#btw you can zoom in there is some text there

[badlydrawnronpa]

hi anon ty for sending the message! I did look through their blog and they very obviously use AI - I would've published the ask normally to let other people know but I decided against it in the end because after a closer inspection I noticed that all commissions are fake (besides being fake art I mean) and they're not actually scamming anyone because. uh. literally most of the blogs I saw interact with them are empty rp blogs that are blatantly controlled by them and one of the commissions I saw on their patreon was for a defunct ohsc rp blog from 2014??? Which honestly was really funny.

so yeah, they're very much not pulling any money from that, and on top of it all they posted pics of themselves sooooo yeh, not going to blast them on a blog with a big following for trying the 'i dont use ai im a real artist' but ultimately not scamming anyone out of their money. They're also not the best at like... hiding they're using AI because you can see their traditional art in other posts, and the style or experience level doesn't match at all.

I will post some of their AI stuff underneath the read more and point out the inconsistencies tho, to help out other people in spotting out ai shit (esp non artists that might have an harder time figuring things out). If you find out the original user that posted these, please don't harass them, be civil.

BTW I'M SAYING THIS NOW: if you see something I point out and say ''ah, I do that, I'm in trouble" - no you're not, if you actually draw the stuff yourself. You can see when an artist's work (and mistakes!) are genuine. Beginner's mistakes can be made by experienced artists too, but if you look at their entire body of work you can see when something doesn't add up.

to start off, I saw anon calling them out on this one so I'm just reiterating some of the points, but here's some junko 'art' they made

when confronted abt it, they said that the fingers look weird because they can't control their shaky hands and drawing small is hard. anyway if you draw digitally you can zoom in on the canvas and work on a detail as big as you need, so that excuse doesn't hold

this other post was basically what made me just say 'yep thats ai' and it was just the second 'art' post I saw from them

while taken alone they could've been a little harder to spot as AI, with them all bundled together you can easily see they came from the same prompt; the user tried to justify the inconsistencies saying it was because they were 'experimenting' with the design of their oc and gundham's scar but I'm telling you now, no sane artist fully renders four pieces that are basically the same concept while changing the design of the character just slightly in every single one of them. anyway, here's the breakdown of every piece:

another that was way easier to break down because it's so full of inconsistencies the moment you really take a look at it

also let's be real if you render art like that you're not gonna put a bright purple unreadable text on your supposed vtuber "art"

let's end this with the AI "commission" that could be harder to break down as AI if seen in a vacuum now, shall we? esp because our friend, the fucked up melty finger, isn't there

I honestly had to look for a while at this one because if you had shown it to me and I didn't see the other stuff this person posted, I could've just chalked up a lot of these mistakes to human error. Tangents between lines, scribbles for details, forgotten uncolored sections is all normal stuff. BUT we know this person used AI in all the other posts, so we know what to look at:

again, some mistakes the AI does can be also mistakes actual artists do: be sure to check the other art the user makes before throwing accusations

they also posted a fake speedpaint that is so embarassing it made me laugh but if I start pointing out inconsistencies in an AI speedpaint we're gonna be here for a long time, so.

TL;DR AI 'ART' SIGNS:

The classics: hands and fingers don't make sense, there's additional weird lines and they melt into other part of the drawing

long hair strands and other long or flowy elements can suddenly disappear behind objects and not reappear where they should

jewels, intricate details, hairpins and other accessories bend and melt into each other and other part of the design

the resolution of the image is very low and/or grainy - a lot of artists post lower res pieces online, but again: look for a pattern and combos of all the other signs

inconsistencies between multiple art posts, character designs constantly being different, sudden art style changes - while this can also be found with real artists, this is an additional tell of someone using AI, when combined with the stuff I mentioned above. humans mistakes usually have a reason for what they happen, AI makes them because it doesnt understand what it's doing most of the time

[eatingfireflies]

2.2 is coming and if I don't write this now, how can I get jossed later?

This is the moment when I started to wonder if their 2.0 conversation was a role play.

Like, we know this issue is a sore point for Ratio. The fact that this guy he called a loud peacock in 2.0 made a joke about his failure to get into the Genius Society and all he said was 'I was being sarcastic'?? Babe, is something wrong? You barely touched your sharp and witty comeback.

(Btw I checked both Cn and Jp, he says 'It was just a joke.')

And I don't want to bring up the voice acting because the way voices sound is subjective and what I hear might not be what you hear, but the Double Indemnity scenes with Ratio are probably the most relaxed we ever see Aventurine ever. (I'm talking about the Cn version, but I played in Jp audio and I could hear it there too.) He's playful and his voice is higher pitched, so different from what we've seen of him so far.

It sounds like Ratio and Aventurine have known each other longer than they want us to believe in their 2.0 convo.

I mean, the implication here is Ratio did some research on Aventurine's background recently and that's how he found out about Aventurine's past. So we make the assumption that they haven't been working together for long.

Look, they even did a Penacony remix of their Final Victor conversation

But honestly, you'd think Ratio would have figured out if he trusted Aventurine or not at this point, considering he came back for more after Final Victor (lmao??)

Also, we know Aventurine had been planning for Penacony since his call to Topaz, where he asked for her help. It's hard to believe that he went through all the trouble of asking two different Stonehearts to lend him their cornerstones and then went to Penacony and the Dreamscape with Ratio, whom he barely knows. That's too much gambling, Aventurine!

We know the Family won't let anyone from the IPC to enter the Dreamscape and Aventurine only gets a pass because of the Watchmaker's invite

But Himeko is wrong here: Aventurine didn't go inside the Dreamscape alone and he does have someone backing him up. It just happened that almost no one else saw Ratio in Penacony and the one scene where we did see him talking to Aventurine was 2.0, where he got angry and left Aventurine babbling to himself.

