#and it was! i got to do more of this rendering(?) style its so fun

[crunchchute]

my attempt at a bunch of my fav artists styles :] idea by sootnuki!!

i would love to do more but this was already a huge challenge

if any artist here dislikes this/is uncomfortable with it/any reason i can take it down or turn off reblogs etc. otherwise i hope its ok 🫡 im not gonna tag anyone just gonna let it do its thing in the wild lol

[arom-antix]

Yuri!!! On Cards collaboration!

So, I know I've been pretty inactive recently, at least in posting my own art but for good reason! In the Yuri on the Web Discord server artists and writers alike have all collaborated to illustrate a deck of cards and write stories for each of them. And as a resident artist myself, I couldn't not take the opportunity to draw for this project UuU

Oh and if anyone was wondering, yes, I am to blame for inflicting this giant project onto the server BUT I REGRET NOTHING AND NEITHER WILL YOU IF YOU CHECK OUT EVERYONE ELSE'S WORKS. Trust me, they are amazing! The masterpost can be found here!

GIANT thanks to @lines-on-ice and @yaoiconnoisseur for helping so much and being amazing co-administrators and basically making this entire thing possible! You really saved me from my own overambition XD

The guidelines for this project can be found on the Yuri!!! On Cards blog as can the masterpost with all the links to everything. All the art that gets posted to Tumblr will also be reblogged by the blog.

With all that said, here's the actual art I made! (Break for those who don't want their dash to die UuU)

Okay, I lied. First, I'd heavily recommend for you to check out the guideline posts, both the general and artists' and even the writers' if you're up to it to get a grasp of the perimeters of this project. There's also some vague lore and AU stuff about the whole thing to find which will give you context for why the art looks the way it does to a certain extent.

You can also just jump right in and take everything as I ramble about it which, I mean, I won't stop you, the guideline posts aren't short. I will not blame you. You can still just look at the art. If that's your choice, go on ahead!

First up!

Ace of the Kingdom Otabek, The Deep Shadow

Being of the Kingdom of Diamonds, he's skillful and sharp. He moves quietly as a shadow and is just as mysterious.

Okay, I can't comment much on how he actually is, you'll have find that out by reading his fic(let?). They were supposed to be ficlets but as writers tend to do, none of us could manage that so take "ficlet" with a big grain of salt for every written work.

I've, by the way, not read any of the ficlets for this project beside my own so I'll get to experience the reveal with y'all and I'm gonna perish waiting.

Anyway, about the art. The yellow of course comes from the Kingdom of Diamonds' designated colour. As for the outfit, it's based on this handsome fellow I found who's supposed to be a Kazakh archer which I thought fit Otabek's whole shadow thing perfectly (and Writingfromtheshadow's fic Equivalent Exchange has me in an iron grip and I don't want to be released).

If there are any Kazakhs in the audience, you are free to laugh at me for any inaccuracies or missteps, I am but a humble little not-Kazakh, I don't expect to have gotten it all right UuU

Next up!

King Yuuri, Wanderer of Dreams

The ruler of his realm, he is as the mind flows. Kind and benevolent yet of fickle thoughts, the spirals of the subconscious are ones he both masters and bows to.

Again, gonna be waiting for his fic with everyone else but like. It's Yuuri. Anxiety is kind of a given.

In terms of art, I don't know if you can tell but this was where I started writing my will because oh my stars, what did I get myself into. If you follow me or my art, you'll know that I don't draw lineless. Like ever. And apparently I decided this project on a deadline that others were depending on me making look nice was the place to go all out.

And the worst part is that I'm not even mad at it so I have no argument to not do it again.

Anyway, the blue is from the designated colour of spades and yes, you've guessed right as to why this colour was picked for this suit. I'm predictable, leave me alone. As for the rest, the outfit is inspired by traditional Japanese dress that the Internet told me about (again, Japanese may laugh at me all they want UuU Your culture is very cool but also there was so much info, I hope I got it at least a bit right).

Also I spent like eight hours looking at hanakotoba for this and I've never been this happy about a decision I regretted so much while I was having to draw that many flowers. And you know I had to include The Gay Flower^(TM).

The Japanese iris is now Yuuri's btw.

All the flowers used are: Japanese irises, Jasmine flowers, Forget-me-nots, cherry blossoms, white roses, green carnations and blue roses (Viktor's flower. Read: I am predictable).

And finally!

Queen Minako, Tamer of Minds

Of the Realm of Dreams, she sees your fears, the snares laid by the subconscious and, strict and blunt as she is, she clears a path for the motivated and lets no potential go to waste.

Again, haven't read a word of the fic.

This one was by far the one that I made the fastest and I would've loved to do more with it but like deadlines. I'm gracefully skipping over the fact that I set the deadline and am fully to blame for being late.

But, as with Yuuri, blue is for spades. And since I wanted her to have a leotard but still match Yuuri and make her outfit look even slightly Japanese inspired, sheer fabric to the rescue! With cherry blossoms, of course, because CSP had the pattern preinstalled UuU

And I don't know if it worked but I tried to make her hair both look like her signature style, traditional Japanese hairstyles I found on the good ol' Interwebs and then kind of a spade by having that middle stick be the stem and the hair the spade's butt.

Also this probably goes without saying but the ranks of the characters are just titles. Yuuri is not married to Minako, she is just the Queen and he the King, don't worry.

Again, a BIG thank you to everyone who also participated, it was so fun to work together on this and see everyone's progress! Nic and Lil, you're amazing, thank you so much for everything you've done for this!

And to everyone who's made it this far, thank you for sticking around and please go check out all the other art and the ficlets! I promise it's worth it!

