#but I'd want them to be in a specific art style

[coldgoldlazarus]

I don't know what's better or worse

The projects I can't really do anything with because the base concept and scope simply lie outside of my field of skill (Citadel Of Splinters or Re-Pioneer, which are games; and Black Lotus or [Minigun Angel Project], which are meant to be manga)

Or the projects I can work on easily but just haven't gotten as far with as I should due to procrastination and lack of focus (Metroid Silence, Magical Girl Parallel Inversion, retooling Magical Girl Diurnal Retribution away from its original badly-considered format, The Forbidden Lands, etc.)

Or the one that legitimately straddles the line between, it's doable but is gonna take a lot of effort and branching out: [Yuri Otome Project]

[skullsandcorals]

Wanted to redraw this with my version of the book characters💃✨

(click for better quality if you're on the mobile app. do not repost.)

[sskk-manifesto]

Ep 5!!!

[isekyaaa]

With the amount I want to give writing advice sometimes one would think that I am an amazing writer lmao.

[creatingblackcharacters]

Lesson 1: "White Man Painted Black"?

Okay, I recognize that this is a strong foot to step off on! But! If you learn nothing else from this series, if you decide for whatever reason to forsake me: this is the ONE perspective I'd like you to take away!

You may have heard this quote before, when Black fans deride a character design as 'a white man with the brown bucket tool'. On its face, it means exactly what was said. But specifically, what it means is that we recognize that whomever designed the character drew the way they normally draw for a 'default' character in their mind- default usually meaning White/Eurocentric features- and they added a shade of brown within the line art to make that character now 'Black'.

Now if you're feeling defensive, wait just a moment! This discomfort is not inherently a bad thing!

I'm going to use both a 'real world' example first, to show you what your Black fans and peers are seeing, and perhaps you will also understand our discomfort!

(if anyone was curious, my folder for this lesson is titled 'brad' lmao and you'll see why)

(I'll have y'all know that I actually worked very hard to make Blackface Brad look mildly presentable lmao I'm sorry, I'm wheezing, I can hardly breathe looking at him 🤣)

You see how, despite knowing where this was going, and using one of the darkest shades of brown in my Skin Tones arsenal, you still know that that's Brad Pitt? That nothing about his hair texture, his lips, his nose, or really anything other than the palette change... changed? And you can still see that?

It's incredibly hurtful to be told that that's supposed to be you. You know it's not, you know why it's not, but rather than hearing how it makes you feel unseen and what they could do to be better (since they wanted to draw a Black character!), the artist lashes out at you.

And as an artist, you might have worked VERY HARD to do this! That might be a real handsome guy you drew!! But... is he really Black? Did you walk into it with the intention, that you were drawing a Black Character, or did you draw a character that just happened to be Black? It seems like a silly thing, but it matters!

Okay. I just finished laughing over Brad. Now let's get into some more perspective changes:

Now, imagine you drew a character. You want to make her Black, so you change the hair and skin colors. All right! You have your Black character... right?

Changed ONE feature about her? (You should obviously change more than one feature, but let's just go with the simplified example.)

What if, instead of just changing her palette, we changed her:

Hair?

There isn't nearly enough time in the world, let alone in this little scribble and blurb, for me to describe the IMPORTANCE of Black hair in Black character design. There are so many ways to do curls, afros, braids, twists, locs, SO MANY HAIRSTYLES!! Get used to searching in the 3C-4C hair textures!!!! I plan on doing an entire lesson or two on hair alone, but suffice it to say, Hair Texture is thee BIGGEST giveaway that you 'painted a white person Black'- from cartoon styles to realistic! It reveals itself in your writing as well- just based on how your character takes care of their hair, how your describe the texture, how other people might perceive it... it lets me know just how much research was done. Because we can have straight hair! But again, that's a conversation for a whole 'nother lesson so- come back later 👀?

Lips?

I love our lips, I really do. There's a long history of shaming Black women in particular for the way our lips look. So when I see them done in all their glory, it makes me very happy. Two-toned lips vary in shade and intensity, so make sure you're using references if you want to be 'realistic', but it doesn't have to be that hard. Even a little subtle shift like this in the design/story description lets me know that a creator was thinking about me.

Nose?

One thing I've noticed ever since I starting drawing is that... people in a lot of mangas/manhwas barely have noses! I admit, out of all the features on the face, the nose isn't the most important. I think they should be, especially when you want to emphasize that your characters look different! People have different types of noses! I especially want to gear this towards those with a goal of drawing realistic portraits and the like- there, the nose is ANOTHER dead giveaway. There are Black people with aquiline and straight noses- we aren't a monolith- but is that why you drew it? Consider why you went for that nose specifically. That's part of the intent, in all this!

Now, you might be looking at me and going "Ice... this is just character design". To which my answer is: Yes! It is! It feels so basic, and yet if you ask your Black friends/peers how often they've come across this feeling of not being properly drawn/written, from fanart to professionally produced works, it's unfortunately common despite how simple of a concept it is.

I hope that you can walk away from my first lil lesson with new eyes. Remember, it's the thought that counts, but the action that delivers!

[straitjacketzz]

Please make more "Chibifurs"

There's words like "sparklefur" and "emo dog" and "toon" to describe furry subtypes with certain art style and design elements, and we desperately need a word for little magical anime moe style critters like these. I propose the term chibifur

I'd say it's not the same as kemono because kemono isn't limited to cutesy chibi art styles with big sparkly eyes (ex: there's tons of anime style bara furry art labeled as kemono) though I would consider chibifur to be a Subtype of kemono and chibifur is more for unique/original/fantasy species anyway. It's also not just "drawing of any regular furry in a chibi art style" either. It's like.... character you'd see in a magical girl/ fantasy anime, and they look like that by default. Smaller bodies and stylized shapes, it relies both on certain character design tropes AND art style, not just one or the other. you know what i mean??? does this make sense to anyone else. I know a lot of people call these "mascots" but the only reason I don't use the term mascot is only cuz it's not limited to furry design and there's a lot of like, for example, american mascot costumes that don't fit this specific niche.