But now that we're here, what did Ratio do in Penacony aside from bicker and betray?

His initial job is to gather intel, afaik. Aventurine tells him to go look into things in 2.0 before he left. And he does give Aventurine updates in 2.1 (Aventurine finds out about Firefly from Ratio) so good for you, professor!

Ratio is Aventurine's connection to his colleagues outside. Once Aventurine's plans enter the Dead phase, Ratio is the only one left to tell Topaz and Jade if the plan had been a success or not. (Aventurine also makes a joke about the Genius from the Council of the Mundanites offering to be his undertaker. In the Jp version, he says 'So the Genius from the Council of the Mundanites wants to claim my corpse? What an honour.' So there's also that... Uh. Idk how dead dead Aventurine really is, but at least we know someone's looking after his body while he's gone lmao??)

But also he's Aventurine's bait to Sunday, the (fake) weak link in Aventurine's plans that Sunday thought he could exploit.

And the 3rd one is a bit complicated, because it is a gamble. Remember Aventurine's E1? Prisoner's Dilemma? Yeah, it's kinda like that. I talked about it before, but let's copy paste it here for easier reading (and because this post totally needs to be a wall of text)

Let's zoom out a bit again and remember that Aventurine was sent to Penacony because Diamond thinks this whole affair could still have a peaceful resolution. Meaning: Aventurine is the kind option. The IPC could have sent Opal instead, but it sounds like that means there would be a body count.

And I think that's why Ratio is here and why he agreed to cooperate. Because if Aventurine's plan works out, only Aventurine's life will ever be in real danger. (And we know from Ratio's note that he also took steps to increase the chances of Aventurine coming back.)

Ratio being there is important to the plan because

Him being from the Intelligentsia Guild removes some of the heat from the Family. If Ratio is coming in as a plus one, the IPC (in this case, I'm assuming it's Aventurine because he's the guy in charge of the operation) chose the best person for the job. It makes the Family happier knowing there are not two IPC envoys walking around the Dreamscape and Aventurine has a buddy who can move around more freely than another IPC employee could

But because Ratio is an outsider, he's also the weak link in Aventurine's plans. Another IPC employee will probably not betray Aventurine, but the Guild has no particular horse in this race. We were also led to believe from their 2.0 conversation that Ratio doesn't like Aventurine very much. This is what I meant when I said Ratio is a bait: Aventurine was pretty much dangling him in front of Sunday, making Sunday think he could use Ratio to ruin Aventurine's plans. The important thing of course is the trust the two of them have for each other (yay, Prisoner's Dilemma). Ratio could ruin Aventurine's plan if he wants to (very bad for all involved because I'm guessing Opal is the next step) and Aventurine could fail (not as bad for everyone involved after 2.1 because the IPC has already won regardless. There's still a Phase 2 in Aventurine's plan and Ratio seems to want him back after that, so I guess he'd consider it a failure if Aventurine doesn't return?), but trusting each other means they win.

Tl;dr Ratio's presence in Penacony is a bit of a gamble on Aventurine's part but it worked well for him so far. Ratio is here to make sure everyone stays alive. (And maybe the Phase Flame? I honestly don't know if the Annihilation Gang will ever come back again, but for now I'm going with the obvious and assuming Ratio is here because he thinks Aventurine's plan will work and work with the least amount of pain for everyone.)

Thank you for getting this far. Why do we think they deserve Oscars?

Aside from the movie references (we'll get to that), we have 3 different instances where Aventurine mentions acting / the 'script'.

The most direct is the conversation with future!Aventurine in the garden maze: future!Aventurine praises Ratio's acting while Aventurine says 'Or he might not be acting at all' (the inability of these two to admit they are friends, but more importantly they don't think the other person thinks highly of them, is2g).

The next one is hidden in the mission description

And the other one got lost in translation. This was translated to 'You catch on quickly' in En. In Jp he says something like 'You have a good sense for drama, professor' (Sorry Idk what this is in the og Cn)

Finally, Double Indemnity. I haven't seen the movie, but it seems to be about an insurance salesman who gets seduced by a hot wife femme fatale into helping her get rid of her husband so she could claim his insurance. Double Indemnity refers to this clause where the insurance gets doubled if the person suddenly dies of an accident.

I've thought about this so hard, let me tell you. What could this possibly have to do with Aventurine and the mission? (For example, 'Hot wife Sunday seduces Ratio the insurance salesman into helping him get rid of Aventurine' etc.) And I honestly still don't know but one detail does help my theory so I'm pulling it out:

The relationship between the insurance salesman and the hot wife femme fatale was known only to the two of them. To the insurance claims adjuster, who was investigating the case and trying to prove the husband's death wasn't an accident, those two are unrelated people who might have seen each other once or twice. The claims adjuster suspected the wife, but had no idea of the insurance salesman's involvement. The truth is, they actually knew each other a full year before the plan was set in motion. Hey, doesn't it actually fit nicely now?

(Spellbound otoh, I still don't know. I have a Sunday and Gallagher reading of it, but Hvy keeps telling me no and making it gay instead so Idk.)

[anistarrose]

Other good posts have gone around about this, but I wanted to give another boost to this survey from a Tumblr staff-affiliated blog @benevolenthellsite (warning: the blog itself has gifs, some of which are potentially slightly flashy).