Masterpost | AO3 collection

[jays-supersonic-dynamo]

hiii here’s my entry for @emimii ‘s dtiys!! congrats on 100 followers!

[steftastan]

Carian Stroll

“Tell Blaidd, and Iji…I love them.”

Before this piece, I had been wanting for a long time to create my own piece of Elden Ring fanart featuring Ranni. I had tried several sketches unsuccessfully, just wasn’t particularly feeling the ideas I had sketched up until that point.

One day of usual internet scrolling, I stumbled upon this gorgeous piece of art by Shimomura Kanzan.

I knew immediately I wanted to do something like this for my Elden Ring fanart. In fact, if you look at this piece, there is tons of inspiration that I drew from the original artwork, such as the style of the yellow leaves and the main subject matter being a prominent silhouette of the brightest value, placed at approximately the bottom third of the image.

The main character is cleverly shrouded amidst various layers of trees and foliage, giving us the impression that we're peeking into candid moment of their life. In the case of the fox, we caught it during a mid-day snack. In the case of Ranni and her party, we caught them in a leisurely stroll, while Iji outfits the dreaded Fingercreepers with their iconic rings.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to capture a happy moment, but Ranni goes as far as to ask us to deliver to Iji and Blaidd the message that she loves them dearly as her quest draws near its end. I would imagine they all must have had fun moments together as a family. Hey, maybe even the hands liked to be around them?

The process

I started this on my iPad using the procreate app. Sadly the full process is not captured on video, as I switched to Photoshop for the rendering phase of the illustration. This video is a fun window into my chaotic process and how I iterate on the fly on the same canvas. I probably wouldn't do that in a professional setting where you often need to have color keys and iterations to be reviewed and analyzed. I like to I cut myself some slack when doing personal art to keep things fun.

Trying and failing some more

This illustration was not a straightforward path. I haven’t been very diligent about personal art, and at some point I started deviating too much from my reference by adding too many levels of depth to the background and suffocating the piece. I got into a weird loop where I would randomly open the PSD, play around with the values, pushing Iji to the back, then bringing him back, cranking all the levers on Ranni, etc., decide it would look horrible, then begrudgingly determine I’d never complete this image and go on with my life.

As artists we likely have unfinished work sitting everywhere, be it in our sketchbooks, canvases, or hard drives. But it’s a different kind of sting when you feel like you can’t even nail the fundamentals.

Anyway, so a couple weeks ago, I decided to give it another go, but this time I would get rid of all the unnecessary stuff, even stuff that I had been trying to render for ages. I would not hold on to anything, I would try and recapture what drew me to Kanzan's beautiful painting to begin with.

After it became a matter of pushing and pulling pixels until the image was finished!

That’s about it. I didn’t go crazy in depth but lately I’ve been enjoying reading into artists’ processes and I’d be remiss to not share my own thought process also.

Thank you for viewing!

[epiicaricacy-arts]

without the sour the sweet wouldn’t taste

why are you as a man eating another man’s ear after you failed to make him eat his ex girlfriend. 🤨🏳️‍🌈⁉️

im allowed a bit of toxic yaoi. as a treat

process discussion utc ⬇️

for those familiar with my work you’ll know that i like trying a lot of new styles and experimenting in order to achieve a certain vibe. usually those are heavy painterly styles such as the sunday art inspired by Yuming Li, which is what i’m familiar and comfortable with, both traditionally and digitally

what im NOT familiar with is watercolour. i’ve never had a good time with it 🥲 i just cant seem to wrap my head around the process since its requires me to work backwards (light to dark vs dark to light)

for this piece i just couldn’t imagine myself rendering it in my usual style. i needed to do something new so that i’d stay invested enough in the piece considering that it has two people, meaning double the work. for some reason i thought it’d be fun to do double the work with a style i am completely uncomfortable with but oh well!! i managed to do it 🤷‍♀️ i was specifically looking at the works of Ko Byung Jun, an artist i’ve seen all over my pinterest feed

while i didn’t end up really following the style super closely i still learned quite a lot just by looking at it while i drew. i tried my best to stick to watercolour brushes and an ink pen but as i was nearing the end i needed to make some alterations that i wasn’t bothered to try fixing with the watercolour brushes so i just went over it with my digital ones 🫡 i did my best that’s what matters!!!

i had to repaint rody a few times cause i just couldn’t get it right and the colours never ended up matching vincent. i painted them separately and i think i got possessed while painting vincent cause it happened in like. 40 minutes. and i couldn’t get it to happen again 😔 it didn’t really matter cause i ended up going ham with the curves tool as always but you know 🤷‍♀️

here’s the image without all the effects:

i find lately it’s been more and more common for me to be sketching several iterations of a concept for days, even weeks before i land on something i like. i have an entire separate canvas that i’ve spent 5 hours just doing thumbnails trying to figure out how i wanted to pose these two in a way that would showcase the characteristics that mattered in the story of this piece.

that’s my process for coming up with drawings: i find inspiration somewhere, i figure out the key concepts/characteristics/symbols etc i want highlighted, and i work around those. sometimes i have a composition in mind or just a general vibe i want to portray. for this one i wanted to make sure the towel, rody’s injured finger and vincent’s face could all be clearly seen, while also portraying the fight scene and the vibe i get from the reference song. almost all of my work revolves around a specific lyric from the song which drives the story of the piece. here i interpreted the line “without the sour the sweet wouldn’t taste” as a connection to all the little actions vince takes with rody that can be seen as “sweet.” drying rody’s hair, bandaging rody’s cut. i then asked myself how i could take those actions and make them “sour” or show them in a different light, in which vince is biting the finger he bandaged and pulling rody closer, preventing his escape with the towel he used to dry his hair. what im trying to communicate in this illustration is the idea of “if it weren’t for how i’m treating you now, you wouldn’t understand how kind i was to you then” in an attempt to illustrate the complexities of the way vincent acts towards rody.

