#and i plan on redrawing a good chunk of them

[lily-cmdier99]

070/365

[trainno4]

So this is something I just finished! I haven’t shown off one of my favorite OCs I own, Mako a ton here, but she’s really important to me…but that’s a long explanation for another day. So to cut to the chase, Mako is a very strong and very flexible person. She does a lot of intense training to keep herself in a super fit condition for intense fighting. A good chunk of her workout (later) involves yoga, an activity she straight up fell in love with. (Can you guys tell I like yoga yet?)

I draw a lot of pictures of Mako showing off her flexibility and doing yoga…maybe too much. But I still really like making drawings like that. It’s really interesting to work with, and kinda helps for anatomy practice in a way. My inspiration for this drawing came from a pose Wii Fit Trianer (who is a character I started to like a lot recently) takes when she uses an item. And I used them as a reference. She looks so graceful and elegant! That pose perfectly fits someone like Mako to me :p

I did make mistakes making this drawing though….Mako’s hand that’s not holding her foot looks super off. I kinda mistook where the thumb was meant to be by accident and…couldn’t fix it in time unfortunately. I tried to cover it up a little bit…but couldn’t totally fix it. Oh well. I was planning on drawing Mako in this specific pose again for a different outfit, so maybe I can try to redraw this, and fix up that hand while making those other drawings. We can see :p

Either way this was a very lengthy post here…sorry about that! Next time I post it’ll be short for sure. Not too crazy. It’s gonna be about Mako again. Actually…I might stick with her for a little bit. Just for a bit though. Also…I know a lot about yoga, but…I don’t know the name of the pose Mako or Wii Fit Trainer was doing here….my bad :p

[hollisofficial]

49 and 50 for the OC ask game 😎

THANK YOU DAME!!!!!!!!!!! YIPPEE

49. Which one of your OCs would most likely enjoy memes

100% cena, whos entire existence is based around a meme from jr high. hes since became an actual oc with his own serious story, but his roots still remain and i continue to only make fun of him and redraw him over memes. his seriousness can continue to live in only my head.

alternatively: geb, who, if they knew what memes were, would fucking love them.

50. Give me the good ol’ OC talk here. Talk about anything you want

UNFORTUNATE FOR YOU im going to talk abt ttt. forever.

for background: ttt and a decent chunk of other characters only fit into my (human oc) stories via a character named jeanie who can see ghosts. i know. marry sue but i am free<3

ok!! so, ttt is a ghost and hes the second oldest ghost in the story (time on earth wise). my story is set in the way future of (maybe) this world, and ttt is introduced around the time that theres a giant nuclear war and subsequent fallout. while he was alive he was a doomsday prepper which was (for the time) rightfully so. he spends about 5 years living down in a bunker eating a shit ton of shelf stable doomsday prepper stuff. as you can imagine living alone in a concrete hole for years didnt treat him very well mentally, but thats besides the point for now. it will all be erased once he becomes a ghost (and replaced with more trauma). at any rate, he ends up running out of food/water earlier than planned and has to wander out into the wasteland to try to find supplies. he doesnt last too long out there (havent decided on a time but probably a little less than a year). he gets stabbed in the remains of a walmart over a can of beans. and ends up dying.

ttt becomes a ghost! in this universe when people become ghosts its usually for a reason (think unfinished business, need to atone, or have some grander purpose type stuff) but for whatever reason t just got fucked over and wasnt actually supposed to become a ghost. his ghost-ness coincides with a time period where a lot of fucked up things are happening with the deities that are in charge of the solar system and at the time the deities that controlled things like death + fate were MIA. so all in all ttt becoming a ghost was genuinely just a glitch in the system type thing.

because of this ttt is. interesting as a ghost. unlike all other ghosts he doesnt really have an appearance. instead hes just vaguely brown/gray humanoid (ignore the ttt sign on him for now, thats not part of his appearance and i'll get to that later). additionally, t cant remember a single thing about his time as a human nor what his name is, hence the name ttt. i know what his human name is but thats secret information not in the story. most importantly to t's story is that he cant be seen by 99.9% of other ghosts.

the reason behind this fact has to do with the weird mechanics of being a ghost. it kind of works like channels or levels on a tv. when you become a ghost youre randomly given a handfull of 'channels' you can access and this ties into certain powers that ghosts can have. for example: being able to touch a ouija board or mess with radio-frequencies would require you to have access to those two channels- not all ghosts can do so. almost everything runs on channels, even just simple things like 'have an appearance' and 'being seen by others' and 'see others'. theres also an insane number of duplicate channels, so for example one ghost could have quite a large number of 'being seen by others' channels which allows them to be seen by a large number of ghosts that share those channels. conversely, (in ttts case) he only has a few 'being seen by others' channels and quite a few 'see others' so basically he can see other ghosts, but they cant see or interact with him. sorry that was longwinded but i love my ghost mechanics. theres more to the mechanics via a ranking tier system but for the sake of brevity i WILL NOT BE GETTIN INTO THAT.

at any rate. because of weird ghost mechanics and because t was fucked up and wasnt supposed to be a ghost, he cant be seen by almost anybody, but he can still see them. as you can imagine this is horrible. ttt spends centuries wandering through the post-nuked world as a ghost trying to find other ghosts to interact with. as the centuries go on he just slowly loses hope more and more and bitterly resigns himself to the fact that he'll never be able to interact with people in the way that he wants. (small sidenote: despite ttt not having baseline/low level channels like being seen, he does have some fairly high level channels that let him interact with the physical world (think like typical poltergeist stuff like throwing small objects ect). this ofc is not a very good substitute for being able to interact with people).

so anyway, ttt spends centuries being functionally alone again. kinda meant to mirror his time in the bunker. resigning to not being able to mess with anything, ttt just tends to pass the time people watching and trying to entertain himself other ways. one day hes people watching and happens upon a literal murder (theres more to this bc its someone elses story but i wont get too detailed bc its edgy emo). this ofc isnt the first time t's seen something like this and (being a touch bitter abt his unable-to-interact-with-anybody situation), t basically just watches and once the murdered guy's ghost drags himself outta the river t just starts roasting the new ghost for being stupid and getting murdered, thinking he cant be seen or heard.

unfortunately this is the first ghost that can actually see and hear ttt.

the new ghost (whos name is perry) is basically just like. (status: doesnt know hes dead or whats happening) HUH?? WH?? WHO ARE YOU?? ttt proceeds to freak the fuck out bc HOLY SHIT THE FIRST PERSON WHO CAN SEE AND HEAR ME?!? WHAT?!? hes completely elated and brain short circuiting at the same time, so hes falling over his words and trying to explain things and say sorry for being a dick to him (thats the least thing perrys worried about). amongst the confusion perry somehow gets it into his head that ttt is his guardian angel because hes some like shapeless entity that appeared after perry (apparently??) died (perry voice: wh huh what do you mean i got shot???).

they speedrun getting to know each other bc ttts just railroading the conversation bc hes so excited and perrys still on like “my name… its perry right..?” brain . perry sticks with t for a while (still assuming hes his guardian or smth) but it literally only takes like half a night for perry to realize like . ok maybe im wrong . (ttt hotwires a car and drives the two of them around before crashing it [another pastime] and thats when perry kinda decides like . no i dont think this guy is an angel.) (during the carride perry also keeps phasing thru the seat + out of the car bc he cant do ghost stuff yet) (also ttts able to hotwire + drive the car bc touching irl stuff to an extent is one of his aforementioned powers).

oh also, the name ttt came from perry and t's first interaction. perry asked what t's name was and t (who didnt know his name) just made something up on the spot and ttt it was.

after that the two of them just end up constantly being together (bc perry really hasnt met anyone else yet so he doesnt exactly like, know theres others out there . and t is ofc not leaving perrys side). it is very evident that ttt is basically attached at perrys hip and VERY afraid to lose him. i mean, perrys the first person who hes been able to talk to for literal centuries and now that ttt has that lifeline hes clutching to it for dear life.

the more they get to know each other t opens up and lets perry know that like . yea youre the first person thats been able to see me and ive KIIIINDA been alone and unable to interact with anyone for a few thousand years . no big deal or anything (<-guy whos brain was becoming mush from lack of interaction). perry starts to understand just everything t must have been through + why he acts so.. like that. he assures t that theres no way he would leave t behind.

i dont have very much for what the two of them did between their meeting and the current timeline in the story, but basically the two of them fuck around for 400 years or so. sometime during that time perry finds a super old (prewar) magazine ad for fiji and the two of them decide they wanna go. so now their thing is perry constantly is trying to teleport (one of his powers) them to fiji but he cant bc fiji doesnt exist anymore and he keeps (unknowingly) teleporting them to the remnants of old fiji water bottles. theyre on like a mission to find fiji.

eventually, one of such teleporting incidents lead them to meeting the character jeanie by chance, who, by the power of I Say So (and a whole nother plot i wont get into), can see ghosts. perry and t end up staying with jeanie as well as a couple of other ghosts that hang with jeanie (their names ade hummingbird and ekr). the five of them become very found family. the rest of their story becomes the group getting wrapped up in/uncovering weird deity politics and subsequently trying to change jeanie and his friend pattersons fate and keep them from dying.

oh yeah, and the ttt thing on ttt's head is a floating apparition of a stickynote that perry controls so the other two ghosts can tell where ttt is.

more doodles:

[lunar-ensemble]

Nocturne (18+) Version 0.1.2.1 update

https://ivatox.itch.io/nocturne/devlog/625501/chapter-one-part-two-is-live

Hi there, everyone! Long time no see! Sorry it's been taking so long to release updates. Unfortunately, this update isn't as long or content-packed as I would like it to be. I had stated in a previous Dev Log that I would be breaking the bigger Update I had originally planned into smaller sections, allowing me to make more updates and only have to parse a smaller chunk of content at a time.