Please, send them politely but strongly worded feedback about our frustration with accessibility issues. In particular, I recommend telling them you won't be buying anything from Tumblr, let alone turning off your ad blocker, unless they:

add a photosensitivity community label

give users an option to block gif/video audio play on both posts and ads, on both mobile and browser

give users the option to have alt text display automatically, in customizable font size/colors to ensure readability

give users the option to disable small text, colored text, etc

(you'll notice XKit Rewritten does some of the two above points, making me doubt it would be especially hard to code)

stop putting inaccessible art on Tumblr Radar

(seriously, there are so many wonderful artists who describe their work and so many more who will happily edit IDs into their posts once someone provides them in the notes. this would not be hard and would immediately incentivize more people to add descriptions)

fix the zoom-in feature for images on mobile so that it's actually usable again

ensure that any collapsing of reblog chains will be a setting you can permanently opt out of (this is an accessibility issue because it would make it harder to access image descriptions added later in threads)

Oh, and if you want, it wouldn't hurt to politely but firmly complain about the prev tags thing and any other signs of enshittification you can think of, btw.

I don't have high hopes that this will change anything, but I also don't think it can hurt (it takes like 5 minutes), and I would love to see @staff prove me wrong and actually start taking accessibility concerns seriously for once. Don't give them Crab Day money or whatever until they do.

[irc-d-x-ao3]

Lil snippet of what's coming!!

In case you don't know yet, the SPOP 4th anniversary Big Bang, organized by @spopbang, is happening soon!! So here I present to you a little bit of my vampire AU for it!

CW: Blood

(I recommend reading the alt text or clicking on the pic to zoom in, some letters like e and o look the same otherwise -at least on pc-)

As you can tell, I'm VERY excited about this!! And I can't wait to share it XD

Btw, the artist name between parenthesis is the Tumblr account if u wanna check out her awesome work!!

[herotome]

Finally-official-devlog #112

Also known as FOD112 hi-ho, Wudge here.

Gosh there's just. So much. I'm actually drafting this devlog a few days early so that I'm not suddenly overwhelmed on devlog Tuesday again. But without further ado-

This is the big cheese right here -- each character has their own layer, each character's clothes and expressions have their own layers, and there's a separate layer for the soft orange lighting on top of it all. 😭

On that note, here's most of the individual image files that create the CG with their powers (and my code) combined:

And since this is a cropped version of a BIGGER CG (featuring ALL the love interests sitting together), I had to tinker with the position code a great deal to properly feature these three goons Of course it was worth it of course twas merely at the cost of all my energy and sanity at the prospect of eventually possibly also adding in blinks and expression changes--

Mad props as usual to the sweetwonderfulamazing Remnantation who first completed this CG -checks watch- sometime last year! With some additional edits by me since then~

And, did you happen to notice something new in the lower right?

Tadah... a brand new click-to-continue icon animation! I made (mostly) all by myself! The lil sparkle burst is free from production crate, but I drew the star and added the rotation code... ... Honestly, the hardest and most time-consuming part of this was finalizing the design. Originally I was gonna make it rotate 45 degrees, flip, rotate 45 more degrees, flip, etc-- and messed with that concept for several hours before scrapping it for a simpler, more graceful idea. :| Part of the process, I gots to tell myself, part of the process...

Next up is Jade's powers, as you may have seen in the preview last week. Much like the CTC animation, I did a lot of research on other ideas - various glowing VFX like vertical veins across the cheeks and smoky rising from the eyes, as well as a bigger low opacity character zoom effect - before settling on something simple. Jade's power usage here is... pretty mild in context, and I figure I can always store the more dramatic animations for later in the story.

Here's a still of the effect btw:

Her eyes look like headlights lmaooo. Honk honk!

Do I have more to update with? Believe it or not, yes.

I made some icons, which took a fair amount of trial and error: on the left you'll see an earlier draft, on the right are my more final redesigns from the same day(...night. midnight. I worked on these until midnight).

I had to look up some guidelines because most of my previous icons did NOT look good or legible when sized down to 50x50 pixels. What I learned was, tadah, I had to draw with an unprecedented line width of 200 pixels! (For non-artists: I typically draw with a pen width of 12 pixels at most).

I also studied the icon styles of Persona 5, which saved me a lot of time - they had a cool stylistic choice of diagonally tilted color blocks and thick black outlines.

Here's yet another gif of icons in action...

Did you see them? Did you?? For a split second, in the upper right.... Still gotta adjust some of the text overlap, don't look at that.

Oh and the "How to play" page is brand new. I coded it from scratch... That also took all night...

... Oh. Oh. And remember your MC's phone?

This old thing? Yeah. Visual upgrade:

Also rendered and colored in by Rem <3 Where would I be without them...!

The text, though, can be updated in code!!!! I spliced the phone into layers, with the screen on top and code-generated text just below it, so I can update the caller ID at any point in-game without making any new images.

Took a little while to get it to work... honestly it doesn't look 100% centered... but it's fine. This is fine...

And then... more code. After much tears, blood and strife, I got a musical crossfade to work. It shouldn't have been challenging but it was a nightmare -- when calling the crossfade the second track would either not play at all or its volume wouldn't change and I was starting to develop a preference for eating gravel. But I persisted, found a much simpler code that actually works. After the tearsbloodstrife.

And...... lastly... I simplified this big block of code:

vbox: pos (269, 76) add "sprites/MC/mc[mc_number].png" hbox: if mc_number ==1: text "DEFAULT" style "MC_label_text" elif mc_number ==2: text "LAVENDER" style "MC_label_text" elif mc_number ==3: text "PETUNIA" style "MC_label_text" elif mc_number ==4: text "SUNFLOWER" style "MC_label_text" else: text "TBD" style "MC_label_text"

...(not properly indented bc tumblr is mean 2 me)...

down to these lines, to make my future life easier:

default PrintMC = ["Default", "Lavender", "Petunia", "Sunflower", ""]

text PrintMC[mc_number] style "MC_label_text"

Two!!! lines!!!!!

🎊

Instead of typing out additional if/else lines, I only need to add new names to the PrintMC list. Won't really affect the player at all, but it's a HUGE quality of life update for me!

