#because once you know the anatomy of one animal and how it is structured you know essentially ALL of them. because its all the same rules

[ivipl1]

the funniest fucking thing abt me is that i was suddenly able to draw knight armor purely because i stopped treating it as clothes and started thinking of it as a bug carapace. using my own autism against my inability to draw in an instant one hit KO

[meanbossart]

Oh boy, VaM is kind of a trial and error experience LOL I couldn't really show you how to use the interface and stuff without a whole video or something, but it's not THAT difficult to get a hang of if you just give yourself a day or two to play around, not to mention the number of tutorials you find out there. Luckily, if you only want to use it as a reference software that makes the process far easier (to this day I have no idea how to animate on that thing, since that's not what I use it for)

As for how I use it, it's pretty self explanatory - if there's a complicated pose I want to draw but I'm either having trouble with it, or just want to double-check angles/anatomy, I will use it as a resource! I use for most of my "proper" pieces (y'know, the nicer looking ones) and every once in a while for my silly comics if I'm having trouble with a pose.

Lets use this drawing for example (the character on top of DU drow belongs to @namespara )

I don't draw a lot of mud-wrestling (shocking, I know) but I had an idea of the kind of pose I wanted them to be in. So the very first thing I did was make a rough sketch of what I was envisioning:

I often do a rough sketch first, even If I know I'm going to be pulling the program up because A) It's less tedious than adjusting the models over and over again until I pick a pose and B) because sometimes I'll decide I don't need the reference, after all, and so that's 30 minutes I'll have spared myself of playing around on the software.

Now, this is a pretty complicated pose! It's in a weird angle and the bodies are making contact in ways I'm not used to depicting, so I did choose to whip out VaM for this one. I went into the program and after some messing around, I flopped my little dolls together like this:

Now something really cool about VaM is that you can completely customize your models, and if you have the patience, I would definitely encourage you to do so! Obviously, you don't have to make picture perfect replicas of every single character you have, but as you can see here I have made a DU drow "decoy" to help me better understand some of his features when I draw him: he has a strong brow, a short nose, a square jawline - these are all going to look a very specific way from certain angles, and I might not always be sure of how to draw it right! So it's useful to have models that bear SOME semblance to the character so you can better understand how different viewpoints will affect their bone structure and mass.

Also thank fucking god for the elf-ear slider. Figuring out how to draw those shits from certain angles was a huge pain in the ass when I started drawing DnD races.

So, with the reference in hand, I go over the sketch again:

Now you may notice that I don't stick to the reference 100%. There's three reasons for this:

posing on VaM is tedious as hell. You can get something incredibly natural looking and picture-perfect to reference from if you wish, but it's going to take you hours to do. So, for the most part I just slap guys together until the results are "close enough" and use that.

In my opinion, you should always aim to ENHANCE your reference material, not replicate it exactly!

While VaM is a PRETTY DANG GOOD source of anatomical reference, it isn't perfect, I often supplement it with further reference from real life resources or make tweaks based on my own knowledge where I catch it falling short (and, antithetical to what I just said, I sometimes fuck the anatomy up further on purpose if I think it looks better that way LOL it's all jazz baby).

Then lines, color, yada yada. I don't have a tutorial on that and I don't think I could make one, because my process is chaotic as hell, but I do at times use Virt-a-mate as loose reference for lighting too when coloring - waaaaayyyy less so however, because that process is even more tedious and I feel like I often get better results by just winging it. It is a feature of the program though, and I'm sure it would be helpful for someone who has a difficult time visualizing lights and shadows. I only started using this program a few months ago, so I happened to already have a pretty good understanding of that kind of thing and just don't personally feel like I get much out of that particular mechanic.

Here's a few other examples of pieces that I made reference for (WARNING: Suggestive)

Now, for the question many of you may want to ask:

"Can I trace this junk?"

And to that, I say: Buddy, you can do whatever the hell you want with the reference material you created.

However,

If your goal is to learn and improve your art, and to recreate realistic proportions and anatomy from memory, tracing won't help you.

Developing your own style, your muscle memory, and personal technique will all be hindered by choosing to trace instead of drawing from observation, so I would encourage against it. Hell - even when tracing is employed as a technique, it's usually by high-skill realism & concept artists who are looking to either cut some corners, save time, or just double-check their own proportions in order to improve further - if you try tracing as a beginner, you will most definitely find the result to still look stiff and "off".

So trust me, there is so much more to be gained from drawing from observation. Make note of tangents, compare proportions, use all the elements of the picture to dictate where and how things should go - it will be a far more rewarding experience.

Hopefully this has been helpful! VaM is a really cheap program (you get it on the guys' patreon for I think 8 dollars, just google it!) and it's definitely been worth my money as an artist since I found it. Learning to use it can be a little intimidating at first glance, but as I said above you only really need a day plus one or two tutorials to get a hang of the interface.

A fair warning though, IT IS A SOFTWARE MADE FOR VIRTUAL SEX/ADULT ANIMATION So when looking it up expect to see a some spicy content.

[sayakxmi]

I finally got myself together to finish the trolltags/lands I have for the dancestors, that I overthought to hell and back, so why not share. Explanations under the cut!

(Also, I probably should mention that it's all in context of an AU, so if some things are confusing, that's why.)

KANKRI:

vendicateThumomacule [VT] Kankri's original trolltag is, well, grey to hide his indentity, and is actually a small nod to John/June. Hence the letters are VT, absolutely taken from VanTas. Mostly, because ectoBiologist has EB like EgBert. You know how these letters are taken from the genetic code, but John/June ended up breaking from it? Well, Kankri's the opposite here. The very first mutation, someone who didn't belong there, but inserted himself there anyway.

Vendicate means to claim for oneself, whereas Thumomacule comes from two words - thumomancy (divination by means of one’s own soul) and macule, which can be either a) (in printing) to blur, as from a double impression in printing, or b) (in anatomy) another name for macula (a discolored spot on the skin). The second definition refers to his mutation, while the first, I'm kind of thinking about blur/double impression as a reference to The Signless, and seeing visions of another world. Personally, I love the idea that Kankri's always had these visions as well, so that's what I was going for here.

As for constructiveGrievance, I'll be honest, I've seen it once upon a time, I don't know where, and internalized it as his trolltag. He has a lot of grievances, and tries to be constructive about it. (Whether he succeeds is up for debate, lmao).

As for his land, the Land of Conduits and Valves: Conduit: - a pipe or passage for water or electrical wires to go through - reference to Mituna (as I am a huge Captor&Vantas whatever the fuck they have going on enjoyer) - a way of connecting two places - the aspect of Blood - someone or something that provides a way of passing something such as information or payments from one person to another - role of a Seer, but also a small reference to The Signless again, passing information about different worlds between each other Valves - a device that opens and closes to control the flow of liquids or gasses, or a similar structure in the heart and the veins that controls the flow of blood - pretty obvious aspect connection.

In general, thinking about the Seers' lands, they all have somewhat... liquidy feel to it. Rose's has literal rain, while Terezi's land has these thought river-like things on the sky. So I was also thinking about something fluid, and, well, blood.

Kankri's land is pretty similar to Dave's, except there's no cogs or lava, only endless red-and-blue pipelines that are meant to let the blood flow, but the valves aren't letting it, and empty void beneath your feet. It's an extremly unpleasant land.

It's a bit of a theme, actually, that the lands are pretty hostile towards their players here - since the game was tampered wth, Skaia knew early on that this session had no chance at succeeding, so it was quite literally trying to get the players to make The Scratch faster. F.

It's actually quite evident since the get-go, Kankri's land is LOCAV. So. Random fact: I'm Polish. In Polish the way you read V in English is the same as we read W. So I could write it as CAW. A sound made by a crow. And, well. One Crow: bad luck, loss, unpleasant catastrophic changes.

From the very moment Kankri got into the game, it was already lost. RIP.

Also, I've meant what I've said. I aggressively overthought it, lmao.

DAMARA:

acroamaticAcicutie Acroamatic - esoteric - “intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest” - I was thinking about her ability to speak & control ghosts, a medium, but, yeah, honestly, it can also allude to the fact that as far as we know only Rufioh actually understands her speech. Acicula - One of the needlelike or bristlelike spines or prickles of some animals and plants; also, a needlelike crystal. Connected with cutie.

Land of Ponds and Shimmer, well, when it comes to Shimmer I was thinking about light reflecting on crystals, since her Scratch device looked like these music boxes on Aradia's land, so there had to be Some crystals in there. But it can also be the shimmer of the ponds. With ponds, I was kind of thinking about koi ponds? Who's stopping me from there being koi fish, tbh. The ponds are also a reference to Meenah, because, well, water. But also small one to Rufioh, I guess. Also, ponds and reflections (When will my reflection show who I am inside).

In general, Witches lands are, imo, pretty, colorful, and dangerous if you aren't careful. And that's also what I thought about Damara's land - looks very pleasant, but crystals can have some sharp edges, ponds be deeper that it has any reason to etc, etc.

But since all their lands make things difficult for the dancestors, the catch of this one is that it makes Damara homesick. :)

Ah, but here's my favorite part. PAS. Pas is Polish for fold in poker. "Folding simply means to let go of your cards and surrender the pot to another player". Or another set of players. ;>

RUFIOH

agromaniacalTauroboly Agromania - intense desire to be in open spaces Tauroboly - the ritual sacrifice of a bull. I like to think about is as a contrast to Tavros' trolltag, in which Tavros is a bit more of plot’s sacrificial bull, but his trolltag relates to bulls fighting, whereas Rufioh would wreck people’s shit if it wasn’t for his non-existent self-worth & confidence, but his trolltag relates to sacrificing a bull.

The Land of Breeze and Hills has a somewhat simple etymology. All the Breath player we know had some specific type of wind in their land's name (literally Wind for John/June, and Zephyr for Tavros), so I went with something similar. And boy oh boy, is Breeze a reference. Obviously, Breeze relates to water, and that way it references three pretty important gals in Rufioh/The Summoner's life - Damara (ponds), Meenah (a seadweller), and Aranea, or more specifically Mindfang, who was a pirate. As for Hills, Rogues tend to have some rises, like Roxy's pyramids, or Nepeta's... sugar cube pyramids? So I thought about hills for Rufioh to more or less fit it in, very much thinking about"a hill to die on".