You don't need my "permission" or "approval" to call your oc a chibifur or whatever, like I said before this isn't owned by me, just be honest with urself about it. its gotta be SILLY. Anyway. Please make some. I want to see them.

[david-talks-sw]

"The Acolyte" wasn't 'woke' propaganda.

I had my issues with the show (you can check out my other posts to see what they were) but there's this notion that The Acolyte was created to spread The Message™ of "woke propaganda"... and I think there's a bit of a mix-up going on, there.

Because that's simplifying things a lot.

When you're a minority, you're not "being woke" when you're just being yourself! Conversely, you're not "writing to be woke" when you're a minority drawing inspiration from your personal experiences to tell a story.

I talked before about how George Lucas implemented elements of his personal life in his own films. In his own words:

"There's no way to write without writing from yourself. Y'know, the stuff gets made out of things that you care about… whether you've actually lived them or not. There are emotional issues that you deal with, and I think that's always a major factor with any writer. I don’t think— it's hard to write without having some kind of emotional connection to the material. I've never seen any reason not to. It’s easy to write that way. It's hard to write in the abstract. So when I write a scene, I write a scene that moves me or I care about, or is something that is personal to me." - George Lucas, Q&A with Lynne Hale, 1994 (StarWars.com)

Any piece of writing worth some salt needs to come from a personal place to some degree because that's where the heart of the story, the truth, lies. That's what an audience will relate to.

Example: The six original Star Wars films are purely George Lucas. As in, everything in those films, from the characters, to the cinematography, to the editing style, etc are all a reflection of who George is as a person and what he stands for:

anti-Vietnam / "fight the corporate & imperial machine"

60s-70s white kid from Modesto, California

single father of three

who defines himself as Methodist-Buddhist,

has an anthropology major and

a passion for Kurosawa,

cinema vérité,

cinema history in general

art and visuals and

car racing.

You see all that in those films.

Same thing with The Acolyte.

Leslye Headland drew from her personal experiences.

Among other things, Leslye is gay. So that's what she uses as inspiration to, for instance, craft Qimir's character motivation.

"I was on the treadmill being like, “What is [Qimir] gonna say?!” And my wife, who is a huge part of my creative process, finally she said, “What do you wanna say? Stop thinking of it like you have to somehow tap into a different guy.” [...] I was like, “I wanna say that people don't want me to exist as a gay woman, as a woman in this particular space, working in this wild sandbox.” There was a whole crew of people who believed in me, but deep down, I felt like, “I am unaccepted for who I am because of what I believe in and wanting to wield my power the way I'd like without having to answer to the legion of people that just exist out there.”" - Leslye Headland, Collider, 2024

She took this specific life experience of hers, and then made it more universal, so that a bigger audience could relate to it.

"By the way, I think everybody feels this way. I think that's why it resonates when you're honest about yourself, and you get personal about it. When [Qimir] says, “I want freedom,” that's what I want. I just want freedom. I want to be able to just be out there and be myself and be the type of artist I want to be without having to answer to anybody." - Leslye Headland, Collider, 2024

Same goes with Osha and Sol's relationship, or how she defines the Jedi Order. It derives from her own relationship with her father and how she felt being raised straight, in a Christian household.

If you have the time, listen to this audio clip where she describes that.

In the context of the whole interview, her voice goes down a few octaves and starts to crack a bit. This is a vulnerable moment, when she's talking about it... and it's this experience that she turned into fuel for her writing of Sol and Osha's father/daughter bond.

"There's this thing that's called benign sexism, and part of it is this paternal protectionism — it seems like this good thing, but like you said, there's this, “I have to protect you from everything. I have to make sure you're okay. I have to tell you what track to get on, and then once you're on that track, I need to support you.” Ultimately, what happens is — again, this is a father-daughter relationship — as women evolve in their lives and develop their own personalities separate from their fathers, at some point, they have to reject that protectionism. [...] She cannot stay a little girl or an adolescent or young adult. She has to, at some point, say, “I reject what you have told me I need to do to make you proud, to follow in your footsteps.” She has to do that." - Leslye Headland, Collider, 2024

Now... if we're talking consistency with the themes in Lucas' Star Wars, then yeah, The Acolyte misses the mark.

The Jedi Order isn't the patriarchy or the Catholic Church. They're more like Buddhist monks, George has stated so multiple times.

The Jedi teachings aren't narratively meant to be the same traits found in toxic masculinity or benign sexism.

When a Jedi tells you to be mindful of your emotions, it's not meant in the "boys don't cry" sense.

When they talk about letting go of attachments, it's not meant in a stoic "don't get emotionally involved" sense.

Anakin too, the whole point is that he's wrong, the narrative frames his fall to the Dark Side as his own fault, it's not meant to be perceived as a failure in upbringing.

But she's not the only one who does it. Filoni does it too, a majority of fans have this take on the Jedi.

And because of her experiences, I can see why her takeaway would be that. Same goes for Filoni, they're products of their generation, upbringing and experiences.

My point is:

Leslye Headland is writing from a personal place, when she's writing The Acolyte. It's partially informed by her politics because - like she quotes, "personal is political" - but when it comes to the writing of the show, it's personal first and foremost.