...Anyway that's it, thank you for checking in. <3

Stay safe and keep warm,

Wudge.

PS screw it I'm gonna queue post this early.

PPS have you listened to our composer's new single yet? No?!?!?!

Every click, every listen helps, and every song of his is a BOP that deserves recognition!

ok that's all for real now xoxoxo,

wudge (again)

[trigun-manga-overhaul]

hi there! im sure with the advent of a trigun rerelease upon us you've gotten a lot of asks about this over the past couple of days, but in the case you haven't been asked that: do you still plan to move forward with overhaul 2.0 even with the news of a reprint? i ask this with no disrespect or hopes that you do cease work on it, but im interested in hearing your thoughts and feelings about how to proceed.

as well, I'm curious to hear your take on this, do you believe dark horse will redo the translation? or simply edit it? i haven't read much dark horse manga so im not sure historically how they would handle a reprint for a manga that has been out of print for so long, especially since, imo, at this point they would have to meet or exceed your excellent translation. similar to how official video game rereleases at the bare minimum have to meet the current emulation standard- if that makes sense.

btw i just want to say thank you for your in depth and explanatory answers to the many questions you get regarding translation nuances and the work that goes into cleaning and typesetting from scratch and the logic behind your choices. i speak the language but still love hearing the thought process other translators go through when they make certain decisions. it's awesome how much passion you have for trigun and this project as well as helping people to understand choices in the original text and how you translated them for your text.

Hey there and thank you for your question!

We have not been asked specifically about this yet, so your question is very welcome.

We fully intend to continue with Overhaul 2.0, even in light of a Trigun Deluxe release, which the team is ecstatic about, by the way. The need for a digital version for people to read on their computers, phones and other devices remains, and the quality of life that comes with it. Larger pages, the ability to zoom in, very crisp black and white differences, all of these factors can be helpful for people who might find reading difficult due to various health or mental health conditions.

On top of that, it will be free for those who are not fortunate enough to be able to buy expensive Deluxe releases, or the very expensive regular releases, for that matter. We always encourage people to eventually find a way to support the original creator, which is why we suggest buying the digital version of the manga on Dark Horse Comic's own website and not buy second hand books. But until that is economically responsible for people to buy, we offer them a chance to read an accurate translation online in the meantime.

Personally, I doubt they will redo the translation, as the translation for the Berserk Deluxe release remained the same. I don't know if the translation was changed for the Deluxe Hellsing release, but given the trend with their first Deluxe release, I also doubt it.

Of course, they could have changed their procedures for these releases over time and decided some lines or words needed to be changed, however it remains to be seen. Were they to update the translation, we would be very interested in reading it to see the differences, and then determine if it has improved.

Not one wishing to question other industry professionals when it comes to translation, I must still say that Dark Horse comics has repeatedly proven to engage in assembly line translation. Each translation isn't deeply studied, engaged with or understood by the translators, and the work is passed to several individuals with no communication, as is evident by the changing translation of names and words. They do not have the time or means to study the text they are translating, and therefore will ultimately always release a somewhat clumsy but passable script.

None of the translators are incompetent, that is clear, they are instead bound by their workspace regulations to follow the set procedure within the company. You can draw comparisons between the translation industry and production industry; we have the perfect-every-time, cookie-cutter, assembly line product that will do its job but only that, and then the handmade, personalized and polished to the tiniest detail product. Of course, handmade products can come with imperfections caused by the work being done by hand, but that either adds character or can be corrected through recipient engagement.

Thank you so much for your kind words, though. We try our best to be as informative and transparent as we can about our project, while also spacing out information and avoiding to repeat ourselves too much. It is interesting to write about our process too, as it does put the work we do into perspective, even helping with reflection upon how we do it and how we might improve.

So everyone is free to ask about our team, our process or anything that might interest you, and I'll answer to the best of my abilities!

[cherubchoirs]

Just ignoring that I've been investedly reading and liking most of ya stuff recently, BUT (idk if you've answered this or not yet I might just be blind) but how do you think V1s and Gabe's first 'non hostile' encounter went? How did v1 go about resisting its programming, and gabe his, so to speak?

Thanks for further fueling my brainrot btw, your long text posts are like a guilty pleasure to read, pls make more ^^

aaaa thank you so much ;o; it genuinely makes me so happy to know that ppl read my ridiculously long answers to so many things and all the lore building!! i wish i could pass out pieces of cake to all of you.....

i actually haven't talked about this scenario in particular, but it's really one i enjoy even if it's a small, quieter scene. gabriel at this point needs something like closure, and i think just about all he can get is knowing whether or not the connection and passion he felt with v1 was reciprocated in some capacity. did v1 recognize him? can it feel anything from him? he had never been so personally affected by another, and so he goes against what he is to seek out that answer. to see if v1 is willing to interface with him through communicating rather than attempting to bleed him dry....because he thinks it just might. gabriel knows that v1 has the capacity to be non-hostile, as it has relented at the end of both of their encounters to allow him to speak, meaning its engagement of another actually isn't automatic or forced. that aside, he's also highly aware he instigated both fights - their encounter in gluttony was an obviously hostile display that v1 immediately responded to, while in heresy it....approached him from behind, yet didn't fire until he, again, armed himself against it. he knows he's set a precedent now, with v1 perhaps marking him as belligerent, but he decides to risk approaching it anyway with his swords sheathed to see what might happen.