BAH is kind of weaker, but at the same time, it gave me some ideas for the land. In several languages it means flood, but in a few others it's an expression of disbelief, disdain, resignation & scorn.

LOBAH is flooded, which is a huge pain for Rufioh, whose wings aren't really good for damp environments. His mobility sure is limited, which kind of sucks. He could probably ask some imps to help him out in travel, but that'd mean using his powers, and he's not a big fan of them. }:(

MITUNA

technicolorAlytarch Technicolor - a vivid or bright color “Alytarch in ancient Olympic games was the leader of the police force who assisted the Hellanodikai to impose fines on athletes who did not follow the rules” "Hellanodikai - literally meaning Judges of the Greeks - were the judges of the Ancient Olympic Games, and the success of the games was attributed to their efforts". I like the idea of it referring to more than one character, but ofc I thought of Latula first.

Land of Screens and Skyscrapers Skyscrapers as in heights & danger, at least that’s my association. Something about falls, especially when you're very high... Screening - concealing, protecting, sheltering. But also screening, as in “checking for disease when there are no symptoms. Since screening may find diseases at an early stage, there may be a better chance of curing the disease”. Also, fun fact, SAS is a group of highly trained British soldiers who work on secret or very difficult military operations. SAS is an abbreviation for 'Special Air Service'.” I wonder if it's relevant.

Heirs' lands tend to be really dark for some reason, but it's a bit difficul to say if it's a theme for them, because Equius' aspect is literally Void, so of course his land is dark. But I went for it. I'd say LOSAS resembles Dirk's land a bit, but there's also a shitton of giant screens on the building, all of them not working properly. The land is dangerous in it's nature, and generally not the most pleasant place to be in (ah, Doom players), but it sure gets worse after Mituna's accident, now that he has trouble seeing, and his balance also got quite bad. F.

MEULIN

acuteCardiograper Acute: - causes severe problems or damage; - pain or illness is one that quickly becomes very severe; - aware of or able to recognize small differences between things, or being accurate in judging something; The first two are more foreshadowing, whereas the last one is the actual intent. Since she's an amazing matchmaker whose speciality is the Hreat. Cardiography - the use of a machine to record the beating of the heart. So. You know. Hehe. Meulin's trolltag is an ad. Bonus a cute cardiographer.

Land of Lily Pads and Wisps Lily Pads are literally there in Openbound, but also I like the general symbolism of lilies - purity, innocence and rebirth. I think it describes Meulin very well. Wisps - of smoke, of light, but also will o' the wisp - a person that is difficult or impossible to reach or catch on (OR aurora). Of course even Meulin can't have nice things. Her land mocks her for being "useless". (Note: I'm not saying that she is, but that's how she feels). LOLPAW is not exactly deep.

PORRIM

gallivantAvantgarde Gallivant - to visit or go to a lot of different places, enjoying yourself and not worrying about other things you should be doing. Avantgarde - the painters, writers, musicians, and other artists whose ideas, styles, and methods are very original or modern in comparison to the period in which they live, or the work of these artists. Porrim's attitude, essentially.

Land of Threads and Frogs Threads like fabric, but also thread/fabric of the universe Also thread as in “to move forwards, often changing direction in order to avoid people or things”. Which is, well, what she was supposed to do. Another land that isn't exactly dangerous, but feels more like a mockery. Cluttered, soft & pastel. You could say ""girly"". She hates it here.

Maid's lands are pretty nice, though they tend to lack the aspect the Maid is supposed to create, at least that's what I've understood.

TAF - a substance, consisting of protein and nucleic acid developed in a malignant tumor, that stimulates the formation of capillaries for nourishing the tumor and carrying off its waste matter. A connection to Kankri, and especially The Dolorosa's role in The Signless' life.

LATULA

I'll be honest, I'm not exactly the proudest of hers, but this grl was giving me a headache at some point. Mostly when it comes to her trolltag, because I like the name of her land, but oh well. I was tired.

galiantCaballerial Galiant - “Galiant is a mixture of two words; Valiant (Possessing Courage and Determination), and Gallant (Grand, Fine). This is what you call someone who excels at anything they play, mainly videogames.” Urban Dictionary. I'm not sure it's the most believable source, but you know what, why not. If it's not really a thing, what's stopping me from headcanoning that it is on Beforus? Or add a small backstory that Liltula found that term & loved it, used for his trolltag & only later found out it's not a real thing. Now she's living a lie. Caballerial - a trick invented by Steve Caballero in the early 1980s in which the skater performs a 360-degree ollie in a ramp while riding fakie and without grabbing.

Land of Smoke and Mirrors Smoke and Mirrors - the obscuring or embellishing of the truth of a situation with misleading or irrelevant information. Other than the obvious, it's not a big discovery that the Knights' lands are filled with danger and even things they personally hate & fear. Mirrors for somebody as self-conscious and obsessed over her presentation? And also smoke. There might be fire somewhere, but she can't smell it, she won't know she's in danger until she gets closer to it. F. No cool meaning for SAM :(

ARANEA

amasthenicGraphomaniac Graphomania - a compulsive urge to write Amasthenic - uniting the rays of light into one focus, as a certain kind of lens does (in photography)

Land of Swirls and Candles Swirls - I was thinking about the weather, so connection to Breath, but also whirlpools, so connection to water. Extreme weather. Hella important in sailing. Etc. Also swirls & cherubs. Candles - light. Quite simple. LOSAC is essentially a gorgeous dark forest lit by candles, and Aranea is blind as shit in there. Did I mention that Skaia doesn't want them to keep going? :) Other than that: - Candle Queen by GUMI is such an Aranea song, you won't tell me otherwise. - one of the definitions of a SAC is "a covering that surrounds a tumor" i WoNdEr If It'S rElEvAnT

HORUSS

compoundTegument Tegument - natural covering of an animal or plant body Compound: - a thing that is composed of two or more separate elements; a mixture - make (something bad) worse; intensify the negative aspects of But Also - compound bow - A hand-drawn, hand-held bow that for similar poundage at full draw, stores more energy than a recurve bow through the use of two cables and two eccentric wheels

Land of Copper and Bolts Copper can be used in making steam engines. “Brown coins of low value made of copper or bronze”. And making electrical wires. “any of various small widely distributed butterflies of the genera Lycaena, Heodes, etc, typically having reddish-brown wings: family Lycaenidae” h u h Can mean “policeman”... Law reinforcement… Executioners… HMM. Bolts - well, bolts, but also arrowheads (in crossbows), also to quickly escape, and also (lightning)bolt, also A bolt is also a part of a gun that pushes the cartridge (= container filled with explosive powder) into position to be fired - I wonder if it its *gets shot* CAB - besides the obvious - “the enclosed compartment of a lorry, locomotive, crane, etc, from which it is driven or operated” - trains. steam. it’s all coming together “the glass-enclosed area of an airport control tower in which the controllers are stationed” listen, it works for me, but I can’t explain Why “first cab off the rank” - the first person, etc, to do or take advantage of something - like. the first person to take advantage of somebody’s malleable and passive personality…?

Steampunk land. What can I say. Downside: them damn bolts everywhere. You can hurt yourself :<

KURLOZ

tumultuousCaduceator Tumultuous - chaotic or disorderly; full of noise, commotion, or turbulence. Caduceator - herald; messenger Also similar to Caduceus (prolly related), so a relation to Mituna who is a Gemini - Gemini is ruled by Mercury (Hermes’ Roman name, the Caduceus belonged to him) So it’s a mixed bag of relations to others: tumultuous is a relation to Caliborn (there’s even a wholeass Sign of the Tumultuous - Caniborn). Herald/messenger is akin to Kankri’s role of a prophet. Except he’s heralding Lord English’s arrival rather than another Signless’. And, well, the Mituna connection. It’s also a Doom connection, lmao.

Land of Pits and Thrills You have this huge never-ending theme park with random pits where you least expect them, cartoonish experience. In general, Princes' lands tend to be extremely dangerous in ways that relate to their aspects, and, well, cartoon-like traps break the immersion a bit, really makes you think about everything being fake. Plus a theme park doesmake one think about the HS clowns a bit, right? Another one of my faves, PAT means a stalemate in Polish - a situation in chess where one of the players can’t move according to the rules, but their king isn’t in check - it ends the game in a draw. Technically, they haven't lost, and yet they cannot progress :o)

CRONUS

corbanAlluvion Corban - offering to God in fulfillment of a vow / kinda thinking abt it regarding Cronus wanting to fulfill his “destiny” Allivion - effect of water impacting on shoreline (eg. deluge) Was I tempted for Cronus to have his trolltag as cronusAmpora? Yes. Absolutely. But in the end I decided to pretend that I Am A Serious Writer.

Land of Tides and Rows Tidal island - a piece of land that is connected to the mainland by a natural or man-made causeway that is exposed at low tide and submerged at high tide Also changing tides. Row - well, rowing, so water travel. This land looks quite nice on the first glance, but once you start to travel you find out, that the further you go, the darker and more dangerous it becomes. Oh no. Also, the water is definitely tainted. TAR - a dark, thick flammable liquid distilled from wood or coal, consisting of a mixture of hydrocarbons, resins, alcohols, and other compounds. It is used in road-making and for coating and preserving timber. But also as a verb: blame or damage the reputation of (someone).

MEENAH

cerescentConqueror Conqueror - obvious Cerescent - a typo she didn’t care to correct; crescent is a phase of the moon (halfmoon); Ceres is a roman goddess of harvest etc.

Land of Passages and Harvest Passages as literal passages, but also in: passage of time, or passing = death, so a relation to Damara. And Harvest is, well, harvest. In general, the only other Thief we have is Vriska, and her land is essentially "things that help in stealing her aspect" and "something that represents her aspect". In this case, then, you need to let the time pass for harvest to begin. Also, I love the idea that all Life Players have some representation of the other players on their planet, just like Jane's lamps. In this case, Meenah has flowers. I have yet to finish it, but I did assign some already. PAH - used to express disgust or contempt. Aka Meenah's reaction when she first saw her bright colorful land full of flowers.

Final notes: - ok, so, the idea for LOLPAW, Thrills in Kurloz's land & Avantgarde for Porrim's trolltag are from kanmeu, Caballerial is 100% an accident, though, when I've found that word I thought it looked familiar, and Oh. - I might fix the formatting tomorrow, idk, but it sure ain't gonna be now.