This update came a little later than I had originally planned, but it's here nevertheless. Hopefully, the next update should come out at most during January.

Anyways! About this update! I have implemented a chapter select! If you end up losing your save due to Ren'Py (or likely Avi) tomfoolery, you should be able to go back to a relatively close area of where you last left off.

(While we're on the topic of tomfoolery, if you are unable to update your game, uninstall it and install the update as a fresh installation. Sorry, for the inconvenience this causes... I will try to make an update to the chapter select so you can access your unlockables after Chapter Selecting)

With this fresh update comes seven new characters! Since I was a little crunched for time, I had to leave all of their portraits as static sketches. While you do get a rough idea of what each character looks like, I was unable to draw and code any emotes for them. So for now, pretend you're playing MegaMan Battle Network/Star Force and continue through the story like that...

Speaking of portraits... my style changed. Again. Meaning I am going to have to redraw Oak and Cypress' portraits. Again. They're not in the next few updates, so I won't focus on them for now. I'm thinking I could complete one character's set of portraits per upcoming update...

I also completely overhauled the music! And by completely overhauled, I mean I converted each mp3 file to ogg. I did, however, implement a new song! There should be a second, but I kind of rushed it and I hate it so please don't listen to it. To make up for this, I allowed a sneak peak of two upcoming songs! I hope you like them!

Most importantly, I've added twenty GDocs-Pages worth of content for you all to enjoy! Hope you like it!

Finally, I made some small changes. First, I changed the soundfile of Mori's horrific singing to make it sound more discordant and out-of-tune. I apologize for your ears. Secondly, I changed some stuff on the menu! The about page now contains links to my socials! I also changed the "accent" text color so the title doesn't blend into the flowers on the main menu. Finally, I changed out two of the Easter Eggs from the phone scene!

And that's it for all the changes in this update! In the next update which should come no later than January, I will add in twenty more Gdoc Pages worth of content, one new song, and one character's portraits completed. I also wish to start implementing my own backgrounds instead of use stock images, but we'll see.

Bye for now! Stay safe as you walk through the night, ok? Maybe it's good to be a little Fearful in those situations...

[lemon-ren]

Update on the webtoon thingy.

Change of plans my friends!

Don't worry, Imma still work on the webtoon.

The current code name for it is Under Cove (Just to let you know that if I refer to this project by that name, it's just a placement holder, however, I might stick with it since it sort of fits what the story is) and it's no longer a slice-of-life fantasy story.

It's a sci-fi horror.

And another update is-

This webcomic will most likely not be coming out anytime soon, the series will most likely take at least a year of preparation and a year of studying the webcomic itself, in total it will be maybe 2 years if more until the first 3 chapters are gonna be released.

I am planning on finishing at least season 0 (It's a prolog season, leading up to the story's main events if you will).

I will not be posting many leaks for the story, at least not until I have published a good chunk.

And yes, it is a horror, I wasn't joking about that.

Here are a couple character drawings

Just to reference the two main characters.

The one with the witch hat (Neo) will be getting a re-design, however, those are the bases of his appearance.

The other one (Luca) is a 13-year-old boy, and I am telling you I have at least 16 drafts for his design in my sketchbook, but this is what I set down on, the design may change over the next while, but this is the current design I set down on (No he is not a cat hybrid, he is a human, that's just a hoodie, he will change outfits over the course of the story, however, this is his main one).

Reson behind why this project will take a while? 1. I will try and figure out the art style in which the webcomic will be drawn.

2. I am making the entire town in blender as a reference for perspective in future panels (By this I mean that the town is gonna be a 3D model and it will have a good number of buildings furnished (Just to help with some scenes)).

3. The storyboarding and planning of the story will take a while.

4. I at least hope to be finished with season 0 and a quarter of season 1 before I publish the first chapter.

5. I need to learn how to draw horrifying creatures (It wouldn't be a horror if it didn't have them).

6. The webcomic is still unplanned, I have the concept and characters' personalities set, but the story is pretty much still bare bones.

7. I need to study other comics to figure out the layout of the comic as well as figure out the wording and bubble placement.

8. The actual rendering will take a lot of time, blender 3D modeling will take a lot, but the actual redrawing and rendering will take a good chunk too.

9. The webcomic is gonna be a long project, and I need to set up a schedule to fit within my everyday requirements (Since I am in my 3rd year of high school and am planning to go to college, it will take quite some time to figure that one out)

That's all, if you have any questions surrounding project Under Cove, please leave them in the comments and I will try to reply to them!

-Lemon Ren

[halcyon-writings]

Asking again to make sure it reaches you. I really want to read BnHA drabbles or headcanons where Bakugou, Todoroki, and Inasa finish their remedial courses for their hero licenses, but then realize they haven't contacted their s/o ONCE while their courses and training were going on. And the last call/text they got from her was her asking if they want to break up so they can focus on being heroes. Now they need to apologize for accidentally ignoring her and convince her it wont happen again

note(s): okay so i’m definitely glad you sent this in again bc i didn’t get the first one omg. but hi yes here we go after 84 years thank you for your patience!! again small reminder that i mainly write gn!reader, however i did try for this rq as you specified female pronouns in the request however but idk how well i did djskdjs

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all my links can be found in my pinned post!

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now let us set the scene *cue that typical harp transition music*

When you had agreed to run to the store real quick to pick something up for an extra dinner dish, you had believed it would have helped get your mind off of the particular elephant in the room.

When in fact, being alone with your thoughts did not help in the slightest. You check your phone for what feels like the nth time today, and still, nothing. You knew that remedial courses would take a good chunk of their time, and you were very thankful that you had passed the provisional exam on the first try, but still, what about a hello? A, how are you? something, anything!

And maybe, just maybe, during your small emotional crisis you send what looks very closely like a breakup text to your boyfriend because, after all, you’re very emotional at the moment and it felt necessary okay?

So of course when you’re boyfriend finally gets to reading said text, he, quite literally, almost has a heart attack.

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Katsuki’s first response, once he gets to reading all the messages he missed, no thanks to the BakuSquad’s gc and Kaminari sending memes at 1 am followed by Mina and Kirishima’s laughter/keysmashes killing his battery, is to just curse out loud. One tired “Fuck.” Because he may not have realized it at the time but he really was pushing you away. He probably goes to Mina next, because she would be the better choice in asking for advice. (And would keep focus bc while the rest are good at giving advice it’s staying on topic that’s the problem).

And also Mina and Bakugo friendship is severely underrated and we need more of it thank you!!!

Following her advice, Bakugo will go to wherever you are. And If you told your parents about him , he is ready to plead his case, if he’s gotta do the whole shebang he will. Katsuki genuinely wants to make up for it. If he’s bringing you your favorite snacks, he will. Along with whatever else you want him to bring. One of the next ways he’ll go about making up for it is quality time. Because he genuinely likes to hang out with you.

Whether it’s napping or cuddling together while watching your show/movie of choice, or just walking around the town and finding cool hangout spots. As long as it’s with you he’s more than happy to be there. (Although he may not be as expressive, you’ll know when you see the soft and fond look on his face. But tease him about it and he’ll vehemently deny it.)

However the hold he has on your hand gets a little tighter, but he’s still like, gentle? idk words man. but like he’s very soft. And he makes note to not let himself get so caught up in hero work. Because breaks from working himself to the ground is important. Even more rewarding when he gets to spend time with you afterwards.

