my template as the background.

Digitizing from a technical viewpoint is really simple: you click points all around the area you want to make a shape, and then you hit "make this thing", and then it renders the thing. You can then give that thing a different kind of fill or line. Easy.

So instead, I'm going to go into the art part. Because yes, I've already drawn this whole template, but I haven't figured out how to fill each of those shapes. This isn't like a coloring book where I can just fill a shape with color. Embroidery means that I have to pick how exactly I fill all those areas.

First up, I have the legendary Golden Triumph Forks. The Magical Eating Utensils. I wasn't super sold on how this was rendered in the official art. We can vaguely see how, in the game art, it looks a little more like a red outline with corner flourishes, rather than what we got in the artwork. I probably should have looked up some historical flourishes from time periods in world history where technology matched the apparent technology of the world of the Legend of Zelda, but I just kind of picked a random frilly shape.

The Triforce is one of the most important symbols in Zelda, so I knew that I wanted it to be a bright shape. This meant that I wanted to fill the shape with stitches in such a way that none of the purple backing is showing through. In embroidery terms, this usually means either a full pattern fill, or an applique. I picked applique, because this is an easy shape to applique. I knew from the start that I was going to use metallic tissue lamé. Lamé's great for a lot of things, but it's weak and shows creases. To avoid that, I wanted to put in a fill stitch to support the fabric and prevent damage, as well as hiding any big creases. I picked a big and open motif fill that will still show a lot of the applique fabric.

Eyeball:

So this is, specifically, the Sheikah Eye. It's an important symbol in the series. The Sheikah stick this eye on pretty much everything. However, it's not a fancy, gaudy, ostentatious symbol.

I grabbed a motif line at random from the list of motif lines, and happened to like it. It's a very heavy stem stitch that goes over each stitch 4-6 times, making a big, raised area. To make sure the eye was visible, I filled in the iris, teardrop, and eyelashes. I picked an opaque spiral fill, because it's a circle and these general shapes are circles. A while back, I bought some metallic white "iris" thread, and thought that a subtly-iridescent white would fit nicely.

Those little eyelashes at the bottom that aren't there in the art? Well, there's there in the game render juuuuust a little bit, and also they fall into "if it looks better that way, it's the correct way" mentality.

The Hylian Crest.

Fuck this thing.

All you need to know about this is two things: 1) I just traced the SVG that I found on the Zelda wiki, and 2) I didn't plan on stitching it out with black outlining. That black outline is just there to confuse my software into doing what I want.

Since this is as important as the triforce, I knew I wanted to do it in silver lamé. That means all of this is an applique. Quick tip: if you're going to be breaking a design into smaller segments, don't do any applique so big that it has to be spread over two segments.

Ask me how I know.

I originally had this filled with the same chain stitch that I used on the Triforce, but it made things look very samey and very mushy. I later switched it to a triangle-shaped spaced fill. I selected the triangle as the correct shape by clicking every shape one at a time and seeing what they looked like. Since this was going to be a running stitch on a shiny applique background, the fine details don't really matter. You actually can't see them normally, which is why I had to change the color here.

The outline there is the same stem motif that I used in the Sheikah eye. I found that it's wide enough to cover an applique edge without having to look like a satin stitch.

Squares, Triangles, and the Face Thing.

I have no idea what that face thing is supposed to be and apparently neither did anyone else on the internet. Since it just kind of looked like a scribble, I just rendered it as a scribble. I used a satin column so that it could have line weight similar to a drawing with a paint brush, and the shiny satin line would look like wet ink. Also known as phoning it in.

The triangles are filled with a contour fill that just traces the edges of the shape. I left some space between the lines so that the purple background can show through. This gives is sort of an optical illusion of movement. The outside of this was originally that same stem motif line from before, but after I stitched it out, I realized ti was too heavy. The final version had the same motif, but smaller, and with fewer repeats of the stitch.