i’m truly in love with the story telling of this game. it’s hard to really say anything about how the characters acted during the story because it’s so complex in how it’s done. it’s very hard to summarize their relationship because there’s so much about it i can’t explain without just quoting the game directly. i think it’s such a beautiful portrayal of obsession and just being fucking weird about someone. i wanted to ensure the elements i mentioned in the above paragraph because i didn’t want to be portraying vincent as solely a villain and rody as a victim. i wanted the storytelling of this one illustration to live up to my impression of this beautiful game and i hope i did it justice.

thank you for reading this if you’ve made it this far. i love rambling on all my art posts cause i think it’s so valuable for artists to expand on their work outside of the result alone. i hope what im saying is at most helpful to someone and at the very least a good read. i’m probably gonna take a bit of an art break after this since it took a lot out of me, plus im on the last days of my trip. thank you again for reading!

here’s my dog

[just-a-floofy-catt]

@agent-darkfest Hey i was your Secret Santa!!! :D

Your art and style are literally gorgeous and i had such a good time doing my research and browsing through your stuff! ^^

All your designs for your AUs are so cool too!!!

I tried to get something done for both of your AUs :)

I really hope its okay that its not 100% accurate to the AU!

I just got this idea because of all of his connections to crows and literally could not get it out of my head TwT

It

✨️Infested✨️

My brain

I also actually had alot of fun rendering this ^^

I did also consider an alternate piece just incase this one was a little too far off, but as seen by my last minute posting, i may have tried to bite off a bit more than i could chew and not gotten to do everything i wanted to complete 😅

I did have a list of sketch/doodle ideas like some more Christmasy things, stuff to do with your Metal au yn and some Farm shenanigans that i was going to compile and add but ended up not having time

But ill probably still do them because i dont think my brain would let me go on without doing so XD

So those will probably get posted soon as extra little bits, too! ^^

And for the Metal au i did this silly little comic!

I hope its not out of character for the au or anything 😅

But after seeing the little comic of where they first started i couldnt help but imagine mischief like this ^^

Honestly, im actually quite nervous about showing this

After spending so long thinking of ideas and getting excited about drawing them, i will admit im still a little worried that i misinterpreted something or did something incorrectly TwT

But i guess i just really hope that you like it in the end! ^w^

[sakasakiii]

hi!!! how long does an average panel of one of your comics take??

i love your work so much!! it got me into silmblr hehe

HI NONNIE!!! thank u sooooso much for checking in and for ur lovely ask! it means a lot to hear that my silly ol scribbles were what introduced u to the glorious landscape that is the tolkien fandom! on tumblr no less!! i hope you stay a real long time, and have a blast while you're at it 💖💖

now onto your question! that's some good food for thought uhhhh i can try to estimate?? its been a while but i shld have some rough ideas abt each that i can share! the time frame each comic/panel takes is highly dependent on WHAT kind of comic it is. i hv two kinds of comics I usually do: 1) full-length, and 2) goofy/4koma.

i have a few full-length comics laying about in my archive, but my most recent one/best example is Ghosts which was around uh.... 7 pages excluding the bonus panels! in terms of the process, i usually divide it into 5 stages:

Drafting: this is either the fastest stage OR the slowest depending entirely whether i know what im doing LMAO,, if i have a set idea for what i want to happen, i might get drafts done in a few hours, but if i flounder, it can take a few days 🤔

Lineart: relatively simple enough once i hv the draft down, so id say anything ranging from an hour to half a day if theres nothing else going on irl

Block colouring (main actors): there are DEFINITELY easier and more professional ways to do this with mass-selection and the lasso fill/bucket tool, but idk how to do that on SAI (my art program) so i colour everything by hand HAHA which makes the process longer.... half a day to a day?

Shading: THE WORST!!! definintely my least favourite bc i find it tedious due to all the details/prettification of elves that i am legally obliged to pour into this stage 😭😭 as a result, it can take days!!!

Background + Lighting + Final Rendering: similar to the previous stage haha it just depends on how much effort i wanna put into the final product looking nice. roughly a few days? it kind of meshes with stage 4 anyways haha

just for fun, i hope this process gif for page 6 can illustrate that 👇

these are just rough estimates, bc all in all, the time it takes so finish a page is really dependent on how free I am hahaha. Also, I usually work on full-length comics like Ghost which have more than one page all at once, which means I drafted all 7 pages at once, then did the lineart for all 7 pages at once, coloured at once, shaded rendered bla bla bla 😚 iirc, i think it took me 11 days in total to finish Ghosts before the end of June last year!

For goofy/4-koma, its usually just one page with less detailed/more cartoonish/chibi character styles so it takes a day or two days at most! again, it all boils down to how free i am hehe

YEAH SORRY THIS ENDED UP BEING AN INFO DUMP but thank you so much again for asking and letting me ramble! <3 i ended up having a lot of fun looking back on my drafts n thinking back on my processes.... theres defininitely room for improvement, but thats another worry for another day heheh 😎

[dragon-spaghetti]

Hey! I hope its alright im asking anonymous, you're kinda my idol so im a little shy sorry :,)

Anyways my question would be a kinda commonly asked one but i would like to hear your advice on "How to find your artstyle?" Your artsyle is truly AMAZING and unique to me and inspired me a lot so i thought i would ask you this. I'll stop writting now cause its getting long 😅

(One last thing: You're the best and keep doing the amazing work you do cause im obsessed with it and its truly amazing and have a pawsome day/night!!)