Out of the three of them, Inasa definitely has the... loudest of reactions and responses. He might have shouted, which then got the others concerned because again this was probably when he was leaving the remedial course and nothing was really wrong before hand. Or if he’s on the train he scares some passengers and an old grandma almost hits him with her purse. Idk he’s having a time guys and not a good one. He definitely will google search good ways to make up with an s/o

He can and will show up to your house with a giant bouquet of flowers and dressed up, he had to be stopped from wearing a suit though, but it was close. Inasa wants to show he's serious and that he really wants to make up for this, please stop him, he can and will buy more flowers if he thinks it'll help the cause. The fact that someone like him can look like a kicked puppy so easily only makes this more sad dfjskfjs. help this poor guy

If you're not busy, mans is ready to take you out to go eat something then and there, because he's ready to make up for missed dates/hangouts asap!!! In turn you gotta tell him, really, he doesn't have to rush it. Because if he really tried everything he had planned you guys would miss the last train to get home and that would not be fun. Just the fact that he's trying this much means a lot. And it also helps settle the fear that this was just a bad case of miscommunication and that he wasn't ghosting you. (Unless- jkjk these aren’t these kinda hcs)

I think Inasa is really good at giving hugs, like he’s big and that muscle isn’t for show. Like where’s that one redraw meme where one person just is pressed against the other’s chest like “:000” and looking a little smug bc that’s you and Inasa okay. Especially when he’s brought you home after your day of adventure, it’ll take some convincing to let you go, as once he holds onto you, he clings subconsciously. But rest assured that when you’re free again, he will do this all over again. Even when you confirm that everything is okay, he’s still gonna try his hardest.

Todoroki’s reaction is definitely a lot more curbed and bottled in compared to Bakugo’s or Inasa’s. That’s not to say he isn’t concerned when he reads your text and the meaning of your words begin to set in. You can almost tell that something is wrong, however, just by the slightest way his body language shifts. But rest assured, he’s gonna get back to you asap so that you both can talk this out. Shoto pre-Izuku’d character development definitely had him trusting a lot less, and so you are definitely really special when he trusts you enough to get close to and even ask you out.

He will however give you time to cool off, because you probably aren’t feeling too great sending the message and he wants to be able to collect his own thoughts too. Then when he’s meeting you, he’s very forward in his apology, he admits what he did wasn’t great. (Ngl I feel like he’d act like he killed your pet or something with how sincere he sounds todo baby...)

He’ll tell you all about the remedial courses, and he feels a bit relieved when you laugh at the “five weenies” joke. (It’s hard to stay mad at him when he looks so serious and says that with a perfect deadpan). Instead you ask him more about his time with the others there. Maybe a little ashamed because this kind of thing is still pretty new to him (and no offense to them but his parents weren’t exactly the best example as to what a relationship should be like). You see the way his eyes light up and you realize, it’s okay.

He’s learned a lot from this. Not just how to be a hero, but for his own personal growth too. Will he stumble a bit now and then? Yes. But at least he knows that he has you along with him to help him stand back up. Slowly, but surely, Shoto is getting there. Relationships in general are newer to him given that he avoided them in the beginning at his time at UA, but once he gets close to someone. He keeps them close and doesn’t let you, so you feel really special.

[gofancyninjaworld]

OPM in 2019, part 2

Yup, this was all too long, so I now have to attend to the manga.  This year, Murata kept his promise from 2018 to deliver regular chapters.  Even the passing of his father only made him take a few weeks off.   

By the numbers.  This year, Murata delivered 24 updates consisting of 624 pages.  It may not be the banner year of 2017 2018, but it still averages out at more than 50 pages a month.  He also drew 113 pages for volume releases in extra chapters, volume-only content and chapter redraws.  We thank you for your hard work, Mr. Murata!  

As to the words and pictures, much more below the cut!

beautiful and poignant -- probably the best cover this year. 

Be warned: this contains major plot spoilers

Broad Strokes

Last year focussed on the Hero Association response to the Monster Association, gathering up heroes, sorting out battle plans and sending them into the field. In the course of the war effort, the characters whom we’ve been following most consistently all got parked in one place or another.  We turned decisively away from Saitama, Genos, Garou, Fubuki, Bang, and King to focus on what the other heroes were doing, getting to know many more of them.   

This year, we’ve seen the first triumphant contact the heroes made gradually be eroded away as the monsters launch their counter-attack and one by one the parked characters have been brought back into the story to varying effect.  

2020 is promising to be the showdown year that will give us the final denouement, but I can’t promise that.  What I can promise is a closer look at the major themes of 2019.

Orochi

From half-assed plot to bad-ass plan

The first big thing is just how important Monster King Orochi has been to the story. More specifically, it's crazy how vital a linchpin he has been to Psykos’s humanity extermination plan.  The webcomic that doesn’t have Orochi makes her plan a sick joke. Like, seriously, how was Psykos planning to take over the world? In the webcomic, if things had gone to plan and she'd gotten rid of the heroes sent to the Monster Association, what then?  Not enough monsters to kill billions of people and no way to get the monsters that she does have there.  Monsters are also terribly uncooperative and undisciplined. The long-term cooperation to kill billions of people just isn’t going to happen -- without the clear, limited goal that killing Class S heroes was, they’ll just split up.  Society wasn't about to fall into a weeping puddle: we’ve seen both in the manga and the webcomic that there are loads of strong people, and that people are resilient and adaptable. It's like, that was a total idiot plot from the outset.  It’d end in failure as society adapted faster than the bickering monsters (those that didn’t leave) appreciated. 

yeah, you and what army?

On the other hand, Monster King Orochi makes Pyskos's dream a credible reality.  First, thanks to him, she got the cooperation of monsters like Elder Centipede, who was particularly important in the lead up to the Monster Association’s declaration of war.  It dug enough tunnels that monsters could appear simultaneously in multiple cities throughout the world.  Second, thanks to Orochi, she got millions of monster cells which meant that huge chunks of the population could be simultaneously monsterised in multiple locations, each able to help kill off the rest of humanity.  Their dry run two days previous to the current manga events confirmed that humanity simply couldn't cope with monsters showing up in so many places at once and yes, now they had a shot.  They could kill off the powerful organised heroes and then quickly make civilised life impossible before any credible fight back could be organised. 

This plan works.

when you realise that it’d only take a couple of hours to replenish the Monster Association’s forces

If that's all Orochi could do, it'd be plenty.  It made a bad, half-assed idiot plot into a real threat. But that's not all.  He's a crazy powerful monster, one Psykos was counting on to deal the death blow to the most powerful heroes, especially Tatsumaki.

Unfortunately for Psykos,  Saitama seems to have given Orochi a bad case of the deads.  And Amai Mask seems to have destroyed her precious store of monster cells.   Unless she have a back up depot of monster cells, her humanity extermination plan has hit a real snag. Many fans do hold out hope that Orochi isn't dead-dead and may Awaken to be real trouble.  But we'll see.

Acceptance

Speaking of Saitama and Orochi, something very important happened to Saitama’s character development that simply hasn’t happened yet in the webcomic.  Saitama accepted that yes, he’s just the strongest being alive.

We’ve seen Saitama struggle with not finding a worthy challenge.  He has bargained with it, dreaming of being weak enough to find the Subterraneans a threat.  He has been angry about it, shouting his outrage when Vaccineman died after one hit.  He has been depressed about it; we saw his whole collapse in the wake of the Superfight which led him to opening up to King.  And now, when he heard Orochi trying to introduce himself, he realised that this was just another useless blowhard like the jerk who’d kicked him to the moon and cut it short.  ‘What makes you so special?’ ‘Come at me then, but I’m expecting nothing.’

all according to expectation

It’s so rare to see Saitama show any character development, so this moment, small as it is, is really a profound step forward for the character.  We will see what happens as a result in chapters to come. 

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity

Good luck that is.  And that’s been shining on Psykos despite the setback of losing Orochi.  All the work we’ve seen her put in since chapter 57, observing heroes, sending out monsters to attack them and then seeing how they respond, has finally paid off.  

Between chapters 94 and 112, the manga really showed us precisely why the Class S heroes were so respected as the ultimate answer to the worst of the worst monsters. 

And now, by carefully siccing the right super-powerful monster on hero, Psykos has achieved what looked impossible: defeat Class S heroes en masse.

and bad luck is what happens when lack of preparation meets a challenge

It’s perfect, save monsters have a long-documented love of savouring their prey and aren’t killing the heroes as fast as they should.  Silly things: they leave the window open to rescue.

Machinations

A cyborg makes wild accusations...

Holy moly, has any hero’s stock risen and sunk as fast as Drive Knight’s has? In the space of a month, two updates, this enigmatic hero went from the new darling of the fandom to at best, a very self-interested ‘hero’ and at worst, the very traitor Metal Knight warned Child Emperor about.

We’ve known nothing about Drive Knight, what he did and just why he had a top ten ranking.  Well, we got a great masterclass in why when with a fantastic combination of power and guile, he defeated the cadre Nyan, making him the first hero other than Saitama to do so.  In fact Drive Knight is so polished in both the type of technology he has and the fluency with which he wields it that he makes Genos look like a glorified garage project. Oh wait... that’s accurate, isn’t it?

looking like Boros’s long-lost cousin, Drive Knight’s gold splendour

It’s what Drive Knight did next that set audiences against him. First, we learned that he watched the support heroes get cut down while he formulated the perfect plan. Okay, maybe he’s just a cold operator.   Second, the terrifying efficiency with which he pumped Sekingar for information on the vulnerability of the Hero Association, then failed to protect him when G-5 showed up to stop Sekingar from reporting back to the Hero Association.  Third, while we’ve known that Drive Knight is no fan of Metal Knight, accusing the latter of deliberately supplying the Monster Association is another story.  It has left us wondering whether Drive Knight is simply paranoid -- or is looking to deflect suspicion from himself.  What is not in question is that there really is a visitor from The Organisation harvesting the very data Drive Knight is worried about for the very purposes he outlines.  