[spookykestrel]

Lets Talk Farm Terminology!

Yay! I'm here to answer all the simple farm animal questions and misconceptions you've been too afraid to ask! Why? Because im bored and have thoughts and am reading Watership Down and want people to know the difference between "bunny," "rabbit," and "hare."

Leporidae

You're probably thinking wow kes how bold of you to start out not only with an animal uncommonly kept by farmers but also starting with a scientific name few will know! And you're right, but I don't care! The Leporidae family includes rabbits and hares, and yes! they are different. Very closely related as they belong to the same family, but rabbits and hares are not the same thing. Simply: hares are bigger and wilder than rabbits. There are no domestic species of hare and they are more adapted to solitary life than living in groups/colonies. Looking at the image above you can note slight differences in facial structure and build, as well as most notably the ear length, with the smaller rabbit on the left and the larger hare on the right. Most Watership Down art features hares but I don't mind it all that much as the hare anatomy is more fun lol.

Now, what's a bunny? Bunny is an informal term used to refer to rabbits, especially young ones. It wouldn't be incorrect to refer to the long eared friend in your yard as a bunny but if you were writing a paper or just want to sound more serious, it would be better to say rabbit (as you notice, I am refraining from calling them bunnies in this post).

When referring to rabbits, their terminology is similar to other familiar animals. A male rabbit is called a buck and a female rabbit is called a doe, like deer or goats. However, a baby rabbit is called a kit or kitten and a group of siblings is called a litter, just like cats.

Goats

Aw no more latin? As the domestic breeds of goat all come from the same species, there's no need for a broad scientific name as we all have an idea of what to picture, unless you're thinking of a mountain goat which are not considered true goats and are considered a goat-antelopes, making them closer in relation to muskoxen! Which is a whole different topic! Regardless, there's lots of different breeds of domestic goats (Capra hircus), like dogs and cats. Some are better suited for dairy production, some for meat, others are bred for their cashmere! Pictured above is a Saanen goat, one of, if not the most popular dairy goat breeds (in the US at least), known for their high milk production.

Many goat breeds have horns, which vary from antlers bc of how they grow and their composition. Horns can be removed when the goats are young, in a process called dehorning or disbudding. When horns are removed, their growth is stunted and they will not grow back once the animal is older. However, disbudding is a controversial topic as it is not painless and often unnecessary. Both male and female goats can have horns, although their appearance may differ.

I mentioned above that (mature, uncastrated) male goats are called bucks and females are called does. Many, many people use the terms billy and nanny to refer to goats. However, the better term would be buck/doe, and when people use billy/nanny it does peeve me. You may also hear the word wether to refer to castrated goats. Baby goats are called kids.

Cattle

My favorites of the post, let's finish with cattle (Bos taurus)! Same as goats, cattle can be bred and used for many purposes like the lovely Brahman I've included above, a very recognizable meat breed. Cattle terminology can get a little tricky as its not as straightforward as some other animals.

Cattle is the correct term for these animals, as cow technically refers to a mature female (has been bred). No one's going to freak out if you say cows instead of cattle, myself included, especially because if you dont know the specific details of the animal its hard to know whether to say cow or heifer or bull or steer.

So, a cow is a mature female, and a mature male is called a bull. An immature, young female is called a heifer. A castrated male is called a steer. When referring to an immature male you can use bull or bull calf.

Many places you will see the term "ox" thrown around (not to be confused with a MUSKox mentioned previously) and there's a lot of misconceptions surrounding the name. An ox is a specially trained bovine. That's all it is. There's lots of regulations on how they are trained and all that, but that's the basics of it. It is most common and recommended to use castrated males (steers) because castration should temper their aggression and testosterone production; additionally, males are typically larger than the females. However! Female cows can be trained as oxen, as can bulls.

Technically an ox should not be referred to as such until they have completed their training, which can take years. Typically oxen are selected at a young age and routinely worked to develop good skills. They are used for tasks plowing or pulling carts, and as modern technology has improved, use of oxen has declined.

Thaaaat's all I have to say about that today, I sort of led into each topic in little ways and I've nothing more to mention. Hopefully you learned a little, I think livestock are cool 👍

[ckret2]

Since your Human Bill!AU has him as a person with a uterus, does he get periods? If he does, how does he react the first time he gets one? Is it possible for him to become Agent Powers’ baby momma?

Yeah, I figure he does.

Bill has some issues that arise from shoving an alien mind into a different species's body (such as his issues with binocular vision and balance issues). But once you set those issues aside, I imagine that otherwise the body he's been stuck inside is, at the outset when he receives it, normally abled. Peek inside his body and everything is built and structured the way a college anatomy textbook says a generic human body ought to be structured, all the hormones are in average ranges, etc. He got handed a body at peak adult performance. Mainly because the axolotl was like "you're gonna suck SO bad at this, you need every advantage you can get." If Bill had been sent to earth with a gluten sensitivity or back pain or whatever, he'd be dead within a week. Like not even from the disability itself, he'd just go "this is too hard" and lie down and give up.

(Caveat that I might change my mind on this later if I think of a condition that fits him well or that I think would be interesting to explore; but for now that's where I'm at.)

And if you take The Most Average Body With A Womb In It, in early adulthood, with no underlying health conditions—yeah, it's gonna bleed once a month and it's gonna be fertile.

I imagine he reacts to it about the same way as he does the first time he gets bad gas—"ow, that hurts, is something malfunctioning" followed by "oh, blood—okay, I know what's going on, I'm familiar with this phenomenon," and now that he knows X symptoms indicate the approach of Y event, he doesn't care the next time he experiences X symptoms.

He COULD become someone's baby mama—but I'm not planning on it. It doesn't fit in well with the other ideas I'm looking to explore with this AU. I'm angling toward a slow redemption arc (or, more accurately, a learning-to-be-a-better-person arc), and I feel like having the threat/promise of a baby pushing him would undermine the impact of any decisions he makes. Like yeah sure "bad character decides to become better because now they're starting to think about a helpless baby" is a fine plot arc—but that makes it EASIER to choose personal growth. If he's only thinking about HIMSELF, can he become better?

(And, outside of that, over on an RP blog recently I just roleplayed a character going through a full-length real-time nine-month pregnancy that concluded in January. It was a really fun project to do, but now that I'm done with it I don't wanna start ANOTHER pregnancy plotline. I've had enough of that for a while.)

So biologically, it's possible; narratively, I'm not gonna do it. THE MOST I might do is play with the idea (like "lies about being pregnant to fool a threat into going easy on him" or "accidentally gets knocked up and goes 'nope not doing that' and confidently aborts it"), but when push comes to shove I STRONGLY doubt those will be ideas I'll want to explore in the AU itself. Bill's just gonna have to put on his big boy pants and practice safe sex like any other human.

(Even as much of a reckless party animal as he is, I think he'll be better at this than some of his other human-body-maintenance tasks. If you skip showering then you smell bad—this is a consequence Bill doesn't care about if he isn't planning on interacting with a human he needs to impress. If you skip safe sex then you risk unpleasant diseases and a whole new person growing inside you—this is a consequence he DOES care about. He's probably not gonna get an A+ in safe sex practices but like, he'll get at least a C+. Some sort of passing grade.)

[babkaboy]

Hi! Big big biiiiiiiiig fan of your obikin work over on twitter, both for the naughty bits :3 and your art style like omg I love love loooooove the angular character design and the way u colour with scribbles hidden in it to look like it’s pencil coloured and the double lineart over (is it intentional or aesthetic thing?)

I wanted to ask a question: I noticed whenever I see your twitter art and tumblr art even tho it’s the same fan art some of the stuff on tumblr is slightly different like obi-wan/anakin’s face is more structured on tumblr version or slight change of pose or adding new things like obi-wan’s red lingerie in your obi-wan’s history of bras/lingerie while he’s naked on twitter version. Do you purposely change it for tumblr?

Hi there!! What a wonderful message to receive 🥺🙏 First of all, thank you for such kind words ❤️ I hope you don’t mind I answer both of your asks here!!

My art-style has been mutating through the years since I graduated and nowadays I’ve found a nice balance with this sketchy one I’m currently using (definitely influenced by Mikael Ross, his traditional cartoonish style is a huge inspo for me when i do comics). but I love trying new methods and switching things up every now and then. And yes, the double lineart is intentional!! I like how it gives some dimension and dynamism to the anatomy and makes it feel like animation 💞

And you are very observant!!! Bc I definitely change things in my art when I post them to different sites. part of it is because I’m kind of a perfectionist, and once i post something on twitter i start noticing all the mistakes and tangents and I just know i won’t post it on tumblr until i feel satisfied and fix things or re-do them. on the other hand, tumblr is very strict with the nudity stuff and i keep getting flagged every time i post something slightly suggestive (or maybe someone is reporting me 👀 won’t be the first time tbh) so i gotta tone things down, like adding obi-wan’s red lingerie in that one fanart while on tumblr he’s showing ass and cock HAHAHA. so yep, twitter gets ass and tits while tumblr gets the fixed 2.0 stuff. but in some way i kind of like the idea of posting different things on each site, like little easter eggs 🥰

I’m so excited for you to participate on the #UnderTheJediUniform tag 🙏 also tag me if you do it cuz my shadowban sometimes hides some of the art in the tag 😭 it started as a little idea and it warms my heart seeing people doing their drawings or fics or hcs about obi-wan in lingerie 💘 But take it easy specially if you are coming back from a creative burnout after uni, i was there too and it was no fun at all. sometimes is a way for our brain to tell us to take a break and nurture ourselves from different things other than drawing, like looking at different artists or photographers, watching movies, reading books and from life itself. and when you less expect it, you will suddenly get struck with the need to grab a pen 😊

thank you again for this lovely message, it really made my day!!! as you said, there‘s always shit happening and disgusting losers trying to drag you down in this fandom, but messages like this and the wonderful people that i have met through obikin is an enough reason to stay and keep doing what i want ❤️

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

The Little Things I Love About ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE

Just like the one I did for PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH, and just like the one I did for STRANGE WORLD, here's a little list of particular little details I loved in a detail-packed... Like, literally jampacked movie... SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE:

So far, I have only seen this movie once all the way through in theaters, caught multiple sections over and over at my movie theater job, and again in full on Blu-ray once. I've watched and rewatched sections since, always finding cool stuff. I may revisit the post and update it, too, like I did w/ the previous ones.