It's absolutely ok!! That's why I have anon on after all ;v; (and thank you omg that's flattering 🥹💖)

Okok so here's the things with artstyles; it's literally just doing what ya want!! You don't need to have a specific one!!

So for mines, it's literally just been me picking things up over the years. I got my start through drawing my little pony, and that still shows through how I draw eyes tbh ;^^ and as you can imagine, over the past few years the hellaverse has had a massive impact on how I draw!!

If you like how an artist does something?? Try and analyse how/why they do that; I grew up watching speedpaints on youtube and taking into account just how people did things, for example if they colour picked for their rendering or if they used layer settings etc!!

Having one artstyle can honestly be really restrictive though, which is why I honestly don't believe you should focus on having one specific style if that makes sense??

These pieces are all by me, but all have different rendering styles!! The first one is significantly more recognisable imo as my style since cell shading is generally what I do, however when I'm feeling particularly art blocked I'll sometimes go for a more paint-like style ✨

A really close friend of mine (who gets referred to as my husband lol) can do so many different styles, yet his art is extremely recognisable on sight to me every time somehow and I'm forever in awe lmao 😭 his art account is @/draconicdeityarts if you want to check out his stuff, cool af

Genuinely my greatest piece of advice? Just have fun and don't be afraid to try new things ;v; trying to put yourself in a box of "it needs to be in this style" will stunt your growth in my experience!! And over time you'll find the things that make your style yours because, generally, they're the part you enjoy doing the most, which can only be found out by experimenting!! My favourite part is rendering and I feel that shows, but the reason I love it so much is because I'm regularly experimenting still with how I do it rather than sticking to one way!!

I hope this helped at all, just remember that art is for fun, and trust me when I say that your art will always have its ways of being recognisable as yours regardless of if you have one style or 20 different ones 💖

For fun, have some of my older art to see The Development lmao; I believe the years in order here would roughly be 2014, 2016 & 2015 (forgive the quality the photo won't properly load), 2019, 2020, 2022, and finally 2023 ✨

[azaenya]

Sandrone Headcanon - III

"Haah... Some Harbinger I am..."

This one comes from an interpretation of Wanderer's voice line about how "all Sandrone creates is garbage." So, I thought about what exactly is garbage to him, and since he is a sentient puppet (with an ego), I assume what would be beneath him would be mechanical beings that lack any sentience.

But this is the fun part, it is my belief that Sandrone CAN create beings with sentience; during her "childhood," she learned about what connections needed to be made in the robotic brain to achieve sentience, but she chooses not to.

Because even if you are a thinking creature doesn't mean you have a good standard of living. Even in herself, there are aspects of the human experience that she is yet to replicate, like the sense of touch. It is hell. Alain brought her into a world she can only see and hear, but never feel, and she refuses to repeat his mistakes.

But there are times where she thinks about it.

Where the whole world cheers her name, the revolutionary genius, FAR greater than that rotten artificer, Alain Guillotin. It was HER hands that built herself, not his.

But she tells herself that sentient beings are much harder to control than simple machines. What she actually knows is if she brought her machines to life experiencing the same hell as she does, she couldn't forgive herself. So she is trapped between being better than her creator technologically or being better than him morally.

Her co-workers are unaware of her moral debate, regarding her with disinterest or disdain. (Except Columbina, she's an outlier.) The thoughts always return, imagining their shock at her hidden genius and her soaking it in with smug pride. But it must remain hidden. Any compliments would be short-lived, this she knows. It will always be about what is next. So she retreats into her workshop, where she improves her creations or her own flesh indefinitely.

End of headcanon.

About the art

It was hell AAAAAAA

As I got to work on the background and the table, my face became like Sandrone's lol. Rendering is a fuck.

I'm happy to be done with it, I did just finish it this morning, so I'll probably feel more proud of it later.

Also I love Limbus Company, so I made it in that style kinda. That is what the little bit on the bottom is about. I realize that I'll need to refine the icon later, and also make it just 3 colors instead of rendering, but for now I'm done.

I do love Limbus Company so much. To be honest, I fell off Genshin before Fontaine happened, then I played HSR, and now I've fallen off of that in favor of Limbus. I am taking notes from Project Moon when thinking about Sandrone's writing, because its writing is truly zenith material.

Anyway, oughhh, amogus, bye

Start | Prev

[minas-linkverse]

Do you have any tips or tricks on how to start a comic like this? Or even just how you got started?? I've had my own au for years that I so badly wanna put out into the world but I've been struggling with finding a good way to start it!!!!

Hm!! Ok!! This is a tough question with many different answers even just from me. I'll do my best to answer tho!! 😮

The main bit of advice I want to give, and which I think is vital to anyone creating anything:

☆ Know yourself.

When looking up advice for creating, people love to tell you that by doing things a specific way is the best and only way to go. Often advice of this sort has solid points, you should plan ahead, you should have easy character designs, buut... You don't have to.

I do not work well with outlines or scripts. I dislike sketching. You'd think that'd make being a long form comic artist impossible for me, but nope.

I know theres things I cannot do, so I've put all my practise to what I can do. My lineart style allows me to almost skip sketching completely, my scripts are more of an A to B structure than law. I improv 90% of the time when making pages. It's kinda like dnd with myself.

I would absolutely not reccomend what I'm doing to others, but I know it works for me. People can tell me I'm doing it wrong but its either wrong or no comic at all, SO. Suck it. 👍

Er. Rambling now.

My point is, figure out what you can and cant do, and do your best to give yourself the ideal work enviorment and process.