Drive Knight did not look best pleased when Genos intervened in affairs and destroyed G-5, but handed over (or cut his losses?) peaceably enough.  For some reason, Drive Knight still seems to think that Genos is on his side, still going ‘we’ and making a distinction between them and the rest of humanity when explaining his desire to leave with Nyan. Why?

We have no idea when Drive Knight will reappear or quite what side he’s on, but one thing is for sure: he’s a powerful mover in this world and is bound to pose some dread challenge when he does. 

...but a greedy old man looks set to pay dearly

Top shadenfreude for me: if G5 didn't successfully remotely transmit everything it'd learned about the Metal Knight back, then Bofoi will be in the painful position of having to acknowledge that Genos got his wrinkly little nuts out of the fire. Yup, that guy Bofoi refused to help and left to die the first time he met.  That guy he started a whispering campaign against at the Hero Association.  That one. 

By the time Sekingar gets back and gives his story, Dr Bofoi will have most of the story. Once Child Emperor reports in,  Bofoi will have put all the bits together.  He’ll understand that he dodged a very large bullet as The Organisation had successfully hacked into his robot. And he was lucky their emissary didn't live to report its findings.   

How did Bofoi get in this shitty position?  By getting greedy.  He was so desperate to get a sample of Elder Centipede’s armour that he had his robot cling on and get carried into the Monster Association base.  And then let it sit and listen in. He didn’t budget on Orochi being able to disable the robot before he could trigger its self-destruct sequence. 

unfortunately for Bofoi, the Monster Association isn’t quite as selfish as he is and had no problem letting The Organisation harvest what it could of the machine they couldn’t themselves use.

It’s super unlikely that the Hero Association will take Drive Knight’s words uncritically, but they’re not stupid people -- they’ll understand that a major security breach has occurred. Suffer a little, Dr. Bofoi.

Old Players, New Roles

This year we have had no new characters introduced.  But we have had cause to re-evaluate several that we thought we knew. 

Sekingar was totally the breakout star here, surprising himself probably more than anyone else in finding that he truly did have what it took to be a hero.  I won’t go into it, full breakdown here.   What I will say is that unlike someone like Suiryu, who is just an ordinary person, Sekingar is very highly  placed within the Hero Association and looks set to be promoted further.  What he has to say and enact about the way heroes operate WILL have a disproportionate effect on the Hero Association, its future and maybe humanity’s safety. 

heroism is what you find when there are no good options but you do the right thing anyway

Genos continued to develop this year.  Last fight, he’d been devastated at not having been able to save any heroes.  This time out, saving people and showing a real resolve to take the fight to the monsters is front and centre of his actions, finally ending the hostage rescue part of the Hero Association plans.

it’s one thing to see a hero standing on top of a dead monster, but seeing this tiny guy on an armoured carrier and knowing that he could kill everybody in the convoy effortlessly did more to sell the insanity of Class S to me than many monster fights could. No wonder ordinary men call them monsters.

Two big changes from the webcomic to the manga have been first, splitting Genos off from the rest so he has to act out of his own heart rather than being carried along/supported by others. And second, giving him information about the monsters so he can descend to Hell with open eyes.  If any webcomic readers thought that Genos was being impulsive and naive when he took on the cadres rather than brave, the manga decisively lays that to rest.  This boy is truly courageous. 

Finally, the hero most known for scheming to lord it over others (in order to feel better about herself), Fubuki, closed out the year by showing an amazing side to her. 

She’s long hated dealing with strong monsters and Overgrown Pochi is her worst nightmare -- a true terror of a monster. She feels it all: inadequate, scared, frustrated, vulnerable.  Accepts that she’s almost certainly going to die.  And then uses her delusion of leading Bang and Bomb as a source of strength to bolster their bodies and protect them from harm for long enough for them to counter attack.

The bloodshot eye, the veins standing proud out of the sheer effort wrung out of her, the blood running down her face as she faces the monster.  No fucks given about decorum or looks: she’s going down swinging.  Bravo! 

Oh yeah, and Garou woke up.  He seems a bit mad. 

the second-best cover of 2019

[cptsdstudyblr]

How I organize my studies with mental health issues

Hi :) I’m just here trying to survive a computer science degree with CPTSD, depression, anxiety, and some physical health issues. However, I’ve figured out a system that really (!!!) helps me keep organized and actually learn things despite all the challenges I face! So, I want to share it with you in case it helps just one person! This post is pretty long, but I promise it’s got tons and tons of amazingly helpful information in it!

I’m lucky enough to have a tablet to help me with my studies, but anything I show today can easily be done on a laptop or even on a phone, so don’t stress!

Initial Note Taking

I prefer to handwrite my initial notes if possible. Sometimes, my professors just go too fast and I have to type them, but if I have the option, I choose to handwrite them. I find that handwriting my notes helps keep my mind focused on the task at hand. 

First of all, I’m a very tactile learner, so the act of writing helps me learn the material. However, I’ve found that there are tons of other benefits to writing notes by hand. 

If you’re dissociating/anxious/etc., doodling is a good way to center yourself and help yourself calm down.

Handwritten notes are easier (at least in my non-professional opinion) to make neat and pretty, which can be a huge motivator.

Many classes have diagrams, and it’s super helpful to draw these out so that you’re more likely to remember them and so you have easy access to them.

For people who are nonlinear thinkers (NOT me at all, but I know some people are nonlinear thinkers), you can write your notes in any way you see fit - a circle, a mind map, a graph, even a dodecahedron if you so desire.

And there are tons of others I don’t have time to thoroughly explain!

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with typing notes if you feel that that works better for you. I have to do that for some classes (Geology, I’m looking at you), and I don’t prefer to type my notes, but some people find that they prefer it, and that’s totally okay! There are a few quick things to keep in mind if you choose to take typed notes, however:

I find it very helpful to keep a notepad near me so that I can doodle (again for dissociation/anxiety/etc.) and so that I can draw diagrams if necessary. I’m not talented enough to create computer diagrams quickly, so I usually draw them by hand even if I’m typing my actual notes.

Put in the effort to make sure you aren’t distracted by other things on your laptop! Typing notes can be a great thing, but technology is very quick to distract people. One method I find good for me is to make my notes full screen so that it’s harder to find things to get distracted by, but there are many methods for this.

Try to keep your typed notes tidy and organized. For me, this includes having consistent tab distances, changing font colors/styles (by styles I mean bold/italic/etc.) as necessary, and most of all splitting up my notes into documents by days or topics. I use Evernote, so it’s pretty straightforward to split them up, but even if you use another system, it’s wise to figure out a way to do so. Having one long document for the entire semester is not wise because it gets very overwhelming very quickly and is just plain hard to use.

The biggest help for me, however, is after I’ve taken my notes. I use Evernote to digitize my notes. It’s super easy to do (just take a picture in the app and it scans them like a PDF), and I find that having them digital is a huge help. It means a few things for me:

I don’t have to have every notebook with me to study - just the ones I need to take notes in. This is far more related to physical health for me because I just can’t carry that many notebooks without a lot of pain, but it’s also great for people who are forgetful due to mental health issues. All you have to remember is your laptop or tablet (or really, even your phone), so it’s much easier to make sure you have everything.

I can write all over them when I’m studying without ruining the original notes. I am a big fan of scribbling all over notes (writing mnemonics, drawing diagrams, marking what I know and don’t know, etc.), but I dislike damaging my original notes. This allows me to study as messily as I want without ruining anything.

I can make multiple copies of them if I need to - one for the class I took the notes in and one for my exam revision session. This is very helpful for people who aren’t feeling well enough to rewrite or retype everything into another place when revising for an exam.

Here’s what some of my digitized notes from my operating systems class look like (please forgive my very messy drawing - OS is hard to draw sometimes):

General Studying

This section refers to studying, but not for exams. This includes things such as doing assignments, reading for classes, and other such things. The most important thing for my studying is Google Tasks! I keep all my important due dates in there, even down to the time. Here’s an example of what my Google Tasks looks like:

Apologies for the blacked-out spot - that reveals where I go to school! I use this for every single thing that has a hard due date. This makes sure that I never miss a due date no matter how forgetful I am because my list of due dates is on my cell phone! I also find it extremely rewarding to tick the box when I finish an assignment, and even something as simple as that is such a huge motivator for me.

However, this isn’t where I plan how to study for the week. I do that - you guessed it - on paper. I have a journal (which you’ll get to see in another post) where I keep a lot of important stuff - including weekly study plan spreads! That sounds super overwhelming, but they’re incredibly easy to make and very simple to maintain. I’ll show you (artful pen to hide my school name)!