Also, MASSIVE SPOILERS ahead... Just in case you still haven't seen this months-old movie...

Much like the first SPIDER-VERSE... Tons of stuff to catch in the glitching opening logos. Logo/design p0rn aaaaall around.

There's already a lot to love in the opening Medieval Vulture attack set-piece, but my favorite detail? As an Italian-American? "Ciao, ragazza!" Complete with the parchment paper script "Bye, girl!" accompanying it. Any elementary school-age kid watching this now knows a little Italian, that's cool!

Lyla's first scene in the movie. Whichever version, too, whether it's the fist-bump or the selfie... I love how she just glitches and zips in and out, while Miguel keeps asking her in vain to call for back-up. Just an out-of-nowhere display of what kind of quirky relationship these two have...

Many have written about the scenes of Gwen and her father, Captain George Stacy, and how they hit very close to home. In that, they perfectly mirror some folks' experiences with coming out. Myself included, whether it's Miles or Gwen... It's even more effective with Gwen, because there are a lot of not-so-subtle hints that she could be a trans girl. (i.e. the dad having a trans flag on his uniform, Gwen having a "protect trans kid" flag, her room turning into trans flag pastel colors when she reconnects with her father at the end of the movie, etc.) I feel it's twice as hard-hitting in the opening action sequence because Captain Stacy has no idea the white-and-pink Spider-Woman is his daughter, loathes Spider-Woman for not-unfounded reasons (he's rightfully upset that Peter Parker is dead) but is taking it way too far (revenge territory), and he's also a cop. Here's this girl trying to reason with a hardened gun-wielding tough guy, who even fires the gun, prompting Gwen to remove the mask... And all the little complexities in the animated acting on George's face, the shock of his daughter being Spider-Woman, mixed with his grief over Parker's death and his sheer anger... It's maybe a minute or two, but goddamn did these animators go off. That's what anchors these movies amidst all the nerd/reference-stuff, spectacle, and dynamic changing art styles.

And to elaborate on this... This is basically a movie about a queer kid running off, without a home, while another one tries to find their people and be with them... Not prepared for the gatekeeping that's ahead... and some of us queers either experience something like those specific things or have a feeling of not belonging. (I also really dig how Jessica Drew is almost like a surrogate mother for Gwen, a parent of sorts who takes her in after showing her father who she is. Almost, as her protectiveness soon starts to wear off and gives way to sarcastic coldness after Gwen pays Miles a visit.) And the little nuances of both of their struggles trying to make it in this truly "elite" Spider-Society. It works perfectly through either Miles' lens or Gwen's.

Lots of graphic design and logos in that short convenience store scene, too. Lots for someone like me to look for.

The Spot seems to have linework going on inside him, of his anatomy and structure... Not dissimilar to the Xerography process used by Disney for animated productions from 1960 to 1985, and how the process overriding the clean-up animation process meant that you saw lots of rough linework, sketches, and planning inside of the characters. Like the rawness of the drawings preserved in the finished films. That technique is often paid homage to in other animated works, such as Tomm Moore's Irish triptych films that he did for Cartoon Saloon.

Much was written about, especially because one of the trailers showed this gag, Rio Morales snapping her finger upon hearing that Miles got a lower grade in Spanish class. A little after that, while Jeff is speaking, the look on her face. How utterly INSULTED she is- Again, just, ooh, great animated acting all around.

"Maybe get off the kid's a-

The first universe Spot visits, love that it's very 2D-looking and very, *very* comic book, a hint of pulp and Art Deco and '60s modern rolled into one... before giving us Venomverse (oh I'm sorry, SUMC) and LEGO.

Much of the Morales' rooftop party scene is just jam-packed to the moon and back with all these little writing nuances, tying in all this stuff about being a teen who is hiding something, reasoning with one's well-meaning but very controlling parents, all the humor and drama that stems from that. All that awkwardness, the embarrassment, how the guests play off of all of that, etc.

Miles pursuing The Spot whilst trying to talk to him... I mean, the entire Mumbattan sequence alone mops the floor w/ maybe 95% of superhero movies made in the last 5 years, but... This scene in particular, where the two are flying through a bunch of intricately-designed and planned buildings full of people with all these swooping camera angles- GO HARD they did.

Hobie's universe particularly referencing the ransom note letterforms that made up the cover of the iconic Sex Pistols album NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS, HERE'S THE SEX PISTOLS. They leaned *hard* on early punk from the '70s, more so than any other era, and that's so damn cool.

The subtle animated acting from Gwen during Miguel's warning to Miles about disrupting canon. All the inner-conflict over believing in it or not. And even before that, too, particularly in the aftermath of the Mumbattan Alchemax building collapsing onto the bridge.

And during that whole scene, as the different Spiders start to surround Miles, I like how Hobie is more turned to the side than facing Miles directly, unlike the other Spiders. That's just seconds before it's made clear that Hobie is on Miles' side.

The super-widescreen, Panavision-esque aspect ratio change when - during the whole Spider Society chase - Miles lands on Widow and is confronted by Web-Slinger. Really channeling the spaghetti Westerns, even if that bit has been done before, its use here - very clever.

"SNITCH!"

Miles' smirk when he begins to use his electric charge power to knock Miguel off of him, right before he's about to tell him - and by extension everyone who ever doubted him or told him he can't do what's right or what he desires - off.

The "Go Home Machine" literally being an elaborate spider, itself, inside a nest. Everything, right down to the machinery, all spider-themed. Simply going ALL OUT. Also that scanner that Miguel angrily rips out of the console... What a hilariously excessive work of art that thing is, and we only really see it for like 5 seconds.

Like I said, will likely add more, and this probably read more like yet another review of this film that I really, really love. I apologize for that, lol.

[adobe-outdesign]

If you're still doing pokemon reviews, I'd like to know your opinions on scraggy and scrafty?

I have to admit that this line low-key bothers me for one reason--as a gecko owner, leftover shed being stuck to them like this is very bad, as it can cut off blood circulation! I know it's a fantasy creature so it obviously doesn't matter, but that thought always lurks in the back of my mind when I look at these guys.

With that aside, this is a fun line. Making the shed into baggy "pants" and giving it a punk/hip-hop esq theme is a great concept, and it's a good example of how to give a Pokemon clothes in a way that still works biologically. There's some fun lore here too, with the skin being rubbery and used as a way to deflect attacks.

I also really like the faces on this line; they're just so visually distinctive and striking, with the half-circle mouths and the tiny reptile nostrils.

In terms of things that I'm not so big on, Scraggy's colors here look inverted to me. Once again, this might just be the reptile lover in me, but shed skins are typically whiteish when shed. Basically, the yellow shades need swapped so the darker ones are on the body and the lighter ones are on the "pants". This would make it read more clearly as shed to me. (Also, you should see the red underbelly's color in the shed a bit, but that's less of a big deal.)

And speaking of which, the line on the face bugs me a bit. I think the idea is that it's more shed, which will become the hood on Scrafty, but the dividing line is just so perfect that it's hard to read it as such. I would've liked to see a bit more baginess there, at least at the edges if nothing else. It also doesn't quite line up with Scrafty's hood, because it would need to start at the neck instead of halfway down the face for that to work.

And finally, this is just personal preference, but I would've liked to see a bit more structure to the anatomy, especially in the hands. It looks very flat, not helped here by the head-on view of it.

Overall, though, this is a really solid concept. And thankfully...

Scrafty is a pretty perfect evolution in my opinion, because it t doesn't remove any of Scraggy's good traits. Rather, it merely doubles down on theme, adding a shed hood in addition to the pants, changing up the colors to be darker, and adding a sweet mohawk that reminds me a bit of frilled lizards. I also like the little note about how the bigger crests get more respect, which parallels some IRL animals.

Scrafty also helps fix the color issue I was mentioning with Scraggy. Not only are the colors now inversed so the shed is lighter, as it should be, but the shed is also the same color as Scraggy's skin. That's just such nice attention to detail, and works similarly to the hood and how that carries over from Scraggy's darker head. Plus the dark grey fits the pallet nicely and adds contrast.

Also, I love that they remembered to give the hood eye holes:

Though as a side note, Scrafty's shiny is awful. Why is the shed the only thing that changes color? Scraggy's shiny isn't even green to match!

Anyway, the point is that this is a really solid line with a memorable concept. Both evolutions work perfectly together, the colors are nice, and the theme is easy to understand. Definitely a win in my book.

[snellyfish]

I’m not really doing too well, if it’s alright could I have some Kiyo headcanons? Preferably just Kiyo, if it’s not too much to ask. It’s also fine if you don’t want to send any/respond.

Sorry to hear that, I hope you feel better soon, anon! ♥

A lot of these are pretty fucking grim but I promise there’s also some nice lighthearted ones in here somewhere 😭 Mentions of animal death and some classic sibling abuse in here;;

I always kinda viewed him being mostly raised by his sister: Never really had an attachment to his parents because he was very young when they died and any grieving he may have needed to do was swindled by his sister just trying Too Hard to move past it and coming across like “we didn’t need them anyway.” So I do think that he just really needs/wants parental figures / mostly a maternal figure in his life of any kind, since he lost his real one and was forced to depend on another. He doesn’t know how to cope without one.

Definitely a weird kid growing up, no friends in school but everyone was also too scared to bully him directly. Honestly believed he had a lot of friends in school at the time because he would just ramble to other kids about horrifying things and they’d run away crying, and his sister would have to drill it into his head later that he has no friends. Thanks, sister.

^On top of that I definitely think he’s on the autism spectrum...somewhere in there.

REALLYYYY liked dissecting frogs, probably tried bringing his own dead animals he found to school so he could dissect them in class...his sister was brought in MANY times by teachers to give him a stern talking to.

Had a secret highschool crush, probably not realizing it was a crush, and was trying to flirt with her like “I want to dissect you so bad.” Probably got kicked in the knees. But hey! Now he’s a big fan of human anatomy!!! #feminism

I think he was a peaceful kid otherwise, he would always try to pet any neighborhood pets or wild animals that would let him, likely has some childhood scars from this because nothing was un-pattable to him. He’s a lot more careful and smart about it nowadays, but he would still pet a moose if given the safe chance. For the experience.