☆ Deal with being overwhelmed

Making just a few panels and suddenly realising its gonna take years to get anywhere is SO demoralising. It's gonna happen and its gonna happen again, and again, and—

But continuing with the earlier advice, you gotta ask yourself what would help you. Are you willing to sacrifice quality? Do you just need a break? Maybe you're like me and like to include smth you love in every update so you'll have something to get excited about making.

That feeling of overwhelm is trying to tell you something, so figure out what that is so it wont end the project for you.

☆ Start it

You wont like what you make when starting. I've never heard of an artist who has.

I'm not saying start this instant, not everyone is as into improv and flailing around as me. But I will say you'll never feel ready. Figure out the minimun of what you need to start and do it. Show friends first if youre afraid to post.

Also where to start? Well sure there's lots of good advice online about that, but you can also just doodle random stuff until you feel like diving deeper. That's what LV started with, just Twi and Wild hanging out with animals and some headcanons. It may not be the most tightly written work but theres beauty in the humanity of a mess.

☆ Extras

A "failed project" or "forgotten WIP" is only a failure if you let yourself feel that way. Yea it can be a hauntingly strong feeling thats hard to deal with... But it can be beaten. WIPS are proof you tried and not everyone can say they have.

Lv is far from done and I have no intention of dropping it, but because the journey has been so nice I'd satisfied even if I had to call it here. Its smth that helps me with the overwhelm... What I've made is beautiful even now.

Comparing yourself to others is gonna rip your heart out. I love that theres other links meet aus out there and hope the best for those artists but I caNNot follow any of them or I'll crumble to dust.

So Uhm.

Basically. Have fun and be yourself. 👍

Ps. Readability is basically the most important thing for a comic artist to pay attention to, that and not destroying yourself with details and rendering. 🙌 Good luck out there!

[stormio2407]

Ello! ʕ⁠っ⁠•⁠ᴥ⁠•⁠ʔ⁠っ♥️ Im secretly a big fan of your art work and was wondering if you'll do a tutorial on how you make your art work, I love them all very much 💞

Oh, thank you. 🙇🙇 I’m so glad to hear that! And sure, I can make a tutorial real quick. :))

1.) Before I start doing any art, I do this to my canvas. Having a solid fill layer on color burn with low opacity gives a nice outline effect on your pen. As someone who sucks at putting lineweight at the right spots this is a life saver (or if you want to make your linework better, that works too.lol) All color bases and renderings stay above the lineart layer on multiply (I also use clipping mask a lot for rendering.)

2.) I give myself some time to research for poses on Pinterest. If I can’t find anything, I use Magic Poser on my iPad to make all of the poses.

This is a link for the web version.

Here is also the link to the brushes I always use for my drawings.

I’m going to use this old sketch of Ava with his hair short. For this example, I didn’t find a pose. I only referenced the hair style.

Generally I create the basic shapes for everything- the head, wings, body, etc (hair is kinda the exception to this). I don’t go too deep with adding line weight just yet.

3.) I add the base colors in this step. Sometimes I’ll stop here with my drawings, but with my personal art I continue. I tend to explore a lot of color schemes, so I like seeing how other artists approach this. I can take the longest on this cuz I get so indecisive of what I want. 😅😅

Sometimes if I don’t like my colors overall, I’ll add a solid color layer on Hue at around 30-40% opacity to harmonize every color. This layer stays above all other layers.

4.) Step 4 is a bit of a continuation from 3. Here I start adding more detail with the coloring, and putting those FX that I want. If I want to, like in this example, I also extend the drawing to show other elements, if I feel like the composition is a bit empty.

After this, I take a step back from my iPad and come back to my drawing the next day. Sometimes doing that helps me find obvious mistakes that I wouldn’t have noticed immediately.

5.) Sure enough, I saw the the mistakes on his face, so I fixed them. I prefer using the liquify over the transform tool when I need to retouch some things; it prevents the linework or coloring from looking “choppy” or torn apart with its resolution.

Once I got the final touches done, I send it off !

Don’t know if this is actually considered a tutorial but maybe seeing this process step by step can help a bit. 👏 good luck, and have fun with what you create!

[breadknight-likes-things]

Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2, Is A Double-A Delight.

I was a big fan of the first Warhammer 40K Space Marine game back in 2011. While it could be argued it was a fairly middle of the road action game relying on it's license, it knew full well each and every part of that license to use, and it knew what parts of its gameplay to focus on to maximize the fun. I barely knew what Warhammer 40K was back then, I barely know what Warhammer 40K is now, but I know that in this long belated sequel, the developers still know how to make a fun video game. Space Marine was a game about wading into a big ocean of aliens and slashing and blasting. Space Marine 2 is a game about wading into an even thicker ocean of aliens, and blasting and slashing. It rips, it tears, it's just a great time all around. Combat is crunchy and visceral, the number of bad guys on the screen is absurd, but you always feel about on par with them in terms of strength. Despite always being wildly outnumbered. The story is simple, and easy to follow for the most part. Aliens have invaded one of the many human settled worlds, and you have to drive them off. There's layer upon layer of Warhammer 40K lore that I simply don't understand, but that unfamiliarity helped with the tone and setting this game is going for, on my end. Why are there flying babies with cybernetic eyes floating around? Why does every building look like a church? Who the hell is Primarch Gulliman? Who cares? All these things and more are lovingly detailed, absolutely insane, and add a level of texture to the game and story that so many other games could only hope to bring to the table. There are parts of this game I find flaw with. The second enemy type was not as fun to fight as the first one, a flaw similar to one in the first game, for example. The new aliens are nowhere near as silly and fun as the space Orks that I remember so vividly from the first game. Here we have "The Tyranid", an army of insectoid style aliens prone to swarms that boggle the mind to witness. You won't believe how many of these guys this game can render at once. Even still, they lack the comedy of the "what if ten million drunk Soccer Hooligans got together and started a bloody crusade?" Orks, but they're an impressive sight nonetheless. Space Marine 2 is short, its tech isn't the fanciest in gaming, and even at only about eight hours the back half of the game starts to wear out it's welcome by the end. Still, it's one of the best experiences I've had in gaming this year! It's a bloody, silly, and visceral good time. If you like action games as much as I do, it's a very easy recommend from me. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to look up whatever the hell the "Omnissiah" is on a Warhammer 40K Wiki.