Let me break this down for you really quickly:

I have my pages divided into four (one quadrant per day plus one for notes), which works pretty well for me - I never run out of space. This setup takes me less than five minutes to make each week, and I find it works very well for me.

I like to write what classes I have each day at the top of the day just so I don’t get too confused (and I highlight it if I have an exam), then underneath that, I list everything I have to do study-wise. 

I make sure to break each big task (e.g. “Study for Geology Exam) into smaller, more manageable chunks (e.g. “Make Geology flashcards,” “Revise Ch. 6 Notes,” etc.) all on different days of the week. This helps make each task seem way less overwhelming and makes me feel better about starting each task.

As you can see, my due dates are NOT on this sheet - this is more of a Study To-Do List than a list of my due dates. I do make sure to keep this updated so that I don’t miss any due dates, however.

You’ll also notice that I don’t have all that much listed for each day. It’s incredibly hard to stay ahead of things with mental health issues (I get that - I really do), but I find that staying ahead genuinely helps my mental health. If I have something to do every day, I feel productive and thus more motivated. It also gives me more leeway if I have a day where I can’t do any more than the bare minimum - I’m already ahead of schedule so I don’t need to panic. My best method for staying ahead is just to buckle down and do it. It’s not a great tip, but it’s all I’ve got (I’m allowed to struggle too - I don’t have everything together perfectly!).

Now, let’s talk about how to tackle each thing on this list.

Readings! When I have to do readings, my preferred method of note-taking is simply writing down definitions of keywords. Most of what I cover in the reading will be covered in the lecture, so I’m not too worried about jotting down every detail. However, making sure to note key words helps keep my brain engaged so I am less likely to zone out/dissociate/etc. Additionally, I can go back to those keywords to make flashcards later on.

Assignments! There’s not a whole lot to say about this one - every assignment is so different that I can’t say much beyond “do your assignments thoroughly.” However, a tip I find helps me a lot is to fully read the assignment and create a game plan before I dive in. This makes the assignment way less overwhelming and gives you concrete stopping points if you need a break.

Studying! will have its own section right below this, do not fear.

Studying

Watch this quick video (which is at the bottom of the text for some unknown reason?) of me scrolling through a study session, then I’ll explain how I study and why it works for me!

Let me just list my Studying Steps (TM) for you and break them down:

About a week before: Write all the information in a clear, consistent way.

By this I mean: Go through your notes/the slides/the textbook/anything with information and write it down freshly. I prefer (like usual) to handwrite this, but it can certainly be typed.

This is good because it requires you to reread and rewrite every piece of information, so you’re that much more likely to remember it. It also gives you all the information consolidated in one place. I like to split this up by topic (for me, each topic takes about 30 minutes to do) so that it’s more manageable. 

This seems like a lot, and it is. But, you have to study and there’s no way around that, unfortunately. Try motivating yourself with small rewards (like food, stickers, or something fun) when you finish a topic.

When you finish that: Make charts and graphs for anything that requires charts and graphs.

The diagrams part is pretty self-explanatory. If you have diagrams, redraw them on their own sheet. This makes them less cluttered and you can write things like mnemonics on them without messing up anything else. Redrawing them is also great for muscle memory!

I also like to make charts of things that I need to memorize (this is a good tool, but isn’t always right for every subject). For example, if I need to know a lot of types of rocks, I’ll make charts listing each rock and its characteristics. This way it’s easier to find the information and (once again) muscle memory will help you out.

This can be done pretty quickly, and it’s a pretty brainless activity. It’s not hard to do, so you can do it while watching Netflix if you want to. I honestly enjoy this part, though, because I find drawing charts and graphs very satisfying. 

About 3 days before: Make flashcards and study them consistently.

This is very important!

I like to use paper flashcards (just so I have to write the information once again), but digital ones work fairly well too.

Memorization is actually a fantastic tool to help with studying with mental health issues. Sometimes brain fogginess makes it hard to think of things that you know, but couldn’t recite. However, if you have it fully memorized, it’s generally much easier to pull out of the depths of your mind.

Once again, this is pretty easy to do (not quick though, sorry), and can be done while you’re doing something else more fun.

The day before: Go through your notes, annotate what you don’t know, and rewrite it until you know it.

This is the most important part of studying for me. 

The evening before the exam, I go through every bit of my notes, charts, graphs, etc. and highlight what I 100% know.

Then, I take more paper (or often a digital piece of paper) and write out what I know, trying to focus my energy on finding ways to remember the information such as mnemonics, word associations, or the like.

I do this as many times as I need to until I feel good about how much information I have highlighted - I try to get to 85-90%, but that can vary by subject.

This is kind of tedious, but I find it easier to motivate myself since it is the final stretch. I’m also usually kind of stressed out about the exam by this point, so that works as a good motivator too.

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[moralanxietystudio]

Banging My Head Against A Brick Wall - Roadwarden Devlog

It was a great weekend, a suitable ending for the long, long chapter of Roadwarden’s development. The game’s code is now much cleaner and it allows to add the new content easier and quicker. And I had quite a bit of content to add. New dialogues, new graphics, new activities.

The Clean Spear tavern has a new “chunk” of interactions now - the player can spend some time with the guards to gather new information about the world or other character. It all started with a minor, throw-away NPC added for some color, but once I figured I really like this group of characters, I decided to bring some quests and unique actions to the table.

It increased the amount of conversations for this area for about 30%, but the more I wrote, the happier I was.

The ruined village, the next area I’m going to write for, has sparked a lot of interest, especially on Facebook and r/worldbuilding. It has a lot of lore behind it and revealing the “true” nature of this place will be one of the side quests, but here’s the general description:

“A ruined village. The Imperial forests are dangerous and unfriendly, forcing the hamlets and villages to grow as slowly, as they can. If humankind affects the nature too much, too fast - the monsters arrive to take back what belongs to them.”

However, working on this area wasn’t easy. The buildings alone took me literally a day. Those of them that are more detailed and larger, were first designed in their “clear” form. After that, I’ve added the damage from fire, time and animal strikes:

What’s more important, however, is that originally I planned to make all of the buildings half of their current size:

Unfortunately, it was a bit of a mess and I couldn’t portray too many details in such a restricted sprite size. Redraws were necessary, but making tiny structures is generally really fun.

The real problem, however, involved the bottom left corner of the image. My goal was to portray an old field, but people were seeing a dirty body of water, or even a forest. Here you can find a couple of stages that this one corner went through:

With such a limited set of colors, textures are sometimes enough. Adding the road in the middle really helps, a new context comes to mind.

In total, this image took me about 3 days. Yikes.

“At the edge of the swamp, a large tree stands for as long as anyone remembers. It has no leaves, yet slowly grows. To stay alive, however, it has to be fed by the locals, who put their offerings on an ancient altar.”

This picture took me just a day and I’m very happy with it. Some details had to be reworked or moved around (and the feedback I’ve gathered was very helpful), but since it repeated a lot of things that I’ve already had figured out, it was much easier to put my experience to use.

That’s why I don’t find the time spent on the houses or field to be a waste. Previously, I’ve spent hours trying to make water that look like water, a road that looks like a road. Now that I know how to do it, it all clicks much faster. Next time I’ll also be able to handle the field much better.

So I’ve decided to make another, small image and have it ready on Monday. A one room that’s placed in the village ruins. A place where an NPC has set a small camp, where he scavenges for scraps of iron and steel. Should be easy, especially since I already had a tent some stairs, barrels, a chest... SHOULD be easy.

Now, join me on my road to madness.

I wanted to place the tent on the “ground floor” (more like an above-ground basement) of the largest building. I’ve reconstructed the basic room structure, and here is what I’ve started with.

The first skeleton of the structure. It’s clear that the texture in the middle won’t work, but the base idea is here. Rocks on the bottom, bricks in the middle, wood on the top and in the corners. Not a practical design, but a pretty one.

First textures, testing various colors. The wooden pillar in the middle doesn’t work well, but the largest problem is the part in the bottom. I haven’t figured out any good texture for it, so I leave it for last.

New bricks, floor and decent wooden pillars. At this point I had to decide if I want to start working on the rest of the room, or keep digging into the walls. I’m digging.

I see a potential, even if it looks awful.

While trying to make the bricks more interesting, I decided they look really good and finally quit my idea to make the bottom part a “rocky” section. Bricks all the way.

Legit!

First version of the chamber. It could use some extra light.

See? Fun!

---------------------------------

I still have a new area to draw in mind that I have to take care of soon, then I can sink into some new dialogues and exploration bits. After writing all of it, I’m going to work for a bit on my code and add / modify some of the features. The diary needs a “characters” section to make it easier to remember all the NPCs.

A lot of things to do, but the support I’ve recently received was huge and I’m getting quite optimistic about this entire endeavor! Remember, you can also find me on Twitter, Facebook and the game’s website!