What this was, was a Star Wars fan (arguably the nerdiest one we've had so far, in terms of creators) putting all of herself in the creation of a show that perfectly reflects who she is and what she stands for, resulting in:

a story about growing past your father's paternal control and accepting that our guides aren't infallible,

where her wife holds a role and gets to wield a lightsaber,

a show about taking corrupt religious institutions to task

about the Sith and the Dark Side

and questioning the unquestionable

and exploring whether the good are really so good and if the bad are really so bad.

This was a project written from the heart, and regardless of whether the resulting art found its mark, I think it's important to note that it wasn't written to spread a propaganda message in some "pro-woke holy war" or whatever the hell the YouTubers are peddling.

[sunshine-on-marz]

Hi lovely could I please request for Spencer Reid where the reader is in the bau and is the only one who asks questions when Spencer starts rambling because she’s genuinely interested and one day Reid asks if she wants to go see a movie after she asked him about it and Derek is all teasing like you got a date pretty boy ? Thank you so much ❤️

Hi my love! Now I just adore this idea and I hope I do it justice! (Also, my sweets, I tried out something new with the writing style at the start, I'd love some feedback on that and the fic as a whole) warning: reader is called princess but gender isn't mentioned.

"I wanna hear"

Spencer Reid x Reader

Spencer Reid, ever the genius, is entirely clueless to social cues.

Oh good lord that boy just doesn't pick up on it!... is what you would say if you didn't adore his rambling tangents. Jesus, all of it is perfect. All of him is perfect. But, not everyone sees the beauty in art. apparently.

"Reid, thanks for that, anyways." Derek starts to cut Spencer's rambling off, you watch Spencer's face fall, and it's entirely heartbreaking. You gently grab his hand "Keep talking Spence" you smile and he looks confused. "really?" he asks, you nod. "yes, I wanna hear." you assure him as you clasp his hand between both of yours, his eyes light up. He rambles on about the connection between 8 different serial killers with a specific disease and how despite them never meeting their killings looked almost like copycats. In all honesty half the words are out of your vocabulary and the rest of them are spoken to fast for you to pick up on details, but you listen to every single sound that makes it past his lips, even if you don't process it all.

"so they never met? did they know about the other killers?" you ask, resting your chin on your hand and he shakes his head "no, they didn't know about each other until they were arrested" he answers. "Hm, that's really interesting spencer, like, that's super cool- well not cool but you know what I mean", he chuckles "Yea, I know what you mean."

You were smiling bright enough to light up a room as you ask your next question. "Do you want to hang out sometime? Like after work... just us?". He nods "I'd love that."

There's a small gasp through the bullpen after his response. You and Spencer look over and see the team eavesdropping.

"Pretty boy and the Princess are goin' out!" Derek cheers, the girls laugh and you and Spencer blush.

Its going to take a while for the teasing to stop, surely, but it's all worth it for Spencer.. at this point, you might call anything worth it if it's for Spencer.

It's short and sweet but I just adore this <3

@the-phantom-author - Who promised to hype me up

@thesockbehindthewashingmachine - Who will hype me up without a promise

[quillpokebiology]

Okay, I have kinda sidestepped eevee crossbreeds bcuz then I'd have to cover 9 pokemon in one post, and I already had a nightmare covering the Schema Meowstic (24 pokemon that had to be covered), BUT, my mom lives in the wild area and owns a farmland and has a large garden, which attracts a lot of pokemon, and she caught a wild wooly Espeon on camera and now I gotta make this.

Pokemon Crossbreeds: Wooly

Wooly is the name for members if the Eevee line who had Wooloo/Dubwool fathers. The breed has appeared in the wild but started being selectively bred by humans in the 1800s. The bred is known for their wooly fur and floppy ears, and they were bred for various different tasks.

Eevee

Wooly Eevee gain fluffy bodies, floppy ears, and a darker fur coat. They follow the Herd nature of Wooloo and prefer to travel with other Eevees. Their fur grows a lot and needs to be shaved regularly, less it become hazardous for them. Many people breed them for their evolutions, or because they find their wool soft and cute.

Jolteon

Wooly Jolteon were bred alongside Yamper to be herders for Wooloo, while also working as their protection from outside predators. As to not scare the wooloo, farmers decided that it would be best to breed them with Dubwool so they would have wooly coats and resemble the wooloo herds more. These Jolteon are able to store more electricity due to their wool, making them very popular for battles.

Flareon

My personal favorite of this line! Wooly Flareon gain the nose, spots, and ears of Dubwool, making them look more sheep-like. This breed of Flareon was bred to keep people warm during winter; with their added floof and warm bodies making them the perfect cuddle buddies. Because of this, this breed of Flareon is known for loving cuddles.

Vaporeon

Also nicknamed Koi Vaporeon because of their spots. This breed of Vaporeon gain the face patterns, ears, and spots of Dubwool. Their frills also become wool, which soaks up a lot of water. They were bred for their frills to collect water to bring to villages. The more atee they store, the puffier they get.

Espeon

Wooly Espeon gain the floof, spots, facial patterns, and ears of Dubwool. It's one of the more common breeds since Dubwool live on high mountains or in fields that get a lot of sun. This breed was bred by humans purely for aesthetics, since other than inheriting a herd-like mentality and having extremely fluffy wool, not much about them changes.

Umbreon

The second most common of this breed. Wooly Umbreon gain the wool, wars, and spots of Dubwool, and that's pretty much it. They were bred to guard Wooloo herds at night from potential predators. Breeding them with Wooloo/Dubwool made the Wooloo trust them more.

Leafeon

Wooly Leafeon gain the spots, chest fluffy, and ears of Dubwool. This breed is beloved in many children's books and myths because people say they're appearance is just right for a nature spirit. They weren't bred for a specific task.