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 04/03/2024

Willievan Afton Polkka

Season 8 No Album Release (Read More) Ievan Polkka (In-Game Version) - Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA

Ripped by KnightOfGames

Requested by realchickenmanny! @realchickenmanny

One of the most fun parts of keeping up to date with SiIvaGunner is getting to see the rise of new jokes being used on the channel - which weird sources are trying to become mainstay running gags, which feel as if they're failing to really catch on, and so on. I talked about this in relation to Season 8 in particular back with Joke-Explainer™ 7000 Fusion Collab, back when the Season had just kicked into gear a few weeks ago, and even in that short time since there's been a few rising star jokes worth considering. One of the most surprising newcomers to me, then, is the very subject of Willievan Afton Polkka: the Five Nights at Freddy's fan song Stuck Inside, by Black Grpyh0n ft. The Living Tombstone.

Five Nights at Freddy's has of course always had a pretty prominent presence on the channel since back in Season 1 with the Circus rips a la Goodbye To Love, where the entire gag was built on how FNAF games lack much of any real music to make rips of. But there's another way this gag has been utilized in rips of the games - by instead using the rips to cover The Living Tombstone's immensely popular FNAF fan songs as if they were official theme songs of the games. The cultural impact these songs have had on many an internet dweller is undeniable: back with Five Dreams at Night 1.16, I covered an example of these using the song It's Been So Long, which currently sits at 312 MILLION views on YouTube. (and, of course, The Living Tombstone's first ever FNAF song was used as the credits theme for the feature film last year!)

All that is to say, that I find the usage of FNAF fan songs - old and new - to be a fantastic fit for SiIvaGunner, as influential nuggets of pure pop culture self-expression on YouTube. Stuck Inside, used by Willievan Afton Polkka and six other rips all released after the start Season 8, is a far more recent song than the nostalgic FNAF songs of old, themed around the story depicted in the FNAF movie - yet even without that nostalgia, it's got an absolutely fantastic melodic hook and creepy, yet ominously cheerful tone to it. After hearing it for three or so rips, I was sold - the team had clearly taken a liking to the song, and I was now amidst the various other commenters noting how fun of a listen it was.

That was, of course, before I went to look up which rippers were behind which of these eight rips. Eight rips using Stuck Inside, made in the span of two weeks - and they were ALL made by KnightOfGames.

And look, KnightOfGames is already one of my favorite rippers, I've admired the earnestness and quality in his output since I first began listening to the albums and connected the dots of who was behind what (plus, in his own words on mlp racism anthem (comix zone arrange - every MLP rip specifically goes through him for approval to ensure peak pony quality!). But this sheer commitment to rendering Stuck Inside in these SUPER distinct styles, making a one-man effort appear like the work of multiple contributors through sheer variety and rate of uploads - it genuinely did make my jaw drop when I found out! All of these are bangers in their own way, but I felt the need to single out Willievan Afton Polkka in particular for how much of a fun escalation it proved to be SO early into the meme's life - it's the kind of rip that I wouldn't have expected to see uploaded until several weeks from now.

Ievan Polkka is of course a very sillycore banger in its own right no matter what you do with it, but the idea to have Stuck Inside's vocals be sung by Miku herself over the former song's backing beat is such a genuinely inspired idea, this clash of old and new internet fandom music that, on the surface appear, like oil and water. Yet the somewhat uncanny cheeriness to Stuck Inside's melody that I mentioned earlier ends up fitting in perfectly, appearing far more sincere and lighthearted in the arrangement as a result - and all topped off perfectly by the use of Moonbase Alpha-like Text-To-Speech clips to match Stuck Inside's occasional squeals. Just for good measure, the rip lastly explores juxtaposing the tonal differences of the two songs, by using the original vocals for a small segment in the middle of the rip, before returning to the good-fun Miku vocals.

Willievan Afton Polkka is, above all else, another release in the long line of excellent vocaloid rips on the channel, much like Rolling Start and As Miku Collides. And much like those two rips in particular, there's a sort of personal feeling to the rip - in part due to how exclusive Stuck Inside as a SiIva joke still is to KnightOfGames himself, but also due to how much fun the guy clearly had in arranging it in a seemingly-bizarre style such as this. There are some mashups and edits that you think of just from hearing songs for the first time, the "surprised this hasn't been done yet"-type of rips, but Willievan Afton Polkka feels like the complete opposite: the kind of out-there rip idea that could only be done by someone who knows Stuck Inside like the back of their hand. That's a level of commitment that I just have to respect - and I hope with my whole heart that Stuck Inside eventually becomes picked up by other members of the team as Season 8 progresses.

[pearl484-blog]

Has Miraculous Lost its Innocence?

Just got an ask from @tallwriter asking if Miraculous has lost its innocence permenantly, but my inbox ate it. Sorry.

So, just to be clear, I'm not really sure I understand the question, so I'll answer it in a few different ways.