I'm so damn proud of those fucking gold boxes. Okay, so, let's look at the design. Why are there gold boxes? What do they do? What do they mean? Do they represent the eight dungenons in the original game? Nope, because there were nine dungeons in the original game. Are they the eight sages? No, because there's seven sages. Is it what happens when you average the number of dungeons and sages out? I don't know. Anyway, they looked stupid just being little gold boxes, so I gave them blunted corners. I did another contour fill because I wanted them to lie flat on the finished apron and not draw any attention to themselves. As for the little tail, folks, I discovered a technique and I'm FULLY READY to abuse the heck out of it. So, I traced the lines with a satin column, ready to try to mess with the spacing to see if it'd lie flat with enough work. I hit "convert to tapered motif" by complete accident, and it was kind of cool. So, then, I went through the various motif options, found some cool looking scrolls, hit "fit to line" and slapped those in there. And I think that the little tails being written in some weird language I can't understand is SO COOL. I love how this part looks and I will not be taking other opinions on it at this time.

The V.

I didn't like how either of them looked in the original, so I just kind of winged it. I was getting bored at this point so I took a pattern fill that was supposed to be linked chains, and then I twisted it around until I was the least bored I could be with it. Again, I went with the smaller stem stitching on the outside.

Those little tails on the circles there are also filled with the scroll as tapered motif thing. If you go for this, don't forget to run the "delete short stitches" filter or else there'll be like 1100 unnecessary tiny stitches in your motifs. Ask me how I know.

Now, we learn by making mistakes, and the best way to make mistakes is to just jump in and wing it. On the left, we have the first version of this that I tried. On the right, we have the second version, which is the one I'm going to use. I've made a couple of adjustments to the file since that final version, so if I make it again, that'll be just a hair better.

So, for starters: backing fabric. I liked the movement and texture on this subtle dot tonal better than a solid purple, so i used that for both my test and my final project. The main drawback with using a printed tonal instead of a dyed solid is that the back of the printed fabric is still white. On some things, specifically the area around the satin stitching on the ink face thing, you can see subtle white haloing where the stitching's displaced the background. I don't like it. No one else seemed to notice or care.

I knew that I'd be doing this in my endless repositionable hoop, but I hadn't taken into account that I'd be doing it in the endless hoop sideways. The endless hoop expects you to go from top to bottom, and my design goes left to right. This means that I have to fight the fabric around the clamp of the hoop. The endless hoop also doesn't hold things as tightly as a regular hoop does. Because of the way the fabric is moved through the hoop, a fusible or sticky stabilizer has to be applied to the fabric before, instead of being hooped with the fabric. All of this meant that I just didn't get the support that I needed on the first go around. You can see this in the way that the fabric has bunched up around the 8 boxes. For the first round, I used some fusible no-show mesh stabilizer. It wasn't wide enough, so I had to cut it in chunks and apply it sideways. For the second round, I used two layers of Power Mesh (same stuff but different brand) as well as a layer of light+tacky paperless sticky tear-away. I really hate that light+tacky stuff so ti's exciting to finally use it up.

My first trial was mostly to see if I could make the endless hoop work like I wanted it to. In this trial, I learned a lot of things. I kept the computer nearby to make changes as I noticed them. When I was done, I looked at what I'd made. I didn't like all the proportions in all of the design, so I dragged some stuff around in the file. This was when I realized that the heavy stem stitch motif everywhere was looking clunky, and reduced or removed it from several places. I changed the fill of the Hylian crest to the triangular fill. shout out to anyone from That One Anonymous Message Board who made it this far in this post to try to prove how deranged I am. You've got a lot of time on your hands, don't you? I completely changed all of the instructions to tell the computer how to do the applique on the Hylian crest (which I STILL got wrong), and added some aligment stitches to help with the applique process. This was when I changed the color of the outline in the software. Ideally, you should now be able to lay the applique down as one fabric, let the machine sew the whole thing, and then trim it. This is important, because that applique spreads out over two hoopings, so it's kind of a mess. The secret to making this work is for hooping #2 (eye and top half of crest) to stitch out the eye BEFORE the applique, so that the whole fabric can be placed over the completed eye. We learn.

Once it was all combined and digitized, it's important to render all the digitized elements as stitches, and then do a bit of cleaning up.