i think he observes it at a distance for just a bit, seeing what it does when it has nothing around it to fight...and he's left half-surprised. it doesn't immediately take off to the next room in a mindless search for blood, but instead explores its surroundings uninhibited by enemy combatants. it's safe. it roots around curiously, using its guns and fists to break through obstacles and offering soft little chirps at unexpected sights or sounds. it's almost surreal for him, understanding in that moment that they had both only seen one side of the other - v1 is undoubtedly capable of tearing hell apart, yet it clearly has a mind that occupies itself beyond that goal. it has an internal world, and that's all he needed to know. so gabriel silently touches down when he's satisfied, doing his best to gauge just when to approach it so he doesn't catch it too off-guard (he even folds up his wings in an attempt to reduce his bulk)

as expected, v1 is still surprised and immediately wary - he sees its head snap to and its entire body stiffen to its viper-like readiness. a coin held fast, not yet launched into the air. gabriel raises his hands to show their emptiness, telling it in soft but certain terms that he wishes for them to meet in peace. v1 doesn't seem to respond, still standing in rapt attention and ready to strike. so gabriel stops moving forward and considers his options. again risky, but he's a dead man walking anyway. he kneels to the ground, bowing his head and still holding up his hands far from his swords in an effort to fully impress that he means it no harm. not this time. a beat passes between them, gabriel almost surprised by his own sense of calm, until he hears the quick little steps of v1's feet coming to greet him. the coin flicks and he almost winces, but then it flicks again. and again. and he looks up to see v1's face a couple inches from his own. he can hear the little zoom of its optical, see how the rings in its lens dilate and contract as it investigates him up close. he huffs a quiet laugh in response, sending v1 jumping back and flaring out its wings before he apologizes and continues to hold still. it seems to accept this as it moves back in, soon reaching out a hand to touch him and figure out just what he's made of, how he's put together.

gabriel begins to speak as it explores, at first a disjointed stream of consciousness until he can find how to articulate his troubled mind with its dying thoughts. he stays there bowed to it, coming to pour his heart out like a last confession to an entirely silent companion. until he asks if it hears him. if it knows him. if it recognizes anything in him or if he's truly alone in all he's felt, calling out to a partner that can't answer in the same way. and v1 stands there still quiet, still just staring. gabriel tries to immediately fill that silence like he can't bear it, saying that it's truly ok. even if v1 is empty, he thanks it for what it did, thanks it for letting him remember who he was and feel as if he was fully himself one last time. and he's never been just himself for himself, so it gave him something new right at the end of everything and even if all of this just the one-sided, foolish feelings of a dying angel it really is the only thing that can mean anything at all when the world is dying the same way he is - until v1 flicks its coin at his helmet. and it nods. it hears him. for once gabriel is rendered speechless as v1 huddles down next to him. it has time. gabriel struggles with the mortifying, terrifying, incredible, phenomenal thought that the little machine beside him might harbor an ounce of the same feelings he does for it. it's not an automatic love, it's not a complete surrender of what they had been before - v1 still hasn't processed its feelings while a part of gabriel still can't accept that he truly loves v1 (they're decently hot and cold for a minute, having quiet intimate moments that one or the other ruins - intentionally or not - to end in a bloody fight), but this is where it starts. because really, neither of them can come back from knowing that they would choose to spend time with each other without the promise of a fight.

[mamuzzy]

okay for the wip game, I gotta ask.. what on earth is 13. rwerwerwerwerwerwer? I wish to know more xD

AND I SHALL PROVIDE. @hurryupmerlin since you asked for 13 as well, I tag you here where you can read it too. :))) Now what do we have here... rwerwerwerwerwerwer, what do you mean it's not self-explanatory??? *mamuzzy actually has to look into the file to know wtf is inside*

Oh. OOOOHHHH. It was one of my first attempts to try out my new tablet in summer! I've actually made a post about the early sketch -> HERE Commander Thire, Commander Fox and Commander Thorn are chilling while watching a documentary about Space KitKat (a tiktok video about people reacting what the filling really is, @ithillia showed me once and got inspired). But with job and constant migraines, and feeling that I'm working on one drawing unsuccessfully for over two weeks and I did that rather slowly, I quickly lost interest in it and decided to put away for a while. It's a gamer trick. When a game makes you ragequit, leave it, and when you try again with cooler head later, you will succeed at the first try, you'll see. I'll be honest, I still have trouble with digital canvas sizes because I'm started to actively draw digitally recently and I have no idea what I'm doing. I just can't understand what measurements I need to use, what resolution, so I just go by instinct for the one size I don't see annoying extra pixels when zooming in. And since you can't change canvas size while drawing (or at least I couldn't find the way in Manga Studio) it was a chore to put layers from one file to another and still messing up. You see my problem is that I want a literal wall of text at the upper panel and some reactions to the second. And I just couldn't find the perfect balance. Ragequit. Now I would do differently, not doing details before everything is on the paper exactly how I want it. I want to say I plan to finish it... sometimes... we'll see.

Overall, I love how Thire and Thorn turned out but I'm not entirely satisfied with Fox so if I ever come back to this drawing, he'll definitely need a redraw. HE LOOKS SO SMOL!!!! But I'll definitely keep the socks. They are all comfy like this <3 BTW this is the original sketch about it. :))))

-------------------------- If you want to know more about my other wips, check out the list <3

[weshney]

DP Comic Prompt

So imagine, if you will, an intoxicated Danny of some sort.

But he's near someone he's crushing on. So he trips and they catch his stumble.

Then it zooms in like it's romantic, and Danny's like, "You smell nice. Like Winter Daphne and bath salts..."

Stereotypical so far, right?

But this Danny has a super sniffer. He can smell everything this person has done/come in contact with for the past week.

So he just keeps going.

Lists everything he can think of that the person smells like in one of those giant, overfilled text bubbles.

Their face just goes from "oh how sweet" to hardcore cringe.

And it ends with them just saying "Please stop."

-----

Thought of this funny little idea in my sleep. Actually came up with it a while back and put it in the Green with Envy discord server as a prompt. But since no one took it up, I felt like I could safely move it here.