Will Miraculous Ladybug ever return to primarily catering towards its younger demograghic again? No, I don't think so. It seems pretty determined to interact with older fans and grow up with its audience. I doubt it's going to backtrack. Which is kinda a shame, because one of the things it seems determined to lose is its episodic nature in exchange for an arc. Unfortunately, the episodic nature is not the writer's strength, and arc plots are...difficult for these writers. Their inexperience in this type of writing shows. Their style of arc building how also lead to them not being able to contain their stories in small chunks anymore, which leads to me ...not enjoying them as much, along with them following this weird piece of writing advice to make whatever is the most painful thing to happen to the characters happen.

On a side note, for any writers out there, please do not follow this advice. For a stronger story with a more coherent theme, figure out what your theme is and try to come up with conflicts that might naturally arise from this, and would enhance your theme instead of distract from it. Think of it like cooking. No matter how tasty all the ingredients in your kitchen can be, you can't make them all, and some foods do not pair well. Figure out what you're working towards, warm and savory? Cool and refreshing? Healthy and lean? Then go towards that. A triple layer chocolate came next to grilled salmon and roasted mixed veggies is an ...odd choice that would raise some eye brows. Is Miraculous always going to have mature themes? Miraculous has always had themes of bullying and child abuse from the beginning. Part of why I liked this show was its realistic depiction of emotional abuse with Adrien, and its refusal to adhere to the trope that is the school bully somehow being the most popular girl at school. Considering how its aiming towards an older audience now, and it's never shied away from subverting comon trope expectations, I do not expect this to change.

However, that is not to say that I enjoy every trope subversion that MLB has done, nor do I think that it has always handled mature subjects very well, but I'll touch on that a bit more in my next section.

Have I Lost My Faith in Miraculous Ladybug Permenantly

Short answer: No. But it's going to need a lot of back bedaling and extremely good writing to make me invested in the series again.

Most of this is related to one unfortunate plot point, the mishandling of child abuse. Of course, that's not the only issue. I also do not like Lila. She is my least favorite character in the entire series. I do understand what the writing team is trying to do with her. They messed up with her character during the episode "Chameleon" and they are trying to fix that error. It is an admirable effort, but unfortunately their attempts to fix that issue have not rendered a villain that is likable or is clever and easy to hate. Unfortunately, each time I see her, I see the hand of the author every time she shows up. Everything about her is contrived, and I do not believe that she could have all these lies. Furthermore, the handling of Chloe in Seasons 4 and 5 also seemed unnaturally spiteful and petty. Perhaps, they were trying to backtrack and make the character someone fun to hate, but unfortunately, they could not. Each time she appeared, I could only sense ill intent from the author, and it was not a good look. The absolute final straw was when Chloe is revealed to have a learning disorder, and Marinette takes the time to say that it is unfair for Chloe to get accomodations for her disability because she's been taking steps to mask it by having Sabrina do her work for her. This does not make me dislike Chloe in the way the authors apparently thought I would.

However, the biggest flub of all is Adrien Agreste. He is abused. I could use an abuse checklist, and he'd hit most if not all the boxes. The show is still one of the most realistic decpictions of emotional abuse in the media and a good demonstration of abuse, why people might not recognize the abuse, why a victim might make excuses for their abuser, why a victim might not believe they are abused, and in season 5, there was an excellent depiction of the honeymoon/apology part of the cycle. I am honestly so shocked at how realistic and well portrayed Adrien's abuse is compared to the stereotypical abused woman who's got bruises and blaming it on walking into a door. BUT dear god. There is so much victim blaming towards Adrien. Adrien is too weak to stand up for himself. Adrien needs protecting from his own fragile emotions. Adrien can't know information. Adrien keeps fawning. He keeps making VERY concerning statements about himself, his feelings, his relationships to people, and no one realizes how fucked up it is. No one challenges him. The narrative, at several points, ends with his fucked up abuse logic being the end-point of the conflict. In order for Miraculous Ladybug to regain my faith in it, I need for people to challenge the fawning. I need for Adrien's unhealthy behavoirs and mindset to be challenged. I need for those behavoirs to be shown as wrong. And I need for the victim blaming to be shown as wrong. I need for people to understand what they did was wrong.

The senti-monster thing, by the way, DOES NOT HELP. It is not a good metaphor for abuse. Gabriel and Adrien was a good representation of a parent abusing their own child, now it's a representation of a creator abusing his creation. There is so little representation of a parent abusing their biological offspring. Why destroy it?

Did the authors not think the audience would be able to understand why Adrien obeys without magic? By making him controlled by an item, they undermined the whole abuse theme.

Adrien should be controlled by the man who raised him. The man he loved his whole life. The man who should've loved him. The man everyone told him loved him and knew what was best for him.

Adrien has been emotionally crushed his whole life. Told he's impulsive, too emotional, that he never makes good descisions, and the only way for him to be worthy of love is to be obedient, to be unresisting, to be perfect. He should think that molding himself to whatever people wants him to be is right, is expected, and his friends should challenge that. But they don't.

Each relationship Adrien has has been carved away besides Marinette and Plagg. Marinette will not help him. She cannot help him. Plagg is an abuse victim whose also internalized worldviews similiar to Adrien. He teaches him how to rebel. He understands these rules, but Plagg cannot acknowledge them as healthy.

Miraculous can restore my faith by re-aligning its abuse structure. Backpedaling and saying that abuse victims are not weak because they bend their knee. That sometimes they see obedience as the only option to survive, and that's okay. That victim blaming is not okay. That accomodation is good and necessary, and its wrong to be a jerk about it. That fawning is unhealthy. That molding yourself to what others want you to be is unhealthy. That judging your self-worth on how useful you are or how happy you make other people is not healthy.