Glaceon

Wooly Glaceon are the only pokenon here that actually gain Dubwool's horns! They can be found atop icy mountains with high Dubwool populations. The breed has been loved on Circhester for thousands of years for their regal appearance, and some myths even state that they're the spirits of Ice God's in the form of a pokemon.

Sylveon

A show breed that is loved by many. These Sylveon gain fluffy coats and cute floppy ears, and many contest judges love their new style of bowtie and their added eyebrows. They're also a very popular pokemon to have on farms, as they can stop fights between the pokemon, they can protect the farm pokemon, and Wooloo feel more comfortable around them because of their wool.

//My designs can be used by anyone if you credit me for the original design! Talking about creation under the cut

I got inspiration for them when I saw art made by GraceyFH on Deviantart, where they crossed an eevee with a wooloo and I thought it was so cute and wanted to make my own version of that. The entire line was inspired by floppy eared sheep and Goats, but Jolteon specifically was inspired by a ram, which is why it's ears aren't floppy.

Eevee was easy. Just give it wool and floppy ears. Except of course it can't be that way because I redraw it twice. The first one's bangs looked weird and unfixable so I started over. Giving Eevee more messy bangs felt more like Pokemon's art style. I gave it darker fur because Wooloo has darker fur, which didn't really stick with the evolutions but idrc.

Jolteon was actually the last one I made. I made a first one with a different pose, but I hated it so I just used the base pose. It was a lot easier to use the base pose since I felt like I could make the fluff and the spiky mix together easier. I also find it very cute. Like I said before, I didn't make Jolteon's ears floppy because that wouldn't help it run very fast, and that breed of Jolteon was bred to hers Wooloo. But, I did make it's ears lower to match the ram photos I was looking at.

FLAREON MY BOY 🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡. Flareon is my favorite I designed and the first one I drew. It was also the easiest since it's already so fluffy. All I had to do was give it spots and goat features.

Vaporeon was the second Eeveelution I designed, and I mostly just had trouble with the ears. Other than that, it was all good. Inwas very excited for Vaporeon because I wanted to draw a koifish looking Vaporeon. Maybe I'll draw a more koifish looking Vaporeon in the future.

Espeon was nice. It already has a simple design. Was going to give it Dubwool's neck fluff, but I didn't do that because I wanted to keep its sleek appearance. (I was also lazy because I didn't realize I forgot it until after I was done with the drawing).

Umbreon was based on a goat at a petting zoo near me (aka, an hour drive away from me but idc I love that zoo). Goat was sleek and had droopy ears, and I loved him. Similar story to Espeon: it's simple and I just added fluff.

Leafeon was nice. I love a lot of nature fantasy stuff, so I'm always happy to make grass type crossbreeds. It reminds me of cauliflower, but I swear I didn't do that on purpose.

I was honestly annoyed about Glaceon since I thought it would he hard to incorporate Dubwool features to it because it's hat. And then I realized I could make the hat into horns, so I ended up having a lot of fun with it. If I didn't love fluffiness, it would probably be my favorite design. Like Jolteon, I based it off of a ram, so I was going to give it upper ears, but I thought the floppy ears looked cuter.

And then Sylveon! It was one of the easier ones to design since I went in knowing what I wanted to do. The floppy wars combined with its everything makes it look like a cute fantasy pet in a Disney movie, and I love it because of that. Not much else to say.

[hoodedjelly]

Nicktoons unite main 4 in their respected styles ( minus jimmy neutron i'll explain more below)

i feel very mixed about these but it was still fun either way studying all of these cartoons respected styles. the final does make me happy, seeing all of them together ^__^ 💞

below i will explain my thought process working with each style so get ready for a wall of text:

first before anything you may be asking: why no jimmy neutron style!? it's because i tried and gave up! i was starting the rendering process for timmy and i hated it so i just didn't continue! no point of making myself miserable for something thats harmless fun style studies. but have these as a little treat:

Fairly Oddparents style: the easiest style to work on and research for, fop style is not that complex. i should also add i didn't draw each style in one sitting i drew each character together and then edited them all, so that might be the reason why some look better then others, i just got good. but i'm saying that because the character i started with was spongebob! specifically because i was tired of ppl thinking dp style and fop style are the same and how spongebob would look the same in both styles, just a flat square. which is wrong! fop style is very different! i would prob describe it as a flat paper style. has sharp and rounded thick lines. the main source of research i used for it was the designer for fop was Ernie Gilbert. he has designed a lot of iconic characters for the show and i highly would check out his work, this is his website

Danny phantom style: now this one was tricky, prob the hardest one to figure out and i honestly don't think i really DID figure it out. the possible reason is i am still trying to go through the show atm myself, but i'd doubt it. they all just look off to me, just a little. which no need for me to work myself in a circle trying to make it "perfect". im no professional character designer! especially not Stephen Silver.

Spongebob Squarepants style: this one was tricky but in the opposite way to dp style, where i didn't know what to reference! to start off the show is mainly nonhuman characters, so finding character refs were hard. the refs i did use were the mermaids and the superheros, so i used that for timmy. but in the middle of working on jimmys i was watching a video of someone ranking every single spongebob ep and TURNS OUT in the later seasons, i think season 13, there were human designs! (technically elfs but whatever).

and weirder thing is how they draw patchy but im not going to get into that. i am assuming that style is for characters that are supposed to be real life humans up on land in that universe (but why not just use real life humans? idk, maybe tom kenny is getting to old for the role). BUT ANYWAY, i used the elfs for a main source for jimmy and danny, they turned out a lot better then the timmy in my eyes. i wanted at least one of them to have the black eyes but they all have bright blue eyes and the show usually always colors blue eyes. i get ahead of myself cause there was a lot more factors i still had to figure out. like the line art. the show doesn't have a clear line style like dp or fop, its just relatively consistent medium lines. so i just went with more recent show stuff then older stuff since it's HD.

ok but thats basically it, i can prob go on more but i'd feel no one gaf. i made these for fun and it was fun making them! i love all of these shows a ton so it was nice looking up the designers and artist for these shows. support the artists!!! fuck bitch fartman!!!!!