I actually think of comic ideas fairly often, but I hate doing line art so anyone wanting to draw this, absolutely go for it. I will never draw it myself. Lol

Could also count as a writing prompt if you wanted, btw.

[kestrel-tree]

My favorite part of Legolas being in the fellowship is that he's basically an elf teenager. Like he was not sent to be on a Top Secret Elite Mordor Infiltration Team, he was sent because Thranduil didn't have the technology to join the council of Elrond by Zoom, so he made his son skateboard over to see what the fancy elves wanted.

Then he just dropped off the grid. Did Thranduil forget he'd sent him on an errand? Did he get in trouble for missing curfew by several years? Was everyone just glad he finally got a job and moved out?

At what point did Legolas send an envoy to the King of Mirkwood being like "Hey Dad, forgot to text you back but Elrond wanted me to tell you the powers of darkness are ever growing. No worries tho we sorted it. Btw I'm dating a dwarf now and we're going on another backpacking trip as soon as my buddy's coronation is done. Can you ask mom to mail me some more arrows? I used all mine saving the world, it was sick🤙"

[evita-shelby]

Five times we see Eva and Tommy during the pandemic

For @cillmequick/ @alex-in-the-wildeness 's celebration.

I hope i got the theme right

Btw: Tommy and Eva are in their 30s, Tommy is already an Mp, Mosley is his right wing nemesis and the names of their constituencies are the current names they have now.

Also #2 is smut(oral fem receiving) and the last one includes some description of Eva in labor

Not friendly towards right wing people or fans of the royal family

Gif by @valyriansorrows

1

“Who keeps texting you this late?” He asks after the sound of stifled laughter and Eva’s texting woke him up again.

“Izzy, he’s stuck in quarantine with his really weird hook-up. Apparently, Flavio the gigolo had covid and didn’t tell him.” She answered. “Its noon over there, I’ll just send him one last text and I’ll let you sleep, babe.”

And just as Eva put her phone back on the nightstand, Tommy’s phone buzzed with a text message.

“Finn again?” Eva asked as he scowled at his iPhone.

“No, Arthur. Linda made him take one of those at home covid tests and he can’t tell if it’s positive or negative.” Tommy shows her the picture with a positive covid test.

“Fuck. Do you want to do your test right now or tomorrow morning?” Eva groans as she gets up to find their stash of at home tests in the medicine cabinet.

2

“If I have to wear a mask while giving birth, he can wear one during work.” Esme vents to her as Eva tries her best to keep herself quiet.

Working from home was amazing. Usually, she and Tommy were done way earlier or he clocked out early to bother her while she was going over things with Esme who’s going on maternity leave for the next three months.

Too bad this meeting couldn’t be rescheduled.

Too bad that Tommy is bored and horny enough to get under her desk and eat her out like a man starved.

Her husband and business partner was insatiable, but there are moments when she did want to complain about it.

Like now that she’s biting her lip while one hand keeps Tommy’s head between her legs and the other hovers over the mute icon on her Zoom call.

If only he wasn’t so good with his tongue. So good she’s forgotten half the shit Esme’s told her, so good she can’t think of anything else.

“Can I call you back?” Eva interrupts her sister-in-law just as her grip on the fountain pen tightens and he gets her to the good part.

“Really, Tommy, I thought you said sex during work hours was against company policy.” Esme teased her as Eva frantically searched for the end meeting button.

3

Fifteen minutes.

Fifteen minutes while people gawk at the representative of Birmingham Hall Green and his newly wedded wife after getting the second dose of the vaccine.

This had boosted vaccine rates and gave them an excuse to stoke the fires of Tommy’s little rivalry with the Tory MP from Warley.

Oswald Mosley wasn’t even from there; he was only representing Warley because he couldn’t even get Harrow West with his wife’s connections. But that hadn’t stopped the conservatives from voting him in, nor did it stop him from declaring Tommy his nemesis.

Wasn’t Tommy’s fault he was just better at everything, or that the media dubbed her husband sexiest mp since he was elected two years ago.

“I bet Mosley is bitching about getting the vaccine.” She says quietly as they wait for the giant cartoon clock projected on a gymnasium wall to ring.

“Oh, he is. Says it’s against his will and that he wants his people to pray for him as he is forced to go against his beliefs.” Tommy rolled his eyes and showed her the tweet he was reading on his phone.

“Do you still want me to tag you on the selfie I just posted?” She asked him.

4

“How much longer?” Tommy asked as they watched BBC One go over the mass resignations happening because Boris Johnson refused to step down.

Thomas Shelby MP OBE had made the popcorn and taken out a few beers to watch the shitshow unfold on national television.

“Maybe six hours, cards said July 7th. Is that Mosley’s name on the list?” Eva asked as they read the names listed as the Tory politician’s resignations came flying in.

“Yep, keeps asking me to do the same. Had to block him just to make him shut up.” He is giddy, like Katie and Finn are whenever they get Tommy to go against John on Mario Kart.

Eva wonders if she should tell him she’s seen the Queen’s death on the cards.

5

“That’s fucking impossible, I have an IUD.” Eva reminds Polly who swears Eva is pregnant.

“Congratulations, kid, you’re the one percent who has their implant fail. Baby boy, September 11, 2022.” Polly Gray-Gold said with a smile.

“Oh great, my baby is going to share his birthday with the Queen’s death date.” Eva pouted.

The Shelbys were antimonarchists, Tommy’s grandparents were Irish Travellers who settled in Birmingham, his father married an Irish Traveller with a Romani mother and both instilled good values and a normal amount of hatred for the monarchy.

Tommy couldn’t wait to open the aged whiskey his grandparents wanted them to open when Elizabeth II finally kicked the bucket.

“Gives us a good excuse to celebrate it then.” Polly reminded her.

“There’s no way I’m letting our son share a name with the king.” He says as he drives her to the hospital.