Notably, I really needed to take those tapered motifs and run the stitch optimizer program. The stitch optimizer's job is to remove stitches that are too short to stitch out nicely. When looking at the 3d views in the software, I can't tell which of the samples is the before and which is the after. If I zoom up really close in illustration mode, I can see it, but remember that this is like a 1" wide strip of stitching. The basic rule is that any time the software wants to remove 3300 stitches and you can't see the difference in the stitch-out, you REALLY WANTED to remove those 3300 stitches. That's not 3100 stitches from all over the design, BTW. That's just 3100 stitches from that one section.

I go over my test swatch, section by section, and make sure there's nothing that I forgot to put into the software. I also just delete every jump cut and then make the software add them all back in. The program that adds cuts automatically tends to be more judicious wit them than the digitizing program is when you make the design, so it's a way to make a design stitch out a lot smoother with just two clicks.

So, once all of that is done, we can just run the design splitter program. The design splitter says it has "intelligent splitting" settings, which is an absolute joke, but I use inteligent setting anyway. It's not necessarily any better at picking where to split than a straight line is, but our eyes are trained to see straight lines. The allegedly-intelligent splitting does at least split at random points, making it harder for your eyes to pick out what's a splice and what's a continuous line.

So, in addition to "intelligently" splitting the design apart, the program adds two color blocks to each split piece. One is before the stitches, and it's four stitches long. This just does one stitch at each corner of the design area.

The second block it adds is at the end. This block stitches a corner marker at each corner in the design. In this picture, the before line is green and the after line is red. I offset them by a little bit so that you can see what's going on, but they do happen directly on top of each other.

This is important, because you're trying to lay your design out so that every section of the split design lies perfectly next to the other ones. When you re-hoop your fabric, you can step through the first four stitches. If you've placed your fabric correctly, then those stitches should perfectly touch the markers that were sewn in the previous blocks. If they don't line up, you can just re-hoop over and over and over and over until it lines up.

In theory, you can line up an entire design just using these markers and the alignment stitches. You can just keep rehooping forever until it lines up. It's great. On the other hand, if your embroidery machine has literally ANY KIND of design placement setting onboard, that can help a whole lot. The astute observer will note that, on that picture way up at the top, that machine isn't my Topaz 50. That's because the T50 has some nice basic design positioning that will let you place within a certain range, but it won't let you tilt the design if you hooped it crooked. I did the first attempt at this on my Topaz, and it was fine, but there was a lot of re-hooping. So I might have taken this to work, to do this on the machine that's a step up from mine. (While I was there, I used a sit-down Bernina longarm to "hand"-baste the stabilizer on. That's not the intended use of the machine, but if you set stitch regulation to like 1 stitch per inch, and then you just pull the fabric straight through from the side, you get perfectly straight basting lines. If you're not feeling like dedicating an entire room in your house to having a free-motion machine just to baste straight lines, most mid-tier sewing machines have a fake hand-basting setting in them somewhere). Anyway, if you don't already have a bunch of hoops from HV, you can get that kind of positioning setup on Brother and Baby Lock for much less than the cost of the machine I was working on. If doing big multi-hoop projects like this is a priority for you, ask your salespeople about machines that make this really easy.

You now also have the great trade-off: the smaller the hoop, the tighter the design will hoop, and the less stabilizer you'll need. However, the bigger the hoop, the more you can shift the design around in the machine without hitting the edge. The tighter the hoop grabs, the less stabilizer you need, but the harder it is to shift the fabric that's already being held in the hoop to get it where you need it to go.

I handled this by just fucking throwing a shit ton of fucking stabilizer at it like there was no tomorrow. There's three layers on this bad boy.

You might be saying "Why didn't you just use a heavier cut-away?" and you'd be right, except for two things. 1) if I use two lighter layers, then I can trim the stabilizer away in layers, avoiding the stabilizer showing through and 2) my store didn't have any wide fusible cut-away in stock so

Anyway, here it is, time to make it into the actual apron. I'm very excited for this project. I'll probably break out the repositionable hoop again to do a border on the outside of the completed project, but I don't know for sure exactly what that'll look like.