[stardust-clearwater]

I redid my icon. Okay so. Tomorrow, inktober is going to start and as i do plan to participate, please understand that a full on illustration may not be possible due to the time frame and comiccon prep stuff. • Now then. It’s been ages since i first started using this sea monster critter thing. So i guess it can be called a redraw. Funny enough they were originally a regular oc for another project of mine. Maybe i can just keep using them as an author avatar of sorts. Anyway, I think the background in the first version came out better but everything else is second to version 2.0. A good chunk of that i can say is an improvement in skills and a much better scanner. What do you think? • #art #drawing #doodle #icon #redraw #watercolor #illustration #illustrator #conceptart #oc #originalcharacter #characterdesign https://www.instagram.com/p/B3BjpwqjF1P/?igshid=pg7lphzz704a

[logh-icebergs]

Episode 7: Iserlohn Taken!

May 14th, 796/487. Infiltrating Iserlohn fortress in the guise of a damaged Imperial ship, the Rosen Ritter swiftly overpower the control room. The quick thinking of one Imperial soldier temporarily locks them out of the fortress computer, forcing Yang to stall for time while Schenkopp and co. rush around Iserlohn kicking ass and taking names—names and computer passwords, I guess, since they unlock the system and allow Yang’s ship to dock. The Thor Hammer makes quick work of a large chunk of the Imperial fleet, although Oberstein flits away like the cockroach he is.

Technical Aside: Character Redraws

As I mentioned, when LoGH was released on DVD the episodes were remastered. By and large this involved evening out the colors, fixing the lighting when it was too washed out, sharpening lines, etc., and it’s beautifully done and deserves a lot of credit for making this show such an aesthetic joy to watch.

However. For reasons lost to the sands of time (at least, unknown to us) some scenes were entirely reanimated, primarily in the first and early second seasons. These redraws go beyond the touchups of other episodes—sometimes in ways that have little consequence (changing backgrounds, slightly different positioning of the characters in the scene), but sometimes in ways that significantly alter the emotions conveyed on the characters’ faces. This poses a problem for us, since the whole thesis of this project is that the animators of LoGH intentionally conveyed a ton of important information about emotions, thoughts, and relationships of the characters specifically via the details of the expressions and body language.

As an example of an inconsequential but unfortunate change, they made this random dude’s hair way more boring. Poor guy.

The original here conveys much more character though the body language.

Our policy will be to base our analysis off of the original animation when we believe there’s a real difference. In these cases we’ll give a heads up and include plenty of screenshots for those who don’t have access to the laserdiscs on which it was first released. Episode 7 is one of the handful of episodes that was actually about 90% redrawn, including a few key character moments, so in some of the discussion below I include both versions to illustrate the differences. In the future we may not even show the comparison, but just analyze the original animation. It’s annoying that the version on hidive is the redrawn version, yes, but these are the hurdles one must contend with in pursuit of true LoGH scholarship…

Believe it or not, changing poor Julian’s outfit and pose here is not the most egregious example of straightwashing in the redraws—we’ll come to that later in the season.

Ideals, Pragmatism, and Tea

Okay, with that out of the way, let’s get into the substance of the episode. One main theme that’s woven throughout the entire Iserlohn mission (dipping back into episode 6 as well) is Yang’s distaste for the abstract ideals that are commonly invoked as justification for the continuing war and destruction. We saw this a bit in his reactions to Trunicht’s speech in episode 3, and we see it again when he addresses the newly-formed 13th fleet:

(From episode 6.)

I love the tea speech. While at one level it’s humorous—silly Yang, so awkward and out of his depth giving a speech to thousands of people—it’s also a really pithy expression of Yang’s priorities. In two sentences Yang undermines the fundamental concept of this war: that they’re fighting for an ideal, for honor or love of their country or hatred of the empire. Circumstances have led the people in this fleet to find themselves facing a battle, and given that reality, the motivation he offers them for fighting is that living is preferable to death. And not just living, but living pleasurably. For Yang it’s drinking good tea that pops into his head, but it’s not a leap to substitute a more general idea of tangible, visceral experience of the world: being alive to do the things that make life enjoyable.

Yang believes that life is the sum of choices and experiences, and he hates the war not just because of the unnecessary death, but also because of the way it cuts off people’s choices and individual agency—his own, for example, and as he sees it, Julian’s.

Never mind that Julian claims to *want* to fight; in Yang’s view Julian’s agency is an illusion since it’s so shaped by societal forces. Hmm, projecting much, Yang? We’ll come back to this, of course. (From episode 6.)

Toward the end of this episode we see again how frustrated Yang gets with rigid adherence to ideals of honor at the expense of actual lives. We saw this in episode 1 when his commanding officer refused to abandon the already-defeated fourth fleet; here Admiral Seeckt of the Imperial Iserlohn fleet refuses Yang’s offer to let them withdraw, instead responding with haughty phrases about the honor and glory of soldiers. Yang’s reaction here is the single biggest difference between the original animation and the redraws, so I’ll show both here:

The redraw exaggerates Yang’s reaction in a way that feels inconsistent with his character. He is angry here, yes, but the composed, sad anger of the original fits him more than the seething, almost explosive rage of the redraw.

Also he is just so much more beautiful in the original, damn.

Yang’s hatred of the rhetoric of war is palpable here, and his reaction—to concentrate fire on the flagship—accomplishes the dual goals of allowing the rest of the fleet to go ahead and withdraw, and eliminating the Admiral whose attitude he found so harmful.

But despite hating the war and wanting it to end, Yang accepted this mission; and when Schenkopp grills him about it in episode 6 we get insight into his specific goals.

Yang’s pacifism is of a highly pragmatic flavor: As a historian he views cycles of war as inevitable and lacks the hubris/ambition to think that anything he does will change that in a lasting way. But the value he places on individual freedom and self-determination means that he sees full surrender to the autocratic government of the Empire as worth avoiding, and his hope in taking Iserlohn is that it might be the bargaining chip they need to conclude a peace treaty that would allow the Alliance government to remain independent.

His desire for peace is intimately tied in with his desire to leave the military and go back to the life he finds more enjoyable: drinking tea and studying history. And indeed when the mission succeeds, he initially attempts to do exactly that, going so far as to hand over a letter of resignation to Admiral Sitolet.

This is obviously a huge turning point for Yang. Nothing is actually stopping him from resigning here; it was his plan from the beginning of the mission and he has the power to do it. But Sitolet, who was his instructor back at the military academy so has known him for a long time, knows exactly how to play him. 

While Yang scorns the typical lofty ideals that his government puts forward to justify the continued death toll of the war, he believes deeply enough in the value of individual human lives that Sitolet’s guilt trip works on him. He can’t quite bring himself to put his own aspirations above the futures of the people in his fleet when faced with what amounts to a threat on their lives. Yang has served under other commanders and seen them, for example, advocate suicide attacks in order to play a game of attrition; Sitolet’s words are not abstract to him. While he urged his soldiers to fight so they don’t die, he himself feels the burden of fighting so that other people don’t die, so that other people have the choices he’s turning down himself.

I introduced Yang as a man of paradoxes, and we see that here: his belief in the ideals of freedom and self-determination pushing him to stay on this path he doesn’t feel suited for.

Oberstein

We already met Paul von Oberstein when he accosted Kircheis in episode 4. (In fact he’s been around lurking in the background since “My Conquest.”) Here I would just like to point out that Oberstein is set up as a clear parallel/foil to Yang. Remember in episode 1 when Yang is the only one to see through Reinhard’s plan but his commanding officers won’t listen until it’s too late? Oberstein plays exactly that role here, seeing right through Yang’s delay tactic of pretending to control the weapons of Iserlohn before they actually did, but Seeckt refuses to listen to his logic.

(Yang shots from episode 1.)

Like Yang, Oberstein is deeply pragmatic and keenly intelligent. His vibe here comes across like “what if Yang but no soul?” We’ll keep an eye on the parallels and contrasts between them as we get to know them better. (Well, get to know Yang better anyway; can anyone ever really be said to “know” the enigma that is Oberstein…?) 

The Rosen Ritter

In case you thought the Rosen Ritter were all sexy swagger and no action, here we get to see them actually doing their thing—hacking people to death with battle-axes. This fight sequence is beautifully choreographed, incredibly badass, and starkly brutal to watch. 

Yang may be sitting out in his flagship doing his best to craft a strategy that minimizes loss of life, but that doesn’t mean much to these soldiers who are sacrificed to his plan. Again, war at all levels of zoom.

Stray Tidbits

I can’t resist ranting a bit more about how much they change Yang when they redraw him. Fortunately it’s pretty rare—we won’t see redrawn!Yang much more until episode 39. But just...why...did they change the shape of his face and make his skin so red? Why? Original!Yang is so beautiful and sad and sleepy. 

This scene makes me crack up every time. Between this and the waitress scene in the last episode we’re amassing quite a “Blumhart waves awkwardly at random women” collection.

[moonmurph-gamedev]

Evaluation of Process

Throughout Unit 2 I’ve learnt lots of new skills and a brief understanding of different programs such as Maya & ZBrush. This is my first time creating a character so I was also developing my own personal work flow through this Unit.