“Gabriel Henry it is.” Eva breathed through the contractions. “Can you drive faster?”

“I’m doing all I can, love, we’re almost there.” He tries to use his free hand to hold hers and she smacks it away.

“Fuucckk.” She groans as she feels her water break. Its not like the movies, feels like she just pissed herself on the spanking new red Cayenne. “I think he’s coming.”

On September 8, at 3:10 pm, Gabriel Henry is born just as the Queen of England breathes her last.

“We’re almost there, Evie, see the light’s even green.” He is grinning, she is in agony and he’s grinning like the cat that ate the canary.

[honeydewmuses-a]

Testing icons since tumblr has been blowing them up all big n blurry. Feel free to read more if you want but it’s just me being silly and some merc icons :)

here’s some more text to better simulate a test

as you can probably tell i am just using images i had saved. yes that is the same panel twice just zoomed on different characters. i could talk forever about them as brothers in law btw they’re so silly. guy who is thrilled to be here and guy who really really wishes his sister had better taste.

sniper jumpscare!

aaand this guy is scout the scout from team fortress 2 he is. the scout. scout :) i’m normal about him (i am not). it looks like these might come out a little blurry but they also might just be small. that’s what tests are for tho :)

[fluffykitteninabox]

GIVE US A SPINNER CARD!!

please I've been begging for so long!

they added a new feature where you can give characters gifts and stuff but seeing all the available characters next to each other just reminded me that we still don't have a Spinner card!

They also added a thing where you solve cases but I can't play it because of the glitch. Does anyone else have this btw or is it just me?

I haven't seen anyone talk about it. Basically during story mode the character models are zoomed in way too close and they cover up the entire screen, and the text is so tiny that you can barely see it. And everything is slowed down a lot.

here's some screenshots.

yes there's text on that screen, if you zoom in you can see some dark lines in the speech bubble!

If anyone else is having the same issue please tell me.

[diskmotif]

handle breakdown post

originally posted in blisscord blog channel, edited for this format

this is a breakdown of my work for vai's song handle w/ trustt and nujioh

final cover if you havent seen it ^^

i had some insane work hours working on this ngl i stayed up till 5 am for like 3 days straight (this is the hardest ive ever grinded until legitimately this week) & i listened to vai's entire discography back to back to get into the headspace

initial sketches

concepts is a very good app btw infinite scroll is really nice, it draws in vector so it's extremely blessed for use w/ adobe illustrator (my program of choice)

u can see i was taking it very literally at the start, a literal handle on someone's back or a side profile of a handle kinda inspired by pc music's style, how they take concepts like the word apple and then word associate it with what people think of like this

but like idk i also wanted to get better at more abstract art so i did a lot of different concepts

i'm not really like some designers who get away with like 50 concepts, i always end up continually refining one until it's the definitive version

also i really like this wordmark, it's made out of car door handles but it looked too alien for how tangible the song was

ended up using these two in the final design ^^

this was also right after i worked on my decay design so i was doing a lot of blocky stuff

i started constructing words and letters out of blocks and then deconstructing them so. u can see the original on the bottom right and then the final wordmarks i used (top right) were deconstructions of the original word and rearranged for a better looking product

a lot of the original vector work was inspired by a random shipping label someone sent me LOL i lost the original label but here was my recreation of it (w/ handle text)

this was the first piece of vector artwork i did for it around the same time, i had asked vai for the lowpoly vai model she had commissioned, and the idea was to do like a wireframe similar to what she had before which is this

though i didnt really like how it turned out and i didn't really feel like it fit so i just threw random blender deforms on the model till i got here

idk it looks kinda goofy but i liked how it zoomed into a point

here's the final render

these were my first two drafts i did for putting everything together . i kinda hated them both so i never sent them to vai and i went to bed lol

so i started again with each individual part and started to work on laying stuff out i started w this but i thought it needed more

put stuff in and filled it in

the small design there is the sketch and blockout for the vertical logotype

if you remember the super scifi logotype from earlier it became this

a LOT of this design is just overlaying assets until they're nigh unrecognizable you'll see what i mean when i show the construction of the final psd i also made this like randomly distributed version of the boxy handle type that i used in some places

and from here i was working with blender a lot so this is a draft off that

but like i hated this one too LOL and i thought maybe it was the layout

so i redid it here

a lot of vai's songs have a dual meaning sorta between something like. scifi and used for an emotional beat (this was before eimi btw) so for example automata is used both as an allusion to like robots and also to show how the writer felt, so i was looking for something to work handle off of

and so i referenced windows (the operating system) handles which is basically a structure that represents a resource in windows, which is shortened to hWnd / HWND

and so

back to the overarching thing, one of the strongest elements in the design is the huge cage over the design

and if you have keen eyes you can see that this is actually a cut out version of the logotype blockout and sketch super zoomed in

i did this cause i thought it looked super sick zoomed in instead of just overlayed on top. plus it creates a ton of depth which is nice

this was the first draft with this concept

the big block in the middle with the design was something i tried to make work but uh it did not work :(

the pink just became stronger and stronger as i worked on it

if you notice in the background...

do you recognize these images? :D

scroll all the way back up to the earliest drafts i did, they're all stacked on top of each other + the exploded vai

here's the construction of everything

this represents vai (v000 = vai5000)

she had v000 on a different logo she had for some urlfest visuals during sensory era iirc but i thought it didn't match so i created a different more "serious" one

i found out after that it wasn't actually v000 but that's how i read it LMAO there's also a bunch of references to the lyrics on the design, this Just discard me from verse 1, Don't use me for reference from trustt's verse, and It's a vicious cycle from nujioh's verse

apparently vai thought these were a reference to trustt's earlier work with the figure style bc they used em too on their cover art but it's not LMAO, was just a coincidence

that's pretty much it ^^ ty for reading and pls commission me

[jupitercl0uds]

please for the love of god talk to me about fonts. please i’m so serious i need to get infodumped at about this

this is mostly technical stuff but then again i am obviously an artist so i might bring up more artsy stuff

also this is going off the top of my head so some aspects may be inaccurate!!! particularly the stuff about pre-digital fonts!!!