Had very little reactions to death in general growing up, since he was forced to repress his mourning for his parents he ended up being a bit apathetic about it to cope. So, as much as she loved animals and would never hurt one; he loved dead animals just as much. Ended up seeing beauty in death. 

...DEFINITELY LIKES TAXIDERMY NOW THAT I THINK ABOUT IT. Took a few taxidermy classes, everything he stuffed was too mortifyingly bad to keep, except for a coiled snake he has kept throughout the years.

Probably went to a few funerals of his sister’s friends/coworkers and...enjoyed them, he was basically the only one not crying, just smiling behind his mask. As he got older he would hang around graveyards alone and write his thoughts, about whatever, in a little notepad--he liked watching stranger’s funerals from afar, too. He especially loves the feeling of graveyards at nighttime, it brings him comfort, making him feel close to the dead.

He’s, ykno, an atheist, but I think after extensively studying different religions and beliefs he has a fondness for them all, being a BIT spiritual himself and taking bits and pieces of religious beliefs in a different light for himself. Such as customs on eating, views on life/death, karma, etc. He’s not theistic by any means, but he likes the structure and meaning that psuedo-faith gives him.

His favorite color fluctuates between gold and red. :)) He likes the rich background of royalty in both of the colors; the irreplaceable shininess of gold and the gorey hue of red.

HE! LOVES! HIKING!!!!!! Whoever he’s travelling with is forced to hike the nearest large hill or small mountain with him wherever they are, this man is so lanky and beyond skinny but he loves to climb, his calves are SO TONED it’s UNREAL.

When they reach the top of the mountain, he refuses to take any photos, he loves to live as much in the moment as possible and has a near picture-perfect memory, he may lightly sketch out in a notepad whatever he sees when they reach their destination--but he doesn’t like digital pictures and would prefer his hiking buddy refrain from taking any as well.

Has too much of an attachment to the natural human body to get any tattoos, (still thinks they’re beautiful on other humans, self-expression is human nature afterall) but I do think he’d be a huge fan of piercings for himself--not that he’d even keep them in all the time, but he at least loves the process of it and needles in general.

Likes “feminine” things a lot due to being raised by his sister, and once he finally gets help regarding his trauma, I think he’d be determined to reclaim his makeup and skirts as a part of his own identity; stubbornly refusing to let the memory of his sister taint what he enjoyed so much. Maybe a little bit of non-binary Kiyo propaganda happening here. Who knows! runs away at mach speed

[lepusrufus]

Benevolent red hare of art, i come bearing gifts of clover and poppies, and seeking your wisdom (for once, without mildly cursed takes) :

How would you recommend one starts studying about snarling animals? Should it be a broad study of various beast or just the one they are interested in? How should one find key points in their "expression"?

Asking for an OC that's gonna go through some trauma and get a little snarky - litterally

-🦎

Ooooohohoho yess! Red warning for nerd going on a tangent ahead because I fking LOVE drawing snarly creatures with them big chompers!

Okay first things first, you've got the right idea there. Start off by looking at real life animals, the internet is full of pics of dogs, cats, whatever your heart desires, snarling and growling. Learning the anatomy and structure behind what you're trying to do is always the best way to give yourself a solid foundation for creativity. Hehe, gotta know the rules before breaking them, you know.

Anatomy anatomy, we've got it right? Moving on now-

You really don't have to aim for realism. I mean if that's what you want, sure go ahead. But if your art style is not photorealistic, learning to stylize is almost, if not just as, important as learning the anatomical basics. Hell I don't draw my monsters realistically and I don't plan to either, because I worked and shaped my style to convey a certain vibe and have a certain dynamic.

To bring out some examples, let's consider a wolf. In real life wolves have a lot of the upper gums visible while snarling, which I find goofy as hell. The edge of the gums where they meet the fangs are also very rounded, which I ignore in favour of a sharper edge that works better with my style. Here's some visuals:

Compared to how I usually draw snarls, both in a more normal style and a drawing where I purposefully exaggerated the fangs:

It ends up quite different from the real life thing if you sit and compare them, but that's okay because those are changes done on purpose as opposed to just butchered anatomy.

A tip that could help with this step could be looking at artists that draw in a similar manner to what you'd like to achieve and learn from them. Observe and ask yourself how does x, y, z manage to convey this or that with their styles and find those little bits and pieces to incorporate in your work, like puzzle pieces. (Before anyone comes at me with bullshit like artstyle theft or something, I'm not suggesting people straight up copy, what I'm encouraging is to learn from each other)

This tip honestly stands for pretty much anything when it comes to drawing. It's what helped me work on my lineart for example. I looked at artists I admire and tried to understand how they achieved such well flowing lines. The result? I learned to apply more line variation, more harmonious poses and small details to my own art.

Anyway, back on track here. Ummm learn to draw teeth. I feel like well drawn fangs is what can make or break a good snarl most of the times. Study the proper placement on real life animals and skulls (and even learn to exaggerate the placement later if you wish). Also for the love of god, LOWER CANINES IN FRONT OF UPPER CANINES.

As a little gift of sorts, here's a shirt tutorial i did quite a while ago as per my Instagram followers' request. It's specifically for canine faces, but it may end up useful:

Hope this helps! :D

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans are Space Orcs, “Humans 101.”

Sorry for not posting yesterday. I have had the WORST motivation the past few weeks, but I thought you might like to see some more of Krill. Hope you all have a great day!

Krill walked up the university hallway turning his head to look out the window at the vast expanse of space before him. It had been a very long time since he had been to University, in the Vrul sense of the word, which was less like University and more like on the job training, but he had recently accepted an assignment at the Intergalactic Institute of Biological Science. Granted, he wasn’t a real professor, not fully, but an adjunct who had signed on to do a series of lectures for the next few months while he waited for Admiral Vir’s return. 

Since Simon had become acting Captain of the ship, it seemed that there was less and less reason for him to be there. She wasn’t experienced enough to take on the real dangerous assignments that the Admiral had excelled at, and due to her rule following nature, and the assignments they were sent on, mostly diplomatic and exploratory in nature, Krill had found less and less use for himself on the ship. He didn’t expect to be gone forever, and he doubted he would be able to leave at this point.

He couldn’t return to his home planet, not now there was a standing order for his termination, which he was planning to avoid with great prejudice. Though he found it wildly Ironic that they had asked him to come teach, when many of the professors at the school were, in fact, other Vrul.

It was with this small piece of amusement that he scuttled into the lecture room: Large and circular with seats rising on all sides and a projection hub right in the middle. The room was already packed full despite him being five minutes early. He had been told his lecture series would be popular, but he hadn’t expected there to be standing room only, and even then, there were students sitting on the floor, and a few Vrul floating in the air high above other students' heads.

He moved to the center of the room to set up his projections and, from the corner of his eye watched as a few of the front row students shifted back slightly. The Tesraki, Rundi and Finnari students didn’t seem to notice, but the Vrul students certainly did, sarong at him like he was some sort of freak.

He  could hear the whispering, and he reveled in it.

It was nice to be intimidating sometimes.

Overhead the lights flashed once, and then twice, and the entire room went quiet expectantly looking down at him with their wide eyes.

He drew himself up Resting two of his hands together and another two behind his back as he began pacing his way around the projection field. Students Continued to whisper quietly, “Good morning class, My name is Dr. Krill Galaxy renowned trauma surgeon, and the galactic leading expert in xeno-medicine with an emphasis in humanity.”

There was a uiet muttering around the room.

“I have been acting medical officer aboard the UNSC Omen once Harbinger for more than two years, and I have practiced surgery in hospitals From Andromeda and Irus to the milky way and Earth.”

More shifting wide eyes and some nervous muttering.

He looked around the room shrewdly at all the new faces, “How many of you are interested in working with the intergalactic community.”

A slow raise of hands.

“Then I should probably let you know. Humanity has begun to profuse through all the major sectors of space, business, government, shipping, sales, medical. Humans are everywhere, and humans can do anything. If you wish to work in the wider intergalactic community, you will be working with humans, and many of you will work extremely closely with humans.”

Nervous expressions all around.

“I noticed many of you, the Vrul students especially have noticed the strange effect that spending time with humans can have on an individual.”

He looked around and saw some acknowledgement.

“The colloquial term for it is called the humanizing phenomenon and it will happen to you no matter how hard you try. Scientists have said that you will become more aggressive in order to interact with humans, your movements will become more predatory, you will come to focus on facial cues and the pitch of voices to determine emotion, and soon,you will even begin to utilize human body language in order to communicate better with them.” He motioned to himself, “Out of all the alien species,I have spent the most time with humans, and as you can see, I communicate primarily in a way that humans would understand, mostly with nonverbal body cues. I don’t often use my helium sack as I get in the way with keeping up with humans.” he turned to look around at the room, “Human’s no longer scare me. As pack animals, your social influence is often more important than your physical influence. Given the fact that I have built myself up in social influence within a human pack, I no longer worry myself with being round humans. In fact, I Have never been safer in my entire life.”

His antenna vibrated slightlin amusement, “In fact it is well known that I already have a termination order placed on my head by the Vrul council.”

There was a shocked gasp from certain Vrul parts of the room.

He swaggered about the room a little smugly. He didn’t usually get reactions like this from people.

“They actually took me from an assembly meeting with the GA and brought me back for termination, but one of my humans, as I certainly do consider them mine as much as they consider me theirs, came and rescued me single handedly.”

Another murmuring from around the room.

“How did he do it?”

They waited.

“He used his complex human vocal cords and clapping to simulate a beat. In that way he disabled all the guards, and climbed his way up the guiding rope to the council chamber.”

More soft muttering.

“If you make friends with a human, you are probably as safe as you are ever going to be, especially if you happen to become friends with a very audacious human=, in which case there is nothing that they will not do for you.” He spun on the spot, “Enough for introductions, I will please have you open your files to page one of the textbook, and we will go over a brief discussion of human mechanical anatomy.”

There was a shuffling around the room as Data pads were produced.

Krill brought up an anatomical projection of a human. Looking up it amused him to know that this anatomical model, the one used in almost every nonhuman textbook, was modeled on one single human, that being Adam Vir, all accept for the right leg of course, which was modeled on another human of similar height.