[ponderingmoonlight]

Satoru Gojo trying to make a bun with his daughter's kinky hair

Pairing: husband!Gojo x black!reader

Word Count: 1,1k

Synopsis: It always looked so easy to him, the way you put your thick hair into the most breathtaking hairstyles. But when his daughter asked him to do a sleek bun on her, he was confronted with the stinging fact how difficult styling kinky hair can be. But that doesn't stop the dad of the year from learning...

Warnings: This is the first time ever I'm writing a black reader and I'm beyond excited 😭 I'm hoping with all my heart that you guys like what I came up with! I'm not a poc myself so if this offends you, don't read this work. Also, I'm writing from the point of view of my own research and the tellings of my beloved moot @almostshinymiracle. As usual, there's many ways to do your hair and this specific one might not be yours 🤍

Comments, likes and reblogs are so appreciated, I'd be more than thankful for you guys telling me what you think - THANK YOU 🤍

Your eyes widen when the loud shriek of your daughter echoes through your house. What’s wrong? Did she hurt herself while playing? As fast as your feet carry you, you run down the hallway and open the door to her room.

But no, your daughter didn’t fall, she didn’t hurt herself. She sits in front of her dad who holds a brush in his hand.

“Hey honey, is everything alright over here?”, you question softly while kneeling down next to both of them.

“I’m so sorry. She said she wants a bun like the one you wear so often and I thought it can’t be that hard. But the brush doesn’t even get through her hair…”, your husband explains, bright blue eyes fixated on his daughter’s hair.

“It’s not that simple with kinky hair, babe. Look, the bristles of your brush are way too tight to get through her hair. That’s why I’m having a special one.”

Oh, how absolutely adorable he looks with his face visibly in guilt, still holding onto the brush that seems to be his while visibly pondering about your soft explanation. Making your daughter’s hair as a dad without experience has to be difficult already, but a girl with black roots and a hair structure completely unknown to him? You chuckle to yourself, remember the countless times he observed you doing your hair already.

“This seems so damn exhausting, babe. Can’t you just…brush it?”

“If I just brush it, I’ll look like a mop. That’s the price I have to pay for having kinky hair I guess.”

“But you look like a princess. My princess”, he purred into your ear while his long fingers tried to brush through your thick hair.

“She just asked me and as her dad…I just wanted to help, y’know”, he mumbles with a pout.

“And I’m so proud of you for trying, Satoru. It’s just an art itself and if you didn’t grow up with it, it’s quite difficult. Sometimes not even hairstylists are able to tame my and her hair from time to time. No worries, I’ll do her hair and I’ll show you how it’s done when there’s enough time, okay?”

You can’t help but give him a kiss on his cheek, letting yourself fall into his arms.

“Mommy, can you do my hair?”, your daughter interrupts your way too short cuddle session.

“Of course, angel. We’ll be ready in 10 minutes, Satoru. Don’t worry about it-“

“My name is baby”, he corrects you before leaving the room, his shoulders almost hanging to the floor.

This doesn’t sit right with you. It shouldn’t hurt him like this that he wasn’t able to do his daughter’s hair when it’s absolute not comparable to his very own. Mindlessly, you run your fingers through her thick mane that is so similar to yours, so familiar that you’d be able to make a sleek bun with eyes closed. You’ll definitely show him how to take care of his daughter’s hair when there’s more time than today.

“Is daddy sad?”, your daughter asks innocently while you apply gel.

“He was so excited to do your hair, honey. But with kinky hair like ours, this can be really difficult, you know?”

“It hurt…”, she admits shyly.

“Did it hurt as much as doing braids?”

Your little daughter chuckles while you tickle her playfully on her neck.

-the next day-

The heartfelt laughter of your daughter makes your eyes flutter open. What time is it? Given the fact that the sun already rose, it has to be late in the morning. Your naked feet meet the cold wooden floor, carry you to her room on their own. Satoru’s side of the bed was already cold when you woke up. Did he have to leave for a mission? Or is he the reason why his precious little daughter laughs?

“Okay, let me remove the scarf from your cute little head. Is this how mommy does your hair?”

You stop in your tracks, already grinning from ear to ear like an idiot. A scarf wrapped around her daughter’s head? You know exactly what that means.

“That tickles!”, your daughter shrieks.

“Shhh, don’t you wake up Mommy before I’m done here, okay? I want this to be a surprise.”, Satoru whispers exaggeratedly mute.

It takes all your strength to not break out in laughter, to stay hidden behind the slightly open door.  

“Okay, now let me wrap this around it…and…Fast, I need a bobby pin, honey!”

Your heart almost overflows with warmth. When did he learn how to do his daughter’s hair, what steps it takes to create a sleek bun with kinky hair? It’s hard to keep you from entering the room, to keep your composure. The urge to see what he’s doing becomes almost unbearable-

“Did you hear that daddy?”

“Yeah, that sounded almost as if someone behind that door stalks us!”

With a swift motion, your husband exposes you to his bright blue orbs. Your heart skips a beat. Is he mad, disappointed? The look on his face is rather amused, calms down your tingling nerves.

Until you look at your daughter.

Your precious little daughter with a perfect sleek bun.

“Oh my”, you breathe out.

Instantly, you kneel down in front of her, eyeing her from every angle. He really managed to put all her unruly hair in one of your afro puff hair ties, the whole package covering the floor along with multiple tubes of different gels and countless diverse brushes. It looks like an absolute mess around her room, different brands and tools clustered around. But you only have eyes for your daughter and beloved husband.