while fonts have kinda existed as long as writing, they really started to properly exist around the time of the printing press, in the 1400s. then, in the victorian era, they invented the typewriter. these obviously had plenty of benefits to society as a whole, but i'm kinda gonna just. overlook that. cause it doesnt really matter here.

while the printing press didn't really have 1 font, typewriters did have a standard font, as i'm sure youre aware. in america (and plenty of other countries), this was american typewriter, which you can still use today!

fun fact: there's a good change your favourite font predates digital fonts!!! some examples are times new roman, papyrus and (as i said earlier) american typewriter

in the 80s, paste up, a long tedious process where you would have to cut out and paste everything onto a grid by hand, was rendered obsolete, because of the growing use of home computers. 3 companies (apple, microsoft and adobe) play a giant role in everything because capitalism.

while apple was the most popular at first, you probably already know that microsoft would then dominate the market, offering alongside itself all those wonderful little microsoft office programs i know so well. all of these companies had a big design rivalry, and like most rivalries of that kind, they've definitely died down a bit by now. don't get me wrong, they're still competitors, so they're still gonna have their discrepancies, but microsoft and apple aren't design companies, so they're kinda just. eh.

they also had SO MANY BAD THINGS about them. did you know that arial shouldn't exist? oh and by the way, i HATE arial. its so ugly. its an eyesore. same with helvetica, though i think i prefer arial.

arial was created specifically to imitate the ever-successful helvetica, which is why the two fonts look so similar. you see, apple owned the rights to helvetica and microsoft wanted it for themself, so, they commissioned a very very similar font instead. i believe there was a legal issue over here in europe that never happened in the usa, because if you can create the same product in a different way in the usa, you can get the same patent. the same rule does not apply in the eu. there are differences between helvetica and arial, but they are predominantly in the way they're drawn. i dont have my graphic design program installed right now, so i cant give a good visual demonstration, but i'll try to explain.

basically, in vector graphics, there's always multiple ways to create the same image. for example, if i want to make a circle, i can use 4 rounded vertices or i could use 5 and still get the same image.

anyway, this is what microsoft did for the majority of the letters, with a few exceptions, such as capital G. also i believe the kerning and spacing is slightly different??? btw, kerning is like complicated spacing. it's specifically the space between 2 characters rather than the entire body of text.

then theres the file formats.

it's important to know the difference between bitmap and vector. if you draw, you're probably using bitmap, if you design, you're probably using vector. in adobe terms, photoshop is bitmap while illustrator is vector.

bitmap is typically easier and more standard for general images, for example when a vector image is exported as an image, all the most common image files (png, gif, jpg, hell even webp*) are bitmap.

*i hate webp files a lot.

however, vector can give you a more crisp image in a more lightweight manor. whats more, no matter how large you make your bitmap image, when you zoom in enough, you will eventually start to see the pixels. that isn't the case for vector graphics, because it specifically stores the instructions for how to make an image rather than the actual image itself.

so, when everyone's been using bitmap fonts and then suddenly adobe come out with these amazing new otf files, which use vector over bitmap, everyone wants in. the main issue?

what is always adobe's biggest problem? that's right,

CORPORATE GREED 🎉🎉🎉

adobe paywalled otf files, so what did apple and microsoft do? apple created ttf files, which is basically the same thing as an otf file, and also gave them to microsoft for completely free. this then pressured adobe into releasing otf files to the public, too. funnily enough, while both file formats are commonly used, it's probably more likely that you use TTF files in your everyday life.

while i have more to say (because i ALWAYS have more to say), that's all i can at the moment. as i said, fonts have a very rich history and that's only the tip of the iceberg!!!

[possumthebrave]

Hello Again! An Update Following My Initial Leave of Twitter.

Originially I said I 'left twitter', a while back and said you'd see more of me over here on this site... Except I didn't leave. Didn't have a good enough reason to at the time. Now I got a pretty big fucking reason. I got logged out of my account and I refuse to pay for twitter blue just to have a basic fucking safety feature. So expect to see more of my art here! I guess I should start with an actual introduction on who I am and why I'm here-

you see, this is the part where I'd just hold down the backspace button because I'm worried about running out of space but I'm not limited by 200 some-odd characters anymore so if you see bits of text that look like this, it's just me thinking. I tend to do quite a lot of that. So you'll catch me rambling from time to time.

People call me Possum. Or Poss. (Call me whatever, just don't call me late for dinner lol.) And I am a complete and total wreck of a human being lmao. I keep my head down 100% of the time, trying to stay out of everyone's way, but that's mostly in public.

I'm a digital artist! Or... Trying to be. I draw mandalas, these things:

(Thangka painting of Manjuvajra mandala btw thanks Wikipedia) Well. ^THIS^ Is a traditional mandala. My mandalas typically look like vTHISv

(lol this is the second one I ever drew all the way back in 2019)

(

They tend to deviate from the traditional mandalas but still retain the original description of 'a geometric configuration of symbols' Sometimes I think I draw the details too fine, and I'm worried it all blurs together so if a piece looks a bit strange I implore you to zoom in and look around my pieces! I'll mark which ones I think you'll need to zoom in on like the black and white one above.

That about concludes my little introductory post. I also have a redbubble store where you can buy stuff with my designs on that but it's not ready yet lol I'll be sure to link it when I get it situated later tonight. I look forward to getting to knowing you! ^^