Preproduction

I started my process with preproduction specifically creating mind maps of different ideas for both my protagonist and antagonist. I knew I wanted to create characters that would be used in my game next year so they both needed to suit the setting of the game.

I feel mind maps are a great way of organizing my ideas and I will definitely continue to use them as part of my creative process. It really helps to have a clear map of the initial idea and then branch off. Before creating a character, you want to have a solid concrete idea of exactly what you’re creating so it’s important to get your preproduction done right to not waste time.

In my mind map I looked at possible motivations, attacks and backgrounds for my character. I also related my ideas to existing characters in pop culture and games and took inspiration from them. I really liked using the mind map and it helped me narrow down an exact idea for my character. I personally like to have a clear idea in my head before I begin drawing my character to save time.

Once I had settled on an idea for my character I began searching tags I’d used in my mind map and used Pinterest to create mood boards. It was great having visual references for my ideas and seeing what other people tend to use. This was also the part of the process where I decided to base the character’s weapons around the “Player 1 & 2” Pink and blue arcade guns.

This is just one of four different mood boards that I created. I added small annotation to point out points I liked about the images and went into more detail about them on my blog post. Mood boards are seen commonly in the industry especially when creating concept art for characters.

After creating mood boards I went into Photoshop to begin the concept art. I’m quite familiar with Photoshop so I was able to get right into finding a pose and body type that I liked. I decided to settle on a smaller body type instead of the large bulky muscular male you typically see in video games. This is just because I’ve planned for his attacks to be quite mobile and feel it’ll work better for the animation.

This simple turnaround helped a lot later on the in the modelling process as I was able to open the PNGs into the image plane on Maya. I can’t imagine modelling without a reference open directly in Maya and this is something I’ll probably always use in the future. I really enjoyed using Photoshop and it’s definitely my go to program when doing anything art related. Since I created this art a few months ago and have been practicing almost daily I found my drawing and Photoshop skills have improved a lot since then. Over the summer I plan on going back over and redrawing my character to create higher quality art. I’ll also begin the process of drawing different poses to show off his personality and possible animation ideas. This will help a lot next year when we begin to animate our character in UE4 and work on creating our game prototype. My game design document already has a list of attack ideas but it’ll be nice to have concept art included.

In a VICE interview with Bill Petras (Art director for Overwatch) and Arnold Tsang (Character-concept artist) they spoke about their role as artists in the games development and the importance of concept art.

“One of the main jobs that we do as art directors is having a vision for what the game looks like, of what the heroes look like, the feeling of the animation, the color palette, and the architecture of the buildings of the world.” And often that means putting ink to paper: “A lot of times the art directors themselves will do a painting of a concept to show a vision to the team. That’s step one.” –Bill Petras

Arnold Tsang speaks about how the concept art is important for making the vision and idea of the game clear to the other developers.

“Early on, our first job is to inspire and rally the team behind our vision. The development of the style guide is a huge first step in getting our feet on the ground for Overwatch.” Setting down the core of the game’s look is an incredibly important part of the early process. “After we had the core tenets in place,” says Tsang, “we worked with the engineers and some of the animators to start to realize that content and make visual targets that start to realize what we set out to do in the style guide. And we saw how things worked in the game engine, and how these characters moved and acted.” –Arnold Tsang

When we have an idea in our head it might be obvious to us what the character looks and moves like but to others it’s not clear at all so concept art is integral for making that vision clearer to others. In the industry where you have specialised modellers, programmers and animators it’s important everyone is on the same wavelength. You wouldn’t start building a game without a games design document and you wouldn’t start creating a character without completing preproduction.

Maya

When I finished preproduction I moved into the next stage of modelling my character in Maya. I also installed the student version at home so I can continue working on my model outside of college. I opened the turnaround images and began shaping from a simple cube. There are plenty of different methods of creating a character and everyone has a different workflow but I decided to stick with this recommended method as it’s good for beginners like myself. I extruded and multi cut the shape to create a simple humanoid shape and then started adding finer details such as clothing later on. I had to go back a few times to recreate certain sections of the model. I had issues with multi-facing where Maya placed faces underneath faces and I had to slowly go through the whole model deleting these issues. It was also a challenge dealing with edge loops and topology. I’ve never dealt with it before so it was a lot of trial and error figuring out what works.

My main issue with modelling is I chose to create an organic human shaped character but my result was a lot blockier and square especially in the waist/torso area.

Even with some adjustments I wasn’t 100% happy with my result. I also struggled a lot on the fingers as they were too sharp and pointed and almost resembled claws. I used MudBox which detected errors in my model so I could go back into Maya and fix them. This however was a difficult process as I had to go back and remodel entire sections again. I was getting frustrated with my model and did quite a large rework.

This model although fixed is a lot less detailed and not what I envisioned for my character. I decided instead of beginning again I’ll just begin the UV process as that will take a while and I was beginning to run out of time. I repeated my preproduction and modelling process with my villain character. I found the second time around was considerably quicker as I wasn’t relearning all the hotkeys and jargon.

A huge mistake I made with my first UVs was doing the front, back and side as three large chunks. I didn’t fully understand how the UVs related to the texture maps and so I didn’t see how much of an issue the overlap caused until I placed the image onto the UV. You can see the grey areas where the black pants and grey accents share a UV and cause issues. I had to delete these UVs and looked into other methods.

I used planar mapping and unfolding the different pieces of my model to create clear separate sections. This thankfully allowed me to avoid the same mistake I made without any overlap.

The UV process was a long task but essential for creating a character. I now have a better understanding of how to do it and how it relates to textures and painting the character later on. In the future I’ll be a lot quicker at the process. Like most of Maya it was simply a learning curve but the best way of learning a new program is by practice.

ZBrush

The next step after finishing my UVs was exporting my model as an OBJ and opening it in ZBrush. I decided to keep the Hair and Eyes as separate subtools.

My first attempt at Polypainting was rough as I didn’t fully understand the tools and brushes I was using. I looked at different methods online and went back over my model. I found the ZBrush youtube channel as a great resource as they do really quick tutorials on the different tools in ZBrush.

The spotlight is a really powerful tool that allows you to paint directly onto the model with other images. You can scale, rotate and adjust these images and apply them directly onto the model with total control. I was using a tablet too so the amount of pressure I applied also determined how strong the brush was. I saw the potential with the insane detail you could put into the skin with ZBrush. I’m not going for a super realistic human character though so I didn’t want to add loads of blemishes so just simple colours and blush was enough for me.

My favourite tools and brushes in ZBrush was the DamStandard, Curve and Curvepinch brushes. This was useful for creating folds around the eyes and also definition on the welded sections of the face. I spent a lot of time experimenting with different brushes but next time I create a character. Surface, Noise Editor and the Deformation tools were also great ways of quickly editing large portions of the model.

Because I like Photoshop so much I decided to go back on the hair and see if I could try a different method of texturing them. I opened the UV as a png and a simple hair texture with Photoshop brushes.

I like the different layers of opacity and think it looks more interesting than just block opaque colour. I’ll probably stick to ZBrush in the future however as it’s a much more powerful tool than Photoshop.

I was able to create the texture maps from Polypaint and then create Normal maps directly in ZBrush. If I wanted to neaten up or edit my textures, I could open the JPEG directly in Photoshop and paint on that.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed this Unit. I found it really interesting to go from having a character concept to a 3D model. It was my first time ever modelling something as complex as a character and I’m really proud it’s my own original idea and not an already existing character.

I didn’t have much trouble preproduction with generating ideas and creating mind maps/mood boards. The majority of my issues this Unit came in the production phase but that was mainly due to inexperience and some issues with the programs. I have however begun to enjoy using ZBrush after painting my character.

I got quite frustrated at points as I felt I wasn’t at the quality I wanted. I’m still not happy with the end product but I now have a much better understanding of the tools and programs and know I could work at a faster pace. I’m planning over the summer to do a full rework of my hero character.

As my game concept has changed my characters have changed slightly. I want to go for simpler cartoony proportions for my hero instead of realistic. I think this style would suit my game better. I also think a more cartoony player character will blend better with my very wacky cartoony robot villain. At the moment they contrast and look like they’re from different games.

I’m excited to redesign my character and think this will a much better style for my game concept. I think it’ll also be great for creating fun dynamic animations as the games attacks and mechanics I have planned are very fast paced and colourful.

[cellerityweb]

World of Tanks: Tuning the Engine – Power Under The Hood

With World of Tanks growing bigger and bigger over more than seven years, at some point tuning the game engine to fit today’s requirements was inevitable – Bronislav Sviglo will tell you all about it.

World of Tanks inherited its engine – Australian-made »BigWorld« – from the fantasy MMO project canceled by Wargaming in 2008. The BigWorld server provides a lot of benefits and has stood the test of time. The client part of the engine was heavily customized – to the degree it may be called a completely new, in-house product. In 2017, the game looks and feels very different from the old vanilla version, having modern visual effects, HD tank models and complex physics.