“This looks absolutely stunning!”

“Do you…really think so?”, Satoru mutters while scratching the back of his head.

Is the strongest jujutsu sorcerers of your time really…blushing? Immediately you grab his hand covered in dried gel and press a passionate kiss against his cheek.

“She looks like a model, I couldn’t have done it better! How did you do this? Only yesterday, you didn’t know what to do!”

“I did some research…”

“The whole night?”

“The whole night.”

“This looks fantastic!”, your daughter cries out when seeing herself in the mirror, twisting and turning herself in order to soak in her gorgeous bun.

“You always make it look so easy. Sometimes I forget how much skill this requires”, he mumbles against your ear, dragging your body onto his lap.

“I hope you’ll remind this when you ruin my hair next time”, you playfully reply.

“Want me to ruin your hair right now?”

[runningwithscizzorz]

HOW DO YOU DRAW FACES??!?! seriously, everything about your art is pure eyecandy, I love it SO MUCH, but faces. YOUR FACES. the faces are perfect. they capture every detail. they feel so human. so expressive. i would love to know how you draw/structure your faces because it's the biggest thing i'd like to improve on with my art!

Art is a translation of how you perceive the world. Art is both extremely watered down and painfully vulnerable with emotions. The artist translates the world, and people translate the art. Lots of art gets lost in translation. My goal is to make people read my art regardless of my language. I want my art to speak louder than my simple cluttered words could.

How can you read a face with no words? You have to find your own way to do that, but here’s a very rough way of how I read people and attempt to translate their world into mine.

One practice is drawing straight from a reference. I've been watching TLOU, which has some of the best acting ever and is perfect for screenshotting specific moments to recreate. Pulling scenes from episode five, I stretch and amplify the facial features to properly read their emotions in my style, ex, making Ellie and Sam's eyes bigger to amplify their youth, smoothing out facial wrinkles for simplicity, and (my favorite) exaggerating the mouths so they emote louder.

Second method is feeling how your face moves. Ethan Becker on YouTube explains it better (go watch all his videos) of how to feel and observe how your face compresses and works with different features to properly express emotions. Using your own face as a stencil to understand how your muscle and jaw work is both simple, and always accessible for artist reference.

An example of how I break down bits of a chapter into chunks for each panel while still attempting for it to run smoothly like the writing. Honestly, a lot of this part rides on wanting to do the author justice for their fabulous work. You want to show them how much their work affected you and why it’s totally worth it to draw their stories.

Some examples of scenes from media (that almost made me cry) and how I translate and manipulate it into my style. This is why I redraw scenes from movies so often, not only is it fun and easy, but it’s a great way of studying the masters

But, to actually answer your question, I think the reason my drawings are so expressive to you is because I still follow somewhat typical human anatomy while still being cartoony enough to break the uncanny valley and create an aesthetically pleasing style. I’m still practicing and studying everyday to get better. You must work as much as possible to attempt to properly translate the world.

[canisalbus]

Hello! I'm not a furry either so I'm not sure how I stumbled upon your art, but I'm glad I did because I love everything you do for Machete and Vasco and I admire your art and how much effort you put in fleshing them out. They're gorgeous, and your colouring style is very pretty, too! I'd like to ask some things about them, if you don't mind.

1) Are they specific dog breeds? (I remember you said you're inspired by Borzoi fur for Machete's neck fur!)

2) Are dogs your favourite animal to draw?

3) How did you decide on their names?

The question about the names is because, fun fact: Vasco is an extremely popular football team from Rio de Janeiro, and right now they're competing in Brazil's largest football championship to become the country's champion. So I've been imagining Vasco dragging Machete to a football match and being wildly into it while Machete looks lost in the rambunctious crowd lol but also because I'd like to know if you're applying a nationality to them at all. Their clothes have picked my curiosity!

Thanks for sharing your art with us!

Ah, thank you! I'm glad you like my art and little guys.

1. Both of their breeds are fictional.

Vasco is a scenthound type of dog, if you applied Segugio Italiano's colors to Ariégeois/Porcelaine bodytype you'd get very close to what he's supposed to look like.

Machete is a sighthound and his closest real life counterpart would be Ibizan hound. He's mostly just a little fluffier here and there.

2. Yes, dogs are my favorite thing to draw. Canines in general. Sighthounds in particular.

3. I created Machete almost 16 years ago, I think I was simply reading about weapons and thought the word sounded sharp and had a good rhythm to it. In-universe "Machete" isn't his real name at all, it's something of a mean-spirited epithet/nickname he's acquired from his colleagues (mostly for being efficient at powering through mountains of thankless work, his severe (and increasingly cut-throatish) personality and the fact that he's originally from the part of Italy that was ruled by Spain at the time). His actual name (the one Vasco uses) hasn't been revealed.

I had liked the name Vasco long before I assigned it to this character, to me it sounds friendly and energetic but also noble somehow (but that's just my impression, I don't know any Vascos personally). One of the deciding factors was his color palette, I wanted to aim for shades that would resemble gold. In Finnish, "vaski" is an archaic term for warm colored metals like brass, bronze and copper. It's far fetched in retrospective but when the connection popped in my head I had to go for it.

As for the nationalities, they're both Italian. Vasco is a proud Florentine and Machete is originally Sicilian and now lives in Rome.

I can see how Vasco would be into football, Machete less so.

[that-basic-simp]

Girl With The Wave Tattoo

Mizu X Fem!Reader CW: None WC: 1.5k+

"Hottie alert," my friend tapped me on the back of my arm.