“Humans are are omnivorous bipeds with an endoskeletal structure supported by a vascular system. I know a lot of you have been wrongfully told that humans are primarily carnivores, though that is not true, while human can eat a variety of foods, there are humans that choose to live without eating meat, and they can be sustained on a herbivore diet if they wish. As you can see here, the front facing eyes of the human mark them off as a predator species, though this isn’t always the perfect indicator. Vrul eyes are on the front, but, as we know, Vrul also have prismatic vision that is more closely related that of insects on an earth-like planet.” he glanced around the room, “These predator classifications only exist for a class of alien known as the vascular type, which uses a pump to push fluid through the body. As you know Vrul, Burg, Gromm, and Lumins as well as a few others are not represented in this category.”

“Can anyone tell me which species ARE classified as the vascular subtype.”

There was a raised hand and he pointed, “You there.”

“I can provide a short list sir, Tesraki, Rundi, Humans, and Drev to name a few, but the Drev are a notable outlier for this rule because their war-like culture has supported the slow movement of the eyes towards the front of the face despite them being a herbivore species.”

Krill nodded, “Very good. Yes, humans are in fact a REAL predator species, however it is important to note that the greater 80% of human diets are supported by fruits and vegetables. Based on the amount and distribution of consumed foods, humans are actually closer to herbivores in their dietary choices than they are carnivores.”

There was a soft muttering around the room. Either disbelief or interest, he couldn't tell.

“Historically, humans would have evolved from tree dwelling omnivores, though their diets would also have been primarily fruit, and maybe insects as hunting only really came after they moved to land based travel on two legs. As far as earth animals are concerned, humans are not a top tier predator, and years of life in padded habitats using technology have actually dulled their hunting senses and abilities. A human COULD take a chunk out of you with their teeth, but they certainly wouldn’t WANT to. It would definitely be a last resort. Following that, humans only eat cooked meat as they can grow very sick on consuming certain raw products.”

The class shifted and whispered to each other.

“Yes, I know you have been told many strange and odd things about humans, but most of those are heavily exaggerated. However, it is true that humans are more versatile than most of us. Humans can run, walk, climb, throw, jump and swim, and while they don’t do any of those particularly well, their ability to do all of them  to some degree makes them the most versatile alien in the GA. Furthermore humans also have a multitude of senses, ones that are common to most of us balance, heat cold, pain, etcetera, but there is one sense that they have which is very uncommon in the galaxy, and that is a sense of smell.”

All around him, students were taking notes, “This is the ability for a human to detect particles in the air and, often, identify their sources. Everything sheds particles, and the human nose can pick up those particles. For instance humans generally like the smell of Iotans because Iotins shed compounds similar to foods that humans like to eat. Once upon a time it might have been used to help humans detect poison or other predators, but like I have said before, a human is a middleman in abilities. All of a human’s senses are relatively dull in comparison to some of their earth counterparts.”

He turned to his projector and flipped it to the anatomical structure of a dog, one that had been oddled off the only dog that many aliens had ever met.

Waffles the admiral’s dog.

“This creature’s sense of smell is powerful enough,they have been known to track a sent trail for miles through densely wooded forests. They can smell a change in hormone and pheromone levels on other creatures, and are even being used to detect certain diseases. The best a human can do is smell a cooking meal.”

He walked in a wide circle looking out at the students, some of them looking excited, others staring on in trepidation.

“Human eyesight is on a similar level to their smell. Humans have binocular vision which makes their depth perception quite good. A human is perfectly capable of snatching a flying object out of the air as their predatory instincts draw them to movement. This also makes humans very adept at navigating through obstacles like they might once have had to do in trees. Furthermore, it allows them to guess distance to prey during hunting.” He switched to a picture of a drev, “However humans do not have the best vision out of all aliens species. While the acuity of a human and a Drev are similar, Drev can detect Ultraviolet wavelengths where humans can only see the visible spectrum.” He looked at some of the Vrul, “Take solace in the knowledge that you can see thermal where humans cannot. They have relatively poor night vision, but better than that of you or I and far better than the Drev who traded the use of multiple cones to very frew light sensing rods.”

He looked up from his lecturing, “Are there any questions so far.”

Every had in the room shot into the air.

He paused to look at them faces lit by the glowing bluish light of the hologram behind him and sighed, he supposed this is what he was here for.

“Let’s star in the back then, shall we.”

One of the hands went down.

“Sir, is it true that humans are capable of surviving cortical tissue damage.”

Krill snorted, a sound he probably shouldnt have been able to make since he didn’t have a nose but one he had learned how to make because it expressed a very important emotion when interacting with humans. The entire class looked at him funny.

He sighed, “Yes, The first surgery I preformed on a human involved removing an eight inch steel rod from an eye socket which had gone into cortical tissue. To this day that human… well hes been doing fine, a bit of a dumbass sometimes, but I think that was a part of his personality before brain damage.”

They stared at him confused until Krill realised that dumbass probably wasn’t in their vocabulary. It probably translated to silent butt or idiot butt which didn’t have the same kind of ring to it.

Krill waved a hand, “In certain cases humans have been known to survive with only one hemisphere of their brain.”

A chorus of disbelief, “It is true, in certain cases where electrical abnormalities n the brain cause convulsions, surgeons intentionally remove half the brain to increase quality of life. There are a couple of downsides to this of course, like the inability to play musical instruments, but most humans still live a productive and fulfilling life after the procedure.”

More hands shot up again.

He turned and chose one at Random.

“Can humans smell fear”

Krill frowned, “No humans can’t smell fear. Whoever told you that was smoking something.”The class stared blankly at him until he picked another hand.

“Are you worried that the humans will ever…. Turn on you?”

Krill raised his hands into the air in exasperation, “They are SENTIENT beings not wild animals  Humans have strict social rules like you or anyone else. It would be illegal for them to hurt me , and I doubt they would let it happen at all. Humans aren’t feral. In fact my partner aboard the ship is Doctor Katie Quinn, and she is just as experienced in the field of medicine as I am. SHe can match me in almost any medical procedure and she only has two cortical hemispheres, and less than half the amount of hands.”

He frowned at the room, “I have no idea where ou all got these ideas from. Humans are thinking creatures not animals. The reason they survived on their planet is not because they are the strongest predator, but because they are the smartest, just like you or I. the only difference between us is that the Human planet is so hostile, they have been forced to keep some of their more instinctive tendencies.”

More hands raised.

“Have you seen one of these larger earth animals, sir?”

“Yes on plenty of occasions.” He flipped his diagram back to that of a dog, “This animal here is called a dog, the ancestral  evolution of the wolf, which is just a much larger version of this animal here. These animals are higher on the food chain that humans and have the ability to easily outrun, attack and rip the throat out of a human.” He paused as the class pulled back, “Which is why humans often use them in security, protection and law enforcement, because no human wants to fight one of these creatures.” He smiled a bit grimly, “Also humans just love to keep them as pets.”

There was an uproar around the room.

How could anyone want to keep something that could rip their face off as a pet.

Krill raised a hand to quiet down the room, “I know, I know, it all sounds very strange, but you must understand, humans and dogs are both descended from highly social pack groups. At one point a human took wolf cubs and began raising them and breeding them for desirable traits. As wolves are pack animals they slowly would have begun to see humans as members of their own pack family. In this humans molded a creature into being one of their greatest allies. Dogs rely on humans and humans rely on dogs for many jobs. Humans love dogs and dogs love humans. In fact, humans have bred this animal so extensively that dogs are one of the only creatures on their own planet capable of reading human facial expressions.”

He pulled up an image from his personal files, one where Adam sat on the floor, and the dog Waffles sat next to him. He made a face as her long, pink tongue ran up the side of his cheek.

The class gasped.

“She could easily use this opportunity to kill him.” krill said, “But she never would.” He turned to another image of himself standing next to the dog, a hand resting on her back.

More gasping.

Krill was somewhat amused. “Humans, as I said are social in the extreme, and this fact is going to be our best ally when meeting them. Anyone and anything can become part of a human pack. In fact, this instinct in humans is so strong that inanimate objects can easily be accepted into a human’s pack. They routinely name plants and attribute personalities to them. I once conducted an experiment where I placed fake eyes.” Googly eyes to be exact, “On a waste receptacle, and the humans named him Mr. Rubbish and began throwing away their items exclusively in that specific receptacle as ‘Offerings’ to Mr Rubbish….. That is not a joke, that actually happened.” He appraised them with a stern look, “Befriending humans is the most important thing you can do, and probably one of the easiest things as well. If you find yourself incapable of making friends with a human, its probably time to look at yourself personally because you must be horrible.” he pointed to himself, “I will openly admit that my personality isn’t exactly the easiest to be around, and yet I still managed it on accident.”

His lecture continued for some minutes, covering more anatomy, bone structures and some interesting facts about their internal organs.

However he was forced to stop as little lights began blinking overhead, and he went to dismiss the class, “Next week we will be discussing the effects of adrenaline on humans as a special treat to those who decide to return after this first lecture. And for your assignment, I want you to find one news article that perpetuates a myth about humans and write a short essay debunking it. Since this is the first week I am going lenient on assignments but by the end of the term I do expect full essays at publishable quality.”

Everyone in the class stood, and he found himself suddenly swarmed by a mass of figures.

It seemed as if he was going to be here for a while.

Little did Krill know that his lecture series was becoming so popular that the administration was going to have to upgrade his lecture hall two more times in the concurrent weeks.

Everyone wanted to know about humans.

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

A few Mer-skeletons

I will have to put the seal/ sea lion/ walrus in a post of their own lol but let's start with the body structures of merfolk based on dolphins, generic bony fish, and sharks.

the previous post on merfolk tails is over here, the merfolk masterpost is here, and I also have a patreon page here where you can see my sketches and get early looks at my content before I put it all up here (plus bonus stuff on my story writing)

So let's start with the easiest of the group, which was actually the dolphin.

(Image description: A simplified drawing of a dolphin and mermaid, showing both the skeletal structures and the body outlines. They both have very similar skeletons, with a skull that has a large concave space in the front, a ribcage with a shoulder blade and fin/arm, and a long spine that ends in a tail, tiny vestigial pelvic bone still visible. There are no bones that extend into the tail flukes or the dorsal fin on their backs. I also drew in the position of the eyes on the mermaid in a way that resembles a human eye position more than a dolphin eye position. End description.)