Bronislav Sviglo, World of Tanks Render Team Lead, speaks about the evolution of the game’s engine and explains why the new HD maps matter so much.

Big World: The Right Choice

I came to Wargaming after graduating from university in 2008. At first, I worked in a team of three that was prototyping an MMO about orcs and elves. We had two engine options: one was BigWorld, the other was the HeroEngine now used by EA’s »Star Wars: The Old Republic«. We went with BigWorld: it had robust server tech, used Python scripting language and was very scalable. The HeroEngine server side wasn’t polished yet; also that engine used visual scripting, which was a bit constraining for programmers. Simply put, if you were to make an MMO that did not feature humanoid characters, with HeroEngine it would be complicated. BigWorld on the other hand, was probably the best suitable solution for a game about military warfare.

All new maps are being built from scratch and will make use of all the advanced features of DirectX 11, including HDR and tessellation.

BigWorld allows tens of thousands of players on one shard and lets you group the shards into clusters. Initially, it did not support any real-time interaction between multiple clusters but we expanded its functionality. We were able to do this really quickly when the concurrent player number started to get climb rapidly and it became clear that one cluster wouldn’t be enough. Now the server tech allows millions of people to play against anyone in their region.

Another great thing about BigWorld is that it lets the majority of battle-related calculations in World of Tanks be made server side. This lowers lag and prevents certain forms of cheating completely. There are games, where you can extract some info from the client and receive an unfair advantage, but with World of Tanks, the most crucial data is generated on the server side – unlike some online shooters where it is created on the client side and sent to the server. Due to BigWorld’s structure, in World of Tanks you simply cannot trick the server into believing that you’ve just fired two shells with a single shot.

The BigWorld server core, developed and supported in Sydney, is pretty much the same for PC, console and mobile World of Tanks, which saves us time and effort and lets us apply tried and tested solutions. The game clients are different, so the respective teams work on those.

Customizing the Client

Initially we intended to keep the BigWorld client core intact and make all modifications to World of Tanks’ client »sidewise« so they wouldn’t mess with updating to a new version of the core delivered by the Big World team, but by 2012, we realized that only significant rewriting of the client would let us greatly improve the graphics.

Update 8.0 was our first large step towards this goal. We made the game look modern, by that time’s standards. We applied deferred shading and decals and heightened texture resolution to make the terrain and objects look better. For the first time, we utilized post-processing effects like high dynamic resolution, color grading and bloom. Bump mapping was applied to terrain, not just to objects; that allowed for flare effects and reflections. The picture you were seeing while in game became way more attractive. We also added new custom physics: you could push allies, ram enemies and cross bodies of water – or get sunk there. Optimization work had also been done: we divided the shadows into static and dynamic categories and used lots of instancing (drawing the map objects in groups), easing the load on graphic processors.

Graphics changes made the maps look better, so we went for the tanks next. They didn’t have much detail back then: there were no rivets and no specular effects. It was impossible to tell if their metal was polished or rough. So we improved the look of tanks with physically-based rendering. With it, the shaders can be assigned physically-based parameters like albedo (an object’s color in uniform lighting), roughness,and metallicity (how shiny an object is). We also applied high definition textures, so the new models came to be called ‘HD’. There’s more to them: the constructive materials of the vehicles are complex and realistic and that contributes to their good looks. Upgrading a tank model to this quality requires time and effort, especially by the art team. In April 2014, we only introduced about 40 HD models with the 9.0 update. We kept releasing HD tanks in later updates.

Although the battlefields themselves will of course be limited, players will be able to see way beyond the ‘red line’.

The client part of the engine underwent so many modifications that at certain point we began to doubt the efficiency of the »complete rewrite« approach. We wanted to measure the custom graphical engine’s performance against licensed suites and also see if the game looked better in these. In 2015, we held a study: one of the maps was recreated using Unreal, CryEngine, Unity and others. Our in-house engine turned to be more efficient at rendering than any other. At the same time, its performance scaled much better across all the hardware ranges. There were reasons for that. The World of Tanks engine was so good at drawing armored vehicles and battlegrounds because it was specialized and not universal like the licensed ones. Also, throughout the development it was always being optimized for low-end rigs.

We drew two conclusions from the engines’ race. First, we had a solid tech that we could improve even further. Second, switching to another engine and importing our current assets wouldn’t give us a better picture. We had to add a few bells and whistles to our tech – and to significantly improve the assets. So we decided to remake the maps completely.

Redrawing the Maps

Over the last couple of years we made a few technical advances with the engine. Some of these will truly shine once the remade maps are released. We built in DirectX 11 support, laying the groundwork for further upscaling. We introduced multi-threading, which lets you move parts of the graphics-related calculations to other CPU cores. We also enhanced movement physics. Now tanks can flip over, and they have momentum so you can feel their weight better when braking or climbing up a hill. Gearboxes are simulated – you can perceive the shift from low to high gears.

Currently, the largest chunk of work is the HD maps and everything that’s on them. They will bring the graphical fidelity of the entire game up to the level of HD tank models. We don’t want to release the HD maps in batches like HD tanks. It will be a one-time large upgrade with about 30 maps.

The new maps are being built from the ground up: no converters, only modern tech and complete reworking. They will make use of all the advanced features of DirectX 11, including HDR and tessellation. All subsystems are being remade – water, terrain, grass, trees, lighting, clouds, houses, shading. Not a single old object will be left. While on the map, you’ll be able to see kilometers beyond the red line limiting the battlefield – no more of that »aquarium« feel. We’ve been preparing the technology for years; soon it will be time to reap the fruits of our labour.

We are going to introduce Havok physics engine

While remodelled vehicles were released in batches, Wargaming plans to introduce all of the nearly 30 HD maps at once.

support together with HD maps. We will start with small destructible props like stone hedges and wooden poles and eventually move to larger ones like houses. Now we possess a solid base for improving physics – like the graphics – for years ahead.

The new tech is already working: we let the tankers have a go on an HD map at WG Fest late last year. We only need to put some finishing touches on the content. It’ll take some time, but the result should be worth the wait.

About the Author:

Bronislav Sviglo

is World of Tanks Render Team Leader at Wargaming

Bronislav has been with the company for more than 9 years. For most of that time he has been developing and optimizing the World of Tanks graphical engine. His hobbies include checking out how other games’ graphics work, swimming and watching movies. Bronislav’s life motto is »never stop learning«.

The post World of Tanks: Tuning the Engine – Power Under The Hood appeared first on Making Games.

World of Tanks: Tuning the Engine – Power Under The Hood published first on https://thetruthspypage.tumblr.com/

[lunar-ensemble]

Hi there, everyone! Long time no see! Sorry it's been taking so long to release updates. Unfortunately, this update isn't as long or content-packed as I would like it to be. I had stated in a previous Dev Log that I would be breaking the bigger Update I had originally planned into smaller sections, allowing me to make more updates and only have to parse a smaller chunk of content at a time.

This update came a little later than I had originally planned, but it's here nevertheless. Hopefully, the next update should come out at most during January.

Anyways! About this update! I have implemented a chapter select! If you end up losing your save due to Ren'Py (or likely Avi) tomfoolery, you should be able to go back to a relatively close area of where you last left off.

(While we're on the topic of tomfoolery, if you are unable to update your game, uninstall it and install the update as a fresh installation. Sorry, for the inconvenience this causes... I will try to make an update to the chapter select so you can access your unlockables after Chapter Selecting)

With this fresh update comes seven new characters! Since I was a little crunched for time, I had to leave all of their portraits as static sketches. While you do get a rough idea of what each character looks like, I was unable to draw and code any emotes for them. So for now, pretend you're playing MegaMan Battle Network/Star Force and continue through the story like that...

Speaking of portraits... my style changed. Again. Meaning I am going to have to redraw Oak and Cypress' portraits. Again. They're not in the next few updates, so I won't focus on them for now. I'm thinking I could complete one character's set of portraits per upcoming update...

I also completely overhauled the music! And by completely overhauled, I mean I converted each mp3 file to ogg. I did, however, implement a new song! There should be a second, but I kind of rushed it and I hate it so please don't listen to it. To make up for this, I allowed a sneak peak of two upcoming songs! I hope you like them!

Most importantly, I've added twenty GDocs-Pages worth of content for you all to enjoy! Hope you like it!

Finally, I made some small changes. First, I changed the soundfile of Mori's horrific singing to make it sound more discordant and out-of-tune. I apologize for your ears. Secondly, I changed some stuff on the menu! The about page now contains links to my socials! I also changed the "accent" text color so the title doesn't blend into the flowers on the main menu. Finally, I changed out two of the Easter Eggs from the phone scene!

And that's it for all the changes in this update! In the next update which should come no later than January, I will add in twenty more Gdoc Pages worth of content, one new song, and one character's portraits completed. I also wish to start implementing my own backgrounds instead of use stock images, but we'll see.

Bye for now! Stay safe as you walk through the night, ok? Maybe it's good to be a little Fearful in those situations...