My back was facing the customers as they were coming and going. I was doing my work while my friend was looking at the customers. I should be more specific. The attractive customers.

"If it's another athlete with the typical body, I am not turning around."

"No, it's your kind of hottie."

"If this is another prank I swear I am going to--" I immediately shut up as I was face to face with someone who was indeed my kind of hottie.

They were tall, tall for a woman. Or at least they appeared to be a woman. It was kind of hard to tell as they were wearing cargo joggers with high-top Converse and a white tank top. There was a long chain necklace with the sword as a pendant. Finally, to top off their appearance, they had orange tinted glasses covering their eyes and a bun on the top of their head. Running up both of their arms was a sleeve tattoo of what looked to be water in the traditional Japanese art style. Similar to that of the Great Wave.

"W-What can I get for you today?" I asked.

"What kind of tea do you have?" they asked, in a bit of a raspy voice.

"We have all kinds ranging from green, black, oolong. You name it, we probably have it."

"Do you by chance have any hot matcha green tea?"

"W-We do."

"Can I get that in a large?"

"Yes. Name for the order?"

"Mizu."

"Alright. That'll be about 500 yen."

Mizu handed me a small coin and I took it from them.

"It should be out soon."

"Thanks," they walked towards the counter and waited for me to make the drink.

"So, what do you think?" my friend leaned over and asked me, whispering in my ear.

"I don't know about this one."

"What do you mean?"

"Their appearance. I can't tell if they're, you know."

"Nondescript?"

"In a sense. The bun isn't helping, but their eyes," I turned to face them.

They were reading something on their phone. As I looked closely, which is an odd feature to stare at, their fingers were thin and slender to be a man's. I mean, depending on the man, they can be long and slender. But they looked oddly feminine for someone who is trying to be neither gender. Or maybe one more so than the other. It's hard to tell. But it didn't matter. They were attractive.

"Did you at least get their name?"

"Mizu," I whispered, not wanting to confuse them with thinking their order was ready.

"Interesting name."

"I think so. Unique."

I finished making the tea for Mizu and I set it on the counter.

"Mizu?" I called out their name.

Their head picked up and they walked over to me, grabbing the cup.

"Thanks," they said, placing a couple pieces of yen in the tip jar.

"Have a nice day."

They smiled before turning around, walking off towards the door. The chime of the bell rang as the door opened.

"Is this the first time you've seen them?"

"Here?"

"Yeah."

"I've seen them in this area. I think they work at a tattoo parlor just down the road."

"Huh, interesting."

"Thinking about giving them a visit?"

"Maybe not like instantly. I think I'll give it a bit and see if they come around again."

"If you want to know that answer, talk to Ise. She hears and sees everything that goes on here."

"She doesn't come in until three, doesn't she?"

"Yes, but if text her and say you need details on one customer, she'll be here in a flash."

"I kind of don't want to because I'd rather talk to her when she's scheduled to be here."

"Suit yourself. Oh, Mr. Watari is here again. Be careful."

"I'm heading into the pantry then."

"To do what?"

"Hide from him."

After waiting a few hours, Ise came in and that was when my friend dropped the bomb on her and she came rushing over to me, excited and happy as a clam. If she was a dog, her tail would be wagging so fast she could fly off into the clouds.

"I heard you want to know something about someone."

"Mizu. I was told they work at a tattoo parlor."

"Mizu is a woman. When she's out in public or when she's in the tattoo place, she binds her chest."

"Why's that?"

"Bad history with another work place where they would only hire her if she was more masculine."

"That's backwards."

"It was."

"Is there anything else you know about her?"

"Other than she can rock two arm sleeve tattoos and make it look attractive, no. That's really it."

"Alright," I sighed.

"Why? Are you interested in her?"

"I mean, I thought I was."

"Y/N, everyone here knows you prefer women over men."

"I guess I was just ready to open the door to Mizu if she was in fact a guy. I just didn't want to jump to conclusions when I wasn't able to tell."

"You wouldn't be the first. People here had issues with her."

"Why's that?"

"She was a regular here before you started working with us. That was when she was a bit more feminine presenting. But when she started changing into what we see her normally wear, she went into the bathroom one day. It was also before we changed it to be single stalls instead of multiple. She went in to use the restroom and a mother and her young child came out, screaming at us for allowing Mizu into the bathroom. The mother thought Mizu was a man, and when explaining it to her that she is biologically female, the mother did not believe her. You'll never believe what Mizu said to the woman."

"What?"

"'Want to check yourself?'"

I almost dropped over, both Ise and my friend laughing.

"The mother was so disgusted, saying that she was being assaulted now by what Mizu said. The police got involved and after some extensive and some invasive work on Mizu, they deemed she was in fact a woman. The mother still didn't believe it."

"I feel bad for Mizu," I said.

"We all did. So whenever she comes in here, which isn't as often as before, we give her a discount on her entire order. She doesn't know that and the other customers don't know it either."

"It's hard to believe that she doesn't know."

"I'm sure she does. But she hasn't said anything about it. Although, she does tip generously."

"I think she's making it up for the many times you discounted her order."

"We just all felt bad for her and what she had to go through. Oh! I know. You should do something for her."

"What?"

"Yeah. She's going to be coming here in a few days."

"How do you know that?"

"Ise is able to track people's schedules," my friend said.

"No, I just know that Mizu is going to be tattooing a friend of mine. She comes in here whenever she has to tattoo someone."

"So I take it she was tattooing someone today."

"Yes. This is my friend's first session," Ise said. "She'll be going back in a few days to do the second session."

"I see. What should I do for Mizu?"

"Chocolate can't go wrong," my friend said.

"But she does like tea," Ise said. "When my friend goes to get her tattoos done, Mizu is always drinking tea. Mostly hot tea."