I could add hair, but I chose to leave all of these drawings bald to help show off the skull structure better. Now, these merfolk I have made are definitely a little more on the uncanny side because of how I've used real animal anatomy as a base, so take them with a grain of salt lol. I think the dolphin works very well as a basis for a simpler design, and of course any other whale or dolphin relative will have a similar structure. They're mammals, and they still have "finger" bones in their fins that make adapting in a humanoid arm and hand a little easier. (and if you want to get really uncanny, go check out my patreon to see what this looked like before I changed the position of the eye socket...)

Next up is the shark, which has some similarities to bony fish, but is still quite unique in its structure:

(image description: as above, a simple drawing of a shark and mermaid with similar skeletal structures and body outlines, including sensible eye placements. On the mermaid, the neck is longer with a funky bend in it to let the head move between a vertical and horizontal position, and the gill bones now resemble a ribcage. Where the shark has a compact fin structure, the mermaid has a longer structure that resembles a humanoid arm, though the addition of fin ray bones has turned the pinky finger into an extension of the forearm, like a weird fin. end description.)

I may have gone a little overboard on the neck, looking back at how much simpler the neck is on the dolphin mermaid haha. Probably not necessary to have it be quite that long and bendy to let the head move vertical or horizontal. As long as the spine connects more to the back of the skull than below it, you should be able to have the head position match the swimming direction without much trouble. Sharks are neat, I like the way they're built.

And now the skeleton that gave me the most trouble (or, the skull did anyway) generic bony fish:

(image description: once more, simplified skeleton and body outline drawings of a generic fish and a mermaid of similar structure. These skeletons have a lot more bones, due to all the structural spines along the vertebra, as well as the various fins full of more structural bones. Like the shark, this mermaid's humanoid arm has fin bones by the pinky finger that turn it into a flat fin-like extension of the arm. The neck is also long and bendy, and they have another small fin behind their jaw. The gill placement here fits along the jaw line, above the neck. end description.)

I have another patreon post complaining about how weirdly complicated fish skulls are. They're made of lots of different bits that are sometimes fused and sometimes not, and it's tricky to find diagrams that make sense, but I think I worked this one out okay. Did you know that fish skulls have a piece called the "pelvic girdle", which is where their big front fins attach? Well you do now. I moved that bit down to act as a collarbone and arm instead. Fish mermaids are pretty fun to draw, even if the sideways motion of the tail can be hard to draw from certain angles, because there are so many really net looking real fish you can draw inspiration from.

Anyway, that's my examples of merfolk skeletons and basic body structure using real marine animals as a basis. I'll be making a different post for seals/ sea lions/ walruses.

[makenna-made-this]

Do longfowl get back pain?

Anon thank you for this absolutely CURSED rabbit hole that this question led me down. To answer you properly, we must first take into consideration the skeletal structure and anatomy of the Long Fowl. Since little is known about the inner workings of these magic and fantastical beasts, i am forced to use my educated judgment with what we know from better researched animals that are Formally Recognized By Science to come to a possible conclusion. So buckle up and let’s get into it.

My initial reaction would be, yes, Long Fowl would be susceptible to back pain, mainly from thinking about other domesticated animals known for their elongated proportions, like, say, the Corgi.

But upon further thought, I feel like this is not a good comparison. For one, although corgis are prone to back and hip problems, a lot of this also comes from the fact that their legs are so short in proportion to their long frames. Long Fowl generally have sturdy, normal sized limbs that are supporting their mass, so some of the strain would be taken away from their spine, and their lightweight bird bones would also need to be taken into consideration.

Two, Long Fowl are avian and would have different bones and muscle structures than those found in mammals. Which led me to my next base of comparison.

Snakes! Yes, if you are looking for Long animals then look no further than the Longest Danger Noodles themselves. Since birds are essentially just weird reptiles that have been microwaved to a toasty average body temp of around 105-107 degrees fahrenheit (40ish celsius), we’d have better luck looking towards their anatomy for answers.

But while our friends the snakes certainly have the Length going for them, we once again come to the problem of limbs. Besides the occasional tiny little vestigial limb numbs left behind, snakes are as Legless as Orlando Bloom in lord of the rings. Their skeletal structure is much more simple and uniform (ribs for DAYS babeeyy) and thus their method of locomotion and body movement is completely different from how a Long Fowl would move and hold itself throughout the day. Its spine would be supported by the ground and/or the incredibly strong musculature found in snakes. So we must look elsewhere. Which brings us to:

Lizard friends. Besides from actual birds, lizards are probably the closest we are going to get for how a real non-mammalian animal walking on 4 or more limbs to compare to a Long Fowl. Elongated spines, ribcage that doesn’t extend down the whole body, support from limbs, that special “jurassic park” sparkle in their eyes. But it still needs some tweaking. It’s missing something. Oh that’s right.

A KEEL.

Because why think of IMAGINARY bird anatomy when the real thing is already cursed enough. This nightmare bone attaches to the sternum and, besides for looking like the universe got it’s hands on an evolutionary photoshop for the first time and decided to copy/paste a shoulder blade onto a rib cage but at a perpendicular angle, its job is to anchor the wing muscles in all birds other than flightless ratites (who are giant and powerful and really don’t need any other advantages against the rest of the animal kingdom anyways, for our sake).

Since Long Fowl have fully formed wings that have been shown to get just as much lift and function as a regular chicken, then it’s safe to assume that a keel must be present, possibly for EACH limb. But how would this horror look skeletally? Would their be fully formed keels anchored to the skeleton throughout the body? Would this result in separate rib cages? Or perhaps they borrow a few tricks outa cousin snake’s book and just go All Ribs All the Time? Or are they perhaps just three chicken skeletons stacked on top of each other in a horizontal feathery trench coat? Hmm can we get a possible skeletal reconstruction pls?

GReAT. THANKs! I Hate it!! 1000% genuine Forbidden content right here. Out of my house.

TL;DR Long Fowl either have too much spine support or are absolutely far too Cursed™ for the consequences of evolution to come within even 30ft of them, so it is my formal decree that they suffer no more back pain than any other living thing with joints might. Thank you and Do Not Even BeGiN to ask me how their internal organs or muscles are supposed to work. Goodnight and also I'm sorry

[well-come-to-my-head]

Artist Challenge "Dimpro"

Diversity and Improvement ==> Dimpro

I thought of this while texting a friend and it seemed fun at the time. Plus I’ve wanted to improve my art for quite some time, so here we go! A list of things I (and probably others along with me) have had trouble with and, in my opinion, would, not only improve, but also diversify your art!

Dimpro challenge!

1. Yourself

Introduce yourself by drawing yourself, the pose and clothes you’re in or the way you see yourself :)

2. Perspective following a dynamic motion

Animation often follows the motion of the action (e.g., a baseball player but the camera is looking at them from the bat, someone running but the pov is from the ground looking up etc.) It gives the illustration a dynamic feel (plus it looks cool;))

3. Hands and legs (+ at least 3 pairs of shoes)

Since they seem to be a difficulty to many, let’s finish this off in the beginning. (Shoes must be different types, can’t be all, for example, boots, or all sneakers, etc.)

4. A fight scene/a spots event (bonus if it’s a short comic)

Again – for dynamics and motion

5. A cyborg/steampunk

I’ve always had trouble with doing cogs/robot parts etc. This is to make it more fun. Remember to use a lot of references!

6. Vehicles/means of transport (+- someone in it)

Self-explanatory. Do trams, cars, bikes, etc.

7. A furry/anthropomorphic animal

Someone once said that furrys were the best artists because no one made the art they wanted, so they had to do it themselves. So, design yourself a cool little furry/anthropomorphic animal. If you don’t want to make one, Disney has made enough anthropomorphic animals that one can chose from ;)

Preferably use an animal you have trouble drawing/don’t draw often.

8. An animal (must be different from your furry)

Draw a regular animal (or maybe a bunch of animals). Don’t make it the same as the furry, we need diversity after all!

9. A feral animal (not the same as 7.)

10. An unusual piece of architecture/exterior

Draw a complicated or some sort of fantasy building. It helps with perspective (bonus points for more details)

11. A homeless man, a 12-year-old boy and a hooker (bonus if in one frame)

This is from a song, but character diversity is important, so what better than this. Bonus points for creativity if they’re in the same scene and/or interacting.

12. A band on stage

Preferably find a reference picture of a stage performance and illustrate it. (reminder to use reference.)

13. Strong perspective/fisheye

With reference! Link reference as well :)))

14. Bird view of a city (may include the bird itself)

Similar as the fisheye one, but from bird flight hight.

15. A monster/cryptid/strongly non-human creature

This one is just for fun. Thinking of monster anatomy, bone structure etc. can be fun, so go wild!

16. An illustration of what a fly sees (multiple hexagons and everything)

17. A character sheet (with outfits and expressions) for a website generated OC

If you don’t know how/want to search for a generator, here are some I like:

18. A short motion picture/action frames for an action your website generated OC (around 5 frames?)

You don’t have to study/want to be an animator to see that doing the outlines of animations will help improve your sense for movement/motion. It can be the simplest of tasks like picking up a piece of garbage or pointing at something passing by.

19. Interior

As important as exterior, and almost as neglected. Draw your workplace or a café you enjoy! Use reference!

20. A grumpy old person/grandma(?)

Combining facial expressions and wrinkles/more complicated facial features is important.

21. A back alley

Have fun with this one :)))

22. Design a trashcan (with a personality)

Give the garbage bin a personality. Treat it as if you’re making a character sheet all over again (accept this time it’s an inanimate object.)

23. A biome of choice

Scenery, nature, do as you’d like.

24. Free

Do whatever you want

25. Yourself

As a goodbye and to show your progress ;)))

No deadline, improvement shouldn't be rushed!

Have fun ;)))

If you do it pls tag it with #dimpro challenge and/or tag me <3

[thatfunkyopossum]

drawing advice nonnie here! i guess,,,specifically the faces? your clones are so lovely and expressive and mine end up looking like eldritch monsters ajksdjfkl

Well, there’s no quick thing to being able to draw well, all you can do is study and practice! Without seeing your work there’s nothing specific I can help you with (and I’m not sure I have the time or energy these days to give specific critique) but where most people struggle with faces (including myself) is Anatomy and Volume.

So here’s what I recommend for learning those.