I do not think it will do that. But it could. And the fandom has done that, so I will continue interacting with the fandom.

[lunchtimebedamned1997]

More secret Vox project updates

(don't worry, Issu, it's not the ZIne lmao, I just have Radiostatic brainrot lmao I'm not spoiling Zine work BUT ALSO IF YOU GUYS DON'T KNOW THEIR IS GONNA BE A BADASS RADIOSTATIC ZINE @radiostaticzine if you wanna look around!)

BUT ANYWAYS, updates! :3

I've got some WIP shots & some BG stuff!

Apparently in the process of drawing Charlie's shoes, I realized that I accidentally understand how feet are shaped now? Wild. So happy about that, hope it sticks LMAO

I also finished the background that recreates one of the shots from Stayed Gone! I'm not going for exact replicas, bc personally this project is more fun for me when I don't get up my own ass about recreation and let myself just draw with a little of my personal art style seeping in there XD

With and w/o the crowd for your viewing pleasure lmao

I'm having A LOT of fun doing these lineless renders for the backgrounds, it's been an incredibly satisfying process, and I really think I've reached two of my art goals for this year!

Get comfortable creating (preferably lol) interesting backgrounds

Get more comfortable with using a saturated color palette

I feel like thanks to this project, I've really hit both of those goal posts! It's really been an exciting year in my art journey so far. I've come so far just since January! I've been doing art for twenty years and 2024 is the first time I just really feel like my art is somewhere I'm comfortable with! I definitely have things I want to improve and grow towards, but I honestly couldn't be happier with what I've been able to make - I hope that doesn't come of as self-aggrandizing, I've just worked so hard to be able to do things like this project and I'm so proud of myself for never giving up on all of this.

Also, this shot below illustrates what the base of this project looks like! I drew each of the main frames I knew I wanted traditionally in my sketchbook (its easier for me to visualize things when I can touch them, flip though pages, etc.), and then set those to the timings I wanted with the lyrics and everything, and most of the main shots are just refined versions of these initial sketches :D

ANYWAYS

That's all I should probs share right now since I don't wanna give away the whole project lmao BUT progress has been made and I'm jazzed af :3

[discet]

Have you ever played a game called Sea of Stars?

I have! I have some complicated feelings on it

So First off, this game is absolutely gorgeous. The sprite art style that they used throughout the world is a love letter to the 16-bit era while taking advantage of modern tech to make it even better. It's that thing that some independent games manage to do, where it looks like the old games felt even though if you set them aside by side, it is much better.

Mechanically I also had a BLAST with this game. It's core battle system is fun and has a deceptive amount of depth to it. It also utilizes the Paper Mario style of 'every attack and ability is also a mini game' that I have always loved. Traditional JRPG's tend to make me zone out during combat but Sea of Stars had been turned into almost every encounter. The progression always made me feel like I was getting more powerful without ever making the encounters ahead feel trivial.

In addition to all that, this game is clearly a love letter to Chrono Trigger, in it's perspective, world design, humor and more. The world is beautifully rendered and feels like a lived in space. It is by and large a light hearted and hopeful throw back to the games of old.

All that said. The Actual Story-Telling frustrates me to no end. A lot of things work, but a lot of things really, really don't for me. While I can rant about this forever, I will focus on my frustration with the main trio. Spoilers Ahead

So this game is ostensibly about Zale, Valare, and Garl. Zale and Valere are both chosen ones imbued with the magic of the Sun and Moon and destined for greatness. Garl is their childhood friend who they are separated from traumatically after one of their misadventures ends with Garl losing an eye and his two friends being dragged away for training in isolation for their futures as chosen ones.

They don't see each other for years. Now, trope-savvy girl like me was expecting for Garl to reappear as a rival to the heroes, bitter after losing an eye and being told he couldn't cling to his friends.

BUT NO. Like, within hours of the pair being released from their training to Do The Plot, Garl shows up, scarred eye and all and insists on joining them to support them in their adventure. And its just cute and wholesome and he's an endless well of positivity and lightheartedness in the story. I know some people found him annoying, but I loved Garl. He is just so genuinely enthusiastic about the world and its mysteries that it was contagious.

Unfortunately, Zale and Valere, by comparison, are pretty flat characters. They are both fairly stoic, serious minded adventurers who have basically the same dynamic with Garl. In most conversations they will respond exactly the same. Mechanically their kits cover very different bases in the combat system, but as characters, they have the same personality.

That said, my love of Garl, and the gameplay carried me past all that.

Then when Garl sacrifices himself it really actually got to me. Like, genuinely choked up. The music, the visuals, the writing really make his sacrifice feel both tragic and necessary for the story to finish.

With the desire to not let his sacrifice in vain carrying me through the last few plot beats.

Now the initial ending, is very clearly a set up for the secret ending. The big bad you've been opposing all game basically sicks his top Lieutenant on you and that's basically the final boss.

So of course you do all the end game stuff and unlock the secret ending where... Garl... doesn't die. The heroes use time stop shenanigans to basically swap Garl at the moment of his sacrifice with a shape changer you meet after his sacrifices. Which meant all that heart wrenching drama that had really genuinely gotten a reaction out of me... was all pretend. Was all acting from your shapechinging friend who just let themself be buried in a grave for a few months to keep the timeline in check. Garl was fine! He was just chilling and you get to finish the game properly now!

And that. Fucking sucked. I finished off the true final boss cause I mean I had worked hard enough for it but all of my investment had kind of drained away at that point.

The fact that several plot beats were actually in reference to the studios first release (the messenger) a game of a totally different genre and vibe to Sea of Stars, basically made the story weaker overall.

It's like. They were close. They were so close and it just lost me at the 5 yard line.