I nodded my head, "I see."

A few days had gone by and when the day Mizu was going to be making another return, I was ready. I didn't want to come off as stalkerish, which was why I had to make this perfect. When the bell rang, I picked my head up and found Mizu walking to the counter.

"Same as before?" I asked.

"How do you know?" Mizu looked at me with suspicion.

"Your order stands out."

"Does it?"

"You're the only one who orders the hot matcha green tea," I said.

"Out of all the customers here?" she perked an eyebrow.

I nodded my head, "Most people here enjoy coffee. You're the only tea person."

"Huh. I see."

"And some people here thought it would be nice to give you this," I pulled out a small bag and placed it on the counter for her.

"What's this? Was this Ise's idea?" Mizu asked.

"You know Ise?"

"She came in to accompany her friend one time. I tattoo her friend and she is getting her second session today."

"What is she getting?"

"Something similar to what I have."

Mizu turned around and moved her tank top down slightly. I poked my head over the counter and found there was a large phoenix tattoo on her back.

"It's not exactly a phoenix. Hers is going to be a turtle."

"Oh, I see."

Mizu turned around, "Thank you," she gestured to the bag. "If it was Ise's idea, I assume it will be tea."

"It was actually mine. Ise gave me the idea to give you something."

"Why's that?" she asked.

"I'm sorry, but she told me what happened to you. About the mother and child here that caused you issues."

A small smile crawled on Mizu's lips, "It was a bit of an unfortunate situation, but it just showed me that people will think what they want to think no matter what."

"Even though I don't really know you, I think you're a great person. For persevering through all of that."

"Thank you," she said.

"I-I'll get your tea ready."

"What's your name?"

"Am I not wearing my name tag?" I looked down at my apron, noticing it was gone. "Shit, I'm not."

She chuckled.

"It's Y/N," I said.

"Nice to meet you, Y/N," she said. "I hope to see you around."

[ruija]

So! The evil art challenge! Thank you everyone who gave their input, you wrote really nice things💙💙 and you've definitely picked out my habits pretty well, lmao. Below I'll write a breakdown of my style and thoughts behind the "evil" version.

Aesthetically I love pastel and saturated colors and I'm 100% biased toward cooler tones. Regardless of color, whether it's red or blue adjacent, I'll always pick the cooler variable of it. I tend to avoid using black and I particularly have an aversion toward basic red. I have a short attention span and limited reserves of energy, so I try to work fast and stick to simple techniques; hence the sketchy linearts and mostly flat colors. I also just visually like smooth surfaces and gradients.

I want to convey the shapes and weight of the things I draw but with a minimalistic amount of lines and shading. This ties into putting emphasis on anatomy and muscles. I do tend to spend a lot of time sketching, because I usually have a very specific pose or vibe in my mind, and I want to be able to capture it.

For the "evil" version: - I sketched Raph and Leo a lot faster and attempted stiffer poses than in the normal one. - Thick and non-sketchy lineart - Dark and reddish color scheme - More rendered, airbrushy and kinda messy shading (I suffered) - Slightly less defined muscles...?

At some point I thought I should make them sharper, but then I just forgot lol.

Also, here's a flat colored version of the evil art because I like it 100% better. (Works better with the lineart style)

I picked Leo and Raph for this challenge for the opposing red and blue color schemes. As an extra, I put them in Fast Forward gear, as its blueness and the season's more saturated look are very fitting for my style. And then I'd get to make it work in a warmer tone.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed my ramblings and art~

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for backing out of an art exchange because the person who pulled my name has an art style I really don't like?

In the fandom based Discord I'm in we had a small art exchange last month. Everyone got randomly paired with someone else to exchange art based on their prompts.

I'm a big believer in all art having value and that people enjoy different art styles, but unfortunately the person I was paired with has a really specific art style that I just.

Honestly, I hate it.

Our fandom is soft-anime style, think something like Genshin or similar art. Anime but more rounded off, 3D style.

However this artist has a really sharp, angular, honestly a little strange kind of art style that makes the final result look nothing like the original character design at all except for features like their clothing being the most obvious clue as to who they are.

If you ever read the really old Roald Dahl books with the super pointy, triangular art style, its kind of like that. Huge, super sharp pointy chins and noses, super long faces, all of the eyes drawn in the same long, sideways triangle style.

Its amazing that they have a style they like, but its 100% not my style and I really didn't want to have to fawn over it and share it across my socials when it is clearly the opposite of the art style I like.

I wound up pretending I had an unexpected work trip which meant I had to back out of the exchange (which actually wound up being true, but the trip was only 3 days so it wasn't like I wouldn't have had the 3 other whole weeks to work on my side of the exchange.) I was super polite about it, because again, its not my style but its theirs and I'd never deliberately make someone feel bad about their art.

Well, turns out some genius in our server forgot we all follow each other on Tumblr too and made a post basically laughing about how I had the balls to get out of it and how funny and smart they found it.

The mods sent a screenshot of it into the server and said bullying would not be tolerated and I got a warning for bullying. I pointed out I hadn't lied about the trip and I wasn't even the one who made the post, but they blacklisted talking about it further and made a new rule that if you fail to participate in future exchanges for anything less than like, someone dying or whatever, you get removed from the server completely.

All around nobody is happy about any of it, and there's talks about voting to just veto exchanges completely both because nobody wants to single people out and nobody wants to be forced to fawn over art they don't like.

I'm mostly angry with the person who poked their nose in because before they said anything it was completely fine with me and the other artist. They understood completely, we joked about how shit work is, and they were just going to do an art piece for the server as a whole which I thought was a really cute outcome, but now both of them have gone silent in the server and won't reply to anyone.

What are these acronyms?