First, your supplementary online resources are going to be https://line-of-action.com/ which you can use in lieu of an in person drawing class (i recommend class mode settings) and the youtube channel Proko. I recommend studying with the use of a large pad of cheap paper, preferably newsprint, and willow charcoal if you don’t mind the texture.

The materials are not important, but I recommend large paper for studies like this because you can really let your body get into it. It’s completely fine not to have an easel to work on, in which case you can either prop up a large pad of paper on something with the use of a board, or you can have a smaller pad of paper. Anything works better than nothing, but if you can get large cheap paper, you absolutely should.

1. Look at Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards, [PDF here]

     -I recommend checking this one out first. It teaches you the bare bones of drawing from observation and is absolutely invaluable to learning to see the way an artist does. The science in it is bunk, but its methods are sound.

2. Check out The Natural Way to Draw by Kimon Nicolaides [PDF here]

     - Read the section on gesture drawing and practice it using Line-of-action, which you can set to do an endless stream of 30 second poses. I found it very helpful to do these studies in ball point pen (forces you to commit) or willow charcoal (difficult to erase and very soft), which was very freeing to me.

     -The Gesture exercises can ABSOLUTELY be applied to just faces if thats what you want to draw. Faces are complicated and if that’s what you want to study, go for it.      -I can’t vouch for most of the book as, tbh, i havent read it because i feel bad not committing to what the author asks of you. These specific beginning passages though on gesture and contour are very good!

3. Also get your hands on Drawing The Head and Hands by Andrew Loomis [PDF here]

I’m not going to lie to you. Andrew loomis might be one of the most boring authors in existence. I was reading his book aloud in a car once and it put my friend (who cannot sleep in vehicles!!!) to bed. His prose is boring as fuck. That said... he was an incredible artist! And may artists for decades have found his instructional books supremely helpful. I am very happy to have them on hand.

    -For each section of the book, draw along with the examples. Copy Loomis’s art. Use line of action from the beginning, either for anatomy traces or from observation studies. Even in the planes of the face section, you can trace the planes over the photos either on paper held up to your computer, or directly onto the photo through use of a digital drawing program.

   -Use Proko to supplement your learning with Loomis. It can be extremely helpful to get input from multiple sources, especially because IMO Loomis is honestly not the best teacher in his books, even if his methods work very well. The Anatomy and Structure videos in the Proko Facial Features playlist should be most helpful.

Please note, the sources on anatomy that I’ve provided here will only teach you how to draw the “ideal”, white face. They’re the sources that I learned from, which is why I’m recommending them to you. Which is why I want to outline right now what you SHOULD be trying to learn from these sources.

1. Underlying anatomy

Luckily, human beings from every race and national origin have the same exact bones and cartilage and fat and muscle, just in different places and attached at different points. What you are doing when you are learning anatomy, especially from biased sources, is not how the anatomy should be shaped, but rather what it is. If you get a deep understanding of anatomy, you should be able to problem solve and figure out by drawing from observation exactly what the underlying structures look like on anyone. The nose of a white person will, most likely, be pretty different from the nose of an east asian person, or a māori person, or a black person. That said, the cartilage and muscle attachments and bones are still all the same. What changes is the shapes.

2. Drawing from Observation

Honestly, learning to draw from observation is one of the most important things that an aspiring artist can learn. If you can’t draw from observation, learning will be an uphill struggle. If you can’t put aside your notions of what things should look like according to what you know, and instead start drawing them as they are, your growth as an individual artist will only ever come in switching out the symbols you use to represent different things.

As a last parting word related to that last thing: Imo, artists should not use symbols to represent reality, the way flash puppet animation does. What you should be doing, is you should be striving to understand the real, actual world, and then simplifying and streamlining and nudging it about into art. Symbol based art is, of course, still art, but its limited, and until we can break from these limits then our art can never reach its full potential. Draw as often as you can, draw with your shoulder and not your wrist or fingers if you can help it, do art warmups, and happy drawing :)

[serenegaldr]

ancient language hcs

((I’ve been thinking of doing this ever since it was mentioned in a thread, and I realized I’ve never really thought that much about what the Ancient Language (abbreviated AL) was supposed to be like, spoken. The soundtrack for the Galdr of Rebirth renders it as backwards Japanese, and I will take that into account, but I also have some thoughts of my own! My thoughts are also ridiculously long so have a read more cut:

First, according to the FE Wiki:

The ancient language was first devised by the beorc of Tellius, and for a time saw wide use among all of the land's people. However, its complexity proved to be a significant obstacle for it to be learned by laguz, and so the modern "Tellius language" was created and soon supplanted it as the continent's dominant tongue.

So the Ancient Language is supposedly ‘complex’. However, it is also the language the Galdrar are sung in, which means bird anatomy alone is capable of making the full range of these sounds. Thus, I propose that the AL has these following qualities, when compared to the Modern Tongue:

Phonetics: The production of sound (phones) in AL is, as stated above, extremely simple, allowing for its production by the tongues of multiple different types of animals. ‘Backwards Japanese’ is actually quite simple to pronounce, since like forwards Japanese, a lot of their words end on vowels, but I did wonder if the glides or fricatives wouldn’t be too much for them, so I looked up a bird utterances paper online, to which I found that the sounds available to them in song are probably slightly different from the sounds available to them in speech. There are probably some replacements when they sing, but at the same time they are Magical Birbs (TM) so their range of available sounds could well be much larger than your garden-variety bird. Do keep in mind that other species also use AL, and I did not go and look up a ‘wolf utterances paper’, so my hc does not take into account the other Laguz :’D Also related, I do firmly believe that speaking MT is not feasible to them in their Laguz form; for stuff like battle cutscenes, regardless of what the graphics render, I think they talk first, and then transform to fight.

Phonology: Tonal changes, differing stress and syllable onset all play a large part in differentiating the subtle intent behind words, at least in the spoken language! In song, that’s often replaced by vowel shifts, some of which do not naturally occur in speech, so it’s a music-only feature of the language, which might have something to do with seid magic. If you disregard all the subtle phonology changes, you’ll get the general gist of what they’re saying, but miss a whole load of nuances behind it, similar to, say, the way sarcasm is used in MT.

Morphology: The absolute bulk of AL’s ‘complexity’ stem from morphology! Every single word is tagged with all the information, including but not limited to: tense, aspect, mood, gender, case, number, and even things like ‘relative degree’, ‘relative status between speaker and listener’, or ‘special emphasis’ and the like. Perhaps there used to be more variance, or maybe there still is for other ‘dialects’ of AL (will the Herons and the Wolves really speak the exact same language after being separated for centuries? Unlikely), but at least the Herons’ version of AL is extremely ordered (get it?), and there is basically no irregularity in the application of morphemes. Learn all the intricate rules exactly once, and you’re all set for life, but there are a lot of rules. It’s interesting that the wiki mentioned it was more complex for Laguz - later on I think it’s said that, however, eventually the Laguz’ long lifespans allowed them to master the language better.

Syntax: Think Latin, but even freer than that, since there is no such thing as emphasis through position and everything is indicated in tones and by the morphology. Any word can go anywhere in the sentence and it’ll make perfect sense and mean exactly what you want it to mean, which is great for these birb singers! Very few headaches about how to fit lyrics to make sense :’D This, however, is the main reason Leanne pauses so much when speaking MT! She knows her grammatical options are severely more limited there than in AL, so she needs to think about how the sentence is supposed to be structured before she says it. And while I am biased towards making her replies actually make sense to the other person, she probably does make weird grammatical mistakes every so often.

Vocabulary/Semantics: This is probably the part I’ve mentioned the most in posts already, but AL has a relatively small pool of vocabulary, with differences in nuance indicated mainly by morphology and tone. For instance, ‘walk’ and ‘run’ would be two different words, but ‘jog’, ‘run’ and ‘sprint’ would be the same word with a slightly different indicator for ‘relative speed’. I actually have not consciously taken to doing this (yet), but in practice, Leanne, as an unexperienced speaker who still thinks mostly in terms of AL, would tend to prefer using simple words with additional adjectives/adverbs (e.g. ‘run fast’ or ‘run slow’ instead of ‘sprint’ or ‘jog’) when speaking MT.

Pragmatics: If you have a good grasp of the phonology and morphology and what they entail, you’ll generally understand what the person is trying to say, but if not, then a lot of their conversations will appear to not follow any known rules of conversation at all. As AL is a very old language, I figure a lot of the pragmatics side has strong ties to basic instincts and body language, which animals are often better at reading than humans are, so a lot of that plays into AL conversation as well!

Ok, but then why can Leanne understand everything but not speak well? As I mentioned before in the hcs channel on discord, I hc that Bird Laguz are born in their bird form, before going through Laguz Puberty at a later age, whereby they gain and are then locked into their humanoid forms as their default form. This, for Leanne, probably happened during her time asleep in the forest, so she was a baby bird for her entire time alive before the Serenes Massacre, which happened when she was about 2.5 years old in equivalent Beorc age, since Reyson calls her an ‘infant’ during that time. Now, 2.5-year-olds don’t normally understand everything you tell them! However, and this actually is a gripe I have with a lot of long-lived characters with a long infancy period, this is really not the same as a human situation. I briefly looked this up, and a baby who is considered ‘spoken to a lot’ might hear about 15,000 words a day. For Leanne, who had 6 siblings and 2 parents and a whole forest of other playmates, I might even think she’ll have heard more, but some of that was AL so probably about 15,000 words of MT a day sounds about right. But unlike a 2.5-year-old human baby, she’s been getting that for a whole entire 47 years. That means, before she even has the capability to speak a single word of MT, she’s already heard way more words spoken at her than the average adult Beorc, certainly more than one of her mental age of 18. Thus, while she’s still struggling to learn to produce the language, listening is usually no problem to her, unless the interlocutor in question speaks very quickly, or uses unfamiliar figures of speech / very difficult vocabulary! Like, Leanne probably won’t get anywhere talking with Awakening’s Miriel, but she can probably understand any average speaker just fine.

TL;DR because this is really long: the ‘complexity’ of AL is mainly in its vastly intricate phonology and morphology, which also results in a rich and confusing-to-outsiders system of pragmatics, while phonetics and vocabulary are very simple, and syntax is basically nonexistent. Certainly a very different kind of language from MT, which is why Leanne struggles when speaking, despite being receptively fluent!))